Paper done and submitted a few hours ago.
I had a grapefruit for dinner again - though I had it at 9:45 as opposed to any normal dinner time.

I have to see if my laundy is ready to go in the dryer since I have no clothes to wear tomorrow otherwise.

Tomorrow night I am having dinner with my co-worker and her husband since I am pet-sitting and apartment-sitting for them next week and weekend. That will be a nice respite from the daily grind.

I just ordered a few books from Amazon.com:

Speaking of Sadness : Depression, Disconnection, and the Meanings of Illness by David Karp
To Kill a Mockingbird : The 40th Anniversary Edition by Harper Lee
The Circle of Reason by Amitav Ghosh
The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracian

Those are my birthday presents to myself.

I talked to my friend LJ tonight - online and on the phone. He had read the rants and wanted to check up on me. And give me the chance to vent. I maintained that it’s the same old shit, and that if he’s heard it once, he’s heard it a million times. He insisted that he wanted to listen and be a sounding board.

Sometimes having just one person express the sentiment - and quote Dionne Warwick’s “That’s What Friends Are For” at you - can brighten things up a little. He did quote Dionne at me. But I quoted the Backstreet Boys back at him, so we’re even.

Now I’m going to check the laundry and get to bed since I need to stop at the bank in the morning and withdraw some cash money for charging up a MetroCard and lunch and stuff.

Yeah… so who was talking about transitioning to being a morning person only a few hours ago?

Who was thinking she’d be up bright and early, working on her paper a little before going to work?

Mmm-hm. That’s right. It was me.

Now it’s 11:30 - which honestly isn’t that late in the scheme of things, but considering the nature of the thoughts running through my head and how many of them there are, I’m not getting to sleep anytime soon. I might cry. That’s a very strong possibility.

The thoughts? They sort of run in a big old Joycean stream-of-consciousness mode - a la Ulysses’ final “chapter”, not like Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Something like:

