Enough said.

By the way, it is a coincidence that Lina's eyes match the bedspread.

Five days left in 25

My parents made a big deal out of my birthday every year when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it's because they did it just for me, or if I made them be that way. For as long as I can remember, my birthday countdown begins on January 1st. Then it's exactly two months.

I remember in elementary school that I would check out the expiration dates on our pints of milk and get really excited when I would see my birthday. If the date was on a pint of milk, it must be really close! If it was on a bag of chips or a box of cereal, it could be a few months away. Even Valentine's Day is just another stop on the Month of Miranda. Even if I don't have a boyfriend, hey, in fourteen days i'll have a birthday! I smiled when I bought my last pint of milk at the store recently. Guess what the expiration date was... :)

Despite having a birthday on the last day of February, I have only gotten ONE snowday as a birthday present. It was in kindergarten, I was five, and I was MAD. Every kid in the class had a party on their birthday, and made their own cake, and it was a good time for all. I had missed the Valentine's Day party because I was the last kid in the class to get the chickenpox. And then, SNOW, ON MY BIRTHDAY! No party! No fair! That wasn't a really good month.

The last few birthdays have been kind of rough.

Last year, I was at the hands of a merciless employer, that strung me along thinking that I would be able to write full-time for them. I had thrown close to three years of my life, my shitty, first job post-college, into thinking that if I just worked hard enough, I'd get what I wanted. If I just took another graduate class. If I just worked all of the bad hours with a smile. If I had just freelanced enough. This time last year, I was at the end of my full-time writing trial, and by my birthday, I knew they would be sending me back to my dead-end job in another part of the publication.

In a way, my time wasn't wasted, because I got to meet a lot of other hard-working, creative people my own age that I am still friends with. We all went to the Macado's in downtown Roanoke and I celebrated my birthday surrounded by people. Not getting what I wanted so dearly still hurt. I admit I did a lot of self-medicating in those weeks, waiting for the higher ups to decide my fate.

I took a week off for my birthday, and took a good, hard look at 25. Just exactly what the hell was I going to do now?

Fortunately, as the months started to quickly drain away in 2006, I had an opportunity to go back to school fall straight into my lap when I needed it the most.

I moved to Tha Burg, I got settled in class. I am so happy now that I feel that I have no right to complain about a bad day... life could be so much worse. I got an opportunity to hit the big red "RESET" button on my life... and maybe this time I'll do things better.

The hard-earned lessons I've picked up this year:

1. I am a lot smarter and more capable than I give myself credit for. If I plan on doing anything with my life, I need to put a great deal more faith in myself than I have in the past.

2. I have fought a long, hard battle with self-esteem for as long as I can remember. I can remember every single insult that was thrown my way when I was in school. I can remember almost every single time that I was called ugly, fat, or even worse. I have taken a good hard look at myself and I have realized that every single one of those hateful insults and the hateful people who threw them at me were WRONG. Flat wrong.

3. I have learned not to blame myself for other people's issues. Screw them.

My profile line isn't a lie. It's not been a lot of fun thinking that 26 is four years away from thirty. My life is so much more different than I really planned it to be, but I still think that I'm on the right track now. And that's the first time I've felt that way in years.

I've been doing a lot of serious thinking about what my life will be post-graduate school, and the thing that makes me the happiest is knowing that the next steps I take will be all mine. I won't be doing it to please my parents. I won't be arranging my life around someone I'm dating. It's all me, and even if I crash and burn spectacularly, at least the flames will be nice.

2007 is shaping up to be a really nice year, from these first two months. 26 might not be so very bad after all.

reason #45872 I love being single.

I can make a homemade pizza, slice some dill pickle on top, and there are no critical comments.

So delicious.
m.

*and the clouds part, heavenly music streaming down from the sky*

Antibiotics are AWESOME.

I also finished my first glove of Fetching. I can do thumbs! wooooooo!
Pictures to come later.

indie rock glasses and illness

Wednesday night, I went to bed (late of course, finishing up an assignment) having no clue that when I woke up Thursday morning it would feel like I had gotten hit by a freaking freight train. But I did. Naturally. Flu? Sinus infection? Cold? I dunno. All I know is I feel like hell, I'm blowing goblins out of my nose and my ears keep hurting.

The past four days are a blur of Nyquil and sleep, and I still don't feel better. I have an appointment at Schiffert today, and if they don't prescribe me some antibiotics for this thing, some shit is going to go DOWN to CHINATOWN. See? I can't even write under the auspices of this thing.

The good news is I did manage to make it down to Roanoke to finally pick up my new backup glasses, even though my ears didn't like me so very much for the trip there and back. It's only taken 21 years, but I finally have a pair of glasses that aren't heavy, don't make my eyes look weird, and I finally look like the ADORABLE indie rock goddess I profess to be. Scope out my profile picture and see.

And since you, my patient, gentle reader, have sat through my bitching, I'll throw in a cute cat photo for free. LINA SAMMICH!

m.

Let's try this again, shall we?

This is definitely not my first foray into the intrepid world of blogs. I've had a blog in one incarnation or another since at least 2001. I even tried Blogger last year, but I hated the interface so soundly that I abandoned it and used it simply to comment on other friends who had a blogspot.com blog.

I'm going to try this whole mess again. After all, I'm not fourteen years old, so why do I still have a Livejournal? And I did happen to snag a really cool Sleater-Kinney related URL, so why not. Keep an eye on this space for random rants, pictures of knitting projects and my cat, and more insanity relating to my life and my interests. I make no promises to update regularly. I am an English graduate student and all I do ALL DAY is read and write.

Speaking of which, I have a three to four page project due tomorrow I haven't started yet. Woo HOOO.

Signing off for now!