Primordial Chaos

Can't nobody, make you do what you don't want to, you've got to trust what is inside, it's the only way.

Lyrics from Written In The Stars by JD73 and Nate James. Love that line.

Alright, after lots of thinking, I'm pulling myself back together. I knew I was better earlier when I didn't want to listen to sad songs in my car like I have been. Since whatever I'm listening to reflects my mindset, no sad songs is a very good thing.

I'm not over all of this...mess. I still miss his voice, miss laughing with him, and whenever a good memory is triggered I get kind of sad, but it's not crushing me like it was. All this other stuff around me needs my attention, I can't just ignore it. They also function as distractions, so that's helpful.  All I can really do is trudge forward and try not to look back too much.

My friends have been really great through all this, very supportive and helpful.  Long talks, emails, texts, IMs checking on me while still giving me my space. Thanks guys, well those of you that read this. Thanks to everyone that's been understanding and standing behind me, really. Especially those who let me vent to them.

As I suspected would happen, I gave up my personal writing and running, well training, while in that crushing depression. I forced myself to write here and tweet and whatever just so I stayed writing of some sort. But the ease and enjoyment of it was gone. And to a lesser degree, still is. My flow is all fucked up, and even for this, where I'm just writing whatever, it's hard to stay on track or even want to. I've lost a lot of skills over the years, many of which I've given up during a depression. I can't let writing go though. Too useful, too important.

On top of all this emotional crap, I've been chain sick. I went from flu to cold to bacterial eye infection without any days of recovery or feeling pretty good in between. Wears you down pretty fast, but then throw in the other shit, and it's a wonder I could get up in the morning. I had a day or two where I couldn't, actually. I ran my morning errands, then went home and cried myself to sleep instead of going to class. What a horrible feeling. I hate crying, I see it as weakness. Even though I cry the most out of any one I know. I'm sometimes pretty weak when it comes to dealing with shit. This is one of those times. I'm glass-hearted. I wish I wasn't. Sometimes I wish I had a heart of stone. But wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first.

I love my car. LOVE MY CAR. It's cute, it's fun, it's kinda impractical, you can take the top down, open the windows, turn up the music and just drive. It's fun to drive, really. At least once a day I think "Whoa, I'm really driving a stick shift!". I'd had this extreme aversion to it for so long that the fact I do it on a daily basis blows my mind. Then I bought a car that was a stick shift, so I HAD to learn. I fell for my car so hard that I was willing to learn a stick to have it. I'm ridiculous, I know. But come on, it's BLUE, it's a CONVERTIBLE, it's been well cared for and has all kinds of cool aftermarket stuff on it...the HID Xenon gas headlights are REALLY awesome. That car fits me, I think. Though a lot of my guy friends were like "That's such a girly car, why the hell did you get it?". I'm just one of the guys to them. :P

Ah, the Xenon headlights. I've had way too much fun with the fucking headlights. First, some terminology for the older readers. :P When I say ricer, I'm referring to cars that have been modified in a very asian manner. These are the cars with those ridiculous large spoilers on the back. The guys who drive these tend to have my car is better than yours attitudes, and in my experiences love to talk about their car. Lots of mods are done to these cars, you know there's a mod in progress if you see primer somewhere on the car. :P But bright headlights, bodykits, lowering, stereo systems, you get the idea.

So, my car is modified and an asian brand car (Honda) but my car is NOT a ricer. It's walking a fine line though. Mine is lowered, the special headlights, couple of aftermarket changes to the body, but nothing obnoxious. However, ricers seem to have a real problem with me. (well, my car) They're always revving their engines at me at streetlights, pulling up next to me yelling (I never know what they say, I listen to my music kinda loud. :P) trying to street race me, etc. I generally ignore them. I will however rev my engine back at them sometimes like I want to race from a light...but that's because I know there's a cop up ahead since they hide in the same spots all the time, so the ricers TAKE OFF from the light and get busted. This is one of my favorite things to do while driving. Guys on motorcycles fall for this too. I'm laughing right now thinking about it. I usually get 1-2 people a week with this. Idiot guys with a need to prove something. I've got something to prove too. I'm smarter than them. :P

Ok back to my main point about having fun with the headlights. The Xenon lights are VERY BRIGHT. They also light up a huge area, I've seen my lights hit areas 30 ft tall and who knows how wide. They're street legal here so I'm not at risk for a ticket or anything. Now, I love driving at night because I have these bright headlights that seem to irritate other drivers. What would be my brights are actually regular headlights, so I usually do switch to the standard lights for standard errand running. But some nights I feel like showing off and/or being a pest, so I turn on the Xenons. Shortly after I do so, or I've entered a lane with the lights on, all cars in front of me get the hell out from in front of me. There have been times where I'm in the left lane and it's clear in front of me but the right lane is heavy traffic because everyone tried to get away from my lights.  That's entertaining, but my favorite is those people who have to race around you to be the car in front of you at the stoplight or whatever. I will not go more than 5 over under any circumstances, so people get all huffy and pass me on the right (that's illegal) then get in front of me. Which they immediately regret because their rear view and side mirrors are blinding them by reflecting my lights. So then they get over to the right lane and LET ME PASS because they don't wanna deal with the lights. Which makes me laugh after the big deal they made to get around me. People on the phone without handsfree/texting get hit with the lights too. They either now can't see the phone to text or get off the phone because they now have to pay more attention to the road. People going the other direction often flash their lights at me because they think I have my brights on. Like I said, way too much fun with headlights.

A story that happened within the past week, I was out running errands one evening, but I did not have my Xenons on, just the standards. So, this guy in a ricer spots my car, assumes I'm a fellow ricer or something, and he follows me to the grocery store parking lot and parks right in front of my car. First, he about shit bricks when he realized a girl drove the car. (my friends think it's a girly car, others expect a guy to be driving it, go figure) But then he starts asking about my car, wants to look at the engine, and at one point says "girls don't mod their cars as nice as guys do" then tells me what I should do to my car to make it "better". I roll my eyes, but stay polite. He then talks about his car and all the money he's put into it, all the stuff he wants to do to it, etc. I guess because I actually know a few things about cars and understood what he was saying, he started hitting on me pretty blatantly. I'm still trying to be nice one because it's good social skills practice and two he seems like a nice, if overly talkative, guy. So he really starts talking up his car, trying to impress me. At one point he says, I have these super bright headlights, they're top notch, everyone is amazed at how bright they are, yada yada. I'm curious knowing I have Xenons, so I ask him to turn them on. What he has is standard headlights with bulbs colored to give off that similar purple blue color gas ones do. He has these on his brights so they light up more area and increase the appearance of gas lights, but they aren't much brighter than regular headlights. So I said, hey let me turn on mine (he thinks I have standard lights/bulbs) so we can compare and see just how bright his lights are. Now, I'm trying really hard to not laugh while I'm getting in my car to turn on the lights, but I'm fucking entertained about how much talking up and bragging he did about his car and headlights. Anyways, I'm intently watching his face since he's in between our cars to see the headlights. Then I hit my Xenons, and the light is made by heated gas. I watch him get blinded and start squinting, then see a hint of embarassment on his face after all the bragging he did. So I walk over and he's like whoa, you have actual gas lights, man those are way brighter than mine, and he's quite apparently impressed.

