The Hugh Hefner of the 1600s

Tonight, my teacher was tellling us about Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who is often considered to be the father of microbiology for his observations of bacteria with his carefully designed magnifying lens setup. He described him as being, among other things (painter, germaphobe, eccentric, haberdasher), “basically the Hugh Hefner of his time.”

Now, Mr. van Leeuwenhoek certainly sounded like an interesting guy, but I got a little bit confused when my teacher told us about how ol’ Anton was very secretive with the lens design on his microscope, and would invite the Royal Society of London over to look at his things, but insisted that they come in single-file and keep their hands in their back pockets, “much like Hugh Hefner,” so that no one would steal his microscope to analyze.

Huh? Hugh Hefner makes people walk around with their hands in their pockets? So they don’t steal…what, pictures of women? Sooo confused. We move on to other men and women in the history of microbiology (Louis Pasteur is basically responsible for the wine industry in France. Yay, Louis!), finish lecture, go to lab, come home.

I start telling J about how I really like this teacher, and how he goes more in depth on these historical figures than the textbook does. I start telling him everything the teacher told us about Anton van Leeuwenhoek, and he was the Hugh Hefner of his time. We laughed at that. Then I admit my confusion about him making sure the Royal Society fellows didn’t steal his inventions, and start to ask what the Hugh Hefner connection is.

J interrupts me.

“He’s talking about Howard Hughes! Howard Hughes is the paranoid, eccentric, germaphobic billionaire, not Hugh Hefner!”

We both die laughing. I briefly wonder if it’s at all possible that I misheard or misinterpreted my teacher. Lucky for us, I record my lectures. I just pulled out my recorder and played the clip for J. Sure enough, the teacher was saying Hugh Hefner. The second he did, J says, “Oh my GOD, he’s talking about HOWARD HUGHES.”

So we’ve established that I was hearing him correctly. What is yet to be determined is whether or not I’ll ever be able to convince my husband that my new teacher is, in fact, pretty damn awesome.

Three months? Really?

I knew my life was chaotic, but I had no idea it had been so long since I’d found the time to write.

My hellish spring semester ended last Monday, and one of my goals for my offtime was to start writing again. Well, that plan was foiled by all the catching up on real life activities that had to be done. Well, not HAD to be done, as I suppose that my clothes were still technically in working order, though I really preferred them to be clean. And then J went to Las Vegas this weekend, and I’m always abnormal when he’s out of town. I went shopping with my best friend, and painted part of my kitchen. Yes, the same in-need-of-paint kitchen that I was bitching about over a year ago.

Which, if I may indulge in a small tangent, reminds me of the song Bitchin’ in the Kitchen, from Shock Treatment, the pseudosequal to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Bizzare, yet hilarious.

And, for the record, of course this song has never made me randomly start singing to inanimate kitchen appliances! That would be crazy!

Ahem.

Anyway, best laid plans of mice and men and all of that…long story short, I wrote nary a word on my break. And, as of 5:30 last night, I am back in school again. Not even a full week’s break. This time around, I’ve only got one class, Microbiology, but it meets four times a week for 3-1/2 hours a night. The good news is that if I get an A in this class, I’ll have a 4.0 GPA in my science classes, which is what the nursing program cares more about than the overall GPA. I’ll take Medical Terminology and CPR For Healthcare Providers in late summer, take my TEAS test, and then turn in my application for nursing school in September. If all goes according to plan, I’ll be starting nursing school in January!

Whiny wants

I want more hours in the day. I want to be able to stay up late catching up on things. I want to get a full 8-10 hours of sleep. I want to be productive in the mornings and afternoons. I want to get my housework and my 12 pages of chemistry homework done before my husband comes home from work, because I want to give him my undivided attention. I want my freaking uterine lining to shed itself already. I want to be happy and cheery all the time, instead of so freaking BLAH. I want my face to clear up. I want a pony. Well, a horse. I’m a bit too big for a pony.

But you know what I would settle for? Pita chips, hummus, and a big bowl of fruit. Because I didn’t eat lunch until 4:15, and I just got viciously starving for dinner. But it’s too late for a proper dinner, isn’t it? So…baked pita chips, hummus, and fruit. Yum.

