Jackass 2

is a fucking masterpiece.

If I still gave a crap about movies and still made top 10 lists, I think it would be my #1 for this year.

And you wanna know what the real irony is?

Not one day since September 11th, 2001, have I been this scared.

And of my own country to boot. How long before they're kicking in our doors and dragging us out into the street in the middle of the night? Not long, I would presume.

"Austin hasn't been kind to me."

Tonight at work this woman came through my line whose face was totally busted up, but was clearly healing, and she was walking with a cane, and had soup spilled all over her white blouse. She was young-ish, maybe 40, and immediately brought the spilled soup to my attention, and said how embarrassed she was that she spilled it everywhere, and that she had just gotten out of the hospital. She was shaky, unsure of herself, stuttered, couldn't remember the pin # on her debit card, had a lot of difficulty finding the correct words to say (she was struggling to even get complete sentences out), and told me that she had a brain injury. I wanted to say, "Hey, I know a thing or two about brain injuries," because my brother's had one for 14 years now, but I didn't; I kept mum. I wasn't sure how to react.

Anyway, she was getting really frustrated because she ran her debit card three times, and couldn't get the right pin, and I was already feeling really badly for her. She was upset that she was holding up the line, and that she couldn't remember, and that she was so shaky.

She said to me, "Austin hasn't been kind to me. I'm from Houston." Again, I didn't ask her to elaborate, and just assumed she had been in a car accident or something, but she added, "I was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs."

I think I literally gasped, and expressed my shock and how sorry I was, and then did ask, reluctantly, "On...purpose?" She looked up at me. "Yes. He's in custody now, but yes."

Anyway, we got everything straightened out, and she left, but I swear to God, I had to choke back tears the whole rest of the night thinking about that. That poor woman, and how her life has just been devastated because someone pushed her down a flight of concrete stairs!

Can you even believe that? It's insane! People really do that???

Man, it totally ruined my whole night.

Hell has officially frozen over

Let it be known from this day forward, that Ryan C. (that's me!), who can barely add up 2+2 without somehow coming up with 5, loves Statistics.

I love it.

I just spent the last 2 hours in a coffee shop near my house reviewing for my test tomorrow, which, if you'd asked me 3 days ago how confident I felt about it, I would have told you maybe 25 (on a scale of 1 to 100), but for which I now feel about 97.

I don't know what happened; something clicked, something made sense, I stopped trying to make it so difficult, and it just worked. Studying just now, I just kept doing more and more problems, going over the formulas again and again, long after they had made perfect sense to me, because I thought it was fun.

I think doing statistics is really fun.

And satisfying, in a really tangible way.

I have to give credit where credit is due, however, and much of that credit lies with Mr. Victor, who talked to me on the phone Monday night for almost 40 minutes, helping me make sense of it all. And he did a really great job of simplifying it for me, and helping me untangle all my confusion. So thank you, Victor.

And you know, I would still be sitting at that coffee shop right now, still just going over formulas and computing information, if I hadn't had to come home to eat and then go to work.

I'm feeling weirdly high right now. And very confident. I totally understand now the kind of satisfaction that math and science geeks get from this stuff.

The American Taliban

Does the Jesus Camp trailer absolutely terrify anyone besides me? I have a physiological reaction to it: my heart rate speeds up and I get chills. I'm not kidding.

It's scarier than any horror movie.

He asked, "Will I see you this weekend?"

I called back up to work Friday night to tell him I forgot to clock out when I left.

He said he'd take care of it, then asked the question. I said, "Yeah, I'm working tomorrow. Are you?" He was.

I'm sure it means nothing.

Nevertheless, my heart fluttered just a tiny bit.

Michael C. Hall

I am so excited about this new show on Showtime called Dexter, about a Miami forensics investigator who also happens to be a serial killer, but with a twist: he only kills people that "truly deserve it," namely other serial killers. And it promises to be very, very gory.

The show stars Michael C. Hall, who played David, the uptight, resentful, lonely, and insecure gay brother on Six Feet Under, who also happened to be incredibly sensitive, compassionate, intelligent, and kind, and who cried a lot.

I read an interview yesterday where he talks about creating a character that not only didn't display, but actually had no emotions, and the challenge of getting the audience to care about someone like that, but now I can't find it. Mr. Hall seems like a really cool person in real life.

