When Life Gives You PTSD. . .

This is going to be a little bit of a heavier post, so if you object to those, skip it. 

The second half of my freshman year of college, I spent a lot more time hanging out in various dorms on campus. I have never lived on campus, which is simultaneously something I regret and something I'm glad about. But I made lots of good friends, specifically in the dorm called Hogle. I spent a lot of time sitting on the absurdly soft couch, feet planted on the generically disgusting gray carpet, fluorescent lights illuminating our faces. One of my friends' favorite pastimes was playing the Portal series of games. Now, I've never been much of a one for playing video games, but I enjoy hearing the backstories of different games, especially if the premises are clever, and my friends were happy to oblige. My friend Mitch in particular liked telling me about the whole backstory of Aperture industries, and he showed me videos--credit songs, clips, and the like--that I found funny even though I had not personally played the games.

One of the quotes he shared with me was this: 

I laughed at the time. It was funny. I mean, burning the house down with lemons? Priceless.

About two years later, life in the form of abuse handed me about six pounds of lemons in the form of something we know as  PTSD. Normally associated with soldiers, PTSD can follow any sort of traumatic event. It can follow anything mentally or physically scarring. 

And it's not something that you can just make life take back. It's not even something you can make lemonade with, really. Lemon water, maybe; but there's no way to sweeten it. And no matter how many times you yell "I DON'T WANT YOUR DAMN JOHN KEATS-ING LEMONS," nothing happens. 

Normally, I'm pretty good at forgetting about the (metaphorical) lemons. When I was in school, I shoved them behind classes and put so much effort into schoolwork that I had a good enough reason to just be exhausted and spacey at the end of the day. If something made me jump, or have a flashback, I felt it for a few minutes and then I would (unsuccessfully) stuff it and carry on with whatever I was doing. Usually, stuffing it would mean I was actually complete wreck trying to behave like a human; and people would notice, but they would let me continue to feel like I was functioning normally. 

The closer I got to graduation, the more this would happen. March marked what would have been my two-year-wedding anniversary, and on the weekend after that particular event I was working at my job. I remember that day dimly, as is the trend with most things associated with my marriage, but the best way I could explain it is like walking in slow-motion through clothesline after clothesline of white sheets in the fog. My limbs felt heavy and I didn't feel I had a good reason for feeling depressed. I just knew that I wanted to be still, but being still meant thinking about things, and so I tried to do the tasks that had been set for me, but because it felt like I was mentally moving through an empty, sticky white space, I wasn't doing ANYTHING well. Really. Anything. It's a wonderful thing that my bosses understood and didn't take disciplinary action somehow, although they did talk to me about it later and mentioned that if I was having another crippling day, I should probably take it off because I wasn't any use to anyone like that. 

Graduation day came, and, instead of being happy, I was terrified. I was terrified because of the vague nameless thing people call Real Life, but mostly I was terrified because I knew I wouldn't have school to distract me from the (metaphorical) lemons. I managed to put on a veneer for the people who were happy and proud of me for graduating. It was not a very good one, because veneers take energy (something I didn't have) to maintain, and mine started fracturing almost as soon as it was in place. 

I kept it on for two weeks or so by telling myself that I Have A Trajectory. Which, I think I do, but what I realized is that at this point in time I don't have the impetus to get it moving. I don't have the energy to do anything other than what I am doing, because I'm too busy realizing the extent of the damage that has been done to me emotionally and mentally--because I didn't have to realize it when I was analyzing Shakespeare or talking about Postcolonial Literary Theory.

And then, about halfway through the second week of June, I hit a mental wall. I hit it full-force, face-on. Thankfully my best friend Kate was around to do a little Superhero-Movie-Night damage control, and it definitely helped, but it was triage to what I was coming to realize was a lot more complicated than your average mental hiccup. Waking up every morning has been walking-slow-motion-through-the-white-bedsheet-forest and some days it's worse than others. Some days I feel like a broken, invisible, non-functional friendless non-human and it's almost debilitating. Other days I'm irritated with everything around me and I feel like a trapped animal, itching to get out by any means necessary. But everything's gotten harder, and takes twice as much effort. On good days, I feel numb and exhausted, which is preferable and more productive to feeling like I'm stuck in a fog. 

And then the nightmares started up this week. I don't dream normally, anymore. Sleep is generally a vast black landscape dotted with the occasional night terror that I don't remember clearly upon waking up. I've had at least four distinct nightmares that I can remember this week alone and it's making me wake up more tired than I was when I went to bed. Now, I've no doubt that some of you reading this might roll your eyes and tell me to get over myself, get therapy, take meds, etc. etc., and don't worry, I'm looking into that. 

I'm not telling you all this because I want attention. I'm telling you all this for two reasons.

Reason #1: If there's one thing I've learned from this crappy mental state, it's that hearing that other people feel like they are stuck in the foggy, bedsheet forest helps the feelings of loneliness subside a little; a sort of "you aren't alone in your feelings." Which, I grant you, is a cliche. But I look at my friends, and they all seem so comfortable and happy with their lives, and I just feel like the poorly-glued-and-stitched together Creature.  And don't give me any of that scars make you beautiful and unique crap. Sometimes scars are just ugly, and I feel like mine are glaringly obvious even when people assure me that they aren't and I'm normal. It gets incredibly easy to feel alone and disconnected because brains that function like mine are not how most people's brains function. 