this is pathetic why can’t i sleep i need to get some rest work tomorrow and work is the only place where i feel i matter since what i want and what i need and what i can do don’t amount to shit anywhere else in my life which is not my own really living at home turning 28 in exactly a week and really have nothing to show for it other than a job i like but still no place of my own and no life to speak of i feel old really old when my mom was my age she had two children and a new life in a new country housewife but that was her dream at the time wanted six kids got four i don’t want any and so i dont feel behind completely because i have a career and education and those are things i value but love would be nice too and i’ve never fallen asleep being held though i fall asleep holding my pillow or my winnie the pooh stuffed animal which is really pathetic but at least its only one stuffed animal not a bed full because that would be scary and pathetic and why is it that im only eating grapefruit and soup because i’m stressing so much and i am not feeling any thinner just more gross and disgusting knowing that boys want to date pretty thin girls that will make other boys jealous and the girls with personality and brains are destined to be best friends and never girlfriends and are the constant the x axis while all the other girls drift in and out like a sin wave or cosine whichever i don’t remember trigonometric functions too well but the graph thing works i’d be a constant line in several graphs staid and solid and there all the time which is why i’m practically invisible and the measure against which other girls are plotted in some categories but i’ll never be a plotted point on my own i’m just the horizontal zero line maybe the y axis vertical is a supermodel and the only time that she and i were ever close was at the origin point 0,0 when we were both just zygotes and then she grew up and i grew out and broadened my horizons and my waistline and now i am the x axis which is marked as personality and brains and she is the y axis for looks and sexuality and i’ll never be plotted along that because i’m down here keeping things constant and how sick is it that my metaphor for loneliness is a graph no wonder i’m single and haven’t been touched by a boy in four years four years and sometimes it doesnt even matter and its funny because when my last and only notevenareal relationship ended he told me i would find someone in six months and that he’d be single for a good long time because he was bitter and no looking for a relationship he’d bet on it and its too bad that i didnt put any money on it because i’d be a really rich girl he’s dated a few people since then and has had this girlfriend for a year and a half or something like that and i am still asking him if he wants to go and have a burger for my birthday since i don’t really have a whole hell of a lot going on otherwise but its ok because my sights are set on someone else who sees me as only a friend so no worries for anyone else i’m busy being pathetic elsewhere and falling asleep thinking about how time is really cruel and ironic and how it never quite works out even when you’ve known someone for years and years and the attractions never quite coincided and it’s the most difficult part of relationships finding someone who likes you as much as you like them when you both like each other at the same time because i’ve been in the bad timing arena all my life it seems and i remember things too well and i remember about seven or eight years ago getting phone calls late at night just because someone was thinking of me but far away in another state and drunk but thinking of me and sitting with someone talking and him just reaching out and touching my cheek for no reason and he had a girlfriend at the time so i guess it was just alcohol again because why else would someone touch me and its good that i’m a girl with some self respect because otherwise i’d take what i could get even if it was just because someone was drunk and didn’t know any better but i do because i’m horribly sober all the time even with prescription drugs in my system that help me wake up in the morning and be functional all day without falling apart crying at my desk when i realize this is me and this is the high point of my day because i have nothing to go home to and no one who’s going to smile when they see me and not even a cat who’d be happy to see me though i know they just love me because i can use a can opener and provide fresh drinking water a glorified poland spring cooler and can opener that will let you sleep on its lap i’d still like a cat though it would be something warm and cuddly and living that would curl up with me whether i’m happy or sad or angry or apathetic to everything but i’m still just very alone and very awake and too aware of everything which is also ironic since this medication usually works very well at keeping a buffer zone between me and the rest of the world because i guess i’m too sensitive to certain things and i don’t mean sensitive like i cry at hallmark commercials or empathize with everyone and everything i meet but i feel my life experience a little too intently and deeply and can’t let go too well which is why i’m seeing a doctor and trying to learn better ways to deal and i usually do pretty well except when i’m stressed and things begin to chip away at my happy happy cheerfully efficient facade and then i just feel like there’s only a bag made of gauze or cheesecloth or something separating my insides from the world and containing my bullshit drama depression whining childishness selfishness though bits leak out since the gauze is porous but the vast majority is contained in this container of my head the only thing i can really prize and the reason that i have any friends that i do and even that thing my brain my most prized possession trait gift is betraying me and the timing is wrong because i should be on top of the world at the top of my game and my brain is all messed up with neurochemicals not doing what they should and absorbing too quickly and not letting me be happy or relaxed and this is the curse of my brain and head and mind that and not being able to sleep but getting this out perhaps helped a little and a reminder note just popped up on my screen telling me that my paper is due today since it’s now midnight and it’s tomorrow and my paper is due tonight and i’ll work on it at work and when i get home and hand it in just in time but i don’t need this added stress but whatever it’s too late to take a sleeping pill and the cortisone shot isn’t helping at all so my wrist hurts but i have ceased to care since it’s going to hurt no matter what i do it doesn’t even matter anymore and that seems to be the theme for me

I’m back on track with the paper. It’s due tomorrow night by 11:59 p.m.

I am going to call it a night tonight since I did about 2,000 words this evening, after returning from my follow-up visit to the orthopedist.

The diagnosis is still incomplete. My pain hasn’t disappeared and the spots where it remains quite tender and sore and ouchie are not consistent with Kienbock’s OR carpal tunnel syndrome OR tendinitis (which I’ve been spelling tendonitis for years, but which is apparently wrong.)

Doctor Rob (as the nurses refer to him) gave me a shot of DEPO-MEDROL® with Lidocaine (a synthetic analogue of cortisol) into the OTHER tendon in my forearm. I can’t remember the proper names, but last time it was the one on the “outside” of my wrist (close to thumb), and this time it was the one on the “interior” of my wrist (close to pinky finger).

A few minutes later, he had me press on my wrist again to see where it hurt, and there was still the spot of pain sort of at the base of my wrist - where the two fleshy pads at the bottom of my palm meet at a “V” at my wrist. Still pain. And he said, “This is a weird case.” But I am coming back in another few weeks to see how it’s feeling then, since the final effects of the cortisone shot should be manifested in two days.

I iced my wrist for about 10 minutes when I got home, fired out the 2,000 words of this paper, and now I am in pain and am going to stop typing and get the ice pack again… and go to sleep. If I get up as early tomorrow as I did today (5:30) I might get out of bed instead of reading for an hour and work on my paper in the morning.

