Holy crap!

New blog look! Blogger was so kind as to update its (relatively antiquated) layout system so as to allow for an enormous variety of backgrounds, a super-simple color-chooser (yeah, I had to go find the hex code before when I wanted a color not in its standard 64-pack; it was a pain in the ass), and more configurations than I have sections to configure. I know I asked you guys about what header I should use (and then I ignored you all, just like a politician, and picked the one that fit the season), and although I've done away with a picture header for now, I'll probably go back to them sometime when I'm all done trying out the new "pretties". And pretties there are! Expect lots of random changes.

Of course, changes to this blog are worthless if I don't start posting some things. So here's an update:

- I'm working on my thesis, which, when finished, will consist mainly of two (longish) short stories. One, "Blinds," is one that I drafted last semester, but which I am going to scuttle and rebuild mostly from scratch. It's about a young woman trapped by rising floodwaters and her struggle to come to terms with her loneliness, her imminent death, and her past. The second story, "Frances," centers on a young teen caught in a zombie apocalypse, her reaction to the zombification of her best friend, and her relationship with her best friend's dad, the town's only other survivor. While I'm excited to write these both, I'm increasingly worried about having enough time to do a good job. Meanwhile, I've been tied up with:

- Finding an apartment. First it was six of us searching. Then there were four. Now it might be just Ian and I trying to find a place. This week has been a never-ending series of Craigslist crawls, apartment/house tours, and questions ("Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?"). And my mom doing the math (4 people + 3 bedrooms = ???) when I told her about our search didn't help. Ugh.

- Finding employment. It turns out that you need money to have an apartment. Huh. Who knew? I haven't kept very good track, but I think that, so far, I've applied for around twenty jobs around here. On Wednesday, I had two (2!) interviews: one planned, one a complete surprise. 

The planned one was to be a sort of Merry Maid (though with a completely unrelated, completely local company); it went well enough that, although my schedule doesn't currently have enough hours, the boss offered to train me and give me whatever weekend work came up between now and May. Interestingly, almost everyone I've mentioned this job to has had an immediate repulsion to it. "Maid work? Don't take it! Don't do it! I hate to see you end up in maaaaiiiiidddd wooorrrrrk...." Guys. It pays $12 an hour. I currently get minimum wage or less. It's a job. GET OVER IT. 

Anyway, the second interview was for a "patient care coordinator" at an audiology clinic (which, by the way, would pay about the same as the maid work). If I get it, it sounds like I'd be doing a variety of tasks, which is a-okay with me! They're willing to train on things I don't know (bookkeeping, products, etc.), and there's a possibility for me to move up or around in the company. On other fronts, my expanding list of feminist, English-major moms (the awesome ladies for whom I babysit) is on the lookout for editing/publishing jobs for me. So keep your fingers crossed!

Hourly Comic Day 2010!

If you weren't around me over the course of February 1st, you may not be privy to the glorious holiday that is Hourly Comic Day. If you're too lazy to follow the link and look around the website at the other end of it, here's HCD in a nutshell: every January, the very talented John Campbell of Pictures for Sad Children spends the entire month making a two-panel comic, every waking hour, about what happened in his life that hour. That is many hours and many comics, so on February 1st, in solidarity with John's cause (whatever the hell that is), a bunch of people (cartoonists, artists, and even laypeople like me) join in by making a measly day of hourly comics. I have wanted to do HCD for a couple years now, but only this year have I gotten my act together in time to actually do it. I did a few practice comics (they're hilarious; maybe I'll post them sometime), marked the day in my planner, and set to it. Of course, I was an idiot and missed the first hour, but I think I made up for it a little.

And so, without further ado, my poorly-drawn, not-so-funny hourly comics (click on any to enlarge, btw):

Hiatus

I always hate when my favorite webcomics/blogs/bands go on "hiatus." It's a detested word. It is never used to mean, "I'll be back soon." Instead, it is code for, "I have abandoned this creative pursuit forever, left it stagnant, incomplete, and frozen, and I won't be honest enough to admit it to myself or you." I didn't want to use that word when I stopped blogging last fall (effectively going "on hiatus"), but now that I face the last six months from a new living situation, I can see that my life and my writing suffered from a paralyzing stagnance. My home environment, something that affects my emotional state greatly, was cramped and hostile, crippling everything from social interactions (you can't have anyone over when your roommate lives in the living room and there's no room in your bedroom because two people are sardine-canned in) to creative pursuits (I only touched my banjo to dust it; I only wrote to fulfill assignments) to making food (I had to clean the entire kitchen before using it. Every time.) My whole life was on hiatus.

I don't know what to say here now that I'm back - and, my friends, I do plan to be back and to write often. This whole thing - the roommate situation - was a mistake I hope not to make again. I could rehash what has happened these past two months, but I doubt that that would be beneficial to anyone. The situation cost me a friend, a semester of productivity, and not a little sanity.