Nanny rambles

Why, oh why, oh WHY do I stay up late on Sunday nights? Not only do I have to wake up at 5:43, but I also don’t get home from school until nearly 10:00. And of course, in the hours between, I’ve got to keep up with the energy and demands of a rambunctious 4-year-old boy. I don’t usually write about Thomas on here, but it’s been one long day, and he’s the clearest thing in my head right now.

These days, for better or worse, I’m not alone at work. The bosses have sold their business, and they’re both currently at home a lot. This has led to a few super-easy days (Let’s All Go To Mommy’s Ultrasound And Great-Grandpa’s Urologist Day! Let’s Go Sit At The Doctor’s Office For Three Hours And Find Out That Thomas Has Strep Throat Day! Let’s Go To Karate/Gymnastics Class Day!), but it’s also led to a lot of fits and whining. If Thomas doesn’t like something, he goes running to the office to bother his parents. He doesn’t want me, he wants them. Again, there’s a good and a bad side to this. The good? I managed to not get strep throat from the kid, because he didn’t want to snuggle with me. The bad? He doesn’t understand that they’re actually doing business when they’re in the office, and he thinks that every day is a super happy funtime weekend.

Also? He’s four now, and he’s absolutely brilliant and terribly (yet hilariously) cheeky.

“I don’t want to sit down, Thomas.” Daddy leans against the kitchen counter. “I’m going to stand right here and wait for you to finish your strawberries”

“Okay, Daddy.” Thomas leans against the refrigerator. “I’m going to stand right here and watch you be patient.“

I took some photos of Thomas today while he was taking pictures with my old camera. It’s not really old at all, as I got it 2 months ago, but he’s taken more pictures with it than I have. Anyway, while I was reviewing the photos, I gasped at how OLD he looks now. There’s hardly a trace of the little munchkin I started watching 2 years ago. He’s a little boy now. He’s a kid. He’s growing up. My god, is he growing up.

He looks serious in the pictures I took, because he’s concentrating on his own photography. He works really hard at setting up the exact shot that he wants. It’s why I’ve pretty much given him free reign with the camera. I want to encourage this trait in him, because it reminds me of how I always was as a kid. I don’t want to hold him back if he’s got such meticulous interest in it. And, if I do say so myself, the kid has some talent. I wouldn’t dare let him touch MY! FANCY! NEW! CAMERA! but I’ll certainly let him play with the Kodak EasyShare (which I purchased at CVS for less than $30 out of pocket after clever use of coupons and ECBs BECAUSE I AM AWESOME!) to his little heart’s content.

Hello, February!

My god, that feels weird. Also? Only 13 more weeks left in this semester! Hurrah! I’ve become a bit eh about school, a bit burned out. I think part of the problem is that, last semester, I focused entirely on it, and let everything else in my life fall into disrepair. Cleaning? No time, have to study! Cooking? But I’ve been out of the house all day! My marriage? You know I’ve got to get As to get into nursing school! Best friend? I can’t hang out, I’ve got a quiz tomorrow and a test on Wednesday!

And so on. And so on. And so on.

So, to paint a clearer picture of my life at the moment: my house is more of a wreck than it ever has been, my eating habits have returned to process crap, I’ve gained back all the weight that I lost last year, plus 7 pounds, my marriage hit the roughest patch ever (but we’re working on it, and are quite happy at the moment), and I rarely talk to my best female friend anymore.

And that 6-week break I had between semesters? I was so tired from last semester that I did…well, practically nothing. The entire time. It’s not something I’m proud of.

Anyway, I’m taking two classes this semester, and I’m trying to figure out a way to balance that and also get my life back in order, because, frankly, it can’t go on like this. And so, somehow, I’ve decided that I’m going to write on here every single day this month. Not because I’m a glutton for punishment, but because I really do feel better when I’m able to write. So…that’s the plan.

And with that, I think it’s time for me to shower and head to my parents’ house for a Super Bowl party. But just between you and me? I’m really only going so that I can watch the special episode of The Office on the more-gigantic-than-ever-would-be-necessary television that my father owns. Oh, and to cheer on whichever team no one else in the room is supporting. Which I think will be…the Steelers?