Yeah - it’s strange. The last few days - perhaps because of stress - I’ve been a sort of morning person. Getting up before the alarm… not feeling like I need to go back to sleep. I still have little to no appetite and didn’t even finish my salad at lunchtime (though I did load it up with lots of good things like tuna, grilled chicken, tomatoes, cucumber, baby spinach leaves, broccoli, olives and chick peas - no dressing, because all the tasties were more than enough) and just had a mug of homemade tomato soup for dinner. There was a little tubettini pasta in there, so it wasn’t broth alone. But still… not sufficient.

That said, it’s time to go to bed and relax. It’s the only way I can focus on getting this paper done… relax and deal with it. I can finish it up tomorrow night. Only 500 more words… I’ll even email it to myself at work in case I want to spend my lunch hour hacking away at it.

I am finished with paper-writing for today. I worked on the paper and have about 5 pages done, but I have a lot more analysis and comparison to conduct. The only problem is that I just don’t feel like doing it.

I sat here a little earlier, on the verge of tears, saying to myself, “I know I can do it — I just don’t want to right now.” The only reason to get it done today is so I can submit it to my professor as a draft for review. However, I’m stressing far too much over getting it done “now” for this to be fruitful. I’m calling it quits for tonight, though I have a good solid outline. All that remains to be done is “fill-in-the-blanks” work (finishing up information in my outline) and double-checking citations. I should be able to finish it up tomorrow night, Tuesday night and even Wednesday since it’s due by 11:59 p.m. that night. I intend on having it finished tomorrow, though. Too many other things to do.

The paper can be submitted via email in a .rtf document, or posted online. I’m opting for the latter since I have three charts/tables to include and can also include links in the paper this way.

So… yeah. I popped out to the pharmacy before and got my monthly bunch’o'meds. Even with insurance, it cost me $95.00 for my three scripts, and then I let myself get some facial cleanser, Band-Aids and birthday cards for three upcoming birthdays - other than my own, obviously. All told, it was $115 and change. Ugh. I mean, it’s good to know that I have more than enough money in my bank account to cover that, but it’s still a lot of money to spend at CVS. I could have gotten several pairs of jeans or a pair or two of nice shoes for that amount of money. However, my sanity and ability to sleep are slightly more important.

I think I have to admit that part of my recent depressive state is due to my impending birthday. It’s rough; thinking about where I was when I was 23 and now where I am with 28 just a couple of weeks away.

When I was 23, I had an apartment of my own, a pretty active social life (no dating, but it was OK), a job I liked, a car of my own, and the energy to exercise daily - which resulted in my being a size 7/8.

On the cusp of 28, I’m still back at home, have almost no social life, a job I love (one of two positives), driving the family minivan, am attending grad school (positive #2), close to no energy to exercise, and about 60 pounds I need to lose. No joke… to meet the requirements set forth by the government for my height, anyway. Yup. I don’t agree with those guidelines. I’d look emaciated if I weighed what I’m “supposed” to weigh for my height. So, I won’t lose that much. I don’t feel I need to. Losing 2/3 of that would get me back down to a size 7/8.

It’s 8:30. I’m going to put on a movie and get into bed. If I wake up early enough tomorrow, maybe I’ll guilt myself into some treadmill time. Then again, I didn’t eat much at all today, so I might wake up ravenous. Right now, I’m too stressed to have much of an appetite.

And my wrist hurts. A lot. Probably from all the typing. I have that follow-up visit with the doctor on Tuesday afternoon. We shall see what it all means.

It’s not midnight, so I can’t say I’m burning the midnight oil just yet. I finished one paper, and got 3 pages of the second one done. I don’t know how long it’s going to be in total. There’s a word count requirement, not a page count.

So far, I have approximately 1100 words down. There are supposed to be about 1500 in the first part and 4000 in the second. I’m not concerned with this. I’ll meet that rather easily, I think.

I’m not going to sit up late working on it. I have ALLL day tomorrow, and maybe even more time than that. The paper is due on Wednesday, but I’d like to submit a draft to the professor. If I have it to her by 11:59 p.m. tomorrow, she can get back to me with some feedback/direction before it’s due. I might take her up on it. We’ll see. I’m not terribly nervous about it. I feel more confident about this second longer paper than I did about the first one I did earlier tonight.

