And The Clouds Came Tumbling Down (this is a long one!)

Today should have been awesome, except that Mike completely fucked things up.
That sounds harsh, but it's true. Here's the thing...

You all know that he pretty much crushed me. I was devastated when he started dating his girlfriend. Did he ruin my "spirit", or whatever the hell you want to call it, beyond repair? Of course not, no strong woman would ever let a guy do that to her, and I consider myself a pretty strong woman. But...well, there's no denying the past few months have fundamentally changed me. I don't think I'll ever be as trusting of my instincts about love again. Part of that depresses me, to have really lost that innocence once and for all. Then again, I'm 23. It's about time to let that go and get a little more cynical, a little more careful, hopefully a little more able to make good choices for myself.
To put it all in some kind of perspective, let me say that as stupid as it sounds, deep down I always thought I'd marry Mike. Even when we were both casually dating other people, even during the periods when we were just talking online once or twice a week and only sending one text message a day, I still always had this feeling that we'd eventually end up in the same place, start dating again for real, and get married. Sometimes that was a very clear thought. Other times it was a more vague feeling that I was trying to talk myself out of. But that feeling was always there.
In January I thought we were getting close to that actually happening. He told me he loved me. He said he couldn't see himself ever loving anyone else the way he loved me. I told him I felt the same way about him. He asked me if what we were doing was sort of a promise for the future, and we agreed that it was. It was a scary step, but it made me SO HAPPY. It wasn't an engagement, we weren't even in an official committed relationship at the time, but we were certainly heading in that direction, or so I mistakenly thought. We talked vaguely about planning to end up in the same place as soon as we finished school. We weren't making definite plans, but we were talking about making definite plans in the near future. He often said that he never wanted to get married, but one day in December he said to me very matter-of-factly "You know we'll get married," as if it was a given. In spite of everything we'd been through over the course of our friendship and relationship, deep down I thought it really was a given, too.

And then came Valentine's Day and the fateful blind date where he met the girl who became his girlfriend three days later. And then for me came two weeks of tears and mourning (it sounds so melodramatic but, well, that's what I was doing. I was mourning). Go back and read some of the entries from late February if you really need a refresher on that, they're far too depressing to link here. And then came the Padre trip, which you got the synopsis of already, too.
And then came almost two entire months of me trying to get over all this. Begging him to come back to me wasn't accomplishing anything. It was really just hurting both of us.
I hated how he acted towards me when I was upset, and I hated how pathetic I was being in some vain attempt to win him back. Look how much I love you. Look how much I'm hurting. How can you hurt someone you claimed to love so much? How can you just throw away something that was so good? I thought you were the love of my fucking life, how can I have been so wrong about that? Surely you can't possibly love this new girl in that perfect, special way you loved me. Surely something that amazing can only exist between you and me. Do you feel when you hold her in your arms at night that forever isn't such a scary concept after all if forever can be just like this? Do you feel that way? So that feeling can happen with more than one person? Or did you never feel that way about me at all? All those times I was so sure we were on the exact same wavelength and it was the best possible connection, did I make all that up?
He tells me now that he was never what I thought he was. He told me on the phone just tonight "You and I are too different. I don't know what you think I am, but I'm not what you need." Is it possible that I could have been so wrong about all of that? The answer, apparently, is yes. I realize that the love he has with his new girlfriend is obviously something completely different than what we have (had). The fact of the matter is and always has been: If he can love someone else so much that he would give me up for her, he and I were never really meant to be together forever in the first place.
So instead of trying to convince him that he was stupid for leaving me, I began to try to convince myself that I was stupid for wanting to stay with him. When you love someone, it's becomes easy to overlook their faults. To play the opposite game, picking a person apart and attempting to find their every flaw so that you can convince yourself you can do better? Well, that's not a fun game. But I began to do it. It even began to work. When I ignore my heart it's easy to think of dozens of logical reasons why Mike and I might have potential issues as a couple. In some ways I'm years older than him: I've lived on my own for five years now, I'm pretty sure he has never done his own grocery shopping. I'm more "worldly" (ugh, how ridiculous and elitist, but I can't think of a better way to describe it), and I come from a family that has more money and at this moment I am more highly educated. None of these things bother me in the least. In fact, I consider them positives: some of the many ways in which we balance each other out with our different experiences and philosophies. But I realize these facts bother him. I think that to this day the fact that I went away to college and he didn't bothers him. He might not admit that if pressed, but the fact that he still brings it up as a negative, often, leads me to believe that there's still some jealousy there that never quite got worked out. We have different philosophies about money (I'm a saver and he's a spender), lifestyle (I like to more-or-less have a plan at all times, he's content to more-or-less drift), and family (if I could actually plan an ideal future for myself it would include a husband and a child, and Mike is more or less anti-marriage and VERY anti-child. I always thought that this was just because he's 23 and he'll come around and want to settle down as he gets older, but you know, do I necessarily want to have to be the one to convince him he wants those things? Why knock myself out trying to convince him when there are plenty of guys in the world who want those things anyway without my convincing?). There's also the fact that even though I long ago accepted the fact that Mike casually dated and slept with other girls, he never quite got beyond the fact that I had done the same with a (very small) number of guys. So, fundamentally, I realize Mike somewhat has a point when he tells me we would never work out in the long run. We are very different, and while the majority of those differences are the good sort of differences, the type that balance couples out, some of them (particularly the lack of cohesion on whether or not to take the marriage-and-kids route and the unresolved jealousy issues) are problems that all the love in the world might not be able to conquer.
But therein lies the problem. All the love in the world? It was there. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully express just how much in love I am with Mike. I say love in the present-tense, because that love will never go anywhere. That's the thing about loving someone that much: no matter what their faults are, you can always forgive them and that love never goes away. It morphs into different sorts of love at different times, maybe, but if at any point during the past 6ish years you had asked me to make a list of people I really, truly love and would sacrifice for...well, for me that is always a very short list, but Mike would be on it. In spite of everything, he's still on that list now.
Because that's the thing about me and Mike. Although whether we'd always be together as a couple has at many times been somewhat questionable, whether or not we'd always be friends was never a doubt in my mind. There have been times in the past where that feeling that Mike was the elusive One For Me faded to just a vague "it could definitely still happen" idea. In the past couple of months the thought of us ultimately ending up together has been obliterated pretty much entirely. A combination of things has led me to the belief that we've probably permanently broken things between us now. Although sometimes my emotions still tell me "don't give up on this!", every bit of logic in my body (and I'm much more logical than emotional) has convinced me that we have now done things that really, REALLY can't be overcome. He has seen the absolute, the absolute fucking worst side of me. A side I didn't even know I had and wish I'd never had to find out about, honestly. I mean, it's good to know it's there, I guess, but I wish I'd never had to experience myself like that. I have seen the worst side of him. I always bragged about how incredibly loyal Mike was, but he has been cheating on his girlfriend to some extent with me ever since their relationship began and right up until last night. Could I date him again, knowing that he's capable of cheating? Sure, but my trust in him has been severely shaken. Even posting this entry is a form of breaking things between us entirely, because now if I ever do decide to date him again, every single person I know that reads this is going to wonder what I'm doing getting back with him when I know all the potential pitfalls. Maybe that's why I'm doing this. Maybe I need people stronger than I am to continue to remind me to listen to my own logic.
So could we date again? Yes, someday, in spite of EVERY SINGLE THING THAT HAS HAPPENED, I really believe we could. With certain changes on his part and mine, we could get together again someday and once again have an awesome, joking, loving, friendly, spontaneous, incredibly special relationship. Would it be worth the work to make it happen? Maybe, if the love ended up being enough. But nowadays it makes much more sense for me to truly believe that there's another guy out there for me. Isn't the convenient new theory that everyone gets two true loves in their life? Okay then. Mike was number one, maybe now it's really time to get out there and find number two. Maybe if I get really lucky I can find an even better match, I can start fresh with someone and build an even stronger foundation. Or if I honestly never find a guy better than Mike (because trust me, in spite of his flaws the idea of finding a guy fundamentally better than Mike seems almost impossible), I know deep down that I can honestly live a fairly content life on my own. Would it be the ideal life I like to envision for myself? No, of course not, but who the hell actually gets to live their ideal life, anyway?

