Teddy

For those of you who have never seen Billy Cosby's Himself, I cannot more highly recommend it. His commentary on family dynamics are particularly amusing. In one story, he reminisces about a 20 hour plane ride on which a four year Jeffrey runs amuck. You know the type of kid: running, crying, screaming, whining, poking, plain ass annoying.

So I'm in the band (yes, yes, get your cracks in; everyone else does). Lacrosse is usually one of the best sports to play at lengthwise. The games last around an hour fifteen, hour thirty-ish. The fans and the band are not separated--a decision worse for them than us. We go deaf anyway. Now the fans get to join us. That's how I thought the relationship worked. We annoy them, not the other way around.

Being a woodwind, I had the distinct privilege of sitting in the uppermost corner of the band, meaning I get direct contact with the fans. I have my misanthropic days, but for the most part, I can handle people and crowds well enough, so I really don't care. Until I met Teddy.

Actually, to be fair, I never met Teddy; I just sat through seven over times at a lacrosse game listening to Teddy's father as he coached his son as well as the two teams. It's not that he was yelling. He has one of those voices: clearly nasally from northern accent influence with a touch of New Yorker and New Jersey flavors. And of course, he talks like a Northerner. I know; I'm from Pennsylvania. The main distinguishing feature of Northern talk is abruptness mixed with repetitive phrases. It's different. Not bad, but different, and certainly tolerable in small doses. 

I sat next to Teddy and his father for over three hours.

"Teddy! Teddy, did you see that? That was a great shot. Teddy did you see him make a great shot. That shot is how great shots should be made Teddy. Teddy, that was a really great shot."

The worst part is that people who've yet to encounter a true Northerner will think I'm joking.

I'm not.

***He knew this kid's name because about every five minutes, it would poke him and say, "Hi! My name's Jeffrey; I'm four years old."

Why Doctors Hate Me

I figured that even though I should be working, explaining this point won't take very long, and it's better than Chem. Then again, assault and battery seems better than Chemistry. At least the physical bruises heal. There are days I wonder if I'm traumatizing my brain. But I digress....

If I were doctor and had me as a patient, I'd probably hate me, too. For one, I hate doctors, and if I had to deal with the shit I've dished out in the past, I'd probably kick my own ass. That said, 90% of the time I'm in doctors' offices, it's not of my own volition. Selfish point being that if I'm not happy, I see no reason to make your life any better. Hopefully, the tension means they'll ask me to leave sooner. Doesn't hurt my feelings; go ahead: give my appointment to some twitching hypochondriac fidgeting in the waiting room while grasping a thermometer and print out from Web M.D. At least that person wants to hear you talk.

Another reason doctors don't care for me beyond the attitude is my habit of preterition and in several cases, downright misleading statements. See, if something hurts, I know they want to hit it. If I've been feeling tired, clearly it must be mono. I've had blood drawn so frequently at the doctors' that I'm convinced they must be either the most wasteful scientists or donating half to blood drives. There's no way they need that much blood. If I used that much material in my lab, my prof would (rightly) want to beat me over the head. I just want to get out of the office, preferably without a prescription and not see them ever again.

It's Been a While

I'd say it was around February 22nd that I first began to feel a bit off-center. Nothing major, of course. Just off. We all feel not ourselves sometimes. But as it dragged into early March and soon had a companion (back pain), some people around me began to worry. Generally, I'm a very easy going person, but I--like most people--have topics over which I'm tenacious enough to go to war. Health is one of them. I disapprove would Western medicine; it's a travesty. And I hate doctors. A lot. I'll explain more thoroughly later, but to all the premeds of the world: you may well be on your way to a profession that I hope withers away and decays from society. Not joking. Ugh.... doctors. 

But, yes; back pain. My mom and my boyfriend were easily the most insistent that I go see a doctor, and quite frankly, the nagging was enough that an hour at the doctor would actually be worth turning off the ear beating. Other factors include my hypochondriac roommate twitching that I might have meningitis and, I hate to admit, a touch of self-doubt I was beginning to have that all was well. So I went mostly, as a friend at Longwood pointed out, to show them all and shut them up. Damn. FAIL. I had a moderate working towards severe kidney infection in the left and it had spread to the right. Had I waited three or four more days, I probably would have been hospitalized. Oops.

Well over a month later, and I've still not recovered entirely. The high point was the ER, a story which I wish to do justice to and so won't condense it in this particular post. Other fun parts include the secondary infection on account of the medicine to treat the kidney infection and a few incidences I've been told because I can't remember them (drug cocktail overdose).

