sad.

My brother is dying.

Okay, take that back: I wish my brother were dying.

I saw him yesterday. It broke my heart. The deal:

His broken hip means he will never be mobile again. Talk about serious drop in quality of life--not just for him, but for all of us who have to take care of him.

In addition, he now has pancreatitis. This is a chronic condition that may mean he will never be able to "eat" again--meaning through his gastric tube. He may need to stay perpetually on an IV.

Oh, and he probably had a stroke in the OR, and now he's crazy. I've never, ever seen him as broken as he is now. I just pray for him to die.

My mom came to me crying today. I told her she shouldn't cry because she is a good mom. And she returned: do good moms pray for their sons to die?

I didn't know what to say to that.

And it's 9/11. Our country is falling apart. I have a headache. Old friends don't talk to me anymore. It all just feels so.... lame.

Maybe I should start supporting Obamacare. Since it would directly lead to James's death, maybe it's the merciful option. Unfortunately, I guess other handicapped people would pay for it too...

figuring it all out.

Here is the deal.

I want a house.

Oh, I want a house very badly.

However, houses require money.

It's been interesting--over the past few months, I've made the subtle shift from the politics section of the bookstore to the business section. I've been reading up on everything. I think I could be a good entrepreneur, but I just don't know what to do with myself.

I have:
- my CD
- my calligraphy?
- my music/sightreading/piano/singing
- composition skills (music)
- writing skills, publication skills
- my knowledge of the environment, esp. DIRT (yay dirt)
- my...okay, knowledge of politics, current events, the Constitution
- my speed reading abilities

Hmm. Okay, that's all I can think of for now.

I'm working on writing a speed reading class. We'll see if it ever sells...

moving

Well, kids, we're moving. Moving back to Maryland where the grass is green and the tax rate has chased every millionaire out of the state. Exciting times. I've been packing all day. We'll be moving into my grandma's vacant house this coming week, and then moving back to MD around the 3rd of September.

FYI.

the creepiest thing. ever.

I've been meaning to blog this for over a week, but here goes.

My friends, sometimes creepy things happen. And I am about to tell you about one of those times.

Carl and I got back from MD about two full weeks ago. It was all jolly and good, of course, until we did the laundry.

Now, I will admit, I am a little obsessive compulsive about my laundry. Essentially EVERYTHING gets hung up on hangers and put in the closet, with the exception of, basically, socks. But, I can't just have my clothes on any old hanger: no, all hangers must be either plastic or crocheted over, because otherwise they leave those little hangermarks in the shoulders, you know? And those always make my heart frowny. :^[

So we were putting away the laundry, and I was hanging things up, and then, from out of my closet comes--



THE UGLIEST GREEN CROCHETED OVER HANGER IN THE WORLD!!!

At first I just furrowed my brow. "Carl, where did this come from?" I asked. I assumed it was a present or something. Sometimes people make those for me because they know of my OCD ways with that sort of thing.

Carl didn't know.

The hanger was old. It was looking a little raggedy, for sure. And so distinctive: bright green with a poufiness of random yarn coming off the intersection of all the wires. Kind of dirty. Obviously, this hanger had been places.

And Carl had never seen it before.

And neither had I.

And we'd just been out of town for a week.

When I was in Austria, I went to Girls' Camp with the stake there. I had my own personal translator and everything, LoL. But the girls tried to speak in English for me and the other internationals. And one night, they told this story that kept me awake at night for years, about a girl who didn't know that a cannibal was sleeping under her bed.

Luckily, we don't have a bedframe, so our mattress is right on the ground--crocheting cannibals was my first thought. I was glad to see that the culprit could not be sleeping under my bed.

The more I thought about this hanger, the more creeped out I became. It's not like you can exactly forget a hanger like that. I'm not sure it's even possible to forget a hanger like that, with its stringy, dirtied green yarn. Hiding in your closet, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

And here's the thing: I cleaned out every closet when we moved in, myself. It wasn't that long ago. And I'm obsessed with using the correct hangers for all my clothes. I KNOW I would have noticed something like that.

And yet, it was hiding out in my clothes like it had always been there.

True or false: there are only a few ways for certain items to end up in certain places. Yes, I suppose according to the Heisenberg Principle there is some sort of chance that the hanger randomly materialized in between my dress pants and my T-shirt collection. But I also suppose it's a little more likely that someone put that hanger there--which, in a decent world, only Carl or I would be putting hangers there. But if neither of us put that hanger there... then how did it get there??

Oh wow. Just writing about that hanger is creeping me out all over again.

If you have a theory about how the crap such a creepy hanger got to be in my closet, you can post it in the comments. Because seriously, I can only think of two options (materialization, and crocheting cannibals).

the power play.

Some really annoying things happened tonight.

Okay, scratch that.

Some effingly annoying things happened tonight.

Scratch that.

Things happened tonight that... man. It takes a whole lot for me to get angry about things. Angry with people. It really does. People that I know, anyway. I've had people curse me out, people yell at me about my beliefs, people send me nasty emails and letters--it usually just rolls right off.

But this was just obnoxious.

Beyond obnoxious. This was cruel, insensitive, and possibly slightly abusive. Passive-aggressive, asinine, and utterly moronic. Either this perpetrator was unknowingly that insensitive and ridiculous, or else they were intentionally that way. And either way, I'm pretty unhappy about it.

My family has talked me out of taking drastic action, so I'm limiting myself to an enigmatic blog entry. Just need to get it out of the system. Maybe just writing this makes me passive-aggressive. Who knows.

All I really know is, this was a power play. And we both lost.

So, take that. Take that. We both fought, we both bent, and in the end, we both broke. Asinine. Completely, completely asinine. And let's just see if I ever do that again.

I wish I had a cool conclusion to this dumb entry, but I don't. Suffice it to say, I really wish either my husband were here to calm me down, or I had some sort of punching bag.

In other news, during the less stupid part of my evening, I got three freaking giant bugbites. And now I smell like N,N-diethyl-meta-toluamide.

On the plus side, thanks to organic chemistry, at least I know what the smell molecules look like.

Conceptually.

vending machine emergencies

Haven't been on for a while. I've been busy.

Today I went to the vending machines and for the first time saw a sign that said in the case of vending machine emergencies outside of normal office hours, you should call campus police.

I didn't even know vending machine emergencies could exist.

You learn something new every day.

wha...?

I'm just sitting here minding my own business.

A few minutes ago, some lady came past me, yawning. I looked up, made eye contact, and smiled--something I usually try to do.

I was amazed when she started talking to me. I didn't think she was talking to me at first, but yep, it was me.

"I'm so tired!" she said. "But it's still morning. I have a right to be tired." Brief pause. "I was just up so late trying to find my card! You know. My card." Pause. "Good thing I live where I do. Cleaning checks, you know. You know. I have to go to an appointment."

She kept on talking. I couldn't take it. Eventually she left, and as she was leaving she passed some other girl and started talking to her.

This lady did mention something about Medicaid during the conversation, so I'm guessing there was a good reason for our strange moment.

And yet, I'm still a little weirded out.

Oh well.