So, okay, tonight on the phone Mike finally told me what I've been wanting to hear for weeks, that he's in love with this girl and doesn't see himself ever getting back together with me any time in the future. And honest to God, that's what I needed to hear. I wish he'd told me that a month ago, because then I could have gotten through this entire process so much quicker. I've been pressing him about this question pretty much weekly ever since he began dating her. "Just tell me you and I are over. If we're really over and you really know it, just tell me. Tell me so I can stop wondering if we still have a chance," I kept telling him. And he kept refusing to flat out tell me that he was done with me. Maybe it's because he wasn't completely, because right up until last night we were still having conversations platonic friends shouldn't have been having. I'm not totally innocent in this situation. He would start things, and I would allow them to continue. I shouldn't have done that. But why was I the one who should have been exerting self-control? I wasn't the one in love with someone else, I was just making a pitiful attempt to reinsert myself into the relationship that I viewed as mine to begin with. So half of the time he was telling me that he was very much with his new girlfriend and was very serious about it and I should just give up on him, but the other half of the time his actions were still implying that we weren't completely over.

Well, now we are completely, one hundred percent over. He finally told me tonight that he sees no future for us and he's going to do everything in his power to stay with his girlfriend (presumably forever, although he won't admit that...but come on, why the hell does anyone start a committed relationship unless it's with the hope that it will last forever? We go into casual relationships without much caring, but no one jumps into commitment with the thought process 'This could very well end at any minute, so I should keep my options open"...or if that IS your attitude going into a committed relationship, you have serious issues and sure as hell shouldn't attempt to be committing to ANYTHING).
Now that I know he really loves her, now that he has finally made up his mind and completely committed to a relationship, I finally feel like my best bet is to quit fighting for him and step out of the way. If he's happy, my job as a friend is to be supportive of his relationship. If he really doesn't want me anymore, I really don't want him, either. I finally, finally got the closure I've been begging for since March. Now that I know where he really stands, it's easy to evaluate where I need to stand. If he's over me, I'm over him. You may not think it can possibly be that simple, but you know what? In my world, it is. I asked him why the hell it took him so long to finally tell me that, and his reason? "I didn't want to hurt you." But he'd already hurt me so irreparably that tonight was something of a relief. He has let go of the idea of us in a relationship utterly and completely, I can do the same.
I realize nothing is definite. I realize that someday in a far, far, FAR distant future he and I could see each other in an ideal situation, feel that old spark, and start something all over again. But for all intents and purposes, I can finally start letting go.

But goddamn it, I didn't want to have to let go of our friendship, too. The relationship, yes. But not the friendship. As I said about a million paragraphs ago, even though I never really knew for certain that we'd ultimately end up a couple (although I certainly thought we would), I knew for certain that we'd always be friends. And not just acquaintances, but real friends. So much of what we've always had has been based on this simple, easy, talking-about-nonsense friendship, and I thought that no matter what happened to us we'd never lose that.
That's why I've been fighting through all these emotions for the past few months. If he was any other guy I would have just let it go, stopped talking to him entirely, and tried to get over him in all the traditional ways. But because he is one of the few very close friends I've ever had in my life, I didn't want to lose that. Other than my family, he's the biggest connection I have to my past, and I really, really don't want to lose that link, either. He's the only person in the world who really knew me in high school who also really knows me now. That's an incredibly special bond, and one that I didn't want to lose, ever. So I've been putting myself through the emotional hell of working out all the feelings I have concerning him so that I could eventually get to a good point, a point where we could have a happy platonic friendship. And we were getting there. In my mind, after the conversation we had tonight, we're there. Now that I know how seriously he's committed to her and making things work, I'm seriously committed to being just his friend and never hoping for more. Like I said, now that I know for a fact that he doesn't want anything more, ever, I don't ever want anything more ever, either.

But here's where Mike completely fucked everything up: Last night, he got drunk. And he started stuff that I shouldn't have encouraged, but how the hell was I to know that he was being stupid enough to send me text messages from his girlfriend's house?! Well, she found out. And she's hurt. And I don't blame her, she has every right to be. She has agreed to stay with Mike, and they're going to work everything out and live happily ever after I'm sure.

But me? Well, I once again get to be the total loser in the situation. Because...oh lord, the irony...the exact event that made me realize that he really is committed to his girlfriend and I'm really, truly ready to be committed to just being his good friend Ashley? That same event put me in a position where his girlfriend can never trust me around him again. And how can I blame her for that? Of course I wouldn't want my boyfriend continuing to talk daily to the girl he had cheated on me with. But it just sucks that Mike and I have both reached the point where we can just have the casual friendship I've been working towards, but now I can't talk to him at all because it will screw up his relationship with his girlfriend.

I'm not supposed to text him, call him, or e-mail him until things with them get more stable. Which, honestly, could be never. Why rock the boat? Is our friendship worth possibly jeopardizing their relationship if he really can't get her to trust him as far as I'm concerned again? For me, of course, our friendship is worth anything. But for him I know it's not. I'm not worth it. Nobody ever chooses friendship over the giddiness of the first year and a half of love.

So from now on if we're going to have a friendship at all, I'm afraid it won't be that one I was working towards, where we can still send a few daily text messages and talk online. I doubt we'll ever talk on the phone again. We sure as hell won't get to see each other in person, not without a whole entourage of people around us so that she doesn't feel threatened, and that's not exactly conducive to catching up.

It just sucks so much, because I know that she has absolutely nothing to worry about. Now that I know where Mike really stands, I'd never dream of getting in the way of that. But there will be no way to convince her not to be worried. Even if she says she's not, she will be. A betrayal like that never fades away entirely, unfortunately, no matter how much we want it to.

Ever since February, I've known I was going to ultimately lose the relationship. I never thought I'd lose my best friend in the process.

Why is it that Mike is the one that fucked up, but I am the only one really being punished? He says he's being punished, too, but at least he has his girlfriend to love and enjoy.

Me? I've not only lost the relationship, I've lost six years of amazing friendship as well.

Even in my worst nightmares I never imagined it was all going to end this badly.

I'm hopeful that she'll come around, and he'll come around, and I won't be written out of his life entirely. After all, the best thing he can do for his relationship is to get her to trust him completely, even where I'm involved. That would be the best thing for all three of us. But do I think that's likely?

Not really. He may prove me wrong. I hope he does. But what are the odds that I would get that lucky?

(Sorry for the long, incredibly depressing rant. Thank you for letting me rant. If anyone actually read this far, I'm shocked. And I promise that I'll be back with happier posts very soon. It's summertime now, and that should mean at least a few good adventures)

Theatre of the Taco

Somebody read this brief synopsis of Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, please. Now tell me that I'm not losing my mind. The third paragraph does in fact say "Tacos are the rulers of the world. Theatre of the Taco", right?

I read that right now and it just about killed me. I've been working on my Theory final since 3:00 this afternoon with just a few short breaks, so obviously I'm kind of tired and bored with the whole thing and I wouldn't put it beyond myself to hallucinate the Theatre of the Taco thing.

I want to know who typed that. I'm a big fan of Wikipedia and use it for quick references all the time, but never as a completely reliable reference, and this is exactly why. Anyone can write a Wikipedia entry and include any nonsense they want. This is by far the best nonsense I've ever seen, though. I wonder why the writer included it in the first place. Just to be weird? Or maybe in the hopes that some kid would copy and paste it into a research paper and try to pass it off as his own work and then have to explain to the professor why he included the stuff about the taco in the middle of the paper? Anyway, it made me laugh.

I don't have time for a real entry, since I really do have to finish this final tonight. It's not due until Wednesday, but I figure if I can get this (at least mostly) done tonight then tomorrow and Tuesday can be for writing my From Morn to Midnight paper and Wednesday and Thursday until 6:00 can be for working on my Dramaturgy final. I only have 1 1/2 essays left to write on the Theory exam, so I guess I should just watch a couple more hours of Sopranos and get this test over with.

Found out I got an A on my Directing scene, by the way. That's awesome. I'll turn in my journal for that class tomorrow and then be done with it and I should get an A in the class for sure even if for some reason he hates my journal. Theory will be an A, Dramaturgy should be as long as I don't fuck up the final and the paper (I think I can fuck up one or the other, but not both). Now it's just Playwriting I'm worried about, which sucks because that was supposed to be my blow off class. It has nothing to do with my degree plan, I just took it because I needed twelve hours of course work. I'm gonna be pretty pissed off if I get a B in that class. Oh well, everything is already turned in for that class so it's too late to change anything now. I'll just keep my fingers crossed, I guess.

Alright. Back to the theatre of cruelty and futurism and absurdism...sadly, I bet the Theatre of the Taco is more interesting than all of those things combined.

Forsooth?

I'm lying on the couch right now with my laptop resting on a pillow on my lap. Cohen is lying beside me with his head on my chest, snoring away and being as cuddly and sweet as he can possibly be. It's times like this that I can't remember how I lived happily before my basset hound and wireless internet.

