so much to do, so little time

I go back to school Sunday. Tomorrow I will finish (read: do most of) my packing and Dad and I will pack up the truck with my new bed, stair-step bookshelves to get ON said bed, and way too many boxes, bags, and sacks. Move-in starts at 10 A.M. Sunday, and I want to be there BY 10 so that we aren't wading through lots of other people. In my experience, most of the students get there around 12 or 1, so we should get in a few hours of less-crowded work.
Monkey and I are living in the dorm RIGHT NEXT TO THE ART BUILDING! Much happy. Less hauling. Fewer hernias. That building is the one with the Jack-and-Jill style suites of rooms, with 2 girls per room, sharing the bathroom. Monkey and I will be in one room, and two of our friends who have also roomed together since freshmen will be in the next. (I will name them when I can think of suitable names. They are full of character and deserve consideration in the naming process. :) )
Because of our GPAs, Monkey and I got into the group of overachieving overachievers that gets to stand there and look pretty at the official College formal Convocation events; let's call them the Pretty Purple People. (Code name for "Long Boring Mandatory Ceremonies Where Too Many People Talk For Hours On End...Especially the President." We have to attend so many of certain types of these throughout the year, and write pledge slips stating we've attended.) Pretty Purple People also stand at every music event and hand out DIFFERENT pledge slips for the music students, who have to attend so many recitals per semester that they don't recognize any other buildings. (The music program, esp. music Ed., has so many hours that it makes my major look like a walk in the park. Eurg.)
The main thrust to the letter from Appointers of the Pretty Purple People was that I 'will be representing the College,' especially when I am 'wearing the purple and gold Pretty Purple People ribbon,' and should dress accordingly, e.g. an 'unpretentious' black dress. Unpretentious I can do. Black I do so much that my grandmother seems to think I'm a goth. Dress... not so much. The only black dress I have is VERY pretentious, purchased for Lip Sync last year and probably illegal in a few states. So I went shopping.
FOUR STORES AND TWO DAYS LATER... I have as unpretentious of a black dress as I am likely to find. I also have another black piece of spray paint masquerading as a dress. It called out to me. It said, "I am soft, and I am thin, and I will cause your parents to make very strained faces and funny whimpering sounds. Buy me."
I had to. The dress compelled me.

I got to spend time with E-chan and the Flower when they were here before I have to leave. the Flower attends school and has an apartment in Charleston, and E-chan has been in Japan for most of the summer, so getting to see them, even if not at the same time, was wonderful. The Flower and I also made plans for her to kidnap me during her fall break and return me during mine (hers is the Th/F and mine is the next M/Tu).
Monkey, E-chan, Editor Kay (another HS friend) and I all visited at the park and had lunch together a few days ago. It was lovely. We really need to spend more time together. Editor Kay and E-chan will both be at the same school (also mum and C's school) next year, and they also plan to come up to stay with us sometime after midterms. I look forward to it.

I have more things to...Oh! Buster is in college now! This is unreal, and slightly frightening, and really awesome. And lots of other adjectives! He's in art school too, for Graphic design. (but I think he'll be a bit more employable when he graduates than I will.)

I've been looking at graduate schools. Again. More seriously this time. I still need to talk to my adviser and ask about various career and grad school options, but I think I am going to go ahead and get my MFA in ceramics. I may starve, but I think I will be happier getting my MFA than I would getting an MAT. Of the schools I have looked at, I keep coming back to a program in Oregon. I don't like the thought of being farther than a few hours' drive from home/family, but I love what I've heard of the Pacific Northwest area and want to go there.
We'll see. I have another year to build up my portfolio, work towards my senior show, and decide on what grad schools and grad programs I want to pursue.

Tired. Anxious. Excited. Sleep is the best option.
Laters...hopefully sooner than later.

~Brill

Pink is just a washed-out red

see more Lol Celebs

My feelings exactly.

So Tired.... And Rice Pudding.

I spent a long weekend last weekend at Cameron and Dream Weaver's place helping them dig out and reorganize their shed and Cameron's studio. While I am not sedentary, I tend towards a slightly lazy lifestyle, and am not much for exercise per say on a regular basis. I enjoyed staying with them, talking and listening to music and hauling boxes like crazy.
(It actually got to the point where I, the bibliophile, responded the the announcement that there was another box of books with "Oh, fuck.")
I am sore, tired, and happy.

On another note, Da has made rice pudding. It's been since I was Klepto's age that I last had rice pudding, and I can't say that I appreciated it all that much then. The school does a poor, burned imitation of rice pudding on occasion, and I've learned to avoid it.
However.
This was delicious, rapturous, sweet and textured and fruity and nutty and NOMS!!!!

I am happy.

gnaw, ganw, gnaw

...that is the sound of me gnawing on heads.