Where’s my harmonica?

A friend recently moved to Vermont. I spoke to him yesterday, and he was telling me about how very strange all the locals were. “I hear they get something called ‘winter blues’ because of all the cold and snow,” he told me. “Yeah, I know that happens,” I tell him, “But I’m the opposite. I love winter. I love snow. I love cold. I’m happiest in the wintertime. I can’t imagine it making me sad.”

But then I started thinking about how down I’ve been this month, and all the problems J and I have been having, and I wondered if I had lied to my friend. Could I have the winter blues? Well, yes and no.

I didn’t lie to my friend. It’s absolutely true that cold, snowy winters make me happy. But the thing is, I live in TEXAS. We don’t have winter, we have…coldish temperatures with infrequent ice, overcast skies, and an occasional inch-deep dusting of snow. There’s no beautiful winter wonderland to behold. A gorgeous cold night with a clear star-strewn sky makes me incredibly happy, but it’s not the same thing, and I don’t even get that often. It’s like the atmosphere is constantly threatening winter, but it never follows through. And maybe it’s that never-ended torment, that giant tease, that has lead to my own variety of the winter blues.

Here, we can have clear and sunny 80 degree days (like last Friday) followed by windy and unbearable 30 degree days (like last Saturday). At the moment, it’s 28 outside, with crappy freezing rain. My Firefox weather thingy claims it’s snowing, but freezing rain is all I’ve seen. Oh, and I had to walk the dog in it just a little bit ago, even though J had taken her out an hour beforehand, because she was whining and crying at the door. And then she didn’t even poop. And I sorta hate her and think she’s an asshole. Da na na na…

Warm and fuzzy

Folks, it’s been one hell of a week, let me tell you. There was more fighting and screaming and hurt under my roof than there ever has been. I thought my marriage was over. But, somehow, we pulled through it, and now we’re actually better than we have been in a LONG time.

I’m not saying it’s easy, and I’m not saying it’s a miraculous recovery. We’re not ignoring what happened, and we’re not ignoring the issues that caused the blow-up in the first place.

Neither one of us realized how little we talk these days. I can’t blame it entirely on school, but I do think that that’s a big part of it. But even without school, we haven’t been talking much. He’s on his computer and I’m on mine, and we haven’t been doing much together. We desperately needed both hobbies and communication.

As fucked up as it sounds, I’m almost grateful that things got so bad on Tuesday. The little fights never did anything to change us, to encourage us to work harder. They were easy to ignore. This one was not. Not at all. The fact that it was bad enough that I actually started telling people about it blows my mind. Anyway, it seems to have been a huge wake-up call for both of us. No, our marriage is not instantly fixed. But you know what? Neither of us wants to lose what we have, and we’re both determined to get back to what we were. We both married our best friends. We’ve both said that we want our best friends back. So that’s what we’re working on.

The past few days have been incredible. He’s been so thoughtful, kind, and passionate. I’ve started telling him every detail of my life. We’ve both come up with new things for us to do together. We’re able to look back at our fight and talk about how we felt, and why we did the things we did. I can actually see and understand his side of it, and he can actually do the same for mine.

No, we’re not fixed. But we’re better than we’ve been in months, if not years. And to top it all off, we’re running around the house like newlyweds. Ahem. It’s good. It’s good to have that back. My god, I’ve missed him. And with that…I’ve got something that I suddenly need to go do.

Numb

Things have since been resolved, and we’re working harder than ever on making each other happy. Yet, I can’t bring myself to delete this, because it was very much true at the time, and deleting it would feel like I was trying to hide things. I don’t want to hide things anymore.

Today was a memorable day, a day that I won’t ever forget, even if I live a hundred more years. A day when something of such epic proportions played out right before my eyes that my life, my mind, and my entire being will never be the same.

Oh, and we got a new president. Hurrah!

But a bit closer to home, the news was not quite so cheer-inducing. My husband is leaving me. For reasons I can’t exactly explain here, he’s leaving. And I almost believe him this time. And yes, there have been other times.

