Is it time for him to leave yet?

I let my brother borrow my car (well, okay, I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter, so it would be more accurate to say that I did not hold him off at gunpoint when he said he needed it) and now my precious has a colossal dent on the front bumper, and he "doesn't remember how it got there." Well, I sure didn't put it there, because the only things I've ever hit are the ground (on a sharp incline) and, last summer, a shrub. I can't say that I'm all that fond of driving, but I love that car. It's unattractive and super reliable (like me!) and kind of old, and it's my favorite color and has a sound system that my father, the music snob, bought and installed. Before I let my brother drive it, all it had were scrapes on the front bumper that my cousin put there, and now it has a 3 inch deep dent. For this, I will confiscate his portable DVD player.

The car and I are going to the coast house by ourselves now, and there is no internet there. I will update when I feel like it. (Not that I wasn't doing that already, but going to the library is more work than walking across the room to the computer.)

I hate everyone in the entire world

My mother is out. I wouldn't normally care or even notice, but people keep calling for her and I have to keep answering the phone and telling them to try back in half an hour. It's making me homicidal. I despise telephones and I despise these people. I should also mention that my parents despise the telephone as well, so we have no answering machine. That way, they can ignore people who call. But I kind of wish we did, because now people have learned to persistently call us for hours and I end up having the pick the phone up and take messages anyway to get them to leave me the hell alone. If they would get an answering machine, people could leave messages and I could ignore the phone entirely because it's never for me. But all my years of training people to not call me is completely wasted because I have to live with other people who receive phone calls. So yes, I am cranky. Crankier than usual, I mean.

More random thoughts

So, I have not had my shots, because the doctor my mother wanted to send me to apparently does not exist (which is odd, because I had no trouble booking an appointment with her...?) My mother is way more agitated about this than I am. I spent the time between my phone call and the appointment that never happened trying to think of a way out of it. I think I may just heave a surreptitious sigh of relief and stop worrying about the shots, which I do not need. My mother is pissed because she has apparently misplaced her big-girl panties and wants me to go to her new doctor and see what she's like before she herself goes. I'm pretty sure she doesn't actually care that much whether I ever get around to getting my unnecessary shots. But anyway.

I'm completely fascinated by this place, partly because other people's living spaces are interesting (apparently I picked up nosiness from my mother) and because I have no design sense of my own and I can't decide if my own room looks like it belongs to a precocious 5-year-old who's allowed inappropriate movies, or to a crazy woman who's tried to move into the corner of a used bookstore. Also, other peoples' book and movie collections interest me. Everyone in the entire world owns Harry Potter (and if it isn't in the photos, I'm pretty sure it's because they were embarrassed and hid it under the bed) but everyone in the entire world also owns Middlesex and Memoirs of a Geisha, which I didn't expect. (I have both, but I would have put money on Bell Jar and She's Come Undone.) Everyone in the entire world also owns Love Actually, which I didn't expect (is it really that good?) I own it, as a matter of fact, but I have not watched it and I only bought it because Connie Willis said to (she introduced me to Jane Austen and Damon Runyon, so now I would jump off a bridge if she told me to) and because I'm having an issue with one of the actors (I disgust me). But I digress. It also introduced me to this thing, which means my blank wall problem is solved.

Lately, people have taken to informing me smugly that I'm going to meet someone in England and not want to come back. This sets my teeth on edge for several reasons:

1) Hi, my name is Antares. Have we met?

2) It's nice that you apparently know so much about me, anyway.

3) The day I let some man derail my life like that is the day I shave my head, paint my toenails pink, and decide I prefer Anakin to Obi-Wan. Or I suppose it could happen if I had 3/4ths of my brain removed, or something. Whatever. People are morons.

My hair is at a good, sensible length. In the past 4 months I've cut it from my thighs up to my waist. I can fall asleep with it loose and only need 30 seconds to detangle it when I wake up, I can wash it have it dry in less than half a day, etc. It works well with my figure type and it's flattering and certainly no one would call it short. But I cannot get over the "It's so friggin' short!" feeling. I assumed it would last a couple of days at most, but I am still totally shocked when I pull a brush through it and it abruptly ends and I smack my hand on something (we all know that feeling, right?) Plus my ends have lost that nice taper and I can't put it up because they won't tuck in, so my only styling options are down, braid, or ponytail. It's driving me crazy. I have no idea what to do. I guess I'll just have to grit my teeth and wait for it to grow back.

I have not yet had an attack of the "I'm too stupid for grad school!" hysteria. I know it's going to strike at some point and I really wish it would do it already, because I'm convinced that the longer it holds off, the uglier it will be. At this point I could probably fix it with a few trips to the library but if it hits in, say, August, it's probably going to reduce me to sniveling catatonia. I used to get the "I'm not good enough for art school/this class/this show" hysteria ALL THE TIME, even when I was medicated, which I'm not anymore. And art was something I knew perfectly well I was good at. Archaeology I have no idea about, so I assume the hysteria will be considerably worse. I don't even know enough to know how clueless I am.

