now I am grown and these years have shown

Some of those girls that came to the single's ward for the first time today?

I've known them for their whole lives.

Oh dear, starting to feel old. That gray hair I was cultivating last year has turned into two gray hairs, that I like to point out whenever I can.

I mean, it's pretty likely that at least one or two of these girls will even get married before I do. I'd be very surprised if they married anyone in the ward, but you never know! I saw and held them as babies and they could be tying the knot anytime.

I've really liked living in the same place for so long. It gives me opportunities to have realizations like this.


"Lullabye for a Stormy Night"

a one-man shift in the weather

Last week I went to the doctor. As we discussed -- okay, wait.

I have this thing where I just jump straight in to what I'm talking about. Is that a big problem for you, dear reader? I'm working on not doing it in emails, since that's pretty rude, but I only just noticed the problem in my blog posts. I could start in after a nice little salutation paragraph or something. Let me know if you really care.

Okay. Last week I went to the doctor. As we discussed how I'm doing, and feeling, I noticed kind of a trend. Let me show you a couple examples.

"How are your teeth? Chemo can impact your enamel," the doctor said.**

"Yep, I have cavities," I replied. "But ... I've always had cavities!" Pretty much since my first visit to the dentist.

"How about your eyesight?"

"Fine. Well, I have, whatsit, pathological myopia, so . . . I'm as fine as that goes."

"Okay. You should know that you're more at risk for retinal detachment due to your treatment."

"Yeah, the eye doctor already told me no contact sports." I shrugged. Clearly the loss of rugby stardom has really got me down.

And so on. It almost seems to me that this whole thing has just accentuated aspects of myself. It makes my eyesight worse? Been there, done that. Cavities? Par for the course! No contact sports? I've been scared of the ball my whole life.

So here's where we get a little existential. Metaphysical? I don't know; I'm one of those people that just throws out cool-sounding words without bothering to make sure I'm using them right. But philosophically, you guys, what if it's accentuating everything about me?? What if I was already lazy and the treatment just made me more so? (Actually, that's not so much a what if.) What if I always had weird brown spots on my skin and the treatment just made them more visible? What if I was always cynical about friendship? What if I was always secretly a big smiler?

Pretty weird, huh?

"Hope on Fire"


**On a totally random side note, I've been writing a Doctor Who fanfiction for the past couple months. It's second nature now for me to write "the Doctor said" instead of not capitalizing it. But I changed it because, cool as that would be, David Tennant is not my chemo doctor.

forgive me the confusion

Sometimes I chat with people and I use emoticons they don't know. Or we use the same emoticons and they mean totally different things! So here's what a bunch of them mean to me:

>.>
<.<
Shifty eyes! When I'm being devious, or sneaky, or shifty. First one's looking right, then left. Usually I just use one, unless I'm being extra shifty.

@.@
I don't really agree with this one (I mean, how I use it). I'm rolling my eyes here. I kind of like the idea of being hypnotized or crazy or whatnot, but hypnosis doesn't come up a lot in my conversations, which I guess means I need to have some new conversations.

O.O
Shocked.

o.O
Weirded out.

-___-
Not. Amused.

Those are about all the emoticons I use. I know others, but have no reason to use them ever (besides the ever-basic paransmilies, a term I think I will start using a lot).


Now, as for interjections, here is how I use various common ones:

Aw
Cute, sad, sympathy, etc.

Aaaa
Screaming! Also allowed with an h (Aaah).

Ah
Like aha, but classier. Sudden understanding or idea, pronounced like the a in father.

Ooh
This is the one for seeing cool things. Ooh, I like it.

Ohh
When I finally get it. Like, Ohhh, right.

Heh
Kind of like saying, "Oh, you're very funny." Among other things I can't itemize at the moment...

Hee
Amused.

/any action here
So, I don't know a lot of html. I can do links, I can format, that's about it. But I do know that a slash signals the end of the formatting. If I'm done with a rant, /rant. If I'm done gushing about something, /gushing. If I'm done with a story, /story. Make sense?


The main point of this post, besides to help people understand me, is so other people can start using all of these words correctly too! Now that I've helped you all out you can stop using them wrong.

*ahem*

Yeah, just being a little passive-aggressive OCD here, move right along. I'll talk about something real later.


"Momentum"

she leaves the papers in a tidy pile

My yellow notebook has exactly one blank page left in it. I've had it for years -- since Fall Semester 2006, the earliest I can confirm a date. And there's approximately one page of class notes (half page from one class, half page from another a year or so later), besides the piano lesson comments.

I love it. I love leafing through it and feeling the memories.

The other night I had it with me (working on filling up those last few pages) and left it unattended on the floor, surrounded by children. I had a moment's worry when I realized that I'd placed it in danger of being seen, but I'm not ashamed of a single thing there!

Okay, maybe I am. But the secret things are written backward, so they're totally safe.

The notebook represents many hours of work. I could turn to a page and know exactly where I was when I was working on something -- physics class, one of the hillocks outside the MARB, a bench in the Tanner Building....

My favorite parts are the doodles and asides to myself. There's a little picture of a great grass elevator. "We need a strong base: sodium methoxide!" My New Testament notes were decorated with a woodland scene (pine trees, various ugly wildlife). Susan Bones portraiture. "Fleur: you need to let her grow on you."

I don't expect anyone else would appreciate most of the contents of this notebook -- an amino acid note to myself, lots of song lyric scribbles, that embarrassing page where among other things I practiced variations on "Casey" (Sammy+Casey 4evah), and my rough drafts that never saw the light (and some that did). Well, even trying to write about why it's so special to me is a struggle. I just have begun to feel, looking at it, that if anything this notebook describes me.

And if I could do my description of it justice, I'd be closer to describing myself.


"Whatever You Want" ~ Vienna Teng

[Okay! I can't just leave my last line like that. It sounds nice but I can't just tie things neatly like that without feeling stupid and pretentious. So, at least know that I know it sounds funny.]

all my books are lying useless now

I thought this would be a slow month. We spent a week in Mexico where I did no reading to speak of, and I'd only read 5 books by the middle of the month.

Well, then my mother took me along with her to the library. I ended up getting ... a lot of books.

April
45. Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce
46. Stuck on Earth by David Klass
47. The Great Turkey Walk by Kathleen Karr
48. All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot
49. Incarceron by Catherine Fisher
50. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce
51. Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce
52. Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
53. Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin by Nancy Atherton
54. Aunt Dimity: Vampire-Hunter by Nancy Atherton
55. Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
56. Maskerade by Terry Pratchett
57. The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Josh Berk
58. Northward to the Moon by Polly Horvath
59. Wolf Speaker by Tamora Pierce
60. Emepror Mage by Tamora Pierce
61. The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce

...yeah. It was fun times, but now I'm sick of reading! (Until I die of boredom from not having anything to do while I eat.)


"Nothing Without You"