years ago i met with my first student with full on suicidal ideation. she wouldn't be the last...nor would she be the last student of mine that i tried to reach out to. i remembered that night when i learned that she's now ok, more than ok...i've been meaning to talk about it...it was my job...wasn't it? to be there for my students even if it gets deep? i was reprimanded numerous other times for re-directing a few other lost souls from the long dark night...and eventually i'd get fired three times because of "unprofessional conduct." but why is it unprofessional to offer a lifeline?

i got my teaching ratings packet from the spring class, you know...the one i was fired but "not fired fired" from? 4.0/5.0...my lowest scores ever but way higher than other people's best scores. the ratings system here is highly overrated. the main comments? all about how the department handled the situation, sticking them with another teacher in the last third of the class, and never explaining where i went. in other words...they wanted the truth. that job will always remain an enigma to me because i never really found out why they thought it was so unprofessional to try to get my student some help...i guess i'm in the wrong profession.

so talking to someone with a suicide plan goes a little something like this:step one you say we need to talk
(s)he walks you say sit down it's just a talk
(s)he smiles politely back at you
you stare politely right on through
some sort of window to your right
as (s)he goes left and you stay right
between the lines of fear and blame
you begin to wonder why you cameit's frustrating as hell because you have no idea if you are getting through and you sit for hours in silence because they don't trust you...why should they? i was part of the system therefore i was probably the one that they should trust the least...if they only knew you were there for them and not the system...that by being there, you are going against the system...and i would have stayed up with you all night

had i known how to save a lifebut i did...so many times, with so many people all these years...but it's your first that will never leave you...it's the first that will scare the hell out of you...let h(er) know that you know best
cause after all you do know best
try to slip past h(er) defense
without granting innocence
lay down a list of what is wrong
the things you've told h(er) all along
and pray to god (s)he hears you
and pray to god (s)he hears you
i agreed to meet at an appointed time and when i couldn't find her and her door was locked i grabbed her roommate who had the keys...i then had the bottle in my hands, the empty bottle in my hands...calling 911...30 hours later the psych consult finally arrived at the hospital after the stomach pump...i called her family because the doctor didn't have time to do it...another system and their devotees...where did i go wrong, i lost a friend
somewhere along in the bitternessafter that? i was reprimanded and got the first of many letters in my file that would get me fired for doing the same thing over and over...saving a life...trying to...

but that first student would save another life that next year...i guess i'd taught her how to save a life...how to be open enough to feel the pain of others...to breathe it in and do the things that are human even when you know your job is part of the problem...break the rules anyway...it's the only way i know how to save a life...too bad the consequences are so high...but aren't they just as high if you just sat behind your desk, waiting to push the paper through so that the next person gets the memo stating that the student is in trouble, dated before the life was lost?

"we do everything we can" the choir sings...as they slam the door in your face and they begin to forget you were ever there...where did i go wrong? i lost...something.

[indented song lyrics by the fray]

it's really the failure of our higher learning institutions...why can't they figure out some damn way to safeguard personal information WHILE getting people help? sure, we have the *famous* university of illinois system where they make you go to counseling 4 times and even if you say nothing, it doesn't matter as long as you are physically in the room...and that sure (did not) stop(ped) c's student from slashing himself open at a convenience store late one night and the middle of the night phone calls to see if we were still alive when c was the only one who gave a damn and helped even after seeing how *useless* our system was after my experiences as a counselor in the dorms and as a teacher in the classrooms...pleased to meet you...and the illinois system? that did a lot of good as one of our students took a trip to NIU...my general physician told me today that he met the guy in town that ran the gun shop (now closed) that sold that guy his gun...it never showed in the database that he *might* not have been eligible to buy the gun...hope you guess my namethe two doctors keep telling me that i could not have known things would take the course the way that they did at virginia tech...i know...i know that...miller might have been outta there long ago but that might not have prevented what happened 20 years later...because NO ONE listened to the english department there...no one listened to me in housing, at the dean of students at illinois time after time. at least mine ended in my breaking the rules, losing my job(s), but not the lives i protected...and the university could sweep it all under the rug every damn time because at that point because "we have to look after the well being of our students and you've crossed the line that we are comfortable with." but then...wasn't i a student? ah yes...i was just a grad student cursed with seeing the pain all around me...but whats puzzling yousome expressed surprise but most have said *typical* when i said that absolutely nothing has been heard back from any channel...the media...the university...the state...
is the nature of my game
it is the nature of your game, university, to go no further than your convenient 8-4 jobs because GOD KNOWS no one ever does anything in the middle of the night...that's what we grad students were there for, only to be fired if we didn't call through the 90 chains of command before you can call 911...interestingly? cho chose the morning hours that day at tech...perhaps not as interesting given that's when he'd have the command of the institution at work...and miller, who had left the university the year before for private practice after getting transferred from the head of the counseling center to human resources...led the raid on norris hall that morning...where i'd had french classes there nearly two decades ago...i know the place well...or i knew what it looked like before cho entered it that day...

miller led the raid? as the doc said today...two years is plenty of time to doctor up some records...we may never know the truth...it was probably burned long ago...

[lyrics by the rolling stones]

...and for those that have asked, no, i don't mind if you read my blog past the one entry. i may have trust issues but this is something i've talked and counseled people about for years. so feel free to comment, read, write me, call tech...whatever you like. i put myself out there sometimes because if what i say can help someone in the same situation then what i've been through was worth talking about.

the thing about writing about something that's in the news in a blog sometimes gets you more attention than maybe you wanted when you first wrote the post. then again...did i mean not to say what i had to say? did i not mean to test the waters to see if i had the courage to write a less vague post...to see if i would call virginia tech, the virginia state police, and anyone else that might want to hear that dr. robert miller may have hurt people years and years before seung hui cho was even born or at least too young to be out of diapers?

i hesitate to write more but i have already had inquiries. and it was 5:30 ET when i woke up and knew that i had to write more.

most of us have heard the alarming statistics about rape. look them up if you want the numbers. google does exist despite some people's strange denial. but i'm not here to talk about google right now.

and yet.

and yet i am a statistic. i am a part of that statistic, that fellowship of women and men who have been raped. the details? do they matter now? should i now stand trial for what i never did back when i was 18...because let's face it...the prosecutor in far too many assault cases is viewed as the guilty party until they have proved themselves innocent...did they dress for it? did they lead the other person on?

etc. etc. etc.

i'm not proud of never reporting that. i'm not proud of not being brave enough to face the scrutiny. but i did seek out help later in my undergrad years....when the pain had become too much to bear...when every break up felt like rape all over again because i'd dared to trust someone else...scene:

[enter dr. miller, therapist at virginia tech, the year is 1991]

end scene.yes. i was lucky enough to have dr. miller as my therapist. he was maybe the first person i'd ever told. i'm almost 100% sure of that. the thing was? he missed so many appointments that the trust i had in him when i finally could get the words out, especially the one he missed right after that with no explanation...no apologies...as if he never missed a step. after a few more misses, i had nothing more to say. why tell someone who is supposed to help anything else if they aren't going to show up?

i know. who hasn't skipped something or at least wanted to out of fear of getting too close to the truth? so after enough times of him skipping? i started to as well. why not? the trust bond had been broken...and that would be my only time i'd seek therapy seriously until 2002. and i'm not "all better" but i'm a damn bit better than i was and the acid in my stomach has started to fade away...

but i don't trust. i don't trust easily. people have told me that i'm a survivor now, not a victim. labels. there is truth to the statement that you have to move on. but there is also truth to the statement that until we get all the anger, the sadness, the self-doubt out...we can't move on.

the thing with dr. miller was...he broke the rules of a therapist by breaking the boundaries of therapy. while under his care, i was late (go figure) for my evil orchestration class and i parked in a faculty lot because i had one minute to get there and the professor was not cool with anyone walking in late. a pill bottle for some antibiotic fell out of my purse in my mad dash for the building and he happened to be pulling into the parking lot, saw it, stopped his car, told me i was parked in the wrong lot, i yelled that i was late and was going to get humiliated by that prof yet again...i turned around while running to the music building...i saw he picked up the bottle and put it in his briefcase.

did he dispose of it? who knows. probably. maybe. did he call or have someone else call that i had a half used prescription left behind? no. remember...hippa did not exist then. there were no rules preventing that. i had to go back to the health center to get another prescription. big deal.

but things got weird. i had my junior and senior recitals (i was a music major) all in the same year because i cannot do ANYTHING in the correct order or by the rules...i ran into dr. miller in the music wing when i was throwing my shit into my locker, running late for my radio show...he was in our section of the building...which was not his building and not a convenient way to get anywhere but to another exit out of the music section. i saw him. i tried to just nod and go. but he stopped me. he said he'd been to my recitals and that i was an incredibly gifted musician.