Despite the fact that it has been really busy, I've been having a great week. Projects I've finished this week:
-Theory paper in which I applied feminist theories to an episode of The Sopranos. (And I found out today that I got a 95 on it. Holla! Even if I get a "C" on my final--and that's not going to happen--I practically have a guaranteed "A" in that class now) "A"s make me happy. "A"s on papers that I write the night before they are due make me even happier.
-The group project for Dramaturgy. We presented tonight, and even though it wasn't technically a contest, my group totally won.
-My play. I wrote a play! And it's not terrible. I mean, it's not good, but I'm not completely humiliated by the idea of it being read. I'm only somewhat humiliated by the idea of it being read.
-The scene I directed.
-The scene I acted in.
So yeah, it has been crazy, but it has been good.
Directing scenes last night were particularly good. We teched in the afternoon and then performed in the evening. Tech rehearsal was actually my favorite part. I think every theatre person in the world has a love/hate relationship with tech rehearsals. They're usually long and can get really frustrating and boring (especially if you're an actor or a crew member) and spending hour after hour in a mostly-dark theatre doesn't do much good for anyone's sanity, but there's something so incredibly exciting about seeing the full picture for the first time. The set, the lights, the first time you get to hear the sound cues...I get chills every time.
Directing and acting in the same night was interesting. I'm definitely more of a director than an actor. In my book, directing is just so much more exciting. I'm not sure why, especially since acting tends to earn you more glory, but for me it's much more thrilling to sit in the audience and see my creation on the stage than to be on the stage myself. Of course, there's also more stress with directing because once the show starts you have absolutely no control. You can just sit in the audience and hope everything goes according to plan. When I'm acting I don't feel quite as exhilerated, but at least as an actor you still get to retain control over the performance. I like that aspect of it. But given the choice I'd pick directing over acting any day, even if I were equally talented at both (and wow, I'm not. I'm no actress, and I know it! Not that I'm necessarily a great director, either, but I feel much more confident in that arena).
Anyway, Measure for Measure went well. My actors all came through and did an awesome job for me and my professor seemed happy with it overall. And then the show I was in, Speed-the-Play, went over so much better than I thought it would.
I was really worried about it because it is such a complicated show (actually, the show itself probably isn't all that complicated, but my director chose a concept that had us staging it in a complicated way). It's a parody of four David Mamet plays and takes place in dozens of locations, and each of us played three or four different characters. We had five major scene changes in the play, and the actors changed each scene ourselves as sort of a dance performance, so we had to dance around while also remembering what parts of the set needed to change. We each also had three or four different quick costume changes. It was physically exhausting because it was all so fast. Mainly I was just worried that we'd forget some part of the scene change and get everything all mixed up, but somehow we pulled it off. The only problem? We had wooden signs on each portion of the set that we would change to designate the location ("Danny's Apartment" "Bernie's Apartment",etc). On the restaurant portion of the set the sign was sitting on the table. Well, in the last scene when Shanthi and I went to sit down at the table the sign somehow fell and crashed off the platform to the floor below. We were doing the parody of Glengarry Glen Ross at that point, and my actual first line as I sit down is "We're gonna win that fuckin' cadillac, Aaronow." So we sit down at the table, the sign comes crashing down (and I mean CRASHING. LOUDLY) and without even really thinking about it I glanced down at the sign, said, "Fuck it," and then continued with, "We're gonna win that fuckin' cadillac, Aaronow" without missing a beat. I was already in angry cussing guy mode, it just came out! Later once the show was over and I actually had a second to breathe and think about it I realized what I'd done and wondered if maybe I should have just ignored it. But the sign falling was such a big distraction that it didn't seem like one of those "just let it go" moments. That was definitely a moment when it was more wise to acknowledge the problem in character and continue. So that's what I did, without really thinking about it. The funny thing is, everyone got such a kick out of it. People kept coming up to me and saying, "Nice save," and, "That was hilarious," and the usual half dozen people had to comment on how funny it is to hear the word "fuck" come out of my mouth.
Why is that, anyway? Why is it so funny to everyone when I say fuck? In fact, the entire reason I got cast in this show in the first place was because the director just found it so damn funny everytime I said "fuck" and "asshole" and "jack off". Is it that I have a little high pitched voice? Is it the juxtaposition of my freckled girly face and the dirty words? Seriously, I will never, ever understand why people find the whole thing so funny, but it never fails. Every single place I've ever been in my life people expect me to be this innocent, naive person and they're always shocked to find out what I'm really like.

So yeah, directing scenes went well, and the best thing about getting them out of the way the first night is that for the rest of the week all I have to do is watch the rest of them.

Alright, I'm out. But first, here's a laugh: Click on this link and refresh the page until my picture and horrible, horrible quote pop up at the top. Note as you refresh that I am definitely the cutest Celebrity Classic Scholar (not that that's saying much...not that that's saying ANYTHING). Also note that one of those guys has quintuplets (!!!!!). I am so embarrassed by this damn thing. So embarrassed that I have to share it with you! I didn't even know it existed until a few days ago when our department secretary sang out, "I saw you on the computer!!" as I walked into the office and I had to figure out what the heck she was talking about. The thing is, I vaguely remember the e-mail I got telling me to send the committee a picture and a thank you letter so that they could use it in "advertising" to try to lure in more sponsors for the golf tournament. This scholarship pays for most of my tuition each semester so I definitely don't mind writing a thank you letter. But I don't remember writing the cheesiest thank you letter ever written in the history of the universe. My dad maintains that I probably didn't actually write it and they just made up some stuff and attributed it to me, but sadly, I'm sure I did write it. In the right mood (and right before Christmas break, and at 3 or 4 in the morning) I am capable of being just that corny. Also, they've attributed my words to someone named Kristi as well, but yeah. I wrote that nonsense. That's corny enough to even make Kymberli proud!
Oh, and that picture? I already had it cropped to the right size and was too lazy to look for another one, so that's what I sent the committee. Little do they know, that the picture was taken at last year's theatre banquet and just before that picture was taken I had been sitting in a car in the alumni center parking lot chugging beer with Kymberli, Michael, and Jessica because there was no alcohol at the actual banquet. We did the same thing before our graduation ceremony a few weeks later, because we're just classy like that. I'm sure the Celebrity Classic Scholar Committee would be proud of me.

Also note that I am a "Supple Scholar". Sounds vaguely dirty, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm not sure exactly why I've been designated the Supple Scholar, but it means that the scholarship automatically renews next year. One of my professors also let it slip unofficially today that my Fine Arts Department scholarship is going to be renewed as well. So now I'm just waiting to hear about renewal of one more scholarship, but either way those two alone should cover tuition next year, so it's a big relief to have that taken care of again. You might even say it "gives me great peace of mind." Ugh.

One Track Mind

Proof that I've already been a grad student way too long:
During my nap this afternoon I dreamt that Amanda and I were at a lecture given by Michel Foucault. Of all the things my subconscious could have thrown out for me to dream about, I get a Foucault lecture? I'm dreaming about attending lectures by French philosophers. There's something very wrong about that. From here on out I'd like my brain to confine thoughts of post-structuralist theory to waking hours only, thank you.
The dream-lecture was actually strangely fun, though. Amanda and I were drinking copious amounts of red wine, as in we each had our own bottle of wine and were pouring glass after glass throughout the lecture. Everyone around us was drinking wine, too, and it was really more party than lecture. The weirdest thing about the dream (as if dreaming about Foucault isn't weird enough in and of itself) was that after the lecture I was walking home along a riverbank and I accidentally dropped my cell phone into the river and decided to strip off all my clothes and dive in after it. Except that I wasn't wearing real clothes, I was wearing just a toga (?!) and I didn't seem to care too much that there were quite a few people around who saw me jump into the river naked. Actually, I'm not sure why jumping into the river after my phone involved being naked in the first place, because in real life I sure wouldn't waste time stripping my clothes off. Who would?! I did manage to save the cell phone and get it working again, though. The phone was bright red.
Because of the wine and the cell phone I decided that red was a significant color in the dream. So just out of curiousity I looked up the meaning of dreaming about the color red. Turns out red symbolizes raw energy, intense passion, and sexual impulses. I take this to mean that my dream is implying that I haven't been getting laid enough lately. Surprise, surprise.

P.S.-Did you click on the link? There's a reference to Foucault's time at the Ecole Normale Superieure, which makes me laugh because in Theory class tonight Kelly was lecturing on Pierre Bourdieu, another Ecole Normale Superieure attendant. Kelly speaks fluent French and has a perfect accent (she majored in French at her college in Thailand). I mention all this just to say that five minutes into her lecture Kelly fires off the phrase "Ecole Normale Superieure" in perfect French and then says "I wonder about that. Is it normal, or is it superior? Maybe only superior to a certain degree," and then without missing a beat she continued her lecture while the rest of us almost collapsed trying to contain our laughter. Maybe you had to be there to understand how spot-on her delivery was, or maybe you just have to know her and understand Kelly's quirky, dry sense of humor (after 8 months of friendship I still can't always tell when she's kidding and when she's being dead serious), but it was funny as hell.

