Someone on IRC just asked me if I’d ever been in love, and if so, what was it like? Living in Malaysia, he said he’s never known what it’s like, that he hasn’t been able to find a girl who wasn’t superficial and materialistic. Be that as it may, it seems he’s just been unlucky because there are girls like Rosey who are from Malaysia and are not like that. So, you ask…what does it feel like to be in love?

I explained to him that I can only describe what it’s been like in my own experience, which admittedly is not typical, given that my emotional state is rather…heightened…almost all the time. I’ve learned over time ways of keeping it in check (on a surface level), surpressing it so that others can’t see how deeply things affect me. And things really do get to me, no doubt. In any case…love. A topic I talk about time and time again, always with excitement and passion. Being in love, for me…in a physical sense I feel just alive all over. My body cycles through feeling tingly, with heart palpitations, to nauseous, to the famed butterflies in the tummy. When I think of the other person, I get a shooting sensation, a jolt, that goes from the area around my heart to my stomach, and it makes me shiver. I often get a giddy little grin on my face that I find hard to get rid of. Not that I’d necessarily want to get rid of it, but admittedly it’s not too professional to be grinning like an idiot while sitting at work. People think you’re up to something! People have described me as “glowing” when I’m in that state, and there’s been times when my mother will comment on how great I look (she very rarely refers to my appearance at all, so this is a big deal.) Emotionally, I feel like I’m on the brink of explosion. Feelings of overall well-being wash over me and I feel like I could overflow at any given second. I’m just buzzing, giving off electricity…and as ridiculous as it sounds, sometimes I do give off static charges when I touch metal. This is much like how I act and feel when I’m touched by inspiration for something creative. The two are linked in ways I don’t yet comprehend.

Then what about when I’m actually interacting with the person I love, rather than just thinking of him? In conversation, whether the words are spoken or written, they carry the same weight and garner roughly the same reaction. There really is no greater feeling than when I am able to say “I love you” and having the words returned with equal intention. Those are words I don’t take lightly in any circumstance. Because I feel like my purpose on earth is to love and be loved, I do say this a lot to people (and I mean it)…and if I don’t feel it, I don’t say it. Because of this I feel that most people who I’d say this to can understand that, and will only return the sentiment if they really felt it. How disrespectful is it to say the words to someone if you don’t mean it? I’m usually very genuine with my words (unless I’m being sarcastic, in which case it’s readily apparent) and I think most people who realize that take what I say to heart. Of course, as a result of that, I have a difficult time lying. Hiding how I feel about something is damned near impossible for me if questioned about it. Words are very very meaningful.

And lastly, being with the person I love. The utter warmth and energy that emanates from a long, close hug is indescribable. Being able to feel the person’s body pressed to mine, melding into a single form for that moment…it really is delicious. One can really feel when the other person cares about you deeply. I should be clear here that this isn’t restricted only to romantic love for me, because I’m a very hug-driven person. I love long, full hugs. I really attribute this to my parents, who taught me the right way to hug someone. When I see people whose arms go around each other for a moment and their hands pat the other person’s back as they pull away from each other, I think “What’s the point?!” That’s weak. Yes, I hug my friends the same way I’d hug a boyfriend. Full-contact, wrapped tightly in the embrace. I realize this is uncomfortable for some people so I don’t do this if I sense that…and I know some people are scared of the homosexual implications a hug like that can present (though, of course, society is a lot more accepting of women who do this to each other than men.) Big Brian once said that a hug can be a lot more arousing than a kiss because of the body contact. It’s an interesting point to consider because of course that’s not the general opinion…we’re shown through popular media that a kiss is the most erotic thing one can experience (save for full-out sex) but really…as delicious as a good kiss is, it’s also less pure than a hug, and messier, and more about our animalistic nature than our emotional nature. Being as sensual a person as I am, the intimacy of a hug, or being able to just hold or touch another person is more satisfying for me than the more animalistic acts.

I guess in short, being in love to me is more about the sensuality of it than the sexuality. Because everything I do and experience in life is about the senses…discovering new and exciting ways to feel things. I can’t imagine how dull life would be if I were apathetic. Sure, caring as much as I do has gotten me into trouble at times, but I’d rather deal with those few situations when they arise than go through life without passion.

Monday night I was so tired after work that I lay down for what I had planned on being an hour, but what quickly slipped into 3 hours. o.o Before napping I drove to my parents’ house to pick up some packages that had arrived. One was my copy of Resident Evil 0 and the other…wow. It was from Lea Thompson. I shit you not. Back when I was working so hard on my Caroline in the City website, my mother had written her a letter to let her know about the site (this must have been a year and a half ago or so.) I really don’t know what she was hoping for by doing that, and I’ll admit I was slightly embarrassed about it. But there it was, after all that time–a manilla envelope containing an autographed cast photo from CITC including a personalized message to me “To Ann, thanks for being such a loyal fan” or somesuch (can’t recall the exact wording right now, I’ll have to get a scan of it later) as well as an index card with another autograph. The outside of the envelope read “Sorry it took so long for this to get back to you.” Wow. That’s pretty awesome…especially after the debacle of CBS’s lawyers deeming my site in violation of copyright law.

In any case, after I got up from the nap I watched a few episodes of Six Feet Under and then had a really long talk with Alisha that would have gone on longer but I had to cut it short since we both had to be up at a reasonable time in the morning. I felt pretty well-rested at work on Tuesday, which was a nice change of pace.

After work I headed up to the mall in Appleton, where I met up with Will and Peter who were predictably late. We had supper at a Japanese place in the food court (Sarku, I think?) and talked about plans for Portland. I was able to tell them how I was thinking and feeling about various stuff regarding the move, and it was really satisfactory for me. I think we possibly could have had the discussion online, but it was really nice to be able to talk in person, just the three of us. That way it felt more real and personal. After dinner we went to the Body Shop with Peter so he could get a replacement candle/scented oil burner thingie (he’s been to that store so often the employees know him by name!)