i think i might have said thanks but i ran up to the media wing and i am pretty sure i played the entire album of three different albums (yes...vinyl...) and didn't say a lot other than deal with an emergency broadcast test and do the station id on the top of the three long hours that day.

i never went back to him again. i never asked for another therapist. i figured that they all must be that way. until my heart was shattered in 2002...then i finally found someone who could help. or at least tries to even when i freeze up. do i trust anyone unconditionally? no. but i'm more aware of it now.

trust. trust broken first by rape...then by a the-rapist. am i a victim? am i a survivor? no. i think i just am...whatever that means. i try to catch myself when i stop trusting or can't trust...i have a long way to go. maybe that's my lot? maybe i'll never really be free of that. i can trust more. but it's hard. and yet i write this. but it was time. when i saw the nytimes update on my cell phone that named dr. miller as the doctor that had cho's record, i almost passed out. i've thrown up.

what will cho's records show? did dr. miller skip appointments with him too? did he care?

do i believe he *accidentally* took them home along with a few other records? no. no, i really don't. his lawyer's statement says that he did and *just* now found them. i'd like to think that cho got miller's attention. but i don't know how much miller changed. was he going to write a book of interesting cases? did he really not remember anything about those records in his home until they were magically found the other day? did the name not jog something in his memory AT ALL? even if it was just what he could remember without the record? how many records did he have? 5 other students? 50? 5000? if it was more like 5...i doubt he could have forgotten that he saw cho as part of a court mandated therapy program. and how many post involuntary psychiatric hold court mandated therapy sessions does the average therapist at a college get? nothing jogged his memory at all?

the important thing? he went to my recitals. why remember me? as i said...after that i never saw him as a therapist again...i realized i wouldn't get anywhere with a someone paying half (or less) attention or skipping sessions. but he remembered me. he followed me. and he didn't remember cho? not for a second?

no. we are not perfect. none of us are. but my head pounds...i want to scream...i want to tell you...anyone reading this...that 16 years before the virginia tech massacre, something wasn't quite right. did i turn out to be a serial killer? no. was something damaged? yes. did i report it? no. why? i knew others who saw him. same thing. did any of us say anything? no. why? because what could we have said? if you visit crazytown even for the shortest length of time, even just to talk, even just to hear that things were not your fault or at least not entirely your fault...you lose. i had said something to a med doctor at tech that i didn't think that the counseling center did much and i just got that look. if you've spent any time in crazytown, you know that look. it's the look that says...right...ok, well, you're crazy since you were so weak that you couldn't deal with your life yourself that i'm going to dismiss whatever you say...not listening...not listening...not...

not...

not...

will i call today? yes. 32 people were killed...33 if you include cho who turned the gun on himself. am i saying cho wasn't responsible for his actions? no. but dr. miller? what do you think? what do you think of what he did? did you do all you could do? what about those triage therapists who had no records (10 pages??? that's all he wrote?) to go by and nothing but an *unremarkable* psych evaluation despite the english department's warnings...

ah...but hippa existed by then. that misunderstood law. if you try to get a student help and you aren't a therapist (and even if you are there are restrictions)...YOU are in the wrong. i've been down that path before. i'm half convinced that a large part of my hatred of the university of illinois is because i have been on that same side as tech's english department...there is nothing you can do...and you can even lose your job...more than once."...teacher? what's my lesson? look right through me...look right through me....mad world."

oh dr. miller...seriously? you took the records home by accident? kind of like how you accidentally went to my junior and senior recitals and then found me in the music building before graduation and brought it up in public? you weren't allowed to be there nor did i say anything about it. not that you'd been in your office ever...why so many appointments canceled with no explanation. no apologies. no demands?



precrime. could we have stopped him...all of us who saw dr. miller 20 years ago? would they have listened? would they have cared?

the failure of the institution and the weakness of its' subjects...time after time...

an iranian friend of the family invited me and my parents to eat a homecooked iranian meal tomorrow night that is good for health! that was really nice of her to invite us...i'm not awake too much these days but i figure i should go with anything that has the chance of healing me, right?

chris should be coming soon now that the grant writing is over...he was trying to get a grant in before the deadline but he didn't make it in time after months of working exhaustively...and i felt like it's all my fault because if i wasn't sick, he would have been able to finish it...instead he spent every night at the hospital sleeping (a.k.a. not sleeping as they woke me/us up every hour for blood tests, etc) on a cot for weeks...and he did all my wound care...and my dad asked me about the grant last night and i burst into tears because he did all that because he loves me and i feel so grateful but my heart broke that he couldn't get what he wanted because i want everything in the world for him and it seems that nothing is fair...for anyone i know right now...

then? my therapist may be dying. yeah, the guy that basically saved my life when everything came crashing down that summer of 2002...the man who has talked to me about life and death all these months...and he didn't want to tell me but he couldn't avoid it when he said he had to take a month off...he has advanced prostate cancer...how is that fair? this man who has given his life to helping people...

my friend mark? his father is dying and i can't help worry about him. mark is my partner in crime in the game accessibility movement (see ablegamers.com) and we struggle to keep our non-profit afloat and i want to use that fundraising/sales background of mine but i'm too sick...i'm too sick to help...at least i can write papers and proposals to help get the word out about gamers with disabilities who deserve to have fun just like everyone does...fun does not have to be an exclusive club...and i feel a little better but i wish i could do more right now...

i know...i have to focus on getting myself well...but this is so frustrating...it's been so long...too long...i have to hang in there...see this recovery through...

but some days i just want to curl up and cry...and most days i do a little of that every day...not for me...just for how unfair everything is...i know...no one ever said life was fair...

call me patient 8. that's what the FDA does, thanks to my allergy to that chemical used in surgery. patients 1-6 died. we're not sure what patient 7 is up to but according to the company that makes it...it has no known allergic reactions...well, except for those death and near death ones the FDA has now confirmed. i'd say that i was in the "top ten" but there aren't ten of us yet but you can bet that there's gonna be a patient record pulling bonanza soon for surgical patients who died soon after surgery where that chemical was used.

i was going to write a longer blog but that's all i have in me for now. next time i'll tell you about the stop payment check "joke," gauze-gate, and now today? Sterile q-tip gate.

ok. so the blood wasn't bad enough to see (thanks gravity!). no...my vanity decided to walk in the room at the same time and it was the first time i'd seen myself standing up without the bandages...oh my fucking god. so i did what i do best these days...cried.

i mean it's vanity. i know that. pure and simple. but, wow...i mean i'm doing my best to cope with all kinds of shit from all directions and what makes me finally break down is seeing the scars and the unhealed everything with every bandage off, blood pouring down because, well, i was vertical (nearly went horizontal when things got a little cloudy for a sec).

sure, maybe you'd say that it was a normal response to everything i've been through in the last...well, OVER a month now. i mean who wants to see a preview of what things are gonna look like when the bandages come off for good when the surgical incision closes and i stop bleeding (stigmata!)? maybe i'll keep the bandage covering on for a few years.

but that's not going to help with the rest of it...my head is spinning and i want to crawl into a hole...and i HATE email. just so you know.

social media is really out of control...seriously. i just want to write old school letters and forget that people want to snipe you every chance that they get. i mean i'm sick. i almost died. i did die for a minute. i'm asking for common courtesy and all i get back is why i am an evil person. really? am i really that bad?

no. it's not from everyone. it's really from people i don't even know and have never actually met. i mean i guess they can be sick but if i say i am...forget it. they go after me like vultures. and you know what they say if you think this is about you? most people reading my blog know that i'm probably not likely talking about them. i just don't have time to react to people who are spoiled brats...not personally anyway. it just goes into a special file in my brain that's titled "seriously?"

i'm really tired. and i really hurt. and thank GOD that there have been people reaching out to me to ask if i'm doing ok, can we help you...or i'd probably be very very sad right now...because i'd probably have lost my faith in a lot right about now. i am blessed, i am lucky that this is not the case at all. for the first time in my life i can reach out and old and new friends have been helping and i'm amazingly moved...because i don't know why they do it...yes, that's a reflection on my own dark past and not them...i'm just proud to know that the world isn't as cold as some others have been treating me...

no matter what i say...it's wrong. i'm not trying to hurt anyone...really i'm not. i just am having a hard time recovering...it's not just the recovering bit...it's just how slow and how much it hurts...and i have flashbacks to the hospital...and i cannot believe i was strong enough to not break down into an anxiety attack...as alison always says...you do what you need to do. she would know for sure after all her battles with the med treatments she's had to go through.

