Life on the couch revisited

I haven't updated for a few days because I haven't actually been doing anything except sitting on the couch coughing my way through a mild cold and trying to get myself to work on all my overdue papers. Not terribly exciting, I'm afraid.

I did succeed in finishing two of them, which leaves one still overdue and another not due until early January. Unfortunately it's the overdue one that's holding me up. I'm flailing about it for reasons I can't quite pin down, but I think they have to do with wanting the paper to be amazing because it's for my favorite class. I'm intimidated, I suppose. Some part of my brain is telling me I'm not good enough to write this paper. It's lying, I know, but that doesn't stop me from listening.

Fortunately it's for Professor Awesome's class and he's being, well, awesome about it. I at least have a very general outline now, so maybe I can just start writing and worry about the quality once I've gotten past all that horrible white space.

Besides that I'm just waiting for (my one and only) payday so I have an excuse to leave the house for groceries. Depending on the size of the paycheck, I may check out the German Christmas Market (which I'm told is somewhere on Southbank), splurge on a cup of Glühwein, and maybe see The Hobbit. If, that is, I get that last overdue paper done. I'll consider it a reward.

Observation of the day: Even when it feels cold enough to snow here, it doesn't. Or at least it hasn't, yet. Today was all rainy though, which I still love.

ZOMG I'M LEAVING TOMORROW AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!

Here it is, folks. The countdown timer on my laptop is currently at 10 hours, 51 minutes until departure at 9:00am tomorrow.

In my last post I talked about goodbyes. I've said most of them at this point and the odd thing is that I've been generally pretty unemotional about them. Not that they don't suck, it's just... I think I'm a bit numb right now. Even though I'm leaving tomorrow, even though I wasn't at Fest today, even though my entire life now consists of three bags and two cat kennels, it doesn't feel real somehow. It feels like I'll be seeing everyone next week or next month. It feels like I'll be sitting on this couch again next month. That I'll be going back to work on Monday. That nothing's changed. To be honest, I don't know when it'll truly hit me; maybe not until I wake up in my London bed for the first time with my cats piled on top of me.

Meanwhile, it's been a hell of a week.

This was the final week of preparation, most of it involving hoop-jumping for the cats' travel and packing/purging/moving of stuff. Not to mention some final socializing. What has amazed me the most about it all is probably the fact that I actually got everything done on time. Today I did little more than stay out of the way as roomie's new roomie moved in. It was kind of nice considering how exhausted I am from everything this week, both physically and emotionally.

Mom's decided to accompany me on the drive to Denver, which rocks for both of us. Meanwhile I'm just here on the couch with nervous kitties all around me, ready to pass out for the night.

I may post from Denver tomorrow night if a)anything interesting happens on the way and b)I'm not totally bushed from the drive. If not, next post will likely involve a lot of incoherent squeeing from London. Wish me luck!

Life on the Couch: Life? What life?

There's been a distinct lack of free time in my life lately, and most of that free time is taken up with laying on the couch and watching television in an attempt to use my brain as little as possible (a difficult thing now that I'm taking several media courses that are teaching me how to be a more active viewer... le sigh).

One of the reasons I have no free time is that I'm a Festie. This means that for seven weeks I spend my entire weekend at the Renaissance Festival. I used to be a season pass-holder, but for the past few years I've actually been working out there. My job is a mix of hawking and heckling for the giant chess board. Once in a while I have to actually play, which is usually a disaster to my ego because I'm lousy at chess. Fortunately it's great for whatever patron I end up playing against. Customer satisfaction FTW!

When I'm not at Fest I'm either doing homework, in class, on my way to class, or on my way home from class. (The public transportion system in Minneapolis... well, let's just say it's not the most efficient of the mass transit systems I've used.) Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every second of it. Well... ok, maybe not every second, but it's a million miles more awesome than getting up to go to a boring job in a cubicle every day.

The class that makes my little geek heart pitter-pat the hardest is definitely Intro to Film Studies (not exactly surprising, that). At the behest of my advisor, I will probably be focusing more on the literary/English/writing side of my interests next semester, but I honestly can't imagine it being a better fit than film study. I'm still on the fence about my major, but there's a distinct lean happening already.

Once the Renaissance Festival ends, I'm planning to up my blogging... if only to keep a better record of what's going on in my life/head/heart/etc as I go through this crazy rewind-to-eighteen-and-go-to-university experience. I don't want any of this to just fade away.

Life on the Couch: A whole new couch

There's been some big changes in my life recently, which is part of the reason I disappeared from blogging for a while there. The changes are all for the good, but no matter how awesome change is it takes some getting used to. (Translation: change=hard, depressing, and very very scary.)