I said: "If you had as much hot air in your headlights as you do coming from your mouth, maybe I would have been impressed with you and your car." Then I walked back to my car and drove off, deciding I should probably go to a different grocery store so he didn't follow me around.

WAY too much fun with headlights. I think I laugh more while driving than anywhere else. I have a bit of a mischievous streak. :)

You have to enjoy the ridiculousness of life and laugh at it, yourself, and others. Life's too short to take everything seriously. Something I need to remember from time to time.

~A.

Van Hunt and Lupe Fiasco both have a song titled this. I'm referring to Van Hunt, but I do like the Lupe one too.

This post is hard to write, and as I mentally think about what I want to say, it gets harder. Crying is to be assumed.

So, I'm no longer friends with my best friend. Which is probably best for right now because we were fighting all the damn time. Somewhere everything went REALLY wrong.  We were saying things we shouldn't have, upset at each other a lot, it was a complete 180 from where we were. This happened a bit ago, but I'm only now to a point where I can write this from a reasonable emotional state.

It's really hard to lose a friend who was the closest person to me. I lost a part of myself. I lost the positive things he introduced me to. Some things, be it songs, places, ideas, whatever, lost their meaning to me. Mentally, it's a struggle and a half to not be sad and dwell on it. Trust me, I'm still thinking to myself I wish I hadn't have said that or done that. I wish I hadn't of felt that way or responded that way. I'm still wallowing in self pity and regret, though it's lessening VERY SLOWLY as the world spins on. I guess I'm grieving too, I lost a lot of things I can never replace. I know everything I'm feeling and thinking is normal, but I still have to go through it. It's really hard. I still have moments when something will trigger a good memory and I start to cry. (Like, oh this entire post.) Nothing triggers a bad memory, even stuff that should remind me of a fight doesn't. That's how I'll always remember him, as the good times.

Like the night we spent 20 minutes laughing without saying a word. Or the way we'd start giggling as soon as we were on the phone with each other. I called him crying once and he had me laughing in a couple of minutes with a conversation about trailer park pizza. The cool things he opened me up to that I would have usually ignored. And just the feeling of having a mental equal was wonderful. I miss that stuff, I was missing it while we were fighting, even. Then we both escalated it beyond the point of no return...and I lost it all. Over stupid shit we probably should have talked out. But there's no going back. He even went so far as to change his number. *sigh* We used to always say we could be apart for years and then get right back to where we were. I kinda hope that's true...

It's funny, two weeks before it ended I got a text from him that said "We will never separate. This is forever." I went through and deleted texts from him, but I could not delete that one. I really miss those fantastic times we shared. All this stupid bad shit that we should have talked out long before this happened made things unbearable for both sides. Forever ended two weeks after that text, and we did separate. I just really can't believe it. I always thought he'd be a part of my life one way or another. I never wanted this, I didn't want things to go this far. But at the same time I was really upset by some things he'd said and done, and I kept lashing at him. He was also lashing at me inexplicably, and I kept fighting back. I keep saying to myself how I should have calmed down and figure out the main cause of all the little things that were upsetting me, and scheduled a time for us to address those and address why he was attacking me too. I had every opportunity to try and end the fighting, but I didn't. I couldn't keep my emotions in check, and he couldn't keep his in check...man. Heartbreaking, and I'm mad at me for insisting on being petty. I didn't put our friendship first. I hate myself for it. I absolutely hate myself. I've even started pondering seeing a psychologist to help me forgive me. I don't think I ever will on my own. Regardless of his part, I could have slammed the brakes on the fighting, to be the one that surrendered so that we could talk shit out. I could have made a difference...I could have done something...

I forgave him the night before it ended. My friend P explained something to me that made me see everything differently, and realize why I was upset. I never got a chance to tell him...never got a chance to show him my part of our problem and work it out from there, to show him that "hey, I know why I'm upset, I know why part of this is happening. How does this relate to why you're upset?". I can't forgive myself for that either. The next morning everything ended, so I guess I figured things out too late.

It's crazy that now he is gone and we're not going through the fighting, I see very clearly the whole picture. It's not obscured by the thick fog of us attacking each other and getting upset over those things, but I see what the issue was that started it all in the first place. Too late....

Yes, I am carrying a lot of regret. Regret is just not being able to forgive yourself, really. I know I'm mostly talking about all the ways I feel I fucked up, and it may sound as if it was all my fault. I definitely feel that way, but we both played our parts. I just refuse to come here and trash him for being just as human as I am. Besides, I've forgiven him a million times over, there's no need to go into his part, it's gone as far as I am concerned. It's me who I can't forgive.

And so I need to address that, and I'm starting here, with this post. Openly stating I was wrong, how I went more wrong, how I feel about what I did and didn't do. Fuck, I could have not made this post and just swept it under the rug, into the corners of my mind only I see. But I didn't. I needed to say all of this, to stop brewing it in my head. Granted, only a small circle of friends and family read this, but it's a start for me. The first step on a long path to forgiving myself.

Until then....

I could have done something.....I could have not let it come to this....I could be laughing with him instead of crying without him....I SHOULD have done something....I miss him....I remember how I loved his jokes....I remember how he always knew exactly how to make me laugh, even if I was upset....I remember how he could defuse me in literally less than a minute if I was mad.....How he knew almost instinctively how to make things better....And how he knew just how to calm me down when I was riled up, I hated and loved that about him....and most importantly.....

I remember trailer park pizza...........and I always will. It means more to me than I could ever explain.

A very unforgiven and remorseful,

~A.

Lyric from a Pharrell Williams song.

I've been in one hell of a funk lately, yeah? Don't get me wrong, I'm not even about to say it's over. But, today is better. So, I'll go with that.

In one of the many emails I've received from friends lately, one kinda struck me. I was told that I come off as conceited in this blog because I often mention my various interactions with other people, and that the one where I talk about my confusion about what's so attractive about me in particular. Let me clarify.

The whole reason I talk about things like that and express confusion and curiosity is because this whole interacting with people is pretty new to me. It's only been within, hm, the past 16 months or so that I've really started to kinda be outgoing and also notice the effect I have on other people when we interact. I used to CONSTANTLY be afraid people were staring at me because I was weird, or different, or they were judging me harshly. To find that's rarely the case is interesting to me. Also reinforces positive behaviors, and I'm not quite so scared to be out in public. Crowded places still agitate me though. My point being is I'm fucking fascinated about the new things in interpersonal interactions. I have A LOT to learn. I know this. That's ok. Not beyond me. I think. Also, this is my blog and where I dump my brain. I can say whatever I want. :P

I was going to make this post about racial identity and being mixed race, but that's a little too heavy for me right now. Next one, probably.

So I'll ramble about some non-serious stuff. First up, as most of you know, in the 2 years I've had my Motorola Q9M phone, it's been replaced 7 times. This means I'm on my EIGHTH phone in 2 years. Not a great track record, but at the same time I know this phone backwards and forwards. Well, next Friday, Nov. 6th, the Motorola Droid comes out. And Verizon has given me an early upgrade and discount (REALLY early) because of all the bullshit I've had with my phone. So, the Droid is my phone of choice. It's Motorola, who I have a phone thing for, plus they made my awesome bluetooth headphones I can't live without. It is also running Google's Android OS, which, in my opinion, is probably the next big thing phonewise. It also has wifi on it, and comes with a 16 gig microSD card. Win. Oh, and it's both touchscreen and has a keyboard, which is good because I was hesitant on going full touch screen. I like pressing buttons. (Take that however you please.)