You can catch a brief teaser clip of the show here. Unfortunately, I don't have Showtime, so I'll have to wait for it to come out on DVD, but I think it looks awesome.

Man, I love T.V.

They say it's normal

To have dreams about cigarettes when you're "quitting." Last night I had a dream I was at some music festival or something, and I was in a tent backstage somewhere, hanging out with Okkervil River, of all people, and one of them handed me a cigarette, and I smoked it down greedily without a second thought. And then, in the dream, I felt awful and hated myself and knew I had to start all over.

It was nice to wake up and realize it wasn't true.

I went downtown last night, to RAIN, of all fucking places, with my friend Bill to watch the gay karaoke. They have a big, smoky patio that made me a little nervous at first, but it turned out to be fine.

I almost sang Amarillo by Morning, but didn't, and instead we met three very cute and friendly guys and talked to them all night. They're all in the theater grad program at UT. One is in the directing program and plans to move to Chicago, the one I was really interested in is studying Acting. On a graduate level. Hmm. I got no numbers. Just the chatting was enough.

Though there might have to be some serious MySpace stalking taking place today.

It's been almost 48 hours

since my last cigarette. I haven't craved or wanted a cigarette in any way in those two days. I've barely even thought about them. The nicotine will be gone from my system in another day.

But here's the problem: I have the worst fucking headache of my life. I've been coughing, my throat feels raw, and my sinuses will not stop fucking leaking. I did some research on how the body cleanses itself, and this is all very normal, even the sinus pressure and drainage.

The smoke masks all kinds of problems while it's trying to kill you, the site says.

The irony, though, is that my sinuses feel like they usually do after I've had a long night of heavy drinking and smoking 3/4 of a pack of cigarettes. They feel inflamed, raw, sore, full, heavy, and it's affecting my entire body.

But in another way, it feels wonderful, and I'm savoring every moment of it. It's the same with emotional pain, you know? You just have to feel your way through it; it's gonna hurt a little bit, but you'll come out the other side feeling stronger and better than before, with renewed confidence and hope (well, theoretically).

Actually, I'm glad I'm having physical withdrawals. All that does is confirm that I made the right decision (as if I needed any more confirmation!). If my body is suffering this much physically trying to cleanse the poison out of my system, imagine what must have been happening to my body for the past 10 years, while I was shoveling all that poison into it! Gross. It makes me wanna throw up just thinking about it.

I like this, though. I'm enjoying this suffering.

Hitler's Children

In my Social Psychology class, there's a couple that comes in a few minutes late every single day. They're both blond, blue-eyed, male/female, immaculately dressed; I swear to God they look like what Hitler must have imagined as being perfectly Aryan. Neither of them look over 20, and you'd think they might be brother and sister, or maybe even twins.

But no. Or, well, I hope not. They both wear wedding rings; hers, especially, is monstrous. And then after class, every day, when everyone is shuffling out, they clasp hands, look into each other's eyes and smile. His smile is one of affection; hers seems to be more of adoration, though her eyes look hollow. Maybe he's actually just leading her?

Either way, the adoration/affection ratio for men/women, and gay men (divided up between those able to feel real emotions, and those only able to approximate them; the "feelers" falling into the "feminine" category, the "approximaters" falling into the "masculine" category) seems to be right in line.

Which, as luck would have it, leads me to this extraordinarily creepy Missed Connection.

I'm not quitting smoking, I'm becoming a non-smoker

To say that "I'm quitting" implies that I'm giving something up. Instead, I'm taking my life back.

It's not a habit, it's an addiction, and should be treated as such. I threw away a brand new pack I bought this afternoon, and $30 worth of Nicorette.

I just smoked my last one. And it was awful. I'm done.

All thanks to this man.

Also, several years ago, someone said to me, "I hope you quit smoking; I want you to be somebody's grandpa someday." I've never forgotten that.

The children disappeared without a trace, and they all returned as pure as gold

Tonight at work, I swear, the Most Beautiful Man in the World came through my line. And if I'm not mistaken, I think he might have been flirting with me. He pointed to the current issue of Runner's World behind him, featuring only a tiny shorts-clad, tight-bodied man on the cover and said, grinning, "Is that all it takes to look like that, just jogging?"

"I guess so," I replied. "The magazine wouldn't lie."

"I used to run," he contined. "I used to be fit."

"Well," I said, "You still look pretty good to me."

Oh shit. Did I say that out loud?

He grinned from ear to ear.