Pretty much every September, J gets into a terrible way, we fight, and he either tells me he’s leaving or tries to kick me out. And every time, I stop him from leaving. Not only do I cry and beg, but I physically stand in his way until the anger subsides. Every year, multiple times a year, since we’ve been married. After the time this fall, I swore that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. You can’t force someone to stay with you, and I’m tired of guilting him into not leaving.

I broke my own pact in December, when I once again begged him to stay. Our problem, though, is that we get over it, but we never address the actual problems that caused it in the first place. It’s like we had a bamboo pole that started to split, so we wrapped it in duct tape. The duct tape only holds for so long, and then we have to add more, and suddenly the whole damn pole is wrapped up, looking very much not like itself at all. And one day, it finally snaps.

I think the pole snapped today. I don’t want my marriage to be over. I got married forever. Divorce was not an option, not even something I considered. But I can’t make him stay. We’ve both fucked up. I want to work on fixing it. I want my best friend back. He rejects every idea I have, will not even consider counseling. I don’t think it’s right to throw away nearly 8 years without even trying, but he says we’ve been trying for years.

I love him. I want him. I don’t want this. I’ve known. I’ve known for awhile that it wasn’t right. Probably since…umm, when did I stop posting regularly? Yeah. But I didn’t think it would come to this, and I certainly didn’t think it would go down like this. What can I do? He means so much to me, but he doesn’t want to hear it. I’m flat out exhausted from trying to keep him here. If he doesn’t want me, what else can I do?

Oh, and my semester starts tomorrow. Yippee! My mind will totally be focused on school. Christ.

Bits and pieces in my head

It kills me that I’m seven years older than he ever will be. He was 20 when he died, a year and a half older than me. Now I’m 27, but he is still frozen in time at 20.

I don’t have a photograph of him, which has always made me sad. Not that I need it; I can still see his face so clearly. Still, it would be wonderful to have. I’m terrified of losing the details over time.

I often think about writing a letter to his parents. I want to tell them how much their son meant to me and what a wonderful person he truly was. I’ve been wanting to write this letter for 8 years, but I’ve always been afraid of making them cry.

When I googled his name, I was saddened to discover that it pulls up no hits. Not one. I almost want to write a page in his memory, with his full name, but I’m afraid to, because I’m not ready to come out with my real identity. I’m not ready for people to see that and wonder who I am, slowly ticking through his friends until it all fits into place.

He used to come to the restaurant where I worked, which he worked at before I started, and have dinner with me. I don’t remember if it was every night, but it was quite often. I would wait to take my break until he came, and then we would go downstairs to the empty section and eat together. I had such a crush on him, but we were friends, and I didn’t know if he wanted anything more than that. I’ve never been one to make the first move, and while I realize that he went out of his way to be nice to me, he was the type of guy who went out of his way to be nice to everyone, so that didn’t necessarily mean anything. It’s one of those mysteries that I’ll never have an answer to, and I kick myself for never trying to get the answer while he was still around.

He was the one that I wanted to take to prom. God, I wanted to ask him to prom. I tried, sort of, but I never could get the words out. In the end, I asked a guy that I didn’t even like all that much, and it never felt right. I always wished I had asked Trey instead. After he died, I most definitely regretted not getting up the courage to ask. Prom night, to put it nicely, sucked balls. With Trey, I have a feeling that it would not have done so.

My friend had her laptop at work one night. She let Trey mess around on it while she was working, and afterwards, we discovered that he had changed the main loading screen on Windows 98 to read Winblows 98. He did something to the My Computer icon too, but I just realized that I can’t remember what he made it say…something with his name in it. My, that loss of a memory is upsetting.

When K called to tell me that he had died, I told her to come to my house. Then I hung up and called a couple more friends, told them the terrible news, and told them to come over. We all sat in the massage room at my mom’s house and cried and cried and cried. It was unreal. We were still reeling over the loss of B, and I didn’t even know that I had any more tears left in my body. It turns out, I did. I still do.