Still kinda bitter the LG Chocolate Touch was NOT the BL40. Because focus groups didn't like the shape. Gah.

There's a 2nd Android based phone coming out, rumor is the same day as the Moto Droid. It's called the Droid Eris. (BEST NAME EVER EVER EVER, and where my first name is derived from .) But, it's more of a lower end type of smartphone, and the specs compared to the Droid are kinda sad. It's definitely aimed towards a different audience, I think. Like the version of Android it runs is rather outdated. Well, the Droid runs the latest version, 2.0. I think the Eris runs 1.6. There's a lot of functionality lost between the two. More importantly, I am a high speed, high tech, fastest, most powerful, latest and greatest kind of girl. So Droid it is. (Eris still has the best name ever.)

So last night I decided I needed to update my profile pic for here, Twitter, Myspace, and Facebook. I'd been wearing my favorite and lucky hat yesterday, and I like the look. I ALWAYS wear any hat with a brim off to the left side and over my left eye, and I'm doing so in that pic. (in case ya haven't looked yet, slackers) I think it's kind of a cute look on me.

The most striking thing about that picture is that I'm smiling. Despite everything I'm thinking and going through, I'm smiling. I took a BUNCH of pictures to try and get one that would work (most of the pics I take are blurry) and that's the only one where I'm smiling. I don't know why I'm smiling, but hey, I am. So now I've plastered it every where to remind me I can still smile, I have a reason to smile.

Oh, and that I don't look as ridiculous as I think when I smile.

~A.

Heh, by Oasis. Outside of the songs Wonderwall, Don't Look Back In Anger, and Champagne Supernova, I hadn't really gotten into them. At the time they were popular, my musical base was Jamiroquai and anyone with a similar style. Warren introduced me to them, and I downloaded their discography a while back...December last year or so. My play list is on shuffle and Windows Media Player autoloads my music memory card for my phone, so slowly I've been hearing other songs from them. About once every week or two I seem to find a song that really strikes me and that I like. Curious, because they're sorta outside of my typical musical realm. Though, I like The Verve, and they're kinda similar...sorta.

Anyways, in a strike of cruelty, WMP loaded this on to my memory card, and while listening to music at school it came on....and my heart broke all over again. I spent an afternoon recently listening to it on repeat just straight bawling, screaming, and crying. As it's an Oasis song, it was basically guaranteed there's a guitar tab for it, and I tracked one down. I learned the song in fucking record time. Less than a day. While looking for a tab, I found out Oasis did a few acoustic versions at concerts and such. Youtube, being the treasure trove it is, had some posted.

Now, there's the two brothers in Oasis, Noel and Liam. (Who fight. A lot. Noel actually left the band recently.) Liam has kind of a harsh voice that almost sounds whiny. Noel though, I really love his voice. It's more smooth, at least to my ears. (I think he's the better singer but whatever.) When I found out there was an acoustic version of Noel singing the song, I listened to it over and over and over and over and over....and over. More hysterical crying ensued.

Music is very important to me, my connection to it is interesting. I can't really explain it, but I need music in my life. Depending on how I feel, I will trend towards music that reflects that. Rarely do I find a song that says everything I want to say or feel. It's happened once in the past year. Well twice now, because this song is every thing I would say....want to say....need to say....but can't and didn't. I hope this song comes up in his playlist, and maybe he thinks of me.



Me and you whats going on?
All we seem to know is how to show
The feelings that are wrong
So don't go away
Say what you say
But say that you'll stay
Forever and a day
In the time of my life
Cause I need more time
Cause I need more time
Just to make things right....







~A.

A familiar retreat behind well worn walls,
regretted mistakes as the kingdom falls.
The battle is over as is my trial by fire,
the damage was done and the loss was acquired.
They say what cannot kill you will help make you wise,
and that after all nights the sun has to rise.
When the sun rises it will find mirrors and smoke,
carefully formed in a well woven cloak.
Thus I stay hidden, protected, and covered,
and hope that my guise does not leave me discovered.
Perhaps the most unfortunate victim of such a war,
the heart of the kingdom lays crushed on the floor.
Hidden behind words, the cloak, and the wall,
"Never again," I shout, "will this kingdom fall!"

~A.

Craig David song. And yeah I do schedule all my posts to post at 4:16 in the afternoon. It's actually 16:16 since I tend to use 24 hour time...and 16 is 4x4, and I like 4. A LOT. Though the 4:16 works for me too. I have a lot of quirks.

There's something about me that people are drawn to both on sight and after briefly speaking to me. Which is funny, cause speaking to people sucks for me. I have to keep reminding myself to make eye contact, show expressions, be an active listener...bleh. Talking takes a lot of mind power for me.

On sight though, I really don't understand. In the past 2 months I've heard "You know, you're not usually my type, but there's something I like about you" or some variant 5-6 times. One guy said he prefers long blonde hair, but there was something attractive about me with my short hair, another guy long brown hair on white girls, but he was like "There's something about you I really can't explain, but I find you wildly attractive".

THIS CONFUSES THE HELL OUT OF ME. Ok, first issue is people I don't know coming up to talk to me, it makes me so damn nervous, but second they're hitting on me based on what they see. Listen, I am a jeans and Converse girl, I'm on campus to attend class, research, work with AMSA, do homework, and that's it. I'm not here looking for a guy. I dress up the first day of class each semester, but after that, the hell with that. I don't dress sexy, not wearing heels, almost never wear make up, usually wearing a hoodie if it's cool and most likely a bandana. There are girls here dressed to the nines, heels, long hair, latest style of dress, etc. I would think that, as far as on sight attraction, I'd be towards the bottom (which is fine with me).

On top of this I do not smile. Almost ever. Pictures of me even, I'm usually not smiling.  So I'm not a skanked up chick, nor am I even friendly looking. But the things I hear most often are "there's something about the way you walk" "there's something about your eyes" "there's something about your face and the expression it wears", etc. This really drives me nuts because it doesn't mesh with what I know from psychology classes, having male friends, and personal observations.

Listen, I'm not saying I'm unattractive, I think I am. To the point of almost narcissism because I am my standard of beauty for women. It's just there are girls putting a lot of effort (and makeup) into impressing guys, and yet a few prefer me. And it's guys from all races and backgrounds, there's no one type of guy that I attract. Besides fuckin' crazy, god knows they've all been fuckin' crazy. But I digress.

So I brought this up witha guy friend of mine who has two roommates that have a thing for me. I asked him, so, what the fuck is this about? This was an interesting conversation.

To summarize, he said guys like the flashy types when they're looking for, uh, something quick and easy. But the draw is those attractive girls that don't flaunt it, it means there's something deeper and interesting about them. He also said there's something universal about me. That is, it appeals to most guys.  He said I have a charisma that sends off vibes to guys that I'm "one of them". Not literally, but that I'll have some pretty similar interests, cars, beer, music, and sports even because I have a sporty look (AKA I'm in hella good shape), I go to the gym, etc.


