Yes, KB and I lived through camping, and had a good time. 
We had lots of snuggly time. I even tried to catch him a fish, but the fishies weren’t biting…. and he pounced on a duck at 2AM. 
That’s my boy.
This one’s close by, and looks like it’s got a quarry…
I might not be able/allowed near, but it’s not an unreasonable place to look either…
If I fail to show up to my therapy appointment on Wednesday, it shouldn’t be too hard to find me.
I’m home from my Organic Chemistry class, where I got back my graded exam. I knew I got an 83%, but I’m so glad to see it in person!
This is a very exciting grade, for those of you who haven’t studied Organic Chem. For those who have, you KNOW how awesome that grade really is.
Nothing much is new - life is sad and crazy and busy and I’m just trying to keep my head in the school-game and out of the “other stuff” game.
It’s hard to do, but I’m motivated.
–Em
Yeah, I really do. I dislike it a LOT… It’s really just one of those things.
I have a sort of mental list of things to worry about. Right now, SCHOOL is at the VERY top of that list. Beyond that, there might be other things… like the heartbreaking dissolution of my marriage, the price of apartments in the area, the number of dots on my ceiling… These are all WAY more important to me than, let’s say… someone whom I haven’t spoken with in over eight years suddenly popping up out of nowhere to insult the hell out of me, guerrilla-style.
But hey, thanks for trying. Maybe if you wait another few years, you can make the list THEN.
Ciao!
–Em
My poor little printer just chugged through about 60 pages of Organic Chemistry past exams, plus another 100 or so sheets (two-pages-per-sheet setting!) of the Organic Chemistry textbook so I can work the problems.
Poor thing’s complaining about its black ink cartridge already.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth it if it helps me study, but I still feel a little bad for making the poor thing work so hard. 
–Em
Just as a person’s relationship with God is between that person and God, so goes their relationship with grief. Do not belittle another’s feelings by suggesting that they are “obviously” doing better than someone else, as though comparison can be made on some sort of binary scale. If one is doing “better”, it doesn’t mean that one does not feel loss, sadness, anger, guilt at all. Only that person can know, but even if everyone could understand completely, it is not a contest.
Faking it through a smile can make a person eventually HONESTLY smile. Faking carefree actions can make a person eventually feel carefree. Don’t assume that the carefree actions or laughter of another is somehow “proof” that they feel less pain; and even if they do truly feel less pain, it is not a contest.
Remember that indignation is part of adjustment for some people. Blame is part of the process for many. The search for resolution, the championing of a willful cause…. all of these are part of adjusting away from the world Before into the world Now. But the amount of action or inaction one takes does not correlate to depth of feeling. And even if it did, it is not a contest.
Offer what strength you can, reserve what strength you must, and do not feel guilt or obligation for either. It is not a contest.
Two years ago, when I was in school at NSU in Oklahoma, and Barrett was working five-days-a-week in Oklahoma City, I was studying genetics. Barrett came home one weekend and found me sitting on the couch, schoolbooks and notes and beads strewn all over the coffee table. I was busy stringing small glass beads on a wire.
“Are you studying?? or are you playing with beads,” he asked me.
“Both.”
“They would seem to be mutually exclusive.”
I recall holding up the little thing I’d been working on. “No. See? Ribose. I’m doing both.”
I recall him staring at me funny then huffing a little and walking off. I thought about making another one and making earrings out of them, but I didn’t.
Well, it’s 2010, I’m taking Microbiology, and my professor wants us to memorize the structure of Adenosine Triphosphate. “It’s just adenine and ribose and three phosphate groups,” he reassured us. “It’ll be on the exam.” Last night… I opened up my beads. YES, I brought them to school with me, because they’re useful!! I went through a lot of wire, almost all of my tiny blue optic beads (Hydrogen), a bunch of medium-size black optic beads (Carbon), a few light blue ones (Nitrogen), a bunch of pink ones (Oxygen), and three big fat purple ones (Phosphorus). This created a beautiful rendering of ATP, though slightly too big to stick on an earring.
With some adjustment, a few extra beads, and a clasp, it makes a fabulous bracelet, though.
My deoxyribose (which we all know is just ribose without an Oxygen at Carbon 2, right?) is earring-sized. I put together an Alanine (the smallest, simplest amino acid), and it’s also a lovely earring.
I am chagrined to discover, upon review, that my ATP is actually missing two Hydrogen beads… I missed adding them at two of the double-bonded carbons in the double-ring structure. The rest is right, though. 
Technically, the Hydrogens are simply assumed, but if I added them to all the other Carbons, I ought to have added them to these two also. Maybe I can fix it later.
–Em
The photographer for whom I model actually has a day job, so it takes a while for him to go through ALL the pictures…
I just got this one in, and I LOVE IT!!!
Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue,
Thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights, the TV, and the radio
Still I can’t escape the ghost of you
What is happening to me? Crazy, some’d say,
Where is the life that I recognize?
(Gone away)
But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find…
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say
“Pride will tear us both apart”
Well now pride’s gone out the window, ‘cross the rooftops, run away
Left me in the vacuum of my heart
What is happening to me? Crazy, some’d say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
(Gone away)
But I won’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find…
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive
Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and greed
Here today, forgot tomorrow
Ooh, here beside the news of holy war and holy need
Ours is just a little sorrowed talk
And I don’t cry for yesterday, there’s an ordinary world
Somehow I have to find…
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive…
–Ordinary World / Duran Duran
(incidentally, from the Wedding album…)
