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!