Case in point: The conversation that helped me the most this month so far was with a friend who has recently moved back from California. I went over to her place, and we both just ended up talking the entire evening about phobias, dysfunctions, and trauma, and not a minute of it felt like someone just mouthing their sympathy at me or patting me on the head and telling me life would get better, here are x, y, and z ways to fix it. I may have come out of this thing alive, and even come out of it a stronger person, but that doesn't mean it didn't mess with me in ways that I'm only beginning to understand. 

Sometimes it's just nice to hear that life is unfair. And it's nice to talk to someone who genuinely understands what it feels like to have crawled through the darkness and are unsure what to do with their lives now that they're done with it. Because as unbearable as the darkness is, in some ways, the emptiness is worse: it's not as easy to shift. 

You start looking for things to fill it up with, and nothing quite does the job. TV shows end. Books end. People disappear from your life, or simply just have to go home for the evening. And whatever sense of security you get from being whisked away to another world or being in the presence of people just dries up, and you're left trying to figure out how to deal with the broken piece of machinery you call your brain.

 It's honestly no wonder that so many soldiers turn to alcohol or something equally potentially addictive in order to soften the harshness of the reality of 1) what has happened to them and 2) what to do next. The emptiness can set you reeling. And just when you start feeling a little better, another trigger comes along--a memory, a text, a place--and it starts all over again.

Which brings me to Reason #2: I figured it was time. I'm tired of being tired. I'm tired of feeling empty. I'm tired of feeling like an invisible non-functioning non-human thing. I'm tired of the little triggers that set my brain wandering in a negative chemical swamp. I'm tired of watching my ex bounce around, happy and living a normal life as though nothing in the damned world happened a year ago. 

If you'd asked me before this month, I'd have said the hardest thing in my life up to that point was deciding to go through with the annulment. Now I'd say that was the second hardest thing, because what I'm about to attempt--paying attention to the problems in my brain, and actually healing from everything--is going to be more difficult. Mental and emotional scarring isn't like physical scarring. Especially because, in order to cope, my actual emotions have essentially been paralyzed for a year and a half. 

I don't need to be told that I'm strong or that I can do this, because I know I can. I'm determined and I'm smart, and for Ray Bradbury's sake, I made it through college while handling a messy annulment. And I graduated with highest honors. I'm not afraid of tough things or challenges. 

It's more, I'm not sure where I'm going to start; but I'm going to go ahead and count this as a first step. It's been so hard to convince myself to write over the last few weeks, and I practically had to bribe myself in order to write this post (episodes of Supernatural, I'm looking at you). I just know I've got to pull out of this if I'm going to accomplish any of the things I want to. 

In the immortal words of Allie Brosh: "Maybe everything isn't hopeless bullshit."

*throws some metaphorical lemons at a metaphorical target*

Here goes, then. 

An Open Letter to my Father

Dear Dad,

I can currently hear you playing guitar from my vantage point upstairs. It's a Leo Kodke-induced fever melody full of capos and strumming (as it has been for the last ten years you've been learning how to play) and it's the perfect accompaniment to this letter. Because apparently, it's Father's day. 

Or something.

Now, if you're going to ask me how I feel about Father's day, I'd say something about capitalism and Corporate America and how I feel like parents are better served by being treated well by their children year-round instead of just one day in the middle of June, for some reason. Why June? What's so particularly paternal about June? 

In spite of my skepticism, I'm going to write you this letter anyway. 

You already know the story of my earliest, clearest memory of you. But the internet doesn't know, so I'm going to tell the good bunch of strangers and friends about that time I called you a bozo on accident, and you put me in time-out. 

Your main defense here is that I was a particularly precocious child, and my vocabulary was ridiculously wide for a three-year-old. Actually, technically, that's all yours and Mom's fault, because you guys insisted on reading to me and letting me watch Looney Tunes. It wasn't my fault I happened to take to reading like fire takes to tinder, or understood all the jokes in the Looney Tunes by some weird sort of transubstantiation of knowledge. You just gave me too much credit in assuming I'd know what bozo meant.

Child Hilary: 1. 

Apparently, you were also dressed rather shabbily because you were out doing yard work, and what I meant to say was hobo, not bozo. They're totally different. In my defense, I had had a cheap bozo costume set that consisted of a plastic bowler hat, but apparently the manufacturers of this set were convinced that bozos looked like hobos from the 1940's, so technically, again, I'm not in the wrong here. It's not my fault that those costume-makers had serious discrimination issues where poor people from the Great Depression were concerned. 

Because telling your dad he looks like a hobo is way better than telling him he looks like a bozo. Right? 

I know, I know. That's debatable. The point is, I called you a bozo in good spirit, and you got angry--"MY DAUGHTER IS NOT GOING TO CALL ME A BOZO" and put me in time-out. Which, as a child, I was confused and hurt by. I stared at the corner where the walls met for five minutes, wondering what I had done wrong, feeling indignant and betrayed, even though I probably had no idea I was feeling indignant, but betrayed sounds like a word I would have known. 

At three, I didn't understand the larger meaning of this incident: that you were never mean to me or reprimanded me physically, that you thought I was smart enough to know what I was saying, because I was, in a way. I didn't understand yet what a blessing it was to have a father who was invested in making sure I knew I was smart, and invested in helping me develop that intelligence.

I understand now how lucky I was to have you read books out loud to me (even though by the time I was about eight we both knew that I could read faster than you could, but I let you read to me anyway). I understand now how lucky I was that you wanted me to be a smart and powerful woman. I was lucky to have a father who impressed upon me the importance of doing well in school. 

