You know what always snaps me back into reality from one of my overly emotional escapades in hating myself and my life?  Sex does.  And not just any sex, but sex with someone I deeply care about even if he can be short sighted sometimes.  Frustratingly long periods have adverse effects other than merely being inconvenient and uncomfortable.  I'm probably some kind of low level sex addict considering I become extremely ill tempered should I go without sex for more than a week.  I can say that in no instance have I ever felt worse after sex with my husband.  I wonder for how many people that ISN'T true.

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better.  I think additionally spending more time in my office and working in the lab has made me realize that I'm part of something amazing, something that could change the world.  And really, as long as I am changing the world either by research or by raising a child I guess most other things really don't matter that much.  I'm thankful that I didn't tell my husband how I was feeling other than to suggest that he was stressing me out because that's really all it was.  Seeing him and looking at him and knowing that having sex with him on my period would be super gross was just making me really angry.  I don't really think it can be labeled as his fault because he didn't do anything but be absolutely beautiful.  And when I am angry I can dredge up things that I normally wouldn't give a second thought and blow them out of portion, like we all can from time to time.

It's funny that if you ask anyone who sees me on a day to day basis they would probably say I am a really happy person, yet if you ask someone who reads my blog they would realize that I'm an emotional wreck who can't understand her own thoughts from time to time.  I wish we were all mind readers.  That would make the world much simpler I think.
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I'm going to start writing letters back and forth with my grandmother.  I'm excited about it because I love getting letters in the mail, but also because I know it will make her extremely happy.  She looks up to me in a strange way that I've never experienced before in that she wishes she had been born into the world I was.  I think she believes that her upbringing and the world around her shaped her into something "bad" or "wrong" as a child and she can see that the way things are today is so drastically different that she could have been something so much more amazing.

I think it is directly related to my previous post, except that she doesn't look back on choices she made but rather her very existence and wish things had gone differently.  I've jokingly said that I should have been born in the 50s so that I could have properly enjoyed disco in its prime, and of course I wonder what amazing things will be invented after I am nothing more than a memory to my descendants, but I would never punish myself for being born "too early" because I had no control over it.  I think she punishes herself.  She wishes her siblings hadn't died of diseases which can now be cured.  She wishes her abilities in mathematics and science weren't suppressed and ignored while she was growing up.  She wishes she could have gone to college instead of becoming a housewife.  She wishes a lot of things.  But maybe I'll be the same way eventually.  Maybe it's human nature to constantly believe the grass is greener in another existence.

I just realized how immensely lonely I am.

Maybe I'm forcing myself into the life I think I should want, when all I really want to do is something completely different and infinitely more amazing.  Maybe I'm no better than any of the people I chide in my head for the abhorrent use of their lives.  Maybe I'm still just as immature and foolish as I always was and I have no place deciding anything for anyone, especially myself.

I just filed a bunch of paperwork, took out the trash, changed two lightbulbs and did the dishes while the person who is supposed to support me and help me succeed in life took a nap on the futon.  And he'll wake up thanklessly and ask me to cook dinner.  It makes me think of all the blogs I've read of girls who are still in high school or just starting college.  They do drugs, laze about writing poetry, attend parties centered around campfires and illegally acquired booze, and have sex with near strangers without a second thought.  They are thin and whimsical and thought provoking.  They are free.  I was free once, but I threw that freedom away for safety and security.

Maybe I'm beginning to regret my decision.  I want to go back and be the photography major with no future, living from cigarette to cigarette.  I want to believe I'm complicated and deep because I cut my wrists and listen to music that no one else has heard of.  I want to look good in leggings and skinny jeans and dresses that barely drop below the lips of my vagina.  I want to wear smokey eye makeup and deep red lipstick just because it makes me look older.  I want to be so single it hurts, where a confusing mix of ecstasy and fear of commitment pulse through me each time I strip my clothing off for another beautiful stranger.