I had rather a bit of a post on my gender issues, thoughts, etc... and then I thought I saved it in drafts and shut down my computer last night for some much needed sleep. I get back on and there's the title, there're the tags, but noooooo post. Crap. Double crap. Scratch that, start over; I'll put it up when I get it done.

Gnaw.

They Keep Telling Me I'm an Adult, But I Don't Believe Them

My twentieth birthday was last week. I am no longer a teenager.
Whee?
I feel like I'm growing out of the house; I've already decided I'm staying at College next summer and working as a counselor at the summer arts program they run for kids. I would have this summer, but chickened out/procrastinated (shocker, I know) and didn't get the application in on time. I won't be able to do the house-sitting for my Psych teacher as I have for the past 3 years, but the money and the DISTANCE and the autonomy are all greater at school.

I got very happy-inducing gifts: money from the grands, which will almost exclusively go to things of which they would not approve, but which I will couch in neutral terms in letters. GLBT fiction and non-fiction become "books," and the corset I have been planning for for a year is "clothing."
My Mum, wonderful creature, got me 2 farcical ("Farcical aquatic ceremony!") comedies: Galaxy Quest and Dogma ("Outdated imperialist dogma!"...I do love the peasant). It is absolute coincidence that Alan Rickman stars in both of these. Total coincidence. Happiest pf all, I now have my own Heather Alexander CD! I'm vaguely embarrassed of the noise I made when I opened it... but only vaguely. Dad didn't need those eardrums anyway.

**Spoiler alert ahead for Dies the Fire series**

I've finished the Dies the Fire trilogy, and now wish to hunt down S.M. Stirling and beat him about the head and shoulders for ending the books with a bloody funeral, wedding, and ominous vision. Seriously, there are too many loose ends! What's the next book/trilogy in the series? Grah!

**End Spoilers**

This past week I sat in at a counseling office as a stand-in receptionist/gopher/paperwork minion. It was interesting, enlightening, and slightly bewildering.
(The fax machine is an evil, evil creature, and We do not understand its devious ways. In fact, We think that it it took a long walk out a close window, the world would be a better place. But that's just Our opinion.)
Paperwork is much easier.

I've made mention of doing a post that delves into my internal gender issues, and I will. Just not today, and not until I have a much longer stretch of free time, and less S.M. Stirling eminently on the brain.

Laters.
~Brill

Double Take

Yesterday I saw one of the most stupid vehicular decisions I have ever had the misfortune to witness. On the way back to the place I'm house-sitting this week, I came up behind an old, red, beat-up minivan that looked to be from the early 90s at the latest. It was going slower that I, and I was stuck behind it for a number of blocks. As it turned, I noticed that this old, beat-up vehicle -a van that had barely gone the speed limit if that- had a huge spoiler bolted onto the roof.
Wishful, wishful thinking.

Patched together

I have a pair of pants I love. Several, actually, but this one of one of my oldest. I got it in my freshman year of HS and it was a second-hand acquisition then. An upperclassman friend of mine whom I'd known almost as long as we'd lived in town and whose family at this time attended the same church as mine often gave me clothes she'd grown out of, and we were fairly good friends. Still are friends, but she just graduated from the local college, and we've drifted apart as people do.
Back to the pants, these were a comfy canvas pair of cargo pants, khaki and baggy and heavy. I loved them, and wore them often in the ensuing 5 years. Flower (who shares the name of the giver of the pants, incidentally) wrote in one of the zip-up slits in the side "I LOVE YOU!" as she and other friends have done on a few pairs of my pants.
Well, canvas is tough, but it is mortal. This past year I have had to re-stitch both inseams to various degrees, and mend a rip parallel to the inseam. However, the fabric itself gave up the ghost this last semester, and the resulting hole in the uppermost inner right thigh was large enough for my entire arm to fit through it. So today while HyperSpawn was in Summer program and KleptoSpawn was having MORE psychiatric evaluations (be afraid, be very afraid), I fixed up a patch from some canvas-y stuff (two, actually... the first was too small) and fixed my pants. I am happy and feel both accomplished and very, very frayed.
This last is probably due in part to the return of my cycle, but though I feel and look fine superficially, I feel as though I am a dark and angry river, frozen on the surface to mask the frustration and undirected anger below. I am ready to lash out and consume the first hapless passerby to disturb my fictitious calm. I am confused and frustrated; I hate this combination. It is what made math Hell for most of my classes, and did the same for much of my early social interactions. Maybe I just hate people. Misanthropy is a pretty word -- words are nicer than people.
Guh.
I need to let off steam in a controlled way, not aimed at a live person. I have an idea from something I saw in a friend's LJ, sadly enough. I might go write anonymous angry things to myself until I feel better. It's worked before.

Later, hopefully not over a month again.
~Brill