you're always such a caaalmin iiinfluence...mary says to me in her office. i feel the knots in my shoulders when i stand up to leave.
and last night, margey said, you're my counterbalance, because you're so collected and together. and i said, but i haven't eaten and i'm exhausted. but i'm glad i can make it look that way.

i feel proud in a way, that i can be that to people. i feel like i'm being like my dad without trying. but i also have to think about how stressed he was, and what burden he carried. and how i really do think it's what killed him in the end.

i see it in dolbin too. (not that he's calming or helpful) rushing around trying to do everything for everybody. and loving it.  i look at him and i think, you're headed for a nervous breakdown, man. a heart attack.

he even asked me once, when he found out he might be chair, what was it like for your dad? awful.

come to think of it. mary's had heart problems too. i'm glad she's almost done. jan too, good she's out of the country.

jan wants me to work on my dad's book with her next semester. i want to have time for everything else i want to squeeze into my last bit of time her, but i also feel like i won't be able to say no. just like i can't say no to mary or professor dolbin. 

yet somehow i'm a raging bitch to my mother. 

 ok. so. on the one hand, i'm enjoying this semester and i really love senior sem and creative writing. on the other hand. i'm having trouble trusting what my professors say.

1. Dolbin told me to look up a former student of his, jason moiber, saying that he was really pushing with the things it seemed like i was trying to do. i looked him up. and...it was interesting, but nothing at all like what my painting looks like or what i'm trying to do. i feel like i was given a random painter name that he was able to come up with at the moment.

2. Catherine has, with a 2 exceptions, loved and lauded workshop pieces that i've thought still need a lot of work. this one piece we workshopped yesterday, she said was almost ready to be published, and i thought it was incredibly cheesy and unrealistic and overwritten. what am i to think of her criticisms of my work? bill brought up this same concern to me a few weeks ago and i told him not to worry. but now i'm worrying. 

3. Kulczak is the most inept professor i've ever had. he doesn't know any of the indesign hot keys or shortcut buttons. His wording of assignments and directions is painfully confusing and poorly written. his assignments are all advertising jobs that he's done in the past. when he shows us the way that he did the jobs, i want to run crying to whitely's office for solace. seriously. does anyone remember how shitty the art department website used to be? with the three famous paintings at the top, the picture of the building and the arbitrary colors? THAT WAS KULCZAK'S DESIGN! i'm being taught by a mad man, who talks like chong and has an unnatural love of bright green text.



wah.

 omg. i'm going to the uncommon conversation with levar burton next thursday. totally worth skipping work. totally.

so working from 8am to 7pm in the lab isn't too unbearable. i get a lot of monologues stuff taken care of and today i worked on a bunch of poems for my upcoming turn in the writing workshop.

i also learned, through a comment conversation on emily's facebook album, that lila's quirky personality is pretty standard for tortoiseshells. it's referred to as "tortie temperment" or "tortitude": being skittish and bitchy, but having a sweet side when calm.

http://www.purrspectives.net/torties/torties.php

great. now i feel like a cat racist.

 i had a dream that i the police kept coming to my door to arrest me. i turned them away or ignored them for the first few times, but they kept coming back. finally one time they just grabbed me and i thought, "shit! why didn't i listen to stephanie jirard. she said i didn't even have to answer the door!" they carried me out to the car, but then there was just one guy with me. i kept asking him what i had done, but he wouldn't tell me. at one point i tried to guess, but then i remembered that i didn't want to incriminate myself. we stopped at the police station, which was in between a sheetz and a pizza shop. and he went in while i waited in the car, then my mom was there. then i had this dream about my dad. the first long one in a while. he and sam and i were in this house waiting for some sort of chaos outside to calm down. and i remember madonna was there. and she sold a famous dress of hers and i couldn't believe it, but my dad said that that was the real her. and i wondered if they had been lovers once a long time ago. then sam and dad were playing this game that i can only describe as a sort of live action donkey kong. just because sam was floating in this watery cave and dad was shooting this gun full of giant runts candies at him and sam had to swipe them away to get points. then my dad and i were just sitting in this room that was all lit up from the sun. and i noticed that he had a really big, perfectly round belly. i suddenly remembered that he was dying and i asked him if he wanted to go for a walk in the garden. the daffodils were blooming. he said  no, he was too tired. i woke up. and was about to try to go back to sleep, when i noticed it was light outside, and i knew i must have slept in. i looked at my phone, which i left on vibrate last night, and sure enough it was 10:00. two hours late for my day long shift in the lab. i cursed the whole way to school only to find that no one really seemed to notice. *shrugs*

the house is quiet. i feel like i must have been making up the noises i'm used to hearing. 

a lovely weekend. i got some badly needed sleep friday night. the rest of the weekend consisted of crossword puzzles, baking, general lounging around. mmmm.

on the drive home i listened to a thing on npr about whale sounds and songs, and then mostly panda bear. and despite the forecast, not a single deer.

when i got home sadie was so happy to see me. she nuzzled my legs and breathed heavy, relieved sighs. my puppo.

The Gallery Website (katey did most of the work <3)
our sexy intern blog
The Reflector site! (it still needs some work on the navigation...but it's up!)