And finally, just for the entertainment value - last night I dreamed I was on a dig in England (wow, how colossally arrogant is my subconscious?) and I heard that the current administration was planning to withdraw from Iraq and invade Canada instead. See, there's something that would induce me to stay in England and never, ever leave.

Why I don't have men dangling off me

I'm working on a longer post, but for now I'll just say this. It's really freakin' hot, so I broke out one of my summer nightgowns. It's white and mid-thigh length and kind of skimpy (because the point is that it's REALLY FREAKIN' HOT HERE) and, I must say, it looks tres sexy with my violently turquoise night bra and unshaven legs.

Traffic violation

As I was driving home from my ceramics final today, it occurred to me that it would be the very worst possible time for me to get pulled over. See, I've never been pulled over before, and I'm not sure I'll be able to avoid bursting into tears. Bursting into tears would be the absolute worst thing I could possibly do, I think, because it works well if you are young and attractive, but if you happen to be young and not so attractive, and your personal style can best be described as What Does Style Mean?, I imagine it would be less than effective. And today, I happened to be driving home with a ceramic skull (a very good one, I used Gray's) in my lap. If you were a police officer, how would that work for you? Woman in tears with a skull in her lap? Now that I am home, I almost wish I had been pulled over, just so I could see what would happen.

No, thank you. No, really. Get away from me!

So, this doctor thing. I remember why I don't do this more often. I suppose I do genuinely need to get get looked at, but I'm feeling less than enthusiastic. I wanted to send my mother to our new doctor first, and she wants to send me, and I lost the battle because I don't have all year to sit around and wait, but the cheerful receptionist would not let me just escape with my vaccines and now I have to have a full physical and an examination of my girly bits (I talked her out of bloodwork because I have to go running before the appointment, and I will pass out if I don't eat, but it was a close call). I don't want to. I have never met this doctor, but I can already tell you how this is going to go:

First, I will get to hear about how I am too fat and I'm going to drop dead in ten years if I don't lose enough to be able to cram myself into a size 4. (As if I want to be a size 4. It's much harder to get people to leave you alone if you're a size 4.) Naturally, I will not mention the part about how I have lost 46 pounds since August, but will sit there fuming and thinking, "Bitch, I can outrun you!" She will then do her examination and find out that I am healthier than she is, but will not amend her previous statement. I will vow to never see another doctor as long as I live.

Then I will get The Dreaded Girly Parts Exam. I'm really not sure why I'm having this done, as I was dragged to one exam several years ago in which the last doctor my mom got in a fight with found that I was entirely normal. I have yet to do anything that would ruin the pristine state of Area 51, but I agreed to have it done on the off chance that she needs to establish that I have not contracted HPV before vaccinating me against it. (I'm really not sure why I'm getting the HPV vaccine in the first place. I only really have two reasons - I have to have it done before I'm 26, so I may as well get it over with before I vanish into the wilds of England and never return. Also, even though there is no need for it in my case, I'd advise a friend in my position to get it done, so not doing it myself would make me a big fat hypocrite. These are not good reasons, so I will not mention them.)

Then, with any luck, I will get my shots and leave and never return. I will have my other two HPVs done in some walk-in clinic on Cape Cod, and my mother will hear my report and decide never to visit this new doctor. Everyone wins! Except that I have said goodbye to a large chunk of my Thursday morning, and I will spend the rest of the day in bed rewatching The Barchester Chronicles and sulking and completely failing to look over my German textbook before my exam, so I guess I kind of lose.

Ow.

I got another one of those scary airmail envelopes today. This one was about four times the size of the others, and it contained the university's Instructions for Clueless Internationals. Mostly what interested me was the prices. With the dollar currently being worth pretty much nothing, the price conversions made me gag. If I smoked, a packet of cigarettes would cost about $11, so it's a good thing I don't, or I would have to stop immediately. (Interestingly, if I want to keep getting some kind of coffee drink once a week, it would cost about the same. Hmmm.) A paperback would cost me about $12, which makes me want to cry. It also appears I will be confined to the university town, because I cannot afford the trains. Somebody fix the economy, immediately.

Some of it was so awesome I'm going to have to take a highlighter to it and pass it around to everyone I know. For instance, if you get ensuite accommodation, you get heated towel rails. Heated towel rails. In student housing! I have never encountered a heated towel rail in my life and I associate them with the kind of hotel I will never be able to afford. I'm also terribly amused by the way they inform you which of their buildings has air conditioning, but this is probably because I lived in Southern California for four years (although, actually, the art department did not have air conditioning, and neither did my apartment or any of the student housing I lived in, and the Californians certainly weren't nice enough to warn me before I showed up in the middle of August). I also love their photos of campus. All campus photos have to be cheerful and sunny, and it's really easy in Southern California where it looks like that every day anyway, but even I know their photos are completely contrived. It's okay, I know I can't take naps outside in the grass in February anymore.