I understand how lucky I am, now better than ever, after I was the recipient of a large and generous investment: my college education. I'm fairly sure I made a return on the investment by graduating with a 3.9, and I'm glad I did that. I honestly only did as well as I did because of the way you and Mom raised me. Also partly because I'm a perfectionist, but mostly because of the raising thing. 

You might not be one of those dads who loads up the shotgun every time I bring a guy home (which, granted, hasn't happened a whole lot), or makes up obscenely complicated and patriarchal rules for men who want to date me, but to be honest I'm glad you're not. I'm grateful that you aren't overbearing, even though I'm your only kid. I'm glad that you trust me to make wise and well-informed decisions.

Thank you for being a quiet yet constant source of support in my life. And also for introducing me to Looney Tunes, Monty Python, Harry Potter, Nova, and Shakespeare. But not in that order, obviously, because if you'd gone right from Looney Tunes to Monty Python I think I would have been scarred for life. 

Thank you for being encouraging and for being real, honest, and up-front with me at every turn. Thank you for the guidance during high school and for the college education. Thank you for believing in me and my dreams, no matter what. 

Your Good Parenting: 1,000,000.

So I guess we can let the time you put me in time-out because I called you a bozo slide. Mostly because sometime within the next few years I hid in the coat closet, waiting for you to come home from work so I could jump out and scare the crap out of you. Which I did. Points to me. 

Love,

Hilary

June is just another word for "Use Two Blankets"

I live in the desert, for some reason. Where it gets hot during the summer. At least, people tell me it gets hot, and I believe them about 90% of the time, because when I walk outside it is in fact, hot.

Sometimes I call BS. 

Today was one of those days. 

My internal thermometer seems to have gotten jarred somewhere around adolescence, because I used to be able to jump into swimming pools and paddle around without shivering, or walk around on sixty-degree days without a jacket. Not anymore. Now, I run cold. Air conditioning, while amazing, is also the invention of someone who really must have hated people who get cold easily, because my body is never more confused than the moments when it's almost as warm as the legendary fires of Hell outside and I go inside to promptly wrap up in a blanket. Or at least, I want to wrap up in a blanket, but you get strange looks if you do that anywhere outside the privacy of your own home during the summer. I much prefer cooler seasons, because at least I'm justified in being cold all the time. I can wear a coat or, you know, a ski parka, and people are like, yeah, it's dang cold, I totally get you. When you complain about being cold in the summer, people give you these weird looks and tell you that you should play outside more. 

Exhibit A: My boss, AJ, ALWAYS tells me to play outside more.

Playing outside is swell, but then sometimes the outside decides it wants to possibly kill you, and then when it fails to do that, it decides it wants to make you as miserable as possible.

Today was the first Downtown Farmers' Market of the season, and I work the table with AJ, who owns the Chocolate Conspiracy and is functionally my employer but also one of my very best friends. He's an incredibly good-natured human being who has been an amazing boss (and I work with chocolate, worst job ever right?) and I thoroughly enjoy being in his company, selling chocolate to the sometimes slightly awkward masses of people who frequent places like the Downtown Farmers' Market. Awkwardness aside, the people are actually all quite lovely and it's nearly impossible to be human and not like chocolate, so we do all right. 

The Summer Market, though, is supposed to be...what's the word? Right. Summery. In my book, that means hot, obscenely sunny (at least sunny enough to cause me to wear SPF 50 and a giant floppy sunhat. Which, if there had been a Looking Adorable in a Giant Floppy Sunhat competition, chances are I would have won it), and probably sticky. Because hotness means stickiness. 

Nope. It was cold. I was dressed fairly conservatively in a maxi skirt and t-shirt, but it was freezing. And our booth is in the shade, so even when it was sunny, it was freezing. The high was 72. 72. In June. Where I'm from, that's nearly unheard of. Even AJ was cold. AJ, who puts the air conditioner on in the chocolate shop and laughs when I retreat to fetch my Grandpa Sweater out of the back room. 

I got to the market a bit earlier than my shift and decided that, because it was so cold, I was going to go explore. The logic behind that thinking was that movement would make me warmer, but I hadn't accounted for windchill or cloud cover. I had been to the market the previous year and had noticed a few novelties that I was keen on owning, like mittens, which, you know, are for winter. So I stopped by the Woolies booth, which are these amazing mittens made from old sweaters, and browsed. I saw this gorgeous red pair--red is my favorite color (which for some reason surprises some people) and I knew they had to be mine. They were being handled by another set of people and as soon as they put them down, I grabbed them. 

MY MITTENS

I wasn't thinking the chill would last much longer than mid-morning, so I made my way back to my booth, where AJ actually apologized for not warning me to bring a jacket. 

I almost wanted to record him saying that on my phone, since it's so rare that AJ shares my feelings about the cold, but I didn't. It won't stop him from teasing me in the future. 

I ended up putting my new mittens on, because my fingers were starting to get to the point where they weren't happily performing their duties as my digits, but I kept having to take them off (the mittens, not my fingers) in order to help people and to feed them chocolate sauce. Not feed them by hand, obviously, because that would be creepy and also I would probably not want to work the market if people expected me to feed them by hand. 

Seriously. There's no way that's in my job contract. I don't get paid enough to feed strangers by hand. I was taking sauce and putting it on sampling spoons, which is totally different. But that's not something you can really do with mittens on because nobody really wants woolen fuzz in their sauce samples, even if the fuzz came from beautiful handcrafted mittens. 