Thanks for making me a fighter!

Man, I have to say, I'm feeling really good these days. Better than I can remember feeling in well over two years. And you wanna know the biggest indicator that I feel so good? I've been feeling very feisty. Especially at school.

Lately, I've had almost uncontrollable urges to raise my hand in class, and just say the most inappropriate things, like, "Um, yeah, do you have an explanation as to why you're so full of shit?" (to the professor.) Or to make off the cuff sexual remarks that have little or nothing to do with the lesson being discussed, for the sheer sake of being offensive.

I have no idea where these urges are coming from, but I suspect a lot of it is boredom. I'm still very happy to be in school, but now that I'm in nothing but Psych courses, it's all starting to overlap a bit. For instance, my Social Psychology class that I have on MWF, is taught by the same teacher who teaches my Experimental Psychology class on Tues. and Thursdays. And it's essentially the exact. same. lecture. So basically get the same two lessons twice a week. And now in my Social Psych class, we're talking a lot about how people grow up, and so a lot of that is now starting to overlap with my Child Development class that I have on MWF.

And so much of it is common sense anyway, and the stuff that isn't common sense I find to be either complete bullshit, or totally irrelevant. Which has led me to the conlusion that I think about 98% of all psychology is utter bullshit and nothing more than speculation. ANY psychological theory, perspective, test, experiment, whatever, can either, a) apply to every single person in the world, or b) apply to absolutely no one. It all depends on how you spin it. And for every test or experiment done to try to demonstrate some inherent truth about human nature, someone, somewhere, and most likely lots of people everywhere, can disprove it just as easily. And not crazy people, either, but just regular everyday people. So what has been proven? Absolutely nothing.

In the midst of all these over-curious psychological wackos wasting too much time on trivial matters, some genuine science and discoveries emerge, yes, but for the most part, I just sit in class everyday, and think to myself, "So what? I'm hungry."

I still believe wholeheartedly in counseling and therapy, and better living through better self-awareness, but every single person is unique, and only they can really understand themselves and their motivations, and even then, most of the time, the majority of it remains a total mystery.

Which has also really made me start reconsidering grad school plans. Maybe things will change, but I honestly can't imagine that I could stomach 2-5 years studying psychology any longer, particularly in a clinical setting. So now I'm really leaning towards reverting back to my original plan to get my master's in Counseling, as opposed to Psychology, or maybe Social Work. I've been thinking about that a lot, too.

But regardless, times are good.

Throes

While on my shift last night at the hospice (my first night shift), I witnessed one of the patients in the final throes of death. It came on suddenly (well, sort of), as the nurses told me that he had been up walking around earlier that day. He had eaten pork chops for lunch.

This guy is in bad shape, for a lot of reasons, and is suffering from severe dementia. He came in a few weeks ago, and he's always freaked me out a little. He's covered with sores, pretty incoherent, and has a tendency to scream and cry out a lot in his sleep, with a very loud and gruff voice. You can hear it all over the house.

Last night he awoke, in a panic, couldn't breathe, and his temperature had shot up to 106 degrees. Despite having 3 heavy blankets on him, and a space heater in his room, he was still freezing, his entire body convulsing uncontrollably from the cold. His room was a sauna already, but I got him another space heater from the closet and turned it on.

I met another volunteer there last night, who only comes in once a month. A pretty cute guy, gay, very friendly and sweet. So we'd been chatting in the dining room for awhile before this started happening. While the nurse on duty began calling for oxygen and for EMS, this other volunteer and I went in the patient's room to try to calm him a little.

At this point he was dispelling fluids (peeing on the floor) and spitting up, and I couldn't handle it. Somehow blood doesn't phase me in the least, but as soon as any kind of waste enters the picture, my stomach flips and goes in knots.

The patient began reaching for his Bible and at that point the other volunteer placed his hand on the patient's back, stood over him and began praying with him. Which calmed the patient considerably. I'm sure the 20 mg of morphine helped some too.

But the other volunteer was praying like he meant it. He invoked the whole Heavenly Father, Child of Jesus, ease this suffering, all that. I could tell it was from his heart.

Which really brings me to the whole point of this post, which is that it seems really sad to me that someone dying actually made me less uncomfortable than 2 people unabashedly invoking Jesus did. At that point, there didn't seem to be much more that I could do, and I quietly slipped out. I felt like I was trespassing a little, honestly, like my embarrasment was somehow a hindrance to this person's physical and spiritual comfort at that point.