But it's too late to go back, just like it always has been.  The moment for action passed without me realizing it.  I can't quell this shrieking voice deep within my soul telling me I'm not the person I thought I would have been by now.  I live vicariously through the blogs of young women who still have their freedom and stories about relationships between two young men, relationships I will never be part of no matter how much I want it at this point. 

I'm everything I find boring and normal in this world.  I guess my failure is complete.

I feel like I could catch things on fire just by looking at them today.  I'm so frustrated and I can't even really pin down why.  I guess it could be a lot of things.

Today is the ninth day of my period.  Yes, that's right.  The NINTH day.  I can't take it anymore.  If it isn't over today I'll have to do laundry specifically because I'm running out of granny panties in which to insert pads.  My doctor said that if my periods were longer than eight days that there is a possibility that I have fertility problems related to something called endometriosis.  My last period was eight days and I was hoping that it was just long because it was the first one since I've been off of birth control, but that obviously wasn't the case since this one is even longer!  I just want my body to be functioning normally.  I want to produce children before my DNA is mutated too much from working with chemicals for several hours every day.

But do I really want children?  I mean, of course I do.  I want to produce viable offspring more than anything in this world, but with my husband so obsessed about how much he hates his job and wants to quit it and blah blah blah...well...maybe HE isn't ready for children.  I understand that his job is boring and he isn't really being challenged, but he keeps telling me that it stresses him out.  Let me rephrase that, a job where he almost never has to physically interact with a human or do anything other than simply sort things and send them where they need to go is stressing him out.  Well, then what the fuck wouldn't stress him out?!  That's as simplistic as you can get!  And he says we can look for another job for him, but whenever I suggest we work on it he says that stresses him out, too!  Sometimes I just want to slap him and tell him to grow some fucking balls.  We need his income to support a child.  I don't make enough as a graduate student for us to maintain our current lifestyle with the additional stress of childcare.  Yet with this fact looming in front of him all he can think about is how much he would rather just sit at home and do nothing all day.  If that is the case then there are two options:  1) deal with your easy fucking job and help to acquire the necessary funds to have and subsequently raise a child or 2) quit your job, sit around in your underpants playing video games and forget about having a child until your hard working wife finishes her PhD and can support an entire family on only her income. 

Right now I'm really REALLY leaning toward the second option because all I hear about when I see him is how much he hates his job and he's a complete asshole sometimes with the excuse that he's stressed out.  For example, I put a plastic food container on his desk today and he threw it on the floor because he couldn't wait the two seconds it would have taken me to remove my boots and pick it up so I wouldn't track snow through the apartment.  If he can get mad about something so retarded because his job is "stressing him out" then he can just fucking quit it and be a loser for the rest of his life as long as he is gentle and kind.  However, in that case I will be the one making the monetary decisions in our lives, like when we have enough money to have a baby or buy a house or upgrade his computer or even eat out and he can SUCK MY GIANT FUCKING DICK. 

There, I said it.  Fuck him.  I don't need his attitude right now.   He keeps talking about how he would rather be happy than rich and I totally agree, but I would not be happy if I was trying to raise a child and focus on my research and everything else that I have to do when I didn't even have enough money for the necessities.  That is not happiness to me.  And maybe he thinks somehow raising a child will be easier than his job or something.  Trust me, nothing could be easier than his job.  Or maybe he thinks I'm making it up that we are spending more than my paycheck each month and that we would not be "just fine" living on my income.  He's too incompetent to help me with anything financial anyway.  I pay all the bills and keep track of all our financial accounts and when I try and show him how much we spend he just waves me away and keeps reading his stupid Diablo 3 forums.  I basically already have a child at this point.  I just don't know what's going through his head right now and I don't really care to find out because I've got a lot of other things to worry about.  And it's not that I don't love him.  I do.  He just makes it really hard to like him sometimes if that makes any sense.

