2001-11-04 - 3:49 p.m.
listening to: Come on Now Social by the Indigo Girls
Well, I just got this new laptop, partly for the purpose of being able to write journal entries. Also for other reasons, of course.
It's a Toshiba Satellite T2105CS in perfect condition. Never used before. I got it for $98. I picked up 4 MB of RAM for $5, doubling the memory on here. And I got a 28.8K modem for $6 or so. So I'm all set. It came with Quicken and ClarisWorks (I love ClarisWorks; I grew up on it.)
So anyway. Yes. I should talk about my life. That is what a journal is for, isn't it?
Last night I was thinking while I was at McDonalds alone. I think I've lost my voice. That sounds rather dramatic, but hear me out here. It's like I had this teenage angsty voice and I was good at it and stuff. But now I'm a different person and I don't have a voice for who I've become. I don�t really know how to write about what I'm experiencing anymore. I would feel silly doing the same old angsty thing. I guess the answer is practice. I just need to write.
The last week has been a hard one and I've felt the urge to write a few times. Once I actually did write, but it was an email to MD. I don't even carry my paper journal with me anymore because it was just taking up space in my bookbag and I never used it.
So yeah. This last week. I've been way overstressed. I think the problem was that I hadn't had a day to myself for a long time. At the beginning of the semester I took Sundays off, but then I started going to my parents' house on Sundays instead of Saturdays because there was more time. I think that I need these Sundays to keep me sane. To just chill out and do housework and not have to think or interact. Of course I work from 9 AM to noon, but after that, I've decided to just keep the day free. Right now I'm doing laundry. I messed around with the laptop while I was at work and then I came home and fooled around online. And later today I'm going to finish watching But I'm a Cheerleader, which I started watching with MD, but we got distracted in the middle of it and turned it off so as to better enjoy the distraction. And I have to do the dishes. But that's about it for today other than just the general cleaning that I perpetually need to do in my room.
I'm trying to clean up at least a place to put up my new bookshelf (got it on a good sale at Shop Ko) and a place to put it together. Of course, the big piles of books in my room get in the way. And I can't seem to stop buying them. It's all the fault of half.com and AllBooks4Less.com. Of course, I never have time to read the books that I buy, since I'm always trying to finish up the overdue library books. Still reading The Satanic Verses right now. It's a good book. I do like Salman Rushdie�s writing and Iran is stupid for sentencing him to death. One of the silliest things I've ever heard. He never lived there and doesn't live there now. He's an Indian living in London. What jurisdiction does Iran think they have over him?
I'm also reading Women on the Defensive by Sylvia Bashevkin and In the Company of Angels by N. M. Kelby. And I'm going to be reading Woman at Point Zero and A Walk in the Night for African Storyteller class. I just finished reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe for that class. That's the third time I've read that book for a class. Good thing it's such an excellent book that can bear that many readings.
Speaking of books, MD is reading The Hobbit and has declared that J. R. R. Tolkien is a bad writer. Hmph. I'd like to hear people�s opinions on that.
Personally, I think that Tolkien's writing reflects the fact that he was a religious scholar; his writing is very biblical. I found Silmarillion almost indistinguishable from The Book of Mormon in terms of writing. Only there are elves and men and orcs instead of Lamanites and Nephites.
I really like the Indigo Girls. I should listen to them more.
Oh, I have a concert story I can tell. I went to see Melissa Ferrick, one of my very favorite artists, on the Saturday before Halloween. It was an absolutely wonderful show. The only problem was that the sound system at Club Tavern isn't all that great and I was standing/sitting right in front of the drums (front row position!), so I couldn't hear incredibly well. But I just fell more and more in love with her as the concert went on. And then. And then! As she was leaving the stage, she came right over to me, took my arm/shoulder, learned over and said, "Thanks for coming. I saw you sitting over here the whole time. Thanks for coming and paying attention and not drinking all night." I almost fainted dead away with joy. All I could manage to do was stammer, "Thank you. Thanks." When I got outside, I realized that I had put my tshirt on backwards after that (I was wearing a wifebeater under it). (Of course, when I got home, I discovered that I had been wearing the wifebeater backwards the whole night too, thereby proving my mavelous intelligence yet again.) But I was just walking on air the whole rest of the night. Admittedly, that wasn't that long,since I got home around 1 AM and went to bed shortly thereafter. And I got the last good parking space close to my house. Melissa Ferrick is good luck. I've also decided that the new, magenta leopard-spotted underwear I had on that night is good luck too.
Well, I should probably go switch my laundry over to the dryer now so that eventually I can have sheets back on my bed. And then I should get to those dishes.
I am so proud of myself for writing.