Later on in the living room, I told the other volunteer that I really admired what he did in there, and that it had genuinely seemed to work, and calmed the patient down. He was very humble about it, and said he was in Divinity School and was thinking about entering the Seminary. Which led us to a long discussion of Catholicism versus other denominations, and sort of faith in general. I sat out on the porch later, smoking a cigarette, watching the rain pour down. It was an interesting night.

Prologue (Beginnings)

The face of a lover is an unknown, precisely because it is invested with so much of oneself. It is a mystery, containing, like all mysteries, the possibility of torment.
James Baldwin

I started having panic attacks the summer I was 28; gripping, terrifying, wish-I-was-dead panic attacks. I’d always been a nervous person, and in the past year, my anxiety levels had increased exponentially, but this was something altogether new. This was something that seemed totally beyond my control, something that threatened my sanity, and maybe my very existence.

I was curled up on my bathroom floor in my underwear at three in the morning. I had to be at work at eight. I was sobbing, my stomach hurt, my head threatened to pound right through my skull, and none of it would stop. As soon as I thought I had a handle on my torrent of tears, they would start right back up again. My body was releasing years of pent-up frustration, rage, panic, repression, and fear. Like the levees in New Orleans that gave way that same summer, wrecking an entire city and countless lives, my own personal levees had held strong and done their job for the past 10 years, but after this last storm, they couldn’t hold anymore. They burst, and I had no idea how to handle the resulting flood.

These attacks of mine were becoming more frequent. This was before I discovered Xanax, and realized I could swallow one of those bad boys, along with a glass of wine and be as good as dead. Which is the way I liked it. I could lie on the couch and start watching TV after swallowing it, and within 10 minutes I would feel my arms start to go numb. I would try to lift them, to change the channel perhaps, or to take another gulp of my wine, but the effort would be too much, and I’d decide everything was just fine the way it was.

Everything was just fine the way it was.

I would no longer be able to control my eyes and decide it was time to curl up in my bed, the covers wrapped tightly around me, and just imagine that this was the End. I would literally have to lift my legs off the couch using my arms; they were that heavy and useless. I lived in a studio apartment, so my couch was only about five feet from the bed, but nevertheless, once I stood up, I would inevitably fall down walking only that short distance. So I crawled to bed, and giggled a little bit.

I liked this; I liked this very, very much.

The drugs would not only numb my body and turn it to dead weight, but they would cloud my brain, so that I couldn’t form a coherent thought if I had to. This was what I wanted, this was the peace I’d been searching for, this was the rest of ages I’d been craving; all through the miracle of pharmaceuticals, with only the slightest bit of tweaking with alcohol. I could sleep for twelve to fourteen hours straight, and nothing would wake me up: not the phone, and only sometimes my alarm. I’d been a horribly light sleeper my entire life, and for the last few years, a very bad sleeper. Xanax gave me what I needed: deep, dreamless, immediate, peaceful, amazing sleep.

Of course, Xanax only masked the problem, it didn’t fix it. Without it, I was still a wreck, I still couldn’t sleep, and on those nights when I had to go without, the panic was even worse, because I anticipated it. I’d inevitably end up again on the bathroom floor, or punching the shower wall so hard that my knuckles would split open and I wouldn’t be able to type at work the next day. I would call people (at 1 or 2 am on a weeknight) and no one would answer.

Jesus, what if there was a fucking emergency? I’d think to myself. And then revise my thought: This is a fucking emergency!

I thought about killing myself. I thought about calling an ambulance and telling them I was dying, just so someone would come over and give me something to calm me down. I thought about putting myself in a state hospital so doctors would be forced to talk to me, and I could get lots of drugs. All I really wanted at that point was to be able to disappear, to not have to live my life, and slip into oblivion, but still be able to come back whenever I chose. But I couldn’t afford to go to a psychiatrist to get a prescription for Xanax, so I bought them, pill by pill, from a friend of mine who had a prescription. Or I traded her my Vicodin left over from my surgery that same summer, because Vicodin, sadly, did nothing for me. Even if I took three of them and chased them with whisky. Which I did. I think I had a faulty bottle. But my friend seemed to like them, so she was more than willing to trade up her Xanax. And then my Vicodin ran out, and then I panicked. And then my friend wasn’t as eager to share, even if I was paying her for the stuff, because she couldn’t get so many refills. I hated her for being so selfish and I was tempted to call her at 3 in the morning on a weeknight when I thought I was dying, but I didn’t. Because we weren’t that close, and it wasn’t her that I needed to hear from.