By the way, in case ANYONE was wondering, the answer to "What do I do with this chocolate sauce?" is WHATEVER YOU WANT. Really. I answered this question probably about 20 times today, and my most common response was "eat it with a spoon." Second most common was "Whatever you want" and third was probably "Put it on pancakes, waffles, ice cream, eat it with a spoon, get creative!" Condescending to people is not ever advised or condoned in my book, so this was all said with a smile and a genuine attitude.  At least, I hope it came across that way. AJ loves this question about as much as I do, so once his response was "You can put it on anything. Steak, other people, waffles..."etc. Which is true. Although I would not advise putting it on steak. 

I was cold enough that I think I startled some of my friends who stopped by to say hi, who were like, "naw, it's warm." In reply, I simply put my hands on their forearms and they jerked back, realizing that I'm actually Elsa from Frozen. Except I'm terminally brunette and I should probably just wear gloves constantly--not because I spew ice and snow but because I'm actually probably made of it. One of my friends told me I was "like ice cream," after feeling how cold I was, which I took to be a compliment because ice cream as a foodstuff is pretty amazing. Even if it's cold. 

AJ's girlfriend, Erika, eventually brought us jackets because she's the best, and both of us finally got on the path to thawing out. Although it's officially lots of hours after the market ended and I'm still having a hard time getting warm. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go to bed under two blankets. In the middle of June.* 

*I'm fairly sure I'm middle aged inside. I mean, I watch The News Hour and PBS with alarming regularity and I also do listen to NPR, so I'm basically there already. I'm pretty sure sleeping under two blankets in the middle of June is just the icing on the possibly-geriatric-inside-cake. Except possibly-geriatric-inside-cake sounds absolutely terrible. Forget that metaphor. Now. Where's my heating pad? 

"The Last Three Fries," Or That Time My Friends and I Accidentally Discovered a Portal to Hell

You know how there are days that are so surreal that you're pretty sure you've stumbled into another dimension? Or days when you're pretty sure that the walls between the worlds are thin and you may have stumbled into one of the Circles of Hell?

If you haven't had one of those days, you probably will sometime. I'm sorry. It's a reality we all have to face. Keep your chin up. Smile.

Try to smile.

Breathe.

And whatever you do, don't go to Wendy's on a Saturday Night.

Tonight, I went to see The Last Five Years with my friends Kate and Ivy, who I shall refer to from now on as Sam and Dean when I'm talking about the adventures the three of us go on. In case you were wondering, yes, that makes me Cas.

Don't question. Just go along with this.

Anyway. The Last Five Years was a beautiful musical, and very well-sung and acted. I'd not seen it before, and I was quite impressed by the premise, which was probably quite tricky to pull off from a writer's perspective. Nonlinear anything can just as often jam a monkey wrench into the creative process and make whatever you're writing into a train wreck. But this writer pulled it off.

We were all fairly hungry afterwards, and so we all piled into the Impala (I wish it was actually an Impala, that would be badass) to go find some food (pie was mentioned). We ended up at a Wendy's, because we're a bunch of college-age girls and we make great decisions when it's late at night and we've watched a show about relationships dissolving.

Kate/Sam and Ivy/Dean went to the counter to order. I was standing in the back, not really sure what to do with myself because I a) was not planning on ordering the food because I'd had dinner and b) did not attend high school with these ladies so some of their inside jokes were a little lost on me--but then, I am Cas. I feel like that's Cas's job.

Anyway, they were like, "What are you doing all the way back there, come stand with us!" So I did, leaning on the emphatically bolted down cattle-herd railing. And this guy--about fiftyish, gray, wearing a tank top, and a little overweight, came up behind me. People always talk about how you can feel when people are staring about you, but I totally did not think that was anything but a literary device until tonight.

He was looking intently at my face in profile, and I was trying to be engaged in listening to Kate and Ivy order so that I'd give off the "please don't talk to me" vibe. I'd been congratulating myself on working an entire Farmers' Market without getting awkwardly hit on once, and I didn't want to break the streak I was having today. But it totally broke.

Him: That's a beautiful dress.
Me: Thank you.
*pause as I try to look at the menu with even more intensity.*
Him: You wear it beautifully.
Me: Thank you. Really.
Him: I really like it.
Me: I like it too.
Him: You look beautiful.
Me: Thank you.
*pause as Kate and Ivy exchange a look and I straighten up from my position on the railing*
Him: Don't get nervous. I'm harmless.
Me: I know, it's fine--
Him: I just think you look beautiful.
Me: And I thank you for the compliment.
*pause as the food is placed on trays and Ivy and Kate and I exit the line*
Wendy's Worker: Can I take the next order, please?
Him: You look beautiful!

As soon as we were out of the line, I asked my two friends if we could sit somewhere where I wouldn't make eye contact with Tank Top Guy. So we sat down at a table sheltered by a wall. Kate and Ivy started eating and I munched on a few fries. Kate and Ivy reassured me by saying that they had "felt the awkward for me" from that conversation, and I thanked them. Real friends feel awkward for you when you're hit on by middle-aged guys at Wendy's.

It was somewhere in this conversation that Ivy brought up wishing it was Wednesday so we could have eaten pie from the Village Inn, and I said something about Supernatural, and that was when we assigned each other our respective roles in the show, only Kate is the good-looking first episode Stanford Sam, not Sam Whose Hair Gets Progressively More and More Out of Control.

Which is a very important distinction to make.

Ivy announced, "I'm still hungry" after consuming her chicken nugget meal, and Kate said "Here, have these last three fries," and that was when I said "What if The Last Three Fries was a musical," and then Kate and Ivy started singing "I'm Still Hungry" at the exact same time and we all dissolved into a fit of giggles, which was interrupted by one of the Wendy's Employees, who struck up a conversation with us without any preamble whatsoever.

