So, I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this or not, but I have had arthritis ever since I was a wee child and most of the time, it’s just in my knees and every now and then, in my shoulder (the one that got dislocated… jeez, I’m a fucking wreck), but recently, it’s been acting up in my hands and fingers (oh look at that, I did make a link for that and it HURT… enough of that shit, stupid CNTL-C action). And for the last week, I’ve been fighting the aching tide of a major bout in my left hand, which is my favored hand for everything except holding a pen (the previous link explains that favoring as well DO NOT MAKE ME LINK AGAIN. Gah, Internet, you’re so demanding) but when Esteban opened his present from me, which was a Wii and also that guitar game, I knew that if I had to take action. I bought one of those 12-hour heaty wrap glove things and have been wearing one solid for the last 24 hours and hey, they work pretty well! Well enough that I can play the guitar game without pain and can type this here post, but the downside is that it looks remarkably like a cast. So much so that when I went to lunch with the boys today, three of them separately asked what I did to my hand (the entire end of the table recited the answer back to the third guy) and then when we went to dinner at my favorite little Café, Mario came out and asked what I did to injure myself. When I explained that I had arthritis and it was just a heat pack, the Italian said “Oh yes, in this awful cold place, this is how it is during the winter. These are the things you must do here!” and then Esteban and I both laughed because these? These are the things you must do.
Anyway, if you’d like a lot of unusual attention, wear a heat wrap and everyone will be all up in your grill! It’s very fun at parties.
I still have a sloppy windshield on the car. Apparently the new winter blades don’t bend or something. Blah blah blah geometry.
In other paperwork, the workshop for my story went well (Professor Dreamy called the story “ethereal” but in my opinion, it totally needs a major rewrite). Final grades for the semester are in and I got an A in my class, am back on the Dean’s list and my GPA is starting its slow crawl toward recovering from the damage done by the grade for the SciFi class. I know, I know, I make a big deal about it, but seriously, it grates me to no end.
I had a bunch of stuff to say about Christmas and my trip to LA and Mo‘s shindig (which truly was the best party I’ve ever attended in my life, arthritic hands down) and familial drama and craziness at work and whatnot, but meh. I’m trying to look forward, angel, etc.
I was chatting with Jake recently, about how had I known when I was 17 what I know now, I would have tried to get into Harvard, because I could have done a free ride given my golden standing as an impoverished youth with excellent potential, but at the time, I assumed it was out of my reach. Jake’s thought is that we never would have become friends because a Harvard graduate wouldn’t have had a Chubby Tink on her online diary on a free hosting site. I disagreed, stating that my entire intent when I started this page back in 2000 was to not take myself or writing so seriously and Chubby Tink was a reminder of that fact. At the time, I was so blocked and freaked out by the blank page that it was mostly impossible to even construct a sentence. Sometimes I’d just fill entire pages with repeated nonsense phrases, just trying to work my head over the wall, but it just wasn’t happening. And so I tried the Diaryland thing and then people started reading it and gradually, the stuff started leaking out of my head, which is awesome and great and I totally credit this page and all of you for breaking me out of the Fortress of Solitude bullshit that I was doing. And so next semester, when (if) I finish my master’s, in a large part, it’s because of this page and because of this community and because of you. And so thank you for that and for everything.
And then I think of all of the positive things in my life that have happened because of this community. The Minicons, the bffs, the Holiday Card Exchange, the causes we’ve helped, the people who have met and hung out together and become friends, possibly effects that have sprung out of this ridiculous little writing experiment. It is truly a fantastic thing.
My goal in the next year is to honor that more often, with my stupid little tales of commuting and cubicle life and ridiculous travelogues and silly drunken foolishness and also to remind myself, yet again, not to take myself so seriously. Here’s to 2008!