So the attacks continued. Not every night, but many nights, and even on the nights where I wouldn’t end up a sobbing, terrified, writhing disaster, I wouldn’t sleep. I’d toss and turn for an hour, two hours, get up, watch some TV, feel my eyes get heavy, go back to bed, and still not sleep. Most nights I would finally fall asleep around 4 or 5, just in time to get 2 or 3 hours of sleep before I had to be at work. I was a zombie during the day. I sat in the bathroom stall at work and sobbed. Once I ran into the bathroom with tears streaming down my cheeks, my heart threatening to beat right out of my chest and rip me in half, and my boss was standing at the sink, washing his hands. I hated him, and avoided him whenever possible, but today, he wanted to talk to me, and started some bullshit conversation about something I don’t recall. I answered a couple of his questions, with him pointedly ignoring my bloodshot eyes, and the stray tears, until finally I just turned and locked a stall door behind me and let it loose. I couldn’t have sucked it up if I’d wanted to. My emotions and their physiological manifestations were taking on a life of their own and turning against me.

What in God’s name was happening to me? I’d suffered pain before: knock the wind out of you, think-you’re-dying pain, but nothing like this. Nothing had so completely taken over and hijacked my entire life and emotional responses like this before, and threatened to derail every single thing I knew and believed in. I’d always been emotional, I’d always felt very deeply. I had no idea why now, at this juncture, I’d lost complete control. It was a certifiable nervous breakdown, and there was nothing I could do about it.

In the front of my mind, I thought it all had to do with a boy. A boy I was deeply in love with, a boy with whom, after a year-long relationship, I had broken up with. A boy I wanted to spend my life with, and about whom I had fantasies of building a life, starting a family, traveling the world, and with whom, I knew, ultimately, none of those things would happen. I blamed him for everything, I accused him of being immature, I flailed, I screamed, I cried, I begged, I manipulated, and still, he remained untouched and unmoving.

But I suspected there was more at play here. There was more than just having a broken, disappointed heart. I’d had a lot of broken hearts in my day, and none of them felt like this. None of them had induced this kind of panic, this kind of hopelessness, this kind of rage.

I started therapy with a counselor that I adored, but to whom I still couldn’t open up the way I needed to. I was guarded. I often just sat on his couch and giggled nervously, or blushed, or stared out the window, embarrassed. I avoided his most pointed questions by giving non-answers, or saying “I don’t know,” or laughing inappropriately.

I started finding other sources of Xanax. I started smoking pot on top of it, on top of alcohol. I really didn’t want to die, but I was pushing my limits, I was testing just how far I could push my body, how deep into sleep I could tumble, and still eventually wake up. I was deliberately tempting fate, and thus far, I was winning.

I didn’t want to die, but I don’t think I cared if I did. After all, I’d just be dead, what difference would it make to me?

One night, I’d finally had enough. I had no drugs, I’d already downed a quarter of a bottle of whiskey, it was three in the morning, and there I was, feeling it coming on again, that old familiar panic, the tightening in the chest, the racing heart. I screamed into my pillow, I used my own fist to punch myself in the side of the head to relieve the pressure, but it only hurt like hell and gave me a throbbing headache, which made me cry harder, which only frustrated me more. I was sweating, I was soaked, I couldn’t lie still in my bed.

When this happened to me, for some reason I usually gravitated to the bathroom. It was there that I would stare at my face in the mirror and spit on it. The face that, at 28, looked so fucking old and worn out to me already. I had bags under my eyes, with dark circles around them; I hadn’t shaved in days and it was growing in unevenly; I needed a haircut, my skin was dry; I had two cavities, that while remaining invisible, I knew were there, and just made me feel more disgusting, old, and like I was falling apart.

Tonight, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t turn on the light in the bathroom, I couldn’t lie on the cold tile and beat my fist on the ground, or take another shower.

I crawled out of my bed, and for the first time since junior high, I kneeled at the foot of my bed, and I prayed. I prayed to a God that I barely believed in, and had no hope of actually being touched by. I begged God, if he was up there, to please take away my suffering, to please heal my loneliness, my desperation, to please help me make sense of what was happening to me. I’d never been so scared in my entire life, and if angels had appeared at my door to take me away that instant, I would have gone with them without a moment’s hesitation.

