walking on the dark side of the moon

tomorrow is my last day of class. i have to take a really hard final that i can't seem to get to studying for. my time in school is almost done. i have two more rotations to do (one of them is about a 45 minute drive each way) and then i am practically done. june is around the corner and things are the usual whirlwind.

i am moving for the third march in a row. girlfriend playfully chided me for not having house warming parties as the reason for the constant moving. she just wants to come over now that i'm within walking distance and drink with me.

the two extra rooms will be nice - the boys are starting to need their own space. i want to get some that "caution" tape and wrap daniel's bedroom door.

lotus and my mother have helped out quite a bit with the cleaning - i am grateful for friends that understand that coffee is a necessity for some of us.

i can't wait to be done with this move so that i might not have to deal with my mother so much. i love her very much, but she is fraying every. last. one. of my nerves. our last conversation left me in tears (and drinking), and the last time we were together, she went on and on and ON about psych-k and brain gym, and reverse speech (i'll spare you the links, you're welcome) and something about the evil nazis, the ass, and the asshole. OMG, i almost burst out laughing. talk about testing my zen. i honestly thought i was being punk'd when she was describing IN FULL DETAIL why she doesn't need coffee anymore (as i chugged the last precious drips of my starbucks) because of this metaphysical therapy she's been practicing. as she deeply sucks down her cigarette.. no, i didn't say anything. why bother? she has a very logical-sounding reason for that habit too, i'm sure...

there's a partially eaten tortills on my computer table, granola crumbs in my change bowl, a glass of half-drunk milk on my dresser, and i'm not twitching. damn i'm good...

if anyone can't reach me on my cell phone for a couple days, it's probably because i tripped a circuit and had to clock out for some of the weekend...

now playing: "waiting for my roca" by sublime

over the river and through the woods

last night i came home from a long weekend in the mountains with grandma. i was hoping that the weekend was going to be light and fun - full of goofing off and some chores helping out grandma.

it turned out to be a bit more hectic than anticipated. to sum up my weekend:

• i now know where the county jail is thanks to my uncle. i was waiting in the lobby while grams was visiting with him. i didn't have the car keys, so i couldn't hang out in the car. i was bored, so i read this sheet that outlined the rules for visitation. among my favorites were "the visitor shall not perform sexual acts to him/her self or display one's body sexually during the visitation."
• we (accidently) took the long way home from the airport (my bad, i was driving.) and ended eating at a mex restaraunt. the food was not that great, but the time out was very nice. as soon as we got back on the right road, grandma said, "we knew exactly where we were going. we just wanted to take the scenic route home. we were curious about the afternoon traffic in folsom. yeah, it's pretty bad." i couldn't stop giggling.
• you know you're in the mountains when you're having a conversation with a 20 something yr old guy who's missing a front tooth about what constitutes as actual incest and what's just "creepy". apparently 2nd cousins hooking up is creepy and not really incest, as well as a woman who has 3 kids from 3 dads, and they are brothers, ie, his sister. we bantered about what those kids would call each other. "this is my brother who is also my cousin." i asked about uncles and nieces and was given a raised eyebrow. i'm still not sure what he meant by that...
• i almost finished cutting out the spaces for some vents in the workshop. i don't think i'll ever understand battery operated heavy duty tools. manufacturers shouldn't even bother building them. screwdrivers, yes, but a battery powered jig saw or circular saw is ridiculous. the battery just can't hold enough juice to complete a decent sized job. you end up haviong to recharge the damn thing in the middle of the job, which can be annoying, or have like 3 batteries on reserve, charged and ready to go.
• i love cooking for grandma - she rarely gets cooked for. my new nickname was "the slave". the fridge got a good cleaning - grams forbade me to clean anything else and she promised to "stop fussing" over me so much.
• we went to a nearby winery and drank wine with a picnic lunch of bread, basil, cheese and ham. it was very nice. hank the dog sat next to me with his head in my lap.
• i didn't get to take as many pics as i wanted. i'll post what i can on my flickr acct later..
• i was able to see and old friend, joe, who lives about a 90 min drive from grams. his new girlfriend doesn't seem very pleasant. at all. and lisa is... well, lisa i guess. we missed each other, but at least i was able to see their son. he seems to be doing ok for a 13 yr old who lost a brother so young.

i spied:

• the BEST smoothies ever! grams makes 'em so good.
• mistletoe EVERYWHERE!
• two sets of the bluest eyes i think i've ever seen. the woman's were so sharp it was oddly unnerving. they were almost cat-like. when she talked to me i couldn't help but wonder if her parents had participated in some sort of genetic experimental thingy, like in "firestarter".. i'm sure they weren't contacts. i've just never seen such blue eyes.