Lady: I've been working in that hot kitchen all day, and now I have to clean up out here.

I think everyone at my table sympathized with that. Working minimum wage is hard and unforgiving and people are freaking gross at fast food restaurants. I'm not sure why this is apparently a rule of Human Nature, but it really shouldn't be. I'd like to contest it. So we made sympathetic noises and thought that was the end of it.

Obviously it wasn't, or I wouldn't still be writing. The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Lady: The belt on the vacuum broke.
Kate: Oh, that's too bad.
Me: Yeah, I bet that must be really frustrating.
Lady: It is. The corporation spends all that money making those stupid commercials, and they won't buy us vacuums.
Kate: Yeah.
Lady: Have you guys seen the Wendy's commercials? They're really stupid.
Me: Yeah, they kind of are.
Lady: Do you think it's important to have a vacuum?
Ivy: Absolutely.
Lady: Would you tell them that?
Ivy: I'd totally sign that petition. I need to go get a napkin.

For some reason, I thought she was going to get a napkin to draw up a petition, which I thought was odd. Then I realized that made absolutely no sense whatsoever, and that I probably should stop going to bed at 2 in the morning.

Lady: You should tell them.
Kate: We will.
Lady: Only the corporation is in Kansas. Like Dorothy Gale. And Toto. If Dorothy was alive today, do you think she'd want us to have a vacuum?
Me: She totally would.

But what I was thinking was, she probably wouldn't. I mean, not because she wanted to treat the employees poorly, but because she kind of probably would have a fear about things that suck air. Anyone who had had a bad experience with a tornado like that might be a little edgy about suction. I know I probably would.

And also? If Dorothy was alive today? Dorothy is a pretty solidly fictional character, so I'm pretty sure that counts as alive, in a sense, but obviously she wasn't a real person, so...

She wasn't alive to begin with? I don't know. Fiction is hard. If there's one thing analytical essays taught me, it's to write about fictional characters in the present tense. So that's what I'm basing that off of.

Lady: I was Dorothy for the company Halloween party last year.
Kate: Oh, that's so nice!
Lady: I had the ruby slippers and the braids and everything.
Kate (who was doing most of the talking, I was hiding my face in my cup of ice): That must have been so fun.
Lady: It was! But yeah, do you think if Dorothy was alive today, that she would say we should have a vacuum?
Me and Kate: Totally, yeah, of course.

Ivy returned with her napkin, and that was when I caught sight of Tank Top Guy standing by one of the doors looking at our table, and therefore probably looking at me. Which, in my book, was as much a cue to leave as anything, and my friends followed my line of sight and were like, "Yep, let's go."

We hurriedly threw our garbage away and exited out of the opposite door. Tank Top Guy called after us to "have a safe and beautiful night, ladies! And watch out for drunk drivers!"

Which is a nice sentiment, really, but the situation beforehand was so uncomfortable that relief upon escaping the Wendy's was palpable. So we giggled.

Ivy: What was that? Was that real?
Kate: What just happened?
Me: I can't even--

We collapsed into the Impala, laughing and discussing the wide variety of strange conversations we'd just been party to.

Kate: Hil, you shouldn't have brought up Supernatural, because I'm pretty sure we were just in an episode.
Ivy: Pretty sure that was Hell. I think we were just in Hell.
Me: Can we just tell people that in conversation? "Well, this is pretty bad, but there was one time that my friends and I were in Hell--"
Ivy: We can totally just undermine other people's statements. "We've been to Hell."
Me: I pulled us out of hell!
Kate: You totally did. You saved us from perdition.

And we would have collapsed into another fit of giggles, except a third person had started approaching the car, looking for all the world like he was a zombie about to tap on the glass or possibly try to kidnap Kate, because that's who he was staring at. And that was when Kate decided it was time to leave the Wendy's parking lot and get as far away as possible from that particular portal to Hell so she backed out of the parking space and hightailed it out of there.

And the nice thing about having been to Hell is that suddenly quotes about Hell become modifiable:

"Hell is empty and all the devils are at Wendy's."

It's past my bedtime (angels need sleep, too). Cue "Carry On My Wayward Son." Roll credits.

Cas OUT.

This actually is US.
It's a little scary. 

The Blasphemous Nature of Oneupmanship

One of my very favorite people in this world is my cousin, Sarah. Sarah is like Sahara in that I've known her my entire life; she's not like Sahara in that she's actually a blood-relative. Which is cool. Sarah doesn't get less points for being related to me. Mostly because she's awesome like that.

The story that I am about to tell is even funnier if you take into account that 1) Sarah is one of the most faithfully religious people I know. She is currently serving an LDS mission and she's totally blossoming doing it. Also, 2) While this incident is sort of an anomaly for Sarah's personality, especially today, it was not an anomaly for Sarah of The Past. Seriously. Sarah of the Past was quite the little trickster (and she still is, but not to the same degree) and so a lot of the funniest stories I've heard from my mom and aunt Susan have to do with Sarah.

We were all on a family vacation to Tropic. Tropic is (for those of you who don't know) a tiny little town outside of Bryce Canyon which my friends who have been there dub "sketchy" but I would just call "small and, yes, a little sketchy, but then my biological grandfather grew up there, so of course it's a little sketchy."

We don't really talk about my biological grandfather. He was not a nice person. I did not meet him once during the course of his lifetime and I know this.

