guess i shoulda used a jimmy

i will try to refrain in this post from complaining too much, although that is a difficult task considering that i just rounded the corner from what was possibly the worst week in the history of weeks. okay, maybe i'm exaggerating, but last week definitely has a top spot in my own life history of worst weeks.

so here's how i'm trying to look at the slightly-less-shitty ("bright" is a little too, well, bright in this case) side of things:

• i've always wanted an excuse to buy a new ipod. when i bought mine 4 years ago, it was with the sole purpose of freeing myself of the burden of running with a cd player in my hand. only i realized too late that it's really impossible to run with the video ipods (or at least the ones they made back then) because they freeze up when they get bounced around too much. so i've been running ever since with a shitty 1st gen shuffle (the kind that doesn't clip on), and only ever got to use my other ipod for walking to class and such.
  
• my macbook was about 3 years old, and although it did not seem to be anywhere near the verge of crapping out, it was also not a spring chicken. i have also really been lusting after the new macbook pro, and i can't say i'm not a little excited to move up from the white plastic casing. even if it is going to cost me a shitton of money that i don't have.
  
• so far it looks like my financial aid shit is all cleared up. and as shitty as the whole situation has been, it may end up having been to my advantage in the long run: because of being not enrolled, my loan company sent me a letter saying that i need to start paying. that's being fixed, of course, but in the process i learned that it would greatly behove me to start paying on the interest for my unsubsidized loans, since apparently waiting until i finish school would cost me considerably more. maybe other people know this, but i didn't. and i wouldn't have known it unless all this stupid enrollment bullshit hadn't happened.
  
• there's really no way of looking at my leg situation as anything less than shitty.

i need to go get some real shit done now. if i stayed on here longer, i would probably write about how nice it was to see my brother, how my new journaling system seems to be helping a lot, or how teaching lit is, so far, approximately 245% better than teaching 100. but there's only 5 hours between now and madmen so i gots to go.

gimp life

not running blows.

admittedly, it was pretty sweet to do nothing but sit on the couch and watch t.v. those first few days, but the novelty of being a lazy asshole wears off quick. and now i'm in this stupid state of physical purgatory in which i feel fine and can do just about anything virtually pain-free, but i still can't quite 'exercise' (i.e. do things that work my sweat glands), and i definitely can't run. even walking is slightly problematic, although that's probably only because of my tendency to push things just a little too far (it didn't feel like 3 miles, i swear). but it's not fair! i don't want to be stuck in the house all day, with nothing to do but read and nap. i want to be outside running. i want to be in the middle of training for the lake county half (which i already paid for). i want to keep working on my tan without having to actually lay out in the sun. i want to be out engaging my metabolism so that it can (at least somewhat) counteract my stomach's rampant desire for ben & jerry's half-baked frozen yogurt (which, by the way, still has more calories than most brands of regular ice cream). i want to be out enjoying the gorgeous weather in the best way i know how (you know, by running in it. in case you missed that.). i just feel so fucking antsy, and i know that even once i can start going to the gym and working up a sweat on those godawful machines (which should be any day now...), this feeling won't go away. there is a release, a happiness, a satisfaction that i get from running which doesn't happen during any other type of exercise. it's not just the bodily satisfaction of getting a good workout. there's something more--something mental, spiritual--that accompanies the tired relief of a good run and makes it about much more than calories burned or hours logged. i can't describe why exactly, but running makes me happy in a way that nothing else can.

so i just have to keep reminding myself that once this recovery time is over, my new-and-improved mutant muscles (as bw calls them) will have free reign to inhabit the asskickingness they were made for. which (hopefully) means that i will be able to thrive on running more than ever.

i should know better by now

warning: possible (probable) cryptic-ness ahead. i'm feeling extremely frustrated today, but not quite self-indulgent enough to lay it all out there for you. so you'll either get it or you won't, but don't ask me to explain.

i've felt very anxious/angry/upset/on the verge of crying all day. and for no (good) reason. i've managed to round off the week by both meeting certain goals (spectacularly, i might add), and failing miserably (or what amounts to the same in my fucked up perception) at others. part of me thinks i could never truly be happy.... even when i'm theoretically meeting all my goals, all of a sudden those goals become absurd and i then have to make newer, harder goals. and when i achieve what i think i've wanted all along, i suddenly realize that what i really want is just a little bit more. i can never objectively assess where i am and be content with it. there is always something that can be better.

unfortunately, the anxiety i feel in response to my un-satisfaction greatly increases anxiety/ocd shit in other areas of my life as well, causing me to feel like flipping out over just about everything. like, literally everything. and invariably, ben becomes the recipient of all this shit because, you know, he's there, and (in theory, at least) flipping out on him has far fewer short-term consequences than flipping out on marshelle. so he'll be just minding his own business, or in this case, mopping the whole house (which he did fantastically), and i come along like godzilla on her period and just start tearing him down and nitpicking about how he's mopping because (of course) he's doing it wrong. but this is all in my head (he's not actually doing it wrong, in case you didn't catch that), thus i can't really even articulate what it is i want him to do differently, so i just storm about the house, accusingly asking questions about his methods and then sighing in frustration when his response is sound.

i said earlier that flipping out on ben has (seemingly) fewer short-term consequences than flipping out on marshelle, and maybe that's true. but the problem with taking my shit out on ben is that he doesn't react the way marshelle likely would (he just lets me be mean), which immediately makes me feel like a total dick. but i'm still frustrated, so then i end up with this fucked up thing where i oscillate between apologizing profusely and making demeaning comments about his cleaning methods. which all equals me just generally feeling like a big pile of shit. aside from the obvious problem of being so randomly hurtful to the person i care most about (not to mention the permanent damage i have done to his housework self-esteem), this stupid ocd shit is just a general pain in the ass to say the least. you might ask, for instance, why don't i just do everything myself, since clearly no one else is capable of doing it right? but you see, i've tried that, and what happens is that i still flip out, only then it's because i am bitter that i am the only one doing all the shit in the house. so basically this is very lose-lose for everyone involved.

the only solution (to the cleaning stuff, that is. i still haven't found a solution to my other problems.) that i have come up with is that ben and marshelle should only clean the house if i'm physically not around. as long as i don't see how they do shit, i'm usually fine since the end product is really no different than it would have been if i had done it. because, remember, this is all just made up in my head. because i'm crazy.

les incompétents

although i'm up to my ass in gawain (zing!), i couldn't resist telling you about the douchenozzle sitting a couple of tables down from me. so, i'm at the hilldale area starbucks, and this fucktard is sitting over there, with a fucking espresso doppio, wearing glasses and loafers, reading the marx/engels reader, which he has clearly read already, as evidenced by the copious assortment of colorful tabs he has littered the book with. i'm pretty sure he's not reading it for a class, since finals week is basically over. and i'm pretty sure that he's not a grad student because he does not have any kind of note-taking apparatus, and he is not even writing margin notes. so my conclusion is that he is just a douche-y asshole. the only way it could be douche-ier is if he were also wearing corduroy pants, a black turtleneck, and a neck scarf. 

not that i'm saying, of course, that there's anything inherently wrong with wearing loafers, reading marx, or drinking straight espresso. in fact, i have been known to do all of those things on occasion, although not all at the same time, and not in the middle of a starbucks. 

gah. now some other dickfaic just sat at the table directly next to me (seriously, there is not even a foot of space between us), despite the fact that literally every single other table is empty. and he's fucking whistling to himself! oh my christ i'm gonna stab someone soon.