In other news, I’m still feeling pretty down and crappy, but am trying my best to just ignore it and not let myself fall into these negative, downwardly spiraling thought patterns. Instead, I am trying to organize externally, which sometimes makes me feel a little better. For example, I cleaned. Then I got a notepad and pen and jotted down - in messy eva shorthand - the titles of about 50 books I needed to add to my catalog on LibraryThing.com.

With these additions, my current library count is at 500 titles, and I know I haven’t gotten everything in the first layer of books yet. This means that sometime over the summer or any upcoming extended holiday weekend, it might be time to take the books off my bookshelves, write down the names of the books behind them, and then catalog THOSE. Otherwise, they just sit back there, forgotten and sad. I don’t want them to be forgotten and sad. If I had the room and the shelves, they’d all be out in the open. I can’t say “light of day” since I keep my curtains drawn and my room pretty dark due to personal preference and respect for the ravages of sunlight on books.

Suddenly, however, I am tired. I am going to settle in for the night. Tomorrow’s another fun day of academe.

This morning, while putting off my paper for another few hours, I watched “Walk the Line,” which arrived from Netflix a few days ago.

I was most pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think I’d like it, but I felt compelled to watch it because of Reese Witherspoon. I like her - I respect her. She’s young and female and capable and looks younger than she is… and named her production company “Type A Productions,” after her type A personality. Sounds a little like someone I see when looking in the mirror. That, and I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I am reminiscent of her in general, and specifically of her character of Tracy Flick in “Election.”

So. Yeah. I liked the movie. It wasn’t the greatest movie I’ve ever seen, but it was far from the worst. It was engaging and interesting and well-paced, which is more than I can say for a lot of things I’ve seen lately. I don’t want that to sound like half-assed disparaging praise because it was actually quite good. Witherspoon deserved her Oscar, and Joaquin Phoenix deserved his nominations - and possibly the Oscar, if Phillip Seymour Hoffman hadn’t been his main competition.

Speaking of which, I read “In Cold Blood” on Thursday. Now THAT, my friends, was some good reading. Not high art, but a well-told, finely wrought story. The question of what’s true and what’s been artfully managed by Truman Capote remains in my head, but it was quite interesting to read, even the poorly written misspelled portions that are reprints of letters to and from the murderers before and after committing this crime. I recommend it highly. Added bonus - Vintage didn’t print a movie tie-in cover. It’s the regular cover with a sticker on it that says “tie-in to the major motion picture” and has a picture of Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Capote on the sticker. I promptly removed it from the book cover, but pasted it into a little notebook I carry with me all the time because it’s a pretty cool little decal.

I finished that on the train ride home Thursday and started a new book I picked up… it’s called “Tibet, Tibet” by a gentleman called Patrick French. It’s his narrative of travels and living in Tibet over the course of something like 5 years. I’ve only just started it, but it’s caught me up on a lot of Tibetan history already… and actually has the story of the man who set himself on fire in peaceful protest during the Chinese visit to Tibet in the early 90s. He was a friend of the author’s. He died soon after setting himself on fire, but not before the Dalai Lama came to visit him and spoke with him in his hospital bed.

Anyway, I finished paper #1 and sent that off to my group partner and our group leader. I am starting the second paper and am waiting for 31 pages of metadata element outlines to print from the Dublin Core website. And that’s Dublin, Ohio, not Dublin, Ireland.

Why am I printing the 31 pages of info? Isn’t that totally antithetical to the idea of the Internet and paper-free information? Well, yeah. But this is stuff I’m going to be referring to constantly tonight and tomorrow, and I can shove it in my binder of readings for this class, make notes on it, and have it for posterity. As it stands, I can’t make notes on the Internet and have them there when I come back to visit… thought that would be a COOL-ASS thing to have, open-source developers of the world. A plug-in/extension allowing users to personally annotate web pages. Number 1, it would help you remember if you’d already been somewhere and what you thought of it then, and secondly, for students and researchers, it would be a great way of containing all information electronically instead of having to duplicate research on paper to make notes and observations.