But, for all its sketchiness, Tropic does have some very fond memories attached to it. My great aunt and uncle lived there, and they were some of the nicest people I've ever met. And there was also that time that my dad was spinning me around on gravel and he slipped and fell and dropped me and accidentally gave me a fat lip. It really was an accident and he felt terrible afterwards, and while I cried initially, I was sort of grotesquely fascinated by the way my lip swelled up and turned purple like a baby eggplant. This being a rural town, most people seemed to think I'd gotten nailed in the face by a stubborn mule, which was a much more interesting story than the actual truth.

This little town is where we found ourselves, and I should probably elaborate and introduce you all to the cast of characters. My parents were there, as were Sarah's, and Sarah's very sophisticated & cool older sister, Heather, and of course, Sarah and myself. I think we were about 8 or 10 at the time. Somewhere in that age range.

I had been studying Greek mythology, and that statement makes even more sense if I tell you I was homeschooled from 1st through 5th grade. Certain people, when I mention that I was homeschooled, tend to give me this superior look of, aha, that's why you're so weird. To which I would just roll my eyes and say "no, you jerk, I was always weird. Homeschooling had nothing to do with it. Also, you should probably check yourself, because I graduated college summa cum laude, so obviously the homeschooling didn't wreck my intelligence or my ability to participate in normal school." Only I wouldn't call the person(s) in question a jerk, at least not out loud, because I'm very non-confrontational.

You're welcome.

Greek mythology was actually one of my favorite parts of my school day, and so I was telling Sarah about all these super awesome gods and goddesses. Somehow, the conversation turned from just talking about the deities to becoming them, and we started trying to one-up each other by becoming a more impressive god or goddess.

The adults of our party were sitting up towards the front of the van, aware of our squabble but not exactly paying attention. Sarah and I were often more like siblings than cousins, so I guess they just thought we'd figure it out and calm down eventually.

Only then, this happened.

Me: Well, I'm Goddess of the Universe!*
Sarah: Well, I'M JESUS CHRIST.

There was a moment of stunned silence before everyone in the car started laughing. And as soon as the laughter had calmed down just enough for speech, my dad turned to my uncle Kevin and said,

"I didn't know you were God the Father!"

Which basically just sent everyone back into hysterical peals of laughter, because really, the best thing about my mom's side of the family is that they know how to laugh.

Sarah, when this story is told today, laughs and also blushes a little, because like I said, she would never in a million years say anything like that today. But the fact of the matter is, we all think this story is too dang cute not to tell every once in a while, and we all get a good laugh at it every time it's told.

All the same, it's probably best for everyone if you don't mess with my cousin. Just in case.




*no, there is no such Greek Deity. I can only assume that desperate times called for desperate imaginary measures on my part. I also would just like to say that it is in keeping with my character that I made the most powerful being I could imagine, female. I was a tiny, adamant feminist. Even then. 

The Moral of the Story Is, Don't Give Me Anesthesia

Well, that's it. You can all go home now.

Oh, right. The story. The actual story of why you should never give me anesthesia.

The summer before my senior year of high school is what I like to call "the summer of surgeries" in retrospect, because I had two of them within the span of about a month. Both of them were outpatient surgeries. Both of them had pretty intensive recovery processes and by intensive, I mean "lying on the couch because I couldn't do anything else". They weren't huge surgeries, but considering that I'd never actually been under the knife for anything at that point in my life, they were pretty considerable where I was concerned.

The first one happened pretty close to when school first got out, and it was the removal of my wisdom teeth. This was before the whole "record yourself after having a dental surgery so you can catch all the stupid things you say and have them follow you around for the rest of your life" trend, so don't get too excited. There's no audiovisual internet proof of anything I'm about to tell you, as much as I kind of wish there was.

As per directions, I did not eat or drink anything the night before the surgery, and I showed up to the dental surgeon's office with my parents (only child=very protective parents and also wisdom teeth surgery=you probably shouldn't drive yourself anywhere). I was eventually called in to a room with a dental chair, where the nurse placed a mask over my nose and mouth to administer whatever substance was going to knock me out so they could rip several teeth off of my jawbone. It was laughing gas.

I'd had a little laughing gas once before, during one of the one or two cavity procedures I'd had in my life to that point, so when she told me what it was as she clipped a pulse monitor onto my finger, I just shrugged. But then--and I kid you not--I actually started laughing. I had no idea that people actually did that--I thought it was an urban legend, like Bigfoot. There I lay, though, giggling with absolute abandon at nothing whatsoever. And so, of course, my mom--who was in the room with me at that point, started laughing, and then my dad, sensing an easy target, popped his head in and told some terrible dad jokes that I laughed at. I would have laughed at very nearly anything at that point, and underneath the laughter that felt more compulsive and unstoppable than anything else, I knew that the reaction I was having wasn't the reaction that was supposed to be happening. This was confirmed by the nurse giving me a concerned look and saying, "I think I'd better lower your dose a little bit" (my anorexia was on the temporary wane at that point in my life, but I was still a lightweight). Almost immediately afterwards, I stopped laughing and started feeling very sleepy and stupid. The last thing I remember clearly was the dentist coming in and saying drily, "Well, it sounds like someone was having a good time in here." And I remember my vague response of something about how the nurse had given me too high a dose, but I don't think he was listening. Or I wasn't actually coherent. It's entirely possible it was the latter.