I just want to focus on my research.  I really want to dig in and understand things and immerse myself in my project and get published and complete my PhD to the best of my abilities.  And I can't do that if I have to worry about money.  I hate money.  I hate it so much.  Unlike money, a child would be a welcome burden.  Though it would be stressful and sometimes I would worry, the stress is part of the process.  As the child grows up there will be many hard times, but the end result so greatly outweighs the negative aspects that I would have no problem rushing home to rock to sleep or feed or even just spend a bit of time with him/her.  But money is not that way.  There is no required stress.  If you can make enough money to not have to worry about it, then why would you choose to be stressed instead?  This is my dilemma and why I am so angry with my husband.  He seems incapable of grasping the concept that his want to quit his job stresses me out.

I should stop ranting.  I just had a lot to get off my chest.  I'll probably regret writing this tomorrow, but as with all entries I will never delete it because it represents a snapshot of my thoughts in time.  Things so transient as this are often hard to capture, so to destroy them would be such a crime.

I really hate chapped lips.  I love winter and I love snow and I love beautiful white landscapes and I can suffer through the chilling wind and bitter cold, but I really REALLY hate chapped lips.

There is nothing in this world that can replace the smell of baking something in your own kitchen.  I love how the fragrance of past meals wafts though the air as the oven preheats.  I enjoy the gentle, rich aroma of cooking oil and the way the eggs swirl and mix right before they are swept into the rest of the batter.  As whatever baked goods are slowly cooking the apartment is filled with the pleasant, heartwarming fragrance of kitchens past, my mother's, my grandmother's and probably her mother's as well, though I have never been there.  Better still are the smiles the finished product brings.  Other than the addition to my hips, I can't really think of a downside baking.  It's a wonderful thing.

In other kitchen related news, maintenance replaced our refrigerator while we were out.  Not only did they replace it but they carefully rearranged all the food in the new one so that it was in approximately the same place as it had been in the old one.  I really like the maintenance crew here.  I've put in several requests and each of them has been completed quickly and properly, plus the guys are very polite and friendly.  And also there is no mold smell when I open the freezer!  Yay!
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I hate obligatory clapping.  I've used obligatory in two posts in a row.  What a strange word to use repeatedly.  Anyway, I'll clap when I think it's appropriate, and if I just sat through a long, boring presentation I really don't think I should clap.  Shouldn't clapping be a reward for a job well done.  If I spend an hour nodding off repeatedly while I could have been in the lab working...well...I don't think that's a job well done.  I'll clap when someone makes a really good joke that really makes me laugh.  I'll clap after a play or concert if the performance warrants it.  Heck, I'll even clap when someone gets an awesome headshot off in a game.  But, I refuse to clap when all that someone has done is wasted my time.  Same thing with tipping. I'm not going to give a good tip to a waitress that wastes my time or gives me poor services.  Maybe I'm just a cold hearted asshole who worries too much about the value of my own time, but I've only got so much time on this earth and I'd like to make the best of it.
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Sometimes I feel invisible when I have headphones on, so much so that if someone speaks to me when I am listening to music it confuses me.  I'm surprised and startled, not because it is a surprising sound to hear someone talking but because I didn't expect them to see me.  It's as though someone has broken into my safe little music box and ripped me from my pedestal where I dance in my tiny pink tutu.  I should invent headphones that produce some kind of light refraction field around the user that blurs them so much so that they are almost invisible.  That would be a lot of effort to validate an imagined situation only inside my head, but I guess that's science.

Traveling stresses me out.  I hate leaving my apartment because I always feel like I will get back and someone will have robbed us.  Also I always forget that we are traveling and buy groceries like we will be eating meals at home, resulting in a waste of produce in some cases and left overs going bad.  Another problem is that I don't sleep well when I'm not in my own bed.  I don't know why but I've always had that problem.  And while we got to see our parents and my best friend and her husband...well...we didn't get to see a lot of the people we have been missing because they are particularly bad at communicating with us when timing is an issue. 