One thing that happened, less than a week after returning home from a trip to Europe, was that I moved. I am no longer in the dungeon, folks, but in the upper apartment of a lovely old house in south Minneapolis. I have a new roommate and now live with five cats (including my two). We refer to the apartment as the Treehouse. Each room is a different color and it's all very cozy and Bohemian. Possibly the best part of all is that my wretched futon went into the dumpster, and I have a whole new (to me) couch to blog from:


Complete with cat.

Adjusting to living with a new person is always a bit of a challenge, but with only a month behind us we seem to be doing pretty well at it.

The other, less fortunate change is that I've been spending a LOT of time on the aforementioned couch in the past few weeks, because I'm an employee of the State of Minnesota. In case you've missed the news (or don't live in Minnesota), that means I've been laid off since July 1 due to a government shutdown. Which is not my fault at all, but nonetheless brought on a wave of guilt and despair the likes of which I haven't experienced in a long time. Fortunately the shutdown is apparently ending some time next week, so I can go back to work and stop feeling like a useless git.

For about six weeks. Then I quit my job and start college.

A prospect that fills me with a mixture of joy and excitement and anticipation and absolute terror.

I've been to college before, but now I'm going to a Proper University. The majority of my classmates will be fresh out of high school, and I'll be a 33-year-old single woman. I'm going to have to dye my hair blue pretty quickly to keep up. Wait, is dying your blue what the cool kids do these days? Maybe I should do purple instead.

There's also the math placement test I took earlier today... it turns out that the class I took in technical college, seven years ago? Didn't stick. I stared at the questions, sure that I had learned all this at some point. Numbers and fractions and graphs and trains 738 miles apart floated dreamily in front of my eyes as I struggled to remember what a logarithm was and how one went about finding it. Each question had "I don't know" as an answer option, and I picked it for almost every question. In the end, I got 3 correct out of 41.

3.

Out of 41.

It's a good thing I'm majoring in English.

Life on the Couch: So, this thing happened yesterday...

...and I've had no idea how I'm supposed to feel about it.

I watched along with millions of people around the world as my President announced that the American military, on his command, had killed a man who had spent the last decade being a modern-day boogeyman... and I was frightened. I listened to reporters and correspondents discuss the end of the war on terror... and I was skeptical. I watched footage of a crowd outside the White House singing and chanting and celebrating this boogeyman's death... and I was disturbed. I read statements from my own friends who were fiercely joyful at the news that a man had been killed... and I worried. I heard congratulations being offered by people I admired to other people I admired... and I squirmed.

I also wondered... why he was killed. Why he wasn't captured, and tried. I wondered what happened in that mansion in Pakistan that led to more death.

I've been thinking about 9/11 today, remembering the horror and the devastation and the fear and the mourning. I've tried to make those feelings fit with the feelings I've had about the death of Osama Bin Laden. I can't make them fit. I think about all the people who lost someone they loved as the result of orders and plans made by the man who was killed on the orders and plans of the American military and Barack Obama. I don't want to begrudge these victims the feeling of closure this might give them, the small amount of peace they may get from knowing this man is dead.

But it feels so wrong.

Here's what doesn't make sense. In his address to the nation (to the world), Obama said that justice had been served with the death of Bin Laden. But what happened last night wasn't justice. It was vengeance.

Justice would have been his capture and trail... even if the end result was the same. I am not a military strategist, or a politician, or an expert on foreign policy. I'm not a Democrat or a Republican, an atheist or a believer. There are a lot of situations where I don't like to take a stand one way or the other because I just don't know enough about it to do so. But sometimes I have to trust my gut. And my gut is telling me that it's not right to celebrate Osama Bin Laden's death. I could ramble on and on about why, but Martin Luther King Jr. said it better than I ever could:

“I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

Thanks to all the people who posted this on their Twitter feeds or Facebook statuses, and helped me to understand why I cannot celebrate alongside so many people that I love and respect.

Life on the Couch: A bit of housekeeping.

In the interest of not being ridiculously off the mark with the “Geek Thursdays” and “Life Sundays” posts, I've decided to rename them “Geek Weekly” and “Life on the Couch.” I'm still going to attempt to do the geek posts on Thursdays and the life posts on Sundays, but at least this gives me some leeway. Just don't be surprised if there are double Sunday posts every week.

It might have been a bit much to expect myself to keep up with a rather rigorous twice-weekly posting schedule, since I'm not good with deadlines. I thought it would be useful practice for regular writing once I start school, and also to help me get some structure that I can apply towards keeping up with homework. I think it will help, too. I'm inclined to be disappointed with myself for not successfully posting on schedule... but I think it's more helpful to be impressed that I've kept up regular posting for this long, and still going strong.

Life on the Couch: Creative constipation.

I think there’s little in the world as frustrating to me as wanting to create and being unable.