The surgery itself was fine. Two of my teeth were impacted so they had to be dug out, which always kind of gives me that "ewwwww" shiver. I'm not sure how long I was out for, and I don't exactly remember waking up, because apparently as soon as I showed signs of consciousness they got me out of there. I was definitely still coming out of the drug as my parents placed me in the front seat of the car, because I don't remember most of what happened next. My parents swear this is all true, and they're generally not given to lying about things that I've done, so I trust them. Even though they CANNOT tell this story without laughing hysterically at me. Not with me. At me.

The scene: A small four-door family vehicle. The girl in question is sitting in the front passenger seat, her father is driving, and her mother is in the back passenger seat. The girl's head is lolling around like a loosely-wound bobble-head until her mom reaches up to hold it steady, and has to hold it steady for the remainder of the drive. The girl makes strange, stupid facial expressions that resemble smiles, and it's pretty clear that whatever drug she's on is still pretty laced through her system (seriously, it's a damn good thing I never feel the urge to do drugs. Based on my reaction to clinically prescribed drugs alone, I would be completely useless if I ever did get high). When suddenly, the girl speaks. Well, speaks as best as she can with a numb mouth, wads of cotton shoved down along her cheeks, and enough laughing gas in her system to probably mildly incapacitate an elephant. Or maybe just give the elephant a buzz.

Probably the elephant wouldn't even notice, so just forget that metaphor.

Me: Hemhent!

The girl's parents look at each other, bemused.

Mom: What, Hilary?
Me: Hmhent!
Dad: What?
Me: Hemehent!

Another shared look between the parents.

Me (insistently): Hmehent!
Mom: Oh, I think she means concrete!

For those of you who aren't local, Nielsen's frozen custard, also known as "concrete," is sort of like an ice cream shake if a single ice cream shake made you gain five pounds right after eating it. Frozen custard isn't called "concrete" for nothing, and I had had it maybe once or twice in my entire life before the day I got my wisdom teeth out. I can only assume that in my drugged brain, the logic went something like this:

-we are by the dentist's office
-custard is also by the dentist's office
-I just got my wisdom teeth out
-ice cream is good for people with dental surgery because cold helps pain
-CEMENT

Except probably less well formed than that. It probably looked more like this:

-dentist
-ice cream
-teeth=hurt
-cold
-yes good idea
-CEMENT

Except throw some giant abstract squiggles and weird colors all around the words. That's what it was like.

The girl's parents, now that they have deciphered her emphatic groaning, are kind and decide to go and get her the concrete that she has asked for on the way home. They go through the drive-up and order a chocolate concrete, which the girl immediately tries to eat. Tries, fails, because her mouth is so numb that she ends up with more ice cream dribbling down her front than actually in her mouth.

Mom: Hilary, how about you wait until you get home to eat that?
Me: *groans assent*

Because even when she is drugged, she's smart enough to know that trying to eat this will not end well.

Getting home and lying on the couch I actually do remember, and I don't remember much other than my mother waking me up to change the ice packs on my extremely swollen face and give me some sort of painkiller that put me out faster than you could say jackrabbit. I spent the next few days eating broth and watching Poirot mysteries, because, I'm telling you, I'm an anglophile through and through.

As soon as I was recovered enough to get up and actually walk around and live, I had to go in for a second surgery. This one was for something that wasn't a bunion but looked like one, on my right foot. It was just a weird little bump that had lately been giving me more pain when I was doing ballet (yes, I did that too) so I went to a podiatrist and he. . .wasn't exactly sure what it was even after x-rays, but he was pretty sure they could take it off.

So, round two. I was brought in to a room, made to pee in a cup, mark my foot for surgery (I had to write "yes" on it in big letters), was hooked up to a monitor.

The first thing I remember about that was the overly cheerful nurse who walked in to tell me that the urine test had definitely proved I was NOT pregnant. Which, of course I wasn't. I was the most virginal of all virgins at that point in my life. I hadn't been kissed once, or even stage kissed. But she walked in and was like,

"Congratulations, you're DEFINITELY NOT PREGNANT. Your parents should be proud of you!"

To this day I'm still trying to decipher the meaning of that statement. Was she trying to lighten the mood, make me laugh before the surgery? Was she actually serious, and I actually seemed like the sort of teenager who should be pregnant? I was still a few years away from breaking out of my awkward phase, so I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to tell me I was ravishingly beautiful and I was lucky not to have been impregnated by one of my many adoring male admirers, because at that point in my life it would have been news to me if I had one adoring male admirer. Not to mention the fact that at that age, I was more terrified by the thought of sexual intercourse (mostly just because it sounded so damn gross) than I was by driving or spiders. I wouldn't have had sex with anyone even if I thought I was in love with them.

And anyway, how can you even tell if a teenager is that sort of teenager, because I'm pretty sure teen pregnancy doesn't just happen to a certain type of girl. So whatever, nurse lady. I certainly hope you don't walk into rooms that way often.

Then the anesthetist (wow, spelled that right on the first try, props to me) came in and administered the stuff to me, and I can vaguely remember telling him about what I was going to be doing in school before I completely went out.

Again, the surgery went completely normally and the bump on my toe was removed. It was some sort of calcification and was not made of solid bone as I had hoped, so I didn't get to keep it. Thankfully, though, at this facility they gave their patients enough time to wake up, so the bleary-eyed stupid stage that had been the most unfortunate part of my last surgery got skipped over, and I actually remember coming to.

I remember coming to because I remember hearing the patient in the next bed (divided by a curtain) moaning. Shortly after that the room came into view, as did my parents. And my heart rate monitor. But, again, this is all a bit vague for me, so once again I am relying on the testimonies of Parental Units One and Two.

