Order Chiroptera (I'll never forget that one again.)

This will be another long one, because I've been writing little bits and pieces on my lunch breaks and hitting "save as draft" over and over again for the last couple of weeks. And they've been very eventful weeks.

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It's not every day you get to see the look on your writing teacher's face when you tell her you don't have your Writers & Books folder because it got bat urine on it.

It was probably about two weeks ago now, and I found the little guy in the middle of the car lane in the parking garage. He wasn't moving a whole lot, and I don't know if he was already sick or injured, but he would have been a bat pancake if he'd stayed where he was any longer. So I took him over to the courtyard at St. Mary's. He was moving around more by then, and spreading out his wings, so I'm hoping he'll be okay. Maybe he has rabies, maybe he couldn't fly away and some animal got to him... but I like to think of a church as a sanctuary for all living things, and I imagine he was safe there. As far as I'm concerned, he lost his way and just needed a little help. I think about him every day now as I'm walking into work, because he is my friend.

One more thing - I hate people. Like the man who stopped and asked me what I was doing, and then told me to just leave the bat somewhere in the garage and forget about it, because "it's Nature's way." Sorry - Nature did not build a parking garage, let alone an entire city, in his habitat. Getting flattened by some lawyer's BMW is not a natural death. Fucker.

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I think the bat incident was the same day as the long-dreaded story critique, which went amazingly well, or at least as well as I could have hoped. I knew the response wasn't going to be, "Wow! Great story! You could get this published NOW!" I'm aware of the many problems with it, but I needed to hear from other people which ones were the most significant, and get some ideas on how to fix them. I won't go into all of the reasons why most everyone agreed it's a disaster in its current state, or all of the really great ideas they gave me that I can't wait to incorporate; instead, I will focus on the compliments I got. Like when one guy (who I thought would be horribly mean and critical) told me he was glad it was dark, and not "shinyhappy" like a lot of the stories have been so far. Or when another guy said it reminded him of Heathers and Carrie (score!). And the best - Nancy (our teacher, a very smart lady who really knows her stuff) told me that she thinks I have both the idea and the writing ability to make it into something good. She does not say this to everyone - usually she leaves it at, "You have a good idea, but you have a lot of work ahead of you. Read Strunk & White." I say that this was my ideal critique because my fear had been that I would find out that I just flat-out suck as a writer, and that they would all go around the table in class and politely tell me this without actually saying it. My wildest dream was to have them tell me that yeah, the story's not very good yet, but that I can definitely write. And that's what I got.

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So the writing nightmare is over. And the other thing I've been freaking out about for weeks on end - Kelly's wedding - has finally come and gone, with great success. This entire post is turning out to be an unmitigated ego trip, but I don't care. I KICK ASS. I'm horribly insecure about most things in life, but playing bells/chimes is the one really and truly impressive thing I can do, and I'm proud of it.

Highlights/observations/memories:

Walking down the aisle to the score from Love, Actually? Genius. I love it.

Mike and I danced to "Mandy" at the reception. One of my all-time favorite songs. I'm a Fanilow!

Why was the best man's speech the only thing that made me cry? I don't even know him! I hardly know the groom! Literally - sobbing.

There is now a wedding video somewhere in the world with footage of me dancing to Bye Bye Bye, I Want You Back, ...Baby One More Time, Hollaback Girl... my God, what kind of BFF allows this sort of behavior? He should have dragged me off the floor. Damn Kelly for loving cheesy pop as much as (or more than) I do.

I screamed "lesbian" at a church lady who came over to compliment me on my solo. Totally inadvertent.

Remind me never to move to the Beaver Falls/Midland/Monaca/Industry area of Pennsylvania. It was a hell from which I thought I would never escape. My Messiah days are far behind me, and I am 100% city girl.

If you're invited to the rehearsal dinner, GO TO THE REHEARSAL DINNER. You'll save me from not knowing anyone, and I won't have to find you a Taco Bell afterward.