These last few weeks have been bittersweet. After two weeks of cleaning and rearranging, Ashley and I now have much-needed private space, room to stretch, and a clean living room and kitchen, but the spectre of guilt still tries to wheedle its way in. Neither of us is much into confrontation, drama, or putting ourselves before others, so the process of detaching ourselves from our roles as the enablers of our roommate and friend has been rather trying. The fact that it meant hardening ourselves enough to throw that same friend and roommate out on the street in order to save our sanity made the whole affair somewhat of an epic struggle. Ashley's the hero of this one; I was her silent sidekick, the go-between with a quiet agenda, the mole - the coward. I stayed quiet and let her take the fall for being "selfish" for casting Randi out into the cold, and for that I owe her an enormous apology.

At last, though, I have an environment in which I can work and be happy, a class and work schedule (15 credits and 11 hours of work) that leaves time for me and for what I want to do, and positive relationships to inspire me. Hiatus? Over.

At the corner of Anxiety and Self-Loathing

I've been thinking a lot about my honors thesis lately. The little things - voice, organization, research, citation style, and even topics covered - are going to matter a lot in this thesis because of the subject matter: how sciences and arts are really more entwined than we give them credit for, and that it is important to learn both. I really want my thesis to be a reflection of their integration. A little while ago, I conceived of making it a many-faceted project rather than merely an extended essay. Now the budding thesis in my mind is a mixed-media extravaganza: poetry and stories, surely, but also socio-psychological studies, historiography, cross-genre metaphors (the only one I have so far is entitling a short essay "String Theory" and having it be about theoretical physics and music), political arguments... everything I can work in.

I still have many anxieties about this, though. For one, it's huge. Two, I will be sooo disappointed if it does not turn out the way I envision it. That's a big one. I don't deal well with turning in work (especially important works, like, ahem, an honors thesis) that I don't feel is the very best. I'm not entirely sure how this will work. Three, I'm a procrastinator. Four, I'm not sure how it'll go down when I show my parents. When I gave my mom the basic overview a few months ago, she said, "Hmm." Keely, Colleen, and I all know that "Hmm." It means disapproval, short and simple. Also, since I came up with the idea, my dad has, two or three times, offered his thoughts on arts and sciences, a sort of "how dare anyone call that a science! Science is the purest of the pure! Do not got contaminating the name of Science with [insert social science here]!". Yeah, I haven't told him what my thesis is about yet. But I sure am glad I didn't major in psychology.

I could probably easily eliminate all these problems if I just did what every English writing major does: write a few chapters of a novel or round up all the short stories and poems I've written over my college career and turn that in. I can't bring myself to do it. Remember what I said about not being able to turn in work I don't feel great about? I have an opportunity to turn in what is probably the easiest thesis in the world, but that would feel too much like cheating. I tried to get around this by trying to come up with a theme to write my poems and short stories to. I just couldn't find any to which I could commit. I tried to come up with an interesting technique I could experiment with. When I told one of my potential thesis readers that I was going to craft my thesis entirely of writing exercises and experiments, he demanded to know more before he would sign off on being my reader (I promptly got rid of him and found someone who was willing to sign a blank check for me. God knows I don't need more doubters than myself in on this.)

So I've dug my own grave. And my project for the next few months is to find the inspiration to keep digging that grave until I reach the China of thesis success. God help me.

I am a manta ray.

When I came to Carroll 2 years ago, I knew nobody. I was mostly okay with that, given that I considered it a chance to start over with people who would get to know me as I am now, rather than as a amalgamation of all my past identities. I would get to be frank about every bit of me and hopefully find people who liked me – an honest, true me.

That is not to say, though, that I was wholly unafraid. For much of my life I had seen my town and the people in it as a cocoon. I took pride in identifying everyone in my class, and most of the people in my high school, by just the backs of their heads or the way they walked. I convinced myself that it really meant something to be a part of my school and my class. I cared deeply about the people around me despite the reality that very few gave a shit about me. I'm not sure how to describe the pain or the way it tore me apart when I realized in my senior year that the people I hung out with, my classmates, and the school were actually a very well-designed personal hell. I was miserable and abandoned, rejected by those I had held in highest esteem.


Given all that, I can understand not wanting to leave behind those bonds of friendship that had formed over 12 or 13 years. If you are afraid, it is easy – painless – to sidle down the road to the local state university, party with the same friends you had in high school, and come back to sit in the student section at high school basketball games. At first.

If you are any bit intrepid, though, you will begin to look around. You've known these people since kindergarten, have probably dated each of them at least once or seen them naked in the locker room. Surely the same social circle all that time gets boring. There are only so many times you can talk about that winning point at the state tournament 5 years ago before it begins to eat at you: nobody around you has changed, and neither have you. This is the time in your life during which you are supposed to challenge yourself, push yourself – not just academically, but personally. Don't you know? If you don't stretch your muscles now, you'll wake up sore all over and laying beside the girl who tattled on you that winter day in second grade. Then you'll know that you've betrayed that younger self, the one that vowed never to become that sad person who who now stares back at you in the mirror.