He also said it's pretty apparent I'm not the helpless type and that I am extremely independent (to a fault, I think). Oh, and that I look exotic because of my mixed race background.


It was a fun conversation, even if just a bunch of speculation, because a concept clicked with me, and this is my main point:


My perceived flaws are not necessarily my actual flaws. I'm pretty harsh on myself as a rule, because I see all these things about me that trend towards outlier positions in the social spectrum. And I assume because I'm so different, there's something wrong. That really hadn't clicked with me yet, though if I heard it I knew it to be true, but it wasn't part of my consciousness. So I'm trying to lay off myself, spin bads into goods, and ease up on the self-criticism.


Except about those essays.




~A.

Both Oasis and Jamiroquai do a song titled this, I like both. It also happens to be my favorite "garden" flower. My favorite flower overall is white calla lilies, but they're not really likely to be grown in someone's garden. Did you know that the actual flower of the calla lily isn't the big white petal part? The yellow thing in the middle has a bunch of tiny flowers on it, those are the actual flowers. Random rambling.

So, I've been REALLY sick the past few days, miserably so. I'm kind of a big baby when it comes to being sick. However, I've done lots of studying and homework in my down time, so I'm not just sleeping all day. I wish. :P

So, the Diversity in Medicine committee has to do one event a semester. I think we're going to wind up doing two this semester, then in the spring is my little pet project/event, and I plan on going all the fuck out on it.

April 2nd, 2010. World Autism Awareness Day. I'm working on planning UNM's little (HUGE) awareness celebration. I'm partnering up with all sorts of other student orgs to do this, it's starting to shape into a huge all day thing, almost a party. GOOD. I'm rather reserved most of the time, but this is one thing I get pretty worked up and loud about. 

April is also Autism Awareness Month. So go get one of those magnetic ribbons for your car. :P You can also go to zazzle.com and search for autism or Asperger's under t-shirts. They've got some pretty entertaining ones on there.

You know, I'm kinda bitter about not being diagnosed until I was 23. Mostly because of the horrible mental hell I was constantly living in. Also because I've only had just over 3 years of being able to see the world a bit more rationally and also having any sort of extensive interactions with people. I don't entirely know and/or understand how to manage really close relationships of any sort. As much as I may appear to have everything under control, I don't. I fight everyday with this, with my own thoughts and feelings...it's very much like there is two different versions of me. One of whom I REALLY HATE. I have these moments where I can't understand how someone else feels or what they're trying to tell me. Then I go full tilt Aspie tantrum. Once I hit that level of frustration, I can't stop it. It's like I'm chained to the back of my mind just watching everything happen, something else is in control. I get really frustrated with my emotions and other people's emotions and I hate when that happens. I say horrible things, I think horrible things, I feel horrible things...then the more rational me has to answer for all of that. It's never good. EVER. I've destroyed and/or contributed to the destruction of a lot of friendships that way. I've hurt a lot of people that way too. All I can do is say I'm sorry, and I'm sorry doesn't mean shit. *sigh* There's no cure for this. There's no help even, really. I will be like this for the rest of my life. That really fucking upsets me. I know it's just a matter of time before I hurt someone else. I'm to a point where I'm seriously considering not having close relationships of any sort with other people. To protect them. To protect me.

Though, I think it's just more I wonder what could have been, would I not be like this if it had been caught sooner? Would my life have gone differently? Asperger's wasn't added to the DSM IV until 1994. I was 11 then. Would anyone have even known enough to catch it? No answers, just a lot of questions. And a lot of regret. 3 years seems like a good chunk of time, but when you are trying to relearn the world around you and yourself...3 years isn't much.

I keep thinking I'm like this for a reason, that somewhere on my path I have something major to give to the world. My cause was given to me in a rather non-subtle way. I am to be a champion of this cause, and I have every intention of doing so. I don't want another human being to ever have to live like I had to, and then fight daily like I do. Because sometimes I don't win and things go south. I know the mental torment and storm that goes on, what I've been through, what I will go through...no one should have to live this. But I do. Others do too. So I will give everything I have to fighting this, not just my own personal battle, but for those who can't fight, for those who will have to fight, for lives not yet created that will be forever changed by this, for those who struggle and lose sometimes...and the people around them that have to face the storm. This all started out about me, I have autism, poor me, life sucks. Then I met others like me, and their families. Heard similar stories to ones from my life. I've had the parents of young kids ask me if they'll be well adjusted or "more normal" as adults. Or ask me what my life as an adult with an ASD is like. Am I social? Do I have friends? Is dating difficult? Do things get better with time? Parents who obviously are feeling the stress when their kiddo has a moment, and I'm sure it hurts them. I've admitted some really difficult things about myself during these conversations. I've had to tell them we won't know until he/she gets older and see the look of dismay on their faces because they are searching for some hope, some relief...it was from those first few times I was asked questions like that when the idea of this being so much bigger than me started to dawn on me. I'd spent so much time living in my head away from others that I only understood me. Then I noticed that other people were dealing with the same shit, many who had more severe cases than I do.

A couple of months ago I was volunteering over at UNM's autism center, as I do when I have free time, and was talking to this mother who had a 7 year old boy who was about as severe as myself. She noticed he would interact with me and I could get him to talk, and asked me how I managed that. Apparently he never really interacted with her much. I told her "I speak the same language" and I explained what I meant by that. I gave her a few tips and tricks I've learned over many hours of interacting with autistic kids, and we had a conversation. She asked a familiar question, what my life was like as an adult, and I gave her a brief run down of my story, when I got diagnosed, a glossed over version of my struggle, me finally going back to college, that I'm a honors students in 2 university and 2 national organizations, and so on. She asked me if I was studying Psychology and I told her yeah, I want to go into autism research. She picked up her son and as she turned to walk out she said to me:

"If anyone can give us hope, I think it's you."

In that moment, I knew where I needed to be, what I needed to do. That moment is SEARED into my consciousness and my fate was sealed. There isn't an hour that goes by I don't think of her and what she said. Of watching her little boy SMILE and WAVE at me as they left, something unusual in autistic kids, especially with strangers. At that moment it completely stopped being about me, it was now about everyone BUT me.

I've lost a lot of my personal battles. I've got more to lose, I'm sure. Other people I'll hurt, regrets I'll have, all of that. I'll do things people don't like or understand, piss people off, frustrate people...I know there's more of that in my future. I'll do everything I can to make it not so, but I'm not perfect, I can't win every time.

Regardless of my shortcomings, faults, and failures, to that mom and her little boy, I carry a small spark of hope.

I'll spend my life trying to turn that spark into a flame.

~A.

 A brief rant:

At some point, I will stop editing these stupid things. Maybe. I'm so obsessive about them it's starting to be a little ridiculous. All I could think of in class today was getting home and fucking with these stupid essays. As it stands, I have approximately a 60% chance of acceptance based on my current GPA, extra activities and ACT score. You really don't want to know what I went through to calculate that. Hours of research, to the point of calling the damn university and drilling them for stats. At least I used what I learned in statistics. :P

I just had to minimize this window to edit one of the essays. GAH.