*Sigh.* Weddings.

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So I think we're up to this week now. William's birthday was a success, I think. There's a lot of pressure attached to birthdays and holidays and the like. It may not have ended well for some...but I think everyone had a good time, and I'm really glad most everyone could come out. I'll post some of the fabulous, oh-so-flattering-to-all-of-us pictures a little later.

I'm dating an almost-30-year-old......huh.

It's almost a week later, and I still have lingering guilt, and probably will for a long time....because....I BOUGHT VEAL. How? How could I do such a thing? I might as well just go get myself a fur coat. And then buy a puppy mill dog from a pet store. I've got to figure out some kind of penance for this. I feel like I should go out in a field somewhere and let a cow kick me in the head repeatedly.

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Well, that's pretty much all I've got, except for a rant about work that I just don't have the energy to write, and you don't have the energy to read. I hope life is good for all. Countdown to CA!

Poetry Hour

I've been told that my posts are too long, so I'll try to keep this one short.

Aside from the vomiting, this weekend was a lot of fun. It was really nice to do something different on Saturday night - one of my friends from the vet hospital had a bonfire, and I got to see some old friends and watch two sections of a very large couch go up in flames. Also, not so much fun - I got my first real dog bite since I pulled Stormy II's tail when I was little and got a bite on the nose. It's one tiny little puncture, but it bled like crazy. I'm really pissed at myself - three years at the hospital, and I never got bitten by a dog. I only ever had one real bite, and that was from a cat, as were nearly all of my injuries and close calls. I can usually read animals pretty well, (or at least, I used to be able to) but not this dog. I guess we'll never understand each other, Blade and I.

I'd really like to know why I'm so damn tired lately. I always am, but it's been really bad the last few days... I came home from work early on Friday and slept for two hours. Every time I rode in the car over the weekend, I slept. I even managed to fall asleep last night while watching gay cowboys going at it (no, come to think of it, I think I was awake for the sex scenes), and I lost count of how many times I dozed off at my desk this morning. I wish I knew what the hell was wrong with me.

Maybe I'll feel better when I've gotten through the next couple of weeks, and some stress is relieved. I have to hand in my short story in class tomorrow, and it's not really close to being finished. I have a fun night ahead of me - I'm coming home from work, grabbing some dinner, going in my room, and not coming out until it's done. And I'm sure I won't be able to sleep until the following week, when it's finally critiqued. After that, I'll get plenty of rest, because they will have completely ripped it apart, and I will have to kill myself.

Okay, maybe not. I should at least wait until the wedding, so I can play my song, which despite all my practicing, will suck. Then Kelly will hate me, and I will kill myself twice, if I can figure out some way of doing that.

I shouldn't say that, in case she's reading this. Kelly, it's going to kick ass, and your day is going to be perfect in every way.

I can't wait for the California trip. I swear, if I don't get rid of Christine soon... just kidding. I'm not looking forward to saying goodbye, that will be hard. But I really need a break from work. I need a change of scenery, that always picks me back up. Thinking about that week is good, because I know that by then, both of those other things will finally be over, and I can finally relax a little.

So this is what I call a short post?

Now that the short attention-spanned have already stopped reading, I might as well bore anyone who will listen with a few lines from some of my favorite poems. I hadn't read these in a while, but they've been on my mind lately.

Piety and conformity to them that like...I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations,
Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!
...Who are you that wanted only to be told what you knew before?
Who are you that wanted only a book to join you in your nonsense?

-Walt Whitman, from "By Blue Ontario's Shore"


Allons! the road is before us!
It is safe--I have tried it--my own feet have tried it well--be not detain'd!
Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen'd!
Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn'd!
Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher!
Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.
Comerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

-Walt Whitman, from "Song of the Open Road"


...So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen,
--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed by our own seed & golden hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sit-down vision.

-Allen Ginsberg, from "Sunflower Sutra"