1, 2, 3, 4, chickens just back from the shore

This brings me so much joy.

yay im getting my life back!

Just had a flashback to one night that I spent in my apartment in Claire Tower in Columbia during my last few months there. In my apartment I had the most ballin view of the statehouse ever, and there was an insane electrical storm going on outside. So since I couldn't sleep, I switched off the lights, turned on Cat Power (The Greatest, if anyone cares) and watched the storm for like an hour. It was one of those unplanned life moments that people like Zach Braff put in movies, and that you always reach for but can never really intentionally replicate.

I thought of this because I am officially moving in with myself again in two weeks, after three and a half long years of roommates and forced socialization. I will be doing the following things after this happens:

1. Leaving the Food Network on in the background at all times, no matter what I am doing. Except when Emeril or Guy Fieri or Tyler Florence come on with some boring grilling bullshit, during which time I will switch it to Discovery Health or maybe A&E or something.

2. Did I mention I get free satellite???!?!?

3. Keeping alcoholic beverages stocked in my fridge, as well as wine in the kitchen. Right now everyone I live with thinks that anyone who leaves alcohol in the fridge must have bought it for everyone, but if not I'll give you a couple of bucks to buy some more, ok? Yeah, I can't crack open a couple of bucks at the end of a long day, asshole. Quit stealing my beer.

4. Buying organic food. And cooking. I used to do this when I lived alone. But now the fridge is so gross from 5 people's worth of old groceries that need to be thrown out, I can't even bear to eat at home. Here's to homemade shrimp and grits, hooray!!!

5. Walking around naked/in my underwear. Not because I'm so liberated and sexy that I can't stand wearing clothes. Because when I get home, I want to take off my clothes, and leave them off till I am forced to put them back on tomorrow. Everyone does this, but I haven't been able to for a few years, because I've been living with guys and am not that kind of gal (tee hee!).

6. Subscribing to Real Simple. I'm signing a 13 month lease. I finally have the guts to commit to a magazine subscription.

7. Buy a couch. Look at me, making commitments all over the place!! I already have a bed and desk too!

the most passive aggressive thing i have ever done.

Last night my roommate decided that even though I had requested quiet hours after 10pm, he was going to sit upstairs on the stupid fucking organ that he found on the side of the road somewhere and make noises like there was a cat walking back and forth on it. For two hours. So until midnight.
So this afternoon I came home hungry, noticed that he had just bought a huge container of mixed nuts, and stood at the kitchen counter eating EVERY SINGLE CASHEW out of the container. I feel so triumphant right now. And full.

so yeah that happened (aka Painful Life Lesson Number 2)

Remember that time my spinal anatomy professor handed me a halfway dissected severed head in a brownie pan today without any warning whatsoever?

The context of this is that we were in lab examining prosected spinal vertebrae, and this particular example was supposed to display the vertebrae connecting to the skull. Which is fine. Except that he might have said something, a little warning perhaps. And maybe removed the face from the head for those of us out there who haven't yet adjusted to the fact that our lives are going to be playing out like an educational version of Saw for the next several years.

Flying Dutchman

This is probably on here somewhere already but I just had to put it up again--never get tired of watching.

"Let's raise a glass to mend all the broken hearts of all my wrecked up friends."

I was sitting in lecture today listening to my professor speak on the philosophy of chiropractic medicine, and I realized out of nowhere--I am passionate about school and my career and my future for the first time in my entire life. I can't even explain it--I've been walking around feeling like I'm in love for the past two weeks. I had to go in for open cadaver lab this past Saturday--didn't care. I was there for twelve straight hours of class and study and lab today--whatever. I seriously love every single thing that I am learning about so much and can see myself at the goal so clearly. And the coolest thing is that our professors are just as excited for us and we are, and in such a modest way. They want us to learn everything and be experts in our field and fluent in the language of our trade, but overall they want us to be compassionate healers and public servants. Normally this type of speech would make my eyeballs roll back in my head and activate my gag reflex, but it's so sincere that I don't. I feel inspired in a way that I don't think I ever have in my life. Like I've found my calling. I never thought I would get to say that.

Painful Life Lesson Number 1.

I've finally started school and three days in have realized that I am probably going to be learning painful life lessons all over the place. So I'm going to share them in the hope that others won't have to suffer as I may. Or at least when they suffer they will have seen it coming.

I made a promise to myself that this time around (aka the last time around) in school I was going to really bust my balls and be generally AWESOME. Like you know that person in every class that always has the answer and is always taking charge while everyone else just hangs around thinking "I really wish that guy would just go to hell, they are exhausting me"? That person.

And I've been doing a really good job so far (even though let's face it, its not a hard pace to keep up three days in). I've been keeping up with the reading really well, volunteering answers, meeting with my profs, all the behaviors that I have observered to be affected by these mysterious "good students" over the years.

But being an awesome brown-nosing douche comes with a price, as does everything in life. And I'm hoping that I paid the entire price today because I really can't imagine owing any more after this.

We were in Gross Anatomy lab for the first time this afternoon, which is the basic intro anatomy lab where you dissect a cadaver with 5 other classmates. And I'll be hoenst, I was sort of nervous. Because I've never cut open a dead embalmed body before. But I've seen autopsies, which put me a step ahead of some of my classmates who had never seen a body outside of the context of a coffin before. So I felt ok. A little excited even.

They wheel out my cadaver, and one guy takes off the vinyl sheath, but everyone is being really timid about removing the cotton shroud, aka the final layer between US AND DEATH!! So I go for it, rolling it back and putting it in a tupperware bin full of embalming fluid. Then everyone is being timid about making first incisions. So I go for it, cutting down the midline, laterally above and below the ribcage, this is easy, there isn't even any blood!! So I'm feeling like a dissection rock star, high fiving myself for my boldness, feigning modesty when the prof compliments my skin-flaying skillz but secretly soaring on the wings of confidence and egomania.

Then it happens. God smacks me back down to earth. And God's pimp hand is strong.

In slow motion (for me), my elbow bumps the scalpel tray beside the dissection table. A pair of forceps shoots, as though spring-loaded, into the air, and splashes into the space between my cadaver's flayed skin and exposed back muscles. And a generous quantity of embalming fluid shoots into the air, gracefully arcing through empty space before landing on my shirt, neck, hair, face, and--wait for it--in my mouth. In. My fucking. Mouth.

My reaction wasn't dramatic or anything. I just sort of stood there like a stunned moose, and the three guys who saw it looked at me in horror for a second until I lightly quipped "whoopsie! haha brb fellas!" Then I went into the hallway and quietly dry heaved for a few seconds before toweling myself off and returning to my station.

The I have learned a valuable lesson--if you are a cocky asshole, even just in your own head, the universe will take you down. Sometimes, as in my case, it is immediate. Sometimes, like in Kanye West's case, it is slightly more delayed. But it always, always happens.