chris is my knight in shining armor. i just am amazed by him. i guess that's a statement on so many other things in my past. but it's not just that. he has so much to do and yet he slept in the hospital every night on a cot in my room because he knew i would be scared...for 15 days. he even did some down and back trips to champaign to get stuff but he always came right back that day. i don't need a ring or a document or anything to know what we have...i don't need that outward display of anything...i don't have the words to express how thankful i am that he is who he is. as the surgeon said...as everyone says...he's a keeper. i already knew that a long time ago...

i can't remember any white light or dark shadows or any other ideas about dying temporarily. then again, i was under a pretty damn powerful anesthetic...maybe big pharma has outdone any possibility of seeing any previews of the next place...or maybe...

i wish i could curl up into the fetal position but i can't. it hurts too much to be in any position but one. i don't know why or how but the pain is getting worse and it's only making me more frustrated, mad...something...the doc said that i really don't need to top myself each time i come in with what's happened since last month...but seriously it only gets crazier and crazier and now i'm just crying at the drop of a hat when i think about what happened...when i flash back to everything that happened at the hospital. did i really go through all that?

six months of intense pain entered in order to get away from the pain...i know it doesn't seem like a logical thing to do...but i couldn't live the way that i lived for so long any longer. but i'm not yet convinced that this choice was anything more than "other" pain...the devil you know versus the devil you don't. it's hard to stay strong...it's hard not to panic...it's hard to breathe...

if by 40...that number gets closer and closer...

i should start blogging again...i have too much to say for facebook, WAY too many characters to say it in stupid twitter...i just want to blog/journal whether or not i have readers or not.

so i hurt. the open part of the incision will probably hurt for 2-4 more weeks...more painkillers...i just want to be free of it all. i thought, earlier, that chris was in the office when the tears started streaming down my face but he was around the corner and saw me crying...it's every bit of movement, every breath, every sneeze, laugh, tear...it all brings in the pain and it makes me so frustrated with my body...so frail...rehab is in the near future to get my muscles moving better once i can leave bed rest...my weight is 10 pounds under where it was before the surgery (even with the sidebar of having gained 35 pounds of fluids during my two weeks in the hospital...lost it all plus ten more. not sure i needed that extra ten to go though...but i'm glad that i lost the 35 fluid pounds! how did i do it? laid around in bed reading and watching tv with my feet propped up on some pillows. i know...it was tough but i did it. lol.

i'll write more about this but i'm still trying to figure out how this whole "dead for under a minute" thing makes me feel...did i go anywhere? is there anything out there? and what does that make returning to this place, to this heaven and hell mean?

sometimes i forget about this. matt reminded me of it when he told me tonight that he was titling his sunday sermon tomorrow after the title of the blog. i'm ready to stop being sick, i'm tired of inaction, i'm tired of being so still...frozen in time. what am i waiting for? oh year...to recover...from not just the surgery but all the years of pain. will i find heaven here on this earth? or more of the same hell? it's what we make of it. and i'm through with hell even if it's for the shortest of time...

surgery for the endo is now rescheduled from dec 17th to jan 5th...so now i have one more period left...again. all because this one came early. so another trip to the er...another lecture...accusations that there is no endo, no surgery...even no period. and of course the apartment people have to be bothering us again and i just want to know...WHAT ELSE???? of course it wouldn't be fair to tell me...advance warning would give me time to plan...

25 years. and for what?

from last week's er ("the book of abby") and from the old testament ("the book of job"):why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave? for sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water. what i feared has come upon me; what i dreaded has happened to me. i have no peace, no quietness; i have no rest, but only turmoil.i'm not sure where to go from here.

have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? have the gates of death been shown to you? what is the way to the abode of light? and where does darkness reside? have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? tell me, if you know all this.

yeah...so i don't know what the fuck is going on. but i can tell you that i'm already sick of it.

so every single muscle in my body hurts after three days on the new job that i had to take because i have to pay off medical expenses and pay for my fall university fees. meanwhile i still have work to finish from the last job and it makes me psycho to think about and how i wish it would just disappear. ugh...but it's amazing how that job is like riding a bike and that is both cool and completely terrifying all at the same time.

brilliant.i first saw requiem for a dream before seattle, back in the days of paul the chainsmoking alcoholic med student who admitted that emma thompson's character in "wit" had moved him to tears so much that it caused him to downward spiral into a depression coma for days.

when i got to seattle -- my detox from all the crap with paul and a few other cast of characters (or has it been the past few years that have actually been the detox from the detox?) -- i remember tom and i having a discussion about how everyone owns the movie but the real question is -- can you ever watch it again? but these days we have shows about drugs every damn night it seems on A&E's intervention that requiem is no longer that big a deal. drugs. lives going down the drain. same old.

the sirens are going off...it's officially tornado season for champaign-urbana. i must say...i don't feel freaked out like i did when I first got here. apparently we're going to get 60mph hail and a whole hell of a lot thunder and lightning in, oh, minutes from now...

not sure if you've been watching the tudors but you know me when i get in one of these moods where i try to find the just in an injust world...and i watch things like "wit" where all we can do is focus on the commas to keep from crying about the lonely life of academics.

i have two months of back work i need to do this summer, along with everything else in the world going on. or is it that the world is going on and i am nothing? i can't easily answer that question.

i can't wait to be finished with this whole degree. but i'm tired and it's getting harder to keep going on like this. so i must move on, i must move toward other things but how do i do that when i lost the will so long ago?

i remember lucia and i once making contingency plans in case we weren't really cut out for this business. she, of course, made it to the end, got married, got a great job at a great university...i don't begrudge her any of that -- she earned it all and earned it via a tough, tough road.

but i'm still here. and it's grim.

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?

i found this letter on facebook in an endo group called (go figure) i hate endometriosis. on there was a letter written by an anonymous source that feels like my mind has just downloaded onto the computer screen. normally i don't go for these kinds of mailings or posts but this one resonated with me 100% and i was glad to read it. march is endometriosis awareness month -- get educated!Dear Parents, Partners, Friends, Families, Employers & Doctors:

We have spent the last years of our lives apologizing for being stricken with a disease we did nothing to contract, and we can do it no longer. We are asking one last time for your understanding. We are not responsible for not living up to your expectations the way you think we should. What you seem to fail to realize, is that you are just as much a part of the cycle of the disease as we are, because you are not getting the whole of our person and our capabilities. We are not lazy, we are not a whiners, we do not make the pain up in our heads.

We have Endometriosis.

We know that we look healthy on the outside, and that is sometimes harder to accept than if we exhibited the disease in our everyday appearances. What you don't see is what our organs look like on the inside, and you don't see what living with it has done to our mental state.

When we call in sick, it's not because we need a mental health day or to go shopping. It's because we can't get out of bed from the pain. Do you think we like letting our careers pass us by? Would it be easier for you to understand if we said we had cancer and looked the part?

When we get emotional and cry at the seemingly silliest things, or get angry for even less reason, it's not because we are flaky females. It is because we are taking experimental drug therapies to combat the disease, or perhaps because we have come close to the breaking point after dealing day in and day out with the pain for which there is no known cause or cure.

When we can't have relations with our partners, it is not because we don't love you or want to. It's because we can't. It hurts too much. And we aren't feeling real attractive right now.

When you as our parents can't understand that since you are healthy, we should be but aren't - try harder. We don't understand it either. We need your support more than anyone's.

When we can't go to family gatherings or accept social invitations, it's not because we don't wish to share in your fun. It's because we feel like pariahs. You are all having such a nice time with your children and loved ones - we can't remember the last time we had a nice time, or the last time we were pain-free. We can't have a nice time with our children (some of us), because we were robbed of that chance before we were old enough to even care about having them in the first place. Do you think we need to be reminded of our battle with infertility by watching you and your babies? Or for those of us who were blessed enough to be able to conceive, do you think we want a constant reminder that we never feel well enough to spend enough quality time with our children, or worse - that we might have passed this disease down through our blood onto our daughters?

When you married us, you didn't know that we meant the "in sickness and in health" part literally, did
you? We bet you were counting on at least a 50/50 split of that combination, rather than the 90/10 ratio you got. You are our caretakers, the ones who drive us to and from our doctors, countless surgeries, and emergency room visits. You are the ones who hear us crying in the night and see us break down during the day. You are the ones who wait on us hand and foot after surgery. You are the ones that go for months on end without sharing our beds with us. You are the ones that deal with our infertility right along with us. We strike out at you when we are hurting and angry, and you take it in stride. You are perhaps bigger victims of endometriosis than even we are. You are appreciated more than words can ever say. Don't give up on us now.

