Things in a rapid succession that I was thinking about because of espresso potentially
Yesterday I never thought I would be the one hoping that the third item in an alliterative list of “Things you need for good bull management beginning with B” would be “Balls.” Because apparently scrotal circumference is relatively unimportant in bulls and once you reach 34 cm around, there’s no point in having your testicles be any bigger because 34 cm is the point at which you develop an unlimited sperm supply. Never mind the fact that I find testicles of any kind (especially hog and dog family jewels) to be slightly nauseating, there was still a 30-minute discussion about the Bull Soundess Exam in which bull balls were discussed at least 95% of the time.
Also, I never thought that I would ever have a ringtone in which you could actually understand the words playing when someone called you - but my new ring is “Message in a Bottle” by The Police with the actual words broadcasting for people to hear. I am oddly fascinated by this Guitar Hero II remake of a supposed “classic.”
I was hoping to goodness gracious that I would not like the move Catch and Release. That I would find it a sappy and annoying story about a woman pining away for someone she loved who died and didn’t get to marry - but I found it to be one of the best movies about life and loving people and being an accepting human being that I have ever seen. How come I can’t have roommates like that? Apparently the secret is to move to Boulder and live with guys. And be less sterile.
I think my life is too sterile. I make my bed everyday. Last night I spent a good 20 minutes cleaning the dust off the fan blades and rearranging the items on my desk so I could have more space to “work.” I was enthralled with the discovery that when angled just-so, my printer can be stashed underneath the desk drawers and the paper feeder can poke out into the space between the desk and the dresser uninhibited. I want sheets that don’t exactly match and I want wrinkles in my shirts and things to feel comfortable. I am much too sterile of a person. I think it’s a defense mechanism, like anal gland expression or piloerection. Only mine is a little less smelly and a lot less furry.
I started a countdown widget on my computer to show how many days until May 2, the day I think is the last day of First Year. Right now it says there are 92 days and 18 hours left. It’s only three months right? Three months until I am out of here, until I have my own place again, until I don’t have to deal with the disgusting mud hole that is the backyard and water so cold it hurts to wash my feet with and slamming doors and stuffy rooms and saying “It doesn’t matter to me,” when all I want to do is scream, “YOU DRIVE ME CRAZY.”
My grandfather died on Saturday. I have never felt so lost and miserable in my whole life. When Uncle Matty died, I was sad, and I grieved for him, but I didn’t know him. My Grandfather was one of the most amazing people I have ever known in my whole life. He travelled the world and knew something about everything. He read and impossible amount of books and he really truly loved my mother and saw her for the beautiful, wonderful woman she is. He made a C in organic chemistry when he went to MIT and he told me this in the strictest confidence when I was upset about my first C in o-chem in college too. He loved my grandmother more than anyone in the world and brought her breakfast in bed for almost the entire 60 years he was with her. He took such good care of her and everyone he knew and loved. There is no human being in this world that will ever be like him or could ever replace him. I want to be a selfless and understanding and compassionate and amazing as he was. I can’t stop being upset about him dying and I can’t stop missing him. All I could do for my grandmother was write her a card that said, “I love you very very much.”
Beau and I went for an hour and a half long walk yesterday. We walked all the way to BioBio and back from Research Park. He was less than thrilled, but I love long walks. I love curling up with him at night when he puts his head on my stomach, as if to say, “I’m here, and I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” He’s a dog, I know, but he makes me feel so much less alone.
Dear Grandpa, I love you very very much. And I’m sorry and I miss you and I am going to be a terrible veterinarian, but I am trying. Thanks for believing in me.
old stuff | Comment (0)Can’t sit still
Today was a weird day, it was a grumpy day. I have few grumpy days, but today was definitely one of them. I couldn’t sleep last night - TV was too funny or Beau was talking too loudly in his dreams or I just couldn’t find my comfortable place. I was happy at first because Beau decided he likes sleeping with me again, decided that the best place to lay his head was right on my stomach, the rest of him curled up around my legs - it made me feel wanted and needed again. But once I fell asleep I had weird dreams and all too soon it was 6 a.m. and the alarm was going off and Beau wanted to be let out even though it was raining and I was cold and I remember I had forgotten to brush my teeth last night so I had some kind of mutated fuzz growing like stalactites from my incisors. I wore all black today with black socks and black shoes because it was an ugly day and I didn’t want to go take my make-up micro quiz (which I did okay on).
Class was generally irritating, with once again the loudest voices being the wrongest voices and names became chiseled in stone on my list. I could barely stay awake during physiology - I feel like I understand the kidney but I know come that test next Friday I am going to stare blankly at the page and wish I had cared a little more, been a little more scared when I was studying. Anatomy was just stupid because we spent about 20 minutes discussing the histology of the equine hoof and I found myself zoning out and contemplating ways I can practice Guitar Hero and still stay on top of my schoolwork (beat GH III on Medium last night, now just gotta work on Hard).
I am just annoyed in general today, although anatomy lab was good because Cody and I talked the whole time about everything under the sun, including sexual experimentation in young dolphins and how males have a penis both alike and unlike the penis of the male ostrich. Oh, and about tattoos and why it’s better when the guy pursues the girl and then we poked the freshly cut off horse foot that was made available to us to study the hoof. When I got home Beau and I went for a walk even though it was really cold outside. He loves this kind of weather, even better than the sunny and cold kind of weather.
I have a lot to do tonight, lots to study and lots to pretend to care about. But I think I’m just going to drink my tea (which makes everything better) and play guitar hero. And go to bed early.
old stuff | Comment (0)Autopilot
I am sure that I have mentioned many times how much I love driving my car through the countryside. I love the open road, the fleeting daring heartbeat skipping feeling that maybe one day I’ll just go off down some exit ramp somewhere and drive until I run out of gas, the way the seasons change and the way the sun moves languishingly through the sky as I journey on. Yesterday was no different - there I was on autopilot, cruise set at 70, laying back in my chair, listening to music I liked before it was popular, alone on the road with nothing before me but miles of cow pastures and dead stalks of dumb cane.
I love to turn the bass up just enough that other cars can’t hear it, but on low resonating notes it buzzes the driver’s chair and sends little chills up my spine. I like when the notes are almost equal to the pace of my heart so I can feel both moving in tandem and I contemplate if turning things up another notch would cause me to move into atrial fibrillation. I feel most alive when I play the music like that, when it reverberates within the walls of my chest and travels outwards through my fingers. Then driving isn’t a chore, it isn’t transport from A to B - it’s something visceral, it’s something real, it’s something that despite the limits of my gasoline tank, I could do forever, traveling onwards in the universe as if it also had no end.
I am falling in love with the hill country. I used to be opposed to anything West of College Station. I don’t do big cities I told myself, I don’t do mass populaces with Hummers and freeways and grocery stores that carry more Instant Macaroni than fresh produce. But here I am, falling in love with the rolling hills of central Texas. Falling in love with the limestone and the way the grass is dead in the winter. The way that even when the roads are mislabeled people let me in if I look panicked enough and the way that there is an endless option of things to try and do. Or you could just stay inside even though it’s a beautiful day, because there are more beautiful days than ugly ones out there. Where even when I’m being silent I feel like I’m talking and saying something worthwhile. I am falling in love with the way I feel when I go to the hill country, the way I feel when I drive there, when I drive back.
I can’t stop thinking, which is always a bad thing.
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