I'll just let you speculate on just how pissed off I'll be if I get rejected after obsessing over these essays and bothering to calculate my chances of admission. I'm hoping these essays will seal the deal. I made a lot of risky choices in how I wrote these...but they're very me. That's really what they need to see. Who I am, not what I think will get me in.

My essays read nothing like any of the sample and actual admissions essays I've read online. NOWHERE even similar. That's either really good, or REALLY BAD.

My favorite parts of each essay? The very last line in both of them. One exemplifies my spiritual strength. The other one my belligerent curiosity.  Actually, those are the ONLY parts I like. Well, I like some of the words I chose. Vanguard, acquiesce, visage, actuates, loathe...who else could conjure those words off the top of their head? And write them in the proper context without consulting a thesaurus? Just me. :P

You know, the only thing I'm sure I'll never fuck up is words.

~A.

Not a song title, but a lyric from Born To Run by K-OS

Alright,

Explaining this is going to be weird, and many assume it means I'm bipolar. Most of the people who see me on a regular basis know vaguely of this, understand it for the most part, and have seen it in action. Two of my friends who ARE bipolar said it's nothing like anything they'd experienced or heard of. I say it's Asperger's related. Regardless, because it's so weird, I figured it would make good reading, for those who are a bit further away from me and don't get to see this. (Lucky you!)

A friend of mine who passed away earlier this year came up with this "theory" about me. Quite a few years ago, he picked up that I do this, and gave the parts of it a name. I hadn't realized I do it until he came up with this theory. I still have the diagram we drew while having this discussion. I miss him a lot right now....moving on.

His theory was that when I experience the extremes of emotions I do one of two things. If it's negative, like hurt or sadness, I can pent it up, or use it rather immediately. If it's positive then I use it right away and can't store it. Penting it up is bad in general, I know. But I can also use that energy and emotion later, even years later. To clarify this using the terms he chose and stuck with....

Penting it up is rather self explanatory. I take the bad emotions, hide them from most everyone, though some leaks out usually, and it somehow gets "stored" in my mind. Using this pent up "energy" it is when it gets curious and bizarre, and I thought it was a fascinating discussion and theory.

When I "use" good emotions, I take that good feeling and use it as energy. I go into a "trance", as he called it. I get stronger, faster, mentally quicker, memory recall improves, I become "smarter",and reflexes are quicker too. It also seems to magnify my good mood even higher. It's not a strong enhancement, and lasts for a very short time, couple of hours max.

When I use "bad" emotions, I take those angry, hurt, upset, distressed feeling and use them as energy too, and I also go into my "trance". However, I become A LOT stronger, faster, quicker mentally, memory recall becomes rather unusually precise, I become much "smarter", much quicker reflexes, but unlike good emotions, I also gain extreme focus and lose all sense of pain and fatigue, mentally or physically. This comes at a price, and because I'm releasing bad moods, my mood becomes straight fucking horrible. Supposedly, the tell tale signs are me scowling, I don't look around at the setting where I am, my eyes seem "dark", and arms are always crossed. From my perspective, my vision gets really sharp and I can focus on small details off in the distance and gather info on them. My mind feels dark, like there's nothing there but darkness, hate, anger, sadness. My vision seems to almost become tunnel vision and I focus straight in front of me at basically all times, usually at something in the distance. I feel very...strong and intimidating. I get into a major alpha female mode, and technically alpha male too, I mean I just feel like I am unstoppable and there is nothing beyond or above me.This effect lasts as long as there some negative incident bouncing around my mind. I can do this at will.The effect wears off once I have reconciled that event with myself. I can't just constantly think of bad things one after the other and this work.

The side effects appear according to how long I trance out. Couple of hours or less, I'll be back to myself in about an hour. Up to a day, my mood is shitty and I am hostile for 2-4 days. Up to 5 days, which is the longest I've ever hit that extreme enrage trance, my mood is fucked for 2 weeks to a month. Of course, I'm mulling negative situations, so my mood going south isn't that abnormal. However, during that time I start to address the reason(s) that situation was so negative. I eventually think it out and come to an acceptance, and I come out of my trance.

Again, I can do this at will, and have done so for tests I was not confident about, and it's usually why I do it. Short term, no long lasting effects. It happens on its own if there's all kind of shit on my mind, some of it is stressing me out or upsetting, and it's to a point where I can't think clearly, these tend to last for days.

The bad emotions trance was named chaos trance (AKA CT to most of my friends), because after me biting someone's head off in the middle of one, my friend said that it was like I was summoning energy from evil lord chaos himself. The good emotions one was named ascension, hell if I know why, wasn't there for that naming incident.

Despite some of the interesting effects of CT (I run the mile a full minute faster in CT), I don't like it. At all. It means I'm hurting, I'm upset, I'm reliving something painful, I feel threatened...nothing good is going on inside my head. But I always focus my energy to something positive, studying, reading, exercise, cleaning, stuff like that. I snap at people who try to get chatty with me and become even more uncommunicative, but I don't hurt anyone or anything. So between that and resolving some issues mentally, it does serve an interesting purpose. But it fucking sucks for the reasons I said above, the pain, the anger, etc.

Despite what it initially sounds like, it's not bipolar disorder. First, I've been checked for that like 6 times, and I never meet the diagnostic criteria for any version of it, even mild. Second, it's not an oscillation between highs and lows, it's more like just a bizarre mental state of high focus for both the good and bad. Third, I can control it, I can end any of it besides the crappy mood for thinking about sad things, but even that lessens A LOT by being under my favorite blanket for a couple of hours. NOT sleeping, but just being quiet. Fourth, it is rarely triggered by an event, most often *I* trigger it to cope with whatever is in my head that needs to go. Or call it bipolar, whatever. Labels don't concern me, it is what it is.

I think of it as more me thinking something to death, but in a good way. Regardless of anything, if I am in intense thought, I get really irritable and antisocial. I really focus on resolving why I whatever issue still bothers me or is bothering me, and that of course comes with some emotions about how I feel about whatever happened. I use that emotional release as motivation, I guess. It's more a coping mechanism than anything, and I've been told by a few psychologists these heightened mindsets while in intense thought are not uncommon in Asperger's Syndrome. So, that's what I think it is, and that's what it is on my end, really intense focus and working off some negative feelings. It's like a form of meditation, but you're trying to create peace with yourself over something in particular instead of chasing zen. either way, it's a clearing of the mind.

I should have just called it bipolar, this post would of been sooooo much shorter, ha! Just imagine how much time I spent writing this stuff. :P Despite all of this explaining, I bet very few will understand it. Just call it bipolar and move on, if you're in that category. I've been called worse.

I got French verbs to conjugate!

~A.

 Nate James song.

I had all these really great posts I wanted to make, but at this point I have a headache and have lost interest. So:

I'm going to ramble about music, starting with Nate James, a British soul singer who has an amazing voice. He's also biracial and cute as hell, something I can definitely understand. ;)

Anyways, him and this other guy did this song together called Written In The Stars and I just love it (you'll notice it is the title of one of my posts). On my myspace page there's a sample of it, the song isn't even finished yet. So, I reach out and send an email, showing much love and asking when the album and that song come out. I get a response not 30 minutes later from him, say they're going into the studio next week, and in a month he'll have the finished version of the song AND WILL GIVE IT TO ME. Whoa. That's months before the album comes out and it's not a single.  We've been emailing back and forth all day. So hella cool.