As a medical professional, we are coming to you for help. We are asking you to do the job you were trained to do and ease our suffering. We do not need you to tell us that we are imagining the excruciating pain we live in, or worse yet, that it is normal for a woman to hurt. Keep up with your research, find the cause of this disease and better yet, find a cure! Stop taking the easy way out and drugging us into oblivion so that we will quiet down. We are not going to quiet down. We want answers and it is your job to provide them. You were the ones that took the oath to heal, why do we have to try to do your job? Do you understand what it means when we tell you that we literally can no longer live a normal life and care for ourselves and our families? Are you not up to the challenge to find the answers?

To those we have called friends all our lives, why have you deserted us when we needed your compassion and understanding the most? Do you see the selfishness of your actions? When we can't "hang out" and get together with you, it's not because we don't like you or we don't care - it's because we are no longer capable of enjoying healthy leisure time. Our minds are consumed with our next doctor's appointments, what surgery we are going to have next, and why we feel so sick all the time. This is not about you - it never was and it never will be. It is about us. Please try to remember what the term "friend" means.

Try to walk one minute in our shoes. We have fought a war for the better part of our years. We are faced daily with physical pains we can't understand and mental anguish we can barely cope with. We have to face a society which doesn't even know the word endometriosis, much less the ramifications of living with the disease. We have to face uneducated and unsympathetic doctors who tell us things like, "it's all in your head", and "have a hysterectomy, it will cure you", and "get pregnant, it will also cure you", when we know that it won't and have been dealing with infertility for the last however many years. We in our 20's and 30's do not wish to give up our organs just yet. That would be like giving in to the endo. Can't you see that? We have to fight to get medical treatment that insurance companies don't deem necessary, or worse, we deplete our savings because aren't able to obtain proper care unless we pay for it ourselves. We have to have surgery after surgery and subject ourselves to horrific medications just to be able to get out of bed in the morning. This is not a conscious choice we made, it was the hand we were dealt. It is enough of a war we wage just to try and live with some modicum of normalcy - don't make it harder on us by not seeing the reasons why. Endometriosis is a disease that affects all of us. Take the time to learn about it and understand why we are the way we are. If you can do that, and you can join us in the battle for a cure, then we can one day return to our old selves and live a normal, productive life. We can have a healthy relationship with our loved ones, we can contribute meaningfully to our work environments. We can stop taking the painkillers that numb our suffering to a degree and become part of the living again. Please don't judge us and declare that we are all the things we are not - until you have lived with this disease ravaging your mind and body, you cannot speak on it.

Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, someone once said. While endometriosis may not kill our physical body, it kills our spirit. It kills every hope and dream we ever had of doing the things that make us happy. All of us are out here searching for a cure to put an end to the disease...we are asking you to take part in that battle and work with us on doing so. Wouldn't it be nice to have back the daughter, wife, friend or family member you once knew?

Think about it.seriously...i hope none of you ever have to know what this feels like...well...actually it would be nice is some more doctors knew what this felt like...

some major shit is going down but i don't get to know what it is until late tomorrow. a frantic call, asking if it was possible that i could come to the house tomorrow because i'm the only one who will know what to do...

...once you leave a job where you were surrounded by 100s of undergrads every day of the week...it's hard to figure out what makes you feel relevant. there's something about the immediacy of issues that can be nipped in the bud quickly if you take the time to see that you were once them...there's something about that that makes you keep going, makes you feel like you ARE contributing to society in some way shape or form.

sure, i do other things that contribute to society -- but the game accessibility stuff doesn't have that same face-to-face tension since we exist in the virtual. things like this are different and this is the first time in a long time that i've been asked to step up to the role of "adult" for students who have found themselves in a bad place...i hope that i'll know how to best guide them...

i'm in one of those kind of blue modes right now and the memories keep flooding in during the dream and wake spaces both and i don't know how to sort them out...or where to sort them out...and i wonder...i still dream of organon.
i wake up cryin'.
you're making rain,
and you're just in reach,
when you and sleep escape me.memories of my father...i know there have to be good ones in there, right? why can't i remember the good moments?you're like my yo-yo
that glowed in the dark.
what made it special
made it dangerous,
so i bury it
and forget.sometimes all you can do is remain in a coma...but that's not enough, it's not in step with the world that forever changes...and you begin to realize how much has happened while you were away...but every time it rains,
you're here in my head,
like the sun coming out--
ooh, i just know that something good is gonna happen.
and i don't know when,
but just saying it could even make it happen.didn't i know even back then that this would be the way things would go, where they would end up? it seems that i should have...on top of the world,
looking over the edge,
you could see them coming.
you looked too small
in their big, black car,
to be a threat to the men in power.but there was never a chance to change things, to break the cycle of crazy because in the end you couldn't defect either...i hid my yo-yo
in the garden.
i can't hide you
from the government.
oh, god, daddy--
i won't forget.there had been, after all, moments where we almost made it out...now long past...but there were moments...

2:15...knock on the office door. "michelle hinn? we need to secure your computer because something you are doing has compromised the network." yeah one uiuc cop and two sys admins with their laptops rush in, asking me questions about my relationship with EFNet, then they see...yes, i am running a mac irc client. ROFL. christ. they came bursting in like they were nabbing a cyberterrorist and all i was doing was chat. classic. hell, i didn't realize it was even running at the time cause i'd only been there for about ten minutes. i guess jail might be a good place to finish this dissertation.

ugh.

meanwhile i have to stay strong and not cave into the family drama...and lord is there a lot of family drama right now.

there are three letters missing on my vita and i don't even need to buy a vowel to know exactly what they are.

time to go collect my winnings.

this just in! new banned word: wayfinding

uh...why are we so lost? do we need to be found? do we need to fit into a model or framework before we are found? are we all just walking around waiting for someone to put us in a category so we can accept it and move on or rally against it until a new model or framework comes along that makes us feel like we are finally understood because we have a label that feels like home to us, because we have the second part of the note pinned to the inside of our jackets: if lost, please _____ .

296.33

really? does that explain everything or anything at all? wayfinding. is that even a real word? if i remember my dante correctly...at some point, in the middle of our lives, we realized we had lost our way on the path. what path? oh yeah...the one that we are trying to describe with our frameworks and models. now i remember.

levels of heaven and hell and the in between. hell is other robots.

banned words of the day: framework and model

why? because if i have to read one more fucking article that suggests a framework or model for "understanding" whatever it is we are supposed to be informed about, i might implode. seriously. why, why, why must we be bombarded by endless babble about how to group things together and when grouped what we should call them. enough!

the next conference call for papers i get in my email is going to get a proposal from me called "frameworks and models: challenges and realities" that is essentially going to be about nothing at all. the challenge: must we have so many fucking frameworks and models versus actual content? the reality: we don't need to have endless droning on and on and on and on because all that it is is academic head-in-the-sand behavior all about avoiding working on actual solutions. that's right...it's avoidance behavior...overintellectualizing things to the point that whatever it is we are trying to put into a framework or modeling gets lost.

maybe i'm wrong. who the fuck knows. maybe i need a framework for understanding models or vice versa. fuck...maybe i need a framework for understanding myself. hahaha. how many minutes of droning could i get in on that topic (again) before dr. b tells me that i'm avoiding the question?

the thing is...what was the question again?

so i skipped about a month and a half on this thing. sometimes life is just too much to put online...to those of you that think i put everything on here? not even close. but anyway it's now 2008. a new year. a new start. maybe i'll finally figure out who i am and who i want to be. last year was dramatic. today's ok.

i'm doing one of my favorite dissertation tasks (a.k.a. need to procrastinate? read another book!)...the lit review. i wish i had a copy of my quals still...i probably do somewhere but, you know, maybe i should just forget it existed. kind of like my advisor at the time did when he asked me the next week to write up a lit review of what i'd just written a lit review about as part of my quals. did you understand that? don't worry...it's not really that important.no one knows what its like
to be the bad (wo)man
to be the sad (wo)man
behind blue eyes

no one knows what its like
to be hated
to be fated
to telling only lies

but my dreams
they arent as empty
as my conscience seems to be

i have hours, only lonely
my love is vengeance
thats never free

no one knows what its like
to feel these feelings
like i do
and i blame you

no one bites back as hard
on their anger
none of my pain and woe
can show through

but my dreams
they arent as empty
as my conscience seems to be

i have hours, only lonely
my love is vengeance
thats never free

when my fist clenches, crack it open
before I use it and lose my cool
when i smile, tell me some bad news
before I laugh and act like a fool

if i swallow anything evil
put your finger down my throat
if i shiver, please give me a blanket
keep me warm, let me wear your coat

no one knows what its like
to be the bad (wo)man
to be the sad (wo)man
behind blue eyes
with apologies to the who for my letter additions...

yeah, not a lot of blogging action this year...i'm not sure why though. am i just bored with this now? i'm not even keeping a journal very well either (you know...the old school paper kind). yet...there's so much to write about, it's scary.

