Until I Bleed

The quarter is over, but I’ve found myself with the opportunity to stay as busy as I ever have been. The final hurdle for classes was borne of my own wait-until-the-last-minute attitude; I started writing my final thesis paper at 1:00 a.m. on the day it was due. I expunged my ideas onto the page through a mental shunt, expectorated through the assistance of coffee, cigarettes, peanuts, half a 10” Godiva chocolate cheesecake (thanks Mom & Dad), and a four hour nap on the couch. I could have expanded more on some of my ideas and made the paper a bit longer; but once they were all out of my brain, onto the screen, and deemed coherent by an old friend, a quick reformat to MLA style told me I had hit the minimum page requirement, and the light in my brain flickered out like a candle at the end of its wick. Two days, two liters of Irish, and twenty-two hours of sleep later, I re-read it to find I had done a pretty decent job. I finished the quarter with a 3.43 GPA, which doesn’t disappoint me because I know I could have tried harder and done better. Good thing I have eight more of those to prove this.

We’re technically on a break, but my days haven’t gotten any shorter since it began. I work my usual 9-5, Monday through Friday office job. My current task is to compile thirteen years worth of monthly newsletters (while still putting out new ones) and input the information into one big database. I’ve been at it for about a week, and I don’t expect I’ll be done before the end of next summer. It’s nice to have a guarantee that I’ll be able to work the maximum number of allowed hours to help get the gorilla of credit card debt off my back. Speaking of, only one payment remains on one card before it’s paid off, and transferring that payment to another card for January will pay it off, too. After those two are paid, I'll only have 2 cards, 1 loan, and 1 IRS back-payment to make each month. Until I graduate, and have to start paying back my FAFSA for grad school and the deferment ends for my undergrad loan…

I hope someday between now and then to own a television. I miss watching movies and TV on the couch instead of my desk chair.

I got to capitalize on my income (and my free time) this weekend by picking up a few shifts for a friend who does building security. For three nights I sat in the lobby of the building where Bugsy Moran once lived. It’s cool being in the lobby of history; above me is the penthouse where a prohibition era gangster escaped the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre ‘cause he didn’t get the message about the meeting, and below me are the deep, deep vaults where he hid his liquor.

Then on Sunday I was a child wrangler (yeehaw) for a table reading of A Raisin in the Sun before heading over to the home of an out-of-town friend to play with his kittens and his Nintendo. Turns out the new Punch Out is just as infuriating as an adult as the old one was twenty years ago.

Wow. I clearly remember stuff that happened twenty years ago. Never did that before.

And being out of extra-curricular tasks for the time being, I’m back to taking my exercise up another notch. I’m at the frustrating point of weight loss where the progress tapers off and becomes barely noticeable. So instead of getting discouraged, I’m working out for 30 minutes in the morning and an hour at night. It’s weird how expending more energy gives me so much more energy. I wake up just as easily as I fall asleep at night (which is to say very easily), and my morning coffee is all the caffeine I need all day. So far I’ve taken 5 ½ inches off my waist at about a loss of something like 30 pounds since the day after my birthday when I started this process. One of these days I’ll have to figure out how to get a shirtless picture of myself that doesn’t make me look like a douchebag.

Fun fact – one can indeed jog over snow and ice when it’s 28 degrees outside. More on this as it develops.

These last two years have been an abusive, torturous Hell of a rich and various nature as I paid for the mistakes of my 20’s. I have been wounded. I have bled. I have despaired. For a while there I was downright pissy (don’t take my word for it, just ask anybody). But I have risen each day seeking the paths of salvation no matter how arduous, faced every challenge that awaited me and those that came unbidden. I have stood victorious as often as I have failed, each win more significant than the last. And I will sleep each night secure in the knowledge that I am better prepared for tomorrow’s trials than I was yesterday. And I will stand and face each one in turn or several at once, and those I do not master today will fall before me as a curtain of ash falls before a windstorm.

Bring it on, motherfuckers.