Two Things

Last night around 10pm, a student at UVa was robbed and assaulted on the breezeway between Bryan Hall and Cabell. It just occurred to me that I was walking that very same breezeway less than two hours before the robbery occurred. It's weird, thinking that timing could mean so much. I've walked alone to the Lawn on multiple occasions; I never feel uncomfortable or threatened. Hell, every Monday night I walk back at 8pm from band. True, I'm usually accompanied by one or two friends but not every night. Sometimes I wonder if I ought to curtail my roamings. There have been nights where I can't sleep, and so I walk around UVa at 2am. It's very peaceful, and I love star and cloud gazing in the gentle coolness of the night. I just want to be able to do that for a long time....

On a lighter note, at UVa laundry is allegedly $3.00: $1.50 to wash, $1.50 to dry. While this price is already heavily overdone, the situation gets worse. I can almost guarantee that your clothes will not be dry the first time and have a chance of needing a third round. Well since late October, I haven't found a dryer that works right the first time, and because I have such a generally pleasant and good life anyway and thus have few things to bitch about (yet still need to bitch), I need to capitalize on every chance I get, and laundry costing $4.50 per load is more than fair game. Today, I loaded the dryer like usual and left my hamper--it's easier to do that than drag it back and forth, and just about everyone does it. When I came back after Round 1, I was amazed: the clothes were dry on the first go around! Excited, I told my friend who was doing laundry at the same time (yay for laundry parties), and then I went for my hamper. Hmmm.... Apparently someone thought my $1.50 hamper was a must-have and kindly borrowed it. Permanently, I have to assume. So even when laundry doesn't cost $4.50, it still finds a way to cost $4.50.

Eh, I'd rather have poor luck with the hamper than the walk.

Laundry Revelation

For many weeks, I've been considerably far behind in my laundry duties. One load needing washed, one needing folded (haha), clothes scattered about the room, and then general clothes still in drawers. Well, today I decided enough was enough; I need to clean this mess.

Before, somehow, I was under the delusion that I might have forgotten some clothes at home. I don't see how that could be possible. Why the hell do I have this many pairs of pants? Having more than 7 is stupid at college, but I've over 12 pairs that I've found so far. And I have shorts, long pants, under armor, dresses, T-shirts, camis, collared shirts, blouses, hoodies, rain coats, a trench coat, running outfits, winter coats, wind breakers....wtf?! I for one don't remember doing this to myself. 

But now that the gang's all here, I realized a problem: it doesn't all fit. It was better off draped across my bed or stacked on the floor, waiting in the laundry hamper, or just plain disappeared than it is now. Because I've maxed out my closet space and still have a load to fold and a load to wash. 

Maturity? I Have None

One of the best and worst ideas that clothing stores have ever had is playing music in the dressing rooms. Sure, it blocks out the whining kids a bit, and it adds sound color to what would normally be a very static environment, but they really need to watch the song selection.

So as I've mentioned before, I can't really shop in the adults' section; I don't fit the clothing. This means I have to shop in the kids' or juniors' section. Either way, the options are bad. I'm a terribly sarcastic person, and the clothing options for children these days provides endless opportunity for me to tear down verbally. 

So I'm an adult shopping in the kids' section and using the kids' dressing room because I'm not motivated enough to go back across the store just to try on a shirt. Moreover, I'm an immature adult in the funny looking dressing rooms with horribly age inappropriate clothes and an untempered mouth. Yeah, I've gotten looks from parents before.

Few people realize how much dance techno dressing room music can add to a person's shopping experience. Add the music to walls of mirrors, and you get an idiots acting as though there's just been an OD taken of crack.

Yeah, that might have been the most interesting shopping trip to date.

A Paradox

Today my sister was notified that she was accepted into the Center Based Gifted Program in our area. This same person--my dear gifted sister--could not figure out how to lock a bathroom door today. 

Lock was a switch style that could turn two ways: up and down. 

I knew she was going to the Far Side but hadn't realized she would be attending Melville. 

About Bra Sizes

Before I forget, I meant to have a tirade about bra sizes. They are really annoying. Alright, so you have the standard A, B, C, etc., and we all know the AA, BB, CC, DD, etc. Those are fairly simple, well-known, and in general, just there. It's what you have to put up with (or for you grammarians, up with which you have to put). 

But now there are also Nearly A, NB, NC, and half sizes, and for the life of me, I can't tell if these are the same thing by different name, or if they're two completely different systems. The half I understand: midway between point x and y. Gotcha. No confusion. It's these "nearly" sizes that keep tripping me up. See, I recognize that there is leeway in defining "nearly," but if I were going to venture a guess, I'd say that Nearly would be greater than Half. If a job's less than halfway done, you don't call it nearly done unless you're the Government. Then you call it done until someone chews your ass out. But clothing lines usually don't get away with such inadequacy; people are actually watching them.