we went to the ER tonight. i left for the ER around 5:45 after ending class early because i was in so much fucking pain it was insane. and they were nice to me...and i couldn't believe it after how much shit i've been going through. too personal to post (i know...too personal for me even) but something needed to be said...not sure i said enough but oh well. if you don't know...you don't know. no big deal. don't worry yourself about it.

i've hurt a lot of people this year. not on purpose. but when i get cycles in my life that are bottomless pits, i shove people away. is this my being protective of them, not willing to let them fall too? or what?

i laughed today when i showed a flier for class because it was already posted all over the room (i swear that someone searches me out to leave fliers in my classroom because these classes and gaming nights have nothing to do with any other class but my game design class. whatever. anyway, it was a little exercise in truth in advertising...it seemed to my class that reading the "playing games for science" read like "just play civ 4 and that's all." but the truth was in the other flier...the part where it was "what the class was actually covering." then my students felt a bit cheated or tricked...i mean what "game researchers group" here? there is my class that covers design. then there are a couple other classes that graze in the games pastures but aren't based in the real practice of making games. and that's insane.

anyway, my class will be offered as a CS class (no CRN yet so don't ask!) rather than a LIS class. LIS, i think, is pretty much done with me...not unlike my own department. but whatever...there are too many real things to get upset about and if people don't want to let me in on their reindeer games...i'll make up my own and get other people for my games.

btw, i'm really proud of my class this semester. they are a good group of students -- i don't know why but i do really like teaching undergrads...i mean why wouldn't you? but so many don't because they see them as "dull" or "stupid" (yes those words) but i don't at all. these are just kids trying to get as much out of college as they can in whatever direction(s) they decide to go in. and if i can help some of them by passing along what i know in a meaningful way, i feel good about it. it's the academic circle. teach your passion. show others the way to find their own.

i am so fucking tired it's unbelievable. this conference took way more time and money than i thought and thank god for our patron or i'd be total dead meat. that doesn't mean that i don't need to cover an extra two grand. at what point did i decide that making money was a bad idea?

you know...if i had to compare...this is worse than crunch time at MS games and hey, it's great of a certain 4 lettered org to really be helping me out right now...i mean seriously...i wouldn't have put their name on our booth title AT ALL if i'd known that they were going to stop returning phone calls and email. my hate list is growing every day.

i have to say...i'm in love with chanel no. 19. so ok, that wasn't a super important thing to report on. or is it?

ok so most (none?) of you know that i'm headed to LA around this time next month (which is fantastic...considering it's going to directly coincide with next month's time o' the month...fuck...more on that in a bit). anyway, set up for the show is on the 17th, i'm hoping to catch up with some friends on the 16th, shop a little (i'll buy my bday present for ME out there because, of course, there will be an AP near the hotel and i cannot WAIT to see what the have in store, especially since they have been unbelievably slow about posting the new collection on their new website (which is not firefox friendly...) and you all know that i'm an AP girl through and through since i was first introduced to it in london). yes, i have spent way too much on lingerie for myself -- and if you think victoria's secret is pricey...VS's secret is that they only WISH they could be AP because AP is high quality and amazing. seriously...every girl should have killer knickers...i wish that they had a charity or something because i'd donate to it. no, i don't think underwear is the most important thing ever. but there is something to be said about how it can make you feel when you are otherwise feeling like 100% crap.

anyway...now that i have gone on and on about that particular subject...back to LA. so, yeah, i'm going to the LA store. but the question is...do i get a tat while i'm there and if so should i get it from kat's store? ok, considering how sick i get...a tat probably isn't a super smart idea. that and is there anything that i want on me for, uh, the rest of my life (even with removal treatments, scarring remains). i've thought about a bar code...and that's about as far as i've gotten. well, besides my famous tree drawing...but i don't want a tattoo of it on me i've decided. i dunno. so maybe i'll come back with a tat...maybe i won't. but i will have something AP and undoubtedly a mega ton of tshirts from the convention, which i'll promptly give away to my students because, hell, i think our floor would collapse if i brought in any more gamer t-shirts.

but...anyway, the whole time of the month thing: today i was informed that mcKILLme would no longer treat me for endometriosis because i am not compliant with anything but pain killers (duh...all other solutions cause me to stroke out...i know...we've tried). but anyway my regular doc wasn't there so i saw this new bitch doctor (no, i didn't mean to say witch doctor) who practically called the cops on me to show that she means business when she says no painkillers. i've honestly never wished endo on anyone...but i sure would like to wish a month of it on people like her who seem to think because THEY don't feel like killing themselves to get away from the pain that no one ever feels more than an advil's worth of pain meds.

ugh. same old, same old. this is getting rather boring isn't it? i know i'm totally bored by having to go to the doctor every fucking month for a day's worth of medicine that i have to go through uber-discussion about each and every time. maybe it's good that it'll fall on the days i'm at e for all -- i can sure do a mean demo of a person in extreme pain...they need to make "trauma center: obgyn" i do believe...

yeah i know. i haven't been good about posting stuff in a reallllly long time. school's started, i started with some super fun in the hospital (i'm ok now)...i'm teaching a class that will probably get me fired (but, damn...i'd rather go out with a whole load of controversy. :) oh what's the class on? game design...with subthemes of sex and disability accessibility. maybe that doesn't seem all that crazy but we are in the midwest and...well the field trip i have planned is a little nuts. more later if i'm fired.

school's back in session and it's always hard for me to really feel like it's a school year until it's some time in october and it's not 100+ outside with 1000% humidity and you feel like you are going to pass out at any minute.

oh...i have so much work to do and i need a vacation badly so hopefully i'll get to experience something that feels like a vacation while at the austin game dev conf in a week? and october scares me because thanks to timing...i'm likely to be at my worst and given how bad things are right now...yeesh. maybe they could just hook me up to a morphine pump?

i cannot remember a more fucked up summer.

hahahahahaha



anyway...back from ann arbor and things don't look good at all but it's not me...this time. after losing so many friends in my 20s to cancer, accidents, strokes, aids, and much, much more...it's weird to revisit it all. hospitals don't scare me...they scare my dad but that has to do more with his psycho mother. i'm not sure death does either. but it seems like there's still so much more to do...and how does one prep to die in a month or two? i'm used to either immediate or long and lingering...not a calendar page or two.

who could see that she'd go in for something seemingly every day and end up way up stage and undergoing chemo? who could know that i could go in feeling heartbroken that the treatment wasn't working to leave knowing that my heart's really broken? why did we all have to grow up? or...maybe that's it. we haven't yet...we were just supposed to and time never did stop.

due to the technology graveyard that is our apartment, the only thing working is the mac mini...through a secondary drive because the mini (oh happy mac) can't see it's own hard drive...rrrr....

anyway...day 20 of 23 of the danazol trial and it would be REALLY AWESOME if the doctor could call back with WHAT THE FUCK i'm supposed to do next...and god...i'm sick of vaginal suppositories. yeah, i blogged vaginal suppositories. fuck you if you have a problem with that. they are gross, the danazol makes me cry 24/7, i feel like i'm losing my mind, that i'm a water retaining sea cow and damn...the last 20 days have felt like 4000. meanwhile...that time of the month...did the danazol work? seems like it takes three or four months until we'll see any difference. uh, i'll be institutionalized by then! expect this month ER spotting to be friday or saturday. rock on.

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

yes, i am having a panic attack at the moment...

almost a month passed by and so much has changed and the danazol makes me cry 30 times a day and i feel like may was the biggest waste of time ever -- obviously...no blogging here at all. i did some blogging over at terra nova and that was pretty much a disaster. then who knows where the panic attacks came from...and then i feel like i don't have a right to really say anything because well, shit, compared to that...

if i lay here...
if i just lay here...
would you lie with me and just forget the world?

too much to write but i've landed on a good idea...to pretend that i'm giving the long form of my accessibility talk and write it down as is...dissertation by powerpoint...something like that. at any rate...i'm writing at least.

i think i forgot to say that it was the 6th anniversary of my blog recently, which is even more depressing when you think back to all the years...but i can't think of that now...i can't, i can't...because if i do, i'll get stuck back there trying to figure out what doesn't even matter any more...and...after a while...it gets old.

i realized that i have one more thing to do at my old job before it's really done and done and i just hope that she hangs on...

it's hard to know what to say about last week other than to think that it was not really real and to remember thinking that each day took about a week to get through. and this week? kidney infection #3 -- third in three months -- and i'm wondering what the fuck is up with that, should i be worried, etc etc etc. so this is the THIRD antibiotic i've been on to try to clear this up and this one is nastier and stronger than the last...it's hard not to start freaking out about antibiotic resistance...and the fact that this one was prescribed without any idea if it was going to work because the culture takes two days to grow (is there no way of speeding that up? can i bring it to c's lab?).