I've gotten lots of messages about how much we are missed and how everyone wants to come see us and visit and all that...but when it comes down to it I just can't put in ALL the effort and time required to basically "force" people into spending time with us.  If someone drove a couple hundred miles to visit I would try my best to make time for them.  I guess we just shouldn't visit on Saturdays because people have plans that are more important than us and I guess I should have made a facebook event but that just seems so impersonal and obligatory.  And I guess that's fine.  It just really frustrated me because I also gave up four separate opportunities to spend time with my new friends here so that I could travel over the weekend.  I guess I'm just living in a dream world where people care about one another a lot more than they actually do.

The moral of the story is that I won't be traveling again for a very long time, and not because I can't but because I don't want to.  I don't want to suffer and worry while wasting gasoline and put time and effort into seeing the people I care about if they just aren't that interested in the whole thing.  And I don't really want to waste my spring break doing the same thing, so I will be spending it here in my nice little apartment.  If anyone wants to see us THEY will have to be the ones visiting.  End of story.
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I couldn't play Mass Effect on my laptop.  When I think back that wasn't the greatest reason to buy a new desktop, but what the heck.  I started undergrad with a new desktop.  It was fine and did what I needed.  I had virus protection software on it and I enjoyed the pleasures of being able to visit any porn site without worrying about viruses or the destruction of my computer.  Then my husband got a new computer and gave me his old one, which was quite a bit faster than mine.  However, it did not have virus protection software.  I didn't really think about this and used it for quite a while without any problems.  Additionally, my parents bought me a laptop for one of my classes where the professor was insane and gave tests that required computers but not in a computer lab.  Whatever.  Anyway, things happened and I visited one too many shady sites and destroyed the hard drive of the computer my husband gifted to me.  Thankfully, I have an external hard drive with all my pictures and things on it that was left unharmed.  I resigned myself to making do with my laptop since it was perfectly capable of doing everything I needed.

However, now I'm in graduate school and I would certainly like to have a computer completely dedicated to research.  Then my husband wanted me to play Mass Effect and my laptop just couldn't take it.  I couldn't even win fights in easy mode with all the settings at their lowest because of the lag.  These two things kind of converged into one idea that I needed a new desktop.  And now I have one.  It's basically fantastic.  It's more than I need, but I'm really happy to have it.  Windows 7 is fine.  I'm not very picky about my operating system as long as it will run games (i.e. not an Apple product).  The Radeon 5850 is treating me well so far and having a quad core is something I've never experienced before.  It makes the computer seem almost like it's connected directly to my brain stem because it runs so fast and boots so quickly.  Because we built it ourselves there are no clogs of HP or Dell programs slowing down login or startup.  It's strangely beautiful.  I named it Harold.

I'm so relaxed now that I'm back home, my computer is constructed and functioning and I completed my first laboratory assignment.  Life is so much better than it was before the trip to Missouri.  Again, I hate traveling and I'm so done with it right now.
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My first laboratory assignment was to rewrite the cloning protocols in the lab.  That may sound stupid and boring, but to me it was really the perfect first assignment.  Not only did I have to look up and define a bunch of terms I didn't understand, but I also had to translate that into words other people could understand and then use successfully to clone DNA.  It really opened my eyes and pulled together all the training sessions I had with the post doc.  I answered all the questions that were in my head, I guess.  I now feel confident that I could prepare my first petri dish and go from there without significant trouble.  It's a good feeling, going from a complete loss to moderate understanding.
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I finally feel like making cake truffles.  I'm going to go do that now.  Chocolate or red velvet?  Some decisions are harder than others.

