The Eleventh: Slightly More Awake

So I'm sittin here eatin dried cranberries, which are delicious by the way, but at 36 cents an Oz. are way out of my price range. Seriously, do you know how small an Oz. can be with dried food stuffs?! So I'm sittin here with some tea abrewin slowly wakin up from my morning coma to find its really fuckin late. I might very well fail this Comp class.

The blog per day ratio has shot up dramatically in the past few days due to not meeting expected quotas on Sunday and Monday. There are two papers I really must have done by the fourth, that are as of yet simply good ideas and fragile outlines. The acceptance system is very strange to me. Her Mistress the Professor will only accept one paper at a time... but what is a time? Could I turn one in during class, then rush home an email her another? This will soon be tested as there are not nearly enough days left to be meek. I don't care to inherit the earth - I need to pass!

Honestly I had this class in the bag a few months ago. It was fun. I was living the high life, turning papers in early, getting them returned with minimal revisions, actually enjoying the assignments as they came to us. Fucking wonderful. This college thing was shaping up to be a fucking piece of cake.

...Until the Bacchae and pulling out my hair, and getting into character, and not having a clue what I was doing, and dating when I shouldn't be, and being a professional, and not having enough sex, and getting good reviews, but not any sleep... Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming all this on the big bad college theatre machine that chews up hard working young girls and spits out nudey-modelin, drug-takin divas. Not in the slightest. The Manson Girls were completely in the wrong, but wasn't Manson himself a little bit responsible too?

At this point I should digress, but never fear dear readers I wont. And another thing: What the hell is this workshop style class shit? I welcome the idea in theory, but in principle all I really want is two more hours in my pajamas. Like a baby. Hmm I must sound awfully immature and childlike at this point. It's ok you can be honest with me. I might cry and throw something at the computer screen, but that's ok... Really it is... I'm gonna go take another nap.

The Fourth: Self Lovin'

Yesterday, Thanksgiving, was quite a party. Pies, puddings, casseroles, mashes, 'n' salads all graced my plate ...many times! The family graced my home, music graced our ears, and even a (very) little bit of whiskey graced my lips. For ten hours I lived it up with the people I cherish most in the world but see more seldom than the postman. A strange experience to say the least.
Today, Black Friday, was a time to sit, to be quiet, and to read. There is a history test Monday on the Civil War and, until this morning, a thick layer of dust on my textbook. Weary-eyed, tired and filled with pounds of food I was not a pretty sight to behold. So I turned to my new favorite remedy...
Let me start by saying my father is a chemist. I grew up watching him mix substances I wasn't allowed to touch with names I couldn't pronounce. I remember sneaking off to the kitchen, getting out anything I could reach from the cabinets and reproducing all those experiments on my own. It's stuck with me and to this day few things are comparable to the joy of mixing up strange potions with stuff in the fridge.
A few spoons of Malt-O-Meal, an equal amount of granulated sugar, a spoonful of coffee grounds a dash of milk and swish of vanilla extract - TaDa! A body scrub that smells like a latte and feels expensive. I heard once that a dip in the sea is good for the skin. In goes a cup of salt to my bath. Somewhere I read a palm full of olive oil does hair good; I do that too and when I'm out I use the left over sour cream for the salad dressing to slather on my face!
Pampering yourself is divine. Really I try to meditate while scrubbing off dead layers of skin and getting the dirt from my toenails. Your body is your temple, your center, the one thing you can't take off. If you loose your mind body connection everything else suffers. In the past few months I've gained a new respect for taking time out to reconnect with yourself through your body. The Bacchae no doubt is the reason for this shift in perspective. I'm not one to be religious; I haven't been in years and years. To fulfil the demands of the role I absolutely had to find the spiritual side of my life, and there it be. Respect for one's mind is a thinking thing, naturally, but respect for one's body requires an abandonment of the sensible and a surrender to the sensual, much like religion. [wow what a convoluted sentence...] All of that is probably really simple for spiritual people to understand. It's in the definition of spiritual. I'm getting there...
I'm glad to have had the opportunity to feel these things and to find a fun way to get there. My hair smells awesome.

The First

Let's get this straight, I'm only doing this because I have to. I've tried journaling before with hopes of relieving my internal monologue, to find it only encourages it. If I could get away with faking this project maybe I would. Now, on to the grueling self-indulgence...

Everyday is a new day. You can tell yourself that, but to what affect? Will you rise earlier and make pancakes in honor of this fresh dawn, or rush off to chores left undone by the end of the last "new day"? Will you skip class to walk by the river, pick flowers, make eyes at an interesting stranger, or what have you? Perhaps, you'll simply go to class and focus really fucking hard.
As this new day closes I worry I've made the wrong choices. I rose early from disturbing dreams to curse my mother and the cold. I made breakfast slow and patiently. Moving from the TV to the kitchen to the TV eating as I went. I watched Saturday morning cartoons, sipped coffee in the garden, drove to rehearsal and nearly wrecked several times. I meditated, played, forgot my lines, and wore myself out. When I cried the tears weren't of me, but came from me. It was the fear of failure seeping out to settle just a little farther away. I drug myself to the car, came home, and made dinner slow and patiently. I moved from the TV to the kitchen to the TV to the computer eating as I went, listlessly. I came to rest here three and a half hours left and counting. Exciting? No.
I shouldn't punish myself at so soon a juncture for I do not know how I live, nor how I should be living. The frame of reference is as of yet too small to make comparisons. Answers lie in the future, and I eagerly await a brand new day.

[Edt. Is this enough? Fingers crossed!]