girl in greenwood

I had two weird dreams this weekend. Both, oddly enough, had to do with high school. It's been almost 12 years since I graduated from high school and it really has no relevence to my life anymore... so why?

Dream #1: R* and I were attending a reunion of my high school class (something I've never done and will likely never do, and am certain R* will never do either). R* had somehow been appointed the musical director of the evening, so he was telling the band what to play and when to play it. At the end of the event, he took the microphone to talk to the crowd, but one of the people who planned the event (my school friend Anita, who I met when we were four years old)interrupted him and told him he couldn't speak because he wasn't important to them. R* just stormed out silently. I got up from my seat to follow him, but first I screamed at the whole group about how rude they were, and I intentionally used profanity and "used the lord's name in vain". Anita prissily reprimanded me for my foul mouth and offensive heresy. When I got outside, R* was waiting for me on the sidewalk and all he said was "Assholes". When I woke up, I was really, really upset and it took me a long time to calm myself down. I have no idea why it seemed like such a big deal - I haven't spoken to Anita in nearly 10 years and I certainly don't give a crap about what my high school classmates think about me.

Dream #2: I dreamed that I was at some kind of stadium event with R* (a lecture? a movie?) and that I recognized the man sitting next to him as my first real boyfriend (we were 15 then), Evan. I felt overwhelmingly happy to see Evan and introduced him to R*. I exchanged phone numbers with Evan and we promised to call each other, even though he was living four hours away. The next day, I picked up the phone to call him after R* left for work (apparently I was a woman of leisure in this dream? hahahahahaha!), but as I dialed, Evan walked in the door. I rushed over to him and we started kissing, and then I came to my senses and pushed him away and said, "I'm happily married, this is wrong." And his comeback was, "But I drove four hours just to see you!" I don't remember how this dream ended. I do know where Evan is now, but I haven't spoken to him in more than 10 years and don't really care to.

So what is all this high school flashbacking about? I know there's one theory that says everyone in your dreams is actually you - but that doesn't really clarify anything for me.

Any armchair psychologists out there want to take a guess?

And the winner is (winner of what? the homemade instant oatmeal flavoring contest, of course!):

Oatmeal with chopped dried apricots, pinch of nutmeg, and a spoonful of powdered non-dairy creamer. Delicious.

What I ordered for my garden today:

Spearmint
Peppermint
Dill
Basil Thai Siam Queen
Sweet Woodruff
Dianthus Tuxedo Black
Spinach Space Hybrid
Snow Pea Dwarf
Pea Sugar Star
Pea Sugar Lace
Carrot Ithaca Hybrid
Lettuce Summer Glory Blend
Lettuce Master Chef Blend
Lettuce Mild Mesclun Mix
Blueberry Sunshine Blue
Sunflower Van Gogh Mix
Strawberry Plants (25) with 2 hanging bags to grow them in!

I love to garden. I just wish I had more time for it.

Distraction
by Bruce Sterling

My friend Scott sent me this book, as part of his Bookcrossing release. I picked it from the list of books he was getting rid of because I've read Sterling's writing in Wired magazine and enjoyed it. And Distraction definitely proved that he is a creative thinker... but the book itself, not so good. It's set in the United States about 50 years in the future. Some of the elements of this future society are interesting, from a "what if?" perspective. For example, the US economy has collapsed due to the Chinese posting American intellectual property free for the pirating on their web servers. And the two main politcal parties have fractured into 12 or 18 or some large number of smaller parties.

I think my main problem with the story, though, was that the main characters were too cartoonish. The protagonist is a political operative named Oscar, who has a "personal background problem", which turns out to be that he is a cloned, vat-grown human. But apart from his personal background problem and his overwhelming ambition to succeed, he's not very interesting.

On the other hand, I did read it all the way through without wanting to give up, so it couldn't be that bad!

Labels: book reports, science fiction

Today was the first day of my second adventure in higher education (reference: I graduated with a BA in English in 1997, during Adventure in Higher Education #1) that I felt like I actually learned something pertinent to my future career. Today's lecture was on cardiac function, and the lab was a fake EKG! We hooked S* up to some electrodes and made him breathe deeply and jog in place and stuff and measured his heartbeat! And then we measured all this stuff that I have no idea what it means, like the P wave and the QRS complex and stuff. I feel like I just saw a tiny tiny little pinhole glimpse of what nursing might be like.

Also, class buddy M* recommend the author Sherri Tepper to me, and I always love a good book recommendation.

I had what might possibly be a brilliant idea. I read an article about equine therapy for disabled kids, and found that there are two equine therapy barns in the area that I could potentially volunteer at... so I fired off an email to the nursing program contact to find out if equine therapy counts as health care, and would augment my nursing school application. I haven't heard back yet. I pretty much think it's too good to be true (for anyone reading who doesn't know me well, I was completely horse-crazy from an early age and had horses all through high school and college) - but it never hurts to ask!

I haven't been updating because my thoughts are so disjointed.

I made homemade instant oatmeal over the weekend and now wonder why I ever ate that stupid Quaker crap.

Rye bread is still a challenge.

My class was cancelled last night and now I'm afraid we won't cover all the material before the end of the quarter and I'll be ignorant about something important.