Then we decided to go hang out at an arcade until they had to go back to Green Bay. Man, was that fun! They had three DDR machines there, and surprisingly they weren’t occupied, so of course I took that opportunity right off the bat. Peter and Will both tried it too (I don’t think either of them had ever used an arcade machine before) and I think along the way some photos were taken, but from the looks of it they are on Peter’s camera so who knows if anyone but he will ever see them. I ended up working up a really good sweat (actually dripping wet) and by that time the guys suggested I take a break so Peter could have an audience playing this “Get The Bees Into The Honey” game. There was an air hockey table over by that game so Will and I challenged each other to the best out of 5. We ended up 2-2 and in the final game he won by one point. It was fun and exciting; unfortunately the game ended at 5 points so they were really short rounds.

As we were headed towards the exit we discovered the pinball machines. Will and Peter played this music game where they had to shoot these balls of light back and forth in these tubes stuffed in this box that looked like a casket (the whole game was in Japanese so I have no idea what it was called.) It looked cool but hard. Peter won by one point. XD Then we spent the next half hour playing X-Files pinball on 4 tokens ($1) because we kept getting extra balls and replays. The machine itself was pretty weak, and the left flipper appeared to have been replaced, but it was still cool because of all the attention to detail. Not to mention the Flukeman that was hanging around the plunger and the squishy-guts kind of noise that happened when you shot the ball. We tried out some soccer game (NOT foosball) and then used the last of the tokens on Star Trek pinball, which was kinda meh until one of the balls got jammed up under the glass near the plunger during Peter’s turn. Tilting the machine didn’t help and since we couldn’t get the thing unjammed and the machine was in an endless loop of checking itself for the missing ball, we decided that would be a good time to leave. XD So we spent some time driving around the mall parking lot searching for my car (there are waaaaaaaay too many 4-door black Grand Ams around, I swear…there were three of them in the two rows surrounding mine!)

Once said car was located, we parted ways and I headed home. I changed out of my sweaty clothes and watched a few episodes of Six Feet Under before bed (only 2 episodes to go and I’ve seen them all!) Gawd, I just love that show. Ross, you were soooo right about it…thanks so much for suggesting it to me! I love that there are a lot of really unusual relationships between the characters; all of them are so well-written and believable. I identify a bit with Claire, though I don’t have anywhere near the amount of anger she does and I’m not as…um…promiscuous…as she is. I really like her relationship with her classmate Russell though…he’s like the stereotype of the sensitive artist you’d meet in art school, the type I’d been hoping to meet the whole time I was in school but failed to. I don’t know what it is about that type of personality that’s so attractive to me though…guys who are so sensitive and caring they could be mistaken for gay, or perhaps even are bisexual. There’s something delicious about that to me…not the idea that they possibly like having sex with men, but the sort of feminine aspects to their personalities. shrug I guess it’s really not that uncommon, given that I’ve heard lots of stories of women who fall in love with gay men simply because they are more in touch with their emotional side and can relate to them better. (The book and movie “The Object of My Affection” comes to mind.) That may be why I’m not turned off by a guy who is less muscular than I or weighs 20 or 30 pounds less. In fact, that sort of physique is actually very attractive. (Small, thin, lanky) Truth be told, big burly guys who could easily break me in half are actually quite unappealing to me. Alisha and I talk about this a lot actually, because that’s precisely the type of guy she’s attracted to. XD She doesn’t like the idea of her being bigger than her mate whereas I prefer it. Hmm. Not to say that a big burly guy wouldn’t have the qualities I’m attracted to…it just seems more common in men of a more diminuative stature.

Tonight my brother is making chicken lasagna for supper (instead of using beef) so I’ll be stopping by for some good eats. Then hopefully rollerblading (if the weather permits) and finishing up Six Feet Under. Even though I just got a Gamecube and bought a ton of games, it’s kind of been set aside in lieu of my addiction to that show. :-D

My Gamecube arrived already on Friday while I was at work, so I had to endure essentially the whole work day knowing it was waiting for me at home. That coupled with the fact that it was Friday made it extremely difficult to concentrate on anything. My brother was back from Madison so our whole family was able to eat supper together. Afterwards I excitedly unpacked the Gamecube and started playing Tetris Worlds while I waited for the guys to show up. Earlier in the day I had arranged to have Peter pick me up a copy of Warioware and two more controllers in Appleton on his way down from Green Bay, and he came through marvelously. There were five of us there so we had to take turns playing, but it turned out pretty well, and we played until we all had headaches. I sat way too close to the TV so mine was pretty bad, but I had so much fun that it was a reasonable trade off.

Saturday morning I went shopping in Appleton with my dad and brother. My dad had to order some parts to make some kind of hydraulic lift for his crop chopper so I got to check out some farm-related warning signs on the lawn tractors and Dad helped me brainstorm more ideas for my painting series. I bought a few more games (Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, Dragon’s Lair 3D, Resident Evil 3, and Arc the Lad.) Alisha and I played WW and Tetris and some of Fallout before I got ready for the night. Hachi and his sister came over to get me and after he changed into nicer clothes we went up to Appleton to see The Phantom of the Opera. We were planning on getting sushi for dinner but the place was packed so we went to a sub place instead, and the sandwiches were fantastic. Overall reaction to this performance: it was okay. There were a few really interesting things I noticed simply because our seats were so high up. Number one, we could see down into the orchestra pit. We could see most of the pit actually, which could have been annoying but from my point of view (having already seen it four times prior to that night) it was really cool because I could finally see what parts were recordings and which were live and which were instruments played over the top of the recording. Most interesting to note is that the song (”Masquerade”) played by the music box is not a recording, but is actually played live on a keyboard in the pit. I had a great time watching the percussionist too, because he had all his drums set up around him in a semi-circle and he’d move from one set to another really quickly. Being that high up kind of ruined the effect of the mirror, as we could only see the phantom’s body from his neck down. Also, we were all the way over to the left so the scenes where the phantom’s voice was supposed to travel from one speaker to the next as if he’s moving around the theatre didn’t really have much effect. I also couldn’t see the piano playing itself in the rehearsal scene (we really were quite far away.) The performers were relatively difficult to understand when they sang, which I suppose rather sucked for hachi since he didn’t know the lyrics to the songs. It was hard enough when they were singing alone, but when the operatic parts came in where they sang different words over each other, it was impossible. I’ve grown so used to listening to Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman (who are British) on the CDs that hearing the performers sing with American pronunciations was strange. XD