Van Hunt, another fav of mine, is the same way. He personally answers back, talks to his fans, gives them treats if they ask nicely and show love, it's really awesome. They're both brilliant musicians, and I admire both of them immensely. They're also not major artists, well here anyways. They're both just really down to earth and involved with people who appreciate them, and I like that. I've had more than a few conversations with Van through email, IM, once through voice chat, and it's just an awesome experience to have someone you appreciate for their talent appreciate you back.Van is also the only person I can name that I feel is a much more genius writer than me. His innate ability with words makes me look like a 3rd grader.

When I lived in SoCal, through a series of incidents, I managed to befriend Stevie Wonder's son, Mumtaz. Another lesser known dude who is seriously talented. We're even myspace and facebook friends, and I've talked to him on the phone and in person numerous times.

So it's super cool people whose music I listen to EVERYDAY aren't some mysterious entity seen only at performances or what not. You get to know them as a person too, and that only adds to the appreciation of what they do. I'm not one of those psychotic starstruck kind of people either. I admire them, no doubt, but that's no need to get all crazy and weird. I'm sure, even as lesser known artists, they get plenty of that.

Some of the women out there, well, bitches is crazy.

Youtube time!

Nate James doing a cover of Lauryn Hill's Ex-Factor. I can't stand Lauryn Hill, and I couldn't stand this song when it came out. Nate's version though, I listened to over and over when I first bought Revival, an album where he covers some of his fav songs growing up. (And does most of them better than the original.)


Some of his original stuff:




I LOVE this song.


This one is my alarm in the morning:


Ok, here's one of him live. His voice sounds just like the CD, and that's something I seriously value in an artist.



I'll say it again, music is my heartbeat.

~A.

P.S. K-OS Born To Run, my favorite running song. (Duhr.) I actually have been running to this song on repeat...and listening to it on repeat randomly during the day. I can't embed this one here, so you'll have to deal with a link. Born To Run

Meh, forget having one post I update, easier to update with new posts.

All 4 applications are completed. I have all paperwork, essays, letters of recommendations, and transcripts prepared in their respective envelopes, except for UNM since I need to wait until the end of this semester for grades. *Edit: I just noticed that some of the essay lengths are different than what I wrote down, so I'm reworking my essays to get at least CLOSE to the requested word count. Yeesh.

So there won't be much to say until then, when I send everything off. Then there won't be much to say until about April when decisions come back. Just the idea of waiting for decisions is putting my stomach into knots.

My #1 pick is the one I'm nervous about. I really can't gauge how I stack up as an applicant as well as the others. The other 3 I'm easy in, like a for sure thing. But there are reasons they aren't my #1....

What will my next chapter be.....

~A.

It's two songs in my title today! Oh boy! Both by Alison Krauss. Was trying for songs about writing since that's what this post is about, and those were the two I personally know that aren't REALLY depressing. Those two are only kinda depressing. :P Sure I could of found happier more relevant ones, but I never title a post with a song I don't have in my library and/or know by heart. That also forces me to explore new music, so it serves a couple of purposes.

I love to write. I'm pretty good at it, really. I tend to procrastinate on papers for school because I know I can last minute an A+ paper on ANYTHING. The paper I got a 100 on in my Honors class? Finished 20 minutes before class. Ha! I've slowly broken myself of my obsession of writing 4 different papers on whatever I'm supposed to be writing about, then taking the one I like most and refining it. Now I take my first idea and go with it, however I do re-read it 4 times silently to check for spelling and punctuation errors, and out loud 4 times to make sure it is grammatically sound and makes sense. That whole writing 4 different papers thing ate up way too much time, although it forced a lot of critical thinking.

It gets suggested to me rather often by professors and advisers that I should write something substantial and non-academic. They were trying to nudge me to write for the national honors magazine and get published, but I brushed that off. But every time someone tells me something like that, it doesn't ever go away, really. I have a lot of nagging voices in my head telling me to write something fantastic. I'm not entirely sure why I don't.

It's not like I'm lacking any original material, really. I have well over 100 notebooks full of stuff I've started and stopped, and a bunch (100megs easy)  of typed up works I've started and stopped stashed away too. That includes the 7 chapters of that book I started but lost interest in. I'm sure I could frankenstein together something pretty good from the pieces I have. I just don't. Part of me wants to, but part me of thinks I'm not good enough of a writer. People have told me I should take writing classes to learn a style, but fuck that. I like how I write, it's MY style. If I write like someone else tells me to, it's not really me.  I've been told I'm not very creative (which seriously amuses me and pisses me off) but it's more I just don't have a direction I feel like aiming my concentration at. That's why I like writing to my blog, I can say whatever I want whenever I want in my personal style. There's a lot of rules to writing something like a book or a publishable work. I don't like rules or constraints.

I should try it just as an exercise in discipline or something. A hobby or something, maybe as a way to wind down in the evenings? Take 30 minutes to an hour and write every evening. As it is now, besides for my blogs and school, I don't really write. Lately though both classmates and professors have complimented my writing and encouraging me to do more of it. I am my harshest critic, so maybe I need to listen to others who see something maybe I don't. At the very least I need to write more just so I don't lose any skills. I've noticed lately both my blog and academic writing weren't quite up to my usual stuff. Partly why I've been writing more to my blog, to write just to write. And as I mention off to the right, this is where I mentally dump some of my thoughts. These are just me following my trains of thought till I hit the end, really.

I have all this crap I want to do, heh. First a marathon and now a book on top of school, AMSA, research...There's so much to do and experience! I've wasted so much time, but I can't regret that. I had to get to where I needed to be when I needed to be there.

The easiest path doesn't lead anywhere.

~A.

Paolo Nutini song. :P

I have a lot of inexplicable quirks. A LOT. My pencil quirks are particularly superstitious and bizarre. And completely inexplicable. Such as....

I will not use a mechanical pencil for any reason. Not even for a brief note, NOTHING. On top of that I'm obsessive about what pencil I'm using. I'm seriously particular about this, I get REALLY upset and agitated if I don't have one of my pencils. I'm obsessive about what pencil I'm using to the point of using that type/brand of pencil exclusively or, guess what, I get upset and agitated. (It's a theme with me, getting upset and agitated.) I started off with Papermate Earthwrites, 100% recycled pencils, but a few years ago they changed the damn pencil construction and it was not a good pencil anymore, the lead constantly broke, they changed the color to standard pencil yellow (hate that color), and the tip would fall to pieces when sharpened. So I tried some other pencils, eventually settling on Papermate's Mirado Black Warrior. Same shit different day, they changed those to cheaper materials, so I had to find another pencil again. Ticonderoga Noirs were my newest weapon of choice, and I bought 144 of them. They're not super spectactular for writing since they shed their silver coating everywhere and they do not sharpen well at all. But, they were the closest to what I was looking for feel, look, and writing wise, so I got them. But....

They brought back the green lacquered Earthwrites! AND they changed them to whatever method of construction they used before! I am REALLY HAPPY ABOUT THIS. But now I have a bunch of the Noirs that are ok, but they're no Earthwrites! Oh well. I'll find something constructive to do with them. (Just not write!) Seriously, finding the original Earthwrites made my day. I know that's ridiculous, but it's true.