I’m in one of those horrid blank spots right now, the place where I have all these half-formed ideas swirling around in the strange ether of my brain. Ideas that mock and tease and flit away the moment I try to reach out and grab hold.

I’ve always written, ever since I was old enough to string together sentences. Stories, tales of my life, essays, journals, even the odd poem or song. I’m lucky I’ve always enjoyed writing, because it was the only form of creative outlet I had for most of my life. About four years ago I also discovered that I have some talent for vidding (if you don’t know what that is, go here and click play on pretty much anything, you'll get the idea), which gave me a whole new and fabulous way to express myself. I've even dabbled in graphic art in the form of icons and banners for various online communities.

In the past year or so I've been writing a lot, most of it in the form of fan-fiction for "Alles Was Zählt," the German soap opera I blabbed about in a previous post. It's been exhilarating, getting to flex that muscle again after not writing much in the past three years. Maybe it was getting feedback from my beta writer and the others in the fandom who read my stories, or maybe it was just getting a chance to let my imagination out of my head, but it was the kind of writing that seemed to happen without any effort on my part. The best kind of writing.

I've done very little vidding in the last 18 months or so, and none at all lately. I don’t know if it was related to the increase in writing, or if I simply reached some sort of (hopefully temporary) plateau with the vidding. All I know is that line of expression seems to have been cut off. The graphic design thing never really took off, and I've done none at all in the past few months. The worst part is that whatever momentum I'd built up in terms of writing seems to have come to a crashing halt since the new year. Now all I can do is stare at all the half-finished fics and just shake my head.

I got nothin'.

This constipation of the brain has even overtaken my blogging, which is evidenced by the fact that I can't get a post up on time anymore. This one was originally meant to be about my trip to Europe in May, but all I could come up with was "I'm going to Europe in May. Woo."

I don't know the cause of this particular blockage, but I can only hope it's temporary. I'm in desperate need of some inspiration to get me through. Right now all I can do is shake and tremble at the idea of starting school in the Fall and being completely unable to write anything.

Hopefully plugging away at the blog will help by forcing me to keep flexing the muscle. I'll keep trying to post on time, but I imagine Life Sundays will soon permanently morph into Life Wednesdays while Geek Thursdays become Geek Saturdays. Eventually it'll probably come back around to where it's supposed to be though. I'm cool like that.

Life on the Couch: I'm a whiny beeyotch when I'm sick.

Both of my roommates and a number of my coworkers have come down with some sort of plague, and now it's my turn. I've been hacking and sniffling and weak since Saturday. I'm taking a sick day from work today even though I don't have any sick time left. I'm burning a vacation day to sit at home on the couch and make noises like a dying giraffe.

I also don't have Kleenex or any sick supplies because I so rarely get sick that I don't tend to keep them around the house and I'm too tired to go out and get some. One of the many disadvantages of being single.

I was going to post something awesome and insightful yesterday (as usual), but my poor weak hands could barely reach the keyboard. Woe!

Ok, that was an exaggeration. Still, I was feeling tired and complainey and not very motivated, so this week all you get is a lot of whining and also if anyone would like to bring me some Doritos and Kleenex, I'd be ever-so grateful.

UPDATED - Life on the Couch: A walk.

This post deals with self-injury. If hearing about this is a trigger for you, please don't read it.

I took a walk today.

This is not something I do often (like, once-a-year not often). The local winters aren't very walk-friendly, but more than that I can find the simplest things very overwhelming (see my adventures in cooking for evidence of that). I also have an 8:00-4:30 job that is bloated by a 45-minute commute. Worst of all, I rarely feel like I have the energy to do more than slog through my day.

Some of that will be changing in the near future... the work day with the awful commute is coming to an end in just under five months, and I'm working on coping mechanisms to get me through the simple tasks and activities (like walks and grocery shopping) that seem so impossible to me. I'm trying to eat better and get a little exercise so that I'll have more energy. Best of all, I'm setting off on an exciting journey, going to college to explore where my talents truly lie and to wander the bright and shining path of my life.

I also have an incredible summer to look forward to, starting with an amazing trip overseas, followed by moving out of the basement and into a lovely duplex (a move that is long overdue), a visit from a dear friend, the start of the Renaissance Festival (something I look forward to every year), and finally the end of my job and the beginning of my new life.

There's a lot of darkness before the dawn, though.

I've been spending a lot of time the past few weeks smiling harder and harder as I become more and more desperate. Time seems to be slowing down and the light at the end of the tunnel never gets any closer. Each day at my job has become agony, every small annoyance blown to epic proportions. I come home and lay on the couch and try to block out the room around me. I've been smoking more and drinking more and eating more and doing less and less. I'm holding on by my fingernails, white-knuckling my way through the next two months until everything starts.