My mind is in a million places right now.  How much more "catching up" do I have to do before I'm given my own portion of the DNA sequencing project?  How long will it take to get pregnant?  Will I ever get pregnant?  Would purchasing a house be more cost effective in the long run than renting this tiny apartment?  How hard is it to raise a child in an apartment?  How long will my husband keep his job?  How much will we have saved by the time my husband can't take it anymore and quits?  Will it be enough to move somewhere after I complete my PhD?  Will I complete my PhD?  Why does the fridge still smell really bad even though there isn't anything rotten in it?  What was that weird mold-like substance in the freezer vent that I could only reach with q-tips sprayed with bathroom cleaner?  If I can see mold in the vent, isn't there mold throughout the fridge that I can't see?  Is the mold in the fridge the reason for the smell as well as the painful inflammation in my neck and throat that my doctor suggested was simply allergies?  Why do I feel so weak all the time even though I'm working out and eating right?  Why can't I sleep at normal time intervals?  Why have I suddenly started sleeping either 2 hours or 12 hours a night?  Why do I suddenly feel so awkward?  Am I this vulnerable to stress?  Why am I so stressed?  Is my professor disappointed that I'm traveling back home this weekend for a quick break and to pick up my new computer?  Why can't my husband work from home?  What should I make for dinner?  Should I get started on dinner now?  When will my husband be home today?  Why can't I lose ten more pounds and have a flat stomach?  I look really dumpy right now, but I don't want to buy new clothes until I've finished losing weight.  Can you nominate yourself for What Not to Wear?  Is a two bedroom house really that much harder to resell than a three bedroom house?  Maybe when I'm on my deathbed I should write a book about my life and all the choices I did and didn't make and their outcomes to serve as a warning to others.  Is that called a biography or an autobiography?  Why do I feel so lost?  I'm so lost.

Something that frustrates me to no end is how much people enjoy texting.  I hate texting.  First of all, I'm extremely slow at it because I don't have one of those crazy keyboard phones so I have to sit staring at the phone for like five minutes pressing numbers over and over to type, "Hey how are you."  Another problem is that I hate when people use things like 2, 4, u, r and also just a few letter to represent a really long word so they don't have to type it.  I mean, I don't fucking know what you mean when you type that shit!  I get all confused and I don't know how to respond and then I end up just ignoring the message, which is usually followed by an equally confusing second message wondering "wer im @", not to mention that each of these short, pointless attempts at communication costs me $.10 because I don't have unlimited texting...because I wish texting would die in a fire and I don't want to support people's constant need to try and involve me in it.  There are a few people who send me long and interesting texts and who don't repeatedly ask me why I'm not responding, but they are VERY few.

On the other hand, another thing that frustrates me is how fucking slow people are at instant messaging.  I usually end up losing interest in a conversation because people take like a minute to type three words.  I could type an entire paragraph, or two or three even, in a minute.  I've been typing since I was really young and since I started blogging I've gotten really really fast at it.  So to for me to actually be engaged the entire time while instant messaging I have to be talking to like six or seven people at one time and they all have to be responding as fast as they can or I just get bored and give up.

And then there are phones.  Don't even get me started on phone calls.  The phone occupies a hand, so I lose the ability to do any complicated tasks while talking on it.  Also, I have a long neck so I can't really comfortably hold the phone between my cheek and shoulder.  And who wants to look like a complete tool with one of those little ear things where you look like you are talking to your imaginary friend all day?  The only person I can really put up with long phone calls from is my mother, and that's because I love her and have the patience to share my time with her.  Otherwise, I expect phone calls to consist of one of two things:  planning times and places to meet OR situations where I need information quickly and can't wait on an e-mail.  Any other time I don't want to get a phone call.  Don't call me on my birthday, don't call me at Christmas, don't call me because you are bored.  Don't call me unless you want to meet me in person or you have a fucking emergency!  And don't expect me to call you unless I have one of the same two things to talk to you about. 