Ok. Well, I might be able to get this second paper finished tonight and then have tomorrow stress-free and lovely, but the excuse of having a paper to write is so nice. I can finish the paper and pretend that I am still working on it tomorrow, and guarantee myself some peace and quiet. Hrm.

That remains to be seen.

Two papers to write this weekend, and I’m currently not feeling the muse upon me. So I cleaned my desk off, made room for new books I’ve acquired over the past few months, folded laundry, took a long hot soak (w/bath salts since my muscles have been a little sore lately - wearing heels too often) and am now settling in to an evening of reading legislative history.

Most people would think that the pursuit of a Master’s in Library and Information Science would have a lot more to do with the Dewey Decimal System and alphabetization than law.

NOT SO!!!

In my “Intro to Information Policy” class, we’ve been discussing all sorts of legal matters all semester, reading case studies and making good use of the Library of Congress’ legislative information system, known as THOMAS (http://thomas.loc.gov/). There, you can look up any public laws passed by ANY Congress since, well, the 93rd Congress (1973-1974). You can still access earlier ones at libraries and in paper form, but as far as an online index, 1973 is as early as you’ll get through there.

The paper I have to work on this weekend is my portion of a group paper on CALEA - Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994. What does this have to do with Information Policy?

Well, it’s all about access to information and how these laws and acts all sort of tie together and can create precedents or basis for future laws and acts - for example, the PATRIOT Act. I’m no legal expert, but my professor for the class is. She is/was a lawyer and is now on the librarianship side of things, going to all sorts of fun panels and discussions about copyright law, freedom of information, access, etc.

And as far as libraries go, the first three principles of the ALA’s code of ethics states:

I: We provide the highest level of service to all library users through appropriate and usefully organized resources; equitable service policies; equitable access; and accurate, unbiased, and courteous responses to all requests.

II: We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.

III: We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted

So all these issues of censorship and right to privacy and copyright and internet access and freedom of information and PATRIOT Act and all the other things I can’t think of right now but that are equally salient and topical all come into play and force librarians and other information science professionals to be highly aware of the legal issues surrounding their chosen profession - perhaps as much as doctors or lawyers must be, and particularly in terms of freedom of speech and all the new technologies that are constantly becoming available and used to acquire, organize and disseminate information.

I mean, this is only my first semester… I’m no expert, nor am I even an amateur. I’m just standing on the stoop. Perhaps in the fall, I can consider myself on the threshold. After that? Who knows.

One thing I need to do is set about - after my 6 month anniversary on April 11th - getting the whole tuition reimbursement application going at work. I can save up enough to pay outright, but reimbursement would be good in the long run… if I get good enough grades throughout the semester, I’ll be reimbursed at the end… and can put that money right back into the next semester, rinse and repeat.

I’m doing well, so far. Good grades on all major assignments, good grades on minor assignments, and OK grades on participation. I just prefer to sit and listen, absorb the info and ideas, and form my opinions and thoughts after the fact while I’m ruminating.

Another thing I’m finding strangely and almost eerily coincidental is how often my workplace and my education are doing this little asymptotic dance… here’s the evidence thus far:

• The database from which MANY of my reading assignments this semester have been downloaded is owned and run by the company I work for…
• The lawsuit brought against Google by several publishing houses was a topic in both of my MLIS classes this semester; the company I work for is/was one of the main actors in the lawsuit so I was getting both sides of that situation.
• My professor in the Info. Policy class attended a symposium about the copyright act of 1976 in Washington, D.C. The only representative from a publishing house in attendance was someone from my company (and the fact that my school is Florida State University and work is based right here in the metro NYC area makes that pairing a little less likely).
• In performing my research on CALEA tonight, I did some searching for law journal articles on LexisNexis. One article caught my attention because it was basically what I was looking for, according to the abstract. I opened it up and saw the name of the author - which was very familiar and is the name of a co-worker (not someone I work with closely, but someone I have interacted with before). I read the author’s bio, and it IS my co-worker, who is attending law school and wrote a law journal note on CALEA. She thanked her co-workers at our company for all their support.

Granted, it’s not incredible, amazing, overwhelming evidence from the Universe proving that I’m MEANT to be doing this, but that’s one reason I’m not going to law school or planning to become a trial attorney
It’s just interesting how these things piece/fit/work together. So much for entropy… well, at least externally. My internal state is quite chaotic, thank you very much.

