I am declining to go to my lab tonight. I know I should go, need to go. And yet.

And yet, I am going to be bad instead.

Also, I'm feeling miserably stressed about school and work. Does anyone care to cheer me up?

I tried writing several succinct, bitingly witty anecdotes that sum up the frustrations of my day.

But the only thing I can really think of is how badly I want to put a blanket over my head and sleep for three days. Then wake up and strangle the world.

The world, baby.

I am sort of dying a little bit about the fact that the new Dark Tower comic book is coming out NEXT WEDNESDAY.

It's entirely new canon, taking off from Mejis and presumably, the boys taking Roland back to Gilead while he's glass-possessed. I'm not a huge fan of the art (mostly the inking, which is actually more like painting) but just the opportunity to have new canon picking up from a book that was written in 1997.

And I am absolutely not planning to go to the midnight release dressed like a gunslinger.

Well! Now that I have that off my chest.

Dear CAT Honors Participant:

Congratulations on the acceptance of your nomination to the Russell Sage College Creative Arts in Therapy Honors Weekend! We would like to thank you for joining us for the Honors Program and hope you will find the weekend at Russell Sage fun and challenging.

We have enclosed a tentative schedule for the event. All events are provided at no cost to you. As you can see, we will be expecting you between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. Friday evening, January 18th.

Enclosed you will find a copy of the schedule, campus map, parking pass, directions and list of hotels.

You will not need dance clothes but come comfortably attired for the workshop with one appropriate black outfit for the showcase performance on Sunday.

If you have any further questions about this event, please contact Professor Leigh Davies at 518-244-2437.

Again, congratulations on this honor! We look forward to seeing you on January 18th!

Sincerely,

Leigh Davies
Creative Arts in Therapy Department

So, after my meeting with the head of the CAT program at Russell Sage, Leigh Davies, I got a letter in the mail from her suggesting I nominate myself for this. Well, I did, and I got in. I'm so excited; it'll be a safe intro to the program so that I can check it out and also get a feel for the college and the kind of people who end up majoring in CAT. Russell Sage was one of the first liberal arts colleges in the northeast to offer a specific CAT program and it is one of the most respected in the country, and I *believe* the only CAT major at a women's college. I'm so excited, mostly for the opportunity to get my foot in the door there, and to meet other CAT students. :D

But Becky- I need a monologue!

I'm eating myself alive with stress- mostly self-imposed, in equal parts inevitable and completely unnecessary stress.

God, I desperately do not want this to affect my health but I know it is. I don't want my work to suffer, and if I let school slide, what has all this work been for? Meanwhile, I just want to sleep, and sleep hard.

Quite a lot of this is my own fault. I procrastinate, less now than I did in high school, but it still affects me. I still try to avoid my problems by not thinking about them until the last possible second so I don't freak out, but I'm not organized enough to do that successfully. I'm always juggling something, and I feel like right now, I'm bent over, picking everything up as half of it comes down on my head.

I'm giving everything in my life a much smaller percentage of attention than I need to be. I'm half-assing everything, and it's making me feel terrible.

And on top of that, I can't exorcise the bitter thoughts I keep having about how I would kill to just be able to go to school full-time.

My work resents me for the decrease in my performance and the stress I bring in with me, the advisors at school bring me to tears with their advice. "You're going to have to put work on the back burner and get serious about classes; you have to think of school as an investment." And this isn't even counseling based on my grades- I'm doing pretty good right now. This is just about my spring scheduling, and the fact that my complicated schedule obviously makes their job harder. They make me feel like I have no right to be here, and work gives me the same feeling.

I've never been a person with poor self-esteem, but lately, I've been feeling like something the cat dragged in. I can't stand the way I pick myself apart, I can't stand the way I scurry around everywhere terrified of being late or forgetting something, I can't stand anything about myself lately. I just feel like someone found the valve and let all of the confidence out of me and I can't even dream up a situation that I could do well in, that I could fit into and not just watch, frozen with anxiety, by the wayside.

Ganked from notwolf.

If the Sox win the World Series, I expect to see ALL OF THEM performing the Papelbon jig. Yes, even you, Curt.

MIZZA.

YOU ARE SO AWESOME AND THOUGHTFUL AND TWISTED.

Mostly awesome, but there's a healthy amount of twisted in there, too.

And of course you are super-thoughtful and sweet. Thank you, babe, and I'll see you sometime soon.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay, oh my gosh, we won the pennant and we're going to the World Series against the Rockies!

That was such a CRAZY stressful game...but thank GOD for Pedroia and Youkilis.

I can't believe this. I am SO happy.

Are you SERIOUS?

Well, THAT rocks.

Every single morning at about five o' clock I wake up.


The ruckus outside of our living room window defies belief.

There are about 400 crows that live in the trees on this street. MY street.

Crow adults and crow babies.

AND THEY ALL SCREAM FOR NO GOOD REASON. No, really. SCREAM.

I am a sound sleeper, I sleep like the dead, you cannot wake me with earthly force.

SO WHO SENT THESE CROWS AND HOW DO I GET RID OF THEM?

(but no seriously it's like The Birds and i can't sleep)

If it affects you at all, use this post as a place to squee, without ramifications or pessimism, about the possibility of the Sox recovering from this deficit ala 2004. Because I know I need a place to do it and I need some woobly companionship.

And Josh Beckett is my new favorite person ever.

7-1, baby!

So a fellow Snape geek on my friends page said that she went to a bar in Australia last night, and the bartender noticed her Hogwarts tee-shirt. He recommended that she try a Severus Snape shot, which is:

1 part Black Haus (blackberry schnapps)
2 parts Absolut Peppar

Served in a test tube.