Finally there is e-mail.  I love e-mail.  I can take my time and really think about what I want to type.  I don't get angry if people don't immediately respond because it's not expected with e-mails.  I'm not required to finish an e-mail before I do something else.  I can start one, check facebook, watch some television and then come back later and finish it off.  I think my favorite person to e-mail is my crazy grandmother because I don't want to completely ignore her, but phone calls with her are really really REALLY long and very strange.  E-mails, on the other hand, can be read whenever I feel like and can be responded to at my leisure.  Another thing is that e-mails leave a nice time stamp.  If I say I sent you an e-mail at blah time on blah day, well, even if you deleted it it's in my sent folder.  That has saved me several times when professors say, "But I never got your paper," and I'm like, "But I sent it to you.  Check it out."

Really, though, of all the forms of communication, face to face is my favorite.  Most people talk at the same speed, understand at the same speed and get bored at approximately the same rate.  I guess this post has gotten kind of long and ranty, but what I'm really trying to say is I miss people enjoying face to face communication.  To me, there is no other way to make friends.  I don't make friends online.  It's not my thing.  I only talk to people online because I can't see them in person.  There is just something so irreplaceable about seeing someone's face and smiling with them and laughing with them that certainly cannot be expressed with "lol" or anything like that.  I just...hope humanity never loses that enjoyment of actual face to face interactions.  It scares me sometimes that one day we will all be living in our own little boxes chatting with fake friends online in the dark while sustenance is intravenously fed to us.  Anyway...that's kind of depressing.

Don't replace face to face.  Don't let your interacts with others amount to nothing more than a jumble of chat logs.  Don't stop hugging and laughing and smiling and winking.  Don't ever stop.

I slept for 12 hours today, breaking the horrible cycle of insomnia I was suffering through!  Yay!  I feel groggy, but not so exhausted like I was yesterday.  I could barely bring myself to tap the square button repeatedly to boost my GF attacks last night.

So yeah, I finished Final Fantasy 8 for the second time last night, cementing my thoughts that it is a really badly designed game with lots of gimmicky functionality and a leveling system that basically makes any level higher than the lowest level possible pointless to obtain.  I wonder what it would have been like to fight a level 10 final boss.

Anyway, that's not my main point.  I finished the concept art for my Zell costume this morning, which was my reasoning for playing the game again.  It looks like I won't actually need that many yards of fabric since I can just buy a pair of knee length boy shorts and probably a charcoal tank top and then just make the jacket.  I might try and make the tank top as well just because it has some patterns inlaid into it in the game, I think to accentuate that Zell has abs or whatever, but I don't so I may just skip it.  I'll probably go to the fabric store today and rummage around to see what I can find.  I've also figured out what I need for my husband's Spike costume, so I'll pick that fabric up as well.

You may ask yourself, "Why is she making random video game/anime character costumes?  She's a bigger weirdo than I thought she was!"  Well, I'm planning them now so I don't have to scramble come May.  "But what happens in May?" you ask?  Anime Central!  And it's only like two hours away from Chambana!  How could I NOT go??!  I'm really excited about dressing up since 1) last time I didn't and 2) last time I was also about 15 pounds heavier than I am now and would have looked really awful in most costumes.  I don't want to be one of the people that ends up online as a horrible train wreck where you just...can't...look...away.  It would suck if someone had reason to refer to me as "the fat Zell that was hanging around the yaoi stand" instead of "the mildly attractive Zell that was hanging around the yaoi stand" so I won't let that happen.  And there are so many super fat people who dress up as really skinny characters.  I mean, seriously, if you are a fat girl, don't dress up as Yuna!  Dress up as Lulu!  People will appreciate your giant tits in a Lulu costume, but they won't enjoy all your skin showing as Yuna...

But I digress.  Anyway, let me reiterate how excited I am about the costumes as well as actually sleeping again!  It has been a good day.

I just want to say that I love egg rolls.  They are basically the perfect food.  The egg rolls I make myself are my favorite.

I'm exhausted and I can't sleep.  I can't even nap.  My mom suggested taking some antihistamines.  I don't know what to do.  I guess you need more than eight hours of sleep in four days.