current mood: sick and tired

For some reason I have been in a kind of depression over the past few days. I think it has something to do with being "sick" and having a lot of down time to actually hear myself think. Normally I love thinking and just hanging out with myself, but at this point I am still kind of trying to get over my whole blow-up with Dan, so that tends to be where my mind always wanders. And it's ridiculous, because it's been over two months since it ended but sometimes the most random things trigger memories and its like it happened yesterday. It's the biggest cliche ever, but even things that have nothing to do with him make me think of him. So lame.

The strange part is that I know I'm better off without him, and I know for certain that he wasn't the person that I was supposed to be with forever. Maybe its that I was never REALLY with him in the first place. I remember being so hurt at the fact that as each week passed I would become more and more attached while he seemed content to just keep things as casual as possible. I would think "how could he NOT be falling in love with me right now??" and I think that's what kept me in the relationship for so long--the determination to make him feel something for me. Maybe that's all any type of broken-heart is--the shock and pain of realizing that not everyone is going to think you're as worthy of their love as you do. I guess I'm lucky to have made it all the way to 23 without feeling that way before, but it doesn't make it suck any less.

Its so embarassing, because I never pictured myself as the type of person who would find herself in this situation. I mean, I'm handling it the way I usually handle the end of an involvement with someone (that is, cutting them off entirely), but this time its much more difficult to let it go. Its like I'm not as immune to feeling as I used to be, which is surprising because you would think you would get tougher with age, not more vulnerable. My sister keeps wanting to "talk about it," but for me, after the initial dish, talking it out just doesn't help that much. As a matter of fact it tends to make it worse, kind of like picking a scab and reopening a cut.

I think I just need to tough it out for a few more months. He's going to be deployed in December, so there will be a physical separation--I won't have to live five minutes down the street from him, wondering what he's doing or who he's with. The weather will be cold, I'll get to see my three main ladies all at the same time, and then it will be a New Year.

P.S. Is it lame that Sex and the City has been really instrumental in helping me though a lot of this? Its just comforting to know that even though your problems feel very specific to you, they are actually common enough to provide the themes for entire episodes of a TV series.

apparently i have strep throat

Yeah, for the past 4 days my throat has gotten increasingly worse, and I finally decided to do something about it. Normally I would wait until I was knocking on death's door before I even took the step to call my dad and ask if I should do anything about an illness, but that hurricane is supposed to come on Friday, so I really didn't want to be stranded on my roof in a nightgown waiting for the National Guard to drag me up into a helicoptor AND have to put up with a debilitating disease at the same time.
Anyways, I actually went to the doctor. Literally for the first non-checkup visit of my life. That's sad, but true. I went in all like "um, I'm not here for a checkup, I'm just sick...am I in the right place?" and had to go into a sick waiting room with all of these disgusting wheezing children. The doctor gagged me with one of those strep-test q-tips, and it came back positive. The awkward thing is that I don't feel that bad, but I can't go into work because I'm extremely contagious. So when I called my boss to break the news to him, it sounded something like this:

Mike: Hello?

Me: Hey Mike!

Mike: ...are you calling me from down the hall?

Me: Noo, no...I was just calling because I went to the doctor and he told me that I had strep so I couldn't come in to work today on account of being really contagious. Anyhoo, just wanted to let you know!

Mike: Um, ok. Well, I'll see you...possibly not until next week?

Me:(suddenly realizing that I don't even sound remotely sick over the phone and wanting to make up for it) Um, probably not. But I may come in tonight just to get some work done! K Bye!

Aaaaaand here I am. I actually did come in at 8:30 pm. Just to say I did. I almost posted a picture of a throat with strep just so i would have a picture to go with my blog, but all the pictures I could find were completely repulsive.

POUNDS

I am so excited about these two. It's going to be wonderful to have that idiot and his robot wife out of office.

overacheiver's anonymous (not me)

I went out for some drinks with my friend John tonight. In the past six months since I have seen him he has done the following:

*bought a house
*bought a Triumph motorcycle
*gotten 3 tattoos
*gotten engaged to someone

and my personal favorite,

*started an extremely successful not-for-profit organization in which he and his new fiancee read to, tutor, and hold writing workshops for underprivileged children.

Really??? REALLY???? I'm hard pressed to think of anything worthwhile that i have acheived in the past six months. Honestly, I'm pretty ok with that seeing as I can finally know where things are headed, but come on. I was actually extremely happy for him because when we first met almost two years ago he had just been handed the rawest deal ever and was barely picking up the pieces, but still. The whole thing is pretty Hansel-from-Zoolander-ish when you put it all down on paper.

big shoutout

I mostly reserve this word for my most flamboyant Tim Gunn impressions--but in addition to giving an amazing and inspiring speech, Hillary was looking absolutely fabulous at the Democratic Convention tonight.

Speaking of flamboyant homosexuals (Tim Gunn, not Hillary just in case you're on the dense side), I'm listening to She Bangs by Ricky Martin on my ipod.

you're so compact, you're pwactically my size!

I keep saying this hoping that someone will be as enthused about those commercials as I am. No one ever is.

everyone can suck it

I had an unfortunate realization at lunch today--I am not good with people. Obviously this is not exactly new news, but I realized it at a completely different level today. It started because I was in the cafeteria today at lunch time, and absolutely NO ONE in the entire place seemed capable of getting the fuck out of my way. It took me around 2 full minutes to travel a distance of 10 feet to grab a pre-made philly cheese steak, and once I finally got to the line the woman in front of me made a huge show out of counting out exact change from a bag of pennies that she pulled from her pocket. I thought I was going to lose it.

It's not that I'm bad with all people. In social situations I'm actually capable of being quite good with people. But in professional situations (you know, where it actually counts), I seem to always be around 3 nanoseconds away from strangling someone at any given time. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if I were going to stay in research and be holed up in a lab for the rest of my life, but the fact is I'm not. I am going to be interacting with and physically touching and listening to the problems of scores of people every day.

The only thing I can think of to remedy this situation is to build a reputation as a bad tempered but extremely capable colleague, and hopefully my biting-yet-witty remarks coupled with my full beard and use of a cane will help to excuse my behavior.

Oh wait, that's House. That would never ever happen in real life. I'm probably just going to have to get an attitude adjustment and quit acting like such a bratty little bitch.

I saw this picture on National Geographic today, and thought that it deserved posting somewhere.