Sunday I went to my parents’ house for awhile. It’s been raining a ton the last several days so things are majorly flooded out there. Our ditches were so overflowing with water that it just poured out and over the driveway. I watched a family of ducks swim from one ditch right over the driveway into the other ditch. It was just bizarre. Our next door neighbor’s lawn is completely covered in water…it seriously looks like a small lake. Heh. When I got back into town Alisha and I went grocery shopping and then played more Warioware. Somewhere along the line Tiff and Big Bri came in and played with us and after losing a lot I decided I felt like playing drunk because I thought it would be funnier. So Al, Bri and I went back to the grocery store to get some booze. Alisha talked to one of her very attractive classmates who works there and we came to the conclusion he might be interested in her. Hehe. When we got back we played a drinking game along with “Total Recall” (drink whenever someone says “Mars”, haha) so once we were properly drunk we busted out the Warioware again. It was a lot more fun actually so it was worthwhile. After awhile someone suggested going to IHOP but they were closed so we went to the only other restaurant open in the wee hours of the morning. I ordered pigs in a blanket and fell asleep on my arm after eating only one of them. Somehow my food got packed up to go and my roommates woke me up when they wanted to leave. I remember resting my head on Tiff’s shoulder while Alisha was taking care of the bill and almost falling asleep again.

I felt okay when I woke up…I was seriously thirsty so I drank a crapload of water, but the worst part is my body seems to have had a great deal of trouble processing the wine I had, as I’ve had to make a trip to the bathroom about once every hour all day. My guts are just gurgling like crazy. This usually only happens when I drink too much beer, but I guess it’s moved on to other alcohols too. sigh I hope I’m not too sick to exercise tonight. And not just to exercise…to *eat*…I haven’t been able to eat more than some baby carrots and 2 graham crackers all day. :\

Tomorrow night I’m meeting with Will and Peter to talk about Portland. On Friday I had written a rather long and angsty entry about how left-out I felt with them planning all this stuff without me but after talking to Jules about my angst I found it was kind of useless to post it. All three of us agree it’s a good idea to talk about this so I’m really looking forward to it. Things are happening so quickly now I almost don’t know how to act or feel.

Last night when I got home from work I decided to go rollerblading because the weather was absolutely beautiful–sunny and warm. Alisha was gone so I went by myself and I ended up doing 7 laps around the bike path, which from rough estimation would be somewhere around 8 miles. Going top speed, it takes about 5 minutes to blade around that section of the path, so it seems logical that it’s probably somewhere around a mile or a little more (assuming a human can somewhat easily run a mile in somewhere between 6 and 7 minutes.) I wish I knew how far it was around so I could figure out exactly how far I’ve gone. Oh well. It was far enough, and I would have gone further but I got really thirsty. My legs felt fantastic for a few hours right after I finished but later on they ached like mad.

I spent most of the night crocheting and watching episodes of Six Feet Under. I’m beginning to really love that show. It’s really well done.

Whoa. I started in on talking about my foosball idea for a painting and suddenly inspiration started to flow again, big time. It began as a little trickle and soon it was a flood, a torrent. The ideas were coming faster than I could write them down. They finally stopped bombarding me long enough so I could write this. I don’t want to discuss the particulars of the idea right now, but I will say that I’m a ball of excited energy right now, and I’m bouncing off the walls. I have several people laughing at GiddyAnny right now because the elation is infectious. I’ve already had some great input from different people in brainstorming the concept, but more than anything else right now I wish Jules were awake so he could share this with me. He was there to help me realize “Avatar” and he witnessed the whole process of me conceptualizing something from the ground up. I remember him saying to me that my inspiration had inspired him too, and that is amazing to me. I can see that a lot of people around me find this cool or entertaining, but I really want to be near people who will draw from the energy I’m giving off and use it to help themselves in their creativity rather than just have a good laugh. I know Jules can appreciate this in a way I’m not sure anyone else can. He’s just special in that way…we draw from each other and feed off each other in a rather uncanny way, but it’s mutually beneficial. It’s an exchange of positive energy…we only drain each other by talking until our bodies collapse from exhaustion. I cherish Jules and everything he’s given me by just being himself.

I’m aching to get home and start working out these ideas on paper. The concept is so unbelievably open-ended that I could literally do hundreds of paintings in a series (though I’m sure I’d tire of the series before it reached 20 pieces)…but the possibilities are endless. And the simplicity of it means it won’t take me very long to do each painting so I actually could realistically do a series of more than 10.

bounces all over the place

Waaaaaaaaaaa! This is so great, I haven’t felt this way in months…over a year even. The last time I felt anything like this was Avatar, although the feeling was about 100 times more intense then. It’s almost not even worth comparing anything to what I felt then. But at least I’m finally getting ideas again! I’ve been burnt out for so long I’d nearly forgotten what this felt like!

