ok blogger outage is over. and the 20th was my 7th anniversary of this blog.

i was recently asked, via facebook, to identify the rest of the "terrible ten" that made up the founding of a chapter of a professional music fraternity i and -- go figure -- 9 other people helped found. i was kind of surprised that no one had that written down any place. but, while, sure there was a little disappointment that the history of the chapter has been lost over time. but at the exact same time i was also happy about it. then...worried about it.

we started the group in response to two other music greek orgs -- the two being music "service" organizations. anyway, how it broke down was this: the two service organizations were brother-sister organizations that pretty much did everything together. they were also heavily tied to the marching band at the school. but if you were a music major and you wanted to have a social life, you joined one of them. to join one of them? basically meant that you were going to tank your GPA that semester, expect to be woken up at any time of night (GREAT for roommate relationships), play the matchstick game (more on this later), fetch beers, be the designated driver whenever asked -- even if you were asleep and had no idea where they were at and more than likely you were going to end up with puke on your car -- get yelled constantly, going through more memorization than i have had to do for any class (but i'm not yet certain if it was more or less than what it took to stay in my high school band), oh yeah -- and wear this really large name badge that your pledge pin stuck through EVERYWHERE. by everywhere, i mean everywhere. along with that came the pledge books that were to remain on our person...EVERYWHERE. the funny thing? is while it took such a crazy mental and physical toll on me -- my high school marching band did way more harm.

i know, i know. whaaa. that all sounds soooo inhumane -- will someone call amnesty international? but there's a lot more to this than just what i've mentioned. that's just scratching the surface.

anyway...a few of us did some research about a professional music co-ed fraternity where everything about it was about fostering a community of musicians, helping the underfunded school of the arts usher events, judge local music competitions at high schools near by. so we decided to find out about the starting a chapter -- and back in those days, we had to do it by snail mail (yes i am that old). we founded it to counter the two other organizations and give musicians a chance to be a part of something that did NOT require that you know ever friggin' fact about every pledge class since the dawn of time. we even put that in our chapter's constitution.

anyway, i know things have changed and that there are now tags and books that pledges have to carry...but what had me when she asked me about who we were, i thought that the better question to ask was "why were we?" because i was scared that our names were about to be memorized by a new set of pledges. i'm not dead yet but i'm rolling in the grave we call life...create something with the best of intentions only to learn 20 years later it's just like the other two groups.

you know...a lot of stuff has happened lately that's made me wonder about the role that hazing has played in my life. the odd part of it is that any and all hazing i've been a part of happened within MUSIC departments.

a lot of people like to auto-blame the social greek system at universities. not that it's completely without merit and there aren't tons of examples that lend truth to rumors. my experience in a social greek organization in undergraduate was pretty far removed from anything i'd call hazing.

yes, i am a sorority girl and if you've followed this blog for years without really knowing me or knowing me at a point of my life where it just never came up, you may be very confused as to who i am exactly.

anyway...that's another story. but what's been bothering me lately has been hazing in marching band and marching band "greek" societies. there's a scheduled outage in a few minutes on blogger so i'll continue this later. but for now, let me just say that i'm going to call it out here as i work through it all these years later. you can decide for yourselves if it's hazing or not after i explain things but take my word for it -- while it didn't kill me, it also didn't make me stronger.

i'm so stressed about this whole endo thing. i'm trying to change things, i'm trying to avoid the crushing depression that enters in when i know i'm about to lose the next week and a half or two...just like every month. so far i haven't had to go to the ER but we'll see what the middle of the night or tomorrow will bring. i mean it's hard not to just curl up and cry...like i haven't already done that twice already today. i can't think, i can't do anything but watch stupid shit on tv and knit. yay. knitting. because, yes, my brain is on drugs -- the ones that keep my from losing my mind from the pain.

much like the beginning...here i am, up late at night, with stacks of books from the library, human subjects forms, and thinking about pulling out my hair (although i think i've done a pretty good job so far without thinking about it...don't think...do). less than 10 days until the 7 year anniversary of this blog...crazy, huh? 7 year itch?

if there's a purgatory, i'm pretty sure i've been in it for the long haul and it's time to move on. i've been not writing the book chapter that i need to write all week and now it's friday and, fuck, where did the week go?

chris is in colorado until sunday and i'm running around trying to plan a conference day for early may and i'm almost tempted to drive most of the apartment to our storage unit because i think if i don't...i'll never exit purgatory, this place between heaven and hell. and i'm not sure i've eaten an actual meal all week, yet i have been eating food-like substances.

man...i need a vacation...

yeeech...come on AP...your latest campaign contains some THE ugliest stuff i've seen in a LOOOOONG time. seriously...the green leopard thing? what's THAT about?