And I beat myself up for it everyday. What right do you have to be miserable when you have so much awesome in your future? How dare you whine about having to wait, when the time is going to be gone before you know it? Meanwhile, I'm being crushed under the weight of anticipation.

Friday night, everything went CRACK.

The night was going fine. I started drinking, and was having fun. Then, before I even knew what I was doing, I was cutting. It may have been more gradual than that, but in my memory it seemed to just... happen. When it was over, I was overwhelmed with shame and horror and no small amount of bewilderment. Soon enough, I was berating myself for doing it again when I was supposed to be getting better now.

I got some sleep, sobered up, and hid behind my hangover. I napped, I showered (ouch!), I spent a few hours at my second job. I thought about what I'd done to myself, and why.

Today, I decided to take a walk. To get out of the basement and let myself be in my own head for a while, away from the darkness, out in the light. It was one of those great spring days, about 55 degrees, a little breezy, cloudy. I walked on the wonderful trail through town, looking at the buds on trees, the kind that promise leaves at any moment. I saw a cardinal, and my first robin of the season. I let myself breathe for the first time in weeks.

I knew then that I need to stop ignoring the impatience and punishing myself for it. I have to let myself feel it, and give myself a damn break already. I think I've found a better way to deal with it; instead of pushing it down, I can find those moments that make now enjoyable. Small moments, little things. I can't make time speed up, no matter how hard I try, but I can let myself live in and enjoy the present instead of obsessing about the future.

I think I'll start by taking lots of walks.

UPDATE: I was terrified to post this because some people are going to read it and be all, "Uh. Ok. Back away slowly." Other people are going to think it's a pathetic cry for attention or sympathy. I just needed to be clear that it's not my intention to elicit either of these reactions. The reason I posted this in a public forum instead of on a personal locked journal is because I think it's important to talk about it. To show that people are dealing with these issues, and that doesn't make them a bad person. I don't want to hide this part of me, because it IS a part of me, a BIG part of me, and hiding it only makes it worse. In a way it's like the bullying thing... the way to fix it isn't to stay quiet or hide it away as some deep dark secret. It's to talk about it and bring it out in the open and make sure people know that it's ok to get help.

And believe me, I am getting help. I'm seeing a therapist and am a lot better in a lot of ways. Obviously I do backslide sometimes, and this post is here to show what it's like when that happens. It doesn't mean I'm suicidal or having a breakdown. It means that I'm a human being dealing with some difficult things. Things that do not need to be a shameful secret.

Life on the Couch: Adventures in cooking.

I've been doing this menu planning thing for a few weeks now, and have been actually cooking food rather than just taking it out of the freezer and putting it in the microwave. There's been some frustration and a lot of angsting, but I'd like to share some of my excitement with you instead.

Like stir fry. Why did no one ever tell me about stir fry? It's so easy! The way I make it, anyway. Bag of frozen veggies, packet of pre-cooked chicken cubes, can of water chestnuts, bottle of stir fry sauce. Then you just put it on heat and stir it around. WHAT IS THIS MADNESS? Needless to say, I'm exploring the world of stir fry with a nearly ridiculous amount of enthusiasm.

I also made my first-ever chicken dinner. It was a simple rice bake, but it involved actual uncooked chicken that I had to make so that it didn't give me Salmonella poisoning. (Here's the thing... I have this weird, nearly pathological fear of cooking chicken. I have no idea why. I've never had a traumatic experience with undercooked chicken, I don't know anyone who's died from poor chicken preparation. I just feel like it's the pinnacle of how I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to cooking. So the chicken bake was kind of a big deal for me.)

I even have a go-to recipe that I call Baked Ziti (even though I make it with penne). It's possibly the most simple recipe in the history of ever, requiring only boiling the penne, dumping it into a pan, adding a bottle of Prego and half a bag of shredded mozzarella and mixing, then sprinkling it with the remaining half of the bag of cheese. Then bake it for a while and I've got five meals. FIVE. Awesome!

I've got some more adventures in my near future, including fish – FISH! - and from-scratch veggie burgers. I'm also glad to report that I've successfully navigated the grocery store a couple of times now, with almost no blank staring or aimless wandering or panicked beelining.

That sound you hear is me patting my own back. Damn right.

Life on the Couch: Acting class as therapy.

I started taking improv classes a few months ago. As you can imagine, it's been quite an interesting adventure. I frequently refer to them as my learn-to-be-funny classes, although it's turned out to to be a lot more about discovering my fears and boundaries.