Oh the possibilities: Digger toes, Digger-lipping...

Montana Tech REALLY needs to change their mascot. They're currently the Ore Diggers, which is often shortened to just "Diggers." That's appropriate enough, considering the history of Butte and the college, but try applying it to real life:

Announcer, a bit garbled: "...irst down for th.. iggers"

Caitlin, horrified: "What did he just say?! The WHAT?"


Yeah. "Diggers" sounds just like your favorite racial slur over the loudspeakers. I spent half of yesterday's homecoming game trying to give myself whiplash with suddenly jerking my head away from reading Langston Hughes. After a while I stopped looking angrily around for the culprit every time the damn announcer said "Diggers" and just shook my head.

Today is the day, I think, to be dating a model.

I think that I shall choose a pretty one (cause let's face it, folks, they're not all pretty). This one will do. Oooh-la-la, those eyes!



I guess I'll have to get over him being with other girls on photo shoots, though. Here's him (Ian) getting cozy with another model (Randi) on set:



But, oh, those eyes.



Thank you, Ian for being so patient with me! I love you!

Ice is nice – and will suffice.

I'm moving to warmer climates. I foresee that the warm ocean around Florida, California, Texas... these will do quite nicely. Why?

I've seen the Apocalypse, my friends, and it's full of broken furnaces and cold showers.

Formal Logic.

Dr. Ashcroft's glasses, I think, are what bugs me. They make his eyes look too big for his face; like a dog with its raised hackles, he seems to try to look larger, more intimidating, the academic equivalent of nature's bluff "Don't mess with me, I'm smarter than you think."

This room is too hot. Somebody in the back needs to open a frickin' window. I've forgotten to pay attention again, hardly noticing his nasally voice as it mixes with the dust motes in the air. I now listen. The sound, though unequivocally devoid of any depth or richness, evokes a dark philosopher's study, the kind where the oriental rugs and the dark and the leather-bound tomes and the heat - the goddam heat! - block out everything in the outside world until you've forgotten that there was ever such things as tandem bicycles or fall leaves or kids with strawberry ice cream cones that melt all over their tiny fingers. Ashcroft ignores the flickering, tired glittering of the dust as the motes turn in place, suspended in the sunlight. He continues to give the lesson, drawing on the board. I don't realize until the male students chuckle that the symbols Ashcroft has jotted are rather phallic. Knowing Ashcroft would never see it that way, I smile. He never sees anything in any way but his own, not even if it's well reasoned. He hates when I raise my hand; I'm a girl and I should sit in the back and be quiet, but he doesn't know that I don't intend to give him the peace he thinks he has earned with his tenure.

For right now, though, I content myself with reading the graffitied backs of the chairs around me: "Mike sucks dick," "Fuck you," "'86." I've never liked graffiti, but at least it says something, at least it's free. The little man finishes his lecture, then turns around, blinking at us as if emerging from a cave. Maybe Mike does suck, but where am I? I'm stuck here, in the depths of Ashcroft's unimaginative, dank academia. Ashcroft calls on someone, then rejects their answer. The answer isn't presented just like he learned it seventy years ago; it is wrong. "Not today," I think to myself, taking a stand against someone, but nobody really takes note of a revolutionary whose soapbox is inside her own mind. Taking out my green pen and stealing a glance - the ferocious glance of a true rebel - at Ashcroft, who is looking like a particularly squishable bug, I issue my manifesto on the back of the empty desk in front of me. Maybe someone later will find the green outline of a heart and not care if love and freedom and tandem bicycles are well-argued, sound and logical.

Maybe.

Eternal Ethernet.

I am finding myself unable, through some fluke of Carroll's internet system, to access certain websites that essentially rule my life- Hotmail, Wikipedia, various webcomics and blogs. I think that maybe it is a sign from God that I should go study for my Social Psychology test that transpires in one hour (less, actually) or maybe read the Talmud for Honors. Yeah, I should go do that. Hmm.

Ironically, I am (obviously) able to load Blogger, so my homework avoidance is prolonged. God is such a funny, funny tempter. Okay, okay, I'm going now. Damn guilt.


UPDATE: Internet is working fully again and I can once again go on ignoring the fact that I have too much to do.

Nephrology and The Old Testament Are More Linked Than You Might Think.

I've been to the restroom about thirteen times in the past three and a half hours. Why? I'm writing a paper, that's why. (The Murphy in me would like to add "and I'm on a deadline" to the sentence above.)

When I sit down to write a paper, I mostly drink water and cogitate. Even when not much cogitating happens, I still drink. Drink, think, drink, think, drink some more. I believe the water has begun to start shooting straight through me, as it no longer has any color. My kidneys love when I have essays, and my bladder loudly disagrees. But my discourse on the book of Job calls, and I must go. Glug, glug.