He was a beautiful fiction

Things I need to do for my own sanity:

1. Take a shower
   
2. Clean up the kitchen/run the dishwasher

Homework I need to do:

• Read Tom Sawyer
  
• Write five seven pages of the comic script
  
• Read the two eight oh fuck I don't even know how many articles behind I am a lot of articles for class and post a blog entry.
  
• Brainstorm for my children's lit paper
  
• Brainstorm for my queer theory paper
  
• Read Purgatorio (did I mention I wrote a response paper on Purgatorio last week without having actually read a word?)
  
• Create a map of purgatory

Things I need to do for work:

• Log a bunch of stuff
  
• Sort out a bunch of grants and responsd to a bunch of emails
  
• Read two books and write reader reports on them

What did I spend all of today doing? I slept until 3, stayed in bed until 4, and then read Harry Potter all day. Gah.

I did this probably unwise thing the other day where I put in a different earring into my cartilage piercing and it's slightly thicker than the original and now my ear hurts. I think it needs to heal all over again. The back was a bit puffy but only on one side and I can't tell if it's following the curve of the ring or if it's actually infected. I thought, well if it's taking this badly to it, let me put the old earring back in and let it recover, but getting it off is harder than it looks and all I succeeded in doing was making it BLEED. So I just cleaned it and put Neosporin on it. I hope it clears up.

I'm meeting with my adviser tomorrow (It got snowed out.) about my "Intellectual Autobiography and Plan of Concentration". Basically that means I have to declare my major this semester. But Gallatin doesn't have majors, we have concentrations in literally anything you want. So I have to come up with a topic of study (previous Gallatin concentrations include Evil and Wine Making) that justifies everything I've done and everything I will do at college and then write an explanation/proposal. The good part is that it's not binding. It's just a useful way to get students to sit down and think hard about what they're doing with their classes. The down side is that I have to write this stupid thing!
I need some way to make "stories" sound academic. I write, read, listen to, eat, sleep, and breathe stories. That's really all I've been doing at college. Even my love of history can be explained by the fact that history is just another really interesting story to me.
My previous adviser suggested my concentration have something to do with "the fantastic" which is something to think about since I do tend to gravitate in that direction.
I guess the bottom line is that I don't know. Ahhh!

Also, a question:
How many queer authors can you think off the top of your head?

At 6am this morning the fire alarm in my building went off. Now, I live in a dorm. Fire drills happen. But the rule is that if the alarm goes off at night it's not a drill. So I leap for my clothes, grab my keys and wallet, and run out the door. It smells like smoke in the hallway. At this point I am actually worried as I clatter down thirteen flights of stairs. And stand in the cold. For an hour. While it snows on me. (I have never sworn for an hour straight up until tonight. I think I invented some new words.)
I guess it was nothing because despite the four fucking fire trucks that showed up, the firemen less rushed out of them so much as they leisurely strolled. I don't really know how I should feel about this.

The fire was on my floor, which was why I smelled smoke when I left my apartment. I am quite certain that some idiot burnt their morning omelet and this is why several hundred people got woken up in the middle of the night.

Funny story, this is the second time the fire alarm has legitimately gone off this week. The first was when a dryer went up in flames. Lately, there's been a lot of fire related incidents in my life. At least nobody ended up in the hospital.

On that note, my grandparents are doing better. My grandfather is probably getting discharged from the rehab center in the next week or so. My grandmother is... well, we're not worried about whether or not she'll make it anymore, but the accident has left some permanent damage on her mentally. She's, ah, not all there anymore. Hopefully she'll improve as she heals...

Things I did today:

• Go to America Reads orientation
  
• Find out NYU took away my federal work study without telling me
  
• Go to financial aid office. Argue. Accomplish nothing.
  
• Panic about paying for my [fairly un-extravangant] lifestyle. (I would like to take the time now to say fuck you to how expensive course books are.)
  
• Go home and call brother. Re-come out to him. (Remind him?) Get told I am confused. (Last time he told me it was impossible to be attracted to more than one gender. So I guess it's a step up.) Get told I am rejecting my femininity because of male privilege. I think this is a good moment to point out that I said nothing regarding my gender, just my sexual orientation. WHAT DOES WHO I LIKE HAVE TO DO WITH MY GENDER? No wait, this is the entire problem, isn't it?
  
• Talk to xturncoatxiii on the phone. ... Talk to him on LJ. ...Talk to him on IM. ... Fuck it, I think if we could we would string tin cans between our windows.
  
• Do about 1/20 of my homework (Holy shit you guys my classes are SO reading intensive this semester. Just for kicks I'll tell you what I have to read for Monday below)
  
• Watch LOTR bloopers in the kitchen
  
• Give the day up as lost, eat an entire bar of chocolate, wash it down with hot chocolate, and go to bed.
  

A day in the life. Good times.

Right so, Monday is my second day of classes (Thursday doesn't count; it was just sections), and I have SO MUCH READING. I have to read:
A packet about The Arabian Nights, 63 pages in The Arabian Nights: A Companion by Robert Irwin, Billy Budd by Herman Melville, the introduction to The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism, (Keep a journal on Melville and Norton readings), lines 1-178 of Beowulf, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, William Caxton's prologue to Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, an article on the sex/gender binary, an article on grammatical gender and sexism (the kinds of dense academic articles that can take ten minutes per paragraph)

YEA! And the first homework assignment is always light!

Oh god.

EDIT: P.S. Did I mention that I'm officially interning at a new literary agency? Their children's agent did Carrie Jones' Need! Yay excitement! I remember visiting Bloomsbury last spring and seeing the next book, Captivate, when it was still in the works and they couldn't figure out what part of the chick's face to make golden on the cover.

Dear finals:

You win.

brb having a hysterical breakdown

For a number of reasons, some of them financial, it looks like I will not be gong to Japan next semester after all.

Am I disappointed? A bit. This is something I've been wanting for years. On the other hand I've had my experience with Japanese considerably soured by NYU's Japanese department, so at least this gives me time to cleanse my pallet.

At least I get to stay in New York. In the grand scheme of things this is pretty goddamn awesome because, well, it's New York. It's certainly better than being back in Connecticut for three months around my parents every single day while all my friends are at college. Probably I would have to do something horrible like work at BonTon again.

I'm trying to figure out which courses to register for now. This is actually the most fun part of college. The actually act of taking said classes is considerably less nice I find.

Oh yes and New York voted down the same-sex marriage bill today. ANGER. I don't- I'm sick of this argument. It disgusts me that this is an issue. I can't wrap my mind around how a person can think it's their right to meddle in other's lives. HOW IS IT OKAY TO TREAT PEOPLE LIKE THEY'RE LESSER CITIZENS.
Ugh.

This has been such a nerve wracking week. I've been constantly behind on all of my work. I have been writing papers or "responses" nonstop. I've slept for 3-4 hours a night. And I had a conversation with somebody last night in which I made myself emotionally vulnerable in a way I almost never do, which has left me feeling drained and strung out. And now I have the nagging doubt that even though he acted really cool with what I told him I think he may not think of me the same way anymore, which is sad because I like him.
I conduct at least half of my daily interactions via internet, so it feels second-nature to me, but times like these I am reminded of the uncertainty of communicating with people when there is a screen between you. It's hard to judge people's emotions and reactions when you can't hear their voice, see their face, or observe their body language.
I need to be less insecure.

I just had to remove 3 "very"s from the above post. Trying to cut back on words that are a waste of space.