Just Happy

I just had to post briefly to say...I'm happy.

So often lately I've been writing about school stress, or the stuff with Mike that made me sad. (Incidentally, now that I've edited this journal and made it more public I realize that it has the weird effect of making it seem as though perhaps Mike is the only guy I've ever really been in a relationship with, because this journal a) begins about the time Mike and I started quasi-dating again after years of being more-or-less broken up, and b) by choice I've effectively eliminated any details of any other guys I've dated. That's not really important, just something weird I'm realizing).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I keep forgetting to write about the good things. Things like the fact that even when the school work drives me crazy and I spend 7 straight hours working on a group project (like this afternoon) I fundamentally really enjoy what I'm studying. The fact that I can watch an hour of The Sopranos and analyze it from the viewpoint of a feminist scholar and actually call that "doing my homework." Or the fact that I really feel like I have close friends here now, friends that I can see myself knowing for life. Or the fact that I can put on the flowy white skirt I bought last weekend and put on my headphones and dance around my bedroom until I twirl too much and get dizzy and have to collapse on the bed laughing and nobody else can possibly walk in on this embarrassing display (although apparently I'm willing to post the scene on the internet for you to roll your eyes at).

I don't know, I'm just in a good mood today for little reasons, and I'm realizing that it has been a while now since I had a truly bad day. And that's a really good feeling, realizing that even though I still get a little pang in my heart now and then when I really think about it (oh, how poetic) I've made myself get to a good place. I feel a bit invincible today. Hopefully that's a sign that it's going to be a good week, because I have a lot of very important work due this week and it would be nice to have luck on my side.

Alright, I gotta go read Dallas and the Ideology of Mass Culture for my (last!) dramatic theory class on Tuesday, and there's a basset hound looking at me pitifully from the doorway, so I'm out.

Hail! (And other things)

In case you needed more proof that I am in fact an expert at procrastination, I offer this: Tonight in Dramaturgy I got my education outreach packet back, and I got a 98 on it along with the comments "Well-written!" and "Strong work." This is completely baffling to me, because I did the majority of the assignment the night before it was due. I was actually working on it and printing stuff out right up until ten minutes before class started.
I just don't get how this keeps happening. I keep waiting for my luck to run out and my professors to realize that I consistently throw things together at the very last minute, but so far I guess I'm still coming across as the poster child for organization and, um, togetherness.

I also got a big compliment today. I'm in a Directing Styles class this semester. The scene I'm directing is from Measure for Measure, and I've been relatively happy with it, especially considering that I have absolutely no level of Shakespeare expertise (I've studied Shakespeare in terms of a couple of English classes and I enjoy reading it and I get it, but I have no practical experience with it-my knowledge of scansion is really sketchy, for example. Luckily that should change after the intensive Shakespeare class I'm doing this summer!) Anyway, I've been satisfied with how my scene is progressing all along, but suddenly today I feel pretty good about it because my friend Paul, who TAs the class, mentioned that the professor told him, "It's too bad Ashley's emphasis isn't directing." Which means he thinks I'm a decent director! That makes me happy, because even though directing is just my cognate and not my actual emphasis, I like to know that people respect what I do as a director. I would like to get more heavily into directing again one of these days. It's just too bad I had to make a choice between history/criticism and directing, because I honestly like both equally.

Alright, enough bragging about myself. Time to brag about someone else for a second. Speaking of Paul, he defended his thesis and did his comprehensive exam today and he passed! YAY! That makes me really happy for him, and subsequently happy for me, too, because if Paul can successfully get through his defense that gives me hope that I'll get through mine next year when it's my turn. Of course, I can't imagine the faculty letting someone defend their thesis and take their comprehensive exam if they didn't feel that the person was ready. It seems to me that passing is kind of a given once you get that far along, but what do I know? It just seems that it would be way too cruel to let someone get as far along as the thesis defense and then not clear them for graduation (unless the person just totally fucked up and clearly hadn't studied at all, I guess). It must feel so good to be in Paul's position. I can't wait until I'm two weeks away from my graduation! One more year...

Other good things to talk about today:
1) I was supposed to have a big dramaturgy paper due a week from today, but Dr. C pushed it back and now it's not due until the day of our final exam on May 4th. That makes me so incredibly happy.
2) Speaking of papers, I've decided to use an episode of The Sopranos as the basis for my final paper for Dramatic Theory class. Since I've been watching The Sopranos more or less non-stop in my free time for the past two weeks (I'm now midway through season two!) I figured I might as well find a way to actually make my obsession productive!
3) I found out today that I'm gonna get to room with Amanda and Liz in Stratford this summer! See, we're staying at a bed-and-breakfast for the three weeks we're in England, and I was just going to have to room with a girl I don't know. There are 10 of us going to Stratford, and the only person I know well is Amanda. Amanda and Liz are good friends (they work together) but I don't know Liz very well. So Amanda had asked me very early on if I'd mind if she roomed with Liz and I said nah, I don't care. I can pretty much coexist with anyone, especially since I doubt we'll be spending much time in our rooms anyway. So I was going to be randomly assigned to room with one of the other girls, all of whom are strangers to me at this point. But! Today Dr. C. mentioned to me that she found out there are going to be three double rooms at the B&B, a triple room, and one single room. She wanted to know if I wanted to be put into the drawing for the people that are fighting it out for the single room. But I was like, "Wait, there's a triple room? 'Cause if there's a triple room I'd actually like to room with Amanda and Liz." Dr. C. said that would actually make things a lot easier if we'd just agree to take the triple, so yay! Amanda is thrilled, and I'm looking forward to actually getting to know Liz since we're just acquaintances right now. So all in all that worked out perfectly.
4) In other Stratford-related news, we got assigned our scenes that we'll be working on all session for the showcase we're going to perform in Stratford. I'll be playing Rosalind in a scene from As You Like It, which should be fun. I'm so nervous, though! It has literally been years since I took an acting class. I hope I don't totally suck.

Well, this has gotten lengthy again, but I just want to add that we had a CRAZY storm here today. It was pouring rain when I got to class tonight, and as we were sitting in class we could hear rain and hail pounding on the roof. We couldn't see what was actually going on since there are no windows in any of the classrooms in the theatre building (which is a huge pet peeve of mine, but whatever) but when I got out of class later I found out that the hail had been HUGE. Up at campus it wasn't too bad, thankfully. My car seems just fine...although I haven't seen it in daylight yet. But the outlet mall got hit badly. Apparently the hail there was baseball sized and bigger! Matthew works down there and he said there was literally a couple million of dollars of damage done to the mall, and thousands of cars were badly damaged by hail, Matthew's among them. Man, I've never seen anything like it. His car is totaled by hail. The back windshield is completely shattered and gone, the front one is cracked in a bunch of different places, and the entire car is dented. Something tells me Matthew will probably be getting a new car out of the deal. Crazy...I'm just glad no one I know was hurt today. Damn weather.

Who wants to make decisions for me?