So… yeah. It’s my own little “Theory of Everything.”

I just know that I have to get my ass in gear, grab a pen and get to work on outlining the history and context of CALEA. I think I have all the info printed, saved, etc. - now I just have to arrange it into a palatable and logical format. I wish I could do a bulleted timeline, but bulleted lists are strictly forbidden by the professor. NARRATIVE ONLY.

Then I get to start on my Representation and Description paper for my Information Organization class, where I am looking at, creating and comparing several different metadata/cataloging records. I started that one already since, honestly, it seems a little more exciting to me. However, I have to get through the difficult and dry one before I’m allowed to play with the fun one.

…and I’m not misquoting the title of the Radiohead song either.

I was talking with my co-worker today about breakfast foods and how odd it is that a hearty breakfast (eggs and bacon) is essentially fried chicken placenta and fried strips of pig ass.

I’ll still eat them - but I like my eggs scrambled only and very dry, and my bacon super crispy.

Anyway, this comment led to a discussion of other breakfast foods during which I told her about one of my favorites, the Dutch baby - an oven-baked pancake served up at one of my favorite local breakfast joints. I mentioned that I enjoyed it, so I went home and found the recipe online so I could re-create it.

She commented, “you’re always demystifying things, did you know that?”

I went silent for a moment, and then replied, “yeah?”

She replied, “Yeah - like you find this Dutch baby thing that you like, so you go and find out how to make it. You wonder about websites and you decide to go learn how to create one and write HTML and stuff. You just demystify things.”

It strikes me that she’s quite right. There aren’t many mysteries because I’m curious to find out “WHY” and demystify things for myself. It’s not very exciting to be me, I admit, because I don’t want to leave anything unanswered and left to the imagination in terms of things like, “How do they make a Dutch baby?” or “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why do stars appear to twinkle?” or “Why are fire hydrants different colors?”

I guess that’s another aspect of the researchgirl thing.

SYLLABICATION: de·mys·ti·fy
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: de·mys·ti·fied, de·mys·ti·fy·ing, de·mys·ti·fies
To make less mysterious; clarify: an autobiography that demystified the career of an eminent physician.
OTHER FORMS: de·mysti·fi·cation —NOUN, de·mysti·fier —NOUN

One of the signs of my worsening depression is a loss of appetite and increasing irritability.

Both have been in full effect lately, especially in my home life. At work, due in large part to the constant distractions, it’s not as much of an issue. But I have been having a rough time finding something I want to eat… I know that I need to since my stomach is grumbling and I get a headache. However, I don’t really want to eat.

I’ve been having a LOT of grapefruits, though. Pink grapefruit and salt water taffy. Honestly, not a good source of nutrition, but that’s been my dinner these past two nights.

As far as irritability, my father asked me to repeat myself when I was answering a question for him. I was upstairs; he was downstairs so it was understandable that he couldn’t hear me clearly. However, upon having to repeat myself a third time, a very clear note of annoyance entered my voice and the conversation began to escalate into an argument… though my answer - while containing a tone of annoyance - was a polite and good answer.

I just don’t feel like dealing with people in general. I thought I would have fun plans on Friday night with my former co-workers. Nope. People are busy.

It’s better this way, anyway. I have two papers due next week - my second group project for which I am responsible for the introduction and background info, and a research and discussion paper due Wed. I started research for both, but the group project one is still pending a response from my group partner for the assigned section.

So I’ll be holed up in my room, sitting on my bed, at my desk or at my computer, tap-tap-tapping away at the keyboard and alternately outlining things in my notebook (since that helps me when I have a block or can’t get a clear sense of what to write). I might pop out to get some food. Maybe I’ll pick up some Indian takeout or something equally pungent since I won’t be in a social setting and won’t have to worry about onion or garlic or curry breath.

Perhaps -with enough effort- I’ll be able to metamorphose this crap weekend into something a little better: a weekend of intellectual, literary and cultural solitude (to contrast with the usual “framing” I use - “sitting alone in my room reading and moping”). I’ll read and write and listen to some world music CDs and eat some Indian food and take a long tea bath. Yes, I have bath tea… it’s like a HUGE tea bag - about 3″ by 4″ filled with tea leaves and orange rinds, etc. and you “brew” it up in hot bath water. It smells divine and it’s quite relaxing. That could be a reward after I finish one paper.