Woohoo! I just won myself a Platinum Gamecube off ebay. :-D Okay, it was sort of an impulse purchase and sort of not. I got hooked on Warioware over at Ben’s house a few weeks back and have been craving it ever since. I didn’t really think about buying one then…it wasn’t until Saturday night when hachi and Brian and I were in Best Buy and I noticed the Gamecubes were selling new for $99 that I started to think “Hmmmmm….” I almost bought one then but the logical side of my brain was telling me “Don’t be a moron.” Hachi helped convince me that getting one was a good idea since I also want to play the Resident Evil games (RE0 in particular) so it wasn’t as if I were getting it for only one game. Then someone suggested that I buy a used system since it would be much cheaper and would be in good condition. On Sunday I went to the used game store in Oshkosh and looked but there weren’t any. Then this morning it occurred to me I should check ebay because there is a much better chance of finding a system that comes with more than one controller and a memory card. I also really wanted the platinum one rather than black or blue because silver/gray is my favorite color. :-D

So the system I won includes the following:

• a rarely used (in great condition) limited edition platinum GameCube (plus box and all required cables)
• memory card
• a lovely matching platinum controller
• a wireless Wavebird controller (a must for comfortable play!)
• SSX Tricky
• Animal Crossing (plus bonus memory card)
• Tetris

I’m not particularly interested in the included games…if they suck I can just sell them at a used game shop. The main thing here was that there are 2 controllers and 2 memory cards along with the console. The system is going for $99 new these days, and I got this whole deal for $125. I couldn’t care less if the games blow; the hardware alone for that price is a steal! :-D So I’m really excited about that.

Haven’t written an entry in awhile so it’s a bit tough to remember all that’s happened in the last week or so. Let me think…

Friday was tough. I spent most of the day preparing for a presentation I had to give at work. I was less nervous once I got going than I had expected. I think a lot of my anxiety is residual suggestion from traumatic experiences in school. I used to be terrified to speak in front of people (particularly my peers) because I knew they were all scrutinizing my every word and action. Those days are long gone though, and I’m different. I found that I knew my material well enough to give a rather well-flowing presentation, and it felt great once I was done. Peter and Jules both talked to me at length beforehand, reassuring me that all would be well. And it was. :3

That night (at Peter’s insistance) hachi, Brian, and I went to DePere to see Pat McCurdy (this humorous musician guy). I was glad we went because he was really funny and it was just a nice way to end a stressful day. We didn’t do much afterwards…we checked out a local bar which was too smoky and loud so we left after the guys trounced Melissa and me in foosball. We hung out in her dorm room for awhile and watched her play Pacman while I studied the room with awe (and a twinge of jealousy) over how nice it was for a dorm room. It was like a fricken hotel room! Jeebus. I’ve lived in squalor for so long. I guess that goes along with the luxurious new art building there so it’s all good. It’s a private school anyhow. We made plans for them to come visit us on Saturday evening and then the three of us took off for home.

Alisha and I went rollerblading Saturday morning which was fantastic. It felt so great to get outside in the air and be active. Mmmm.

Partway into the afternoon Peter messaged me to tell me they weren’t coming after all. I was a bit disappointed because I’d been looking forward to having a fun weekend after the stress of the week (things happened in my house that I really can’t talk about publicly) and we hadn’t gotten to really spend much time together on Friday. I was a little angsty so I called hachi to tell him the plans had changed. I took a nap and woke up sometime around 6:30 PM, and wondered why no one had called me about supper. No answer at Brian’s house…and when I called hachi he told me he’d already eaten with his family. Meh! And for some reason my phone was doing this stupid thing indoors where it cuts out about every other word I say even though I can hear the other person just fine. When I was on the phone with hachi it was doing it really bad and I got so frustrated I swore at the phone, hung it up, and threw it across the room. Well, apparently hachi was able to hear that because he called me back shortly after that wondering what the deal was. I ended up making myself some soup for supper because by that point I was absolutely starving and then some more miscommunication occurs and I find out that Brian hasn’t eaten yet. ~_~ So I put the soup in the fridge and the three of us went out to one of the places that replaced Mancino’s (our favorite food place that went out of business) and I was delighted to discover that the food was the same!!! Score!

After hachi prodded me to eat faster (”Ann, you’re done. You’re done.”) we headed up to Appleton to do some shopping. :-D It’s been awhile since we did that, and it was really fun. On the way up there, Jeff called to tell me he’d gotten Kids in the Hall season 1 on DVD and invited me over to watch it. (He started with the line “Are you in Green Bay again?” since every time he calls me on a random Saturday to hang out that’s always where I’ve been) I really want to watch it though, so we’ll have to do that another time. :-D

While in Best Buy I started looking at the GCs of course, and hachi found me a car power adapter that will work with my mp3 player. I asked the guys to applaud me for spending less than $10. They did. :-) I did buy a design book at Barnes and Noble though which was pretty expensive, but it will be really useful.

When we got back Erin had some friends over and she made us some margaritas (yum!) and the guys and I watched some eps of Firefly while I crocheted. Brian and I played a little of Champions of Norrath to see how the multiplayer works (it’s just like Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance) and that annoyed us a little. It would be nice if it gave us a split screen when we’re far apart like War of the Monsters does, but unfortunately both players are confined to a single screen. That gets irritating fast, especially when one player gets stuck behind terrain and can’t move until the other player moves one way or the other. Or if one person wants to kill things and the other wants to collect items. shrug I guess it does pretty well for a console hack n’ slash RPG though. It’s pretty at least.

Sunday was just a really nice day. I went blading with Erin, and it was a bit windy but otherwise exhilarating. I stopped home for a bit then sat in my room and crocheted and watched eps of Six Feet Under. TR called me on his way back from his graduation party so we talked for awhile (and my phone worked indoors!) and eventually I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep though, so I read a little bit of The Journals of Eleanor Druse (the Kingdom Hospital novel.)