I'm having one of those days where everything is overwhelming.
The biggest reason is that I have four MAJOR projects due next week and the only one of the four I actually feel okay about is my final directing scene (two out of the four projects I haven't even started on!).
And since I'm such a damn worrier lately I've decided to start stressing about things that make absolutely no difference at this exact moment, like trying to figure out where I might want to apply to get my PhD. Mandi and I had a long talk with Christin after class tonight. She's finishing up her dissertation at UT right now and lately she's been giving us advice about finding good programs, applying, etc. I know that I really do want my PhD eventually, but sometimes I have a very hard time envisioning myself as a PhD candidate. I just don't feel like I'm smart enough to handle it. Given, I felt the same way about getting a masters before I started this program and obviously I'm handling the work just fine. And logically, maintaining a 4.0 in a masters program (so far) should imply that I could get into a doctoral program and handle the work. But a doctoral program just seems so intense. For one thing, it would be another THREE TO FIVE YEARS of school. That's a whole lot of school. Given, I'd be teaching and working during that period, but still. It also doesn't help that I have no idea at this point what area I'd want to focus on for a dissertation. I know that I'm into dramaturgy, but even though I'd love to do that I'm not sure that I'm qualified to get into a dramaturgy program (mainly because I'm lacking the foreign language proficiency most of them want). I did feel relieved when Christin told me she didn't know what she wanted to do her dissertation on when she applied to her current program, so that's reassuring. And I realize I don't have to really get concerned about any of this until after the summer. I also realize that I have a ton of options. I don't have to go directly into a doctoral program. I can teach high school, I can get one of those travel jobs I've talked about, I can do something else entirely. But at the same time, having a Dr. before my name is something I'd like to accomplish, especially since I've already come this far. And it kind of seems like as long as I'm on a roll I should keep going.
Ah, Future, you're so scary! Exciting, but scary.
The other major thing that has me stressed out is a summer job. See, I thought I had this problem solved. Last Friday I applied for a job as a teller at the bank where Mandi is working right now. I passed the teller test and was basically promised by the manager that there will be a job for me when I come back from England in July. Which is perfect! A part-time job that starts in July. BUT. The job has a set schedule. A schedule that would work out ideally with my school and box office schedule. I actually love the idea of having a set schedule. The problem is that it's just too set, though. It's one of those "real" jobs that only lets you have one sick day a month and five days of vacation for the entire year. And I'm just not sure I can make that fly. At first I thought I could, but now that I'm thinking about it I'm just not sure. What if miraculously one of my papers actually gets chosen for a conference? I need to know that I can get a weekend off without consequence to go to it. And then there's December, when I'm supposed to be in two weddings, one of which is in El Paso. I'm gonna need a whole lot more than five days off during the month of December.
So now I'm thinking that maybe I do need to apply for some different jobs, but the idea of pounding the pavement and going from place to place filling out applications is not at all appealing. Plus a restaurant or bar job would probably have the opposite problem and be too flexible, not letting me have a set schedule during the school year when I'll really need one.
And not working during the summer and just waiting until I start getting my box office paycheck again in October is definitely not an option. I need to earn money somehow.
So I'm torn. Do I take the bank job and just quit come December when I'm gonna need all that time off? Do I try to find a restaurant job and hope that I can make it work when school starts in the fall?
The other thing with applying to restaurants right now is that I can't envision anyone wanting to hire me to start work immediately when I'm gonna be leaving for three weeks in June. Why hire me just a few weeks before I'm leaving the country? But I'd really like to have a job lined up for when I get back, and I can't really imagine anyone that needs help hiring someone in May who can't actually start until July.
So yeah, I don't know what to do. It's times like this when I really, really miss my job at Bass Hall. Damn, that job was ideal. Such good money, so flexible...

Oh well. I had a really good weekend! Drinking with Kelly, Shanthi, and then Matthew on Thursday night at Showdown, hanging out with Matthew and Chelsea on Friday and Saturday night, walking Cohen and Morty in a charity walk, and an Easter picnic with my siblings (Chelsea and I made deviled eggs and fancy ham sandwiches that involved caramelized onions and brie, among other ingredients. We're awesome. Shane, of course, heard us mention the word "ham" on the phone and decided he'd just buy his own lunch from Subway. Punk! He also somehow failed to realize that a picnic at the river might actually involve swimming so he showed up in khaki shorts and a polo shirt and had to roll his pants up to his thighs to wade with us, making him look like the cliched image of one of those ambiguous German tourists. I really wish I'd thought to take a blackmail picture. I love my goofy brother!)

So yeah. That's where I'm at right now. A little stressed, but I know this is just that day I have every two months or so when I have to panic about my future, and everything is gonna work out just fine.

I promise to stop stressing and whining soon.

P.S.-I found out today that there is someone living across the hall from me and his name is Roland and he works for Budweiser. I may not be doing anything I SHOULD be doing, but I'm getting better at this spying stuff!

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

My upstairs neighbor is outside right now blasting music from his car as he cleans it out. Or at least it looks like he's cleaning it out. I don't know, I can't really tell exactly what he's doing since I'm just being a nosy neighbor glancing at him through my window (in my defense, I wouldn't have even noticed he was out there in the first place if he hadn't been blaring the music). He's milling around moving stuff in and out of the car and occassionally carrying things upstairs.

I mention this in the first place because this neighbor is such a mystery to me. Actually, pretty much all of my neighbors are enigmas to me, but this guy I really can't figure out. I can't figure out if he's single or not. I'm somewhat intrigued by this neighbor, not because I find him particularly attractive (he's cute enough but definitely not keeping me up nights) or interesting (we've never really talked other than greetings), but mainly because he has an In-N-Out Burger license plate holder, which intrigues me because it means he has family or interests in California/Arizona/somewhere not Texas, and I like that.
I can't figure out what his deal is, though.
Like:
He's almost always by himself when he pulls up in his car and he often has a bag of fast food and a single drink. This leads me to believe he's eating most of his meals on his own and not bringing home food for anyone else, so he's single.
His car is sometimes gone overnight. He must have somewhere else where he spends nights. He's in a relationship.
Every now and then a girl is in his car when he pulls up. He's in a relationship.
Weeks will go by without me seeing the girl at all. Clearly she's just a friend and he's single.
He's cleaning out his car. Single guys don't usually clean their cars unless it's to impress someone. He's gotta be in a relationship.
He always parks like a jackass, slanted across two parking spaces on purpose. And his car is NOT that cool. If he had a girlfriend, she wouldn't let him park his car like that. He's gotta be single.
I noticed when he was cleaning out his car that there was a bright pink bag in the back of it. HOPEFULLY he's in a relationship, because I'm not sure with a straight guy is doing with a girly pink bag otherwise.

In other neighbor mysteries, there's the guy that lives next door to me. I was completely convinced that he was gay, mostly because of his mannerisms and because of the fact that he's always unnaturally tan, even in the middle of winter. I just love making assumptions about people I barely know! Ha. That, and one night at around 4:30 A.M. when I was outside with Cohen I saw the neighbor showing a guy out of the apartment. True, it could just be a straight guy friend leaving after a night of videogames or something, but do guys walk each other to the door and stuff like that? I'm pretty sure they don't.
But then about a month ago I walked out my door one afternoon right into the middle of a screaming, crying fight this neighbor was having with a girl. From what I saw and heard of it (and it wasn't much, since I pretty much turned around and took the dog right back inside as soon as I realized there was a screaming match going on in the breezeway) it definitely seemed like a lovers' quarrel. So I can't figure out what's going on there, either.

Then there's the girl who lives directly above me. I won't hear a single sound from upstairs for weeks at a time. No footsteps, no water running, no nothing. Then suddenly for several nights in a row I'll hear banging and crashing late at night, or foosteps and the sound of the shower running in the morning and I'll know that somebody is actually living up there. But for weeks at a time it's like nobody is there at all. I have no idea what's up with that.

And then there's the apartment across the hall. It used to belong to my friend Kolby, but she moved out in January and sublet it to someone. In late January a big group of people came along and moved some furniture in, but then nobody actually came to live there for another month or so. It was like it was just being used as a storage unit (I know that nobody was living there because the apartment managers leave notes on our doors about various events all the time, and the notes would stay on the door across the hall for days until they finally blew away). Then one day last month some random girl said hello to me in the parking lot and introduced herself, so I figured she must be the new neighbor. But I haven't seen her since. Meanwhile, right after spring break I was coming home one evening and saw a kinda creepy looking older Hispanic guy waiting to be let into the apartment across the hall, and now for a couple of weeks there's been some sort of Nascar cardboard cutout prominently displayed on the patio, which doesn't lead me to believe that it's a girl's home after all. And I still never, ever, EVER see anybody going in or out of that apartment, and the blinds are always closed. So maybe there's still nobody living there.

So basically, I've just used this entire entry to admit that I spy on all of my neighbors but my detective skills really suck. I should probably go back to doing useful things...like homework. Or watching more of The Sopranos. I started watching the first season over the weekend. A whole bunch of people have been talking about it for years, so I finally decided to give it a try. I realize I'm definitely coming in at the eleventh hour here and I'm the last person in the entire damn country to jump on the Sopranos bandwagon, but I'm so glad I did. I'm on episode 9 already! That means I've watched 8 hours of The Sopranos in the past, oh, three days. It's just that good, people. I'm hoping they'll release the first part of the sixth season on DVD this year (once the first part of the season actually finishes up, that is) and then I'll be able to catch up completely and watch the final episodes with everyone else. I also plan to start and then catch up with Lost in time to watch the third season, too. Aren't you proud that I have such ambitious plans for TV viewing?

Fake It Until You Make It

So this semester ends in a month, more or less. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. Actually, I can't believe how fast this entire year has gone by. It's already getting to be time to start thinking about what I want to do after I finish grad school, which is kind of a scary prospect.
I'm not as worried about it all as I was when I was getting to this point of my undergrad work, though, mostly because to a certain extent I feel that I'm already set. I'm certified to teach high school, and after this I have the masters and should have no problem getting a teaching job somewhere. I've always known I wanted the masters, but in my mind the doctorate is a little more optional. Yes, I'd like it and I want it eventually, but I don't feel the need to go directly into a doctoral program. If it works out that way, great. If not, well, I feel like I can get some theatre-related job, or maybe even do something completely different for a while. Part of me still really loves the idea of doing some travel-related job for a while, especially if I'm not in any sort of relationship and there's nothing to tie me down by the time I'm getting close to finishing school. The only downside to that would be leaving Cohen and Jose. I'm not sure if I could leave my basset and cat for months at a time if I got some sort of travel job. Of course, this is all a moot point and I really don't need to start thinking seriously about this until later in the year anyway.

