Okay, these ribs have to heal soon; I need to work out. For one thing, our friend Chris recently introduced us to Chubby Hubby. I'm sure you guys know all about it since it's been around forever, but Drew and I had no idea such a delicious ice cream flavor existed.

I. Fucking. Love. Chubby Hubby.

But the main reason I need to get back on the StairMaster is that Drew makes the absolute yummiest, most hunger-inspiring food ever. Last night we had fondue (fennel, apples, carrots, purple potatoes, and sourdough bread with a really nice gruyere cheese); that meal alone would have been worthy of a blog mention. But then this morning he took it to another level by using the leftover bread cubes to made us adorable, scrumptious little french toast cubes which we then showered with powdered sugar and maple syrup.

And now I'm fat.

 

Sorry -- I've got a chemistry test on Monday and then the final on Thursday. So no time to post. Back soon.

 

Several weeks ago, Drew and I went camping in Big Sur with our friends Chris and John. After two days in the "wilderness" of the Ventana campgrounds, I had two scraped knees, various strained muscles and two fractured ribs.

It's really Drew's fault (no seriously, honey, it's your fault so please don't argue with me about it). It's true that I was a wee bit intoxicated when most of the damage was done, but still -- you're totally going to agree with me that it was his fault in just two seconds.

We got a little drunk. And then we went to visit some of Chris's friends at a nearby campsite and we got a little stoned. As we were walking back, Drew realized he had forgotten the marshmallow-roasting sticks he had so painstakingly whittled, so I went back to retrieve them. Then, when I got back to the path those motherfuckers were a good quarter mile up the road. THEY HADN'T EVEN WAITED FOR ME! (Drew, seriously, stop arguing with this version of events. It was definitely a quarter of a mile. And the fact that we'd already started walking up the road when I turned back is no excuse for the fact that you all just kept moving. So shut it and just agree with me.).

So I catch up with them and say some passive-aggressive drunken thing like "Thanks for waiting for me, assholes!" Which they pretty much ignored. But I got my chance to stick it to them good when the three of them stopped to use the restroom. I, being pissed off and drunk, decided to stomp back to the campsite alone. In my deluded mind, they were going to come back to the tents hollering my name and I'd emerge and they'd all grow teary with relief and tell me how important I was to them and how they were wrong to keep walking without me. Or something like that.

So off I go -- stomp! stomp! stomp! No flashlight. Very little moonlight. I thought I could see the road, but suddenly it just wasn't there anymore. The road was gone and I was impaled on top of a wooden snow fence. Everything went black, the fence snapped undernearth my weight and then I was hanging upside down on the opposite side of the fence. Too drunk and scared to holler... scared shitless about the possibility that this fence might be on the border of some steep bluff. What the holy fuck. I had no choice but to flip myself over and fall. Luckily I landed three or four feet below -- and actually stuck the landing, which restored a tad bit of my crushed ego. Then I somehow managed to pull myself back up over the fence and promptly fell flat on my face on the other side.

I was in a state of shock when I found Drew, Chris and John on the path. I didn't tell Drew what had happened until ten minutes later; it took me that long to process it, I think. One second I'd been walking along, plotting some petty revenge on my friends for not paying enough attention to me; a heartbeat later I was hanging upside down on a fence contemplating the possibility that I was about to be seriously injured.

I had a few scrapes, which Drew lovingly bandaged up (even though he was just as drunk as me). That night, and over the course of that next week, I thought I'd just bruised my ribs (you know, the ribs that supported my body weight on top of that fence). They didn't hurt too terribly, but it was uncomfortable to bend over or to sleep on my stomach for several days.

Unfortunately, it's been a few weeks since then and my ribs still hurt like a motherfucker. They're slowly (very, very slowly) getting better, but I haven't been able to go to the gym or run or do any other kind of cardio since we got back from that trip.

It could have been worse, I guess, because the next day I went to find the fence I'd fallen through. It was surrounding some kind of generator and sported a big "DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE" sign.

 

Email Message:

"EWWWWW I would have posted this on your blog but I can't remember my password.

"SO THIS IS HOW one could be angry w/nate and not so angry w/brad.

"Nate and brenda have (had) a pretty honest marriage. Filled w/all the ugliness that can and does appear in a marriage - fights , disagreements, dissillusionment with your partner, openly being unhappy yet still loving each other.

"Brad and jennifer played up the fairy tale aspect - look at us, we glide thru life. Nothing is wrong . Ever. - granted we were not in their lives every day and didn't really know what was truly happening. But they always had a plastic smile on their face."

Sorry, I have to jump in here, Brad-Supporter:

'[Aniston] told W Magazine: "Is he the love of my life? I think you're always kind of wondering." [link]

That's not 'plastic smile' talk. She's a sweet, warm, loving person who was unfortunately blinded by the supposed beauty of a true dickweed.

Team Aniston-Chenowith: 1, Team Jolie: -1,806.

But please, continue with your thinly-veiled Angelina's-not-a-total-skank campaign.