Yesterday was pretty quiet. More crocheting and SFU eps. Alisha and I did Tae Bo at about 9:30 PM, and it started raining so there was a really nice breeze coming through the window. Mmm.

Really excited about the GC now. I never really wanted one before because there aren’t an excessive number of games I want to play on it and I hate the controllers. They fit comfortably in the hand but the directionals are just not placed right. Guu. I suppose I’ll have to get used to it though. I think last night I dreamt I was playing Warioware. Heh. XD

So much stress…it’s not as bad as being back in school again, but there’s just everything at once. I have so much work to do today I expect to be at work until late tonight. I have to prepare for a presentation tomorrow and finish up a lot of things, or at least get them close to ready.

My brother came home last night so I went to my parents’ house for dinner. I got to see his new laptop, which is monstrously huge (and widescreen.) My parents’ monitor is tweaking out really bad.

On the way back it started pouring….absolutely pouring outside. I had to go about 40 on the freeway because I couldn’t see anything. At the grocery store I purchased 12 cans of soup to take care of my cravings.

Last night after talking with Alisha for a long time, we did Tae Bo. It was still pouring outside when we finished so we decided to go for a walk. It was a really great way to cool down quickly and we had fun jumping in the puddles and splashing around. The negative part of it was the rain washed the sweat down into my eyes and made them burn horribly. Even today they are still burning despite the fact I put eyedrops in. But guu, rain is so great.

I watched two episodes of Six Feet Under before bed and slept soundly, knowing the stress I’d be under today. :-( I really hope something fun goes on this weekend because I need to be with people who don’t stress me out. Well, at least, who don’t stress me out all the time. ;-)

I had a pretty fruitful day at work yesterday so I was fairly energetic when I got home, which is pretty unusual. I had grilled cheese and soup for supper (yum) and watched “I Am Sam” with Alisha. What a cute and charming movie. Mm.

I’ve been on a soup kick ever since last week when I finally started eating again. I think I’ve had soup for at least one meal (if not two) every day since Friday. That’s a lot of soup. But it’s so gooood! I’m going to have to go buy more soon.

After the movie Alisha and I went rollerblading in the park until it got dark. It was pretty humid out so we were both sweating a lot, but it felt really really nice. I wish we could have bladed for longer but it was getting too dark to see, and that’s no fun. It’s not safe either.

I crocheted and watched two episodes of “Six Feet Under,” which Ross has repeatedly reccommended to me. It’s pretty interesting so far; the characters have some unique personalities and it’s fun to watch them drive hearses around. I’ve always thought it would be really sweet to drive a hearse as a normal vehicle (*without* a dead body in the back) because people look at it funny by default. I once did a search for them on eBay and found one that had a decal on the side that said “Death Valley Deliveries” which to this day still amuses me greatly. I would never want to be a mortician or a doctor and have to work with dead bodies, but some of the dark humor surrounding corpses is funny to me. There is a lot of this type of humor on that show, so I think I’ll probably enjoy it.

Looking forward to tonight…if the weather’s decent I’ll go rollerblading again. Jules and I have a voice chat scheduled for later, which I am quite excited about. I always get such a thrill talking to him because not only is he one of my favorite people in the whole world, but he also has the yummiest Aussie accent. :3 Guuuuuu.

Schemes are already being hatched for the weekend to come, although the details of time and place still need to be agreed upon. smile I can spend hours with Peter and Will and by the time they’ve left or I’ve gone home, I’m already antsy to plan more time with them. It’s so weird how I see them just as much as Brian and Jon even though we live so far apart. Well, I guess technically it’s not all that far really, somewhere around 50 miles, but still…it’s not like we can just meet up in 6 minutes like I can with B & J.

Oh yeah, I took pix of the scary foosball men for my painting, but I haven’t taken them off my camera yet. I keep thinking about their creepy uni-leg thing that looks like it belongs to Big Bird….*shudder*…I still can’t come up with a concept for a painting yet though. :\ Something will come to me, I know it, but for now it’ll just have to hang out for awhile until something brings it to my attention.

It really is quite amazing what people can be brought to when circumstances get so far out of control that their sanity and general well-being is threatened. From my own experience, I’ve found myself in situations like this only a few times, but have reacted the same way each time–seemingly out of character for myself. I guess it can’t really be called “out-of-character” if my reaction is something coming from my heart, since it’s still me doing whatever it is I’m doing. It is a part of my character, even if only a minor part that is brought out by extreme circumstances. What I’m mainly referring to here is courage and extraversion. Anyone who knows me well will say that I’m quiet most of the time, that I tend to speak only when I have something important to say, or have thought about my words carefully first. I’m simply just not much of a talker, especially when it comes to small talk. I see it as boring and fake, and just generally unnecessary. Sure, some situations call for it, and when this happens of course I participate. But I don’t like it.

Life doesn’t always cater to me remaining in this place I’m so comfortable in, and why should it? Being safe all the time leads to stagnation and boredom and often depression. Taking risks keeps life interesting and exciting, even if the risk is terrifying or otherwise nervewracking. A person unwilling to take risks is probably not going to lead a very fulfilling life, and being fulfilled is one thing I always strive for. Admittedly, a lot of the time I look for fulfillment in empty things like video games or other forms of entertainment, but I’m coming to realize bit by bit that my contentment is mainly found in human interaction, namely with my closest friends. As much as I love being with them, I need it too.

Last week I went through a very trying time. I’ve had something on my mind for about 3 months now, and essentially it had grown to the point where I was having difficulty living my life…it was distracting me at work all day long, I couldn’t concentrate, and I was exhausted all the time because all I did was agonize over it. (What exactly the situation is…many of those close to me already know about it, and I may talk about it later on when it’s been further resolved, but I don’t feel right about writing about it publicly yet.) Essentially, it had gotten to the point where I could no longer function as a human being, and I had to do something about it. I couldn’t eat anything, my digestive system was in total upheaval, and I slept way too much. My heart would flutter with anxiety whenever I’d think about it. Extremely unhealthy.