Performing isn't really a big fear for me... I have enough of the only child LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME mentality not to be afraid of standing in front of people. However, I developed an instinctive fear of being viewed negatively when I was one of those bullied kids in school. I will usually avoid doing anything that makes me look stupid, both consciously and unconsciously. Little insiders tip about performing comedy: it doesn't really work if you're not willing to look stupid.

I'm next in line to create a scene. I must start as an animal and then become a human with the characteristics of the creature. I'm given “panther” as the cue, and must begin. I find myself crawling along the floor, doing my best stalk, slowly rising to my feet with as much grace as my 220 lb, 5'7” body can muster. I feel embarrassed by the difficulty I have. I'm glad when the exercise is over, sure that I've disgusted my fellow students. The one who suggested my animal persona (who is himself a reasonably attractive straight male), tells me that my performance was his favorite of the night. I don't know what to think.

On a similar vein, these classes bring up a lot of my body issues. I'm not comfortable with my body, and when I'm asked to crawl, or roll around, or bounce, I get really weirded out and have a hard time doing it. I am also discovering just how genuinely bothered I am by people touching me or being asked to touch other people. Just having people invade my bubble without touch makes me incredibly freaked out, and I find myself backing away from them. I'm curious to find out if this is the result of sexual abuse, or simply because my family was never very huggy. It's also something I'd really like to change about myself... I don't want to be scared to touch and be touched.

I try to do the “straight man” to my acting partner's silliness. The teacher stops me and asks me to imitate my partner's goofy behavior instead. I do, trying really hard to just be in this character instead of worrying about how I look. My acting partner lays on the ground and invites me to join him. I insist I don't lay on the ground. “Yes you do!” cries my teacher, and I force myself to at least sit on the ground next to him. He's scared me with the invitation to lay with him, is the thing. On the surface I know I'm safe... I'm in a room full of people, my scene partner is not some crazed sexual predator... but the defenses have come up, covering me in a layer of razor-sharp spines. The scene continues as he keeps pushing my boundaries, playing with my hair, touching my arms... I'm grateful to him, for understanding that I need to be pushed, but not pushing so hard that I can't take it.

Another issue that's coming up is how little I trust myself. I've been having a really hard time pushing myself to spit out those ideas that float into my head during improvisational exercises. Needless to say, if you can't trust yourself, you're not going to do well in improv. It also ties into that desperate need not to look like an idiot, because the nature of improv is that you sometimes fail. Sometimes what you say doesn't work and you just have to find your way back to the funny. A lot of that comes from practice, but there's also an element of knowing that you're good and will eventually make it right. It's something I don't have, but I want. I want to learn how to trust myself.

We stand in a circle, doing two-line scenes, jumping out with no forethought and shouting a line that someone else must jump out and respond to. We are nine weeks in, and I still haven't been able to be the first to jump out. Whatever I say will be too lame, too pointless. It doesn't matter that half the other lines the other students are coming up with are lame and that is the whole point of the exercise.

These classes are not all terror and sweaty palms. I laugh through most of the night, I enjoy watching my fellow students take risks and I learn so much every night. I don't know if improv is an art I'll ever excel at, but I can sense how incredibly good it is for me.

Life on the Couch: Work is hard.

This is going to be a short-ish one, 'cause I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with the plague which makes me cranky and unmotivated. Unlike how I usually am.

I've worked a myriad of customer service and retail jobs. I don't tend to stay at them very long, because I seriously suck at customer service. The problem is that I really don't care. I'm terrible at upselling, because what's it to me if the large corporation emblazoned across my chest (or worse, stitched on the breast of my company polo shirt GAH) makes an additional four dollars? I also have this utterly irrational idea that the customer should already know about the place they're in and what it sells or what the program does, which makes them a lazy, ignorant idiot for asking me about it. Doesn't take long for me to succumb to the seething rage.

As a customer, if I ever had to ask myself for assistance, I would think I was the rudest, most disgruntled employee ever.

Of the thirty-odd jobs I've had in my life, almost all of them have been retail or customer service of some sort. And for those of you who just gasped, “THIRTY???” I offer you a list (from memory, so probably not complete):

Paper delivery
Grocery cashier at a small-town store
Pizza-maker/delivery
Telemarketer
Grocery cashier at a warehouse grocer
Taco shop clerk
Pizza-maker/delivery
Temp
Toy store clerk
Reception/admin at a job placement company
Book store clerk
Reception/admin at a computer training company
Video store clerk
Music/video store clerk
Lingerie store clerk
Temp
Admin at a federal office
Lotion store clerk
Temp
Admin at a mental health facility
Temp
Dispatcher for a cab company
Admin for a technology firm
Rental video store clerk
Box office staff at a children's theater
Sign language interpreter at a high school
Large media/electronics store clerk
Group home attendant
Sign language interpreter at an elementary school
Admin at a state agency

I'm quite excited to start my next job: professional student. Not much customer service involved in that one.