so i'm going to take a nap now but i wrote everything down on a piece of paper just in case i get too sick to remember it.

local abc news caught me at the office earlier when i was pretty much there solely to avoid hearing any more of the news of vt...by that time it was just the same endless loop over and over and over again...i never bothered to watch the news...who cares if i was on it or not. i was simply their "local perspective/wow there's someone in this town who went to VT" go-to girl and i've gotta say...i'm really, really getting sick of the media.

so speaking of, i get this email from this comm prof here who decides that today's the day he's going to say that while the media was covering VT, there was a much more sinister plot in the making about some postal tax increase, "big media" crap, the government are a bunch of crack head whores. no, the prof didn't say that last bit but it was such a stupidly timed email by this guy that, yeah, bipolar superhero woman reacts by emailing him back and saying "you know...you are in JUST as bad taste as the right wing media who are taking advantage of the VT thing...you just did the same fucking thing on the left side...shame on you." and then i thought about why i was probably on his mailing list and i'm sure that any second now someone else from that department is going to say something "profound." i can hardly wait.

they are covering it still on the news, all night, all night and i woke up remembering the classes i had in norris and i remembered you all of the sudden...when we'd run out of class...off to drive around the drill field again, young and both still alive...i've heard from so many these last 24 hours but i know i won't hear from you and i'm wondering what you must be thinking about all this...what all of you who are "you" must be thinking about all this...

and aj...interesting that you are a part of the collective "you" with the same name...i heard from them, from all of them, those who are our children now...they must be our children...and the kids are alright. but they are scared and lost...more so than we ever were...

perhaps. i don't know. i don't know if it's fair to compare the surreal with the unreal...or know which is which.

ut prosim...that i may serve...

oh yeah...i was in an article in the chicago tribune the other day (if you can't access it with the link, search with my last name and avoid the articles about the "hinn" that isn't my relative who is apparently getting medical treatment somewhere in south africa and is getting flack for it...not sure why but i don't care that much to add any more to the story in my brain or on the blog).

and even my doctor was surprised to find out that pain clinics don't treat pain...

maybe the way this was all supposed to work was because we were in the same situation in so many ways and were the only ones who really could relate to it and neither expected anything from it...it always reminds me of that book, age of innocence...only this time it takes place later, much later...and none were wayward stations...

attention non-us readers -- do you know of any health clinics in your country that uses RU-486 for non-abortion uses? there are many studies that suggest that the RU-486 in low dosages can be a miracle for people like me with endometriosis. but...thanks to this damn country's puritan laws, we can hardly get it for abortion and you literally have to be dying (with "end of life" date on the books) to use it off-label and only for things like ovarian cancer.

anyway...let me know if you know of anything.

i ran into s at mckinley and i told her that whatever she chooses to do, do NOT feel that you'd be letting me down if you took the job...i hate the madness, the mad world...all around me are familiar faces
worn out places, worn out faces
bright and early for their daily races
going nowhere, going nowhere
and their tears are filling up their glasses
no expression, no expression
hide my head i want to drown my sorrow
no tomorrow, no tomorrow
and I find it kind of funny
i find it kind of sad
the dreams in which i'm dying
are the best I've ever had
i find it hard to tell you
'cos i find it hard to take
when people run in circles
it's a very, very
mad world
children waiting for the day they feel good
happy birthday, happy birthday
made to feel the way that every child should
sit and listen, sit and listen
went to school and i was very nervous
no one knew me, no one knew me
hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
look right through me, look right through me...i'm not sure how many lives have been saved and lost but this play is over for me...it makes no difference what the spin is, really...it doesn't...for once in my life i know that i made an impact and the ones who couldn't dare to stay an extra hour even when it literally made the difference between life and death...well, they lost what they never knew they had...it was easier to let me go than to admit that their house of cards was falling down around them.

i'm supposed to meet up with them to talk about everything that i know...but i think even if i did that...it wouldn't matter...because they can't hear it...they just can't hear it...

i can't get used to the idea that after the break is over, i'll still be on break...because i've been terminated, sacked, fired, and so forth. the thing that makes me the most sad is that i'd wanted to go out with some dignity, with some kind of "hey, thanks for all that time and all those things." it would have meant a lot to me. but it's not going to happen...burn out rather than fade away.

i can't take the sting any more and there's no one who really understands...i mean understand my life, know my life and know how much it depresses me. the world is ugly and cold so often and it'd hard not to blame yourself, it's hard to bear it. but all i can do is move, keeping moving and maybe it will stop hurting in time...until the next time.

right about now the londoners are getting ready to visit IBM, which took forever and a day to set up. it's true...i would have been in bed 24/7 had i gone on the trip but what can you do? and i have only a couple more days to move out of my office...wheeeeeee!

and it's 3:30am and i'm awake.

the main trouble is that i'm starting to lose my faith in the world...not that i really had a lot but i'd thought that i'd found some pockets of humanity only to see it turn around and hit me in the face...cold hard slap to remind me that things are often an illusion and the ones you trust the most can be the first to strike you down.

no, i'm not just talking about all the ugliness going on with wimse, with the sig...it seems that once one thing falls, everything falls...and anything that you had to look forward to is suddenly gone. i can feel it all crashing down and i don't know how to stop it or even if i should in some cases. greed is all around and in surprising directions and i sometimes can't believe that people even wonder why i never like to see myself in the media and why i sometimes wish i could just disappear. and then i see the comparisons to my mother and remember how my father is so ashamed of me because he sees me as useless...and it's hard not to believe it all when it matches how you feel inside, no matter how much work you've done to try and think of things and reasons why you can't believe that only the negative is true. but when someone doesn't know you...they can wound you without truly knowing what they've done.

i know...it's a downer of a post. but it's been a downer of a month with only one exception and there's no place on the map to locate you...

t-minus any minute now for the next episode of ER...reality edition. nausea, doubled over in pain...get some food into me now now now...i wrote a letter for the ER staff because i'm sick of saying the same thing every month. maybe they'll read it. maybe they'll see that i'm not a completely worthless piece of shit like they usually do...

sigh.

and now you too...

i just need to go away for a little while. i don't know where to. just away. get on a train to somewhere, get on a plane...somewhere. because i can't see which way the surface is anymore...

i should just shut up and disappear for a little while. just disappear. will i ever find my way out? don't answer that. i shouldn't ask anymore...

back in the office...

today or tomorrow I get to go to the er...but for now...write write write ...

so i just walked to starbucks from my office and got the usual cappuccino and cupcake breakfast/lunch and i've been processing things and it seems that it might be quite possible that i have a serious reason for traveling back and forth between ireland and here in the fall but that's almost hilarious at this point considering how many things have imploded lately. actually...how many things have imploded this week in particular.

but...i ended up being able to see the positive from gdc, despite the focus on the negative. you know...we really did put ourselves out there this year. we went for broke and it seems that we're gearing up to do that again next year. exciting things are in the works. too bad things had to go crazy before i could announce them but whatever. now we know who would hang us out to dry before we got too far in. or at least hang me out to dry. but...whatever.

ugh...but this morning i was asked why i was wearing perfume all of the sudden...i used to...before...so now i am again.

hahahahaha...illinois? YOU SUCK!!!!!! hahahahahaha! VTVTVTVTVTVTVTVTVTVTVT!!! VT JUST SPANKED YOUR WORTHLESS ASSES...IN BASKETBALL! SUCK IT! Especially YOU, UIUC Administration!!!! ROT IN HELL!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAH

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

HAHA Weeeeeeeee....

Yeah, time to bring out the meds...

the pain starts again, just as i predicted. i knew it was coming up, i knew a week ago that the change was coming again. live through this. i know. if i can live through the next few days of excruciating pain then it will break again. i don't know how many more times i can do this but i guess it's safe to say that i know that if i can just get past it...it will go away again...for at least a short while...until next month.

i'm not sure why this week went the way it did. i was supposed to teach a class in london starting tomorrow and now i'm out because housing didn't feel comfortable with my going and knowing that i needed to go to hospital during the trip. the sad, sad thing is that if i had only made it to london...for at least this week i'd have health insurance. something i haven't had in, wow, almost 9 months.

i'm in debt. and by a lot. $20k all in medical bills that have gone to collection. but i said all that in the last post. forgive me. i'm just starting to realize that it's really real. i've been fired from one job and my last day on my other job is may 19th. after that...i don't know. i'd say well at least i have the sig to help me through it but...nothing is certain. i know i have good friends there -- regardless and up to the administration. well, so be it. i'd rather play the walk on role in the war then play the lead role in a cage...

how i wish you were here.

any minute now and i'll need to go in for the monthly shot now that it's started again. c said that i woke him up last night to say "oh my god! virginia tech is playing illinois in basketball this friday!!!! my undergrad versus grad school!!!!" which is hilarious if you consider how much i hate both places and then after he told me this morning i said "whoa...you know dr. b's gonna say...evil parent versus evil parent."

so london's been axed courtesy of housing and the worst of it would be that if i could have only made it to london, i'd been covered by UIUC travel insurance...the first time i've been insured in nine months. and i owe over $20 grand now and...it's gone to collection. so good luck, me, in ever seeing a decent credit report score...ever.

so i have to figure this all out and everything's a mess and i wish people would leave me alone for just one fucking second so i can breathe...and sort all this out.

and i miss you more than you could ever know.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

i'm going to kill the universe right now.

exhausted. attacked.

i know a lot of it is my stuff, as dr. b says. but on the other hand...what the fuck? my right arm is sprained, my kidneys are on fire, i can't wake up to save my life...and when i do for a few minutes it's only to awake to a whole slew of crap from all directions. how the FUCK am i going to live through london? god...at least it feels like home. and i hope you cry when you get there.