What I do need to think about right now, though, is all the crap I have to get done in the next three-ish weeks. The basic list:
-Education outreach Powerpoint for The Rover, the show that I'm now assistant dramaturging (surprise!)
-Write an original one-act play (ha, reading that it just sounds ridiculous, but I'm actually already about six or seven pages into it)
-Write a 15-20 page dramaturgical paper on From Morn to Midnight
-Write a 5 page analysis of a show for Theory
-Major season planning group project for Dramaturgy
-Final performance of my twenty minute Directing scene, and the scene that I'm performing in as well (this includes several rehearsals between now and then and figuring out/finding costumes and music)

That's all the major stuff. The nice thing is after that I really only have to take two finals, and one of them will be a take home final. So if I can just make it through April 26th I think I'll have gotten through the toughest part.
If I'm not around much between now and then, well, now you see why.

I would write about something more interesting than my grueling school schedule, but I'm not in the mood. Good things have been happening, though. Lots of fun times with Matthew and my girl friends and my family (when I'm not so busy maybe I'll tell you about the night last weekend when Chelsea and I attempted to ride her bike to the Common concert, "attempted" being the key word), some nice volunteer stuff, some successes at school. Nothing guy-related, unfortunately, since I still spend way too much time thinking about how dumb Mike is. The good thing about this is the more time I spend thinking of ways he's being dumb, the more able I am to honestly say, "Wow, getting over him really is a good thing." I'm still kind of wary about trying to make myself get over him because I still believe that he and I have something special, but the longer he's with this bartender girlfriend of his, the more I realize that if he stays with her that just means I can and will do better for myself. I hate to get all vengeful and petty because I know that's stupid, but part of me firmly believes that I will ultimately have the last laugh in all this. I just wish someone better would come along soon 'cause I think that's the last step I'm missing. I've pretty much gotten my act back together, now I just miss having a guy for entertainment. But let me say that even though I tend to think about Mike whenever I come here to write, in general I'm not really sad anymore.
When I was in high school my friend Melissa always used to make fun of me because when I was mildly unhappy with something I'd usually just pretend I was okay with it until I actually WAS okay with it. (Note that I said mildly unhappy. I don't believe in this theory when you're actually in a really bad, miserable, emotionally or physically damaging situation. That's just unhealthy). Melissa used to always tell me that I should let myself feel sad and angry, but you know what I've discovered about myself? I don't LIKE feeling sad and angry. Not for extended amounts of time, anyway. It's cathartic to a certain extent and then it just gets old and starts making me feel out of control, and we all know how much I hate feeling out of control. Plus there are always, always reasons to be sad and angry, and the more you let yourself feel that way the more you find other ways to continue feeling that way, and it just gets worse. It does for me, anyway. So instead I let myself get the initial period of intense sadness and anger out of the way, and then I subscribe to the "Fake it until you make it" philosophy.
I had already been doing this myself for years, and then I found actual scientific evidence backing it up. Given, this scientific evidence came from some magazine along the lines of Glamour so I'm not sure how much credibility it actually has, but whatever. The article said that studies show that if you're not quite happy, you need to fake it until suddenly one day you'll realize you're not faking it anymore and you actually ARE happy.
And you know what? That works for me. If I'm mildly unhappy (like I have been for the past month or so. The first two weeks I was seriously miserable, after that it just turned into mild unhappiness) the best way to get myself out of it is just to pretend that I'm perfectly happy and that everything is just fine and that I don't care about whatever is bugging me. And that forces me to start focusing on the positive instead of on the negative, and before long I'm actually more or less happy again. That doesn't mean there aren't still days that come along and knock me down and set me back a few steps again, but for the most part now I really am feeling happy.
It has been so long since I've been really unhappy about something that I'd forgotten about that theory, but I'm glad I rediscovered it. Like I said, I don't pretend this would ever work for true depression, but for mild ennui and mopiness, it really does work wonders for me.
Anyway, I'll be back soon with exciting stories. In the meantime let me do my school work, okay?

Why We're Down

The past 24 hours have been weird.
Last night I had a talk with Mike and ended up getting really depressed and sad, and basically deciding that I hate him, hate myself, and that there's no point in being hopeful for anything because even if good things happen they're always only temporary. And of course, that's not me. I don't hate myself at all. I may somewhat hate the way I've been acting at certain times during the past six weeks, but I don't hate ME. And I don't hate him, either. Not even remotely. And that's not actually how I feel about life most of the time at all. The majority of my life has been very good, and I have no reason to expect that it won't continue to be good. Just because I'm in a bit of a slump right now relationship-wise is no reason to freak out and change my entire outlook on life. Besides, the rest of my life is going remarkably well at the moment, as far as friendships and school go. I realize that I need to focus on the positive and quit letting my mind spiral into negativity. And I'm going to stop focusing on the negative. REALLY.
Of course, it's easy to say that right now after a good, busy day. I still don't have a lot of control over the sadness. It still hits me like a wave sometimes and just sends me into this insane, self-destructive mode (Not physically self-destructive, nothing that intense. It's a mental thing) . Luckily the waves of sadness get farther and farther apart week by week, and I know that they'll just keep spacing out more and more. Seriously, though, I'm determined to try my best to keep focusing on the positive. I don't need anymore nights like last night.
And hey, after my bad night last night I had that candy dream that I mentioned in the post I made earlier today. So who knows, maybe all my troubles really are gonna go away soon.

This post wasn't supposed to be about me, though. I'm getting bored with talking about me and my stupid emotions. It's not entertaining to anyone. Not that I'm actually trying to be entertaining here, per se, but I'm pretty sure I've exhausted the whole Me-and-Mike-and-Is-He-The-One?-And-Why-Does-He-Have-A-Girlfriend-Who-Doesn't-Even-Give-Me-The-Satisfaction-Of-Actually-Being-Better-Than-Me-In-Any-Way?-And-Why-Do-I-Even-Care-About-Him?-I-Can-Find-Someone-Else topic.
No, what I wanted to say is that the past 24 hours have not been a good time for relationships in general. Kymberli called me last night crying and upset about issues with her boyfriend. I felt awful for her, especially since I can commiserate right now, being so down about a guy myself. I helped as much as possible (which probably wasn't much at all, honestly). Then this morning Jenny called me, also crying about relationship stuff. So in the past 24 hours I have cried, and two of my best friends have called me in tears.
I was telling Matthew about it on our way to rehearsal this afternoon, and I said, "This is ridiculous. On the bright side, at least it's not just me. Something has to be up in the world right now."
And Matthew said, in all seriousness, "Oh yeah. Mercury went into retrograde today, AND there's a solar eclipse."
Thank you, Matthew. That must be it. I always overlook the obvious answers like the planets affecting my sense of well-being. [Insert dripping sarcasm here]
Matthew makes me smile. Honestly, though, at least now I have a good excuse for not being myself yesterday. I blame it all on Mercury. Fuckin' Mercury.

Spring Break Recap

I know, I know. But better late than never, right?

Here is South Padre Island Spring Break 2006 in a nutshell:

Number of hours it took to get from San Antonio (where all the El Paso people picked me up) to our hotel on Padre: 7
Number of hours it probably should have took: 4 1/2 (Why it took so long? I have no freakin' idea. We stopped. A lot. Eleven people traveling together is not exactly conducive to doing anything quickly or easily).
Number of days I was in various stages on the Buzzed-to-Drunk scale literally from the time I woke up in the morning until I went to bed at night: 4
Number of beers I drank daily on the beach: I have no idea because I always lost count somewhere around number 3 or 4 and then continued to beer bong long past that point.
Number of times I got really drunk and ran into the ocean with all of my clothes on: Once, at 3 in the morning on our first night there. About six or seven of us all ran into the ocean fully dressed. And it may have just been because I was really drunk, but it was one of the most fun moments of my life so far. The moon was shining, it was all cold and exciting, and for a few minutes I felt like I could do anything in the world and that I could get anything I wanted. I then went back to the hotel and showered with all of my clothes on, figuring what the hell, that would get all the salt out of them and get them clean. I'm still thanking god that I somehow had the presence of mind to take my cell phone out of my pocket before I went into the ocean.
Number of days it took my jeans to dry out completely after the swimming-in-the-ocean-in-the-middle-of-the-night fiasco: 3
Number of times Matt, Bob, or Luis said things that made me laugh so hard I almost died: 53, at least
Number of times we almost got our asses kicked by scary Mexican gangster guys at Taco Bell because Bob was being obnoxious and Matt felt like picking a fight: Once
Number of clubs we went to for dancing and ENORMOUS house drinks: 3
Number of free tank tops I got: 2. One came from the condom booth on the beach (it says "Trojan Hottie" and I wear it proudly), and the other one Luis stole out of a box at a club when he was drunk
Number of times Carla and I stood in the freezing cold ocean having long conversations about how stupid guys can be: 3
Number of times I got so drunk I passed out: NONE!! I was so proud of myself! Sure, I was buzzed the entire time I was there, but I can honestly say that each time I fell asleep it was through a conscious choice. Go me.
Number of times Mike got so drunk he passed out and then lay on the bed blowing spit bubbles in his sleep: Once. And I took pictures!
Number of times I had to sleep on the floor: Only once! We only had four beds and 11 people, so 8 people got beds and everyone else had to sleep on the floor.
Number of times this girl named Sarah that was part of our group went absolutely fucking psycho, had a fight with her best friend Rachel that included throwing Rachel to the ground and slamming all the hotel room doors with superhuman strength and the shouting of the words, "I'm nice! And I'm HOT!", and then packed up all her stuff and left the hotel still wearing nothing but her bikini and dragging her suitcase behind her, never to be seen again the rest of the trip: Once (And just so you don't think we're completely irresponsible, awful people, she did have other friends on the island and we figured she had gone to stay with them. Sure enough, the next day on the beach some guy she was friends with came up to us and said she was fine, so it's not like we left her to wander the island aimlessly and get raped or murdered. We're not that uncaring)
Number of sleeping bags that Matt "allegedly" peed on in his sleep: One (and there was no "allegedly" about it!)
Number of times Luis sang that godawful, "Rompe, rompe, rompe!" song: about 90
Number of people getting wasted on Coca-Cola Beach every day: Approximately equivalent to the entire population of the state of Wyoming. That's a hell of a lot of people on one beach.
Number of times I got really sad and honestly wanted to go back to Austin: Only once, after I left a club in anger and came back to the hotel by myself and Mike didn't care enough about my safety to follow me or even call to check if I was okay. I'm still pissed about that whenever I think about it, so I'm gonna change the subject rapidly now.
Number of times I thought, "This is fun, I'm so glad I decided to come after all.": Way more than once (thank god!)
Number of resolutions I made before going to Padre: 3. And they were 1) Don't cry, 2) Don't get so drunk you throw up, and 3) Don't fool around with Mike no matter how drunk he is because he has a girlfriend now.
Number of those resolutions I broke: 2 out of 3. Which leads us to...
Number of days I broke down and cried at some point: 3. Considering that including the days we drove down and the day we left the island Mike and I spent a grand total of 6 days together, I'd say the fact that I only cried on half of them was an accomplishment. It also helps that he was at least somewhat comforting, although not nearly enough (but what the hell can I expect?) It also really helps that every time the other people I was with could tell I'd been crying, they were really sweet. They fed me gummy bears and force-fed me sandwiches (thank you, Carla, I really was way too drunk and needed that sandwich, BADLY), and said things like, "You can do so much better. You're really hot and Hash...well...trust me, you can do better," and, "He loves you, he's just being stupid right now. She'll do something flakey and he'll come back to you, I know it" and, "You're the best girl he could ever be with, and if he doesn't realize that then he's an idiot," and, "We love you and we don't think you're crazy." I don't necessarily believe (or want to believe) some of those things, but the fact that they were coming from his friends who definitely should have been on his side and not on mine meant a lot.
Number of times Mike and I fooled around: 3. And only two of those times were because we were drunk. The third time it happened in the middle of the night after we'd stopped drinking at about 5 in the afternoon, so he can't blame that third time on being drunk. There's a lot I could say about how I feel about that, but it would be another entry entirely and I just don't feel like getting into it right now. At least he told his girlfriend that it happened. At least he's honest with her. I'd hate to think that of all the things that have happened/changed recently he's become a cheating liar, because he's not that kind of guy.

Anyway, all in all I guess I was glad I ended up going. I'm obviously still not convinced that Mike and I can be "just friends", but we had a pretty good time all things considering.

Since then I've continued to have ups and downs about how I feel about him. I still wish more than anything that he was with me, but I'm also realizing that there's absolutely nothing I can do to make that happen. And deep down I know that if he loves this other girl enough to actually want to stay with her, then he was never supposed to be the guy I'm going to spend my life with in the first place. There's no such thing as "the man you were supposed to be with" because if you were supposed to be with him, YOU WOULD BE. Maybe my relationship with Mike really has run its course. Or maybe by this time next year we'll be back together again. Or maybe by this time next year I'll have a new boyfriend and I'll only talk to Mike once a month to see how he's doing. Who the hell knows? I hate the not knowing, but I also know that there's nothing I can do about it.
I like to plan everything out as much as possible, but I'm trying to take the relationship portion of my life day by day for now. It's still hard and I'm still unhappy, but I know it will get better somehow. Mike and I will get a chance to really try being together, or I'll find someone that is such a fun match for me that for the rest of my life I'll laugh about how stupid I was to ever think I could spend my life with Mike. Either way it's going to work out okay in the end, I'm just not to that end point yet. In the meantime, I'm only 23. And even though I'm in the perfect position to be in a relationship right now, that doesn't necessarily mean that I need to be.

HBO told me in a commercial yesterday that "Everything worth having comes back eventually." So that's my new mantra. If he doesn't come back around, he was never worth having in the first place.

Last night I had a very vivid dream that I was picking out a variety of colorful candy and putting it in a bag to take home from a hotel I had been staying at. There was gummy candy, rock candy, cherry sours, jelly beans, on and on, and I was grabbing handfuls of it all and tasting everything and laughing with the unknown guy who was helping me pick out all the best stuff. I woke up still thinking about the dream. And while I don't put a lot of stock in dream decoding, I have to admit that it made me really happy to read that dreaming about candy is a "positive prophecy" and means that soon everything that is troubling me will be resolved.

Recovery

I'm back!
The past however-many-days-I've-been-gone-from-here have been crazy. Padre was STUPID. In some ways it was stupid in the best possible way, and in other ways I'm amazed that somehow we made it through the week without anyone drowning/being arrested/making a trip to the emergency room. All in all it was about 70% really fun and awesome, and 30% depressing, which is actually a higher percentage of good than I was expecting. Ultimately I ended up being glad I went. It wasn't everything I hoped it would be, but it was worth going for sure, so that counts for something.
Then this past weekend Jenny, Ellen, Katy, and Kymberli all came down from Fort Worth to visit me. Girls' Weekend was great and much needed. I wish there was some way we could do it more often, but even finding this one weekend when we were all free took a couple of months of planning and a lot of luck.
Anyway, I'll describe all of spring break in more detail eventually (I want to, anyway. No promises of course).

In meantime, I have a hell of a lot of work to do right now. This week is definitely a hell week with three major assignments due Thursday. I've finished two of them, but I'll be up all night tomorrow for sure. I've also been feeling more mopey ever since break ended. That makes me kinda mad, because I thought I'd actually feel better once spring break was over and I didn't have to worry about how seeing Mike was going to be. Instead, I actually feel worse now. I mean, I don't feel worse than I did a month ago, but I feel worse than I did on break or just prior to break, you know? So I'm on a mission to stay as busy as possible to keep myself distracted. If I can't get over this I can at least keep myself occupied so I stop acting all emotional and crazy, and eventually I figure I will forget about all this if I stay busy enough. Here's hoping, anyway!

Ooh, I do have a really awesome update, though. I talked to my advisor yesterday, and she asked if I was still interested in doing a dramaturgy project for my thesis. I said yes, and she said the season is pretty much set and so get this: There's about a 99% chance that I'm going to get to do my thesis project on The Rocky Horror Show! I'm going to write my graduate thesis on The Rocky Horror Show! Who does that?! I'm pretty sure that that is the most awesome thesis topic ever of all time and I really hope it works out. My other option is Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana, but that's not nearly as much fun because there are billions of thesis projects on Tennessee Williams. But The Rocky Horror Show? Not so much. Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that works out.

Alright, I have to go work on the 600,000 things I should be doing right now, including finishing my storyboard for Directing. It's more or less a collage, which--if you're keeping track--is the third collage project I've done this semester. That's pretty ridiculous. I think I'm gonna put that on my CV. Special skills: Collaging.