I don't even think this post made sense. I blame the plague.

Life on the Couch: The terror of grocery shopping.

One of the aspects of my particular brand of anxiety is the conviction that I don't know how to do certain things unless given explicit instructions. One of the Great Mystery Skills I'm positive I don't have is cooking. And mixed up with this lack of cooking confidence is the terror of grocery shopping.

Not that I break into a cold sweat whenever I walk into my local Cub Foods... what happens instead is a sort of mental block as I wander through the aisles. I stare at all the food, all the varieties and brands and options, and I have absolutely no idea what to buy.

A typical shopping trip takes around twenty minutes. I don't even bother trying to make sense of what I'm looking at; I just zero in on the familiar stuff and load up my cart. I wander straight past the produce and meat aisles without a second glance and stock up on frozen dinners and Doritos, Pizza Rolls and lunch meat.

Then there are times when I'm motivated to eat healthier, to consume fresh vegetables and meals I can't microwave; when I decide I'm going to try buying Real Food. This is when the trips are much longer, becoming a two-hour odyssey. Instead of angling straight for the freezer section, I push my cart resolutely up and down every aisle. I stare at all the items I normally pass by and I wonder how I can take these things and make them into the kind of meals that average people make every day.

At the end of the two hours, my cart is always filled with frozen dinners, and lunch meat, and Pizza Rolls, and maybe a bag of baby carrots. I'm exhausted and dejected and can only hope I've managed to put together enough meals to last me to my next paycheck.

So! I've decided to try something new. Something so radical and innovative that it may just shock me into shopping like a proper grown up: I'm going to try meal planning.

I made my first weekly meal plan today. It took me three hours. I'll be putting together a shopping list once I've gone through the cupboards in search of any supplies I already have. I think the way for me to keep from being completely overwhelmed when I enter the grocery store is to have a plan, and a list. If I can do it that way for a while, maybe I can start looking at those rows and rows of food and start getting ideas instead of just... well, staring at them.

Baby steps. Or, you know, baby carrots.

There is one more hurdle I'll have to overcome to make this work, which is actually using the food I get by cooking. I made a point to find recipes that are simple enough for a seven-year-old to manage on their own... so I'm hopeful. And if I don't do it exactly right, it'll be ok. It'll have to be.

Let the grocery shopping commence!

I plan to post an update on this in the near future. If I don't, please do get on me to do so.

Life on the Couch: So, this is really happening.

I just got a letter from the University of Minnesota. I've been accepted to their School of Liberal Arts.

I've been in a state of high-tension anxiety since I submitted my application about three weeks ago. (Yes, I know. Poor me. Three whole weeks. THREE TERRIFYING, ULCER-INDUCING WEEKS.) As a “non-traditional” student (older, already holding an Associate's degree) I was relatively confident I would be accepted... except when I wasn't confident, which was pretty much all the time. I mean, honestly. What was I thinking, applying to a Real University? Obviously I'm just some idiot trying to pretend I'm world-wise and intellectual and will fit in with all the young, artistic types who will doubtless be filling the classes I'll be in. I went from desperately hoping for an acceptance letter to wishing I could take the application back to being completely convinced there was no way I would get in. Approximately six times a minute.

Now that I've hoodwinked them- er, I mean, I'm in and the self-confidence flail is done (related to acceptance in the program anyway), I can start to focus on exactly what the hell I've gotten myself into. Which boils down to: quitting my job and going to University full-time at the age of thirty-three.

YIKES.

Also?

OMG SO EXCITING.

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I was getting my Associate's degree (in Sign Language Interpreting) was being in way too much of a hurry. I didn't really care about what I was learning or experiencing; I only cared about getting that paper in my hands as quickly as possible, so I could start working. I firmly affixed my blinders about the reality of the field, and never really found my love of the work. I never excelled, and although I spent a couple of years working in the field, I never succeeded. I did the minimum I had to do to get by, and in the end it wasn't enough.

It's something I've beat myself up over a lot in the past year or so. It took a long time for me to come to terms with the reality of the situation: that interpreting is not for me.

It took even longer to realize that what I should be doing is what I've always wanted to do: to write, to act, to create, to dream.

I turned cynical at a very young age, for a variety of reasons. I gave up on being a writer or an actor or an artist by the time I graduated from high school. Even then, I was already looking for that elusive thing that I could do whether I really loved it or not, with the goal of supporting myself in a hard, cruel world. So I tossed my dreams aside and spent the next ten years bouncing from place to place, from job to job, finding things that captured my fancy for a while but never anything that was really true. And all along I knew that art and expression were what really turned me on... but I was convinced that it was simply not realistic to attempt such flighty pursuits. Not when there were bills to be paid.