And then in therapy, something clicked, some things started to make sense. I started sensing a pattern of behavior. This was about more than just a boy and a broken heart. Much, much more.

I began diving into the deep, black heart of my repressed and tortured psyche. I start seeing things I didn’t want to see. I started understanding things that were far more painful and frightening than any broken heart. I started to understand how broken, incomplete and terrified I’d been for years, for my entire life, and could never acknowledge. I realized that rather than feeling so deeply, as I’d always thought, I’d barely felt anything at all, for almost 15 years. I was shut down, cut off and completely out of touch with my inner emotional life. I was a fraud and had everyone fooled; but now, I was starting to crack.

And it was all downhill from there.

Key Art

Via Towleroad today, a small comparison between key art for Six Feet Under and the Black Dahlia poster. Interesting. He doesn't have much to say about it, just drawing attention to it. See for yourself.

Queer as in "strange?"

The Advocate this week has a cover story this week on my new obsession, Nip/Tuck, and more specifically, on the new "gay" direction Julian McMahon's character seems to be going.

Although I think it's interesting that the Advocate calls it television's "queerest" series, unless they're using it in the context of the true definition, which is "strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint." Recently I decided that I was going to start using the word queer in its original context as well, which I've managed to do fairly successfully, though I always feel like I have to qualify its use, by clarifying that I don't mean "gay."

Anyway, as far as I know, and I've seen every episode thus far, Nip/Tuck has never had an overtly gay character on the show, unless you count their anesthesiologist, who is an out and proud lesbian, but only about, oh, one show ever has focused on her love life. Which was with a transexual.

Which brings me to another point, which is that Nip/Tuck does have an inordinate amount of storylines involving transgendered people, starting with a major one in season 1, where the doctors were fixing surgeries that another hack doctor was botching, by preying on poor men who wanted the operations. Then season 2 had Dr. Mcnamara's son accidentally falling in love with one, then season 3 had a through-story about how a 17-year-old boy (his son) deals with realizing he was actually in love with a man and coming to terms with that(apparently it's by engaging in gay-bashing and flirting with Nazism), although I think the story-line was handled very delicately and smartly.

Well, I'm very curious to see where this whole gay thing goes on the show.

We be smart and stuff.

Austin is the fifth smartest city in the country! Yay.

(via Gawker)

Notes from the Cafe

The other day, I had a customer who'd clearly had so many face lifts, that she could barely smile. She also had huge, inflated lips. Her skin was incredibly smooth, but the bad surgery and the rest of her body gave her away. She was fighting aging with everything she had. It was depressing.

Today a middle-aged woman ordered an iced tea and had the biggest, firmest, fakest boobs I think I've ever seen. But she tipped me a dollar just for pouring an iced tea.

The trainers here are hot.

Hot trainers are assholes.

You have to walk past the big, open shower space in the bathroom to get to the urinals or stalls, and there are always flabby old men in there showering with their big balls and saggy butts. But hey, I guess we all get old.

The manager's boyfriend seems to think that just because he's gay, and I'm gay, that it's okay to make horribly inappropriate sexual remarks to me that I don't appreciate. This is something I've discovered about middle-aged gay men. I don't know what it is, but so many of them that I've met seem totally okay making the most digusting sexual inferences to me, directly, about being fisted, or covered in cum, or some other such undesirable things. It's very weird.

The TV in the cafe is on, with the UT game BLARING right now, and I'm so irritated.

I'm very tired and very bored.

I have a date next week. That I'm actually excited about. It feels good to actually want to be going on a date. Even if nothing comes of it, to be feeling like I want to be putting myself out there again, after almost a year and half, is a nice feeling.

My loneliness is palpable.

Getting to Know You

Last week Dylan, Mindy and I decided we should start having one night a week to have a "roommate dinner," where we all cook and eat a meal together. We decided it should be last night, Thursday, even though I had class in the morning, and had to work until 8:30. I came home to a wonderful meal of chicken enchiladas, gazpacho, and a huge bottle of wine. It was so nice, and the food was delicious. So we ate, and finished off the bottle of wine, and just sat around for over 2 hours, talking. It was really nice, and just what I needed. It's only the first week of school, and I'm already stressed out and exhausted. This semester is definitely going to be a lot more intense than last summer, I can already tell.

But I really like my roommates.