1, 3...stab with running start...2...slow injection, pain and the advise to get a regular doctor: "i'd suggest looking into getting a regular obgyn if this pain keeps happening every month." yeah? i'd suggest getting a new job. out of town is no longer an option and everything's turned into a great big theatre of the absurd with plastic bag licking ladies at the pharmacy, extended families in the waiting room with snacks for everyone, and my chart's been flagged obviously and we laughed when you mentioned the obgyn because it was too long a story and you didn't want to hear it anyway.

and facebook remains completely unbelievable and now scholars face lawsuits and when the fuck did we lose our right to free speech?

but the chief is dead...and this article is classic...oh it's funny when reunions occur in the strangest places. now if i can only convince people to stop being martyrs, life would be good. well, it would be mediocre.

snow blocking my door...fucking winter...

pin cushion

that's what i am every week, only i do it voluntarily...

work

wtf, i was there past midnight friday to arrive early saturday to see the door window smashed in an it turns out it was a homeless man they arrested for trying to enter because it is unfuckingbelievably cold out and, you know, who could really get all that mad? it just sucks ass that we don't have any super great shelters...or even enough shelters...

Whenever I hear the word “dissertation” I think “expertise,” whether that is right or wrong (does it matter?). I’ve struggled for a long while now as to how to fit a dissertation – a dissertation that was in my own voice, that was focused on something that I felt that I had a handle on or, god, even just barely hanging on to – into a gaming/ludology literature that is constantly shifting and evolving and I think I finally have the answer to where it fits. It does not. (p.s.: did I mean to say where “I” fit?) There must be a comfortable sense of place that comes with knowing your place, knowing exactly where what you do fits in when there seems to be a polarization, a way of thinking in terms purely colored in black or white. If we are to believe the headlines either video games will save or destroy us all: There is no middle ground. Each side, desperate to disprove the other, moves slowly to either side of the dance floor with every research study conducted.

But I can’t find my way there to either side and I give up. I thought, at first, that I’d tell this wonderful story, this insightful narrative on how people offer help, ask for help, and accept help in a gaming environment (see how good video games are for us?). But I’m not going to. Not really. Every word I type feels like both a liberation and betrayal of my self and I’m not comfortable telling you that and that’s exactly why I keep writing. I need to move on, I need to move forward and this is the only way not out but in.

I’d like to offer you an invitation to the dance. Or at least the dance I’m at. I’d like to give you a chance to see what I see, even if we’re spinning on the dance floor, losing our footing, or we end up motion sick and vomiting into a trashcan in the corner of the room. I won’t lie to you. It’s not an easy or a comfortable place to be and it may cause a false sense of wellbeing or bring about suicidal thoughts (as the label on most any psychotropic medication will tell you). But let’s stay here for a while, at least until the sun comes back up (will it?) and we’ll sit on the shore and pass that bottle of whiskey back and forth until we all agree that this was the best idea anyone’s come up with in the last five minutes. Whatever it was.

christ.

at some point, can something, anything be forgiven? i feel like a crook, i feel like a defrauder...i feel like throwing up. not that i haven't been lately. pneumonia and then the pain day all criss-crossed into several magical ER visits and i feel like screaming to the world "OK I GET IT. I FUCKED UP. BUT DO YOU NEED TO REMIND ME OF THAT EVERY 15 MINUTES VIA EMAIL?????"

yes...it's the registration crap, again. i'm just so fed up and i'm sick of administrative types telling me that i'm irresponsible (how exactly could that be absolutely and so resolutely true?)...not once, but several times a day. it's days like these that make you want to crawl under a rock and die.

the funny part..."funny" part...was that it took me all damn day to get off my floor yesterday and when i finally did and went to work? i was told to go home because i was fired. at least temporarily. so they say.

on your way home, could someone pick me up a break from the store? seriously, i'm barely holding on...

ok i get it. i've completely fucked up in every way, i was stalin in the last life, i don't deserve healthcare and my own father said that "healthcare isn't for people like you who don't contribute to society" thus not even attempting to help me out, even in the form of a loan at 5 trillion percent interest.

i get it. i get that everyone's job on the whole planet is in jeopardy because i cannot get a simple fucking set of forms through to even get my own job back, i understand that i've let every person possible down because i'm not the superhero i'm supposed to be, i understand that even if i'm living in a box on the street corner that the act of putting in my payroll hours is so trivial compared with how much others suffer more.

i get it. i really, really do. but is it possible to go ahead and let me work on my dissertation for even one day without having to confess all my sins all day, every day or can you at least cut me a little bit of slack on the hail marys? i will pay them back with interest but please...fucking hell please...can i just get one -- i admit completely undeserved -- break just this one time?

so am i a secret bitch? i have no idea what i mean by that but i'm sure it has something to do with the inner rage he says would kill a normal person...yeah, back to that inner rage thing. the thing is i really don't like rules...which has a lot to do with my dissertation...maybe if i figure that out, i'll figure out the bigger issue beyond the game.

i do seethe with rage when i think of the new one and how eerie it is that she's almost a carbon copy of the last one...churn churn...boring. throw me something interesting at least will you? analyzed and determined completely useless at hello.

see? that secret bitch thing...or is it not such a secret? or is it just an easy title to slap on to avoid seeing the real issue behind the color red?

48 hour test, worth a shot i guess and if jesse can make a move forward then so can i, right? i can do this, right?

who do you believe? i mean who do you believe in the end? the person who says, wow, yeah, things are fucked up so let's do this or the person who says i can't believe things are as fucked up as you say so let's do this to see if they are really all that fucked up? then...non-invasive and much less expensive or invasive and much more expensive?

and on another note...is it fucked up to realize that maybe the road is important because if it's not one you really buy into...will the end mean a thing? even if that means letting go?

i'm tired.

seriously i am. spine out of alignment, stars out of alignment, mind out of alignment, realizing that not leaving isn't the same as staying, wondering if you have to like the road you'll have to take in order to want to arrive at the destination? suicide thesis is the new band in town and there's nothing that can give me comfort, even if it were simply served cold like revenge at the best restaurant in town.

and, finally, he asked "did you ever consider for a moment that it might all be neurological?" to which i replied "did you ever consider that it might not exist?"

this new google blogger shit is driving me insane.

anyway...school starts back up tuesday so i've got a lot to do still to prep for the classes i teach...and much to do in so many areas...

the study abroad crap is getting there. most of my annoyance is in the amount of work i've had to do on the passport/visa/travel stuff while i was supposed to only be working on the academic side of things. i've realized that my time with wimse is coming to a close, as sad as that may seem. this is it. this is my last semester there as a grad assistant. i have a new boss that starts tuesday, i have to, have to, have to finish no later than august. i want to finish no later than august -- that's the more important part. i'll miss it, no doubt. but it's time to move on. what will they do without me is the question so many ask. i don't know. but i can't believe -- or let myself believe -- that on soooooo many of my job duties someone else couldn't do it. maybe the next person won't have my personality or my same reasons for wanting wimse to grow, change, etc with the times. but it's easy to get yourself in a lull where you are no longer effective, no longer able to see beyond just the day to day demands of the job.

do i think i've made a difference? yeah, i do. but there are so many other things i feel i need to do for me and for others in this life. it's time for me to go. yeah, i can point fingers and make a stand and say "i'm leaving because they are users" or "i'm leaving because they don't value my opinion even though i'm the only one in housings that's in the real trenches of wimse." but really? just as my students move on and graduate...so must i. so must i. and housing doesn't care if i move on...the university doesn't care...but i must and i do care.

it's time for that next step. as scary as hell as that is. it's time.