I'm afraid that I won't be able to register in the class I want next quarter. (Microbiology - my lab partner C* from my anatomy class is going to take it with me!)

I really want to work in my garden but I never have enough time.

We're going to Portland for a couple of days and I have no idea what we're going to do there. At least I get some time off from work.

I've been really cranky and blue lately for no good reason. I thought perhaps it was tied to exercising but now I'm not sure.

R* goes to the big informational meeting about the Super Duper Weight Loss Program tonight. I hope when he comes home, he'll have a bunch of information I can absorb about how it's going to work, and how I'll be able to fit into it without the team of experts that he'll have available.

The Baby Name Wizard's NameVoyager

Wow, this is fun! I've always liked those lists that demonstrate first-name popularity over time, but this is even neater because it graphs the popularity visually. Of course, it shows that something like 90% of girls under 10 are named Emily... which is annoying.

You will be smothered under a rug. You're a little
anti-social, and may want to start gaining new
social skills by making prank phone calls.


What horrible Edward Gorey Death will you die?
brought to you by Quizilla

$35.70.

Considering I've had some of those books since November, and that I would've paid much more than $35 to buy all the books that incurred late fees, and that our library system is woefully underfunded despite all the fancy new buildings - it seems like a deal.

Did you know that if you check out a book from the library and renew it twice and after both renewals are expired you keep it for another month, they will declare the book "lost" and put a charge for the cost of replacement on your account?

I'm going to settle up with them today. Anyone want to take bets on how much I owe?

No, not beef. I'm not a full-time vegetarian anymore, but I still don't cook beef or pork at my home.

We've been sort of veering away from the soup/salad thing in the last week or so. Not because we've lost interest, but more because we don't have enough time. Last week I was kind of out of it with a cold, so I made two batches of chicken noodle soup and that's about all the cooking I did.

Yesterday I tried to bake rye bread for the first time. It came out so-so. I'm hoping I can find a recipe that makes really delicious rye bread, because sandwiches on rye are a thing of beauty. The sandwiches I made for dinner last night with grilled rye, turkey pastrami, sauerkraut, swiss cheese, and garlic mustard were pretty tasty even with so-so bread.

style.org > State of the Union Parsing Tool

This is extremely cool... just how much does W talk about AIDS? Or Saddam? Or, what was that guy's name, starts with an O?

Cocksucker

Don't worry, it's not porn.

I started on the nursing school application last week. I got the easy stuff out of the way - transcript requests, employment verification, and so forth. Now I'm wondering if I should hold off on mailing in the rest until after registration for next quarter. Then I would have Physiology completed, and I'd be enrolled in Microbiology, which I *think* would be good enough to get me the 10-point bonus for completing all the required science classes.

I guess I really ought to make an advising appointment with the nursing advisor - they would be able to tell me what approach is best. Ack, this is all just nerve-wracking to me!

As if I haven't written enough excrutiatingly boring stuff about perfume, here's some more.

My friend L* and I went to Nordstrom's on Friday and I bought my very own full-size bottle of Chanel Coco. (Why I love L*: not only did she guide me directly to the shelf I wanted in the melee of the perfume department just before Valentine's Day, later on that afternoon she told me she was reading an email from StarWars.com. How cool is that?) I'd totally forgotten that you get free samples when you buy perfume from a real store - I ended up with Cefiro (Floris) which is a unisex fragrance that is very green and nice, plus Stella (Stella McCartney) and Boucheron. I haven't opened the latter two yet.

Now I have all these minis and samples that I got on eBay that I want to unload... but what a hassle to pack them all up and sell them. I wonder if I could Freecycle the whole lot of 'em?

The Dogs of Babel
Carolyn Parkhurst

This book was well-written, but so sad! The premise is that a linguistics professor (Paul) whose wife (Lexy) recently died, either by accident or by suicide, tries to solve the mystery of her death. The only witness was their dog Lorelai. So Paul decides he needs to teach Lorelai to speak or communicate in some way, so he can ask her what happened to Lexy.

But that's not what the book is really about. It's really about the relationship that Paul and Lexy had prior to her death, and how Paul works through his grief and anger at his loss. I thought it was touching, but so sad. And once again, I couldn't imagine my own marriage breaking down in the same way - even though the relationship depicted in this book was entirely different than the relationship in The Marriage Bed. There's some sort of squicky weird stuff about people who want to make dogs talk, which if you're an animal lover, will break your heart. Fortunately, I find it unlikely that the make-dogs-talk stuff was based on anything happening in today's society. (If you've read Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, you're undoubtedly thinking about Robert Hooke's dog experiments now... but that was in the 1600s!)

Labels: book reports, relationships

The first actual exam in my physiology class was last night. And it was HARD. We did kind of a postmortem in the parking lot afterwards, and I think I did as well as anyone else. The upside is that there were 2 extra credit questions worth 4 points each, and I'm quite sure I got both of them right.

This week I've got a lab report due Wednesday, a quiz on Monday, and a 3-page paper due on Monday, too. Criminy.

Today is the first day of the application period for the nursing program, fall quarter. I got so anxious and nervous just typing in my student ID number to the online application form that I decided I'd try again at home, alone, possibly with wine in hand.

But just think, by the end of the week, I should have all my ducks in a row and the application completed. Then we wait and see if I can get accepted.

American Poo

This just slays me.