"BUT nate and brenda respresent a more true marriage and both were fighting internally and externally to make it thru the day and communicate. To BREAK that bond to me is the ultimate betrayal. When you are trying that hard to save something and then you shit on it?

"Unforgivable.

"So anyway - I would have posted on your blog but couldn't."

Uh... okay. Interesting. Wrong, but interesting.

 

In my un-humble opinion, it is just wrong to be angry with Nate Fisher but not angry with Brad Pitt.

Both are cheaters. And even though they both cheated on women with whom they (reportedly, in Brad's case) were having marital problems, it's still unfair to be angry with one of them and yet excuse the other.

However, I think it's okay to mourn the dead one while still being ticked off at the one who, sadly, has only contracted meningitis.

I was so thrown by what happened to Nate that I couldn't go to sleep that night. I got up at midnight to log onto the discussion boards at hbo.com. And, uhm... the people on those boards have awfully vapid opinions.

Unlike the opinions you're reading now, which are full of vinegar.

(And before anyone writes to me about "real-life" versus "make-believe", I'd just like to point out that my relationship with both of these people -- and therefore the opinions that are informed by those relationships -- are total fiction anyway so what does it matter who's real and who's not. And Brad Pitt, although a real person, is a real shitty person. Which is apropos of nothing except I love to make that pronouncement at every given opportunity.)

 

Every second I put into school is a second invested towards -- something. My future, I suppose, although that sounds awfully silly. And anyway, it's not like I'm not getting something out of school now; I'm so much happier right now than I was a year ago. Infinitely happier. But the fact that MCATs and med school applications are coming up in a few months is a fact that confronts me every day, whether I like it or not.

I used to spend my days bumping around from one dead-end job to another with very little serious thought devoted to where I'd be five years later. When I was 21 I'm sure I thought I'd be deep into a successful career by 26. When I got to 26, I felt like I was too young to have anything figured out. Or at least I hoped that was the case, because I didn't know what the fuck I was working towards.

It's an adjustment to have to think about my future in concrete terms (i.e. where will I go to med school? Will we have to leave California? And will Drew hate me if we do? What kind of doctor should I be?). I'm pretty sure I used to just assume my future held lots of money and a cute husband. But instead of figuring out how I was going to get those things, I would just concentrate on getting to my crap job on time every day (a feat made tricky by the voluminous amounts of marijuana I was smoking).

My closest friend at school isn't doing so well. She's worried she might not be able to get into med school at all. It's rather upsetting, because she's one of those people who's extremely bright but just freezes up on tests. Her grades aren't even bad, but it's so competitive to get into these schools that more than two or three B's puts you at a serious disadvantage. And I think that's part of my problem. The pressure to do well is so all-consuming that I don't have much time to make a plan for what will happen next.

Actually, I think that's a total lie. I think that's just what I tell myself ("Just get through these next few tests before you worry about that stuff."). It's the force of a very bad habit; I'm comfortable thinking that everything will just take care of itself.

It's true, in a way, that there's not much I can do about the application process at the moment. But I've remained alarmingly ignorant of what is expected of me. Just yesterday I signed up for another biology class because I found out that it's required by the majority of med schools.

I guess this whole long boring-ass post is really just a way of convincing myself that I should go meet with my advisor. Blech. Okay. I'm emailing her now.

 

Last night I dreamt that I was John Abbott's son.

Worrying over the financial solvency of Jabot Cosmetics had me trapped in a constant state of panic. And I had a girlfriend/fiancee. And Drew and I were having an affair (until he broke it off, unhappy that I was planning to marry a woman).

And then Drew was eaten by sharks.

 

I'm in the library right now trying to study for Monday's chemistry test, and I'm getting really frustrated. I feel dazed -- like I took a dozen bong hits last night; my brain just isn't cooperating.

Drew and I went out last night and I had a mojito but that's it. I slept enough. I've been drinking water. I had a nice healthy lunch. What the fuck? What's wrong with me? Is it the heat? Did I do permanent damage to my brain Wednesday night? It was just one bottle of cheap wine, for Christ's sake!

I DON'T WANT TO BE IN THE LIBRARY ALL FUCKING DAY BUT I CAN'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING I'M READING!

When I get frustrated in the library I usually start taking it out on the people sitting near me. Like the goonball three desks away who just answered his cell phone. YOU CAN'T TALK ON YOUR CELL PHONE IN HERE, GOONBALL! I hope he can feel the hatred radiating from my semi-dead brain so he knows how much I'd like to throw him out the window.

 

Drew got upset with me last night for polishing off nearly an entire bottle of wine by myself. I was unrepentant until this morning.

I couldn't understand what the fuck was going on in lecture today. I know my professor was trying to communicate something to me. And every now and again the pitch of his voice would rise and then a fellow student would say some words in response to the words he was saying. But I have no idea what any of them were talking about. I just copied down the words everyone said and hoped it would all make sense to me later.

I used to drink and smoke pot every night back when I was employed as a Hollywood punching bag. And I never really noticed much of a problem. Hell, at the end I was smoking weed with breakfast, during my commute and (a couple times) at the office. (Remember that story, Genny?).