it WAS kinda hilarious, actually, to see the lunesta ads that were shown during the breaks between that new grease reality show as if anyone watching were still awake. i mean, i have NEVER watched the whole american idol process but i think it's pretty similar...i mean could they have found MORE boring hosts? now i know what NOT to do during GDC...

heh. speaking of...in the latest game dev mag, there's a picture of me asking my pain in the ass question at last year's game dev challenge in the half of the magazine that is the gdc advertisement. no, that's not the caption -- there's no caption. but if i were to caption it, it'd be something like "i KNEW this was gonna end up on some ad..." it's kind of funny. but cool.

so today dr. b told me that any normal person would have died from the poison from the rage...which reminded me of another dr. b who told me that everything was going to make me a stronger person...how strong do i need to be, exactly?

what part of "do you have a US passport? if not, are you getting one now or are you in the visa process if you hold another country's passport?" is so damn confusing?

ok, age and experience has a lot to do with my crankiness about this. but it's really, really irritating when, after email 5 on the issue, someone's just now realized "hey, i DON'T have a us passport and/or visa to exit and re-enter the country -- so do i need to do something?" and then someone in a position of power says "oh, you should let students know that they need passports and/or visas." yeah? really? you think so? god, thanks for letting us know! we'd totally forgotten about that...

ahhhhhhhhhh. wake up, wake up, wake up. and i'm talking to myself right now. a little over a week before i have a new boss and i have an awful lot of shit to figure out.

i think this pretty much describes it all...the re-modernist space between places that i've found myself in with regard to how i view myself and how others view me...the abd catch 22 of somehow not being human or alive if you are in grad school...any minute now, my ship is coming in
i'll keep checking the horizon
i'll stand on the bow, feel the waves come crashing
come crashing down down down, on me

and you say, "be still my love
open up your heart
let the light shine in"
but don't you understand
i already have a plan
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

when i awoke today, suddenly nothing happened
but in my dreams, i slew the dragon
and down this beaten path, and up this cobbled lane
i'm walking in my old footsteps, once again

and you say, "just be here now
forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin"
let me throw one more dice
i know that i can win
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

any minute now, my ship is coming in
i’ll keep checking the horizon
and i'll check my machine, there's sure to be that call
it's gonna happen soon, soon, soon
it's just that times are lean

and you say, "be still my love
open up your heart, let the light shine in"
don't you understand
i already have a plan
i'm waiting for my real life to begin

on a clear day
i can see, see for a long way
yeah...colin hay of men at work fame...who can it be now?

hmm. like someone was reading my mind when they posted their favorite scrubs episode songs and is it just me or does everyone have those once-a-month days where all they do is play songs, watch tv/movies that make them cry? mood-state dependency...

more from finland...

more from finland...
Originally uploaded by vrgrrl.

how...bauhaus

yeah, you'd think i'd lived in finland or something with the number of pix i have to post from there. this one just kept coming up in my photostream so i thought i'd finally blog it. anyway, i'm wondering if this diy-crafts-arts-technology thing has something to do with that whole re-modernist crap (read: philosophy) i was reading a few weeks ago and the space between places...someone's had to have written about it, right? or maybe i just did.

and wasn't it weird when last night's ep of law and order svu had that quote about unhappy families from anna karenina and it's the book i'm currently reading...although it was a bit *summarized* when they used it...happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own wayword.

so ford's dead and i've realized he has a lot in common with bush...in the sad fact that he, too, was appointed president...at least for term one. then, somehow, we elected bush president for term two. maybe we'd have been better off electing ford...wonder how things would have turned out...you know, with that whole hostage crisis thing ending with reagan that showed us exactly when we sold our souls to the republicans...ah well, we can play that game with gore and/or kerry versus bush as well...

but all i can think of is those old SNL skits...not the ones with chevy chase tripping everywhere but the newer older ones where they are working on ford's "death announcement" on cnn and saying things like "president gerald r. ford was mauled to death by bears today..." ok, bad timing and taste BUT seriously cnn had that packaged death montage up in seconds after the announcement...

oh yeah, it's the new year. i should make some coffee. and have a shower. also, why is it so cold in here? is my body temp really 97.4? and why exactly do i not write about the architecture dreams...

do i like this new blogger? not sure yet. my body looks like it's been in a war and i have a giant bruise on my cheek and it's like wtf? did i punch myself in the face in my sleep? i must have because that's the only explanation.

did you hear? did you hear about the world peace that broke out? hussein is dead and now iraq is like a big disco party and everyone has ponies and holding hands and oh everyone converted to christianity in the whole world and then the angels came down from the heavens...

and shot us all to hell. do you ever sit on a plane in front of loud mouth assholes who pat each other on the back about how reagan was the greatest and bush junior is even greater and we're all too stupid to see it now. yeah. i guess that must be true. i guess when i get that lobotomy i'll be able to see it too.

the cost of string? who knows? what is it worth in the end anyway as long as it made some people happy. all i keep rewinding in my head is the whole i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you...i am ashamed of you. it's like a sick xmas song for the dysfunctional family...i am ashamed of you...medical care isn't for people like you who can't afford it...i'm cutting you off...i'm cutting you out of the will...oh you are sick? yeah grandmother fakes that hand shaky thing too...i am ashamed of you...quicken will save us all...get out of the car then...just go...just stop shaming me.

damn. if this were an old samurai movie...thank god i only have that stupid plastic sword they gave out at last year's gdc.

this year's gotta be better than the last?

me on npr in a story on game accessibility for the blind on xmas eve...meanwhile in non-radio life i tried to ignore, well, everything around me.

Multimedia message

o'hare

homeland security has *recently* upgraded our alert to orange according to the speaker system...but hasn't it been orange for many, many months now? and is orange the middle or second to the top? it did cause quite the commotion at o'hare security as we moved all our damn gels into new plastic bags and meanwhile i got to the conveyor belt to see, shit, i didn't take out the laptops yet. so i had to yell down for someone to pass me some spare plastic tubs (one laptop per). yeah. two laptops. that's how i roll.

anyway, i've been trying to get home since 5am but now it's 5:30pm and i have *at least* another hour to wait because our incoming flight is circling above chicago due to the traffic. you know...fucking holidays. airport hell is how i roll.

and i had to take a bus to o'hare because nothing's leaving champaign for the next 40 days due to, i don't know...sun? all i know is that i'm manic now so i best avoid my family by working non-stop on my dissertation. it's the only way to survive.

lonely nights, never end,
they come here again and again,
whenever i'm alone, without you.
this love, it seems, to keep taking me higher.
but i'm flying alone, without you.
i know i tried and tried before,
(i know, you know.)
you know i need you more and more.
were you tellin' me lies?
did you really mean goodbye?
can't you see, I'm yours,
i'm in love for the first time.
and now I'm lost,
without you, without you, without you, without you.

i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.
(yeah, i'm flying, yeah i'm flying alone)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.

(can't you hear me, can't you hear me?)
i'm flying with broken wings,
i'm flying alone.hendrix, as performed by the ohare holiday band...

so soon i'll be on npr but i won't know when or what show yet but it could be all things considered. which would be amazing. so, yeah, i had to go to the npr station here and do some weird phone patch in thing with the reporter from san francisco and it's being edited now so that all the "uh..." pauses are removed. it took a couple minutes to get myself from the "uh" habit but once i became aware of it, things were better. it's been a long time since the days of the woove and i couldn't just say shit like "oh...so i fell asleep so that's why you heard the whole half of that album..." and then have friends call in so we could mock people.

did i just say album? oy...

anyway, i was in my other office yesterday -- the one on the complete, complete opposite side of campus from my dorm one -- and i remembered that i'd been meaning to take in the mac laptop to figure out what the fuck was wrong with the wireless. so there's a mac store that's in the same building as all the illinois campus media and the radio station has the dj in the store window...which is creepy. maybe it's a chicago thing because they do that on michigan avenue. i don't know. i do know that they are commercial, which drives me insane -- no campus radio station should be slave to the man. that's right. i said it. the man. and i do know that they don't look anywhere near as sleep deprived and/or high as we did. and i don't know the answer to this for sure but i'm thinking that they probably don't take requests to play the emergency broadcast system...back when it was that two-tone fucker of sound.

which brings me back to npr...that was our parent station and would receive all of our random ebs shit and turn us in. what? ok, it wasn't like 9/11 was anywhere close to happening and the cold war had closed up shop so we were bored, we were slackers, we were grunge. and kurt cobain was still alive and nirvana was still underground and, fucking hell, no he did not die from overeating. wtf. no really. someone actually said that to me the other day: "didn't he die from overeating?" wow. no.

but beside all that i'm not dying from overeating because i can't keep anything down and i'm wondering if it's because i owe 8 million dollars in medical bills?