I have two things I'd like to post about.

But I'm just not in the mood.

Disfunctional Day

I think I'm getting sick.

First of all, I have this nasty thing on the corner of my mouth that won't heal... partly because it cracks open and can't heal because I open my mouth at least once a day. I think it's infected.

Second, I have a really vivid dream last night where I cut off a shock of my hair in anger. And then I woke up... and... there was a shock of hair next to me that apparently I had cut off IN MY SLEEP with a steak knife. Riiiiight.

Third, I slept 12 hours and am still TOTALLY exhausted and COLD in the middle of the summer. It feels like my body's trying to shut down. Makes no sense.

Fourth, so I made myself go to the gym anyways, hoping I was tired because I slept too much... just to FAINT in the freaking shower when I got home and NAIL my head on the side of the tub.

Which, Fifth, didn't really help my headache. In fact, it morphed it into a splitting headache, accompanied by mild nausea and dizziness. I'm glad I keep lots of painkillers on hand. I'm pissed off that that happened.

So yeah. I'm crabby. And I think fighting some sort of messed up sickness.

Speaking of my neice...

She's been coloring pictures for Phil all afternoon because she has this new "how to draw a bazillion animals" book from the library, and apparently Phil's a pretense for her to hold me captive as an audience.

So, right. She asked me what his favorite animal was. My instinct was to blurt out "armadillo," but on second thought I decided to go with the Kangaroo Mouse. I mean seriously, how could it not be?

She asked what that was so I explained them to her and she says, "Oh, right." And then two minutes later she asks, "So do you know MY favorite animal Aunt Maggie?" She'd changed her mind again, though, because now after hearing about kangaroo mice she's decided her favorite animal is the Lion Rat.

Do I joke that much that I'm not even credible to a 4 year old?

Bike Thieves

Okay, so I've been sitting outside with the laptop while my 4 year old neice rides her bike to the corner and back over and over again. Well a few minutes ago I look up to see her coming trotting down the block in the distance(it's a long block and my sister is second from the corner)... trotting, meaning, NOT on her bike. So I am instantly panicked- did some bully steal her bike? I'm furious..

But then I see the bike just sitting there at the corner. Turns out she just didn't feel like pedaling any more and left it.

Maybe my childhood was... different... but I remember being ALWAYS paranoid about my bike being stolen. Mainly because we had over a dozen bikes stolen over the years and it was my prized posession, but wow. Even as an adult I get all riled up thinking about some stupid punk jacking a bike. Anyways. That was my 10 seconds of distress for the afternoon in a nutshell.

RACQUETBALL!!

So this whole last week my sister Becky and I have been playing racquetball for a couple hours every day. It's been AWESOME. The first day we had some discrepencies on what we imagined that we remembered the rules to be so we opted for Calvinball, but we've been getting pretty competitive. Every day our rallies last longer, our saves get sexier, and we develop more new and interesting geometrical perplexities to stump each other with. I love it. Not to mention the echo factor is really fun for singing. I'm really happy about it. If anyone wants to come visit me and play, they're more than welcome to!

Listerine

So yesterday I bought two bottles of Knobb Creek whiskey and one huge bottle of Listerine. I then transferred the Listerine into a huge rubbermaid thingy, and funneled the whiskey into the Listerine bottle, and packaged it up to ship to one of the guys in Phil's platoon named Eric. Apparently it's really dry in the desert, and that's been pretty tough on poor Eric. So, right. What kind of note do you enclose in a package to someone in Iraq with your boyfriend that you've never met while illegally sending him whiskey when he's at war? (They're not allowed to have alcohol over there, in case you didn't pick up on that.) Also, what else do you put in such a package? Just a hugie bottle of "Listerine"? I threw in some chewing gum and a batch of cookies for good measure.

I really didn't know what to write, though, and something in me rebels against sending packages without SOME form of written communication enclosed. So I opted for a super-smooth:

"Dear Eric, My boyfriend mentioned that you really could use some listerine. He said it's really hard to pretend that you're me and not you, especially when you have such poor dental hygiene. I also enclosed some chewing gum for on-the-run freshness....."

*I* thought it was funny, at any rate... dunno if they will.

Right-o. I'm gonna go get me another swill of all that Listerine I've got...

Worthless Degrees

Why is it that TAC credits are worth absolutely jack-shit anywhere else. I find it so incredibly hard to believe that I have a B.A. in liberal arts, yet I don't even have equivalent credits for things as basic as English 101.

I mean... my education at TAC isn't necessarily HURTING me as far as going back to school goes (exactly), but dontcha think that a four year investment in a liberal arts degree might HELP ya just a tiny little bit?? Especially when a lot of the required courses (in addition to the core curriculum for nursing) are "liberal arts" stuff? Is that too much to hope for?

I'm thinking about making a T-shirt that says, "I went to TAC and all I got was my totally kick-ass boyfriend."

Yeah. Maybe I shouldn't be complaining...

Facebook

Is seriously addictive. Yet I still don't know if I even like it or not. It's just so... handy. But so... impersonal. I mean, especially when I notice how asianKP apparently has 550-some friends or something crazy like that. I mean, not to make an example out of you or anything, but seriously asianKP! Are you really FRIENDS with that many people? I guess there's something to be said for having people on there you'd like to be better friends with... a lot of people I'm friends with on facebook already I'd more LIKE to know them well enough to be friends, rather than that I already do. Or used to be good friends with them but time and distance has chilled such prospects. But isn't 500+ a bit excessive? Do you really KNOW all those people? Would you recognize them all on the street, remember their name, and have stuff to talk about? Cuz that's pretty impressive. I did't even remember who all the 170 contacts in my phone are. I guess you have their photos/profiles/etc. on facebook to help you out as opposed to just a name, but still. I ask you. Are all 550 of those people your friends...?

I guess I mainly just object to the terminology when in reality on most peoples sites it's just a really handy networking/staying in touch tool. And sure, most of the people you want to network through and stay in touch with are friends... and if you had options to call them "acquaintances" it would get real sticky... but still. I guess I just feel like it's undermining real, substantial friendships.

Maybe I'm just irrationally hung up on it and I'll get over it in a week, though... Because it is pretty damn cool.

Update

So I spent the last couple weeks with Phil. He's freaking amazing. I'm crazy about him.

It was a pretty intense trip. Finally met his family, caught up with some old friends, spent a ton of time together... really stressful at times... but really good.

And now I'm back in Milwaukee. And he's on his way back to Iraq. It's been 40 1/2 hrs since we said goodbye at LAX already and it feels like months. So I guess when he comes back in another 9-12 months it's going to feel like decades. Maybe time will have sped up by then.

So, right. I've been thinking about what to do with my life for the next year or so and I've decided either to move back to Cali in a couple weeks, or stay in Milwaukee and go back to school for nursing... I just gotta figure out which.

I'm gonna go flip a coin.... heads: responsible: nursing; tails: not so much: run away to Cali......