Now, I have some REALLY PECULIAR pencil "rules". They are not anything new, I remember doing most of these habits in high school even. They're still weird and superstitious, trust me I know that.

I have 4 groups of pencils each with it's own separate drawer. Day to day, quiz, writing (like if I'm writing poetry or a story for myself), and test. A pencil can't change drawers or usage once I've put it in a drawer and pencils from the same box have to go into the same drawer. Even if brand new, I can't use a quiz pencil for a test, if I'm out of test pencils I can't use one from another drawer, etc.

So, I have 4 of my pencil on me or by me AT ALL TIMES. I have 4 stashed in my car and 4 in my backpack. I'm just going to talk about this in the context of school because duh, at home I have my pencils. Only 4 on my desk at a time though. :P The 4 in my backpack are my day to day pencils, homework, notes, whatever. I CANNOT take a quiz or a test using one of those. They also can't touch my test/quiz pencils and they are discarded when they are less than 4 inches long. (I told you this is weird.) If I throw one out, then I make sure I get another one since there has to be 4. (The number 4 is another of my bizarre quirks.)

Quiz pencils work differently. I have one pencil for each quiz I have that day, and they HAVE to be in a separate compartment of my bookbag than the day to day. Each pencil is used SOLELY for one quiz then thrown away at the end of the class I took the quiz in. I can't use the pencil I took a French quiz with to take a biology quiz. 

Test pencils have to be separate from the others, and the rules are similar to quiz. However, there are 4 test pencils for EACH test. All 4 get tossed at the end of the class I took a test in, even if I didn't even use some and they are brand new, they have to go. I'm just really weirdly superstitious about this. I don't know why or when it started, but I can remember doing all of this back in 9th grade.

I'm weird! I know this, but I accept it. All I am is who I am, and you're free to think what you like.

But don't fuck with my pencils. :)

~A.

Song by K-os.

Lately my stress/emotional relief has been running. (see, the title is relevant. :P) However, I am straight terrible at doing it regularly. 6 miles in a week is an overachiever week for me, not because I can't, I just don't. But I've been running more and more to clear my head and relieve stress, and I've been averaging about 30-40 miles a week. Yay for exercise and being healthy! (if I wasn't stressed out though, I wouldn't be running as much, so it's not REALLY for being healthy...)

So I was talking to a friend of mine, who I will refer to by his nickname (well abbreviation of the nickname he has for his nickname, don't ask) of P. So me and P were talking for HOURS all day Wednesday, and running came up. I was talking about how I love to run, to push myself physically, the mental benefits and curiosities I experience while running, when P tells me to shut up. (More people should do this.) Said he has a great idea, I should train for a marathon! I've been mulling it over for well over 24 hours, and I've decided to do it!

So I'm really excited about this, which will last maybe a month until I get sore and sick of running. :P Kidding. I am going to follow through and run in a marathon spring/summer of 2010. I haven't picked a marathon or a date yet, but I'll start training regardless! It'll give me something to write about, my ups, downs, injuries, frustration, excitement, etc.

Yes I know I need to cross train, and I will be doing strength training as well. But my major other workout is going to be swimming. This surprises no one, I bet. My affinity for water is pretty blatant. Plus I get to use UNM's pools for free. You know the pools they have in the basement of a gym. (Seriously.) I also get to use the fitness center at no cost, so might as well take advantage of that too for weights, cardio machines when I'm sick of running, etc. I have quite a few large spaces of time between classes during the week, so hell, I'll do something productive.

Here's what sucks though. I live in high altitude (over a mile above sea level), dry climate, and I live in an area called Paradise Hills...cause there's lots of fucking steep ass hills! So going running close to home will be a bit intense. So I'll have to adjust to extended periods of intense exercise in that setting. Also, learning to drive a manual on steep ass hills: NOT FUN. AT ALL. That was probably the worst and most frustrating part of learning a stick was learning how to drive on steep ass hills without rolling down backwards to the bottom or into the car behind you.

I just need to drink lots of water and/or coconut water. I've become addicted to coconut water, the liquid from inside a green coconut, as my choice for hydration. Mostly because it is isotonic (that is, it has the same balance of electrolytes and the like) as the human body. Drink a lot of just water, you die of water overdose (technically electrolyte imbalance, but I'm trying to not get too scientific here). Drink a lot of sports drinks, they're slightly hypertonic for the most part, so too many electrolytes, on top of all the damn sugar and food dye. I'll pass.

ALMOST tempted to make a separate blog just about the marathon training. Thinking about it, anyways. Looking around online for ideas about a training schedule, how many miles what days, etc., to use as a guideline. I probably even need to step back a bit and train myself into a regular habit/schedule of running. I'm always pushing my mental limits, might as well push my physical ones too. I need to know what I can and can't do in all regards. What am I really made of? (It's not evil and sarcasm, by the way.)

Going to go research some marathons and find one I want to run at!

~A.

 It's a song by Robin Thicke, it came to mind when I was thinking "damn I'm too lazy to think of a fitting song". Go figure.

I have 4-5 half started posts in my drafts, but I've been so freaking busy I haven't finished any of them. And now I want to write about something else. :P I'll finish them...eventually? Maybe? You know, like that book I wrote 250 pages/7 chapters of. That was two years ago when I stopped working on that, heh. Time flies...

I really can't believe I'm halfway through the semester already. Seems like classes just started 2-3 weeks ago.Even though this week was only 3 days, it was full of tests, homework, and projects being turned in!

Also this week, UNM's Pre-med American Medical Student Association's Diversity in Medicine committee teamed up with the Queer Straight Alliance to celebrate National Coming Out Day. So click on the pics for larger versions:

 

Not deviated from a song but something I said Thursday. Me and a colleague were discussing the balloon fiesta, and I was trying to say “I can see the balloon fiesta from my deck”. Instead, I said “I can see the balloon infection from my deck”. It is kinda like an infection, hot air balloons EVERYWHERE. This morning was the special shapes mass ascension, so all the non-balloon shapes went up together. They have so many cool shapes, and Darth Vader's head flew low over my house and scared the shit out of me!

I seriously love Van Hunt, all of his songs are awesome. So, here's some Van Hunt! :P (This is my excuse for a post today since I've been busy all day. :P)

Being A Girl


Hidden Charm Live


This song....the first time I'd heard of Van Hunt is when he opened for Seal here in ABQ, so my first experience of him was live. This was the song that just really entranced me, and still does. I quote this song all the damn time. That and Hidden Charms. Dude is seriously talented, writes his songs and has no formal musical training. Posting a live and music video version.

Live:


Video:


Anyways, if you like, check out his other songs. :) I'm jealous of him being so musically brilliant...and of being a more creative writer than me!

I am trying to get in the habit of posting at least once a day. TRYING. Doing good so far!