Information that made me feel better - there are Indian groceries (I mean, I kind of assumed there were, but at least now it's confirmed) so I am saved and there will be familiar food and I can remain a happy vegetarian. Also, my mother has been freaking out lately and trying to talk my dad into escorting me over, (apparently, in her world, two clueless adults are a huge improvement over one clueless adult?) but there are people who will come to the airport and retrieve me, so that will save about $1,000 (83 paperbacks!) right there.

Anyway, I am at this very moment supposed to be calling a doctor my mother has not yet fought with to arrange to get my shots (meningitis and HPV, neither of which I technically need, but I want them anyway dammit) so I will continue this later.

Damn you all

Dear German,

Why can't you have nice, easy grammar, like French?

Dear French,

Why can't you be easy to speak and understand, like German?

Dear Latin,

Can we just pretend the third declension never happened, and move on from here?

I am a library nerd

My new university's main library uses Dewey. Dewey. I have not the words. Real libraries use Library of Congress. I was almost about to excuse them because they are British, and so was Dewey, and I think LC is American, but they use LC in their law library. My mother (who got her grad degree in library science) claims that Dewey is not actually that bad, but I beg to differ. If your library is of a worthwhile size, or in fact has more than about 3 books in it, Dewey is unwieldy and really less an organizational system and more a colossal pain in the ass. It just won't do. I cannot function if I have to use Dewey, and so clearly the only solution is to pack up Doheny Memorial Library, move it over there, and have it reassembled next to my dorm. The only redeeming feature of this new library (besides the fact that I am amused by how proud they are of their air conditioning) is that it has listed pages and pages of books on the Black Death that I have never seen before, and I have read all Doheny's Black Death books.

I suppose this won't turn out to be that big of a problem because I usually remember things by location, and not by code (in Doheny, for instance, the Black Death section is on the second level, two shelves over from the staircase, and near the bottom, and Jane Austen is about midway between the elevator and the back wall), so after the first few weeks I shouldn't have to put up with the codes at all, but still. I am way too much of a snot to let this go quietly, particularly since I can bring over about four of my own books and will have to get the 10 or so I require to function every week from the library.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with anything, but the rampant use of my middle name is starting to creep me out a little. USC used to just call me Antares A. Scorpius (you can feel free to believe that's my real name, if you like) but the British call me Antares Alpha Scorpius, or sometimes ANTARES ALPHA Scorpius, for extra emphasis. I normally try to pretend I don't have a middle name, so I find it unnerving. I wish they'd stop.

Some days, I wish I didn't live in the woods

It's laundry day, so I pulled everything off my bed and extracted the books, pillows, and stuffed animals from everything else so I could wash it. (Shut up about the stuffed animals. I so do not want to hear about it.) And I noticed that there was something white stuck to my comforter. A ball of lint? No. Oh no. It was an egg sack. A SPIDER'S EGG SACK. IN MY BED. I may never sleep again.

Thoughts from the past week

I envy my Divacup's sense of timing. It waits for me to leave the bathroom, walk down the hall, lie down, find my place in my book, and get about a page into it, and then it abruptly snaps open. I almost feel sorry for it - all that effort, and there's never anyone around to see the sudden look of horrified discomfort on my face.

I cannot take any more obnoxious, creepy people hitting on me. I really, really cannot. So if that obnoxious, creepy guy in my history class even looks at me again, I'm going to break his pointy little nose. This is all the warning he's getting. (And this is a reminder to myself - buy a fake wedding ring before leaving for England.)

Also, the people in my ceramics class need to leave me the hell alone. I have this one guy who's attached himself to me like a little floppy-haired emo leech and he asks me what he should do at every. stage. of. his. damn. projects. "What should I do?" "What color glaze should I use?" "Should I dip, or pour?" "Will my engobing show through the glaze?" Dude, you need to work on your ability to read body language, okay? And speaking through gritted teeth is not normally a sign of encouragement in my particular corner of reality. I don't know about yours.

Having icepicks shoved under my fingernails might be more excruciating than watching A Bit of Fry & Laurie with my mother, but at this point I'm really not sure.

I'd also like to add that my mother is being less than helpful about this whole England thing. This is an actual conversation I had with her on Saturday:

Mom: "I found the power adaptors for England! Shall I put them in your room for you?"
Me: "NO."

I mean, okay, yes, it was technically helpful, but I'd like to keep the freaking out to a minimum until at least September, and starting to pack things for me is less than helpful in that respect.

My parents agreed to take me to San Diego with them. I asked them to back in January. Then this grad school thing happened. Now, I'm not so sure I want to go, because apparently I'd rather sit at home by myself and have conniptions.

Also, today, immersed in my warm pink cloud of I Don't Give a Flying Fuck About Community College Anymore, I slept from 2 AM to 5 AM, and then wrote my ceramics paper two hours before it was due. Then I left class two hours early and decided it would be a great idea to lie down and read Barchester Towers. I lasted about two minutes and woke up four hours later with the spine printed down the side of my face. Trollope is not a good way to stay awake.