So in a very mature and adult manner, I handled the situation in the best way I could, by facing it head on and talking about it. Being very frank and honest about everything, I got it out in the open and to the forefront without going about it in a sneaky or childish manner. I was proud of myself for having the courage to face something directly that brought me so much anxiety, but I saw it as I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. I was simply going to go mad if I didn’t talk about it! As scared as I was, the thought of what would happen to me if I didn’t confront this terrified me even more. Afterwards, I felt relief beyond belief. The heavy pressure in my chest evaporated in a manner of an hour and I could eat again with no trouble. Having been through similar situations in the past (though never, ever to this extreme) I pretty much knew what to expect in terms of my body’s reaction to being relieved of the tension. The outcome of the situation mattered less to me than simply being able to get rid of my anxiety over keeping it inside.

sighs with relief

I’m back to being myself again, which is awesome. I’m back to smiling almost all the time and enjoying the many things I’ve been blessed with. I’m happy with my life. I’m glad I was able to take care of my situation last week because this week another situation arose that doesn’t directly involve me, but I’m kind of trapped in the middle of. It’s no less nervewracking or difficult to deal with; in fact, it’s probably worse, but it isn’t my problem. Those who are part of the issue have come to me for advice or just to talk, and in all honesty, if this had also happened last week, I may not have been able to handle it. But now that I’m myself again, I have the strength to be there to support them, and they need it. I felt a little sick to my stomach this morning but I can’t directly attribute it to this, as I could with my own situation. Things will work themselves out, hopefully without too much pain and destruction.

Mm…a few things to mention about last week. Big Brian got ahold of Kill Bill Vol. 2 from somewhere on the internet, so we watched that. Pretty interesting, though I think I’ll need to see both volumes a few more times before I make up my mind just how I feel about them. I really enjoy Tarantino’s style…he uses genre cliches like a master, and makes them very funny. I didn’t dislike the movies, but I’m not sure they’re worth the hype they get. I also went to see Ringu because the university was playing it in the theatre. I quite liked it, though I was hoping it would be scarier than it was. Incidentally, I thought the American version was scarier, but even that wasn’t very scary to me. The Japanese actors did a better job, the characters felt more authentic. The superstition over the dead came through far better in the Japanese version. I was a tad annoyed that I had to go to the movie by myself after three people bailed on me because that was right in the middle of my period of uber-anxiety. I really wanted to see the movie, though, so I went alone. Normally I don’t mind going to movies by myself, but in this instance I just wanted another person with me.

Thursday night was the graphic design exhibition. I was a bit nervous about it because it was on the same night that I dealt with my stressful situation. I wanted to be there to support my classmates fully, to celebrate their accomplishments to the max, because they worked so hard to get done, but I was scared I would still be a nervous wreck when it came around, especially if things didn’t go well. I was fairly confident that things wouldn’t get ugly, but there was still a bit of fear in the back of my mind. In any case, things went as smoothly as they possibly could have, and I was able to be there with TR and the guys on their special night. In a large way, I felt almost as if my son were graduating, because I’ve done so much to mother my darling TR over the last few semesters when he was struggling so much. There was a definite feeling of pride in seeing his work in the gallery, especially the spot he had…the dead center of the back wall (the most sought-after place in the gallery!) So many other people helped him get through to this point, but I feel like I was there for him in ways that other people weren’t, or just couldn’t be. TR is very dear to my heart, and is a person I feel very close to. I can only ever see myself looking on him with affection, and even though he is nine years older than me. We just connect, and that’s an amazing thing. I truly hope that he and I remain in contact wherever life takes us because he’s grown very important to me. :-)

After the show we went out to the Magnet to celebrate (the same townie bar we went after our show.) It was so nice to see so many people out, having a great time. I got a lot of hugs from people who were just in a cheery mood, and many people stroked my hair or smelled it, which I rather enjoyed. I had a few beers and some hotdogs and talked to Jeff most of the time. Several people came up to us and said they felt sorry for us for just sitting there at the bar, not mingling. My response to that was “Well, it’s working, isn’t it? People are mingling with *us.” XD The bar was really really smoky and my throat burned and my eyes itched like crazy so I left around 11 and walked home. It was a bit of a walk but it was really nice out so I enjoyed it. Plus it gave me a chance to think about everything that had happened that day, which I really needed. Even after I’d changed out of my smoky clothes, my hair still smelled terrible so I really couldn’t wait to shower to get rid of it.

Friday my eyes and throat continued to burn all day. I must have put in eyedrops at least three or four times over the course of the day…sheesh. I had dinner with my parents as usual went out to buy some new feather pillows (the family pillows I’ve been using since childhood were spewing feathers like mad), then the guys came over. We played DDR for awhile (I mostly watched as I was pretty exhausted from the stress of the week) and then we watched an episode of “Firefly” which I fell asleep halfway through. I nagged Brian and Jon to sign a lease on an apartment again, as they still have yet to make any kind of move in that direction. Jon and I made plans to head up to Green Bay for Saturday night, and we parted ways.