the opposing thumb

earlier this morning i was finely chopping onions for a new meatloaf recipe (that rocks, btw).. the onions i bought were not individually selected - they came in a bag (it was cheaper) and so i didn't get to choose exactly what i bought. which left me with onions that are super... well, onioney.. the juices were making me tear profusely, and i cut deeply into my thumb...

my thumb bled for a bit, and eventually stopped. i can't believe how handicapped i have been for the rest of this afternoon..

things that are hard to do when your thumb is out of commission:

• play tetris. rey pointed this out to me when he was trying to convince me to go to urgent care... (i had neither time nor money (my 5 k deductible is a joke...)) i still think i could kick his ass sans BOTH thumbs... tetris MASTER is one of my few boasts...
• pick things up with my left hand. yeah. it hurts.
• wash your hair (or anybody else's for that matter) . the hair gets kinda caught in the cut. it feels weird.
• chop onions.. of course...

stoopidest thing i've heard today (so far):

i'm at the kids' school for pickups. school had already gotten out and i was running late (thank you mr. ass munch director for intentionally keeping us late..). i'm pulling into the school parking lot, and pass 2 teachers talking about their cars. i overhear the woman say, (you ready??)

"well, mines' is just like that, but a little darker... it's more blue..."

wow. i ain't hip to words like, "mines'". yeah. mine-ses..

i need to find out her name so that she don't get nones' of my kids' and teach thems bad grammar..

i know my writing is spewing spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, but i really think elementary teachers should be able to speak proper english.. i also think teachers (or parents for that matter) shouldn't use any sort of profanity (as my 7th grader's teachers do..) around kids.

sigh... maybe i'm just old fashioned...

now playing:

"hang me out to dry" artist: cold war kids album: Robbers & Cowards

man, i feel like a woman...

i had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday. anne and i sat on the porch and talked about men and the way they perceive women. it kinda boiled down to the fact that everyone sees everyone else differently. of course, you can get into stereotypes and etc., but in the end, it's all about the connection shared between two people...

one of the things i realized is that one really should sit down and think about what they want in their (prospective) partner...

what do i think makes a good man?
does he adore my kids? make me laugh? pay my bills? interested in what i have to say? eat my food even when it's "healthy"? go to the batting cages with me? romance me? pick me up starbucks on the way home?

what do i want my man to think of me as a woman?
does he not care if i dye my hair? wear jeans everyday? not show cleavage? not fix my hair? what about the fact that i'm overweight? that my body is covered in stretch marks? that i snort when i laugh?

what makes a good woman?

is she pretty? does she take time to be pretty? what about women who take "excessive" amounts of time? and women who take none?

i (pathetically) teeter on the low end of this particular spectrum... i don't lotion my legs or hands unless the skin is scaling and crisp. i wax my lip when the hairs are overgrown... i sometimes forget to shave one of my legs.. my makeup and nail polish are all approaching the decade mark (if not already there).

and despite all of this, i have thought that it was ok, because i've always thought that being a tomboy was ok. my mother would only get dolled up for the evil stepfather (childhood!!! i'm tellin' you...) at his persistence. my sis was obsessed with being pretty as we were growing up. i remember being morbidly fascinated with the progressively thinning eyebrows during high school... once i tried to convince her to just pluck them completely - i just couldn't bear the anticipation of their total obliteration...

i think the accumulative experiences i had with women and the unprettiness of trying to be pretty repulsed me so that i didn't want to be part of that at all...

and in a lot ways, i still don't...

a classmate (guy) told me yesterday that i am "way too high maintenance.." i thought it was funny because i've always thought that i am really low maintenance; i don't care about birthday/anniversary/x-mas gifts, i'm not picky when it comes to what to eat, what to do, what to watch (ok, here i have to say, i'm rather reluctant about horror because they can freak me out...), i've always carried my own when it comes to responsibilities, i rarely ask for help with the groceries.

i can only be what is in my heart to be, and expect my (MALE) partner to want to be that for me...

now get back to work...

now playing:
"my star". by madder rose. album is tragicmagic

i'm off to see the wizard!

i finally took some time out last night to call my grandma and i am going to be going up to see her next weekend in placerville. i might have come company, and not sure yet if i'll fly or drive up there. i have mondays off from school for the next 3 weeks, and i really need to get up to see grams. she needs some work done on her house, and i really miss my grandparents' house. i'm afraid to see what my uncle has done to grandpa's workshop... i'm going up not the weekend that's coming, but the one following it...

i'd like to take a moment now to mention that the english language is so friggin' confusing sometimes. when i think of "next weekend", i think of the one that is "next in line", which technically would be THIS coming weekend, right? wrong...

a couple more of my favorites:

"going for the jugular"... this one doesn't make sense to me at all because the jugular veins are bringing used blood from the head back to the heart for circulation to the lungs for gas exchange.. if i were a (smart) lion, and i was trying to ace a gazelle, i would go for that poor sucker's carotid artery, the jugular's complimentary vessel. it is full of oxygen-rich blood and will be full and jutting out of his neck because he's been on the run from me and his blood pressure's through the roof... the artery's high pressures will cause the blood to spout a lot faster, bringing about death much quicker...

another one of my favorites is when people say, "i can feel... (insert intense emotion here) ... coursing through my veins." which is pointless because your systemic circulation (ARTERIES) carries your hormones, and neurotransmitters that your body has most of it's responses to. the veins are the vessels for used blood return!

i brought this up with a person in the medical field, and he came up with (what i thought was) a weak argument about how the veins are what you can easily see on your body...

and??

i think maybe he was just trying to play devil's advocate...

things don't come "from left field", they should come from right field, where most balls are NOT sent to. when you think about it, a lot of stuff actually "comes from left field"...

like 90% of the contents in my blog...

yeah, i hear you...

in my ARTERIES!!!

RUMPELSTILTSKIN!!!

i have 3.5 weeks of classes left, and then i am done with the classes for good. i am enjoying my last class, Neonatal Respiratory Care.

today we watched a video of several women giving birth, and the respiratory care a newborn receives depending on the circumstances of the birth. so we watched several clips. one was a normal delivery, another was where a baby had passed it's meconium during labor, and another was of a premature birth where the baby had to be resuscitated.

the normal birth clip was funny, because you see everything, and i do mean EVERYTHING, as the baby is born. and then, right after the baby comes out, the mother's vagina is blurred out as the doctor suctions the baby and cleans it up.

it was like, wha?

i said, "hey, that's pretty funny that we get to see a baby's head hanging out of a vagina, and the baby coming through the vagina, but god forbid we be exposed to the visual shock of woman's vagina by itself. good thing they blurred that out..."

mr. clinical-director who loves to bicker with me said, "of course YOU would notice that!"

this was an add-on to a joke that's been going on for a couple of weeks; that i am gay.

i'm really not bothered by it, i can take a hit (i think) sometimes. why just this morning when i came to class a little late, my teacher said, "wow! you're wearing make-up again?!?"

i said, "yeah, i've met someone... she's really nice..."

"madonna", one of my classmates that i sit next to, was laughing pretty hard. i love cracking him up. he said during the videos, "i can't believe you did that FOUR times!"

i said, "well, it took me a while to figure out what the hell was causing the pregnancies!"

so bad... there is nothing like a friend you can get nasty with...

take lotus for example. i called her today after school as i was driving to pick up veggies, and somehow the conversation turned into a rather hilarious discussion about sex...

in other news, i arrived early at the pick-up for the weekly organic veggies place, so i decided to go for a hike on the trail that goes through a canyon in clairemont, marian bear park. i had a very nice walk, and i'm hoping that i can get enough stuff done tonight so that i can sneak off there tomorrow morning after i get up (5 am) and bring my camera. maybe get some pics of the sunrise.

my joeys are happy, and i am glad that on wednesdays i have an extra kid (d2's friend from school) through dinner. tomorrow i have a dinner planned with my sis and her three monkeys, so it's going to be a madhouse of 8 kids from 1 to 12. i can't wait!! and the bestest part: it's at her house!! YAY!!

things that make me go "hmmmm...":

• auntie mayo (that's my sis) coming over this morning for coffee before work (a couple blocks from my house). it was so nice to see her. it was interesting to see that she probably has as many hangups about me as big sister as i have about her being little sister, and yet i know we love each other very much. she did my lipstick and chided me for smearing the lipliner too much...
• andre's mom (he's the 9 yr old i take on wed's) telling me about how she loved having my boys over last week. d1 asked her if there was anything he could do to help around the house, and she said she made him ask her 3 times because she "couldn't believe one of the boys were offering to help." we had a good laugh over the laziness of little boys.
• teriyaki sauce i made that was accused (yep, i said "accused"...) of tasting a lot like adobo. the nerve of some people, i swear...
• sometimes the most prudent choice is not necessarily the best choice...
• the way things change between people as the the things around them change. as newton said, "For every action there is an equal but opposite reaction." interesting how physics can also be applied to relationships. with the intensity of love comes fear and sadness. but then again, 23 is just another number... (that movie was riddled with plot holes, btw...)

ahh. one of my favorite blogs occasionally ends his post with a "what's playing..."

what's playing: "Don't Worry, Be Happy", by what's his face, bobby mc-something.. mcknight? mcferrral?

oh dear...