Framing - maybe it’s all in the framing. The verbal/neuro-linguistic framing, not like picture framing.

Though there is a good article in the most recent (3/27) issue of “The New Yorker” about framing fine art and how that’s becoming an art form in and of itself. Fascinating, actually. It’s called “Frame Game” by Leo Carey, featured in the “Onward and Upward with the Arts” section. It’s not available online yet, but if you go to the website and search in a week or two, it should be in the archives then. The subtitle is “Gilt and Impressionism don’t go.”

Last week, my co-worker Melinda told me I should rent “The Crow” from Netflix since she had just watched it for the first time after many years and found it highly entertaining from the “wow - I’m now ‘x’ years older” vantage point.

The first thing I said when she asked me if I remembered it was, “It can’t rain all the time,” which is one of the cheesier “goth” lines used in the movie when The Crow reveals himself to be the re-born fiance of the young girl’s dead friend/sister figure.

We chuckled for a few minutes about things like the over-use of the music of that time period in the movie - for example, the Stone Temple Pilots’ song (it was called “Big Empty”, though most people probably think it’s called something like “Conversations Kill” since those are some of the more repetitive lyrics) and the way that crazy eye makeup caught on.

It arrived from Netflix today and it’s proving to be a perfect distraction. Really. I think I need to search the soundtrack songs since they jettison me right back to an unhappy part of my life - early high school years - but the songs are all eerily familiar. I could quote most lyrics from that Stone Temple Pilots song in my conversation with Melinda. My freak status was further cemented into the walls of surround cubicles.

I have, however, done a good deal of homework for my upcoming paper (more Library of Congress catalog research, downloading MARC records, finding templates to create a Dublin Core record - all kinds of fun nerdy library stuff) and have become totally frustrated because registration for summer and fall began last Monday, and I haven’t been able to search for classes OR register. The class searching thing was solved today - I got a response to my help ticket from IT. However, the registering thing is not working since all my attempts to use the class search thing were generating an invalid PIN message and too many invalid PIN messages lock you out of the system. There’s no way to get back in without speaking to a human being on campus, and they are there from 8-5. So I programmed an “alarm” in my cell phone along with the number for campus so I will remember to call tomorrow and take care of business.

Last night, I was getting increasingly upset and down on myself - which I still am, but a productive day at work does do a good deal for the self-esteem and ebbing the tide of deeper depression. So does talking to a friend at lunch (you know who you are, Krys!). In any event, to be able to fall asleep last night, I ended up taking two of my prescription sleeping pills and one of my leftover Percocet - about 30 minutes later I got really really dizzy and went to sleep promptly thereafter. I woke up at 6:00 this morning, then went back to bed until 7 a.m. I don’t want to do the same thing tonight, but considering that it’s 10:00, I’m wide awake and the only thing keeping me from sinking into a crappy pit of ick is homework and a cheesy movie, I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Without taking my sleeping pills (no opiate chaser tonight, thank you very much) I will be sitting here, watching the movie, reading, doing crossword puzzles - anything possible to keep myself occupied until I’m SO tired that I just fall asleep. If I don’t engage in those distractions, I’ll be in bed, tossing and turning, crying and thinking and generally miserable until 3 or 4 in the morning, at which point I’ll just be really angry at myself and will eventually fall asleep, only to have an utter crap day tomorrow.

If I take the sleeping pills, I’ll still have to distract myself until they kick in, but one crossword puzzle should do it… and I’ll get dizzy and my eyelids will grow heavy and I will sleep. I think that might be the way to go.

I don’t want to become dependent upon them, or develop a “habit” - right now, I’m honestly using them only as needed. Before this past weekend, I hadn’t taken them in several weeks. Using them, say, one week out of a month isn’t tragic, especially since the doctor prescribes me enough to take one every night. I use them as sparingly as possible… it’s just good to know they’re there. Kind of like the can of soup I keep at my desk just in case I don’t have the money or desire for lunch.