the end

as of today i have one more days worth of undergraduate education. i will be forever removed from the world of undergraduates. am i sad, no. am i so stressed, unbelievably yes. i have been writing papers since wednesday, and i am so close to being done. today i woke up at 7:30 and actually have been doing school work until five minutes ago when i think my brain stopped working. this moment comes in its most cruel form. i am less then a page away from finishing all the work i need to get done today .. and i am at a loss. i can not longer think, about anything. i must write but all will power is slowly fading away. i wish i could motivate myself. like i could tell myself to keep working, that i am doing a good job, and it would be motivational. but its not, maybe i should give up. would it be sad, one day from the end if i quite college and joined a traveling circus?

the guilt

one of the things i hate is to call home and my dad is completely distracted from what i am trying to tell him.

i called home tonight to ask my parents if they wanted me to cook diner tomorrow, when i come home for a quick visit. i asked my dad if he wanted me to cook the recipe i had selected, he never answered the question. when he is tired its hard for him to concentrate, but it still makes me so frustrated. there is a lot of guilt associated with this frustration. i know it is not his fault, it was not a part of his pre-tumor personality. so, i feel guilty for not being more understanding, not being more patient with my dad. but, i just want to yell at him on the phone, "answer my question!" or "let me finish a sentence!" or "just listen to what i am saying!" and i feel guilty.

i worry sometimes about my mom. i only have to deal with my dads "situation" for short periods of time and mostly over the phone. my mom has to be understanding all the time. this creates more guilt. and now, i also feel guilty for not being able to help my mom.

there is never a time, right now, that i don't feel guilty for something. if i had a day off and went out and had a great time, maybe got a little to drunk, i feel guilty. guilty for not using my day off to see my dad, guilty for having a good time when my mom is always blamed for my dads frustration, guilty for over consumption and not taking better care of myself.

will these feelings ever go away, or will they only be worse once i move to new york city. i know part of the reason i choose to move back in with my parents this summer was to stop feeling so guilty for everything i do and everything i think.

the guilt is sometimes so consuming that i find it hard to be around other people. it's not that i don't want the company. its that my guilty thoughts are so over powering, so consuming that they conflict with my interactions with others, they make it hard for me to speak coherently.

to fight the guilt, i am working on being in the moment. to focus only on what is going on right here, right now. not to think about the what i should had done or what i need to do, but what i am doing.

the preservative

i think i have an intolerance to msg. i am not sure if i actually do, i have a tendency to be a bit of... alright a really big hypochondriac. i though i might have had a peanut allergy because the past two day my throat and tongue was swollen and the only thing that i could have eaten out of my normal consumption was roasted peanuts on tuesday and dark chocolate m&ms yesterday. but i ate almost an entire jar of peanut butter last week.
after a very detailed analysis of my eating habits with my roommates the only explanation is msg. i was able to waste valuable hours, not writing my paper, at 3am this morning looking up all the symptoms of msg intolerance. from my online work, i have discovered two possibilities to my ailments: 1. i am much bigger hypochondriac than i realized; or 2. i actual can no longer eat food containing high amounts of msg. i am going to do a test and spend the next two weeks avoided all foods with msg.
i think my years of eat the absolute worse food has actually caught up with me. i had been trying to be healthier (skinnier) the past two months. but this intolerance my actual force me to eat really well. there will only be snack of kashi and apples, and the dreaded candy and chips will be banned from my presence. i hope i can accomplish this, but i am not very optimistic.

the procrastinator

i am still lacking all motivation to get my ass in gear and write my diane arbus/ judith butler paper for tomorrow. i woke up extra early today to double check on my power point presentation for today and get a jump start on writing my paper. instead, i am writing a completely pointless blog to pass the time before my presentation.

i looked up the definition of procrastination. the one from the american heritage dictionary is my absolute favorite:

pro·cras·ti·nate
v. intr. To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.
v. tr. To postpone or delay needlessly.

the sun

had i not had to work today would have been the best.

today was that kind of first truly spring day, it was warm and sunny and happy. its the kind of day that makes me want to avoid all work and spend all day on my porch. today i was reminded what the sun looks like, the actual sun. not that bright spot behind the endless clouds that only appears are the really nice days of the dreaded buffalo winter. i got to enjoy this day in an office with no windows. i spent the entire day trying, and failing miserably to create a work schedule for my fellow employees. but to make up for it i came home and made my self a spring themed mix instead of writing the eight page paper due this thursday. the mix makes me happy, the paper does not. the mix is full of all the songs on want to listen to on a day like today, with all my windows down and my car tape deck turn all the way up.

the mix is as follows:
1. "liza jane" the apples in stereo
2. "fists up" the blow
3. "wagon wheel" old crow medicine show
4. "blister in the sun" violent femmes
5. "stop whispering" radiohead
6. "noah's ark" cocorosie
7. "evening on the ground" iron and wine
8. "love is an arrow" aberfly
9. "new soul" yael naim
10. "goodness gracious me" peter sellers and sophia loren
11. "waterfall" the stone roses
12. "dance tonight" paul mccartney
13. "right moves" josh ritter
14. "puppy love" peggy honeywell
15. "all i want is you" barry louis polisar
16. "the sidewinder sleeps tonight" r.e.m.
17. "johnny two bands" vincent vincent and the villains
18. "mad mrs leroy brown" loretta lynn
19. "my coco" stellastarr

* for close and dear friends (who are willing to cook me food) i will make copies.

the telephone

i am learning to have a better relationship with my telephone. i use to dread having to talk to anyone on the phone about anything other then making plans to meet up and actually talk.

i have upped the phone calls with the family to almost everyday. i found the phone conversation with my dad will dictate my attitude for the rest of the day. a good day for my dad will equal a good day for me. today was a good day. sometimes i think the conversation with my dad will dictate other things as well. if my dad is having a bad day, i find myself hitting every red light on the way to the grocery store, or i am fifteen minutes late to every class. i know i can manage my own fate with less phone calls, but then i am only calling on really really bad days.

the problem will the increased number of calls per week is that i am constantly reminded that my father is not the same person he was before the surgery, and before the radiation. my dad and i use to have a nice father daughter witty banter. that is something that is no longer possible, and i find myself missing that aspect of my dad every time i hang up the phone. i never thought that at my, and his, age i would be unable to talk to my dad on the phone. i use to be frustrated by the sunday phone calls with my parents, now i would give anything to get to have just one more of those phone calls.

intro

i feel my blog needs an introduction or background information, something to introduce why i am creating a blog when i never even kept a journal. i am a twenty something dealing with the fatality of my father. last november my dad was diagnosed with a very serious form of brain cancer. glioblastoma. like the magic eight ball says, "outlook not so good."
at the same time i am also dealing with graduating, graduate school and moving out of my city apartment and back in the suburban home i grew up in and spent so many years and conversations with friends hating.
in my almost 23 years of existence hopeful and optimistic are not the words my friends would choose to describe me. so, i guess this blog is place for my cynicism and sarcasm to come to rest.