Nearly. Nearly A should be say, 90% the size of a true B. That makes sense: it's almost the size of a B but not quite. Instead, I find that "nearly" bras are often 10% bigger than what they're supposed to be. For example, Nearly B would actually be closer to an A+ (forgive the pun). Seriously, it's like a 110% A, which I understood to be synonymous with AA. 

See? This is too complicated. If I could just have a cheat sheet with everything written down, that'd be great. The problem is I'd need a different sheet for everything clothing line. And I'm lazy. At least on this topic, I'm extremely lazy. I don't want to have to work at clothing. I define matching clothes as something with sleeves matches something with pant legs. Seriously. It can be that simple. Women are just determined not to make it so. A conspiracy, I swear.

FML

Alright, I know I'm small. No question in my mind, I'm short, petite, all those wonderful things. And I know it. There's no need to add insult to it because we only insult people in denial. Cool.

So every now and again I need new clothes; who doesn't? Well, after taking inventory, I concluded a need for new bras. In general, clothes shopping isn't fun, but whatever. Bras are the sort of thing that you can get two at a time and be fine. It's not like you need eight every two days. Again, cool.

The numbering and lettering of bras always seemed asinine and unnecessarily complex. Moreover, what one company calls an A, another company calls a B, and the same goes for 34, 36, etc. Whatever. It's a crappy system, but I'm used to it.

Well, I start in the adults' section, and why not? I'm plenty old enough to vote and buy lottery tickets. I see no issues here. Except one. All of the bras are laughably too big. All of them. We're talking girth and cup size. Frankly, I'm small chested, I know it, and these were equipped to handle large cantaloupes. Jesus, who are they expecting to be shopping here? So I go to juniors. Same thing. Now I've nearly run out of options. There's only one... other... place.

Few people understand how awkward it is to stand in the kids' section as an adult sincerely browsing the merchandise. I was in the kids' section because nothing else fit. I tried it. So I'm standing in an aisle flanked by toddler clothes and Dora the Explorer, and an eight year old walks by. What the fuck? We should not be shopping in the same location. Store: okay. Area of the store: hell no. HELL NO. And I must admit, the ... styles?... available for that age bracket are disturbing for someone in mine. No fucking way I'm wearing a Powder Puff Girls bra. No. Nothing quite kills a mood as ugly cartoon characters scrawled across someone's chest. Someone significantly older than... that. And kids these days must hate plain, solid colors because every one of those damn bras had some design: dots, stripes--and we're not talking the subtle sort--ribbons, glitter (a. k. a. stripper dust to train them early), cartoons, etc. The list went on forever. And the worst thing was.... they fit. FML.

Procrastination

I honestly have nearly 20 postings that I've written up in Word and just haven't transferred. That rather annoys me. Whenever I procrastinate I feel as though I've let myself down. It's an unfortunate cycle that I've fallen into over the years. Right now, I have stacks of homework needing to be done, and yet here I am, pondering life rather than filling my responsibilities. 

But more on that later.

Hmmm

You know, rereading these posts, I realize that I type very differently than I talk. I figured out what it is: when I'm thinking, I diagram my sentences down to the smallest parts, and I love configuring ideas into the weirdest yet still correct phrases. It's geeky, but then again, so am I. Anyway, when I talk, I translate the mess into actual vernacular English. When I type, that filter only halfway works. The result? I sound disjointed. Oh well.

I must admit that on the topic of tone, "Ruminations" comes off as exceptionally dark--an air I really don't want. Fancies, Impressions, Musings (the last being my favorite) all seem better suited for me. Overt Preterition works very well, though. Ask anyone, I draw attention to what I don't say than what actually stumbles across my lips. My face says more than I will and echoes what I'm really thinking... sometimes. There have been misreadings, but I suppose no science is exact. 

Eh, whatever. I try to do so much, and I rather am sad that there's not a running checker overlooking a list of "Things You Do Well" and "Things To Improve." Oh, sure, some of the points are easy, like stop being so sarcastic, but it's not what you know you don't know that will hurt you: it's what you don't know you don't know, if that makes any sense. I know that I don't know the capital of every US state, but there's some helpful fact out there that I don't even know exists, and therefore I don't know that I don't know it.

Last thought: I really love that obvious omission rhymes with overt preterition. Reminds me of crossword puzzles me and my grandpa used to do together. I can see it now:

Clues:

Across-

1. Obvious omission (16 spaces) 

***knowing smile***

          Awesome

Mind Games

Perception affects everything, is everything. People don't respond to actions, they respond to how said action made them feel, how they took the action to be. It's a fine distinction to be sure, but I live for semantics. 