Saturday I went shopping with the two Tiffanys and the one driving nearly crashed us on the way home because the car in front of her slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting some ducks that had wandered onto the freeway. O_O Yikes. Hachi came to pick me up sometime after 5 and we drove up to Peter’s house where Hiroko had cooked us this tofu dish for dinner. She didn’t make enough of it because she feared that most of us wouldn’t like it, but as it turned out, we all did, and we were hungry for more. I was surprised to see Ben there, as he normally just hides out in his dungeon in his basement, but it was really cool because I really like him. He claims to be boring but I really enjoy being around him. :-D Over the course of the night, Will played a ton of R-Type Final, which has taken over his life. We played a few rounds of War of the Monsters, switching off whenever someone died. Many games of pinball ensued…I ended up bruising my index finger pulling back the plunger and needed coaching on how to do it without damaging my hands. There was some foosball and a rather pathetic game of pool followed by “Kick The Gigantic Bouncy Ball At Each Other In A Small Enclosed Circle And See What Happens When It Bashes Peter’s 7-Year-Old Sister In The Face And Knocks Pieces Of The Ceiling Tiles Onto The Floor.” Needless to say, that didn’t last long. XD Will finished off the night by playing a lot of Fatal Frame 2. All the couches were taken up by various people so I sat on the floor behind them and watched from there. At one point Peter decided to take a nap so he was curled up off to the side, and after awhile I got tired too and fell asleep. It was sometime after 4 when everyone took off. Hachi had a snack of cereal and we jabbered about stuff while he ate, and then we all went to bed. Despite only getting about 5 hours of sleep I felt quite refreshed when I got up the next morning. It took hachi awhile to get himself up and ready so Peter and I played some pinball and then hachi started in on Klonoa 2 again. Guh. At least he finished it though…and it wasn’t too annoying with the sound off. XD We made PB&J sandwiches for lunch and Peter made a card for his mom for Mother’s Day.

After that hachi and I went shopping in Appleton and Oshkosh, then he dropped me off. I got 4 games: Ephemeral Fantasia, The Thing, Champions of Norrath, and Fatal Frame 2. Fatal Frame 2 is an interesting story…for the last month or so, every time I’ve gone to Best Buy, I’ve looked for it. It is never on the shelf, but the card where it should be lists it as $9.99, which sounds ridiculously cheap, especially considering the game is only a few months old, and is selling everywhere else for $49.99. An employee asked me if there was anything he could help me with, so I pulled out that card and said “Is this for real?” And he said yeah it was, because it had a little “C” on it for “closeout.” So I asked him if they sold it on the website for that price, and he went to check. When he came back he said the computer said there were two copies in the backroom so he went to get one for me. He brought both copies out and handed me one, and after I thanked him for making my day he asked if I wanted both copies, so I took both. I went to find Jon and when I showed him the deal I got, he held out his hand and was like “Give one to me!” :-D He also bought “Boogiepop Phantom” after I saw the box art and said “This looks cool, have you ever seen it?” “No,” he replied. “But I’ll give it a try.” So he bought it sort of on a whim (Don had sung its praises the previous week, but hachi hadn’t been there.) I was planning on buying both copies of FF2 and offering to sell one to Will but as long as hachi wanted it, he got first dibs since he was actually standing there with me. :3 So Will, go check Best Buy, see if they have any copies of it laying around. It’s not on their website anymore.

Hachi and I both intended to buy a UPS for our computers (mine had reset itself on Friday night due to a thunderstorm) but there weren’t any good ones so we just put it off for another time. I want to get one before summer because it storms a lot in Wisconsin during the summer and the power surges quite frequently. I got my mom a bottle of Kahlua (her favorite drink) for Mother’s Day and drove out to my parents’ house for awhile. I was so tired from being up so late the night before that I didn’t stay too long. I came back and had supper then fell asleep watching “Big Fish.” Was nice. I played “Champions of Norrath” for awhile before bed…seems like it’ll be a fun game. It is very similar to the Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance games so it was very easy to get into it. I do rather enjoy hack n’ slash RPGs…ever since my Diablo II phase. This one has some great potential being that it’s not only multiplayer offline, but online as well. I don’t really have a reason to get a broadband adapter yet, but if I like this one enough I just might. Then I’d be tempted to get Resident Evil Outbreak. Augh, but then I’d have to get the hard drive too because I’ve heard the load times are excrutiating otherwise. ~_~ I’m also tempted to buy a Gamecube because I’ve come to realize that a lot of the games I want to play are GC only releases. (Resident Evil, etc) Grr. I hate the controller on that console…the digital and analog pads are in the wrong place. The controller feels good in my hands but the placement of the directionals is so awkward. I read last night that about half of Silent Hill 4 will be first person perspective. I’m not sure how I feel about that because I really don’t like first person. I prefer to see my character…plus third person is so much easier to control. Oh well.

This looks to be a pretty busy week at work for me, so hopefully I’ll be able to handle it okay. It’s going to be weird not having Ross to talk to everyday since he’s in Thailand for the next two weeks. Had a nice chat with Jules this morning about love…and whether it’s possible to quantify love. He proposed an interesting scenario to me that I’d never considered before. Imagine a guy loves two girls equally and simultaneously, with all of his heart. In this case, do each of the girls have half of his love or all of his love? I suggested that because love cannot be quantified, each have all of his love. But even “all” implies a quantity, so it’s difficult to even say that. We concluded that the guy would have to have infinite love in order for both the girls to have all his love. smiles It’s really fun tiptoeing around these abstract concepts because on many things we agree with and understand each other, and trying to find words to adequately describe something that cannot be described is just fun because we both know we’re attempting the impossible. Hehe. Even if you know an effort is not going to yield a result, sometimes it’s still fun to try, because in trying you discover more about yourself than you might ever imagine.

A weekend full of wonder, excitement, and…wonder. (Any Red Dwarf fans get the reference?) Heh.

I think I had more fun the last three days than I have in a long time, which is saying a lot because I’ve had a ton of fun in recent times. It was basically nonstop activity and hanging out, and there could have been even more than what transpired but I was too tired to go through with everything that was planned. In the end I made some wise decisions and still managed to have a great deal of fun.