I wonder if I’ll ever get over the loss of this friend. I wonder if a Christmas season will ever go by without tears. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to remember him dearly without wanting to burst into tears at his all-too-early departure from this world. I try to make myself smile, because I know that’s what he would have wanted. That’s what he would be doing, if our roles were reversed. So I smile, even if just for a moment, before the sadness washes over me once more.

Maybe nine years will be the turning point. Maybe next year will be the year I finally don’t cry. Eight years, long as it may sound, is just not long enough.

This day in my history

Eight years and a few days ago, I received some terrible and shocking news. A high school friend, a crazy and happy guy, had killed himself. Here’s an excerpt from my old journal, written on the day of his funeral.

B had just gotten fired from his job because he had been skipping work so much to study for finals and that day he got his grades and he failed two finals, meaning he failed two classes, meaning that he was going to get kicked out of school for a semester and kicked out of his fraternity and him and his girlfriend had just broken up and all the grades and stuff were in his car and he was driving home from school to here for vacation and he went dove hunting last week so his gun was in the car and he pulled over, put it in park and shot himself and when he shot himself his leg spasmed, hitting the gas pedal and making the engine do something bad so his car was smoking so a lady pulled over to see if he needed help and she found him.

Shit, 19-year-old me could write some run-on sentences, huh? In my defense, I could hardly see the screen through my tears. Because that’s not where the pain stops.

Eight years ago today, my friend B was buried.

Eight years ago today, right after B’s funeral, I got some more terrible and shocking news.

Eight years ago today, my very dear friend died. Again, here are my words from that awful day:

i just turned nineteen. i’m supposed to be collecting love letters, not obituaries. especially not two in one week. trey was honestly the nicest guy i’ve ever met in my entire life. but this morning he was driving in parker county behind an 18-wheeler. the truck stopped really fast to avoid hitting a dog and trey couldn’t stop in time. he slammed right into it. trey died because of a fucking dog. i feel so empty. life got brighter every time he came around. i could be having the worst day ever, then trey just magically shows up and everything’s so much better. he always wore rollerblades. i went to my first concert with him. it was very last minute, because the guy i was going to go with decided not to go. i was complaining about and trey offered to take me instead. then after the first band he left to go find an atm and witnessed a car wreck and gave the people a ride and helped them out and everything. that’s just the kind of guy he was. he can’t be gone. it’s not fair. he’s trey. he’s not allowed to die. he’s invincible. he got in a wreck with a semi a few months ago and he only got a scratch. the car was totalled. he can’t be dead. why? i don’t understand. i had doubts before, but now i know there can’t be a god. he would never be so cruel. and all this happened just a few days after a guy i used to go to school with shot himself. [story cut, see above] i thought i was torn up when i found out about b…but when k called about trey…fuck. i can’t deal with this. it’s not fair. it’s not fair. i’ve cried so much and when i finally stop, i picture trey with his goofy little smile and it all comes rushing out again. why trey? there has never been a kinder person on this earth. he was only twenty. he can’t be gone. fuck. i hate life.

As you can see, I was a mess. December 20, 2000, was probably the most devastating day in my life. I mean, I cried and cried and cried about one friend, until I thought I had nothing left. Then right after his funeral, I got a call telling me about my other, much closer friend. Words cannot describe the pain.

Eight years later, and I still tear up. If I get stuck driving behind a semi-truck on the highway, I suddenly feel like I can’t breathe. Eight years is a long time to mourn. Maybe it’s made worse by the holiday timing. I know that I’ve never had a truly merry Christmas ever since. I try, but I get so sad. This morning, I realized I had to write about it. Since then, I’ve tried, and it still feels clunky.

Every time I start to tell my story, I get interrupted. I feel like I’ve been holding back a giant cry since yesterday morning, when I found myself stuck behind a semi on my way to work. I couldn’t cry then, because I was driving to work. I started telling J the story today, but I was interrupted by my mother’s call. When I finally got back to telling the story again, she called back. My tears have been interrupted so many times that I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get them all out.

Writing was supposed to help me deal with this. Instead, I feel like throwing the whole thing out. I can’t stand to go back and edit, or else I will end up deleting. One hell of a way to come back from a six-week hiatus, for sure.