Mostly, I can't help but marvel at the mind, and if modesty allows it be said, my own mind isn't a dull specimen on which to start. I never really found anything that I did to be abnormal, at least not in this context. The extent that I can pull on my imagination seems to be a touch on the rarer side. Either that, or I've associated with completely unrefined people with no imagination--a situation less likely than NASA having faked landing on the moon (yes, some people think that was faked. Whatever; knowing that I will anyway, I try to make the minimum judgements possible). Also, I recently found out that not everybody can smell marshmallows. We walked into this convenience store looking to buy some, and from the moment we walked in, the smell was overpowering. They were in the back of the store in air tight packages. Oh well. It's a cool party trick, but annoying. You have no idea how bad the world can smell sometimes. Then again, it has its very good days.

But anyway, back to the mind at large. I often get side-tracked and scatterbrained, possibly from lack of sleep, possibly from missing a friend, maybe even hormones. Who knows? I've always wondered how other people see the world and not in the metaphorical sense, either. I want to be able to physically look through their eyes and see what they see. Does every shade of red they see look like what I've known? Does a flute sound the same, or is their hearing diminished or augmented in such a way to change the timbre? When other people read books, can they see a little movie in their minds, playing out the scenes in vast forests and wide deserts, or are they just seeing the words and comprehending the meanings?

I suppose this whole train of thought, which has admittedly come before, has reappeared because I'm missing a friend. As a child, I was exceptionally lonely and so used tricks and games in my mind to make things seem not as reality would have intended. So, rather than acknowledge the true distance, I prefer to tell myself that not seeing him is because he's at a practice running late or sleeping in. Something that places him close. Anything that has him closer to me than he is right now and will be for the next 82 days....

I hope he has a blast; I really do, and I know that he will. He's a happy, cheerful, delightful, polite, and endearing gentleman. I just hate that I have to miss him.

*sigh*

I've never made friends quickly, and I'm not entirely certain of the cause. I can find different traits, characteristics of mine, but over all, I suppose it must just be me. There's only ever been one person whom I ever met that I immediately felt a connection. 

Oddly enough, it was at an Evangelical service--and I use this word very liberally; the service was entertainment, not outreach, at least, not how he intended. But this man proceeded to lecture on the evils at UVa, the terrible whoremongers and sluts that infest it, the heathens at every corner, and on and on he went. You know that mouse you sometimes see in the pets store? The one clearly missing either an entire chromosome or functioning brain? Sometimes you see it find the spinning wheel and watch as it tries to outrun the wheel, tries to conquer the wheel by running faster. You know it's not going to work; the mouse is, at best, an idiot. Clearly not seeing the logical--and forgive me--correct way to go about disembarking from the wheel. Yet you watch. You're curious what it will try next because while logic is horrifically boring, chaos has no reruns and will continuously baffle you with the half-bred ideas it always manages to produce. 

Morbid. Morbid, terrible, amazing curiosity is what holds you watching that mouse. And every time it runs fast enough to flip itself over on its ass, you chuckle and keep watching to see if it's stupid enough to do it again. The answer: yeah, probably. 

This is Brother Micah. You hope he doesn't take himself seriously, that he thinks it's a joke, but you can't believe that anymore than you actually believe the mouse in the wheel is joking with an audience. Anyway, as this *cough* person continues to drone and to lecture and even to sing about the horrible nature of homosexuality, I see a very interesting person approaching me and company. He was very cute, I admit it, a refreshing change from the high density popped collars and khaki pants, he sported actual clothing. Well, too. Anyway (must'nt let that distract), as I watched him debate and speak, I was strongly reminded of my brother in a fond way. Later on, I saw him outside of a dining hall reading. Several months later I have realized that the boy I had watched with much intrigue has become my best friend in the whole world.

Naturally

Of course, for whatever reason, the post I want to attach refuses to allow itself to be seen. Perhaps it's shotty internet, but I always found the idea of a divine something or other pulling strings as an interesting, if not hard to believe, concept. 

I don't know how I do this action so frequently, but I've amassed a wealth of posts that I intend to post, yet somehow, the five seconds it would take to do so elude me until I have a line 16 deeper than the DMV five minutes after opening. Same impatient standing and glaring, too. I don't even know why we have the DMV, unless it's for universal commiseration site. Nobody has good stories about it. Nobody. It's like finding someone from the 1930s going on about how grand life was then as now: you don't. And it doesn't matter: East vs. West, North v. South--nobody looks forward to going. Dammit, next time I have to go I swear I'll just grab a bottle of Vicodin and a tent. Then at least it'd be fun. 

Oh wait, I'm not House; I'd get arrested for that. 

Alright, no tent, then.