I still have bills and obligations and the realistic fear that I won't be able to support myself. Or that I'll try this and I'll still end up working as an office assistant somewhere. The thing is, somewhere along the way everything changed. I realized that the only thing standing in my way is these fears. And the thing is, I can't let that stop me anymore. Scary as it may be, I have to take a leap. I have to follow my dreams and see where they take me. I think I'm finally ready to do that.

I'm about to start a great adventure...

Life on the Couch: Valentine's Day, single-girl style.

So, you ask, how should I, as a single person, spend this ridiculous day?

Enjoy the fact that you're unencumbered and have no one to impress. Don't shave. Leave the expensive perfume in the medicine cabinet. Wear sweats. Order a double-onion pizza, and follow it up with an entire bag of those delicious pink and white M&M's. Fart as loud as you can. (Just, you know, be careful... you don't want to gamble and lose.) Marathon your favorite bad show. Hog the remote. Cuddle your pets. Go out and see a movie by yourself. Indulge in some self-loving. Wallow in it.

In case you're wondering what I mean by that, it's exactly what you think. Knock one out. Have a wank. Masturbate. Watch your favorite porn, fire up your favorite battery-powered toy, or just light some candles and run a bath. However you enjoy it most, do it. I bet you'll have a better orgasm than most of the couples out there. 'Cause you have nothing to prove to anyone.

Whatever you do, don't be hard on yourself. Don't feel bad because you're single.

If I sound cynical, it's because I am. Valentine's Day is unfair. It's an insidious thing, and you shouldn't let it get you down just because you don't have a significant other. You're not worth any less because you're not half of a pair. You're a whole, beautiful person all on your own. The gross truth about Valentine's Day is that it is a celebration in exclusion, an arbitrary day on the calendar that gives the false impression that you're more important if you're coupled off. After all, you don't see any days devoted to celebrating single people.

Just as bad, it puts pointless pressure on couples to prove their worth as a pair by having them exchange flowers and candy hearts. Even on those rare occasions when I have been part of a couple on Valentine's Day, it felt totally false and forced. The little gestures people feel they have to make on this one specific day would have so much more meaning if they were spontaneous, driven by love rather than obligation.

Celebrate the day however you like. I'm going to spend it being proud that I can exist as a singular entity, that I don't need another person to complete me. Mostly, I'm not going to do anything at all.

Life on the Couch: Anxiety? *twitch* Who, me?

I've had problems all my life. Welcome to the club, right?

Hold on. I'm going to stop myself for a minute. Because that thing I just did, where I tried to play off like my problems are somehow less important than other people's? Is so unfair. I have issues, they're painful and difficult, and that's valid. Dammit.

Ok, I'm done talking myself out of downplaying my issues. For the moment.

To give you a very truncated history, I was born to an unmarried mother who was about as good with money as I am. When I was three years old I was molested by a neighbor. I don't know how long it went on (I don't actually remember it at all, which is probably a blessing). As I grew up I was ostracized by my peers, first for being the only kid without a dad, then for being the new kid at school when we moved, then for not having designer clothes, and for being overweight, and for being awkward, and for having bad hair... you get the idea. By junior high I had started entertaining thoughts of suicide, and had I known what goth was (or had emo even existed), I would have been one. I went to prom during both my junior and senior years, although my date was platonic in both cases. I switched schools between my sophomore and junior years, and succeeded in leaving my old self behind just enough to make some friends and finish high school.

It's been almost fifteen years since I graduated high school, and I've continued to struggle with my various issues all along. I've seen therapists off and on throughout, with diagnoses from depression to ADD to bi-polar disorder. It wasn't until I started seeing my current therapist that the anxiety diagnosis came up. And finally it all started to make sense.

My particular brand of anxiety works mostly through denial. When a problem becomes too overwhelming, I set it aside and forget about it. When something becomes too painful or scary, I push it down and refuse to deal with it. If something disrupts my calm, I bury my head in the sand and ignore it and hope it goes away. I hide, or I pretend it's not so bad, and when it all catches up to me I get depressed and start wondering why I bother at all.

Another aspect of my anxiety (or perhaps it's connected more to my absolute lack of self-confidence) is the belief that I don't know how to do things and someone needs to teach me how. Simple things like cooking, and exercising, and finances. I'm positive that I can't do these things right, and that to even try is pointless. So I eat microwavable food and live on my couch and quail helplessly when I can't pay my bills. Or I research how to do these things, but can only find instructions that seem far too complicated to me.

Learning to trust myself is one of my greatest challenges. It's getting better, now that I know what the problem really is. But it's a daily battle, one that I still lose more often than win. But it's not all loss now, and that's heartening.