I'll dunk my cookies in your tears

Today has been both really crappy and really awesome. Probably more awesome than crappy, though, so that's good. It was crap because:
1) In Directing today Mr. Gay-but-in-the-Closet-Married-to-a-Butch-Woman-Who-May-Very-Well-Be-A-Lesbian Professor Man announced that the first performances of our shows are going to be done in class on April 4th. I have several major problems with this, mostly the fact that I'm doing a 30 minute Shakespeare scene and there's no way all of my actors are going to be off book and ready to perform with less than two weeks to actually work on the scene (next week doesn't count, it's spring break!). For several reasons that I won't get into right now this is a very unfair situation and I'm pretty pissed about it. And really stressed about it. But what can you do?
2) I had to take my Dramaturgy midterm. I spent the whole day cramming. I feel like I did okay on it, but it has been 3 1/2 hours since I finished the test and my entire right hand and arm is still aching. You try handwriting 9 pages plus two pages of outlines in 3 hours. Oh, and make sure it's actually legible. Why can't we use laptops for these tests? Seriously.
3) The Padre trip is the day after tomorrow and I'm feeling pretty apprehensive about it. Basically, I'm afraid it's going to suck and I'll just be drunk and weepy the whole time. I don't think that's actually going to happen, but I'm not as excited about this trip as I was once upon a time.

On the bright side, today was awesome because:
1) I got my Dramatic Theory midterm back and I got a 98! 98! I was pretty sure I'd more or less failed the whole thing because that was the night Chelsea and I spent a significant amount of time making up interpretive dances to Enya songs instead of studying. But I once again somehow managed to get an awesome score with a minimal amount of effort. I also got a 95 on a Theory paper I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I was pretty sure was pure crap. Needless to say, I feel pretty fucking brilliant right now. Mainly I think I've been doing so well in that class because I'm an awesome note-taker. Seriously, I don't have a lot of special skills, but I'm the best note-taker I know. Impressive, huh? Somehow this skill has leaked to the rest of the grad students and now there are four people who regularly borrow my notebook to make copies (even though they also take their own notes). I should really start charging for this service.
Digression: this note-taking talk reminds me of one of my early memories of Kymberli. We had Stagecraft together freshman year and early in the semester we were studying together for a test. Something came up that I was unclear on, so I asked Kymberli, "Hey, can I see your notes for September 20th?" When she opened her notebook to that date, it had approximately three lines of notes followed by her name written about 600 times and then a final scrawl: "I am ADD. Ask Ashley for notes." To this day that's pretty much my friendship with Kymbo in a nutshell. Haha. I love remembering that...CANNOT believe that was almost five years ago!
2) Speaking of Kymbo I found out today that, she might come visit me next weekend! Jenny and Ellen are coming down for St. Patrick's Day for sure. We've been planning their trip for about a week now. And then yesterday I called to invite Katy, too. I'd been thinking about it anyway and then Jenny called and said, "Why don't you invite Katy?" so that settled it. Katy says she's going to come down, too, and it would just be wrong to hang out with Jenny and Katy without Kymberli there, so I invited her to come down, too. So it's entirely possible that all of my favorite girls might be here next weekend!! I'm really excited about it. I figure even if Padre does end up sucking, at least part of the break will be fun!
3) SPRING BREAK STARTED! Honestly, I'm not dreading Padre. I'm actually more or less looking forward to it now that it's almost time to go. My goal is just to try to control the drinking as much as possible since I know I'll just be stupid if I get drunk (Oh, who am I kidding. I'll be drunk and stupid. But I'm hoping for the best). At the very least it should be nice hanging out on the beach and doing nothing for a few days.

Finally, this is neither awesome nor crappy, it's just a weird thing that happened today. This morning after my directing class I was walking out to my car. I follow this dirt path from the theatre building out to the street, and as I was walking on the path this morning this girl Bridget was walking a few yards in front of me. Suddenly she came to an abrupt stop, stood on one foot and took off her sandal, shook a rock out of it, and then put it back on and kept walking. That itself wasn't weird at all. Here's what's weird, though: four hours later I was once again on the same path walking out to my car after my Playwriting class (I drive back and forth to school three times on Tuesdays and Thursdays just because I have awkward long breaks and I'd rather be chillin' at home than at school. It's only a five minute drive anyway). As I walked down the path there was once again a girl walking in front of me. And suddenly she came to an abrupt stop, stood on one foot and took off her sandal, shook a rock out of it, and then put it back on and kept walking! In the exact same spot Bridget had done the same thing four hours earlier! What are the odds of that happening? I feel like I witnessed a glitch in the Matrix.

Alright, I need to go to sleep. I'm so worn out, and I have a lot to do tomorrow to get ready to leave town on Saturday. I probably won't post again until after spring break. Let's just hope I survive, because it has the potential to be either a) really depressing, b) really crazy, or c) both.

Word Cloud

So I just did a word cloud. Have you heard of this? You give this program the URL to your blog and then it picks out words you use often (I guess) and makes this little word cloud that I guess is supposed to show you what you're writing a lot about.
I can't figure out how to give you the link to my cloud, otherwise I would. I'm surprised because you can look at that word cloud and actually see very accurately what my life has revolved around for the past five months. I'd like to do this again after a year or so to see what has changed. Very interesting, this word cloud.
There's not much surprising about mine. The words bar, Cohen, Chelsea, Mike, crazy, night, people, paper, theatre, think, and work feature prominently. My own name is also prominently featured, which makes me seem really self absorbed, but I'm pretty sure that only happened because this journal automatically signs my name to all of my entries. Love and hate are the same size, which kinda surprised me. I tend to think of myself as a pretty content person, but when I really think about it I guess I do have to admit I kinda hate a lot of things. Facts and family, girls and guys, home. Reason, lots about school and work, relationship. Alone. Awesome. Bed (haha).
I think the thing that most surprised me about the word cloud were the words best and better. That stood out to me because I've recently realized exactly how ambitious I am. Mike pointed out to me the other day that I need to relax more. All I ever do is think about the future and make plans for things I want to happen and then I get stressed out when things don't go according to plan. But the thing is, I don't know how to be any other way. I'm afraid if I don't at least try to make plans and try to get a jumpstart on my career and try to come up with a life plan A, a life plan B, and as a worst-case scenario a life plan C then my whole life is going to slip by and suddenly I'll be fifty years old and I'll have done nothing. I can't help the way I am. I'm ambitious, and I'm a planner, and ultimately that's both a blessing and a curse. I think that my personality has the potential to make me successful, but I'm scared that I also have the potential to really burn myself out. I can't stand to not make plans. Even if I'm making hypothetical plans for things that may never happen I still have to plan because it stresses me out too much not to do it. But clearly making plans just stresses me out, too. Who knew I was such a worrier?
Anyway, I just want to wrap this up by saying I've been in a much better mood lately. I still get sort of sad once a day or so, but I'm not all worked up all the time anymore. Honestly, more than anything right now I'm just bored! I realized the other night that I've pretty much never been single since I started dating at the age of seventeen. Oh, I've technically been "single" for years, but not single like this. I was always at least somewhat involved with somebody. This is the first time in my life since I began dating that I'm not involved in any sort of relationship at all whatsoever. There is a definite benefit to this. Namely, if someone asks if I have a boyfriend I can simply say "No" instead of the awkward "sort of...it's complicated." Finally having a definite answer to that question is nice for a change (even though obviously I'd rather the answer be "Yes"). The good thing about it is that I can finally be completely open to anything that comes along. If I were to meet a good guy right now I could actually start a normal relationship without having to figure out how I really feel about so-and-so and tying up a bunch of loose ends first. That's a good feeling.
The problem with not being in any relationship at all whatsoever? It's fucking boring! Why didn't anyone warn me how boring this would be? I don't even have anybody to have a crush on right now, and there is a definite possibility that weeks and weeks could go by without any real flirting (and don't even get me started on the lack of sex). On the bright side, this is helping me to focus on other important things like school and exercise and basset hounds. On the other hand, it's SO DAMN BORING! You know what I miss more than anything? I used to get excited when I got a text message or my phone would ring, 'cause there was always the possibility that it was a fun guy and something exciting might happen. Now when my phone rings I can tell you exactly who it's going to be: a) my parents, b) Chelsea, c) Kymberli, d) Mandi, e) Jenny (but she always warns me on the instant messenger when she's about to call me, so that doesn't really count), f) Matthew, g) someone from one of my grad classes or directing shows wanting to talk about assignments and rehearsals and maybe something fun but probably just school stuff, h) one of the kids working in the box office who has somehow managed to screw up the simplest job ever. That's it. Those are more or less the only options. I enjoy hearing from all of those people, don't get me wrong (well, except the box office kids, I actually wish they would never call again), but I already miss the days when the phone was actually exciting.
Anyway, I need to go write this stupid play I'm working on, so I'll talk to you later. Keep your fingers crossed that someone interesting shows up on the scene soon, just so that I'll be easier to deal with. Ha.