Needless to say, this is awesome news. It is actually listed at Drinknation. Look it up in the search bar.

I've been meaning to pick up a bottle of Black Haus lately, too... I guess now I know why. :D

I really need some advice from people who have rented/are currently renting an apartment in the city. I just want to talk to some people who have been faced with the dreaded apartment search at one point in their lives. Steph and I will be moving next month, and we have a bunch of different prospects that all have very different pros and cons. I was wondering if there's anyone here who wouldn't mind giving me some advice, though I don't have any photos or anything for you to go on, and I realize most of you know nothing about the city in question. Anyway, whatever you can tell me would help a lot, even if it just makes me feel better to know someone else has had to pack and move in the hottest month for two years in a row.

( The Situation )

If you cannot identify the gaggle of charming superpeople (plus one super-Deinonychus) pictured above, then you need to get yourself to the closest bookstore and procure the first Runaways graphic novel. If you're going to a Borders or Barnes & Noble, you may have to have it ordered. Do it. Now, if you're going to a comic shop that happens to have the first few issues, cool, but I will hunt you down and harm you if you don't start at the beginning.

Just saying. You should do it. Then come thank me.

Oh, Happy Independence Day, everyone.

My apologies for the fact that I've haven't been around on LJ- usually, I'm at least lurking, but it's honestly been months since I had any concentrated time on the internet.

Quick update- things are good but fast. I recently applied for a unit supervisor position at my job, at my own supervisor's behest. I was excited at the idea of doing something different (the raise and how it would look on my resume were a thought, as well) but I wasn't really sure I wanted the responsibility of monitoring calls and giving talks about tardiness and productivity. The head honcho at S&S told me my letter of application was the best they'd recieved from any of the supervisors, which was cool. She also told me she didn't think I was ready, that I was too new within the company, but she did say I'm the sort of person they'll be looking at in 6 months. In the meantime, they offered me a promotion and a relocation to Trumbull! Trumbull is still working collections, but it's collecting on auto insurance claims, so there's no auto-dialer and it is way more laid-back than collecting for Verizon/Utilities. We have more info, more docs, and of course, the ability to suspend someone's license if they decide they don't feel like paying. I get a raise, it's a position that requires a good deal more brainpower than collecting on phone bills from 2001, and I get away from the psychotic greed and paranoia that runs rampant among collectors/supervisors in Utilities. I'm super exicted.

Today, I spent the day at the River St Festival in Troy and saw They Might Be Giants perform. There was confetti and "Dr. Worm" and "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and "Particle Man" and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "The Sun Is A Mass of Incandescent Gas". I sat next to a group of kids that knew all the words. It was awesome. Then I got french fries with malt vinegar, lots of salt, and ketchup, and walked home.

I'm signing up for classes at Hudson Valley Community College this fall. I just have to get my Financial Aid things in and I should be good to go. I'm looking at a Psych major with an Art minor. I was just looking around at colleges I might want to transfer to and lo and behold, Russell Sage, the college across the street from us, has a really strong program called Creative Arts in Therapy, which is exactly what I want to do but didn't realize it had its own program. :O Aside from being able to stand on my doorstep and spit on their campus, there are a lot of perks. It's a women's college right smack in the middle of my favorite city, but they have a coed campus in Albany so I can take classes closer to my job, as well. The campus is gorgeous and people in the area not only seem to have a great opinion of it, but most everyone I talk to about school assumes that I'm already planning on going there- which must mean I'll fit in okay. :)

Our garden is gorgeous and begging for a lawn party with drinks, dinner and dancing. Our rose bush has just started to bloom. :}

Nothing else, really. My list of happy things:

* There's this bar about a block down the street from us that we've started going to. It's called The Ruck and by all appearances, it's built out of an old stable. It has these great rough hewn beams with Christmas lights strung up, rugby trophys on the walls, and the "kitchen" (a college-aged girl operating a fryolator) strays open way past midnight. The music is usally pretty good and we're already regulars. Everything is cheap.

* Runaways. My new obsession. XD I can't even deal with how much I love this comic.

* My girlfriend is still the best.

* I get to see my dad tomorrow! And he's giving us a big TV!

* Troy is still the coolest city ever.

* I'm so badly addicted to "Cupid's Chokehold" by Gym Class Heroes and the dude from Fall Out Boy.

* ... and I am so excited to be going to school in the fall. Also, nervous as hell about what the schedule of full time school and work is going to do to me.

* NEW TOMB RAIDER GAME JUST CAME OUT. It is a remake of the first Tomb Raider and it is chock full of awesome. 'Course, when it comes to new TR, I'm not picky. I didn't even mind Chronicles that much.

* My hair keeps getting shorter.

* I really, really miss my friends. :C

<3
Linds

Now you guys go do it.

We were afraid to move here; I remember being terrified of the thought of living in Albany and commuting to HVCC, having to spend any time in what the Albanites know familiarly as "Troylet". Now I feel like we've found a place with everything we could possibly need, tucked into five or six streets by eight or nine blocks, packed with secrets like the glass floors & Tiffany windows in the library, the wrought iron gates & cobblestone streets by Washington Park, the Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings in the atrium, and all the little pubs and diners that line the streets. It has everything, and the best thing about it is that we discovered it, and gave it a chance despite all the nasty things we'd heard. Now, I think that maybe it is the small businesses and tenants of the brownstones on Second Street who perpetuate and support the myth of "Troylet"; it's a well-kept secret and a refreshing change from the "theme-park" feeling of Northampton. I've fallen in love with this place, I see beauty everywhere I look, and it feels nice to call it home.

We ought to have known the very first day we saw this apartment and were given the direction to follow 19th Street over the bridge. Honestly.

Off to Brown's for cider, music, and enjoying the company of my friends.