So why am I sharing this on my public blog? Because I've seen other people share their stories, and been inspired to work harder to get better. Maybe telling my story will help me too, and even help someone else. Or maybe I can find a support system somewhere in this wide world. Or maybe it will just exist as a record for me, to look back on years from now, when I'm better. To remember how far I've come. Because I do believe I'll get better. Somehow. Someday.

Life on the Couch: I am a basement dweller.

Somehow, I always end up living in the basement.

It all started when I finally left my mother's house at the age of twenty.

Yes, I know. Let's just move on, shall we?

I ended up in the basement of a friend's parents' house for nearly a year. There were things stored in my bedroom that weren't mine, and large horrible unnamed creatures which would occasionally perch on the wall above my bed and stare at me with all their legs until I was forced to sleep in my papasan. Needless to say, it was a relief to get out of there and into my own apartment.

Some years later there was my aunt's basement. Once again I was forced to live with some of my host's things, as well as the constant threat of the unthinkably-legged creatures lurking over my head as I slept.

More time has passed, and now I'm back in the basement. This one is in a townhouse that I'm sharing with two roommates (a married couple) and our combined four cats. The walls are industrial white brick, the floors are concrete, and there are tangles of cords and pipes between the beams of the ceiling. A thin false wall with an open doorway is the only thing separating me from the furnace, air conditioner, water softener, and washer/dryer. The ceiling squeaks and thuds noisily as my roommates move about the upper level, and I can hear the kids playing and listening to music in the adjoining townhouse like they're in the room with me. It's always ten degrees colder than the rest of the house and my space heater is my best friend.

I spend most of my time here on a futon that it quite literally falling apart. It's sagged down to nearly to the floor and is missing several of the support rods, creating holes into which the cushion is slowly disappearing. It's the saddest excuse for a couch I've ever seen. I daydream about vegging out on a real couch with cushions and springs and arms. One that I don't have to flail and heave my way off of. Someday...

So, are you feeling sorry for me yet? You shouldn't. Every time I face the possibility of living in a basement, I make the choice for some reason or another to do so. (Ok, yes, the reason has pretty consistently been a money thing.) I always end up staying longer than I intended, and by the time I finally do get out of the basement, I can't wait to go. It's always my choice to be here and I accept that.

It won't stop me from whining about it though.

It's really not a terrible place to be, but I do long for the day when I can watch rain or snow fall outside the windows, and when I don't have to cast uneasy glances at the spiderwebs on the ceiling to check for eight-legged interlopers. I can't wait to live above-ground again. With any luck, in six months or so, that's exactly where I'll be.

Until then, I am a basement dweller.

An introduction.

So. Tell me a little about yourself.

You've had a job interview, right? So you've probably heard that before. Every time I hear it (because yes, I've had more than a few interviews in my life), my brain just sort of shuts down. If I can bumble my way through the response, I consider the interview a success. It doesn't matter if I get the job or not.

Now here I am, putting myself out there on the intarwebz, and I'm facing that damn question again. But if you really feel compelled to get the answer, click the “About Melanie” link to your left. No really, I think the description I wrote is kind of cute. Go ahead, I'll wait.

There's a rerun of The Real Housewives of Atlanta on, I can keep myself busy.

Done? It was brief, I know. But it kind of sums me up. I like nerdy things like the Star Wars movies, the Harry Potter books, and various cult British shows. I get a lot of joy out of what I like to call Gay Entertainment, which can range from all things Bravo TV to German soap operas with a gay storyline to anything starring John Barrowman. My favorite movie experience is one that scares me so silly I can't even really watch it the first time because I'm too busy hiding behind my scarf. I make fanvids and write fanfiction and have experienced the good and the bad of fandom. I am a geek.

I also deal with anxiety, depression, and a number of other Issues. I like to say that I have so many Issues that my Issues have issues. Which is nothing unusual in today's world, or so I like to think. Those will come up here too, but I hope to handle them with humor instead of making this a wailing wall.

And! I'm working on starting a new direction in my life. I'm working on my application for the University of Minnesota, and if I get accepted and can pull off the financial aid, I'm going to quit my full-time secretarial job and go back to school in pursuit of a degree in English and/or Film Studies/Acting. Which means I'm essentially giving up on the real world to jump back into following my dreams. Oh, did I also mention I turned 33 years old a month ago?

So now you know a few things about me. There's a lot more, don't worry. It will all come up in one way or another as I continue writing here.

I think my life is about to get pretty scary and exciting. I plan to post to this blog twice a week... Sundays will be about me, my life, my issues and my observations. Thursdays will be all things geek. And if I feel like throwing something out there in between, it's whatever I feel like. If you want to see what happens when a thirty-something single girl decides to start over, come back and see me. I'll be here.

Whew, I muddled through. Success!