So Friday night was awesome. Peter came down after work to hang out, so we played a few rounds of War of the Monsters while we waited for hachi and Brian to come over. We were very evenly matched, despite what Peter might claim. :-P We got subs from Cousin’s for supper, took a peek at the outside of the apartments that the guys are thinking of renting, then stopped off to get some alcohol for the night. It was sort of rainy and icky out so Brian drove hachi’s car around because apparently hachi was having a “Near-miss” driving day. When we got back to my place Peter and I did yoga and I realized just how little upper body strength I have. Hachi and Brian left for awhile and once they came back we whipped out the DDR. (There are some new pics up in the ddr folder if you’re interested.) We played for quite awhile…Peter got his fix of Kylie and I got my usual AA on heavy mode for Dream a Dream. Hachi tried to beat one of my scores on this song I really hate (it’s a lot of quick hopping double steps) but he wore himself out and didn’t end up beating me anyhow. XD

Hachi played Klonoa 2 for awhile and the guys watched him. I don’t care for that game much because it’s too frustrating to see the same thing over and over and over again…hachi was trying to smash this one box for like 15 minutes…augh. I ended up watching Brian and Alisha play this Legends of Dynasty Warriors 4 type game (can’t recall exact title) in the livingroom but it was equally frustrating because one of them would always die and the other person would get upset. ~_~ Eventually we all decided to do something more interactive and settled on cards. Peter and I got properly drunk while the four of us played “Asshole.” None of us could remember the rules so we had to look them up online. XD It took me until the final game to get the president seat…sheesh, and by that time hachi and Brian wanted to leave (it was 2 am by then anyhow) so I guess that makes me the defending champion for the next time we play.

After they left Peter and I sat up watching Fischerspooner videos and visualizations. We had a really nice conversation and finally went to bed sometime after 5 AM.

The next day we got up reasonably early and watched Alisha and Brian play more of that game, then Peter and I went out looking for DDR pads. Of course Oshkosh doesn’t have any…how lame. We bummed around the city for a bit and ended up having a late lunch at a Chinese place. Yum. The sushi there was just….gigantic. I swore I couldn’t get the whole piece in my mouth at once without gagging, and I barely could…and then it didn’t help that Peter was laughing at me so I had to turn away from him while I ate so I didn’t choke. XD

After that we parted ways and I took a nap. I was planning on going up to Green Bay for Ben’s LAN party but I was just way too exhausted for that. So instead I ended up going to see a Latin American harpist with Alisha and Tiffany because Al had gotten free tickets at school. He was amazing, and it was so relaxing listening to that music. I was looking around at the crowd surrounding me, and I noticed that there were very few women with long hair. That’s something I’ve been noticing in general, that a lot of people my age and older are getting their hair chopped off. I think it’s kind of sad in a way because I know a lot of them have beautiful locks, but I guess the lure of easy maintenance is pretty strong as you get older. It won’t be for me though. I’m going to keep my hair long for quite awhile, if not forever. I may get tired of it sometime down the line, but I love it now.

In any case, there were a bunch of people (roommates and friends of roommates) hanging out at the house when we got back so I sat around with them till sometime after midnight, then went to bed because I was so tired.

I got up about the same time as Saturday morning and saw an email from Will inviting the Oshkosh folks to Hiroko’s art show. So I called Brian and hachi and asked if they wanted to go. Neither answered their phones, but Brian called back a little bit later and said he’d go. So I drove up to Green Bay and met up with Will. We stopped off and helped him pick out some flowers for her, then went to the show. Hiroko had 3 pieces in the show, the most impressive being her pencil drawing of Will. It was extremely well-rendered and I could see she had put many hours of work into it. She laughed at me as I went around to all the pieces in the show and analyzed their construction and (when appropriate) their font choices. XD Hiroko gave us a tour of the brand new art building at St. Norbert College and I kept saying I could never feel comfortable making art there because it’s so nice and I’d be afraid of messing it up. We visited her friend Don down in the photo lab for a bit and I got to ogle the nice equipment they have down there…augh. Their technology is a lot better than UWO’s, but in general Oshkosh has a lot more options for different kinds of art. (It is much larger than SNC, after all) The highlight of the tour was going into the painting room and smelling the linseed oil. No one was up there working so I got to peek at how people had things set up, and it was pleasant to see that almost all of them used the same brand of paints that I do so the smell of them was familiar and just….heavenly. Delicious. I sniffed around the room until the rest of them were telling me I should follow them because they were leaving. I would have liked to stay there a bit longer though. Mmmm, that smell is the best smell on earth.

After the tour we went to the mall to look for “Fatal Frame 2″ but there were no used copies of it so no one got anything. We went back to Will’s place and watched him struggle with “Siren”…the game has a great concept in “sightjacking” where you have a psychic link with any creature in the vicinity and can therefore see and hear what they do, but it’s so confusing what you’re supposed to do. One level took us over an hour and a half to figure out when it should have taken maybe 20 minutes. Man. Will’s roommate Ben hung out with us for the rest of the night, which was awesome because he’s a funny guy. He cooked us a pizza using his Pizzazz pizza “oven” and we had some leftover meat/cheese/crackers/snacky stuff from his LAN party. The rest of the night consisted of the group of us playing Warioware on Ben’s gamecube. Will, Brian, and Hiroko got sleepy after a bit so Ben and I played it for several hours while they dozed. I got so addicted to it that I’m sure I would have kept playing until Ben kicked me out if Brian hadn’t wanted to go home. Heh. So we left around 10 or so and drove back.

I stayed up a bit too late resizing and uploading pictures from the weekend so I’m quite tired today. But this morning I showered and got myself ready quickly so I could nap a bit before work. I’m pretty hungry though, as I didn’t have time to eat breakfast due to the nap and besides, I don’t have much to eat since I need to go grocery shopping.

Waaa, such a fun-filled couple days. I was feeling blissful almost the whole time. Being around people I care about energizes me in a way that nothing else can. I guess I could say I’m addicted to my friends. :3 There are worse things to be addicted to, that’s for damned sure.