Today was pretty relaxed, for the most part. Worked on building a research database, which isn't super exciting but it's a step in the process. Can't all be glamor and excitement. :P But I really truly enjoy the crap out of it, even the boring stuff. The little voice in my head which tends to say "hey, you could this for a career" to many MANY things, has started screaming at me "THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE DOING, YOU GOOF!". I'd had this idea before, but let myself get talked out of it. But after really experiencing it, I can see why it struck me so hard the first time. I just love this stuff. I'm contributing to the knowledge of mankind. That's pretty awesome if you ask me. Plus I have the obsession for detail, the writing skills, and the reading skills to really be successful. So, we'll see. The true test is always of time, will I get sick of this? Probably not, since I LOVE to ask why. That's what research is, asking why, then trying to get hints and clues to the answer if not the answer itself.

So, I have a problem I think I'm the only one thinks is a problem. I used to be REALLY overweight, but I've slimmed down quite nicely thank you very much. However, I have a very pronounced hourglass shape. to the point where my waist is a size 8 (Tyra Banks is a size 8, for example) but my hips are a size 14-16. Which yeah great, I'm nicely shaped, but shopping for clothes is miserable. I have to shop for my hips, not my waist, and a belt is basically required. It's frustrating because NOTHING ever fits right. I went shopping for some winter clothes and basically just gave up and came home. Dresses go this way too, but it's easier to get those custom made and altered. Any tops that go down over my hips have to be a few sizes larger than what the top of me actually is, so it's baggy from my neck down then sorta fits my hips. I'm a 6-8 top wise, and 14-16 in the hips. Argh. People ask me why I'm complaining, but I hate wearing baggy clothes. I like things that fit nicely. Of course, I'm going to have to settle or freeze my ass off at school with the cold weather moving in. So fuck standardized clothing sizes. :P

I recently got my login and email for the Mind Research Network, where I am working on the research stuff. I felt all proud and legit. Like hey, I'm really a part of this. (I'm telling you, I love this shit)

So, as an officer of the pre-med chapter of AMSA at UNM who is in charge of the Diversity in Medicine committee, we're holding an event the week of Oct. 11th! October 11th, which is a Sunday, is National Coming Out Day. (NCOD) So that week, either one or two days (not sure which yet) the Diversity in Medicine committee is going to be out there with condoms, gay pride/gay support pins, and just showing our support for the gay community. It's funny, because me and the other guy trying to set this up in cooperation with the Queer Straight Alliance are both GLBT. I'm bi and he's gay. So we know what it is like having to come out and how a lot of people will judge you on that alone. So it's a personal issue for both of us, which kind of adds this aura of hey, let's really show some support cause we know what it's like. I'll get pics when it goes down. It'll be a blast.

I'm seriously having a blast with all the stuff I do between classes and my outside stuff. I'm SLOWLY becoming more and more comfortable around people I don't know. I used to break a sweat and start shaking if I had to interact with a cashier. Now I basically spend all my time with people I don't know. A form of exposure therapy I guess. :)

Got a project to work on and polish up for Monday, so I'm out for now! :)

~A.

Another song, by Nate James and JD73.

I had forgotten just how therapeutic writing is for me. Which is funny, since I'd been going through so much lately and through varying shades of upset, I probably should have been writing. I should always be writing, actually. Keeps me pretty Zen and I have a bit of a knack for it. Of course, I think I'm a terrible writer, even know I can see I'm not really. I'm harshest on myself, of course. I can forgive everyone else many times but myself, not damn once. I inherited my mom's perfectionist tendencies. I'm never good enough, so gotta keep trying harder and harder. Regardless, I should write a “serious” piece of work. I have so many partially completed stories, one of which is 8 chapters (about 200 pages) of this sci-fi story I've been working on for...over 2 years. At first it was disinterest that kept me from finishing it, now it's a lack of time.

It's a Thursday, which usually means I'm over at the research lab until about 8pm. I love being there, that whole research gets my mind going thing. I now have my own email address at their domain, I feel all legit now. :P Tonight though I'm not going in since we don't have a scan to do, I'm going in after class tomorrow. Which is good because my day started at 5 am. It's about 11:30am as I am working on this, and I'm just plain tired already. I also usually don't have class until 2pm today too, however, I'm participating in a study, so I gotta be there at 12:30. I'm just glad I'm done at 5pm today. Slept like 10 kinds of crap, mind wouldn't calm down for one reason or another.

So, I got 3 emails about my quirky when and where I prefer music preferences. So, I'll answer the questions here, because, well I'm already writing here!

Q. Do you still feel that connection to a song when the moment, mood, person, or whatever you associate with it is over/gone?

A. Nope. The song gets immediately deleted from my collection once I come across it again. The only music I'll save regardless is music from a fav artist or music it took me forever to find.

Q. If you had to pick an artist that would be the only music you could listen to anywhere, who would it be?

A. Damn, this is a hard question, and the person who asked me this knew that is probably why he asked. It's a tie between 3, Van Hunt, Jamiroquai, and Nate James. Simply because, in my eyes, they all have great song. I mean there's not one bad song between the 3 of them. So I'd have to draw a name out of a hat or something, because I'd never decide.

Q. Would you ever go back to piano after 6 years of only sporadic playing? Would you switch to electric guitar?

A. Yes to both. I think I'm far enough away from what caused me to drop piano to go back to it without the bad association I've had with it. As far as electric guitar, I'd love to play electric for shits and giggles, or maybe doing some of the songs I know or the ones I've written with a different sound. But a classical guitar will always be my love, nothing beats the sound of nylon strings.





For reasons beyond me, I've been really nervous lately. Not like anxiety/paranoia, but just that butterflies something really good is going to happen nervous. I'm not sure why, since there's nothing I'm looking forward to except the end of the semester. (that's for a lot of reasons....) Should be interesting, my intuition is rather irritatingly right all the time, even if I don't immediately see what it knows.

OH! My car. Surprising I haven't written more about it, cause I'm addicted to the damn thing. I've gotten so good at a manual I don't even have to think about it really. I can tell by sound and feel when and where to shift, and I noticed today I self adjust without seemingly being aware. I love driving my car, just plain love it. Some music, remove the top, and go for a drive....it's my happy place. One of my favorite things when out driving is when I'm next to someone at a light or something, and I am looking UP to grin like a fool at them. The only down side to my car being SO low is you feel the road quite a bit. Every little bump, dip, piece of whatever that kicks up you feel and hear it. But I like this having a sporty little car thing, I giggle everytime I start it up. :) I'll most likely be keeping it for quite some time. I love that it's blue too. I either need to get seat covers or get new seats, because I can't stand cloth seats. It's one of my things.

Speaking of my quirks, I can't stand anything touching my forearms, wrist is ok, above the elbow is ok, but I will go straight to pissed if someone touches me on my forearms. This goes for sleeves too, except I become very agitated if my sleeves are down, but not pissed. The only exception to that is if I'm cold. I'll take sleeves over cold any day of the week.

Kinda writing this over the course of the day, so it's probably pretty disjointed. Though I'm usually disjointed so whatever.

I'm doing a project on video game villains, need to clean it up a bit, but it's basically awesome. At some point I'll get the presentation minus my yapping emailed out or something to those interested.

My mind is pretty crowded today, strange since yesterday and the day before I felt a sense of clarity. Maybe it's just all the work and stuff I've been doing. I just don't slow down when I probably should. So I'm going to end this here since as the day goes on I'm losing more and more of my concentration and forgetting what I want to write.

~A.