Well apparently I can't do that anymore. I realize part of the reason things are different these days is that I actually need my brain now (not that it wasn't difficult to ship a box of underwear to Wesley Snipes in Prague -- it's just that it would have been so much more difficult do to it sober.). But I also think I'm just getting older and can't bounce back as quickly as I used to.

I think I might have actually gotten depressed about it if, during our break in lecture, an undergrad hadn't asked our professor if The Second Law of Thermodynamics is the reason why people die. And then stood there actually expecting him to provide an answer.

Just when you think no one could be as stupid as you....

 

How did I get this old this fast?

This morning as I was walking to class I suddenly felt very un-young and I had this rush of empathy for with people who experience mid-life crises.

I'm in this strange, dynamic, challenging holding pattern right now that sometimes leaves me feeling antsy. Why can't this part be over? Why can't I be in med school? Why can't I be married? Why can't I have tropical holidays and a house with a garage? Why do I have to be this poofy-haired, 28 year-old, soft-bellied general chem student with a sunburn? Why didn't I start all of this sooner instead of wasting so many months in jobs I knew were wrong for me?

Life is long, I guess. And this is just how long it took for me to be ready to handle something like this (school, I mean). There's nothing much I can do about the timetable. I'll be a doctor by 2011. In the meantime, I can at least get a haircut and go to the gym.

I think this was all triggered by a documentary Drew and I watched last night about middle-schoolers. Middle school was so awful... getting dumped by my best friend, my parents divorcing, my grades taking a nosedive, my faggy side intensifying....

At one point in the documentary this little boy was crying because no one would sit with him at lunch and Drew said "We didn't sit at tables. My friends and I would just take our lunch outside and sit under a tree." That seems too perfect. While I was lonely and miserable in freezing-cold Missouri, he was splayed out under a sunny warm California sky. At least that's how I'm picturing him.

That's life, I guess. There's no changing it, no do-overs... it just keeps coming (and it seems to be coming faster and faster every year).

 

I thought my money problems were almost over. I got a $150 catering job yesterday and had another one lined up for tonight. Yesterday's was easy, albeit time-consuming. The worst part was that I had to abandon Drew for the majority of our anniversary.

Tonight's job was going to require a confidentiality agreement. I was supposed to work from 4pm today until 2am tomorrow morning. If I was lucky I would have gotten four hours of sleep before chemistry lecture. I say "would have" because this VIP asshole decided to jet off to the Dominican Republic at the last minute.

What a jackass. The party planner told us who he was before we signed the release. I shouldn't name names because of the very real possibility that he pays an assistant to google his name each day and report back on every fucking little thing. I never liked this guy anyway... although I suspect he's a total gay bang and it would have been nice to have that confirmed.

 

Drew and I are getting ready to celebrate our one-year anniversary. The one-year mark is, in my opinion, a good time to take stock. After The Canadian, I promised myself that I wouldn't date a person longer than a year if there were fundamental problems that would prohibit it from becoming a lifelong partnership. (Not that you can ever know for sure if something is going to last forever... but I think you can know for sure when something is definitely heading for the crapper.)

Drew and I have very, very few problems. Here they are in no particular order:

(1) I'm poor. He's not. This can cause a strain at times (mostly on me, who hates to feel like I can't support myself.)
(2) He's in a creative field and I'm in a scientific field. The fact that I have to study acids & bases all day today is of very, very, very little interest to him. When he asks "What's your favorite shade of teal?" I have no idea what teal looks like. (I just googled it to make sure it wasn't something hideous that would make him say, "I read your blog today. I HATE teal! How could you not know that?!?!")
(3) In two years I'll be going to medical school. Hopefully I'll get into a great school in L.A.. I may, however, end up in [insert heinously boring city here]. If we're still together, Drew would have to move to [Chicago? Boston? Bloomington?]. Which could be really rough on him.

We had a long talk about these things a couple weeks ago. Obviously, they're all manageable. #3 is a big one, but there's not much we can do about that now; besides, that's two whole years away so there's really not much point in trying to figure out how to deal with it just yet.

I'm a little more nervous at the one-year mark than I thought I would be. I love him and I love our apartment and I love our life together. But I remember how things turned so sour with The Canadian... how we started taking each other for granted and stopped sleeping together and how it ended with me smashing every dish in the house and shit-bombing his record store.

Okay, I didn't really shit-bomb his record store.

Isn't there a point in any relationship when you have to start sacrificing more of the short-term good for the benefit of the long-term good? "No, Canadian, I don't want to go to your stupid club tonight. I have to get up at 6am. But I'll go anyway because I love you." There's a moment when it starts to feel like work. I'm fine with work; it appeals to my midwestern, blue-collar side -- the side that says if you're not exhausting yourself, you're a useless piece of turd. But I don't want to work for something that's going to end in a pile of broken dishes.

Drew and I aren't at the work point yet. At least I'm not. I'm still stuck in the honeymoon phase... hopefully that'll last another year.