I don't even think I can approximate a dialogue here, because apparently when I come out of anesthesia, I'm talkative. Like, extremely talkative. Everything that I suppress during my most quiet times comes bubbling out in a diatribe of weird obsessions that are only relevant to things around me at that time. As soon as I could form a sentence, I went off at ninety and didn't calm down for about fifteen minutes. I would get really concerned about my heart rate, and turn around to stare at the heart rate monitor. I must have been willing it to do my bidding with my mind, because those were the only moments I would stop talking. But then I'd turn around as soon as my heart rate went sufficiently down, and I would then cycle through a list of things at top speed, and afterward I would stare at my monitor again. The list was something like this:

-What was on my toe again? Can I keep it?
-Something about physics (I had just taken physics the year before, and I had barely understood a word of it, but I UNDERSTOOD IT NOW, DAMMIT. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I've ever been to being high, because I've never understood most science even when sober and apparently I really got it when I was coming out of that foot surgery. Which is kind of disappointing, because I wish I understood it like I thought I did. Or at least, retained that drugged understanding).
-My heart rate is too high. That is bad. It's supposed to be (a number) here. *cue staring at heart rate monitor*

The poor guy in the next bed could only groan. I'm fairly sure half of the reason he was groaning so much was because I was talking as though I was a contestant of a game show where you can either talk or get thrown into a pool of sharks--so basically, constantly.

With the previous post-surgery I was languid; with this surgery, I felt fine and decided I was well enough to do most things myself, like get up and go to the bathroom. I actually was not well enough to do this, because as soon as I sat up all the color drained from my already-white face (I'm pretty sure that's an impossibility. Maybe all the pigment left my eyebrows and lashes or something) and the nurse had to come back to make me lie down.

The chattiness eventually wore off and they sent me home in a little black bootie with velcro straps, which I had to wear for several weeks afterward. By the time I got into the car, I was feeling heavy and gross and I was a bit perturbed at the levels of sunshine. Whatever painkillers they gave me made me super sick, and I threw up moments after arriving at my house. They also did not have the drowsiness side effect of my previous painkillers, so I was awake for the whole night the first night, foot elevated, paranoid about monsters or something.

Drugs, okay? Even prescribed ones. I was in a lot of pain and I'd spent the better part of two weeks previous watching murder mysteries. Of course I thought something was going to come kill me.

I was so happy when I could limp around, and even happier when I discarded the bootie and the bandage for regular shoes. I have a pretty awesome scar on my foot that runs about two inches along the top of my big toe, and no, I'm not taking a picture of my foot so you can see. Feet are gross.

Moral of the story is: don't give me anesthesia. Well, really, unless it's necessary and the alternative is being conscious of some part of my body being sliced open, please do give me anesthesia. Never is an example of what we English majors call hyperbole.

By all means, if I'm going in for surgery, anesthetize me. But don't expect the aftermath to be pretty.

Shakespeare + Crossdressing + Middle School = The Most Unlikely Way to make a Best Friend for Life

You all know I am an actor (arguably, a part-time actor, but just because I don't do it as often as I used to doesn't mean I don't love it any less).  And that I'd dreamed about being an actor since I was probably about ten. Or younger. I don't know why; it was just one of those things that always appealed to me. And if you tell me "it's because you were an attention-seeker," I will roll my eyes at you and remind you that I was incredibly shy and actually hate(d) having attention drawn to me in any way, but that acting was different. Acting is the acceptable form of insanity where you get to live out someone else's life from your vivid imagination and not be called crazy. Similar to the way writing is the acceptable form of insanity where you talk to people inside your head, they talk back, and have lives of their own. So really, the art forms themselves are like cousins. Slightly unhinged cousins.

Therefore it should come as no great surprise that in middle school (8th grade), my art elective of choice was Theatre. It was taught by my 8th Grade English teacher, Mrs. Gardner (no relation to my favorite AP US History teacher, Mr. Gardner), and she was a pretty cool lady. I looked up to her immensely, because I seem to always look up to the people who teach subjects I like well (if you teach it poorly, I will probably judge you in my mind; but not too harshly, because I don't think I could handle teaching).

That year I was assigned to perform a scene from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night as Viola, one of the six or so comedic Shakespearean heroines who cross-dresses at some point in her life. I'm fairly sure that an argument could be made that all Shakespearean heroines were cross-dressers, since they were all played by young men, but if you take that argument then plays like Twelfth Night and As You Like It become some sort of absurd cross-dressing version of Inception, because you've got young boys playing girls playing young boys playing girls.

It gets way too complicated.

Where was I? Right. Viola. So I was assigned to play Viola, and I did go on to play Rosalind from AYLI  later that exact same year (so you could say that I looked boyish at fourteen; which, though I was about a third of the way through my ten-year-long awkward phase, I don't think I did. But then again, normal female body parts like hips and breasts had not arrived since I was also concurrently not eating at the time I was playing these roles--that may have helped some. Or you could say that Mrs. Gardner just thought I was the sort of woman who should be taking on the roles of Shakespeare's Greatest Heroines, which seems more likely because I seem to remember her saying something along those lines--but also sounds waaaaay more vain) but that's a different story and has no bearing on the current anecdote. My scene partner, Becca, was assigned to play the Girl Who Gets to Stay A Girl in Twelfth Night, Olivia.

I hadn't interacted that much with this girl up to that point in my 8th grade year, and to be honest, I was not entirely sure what to think of her. But that wasn't atypical of me at fourteen--I wasn't quite sure what to think of anyone I didn't already have an established friendship with. But you kind of have to get to know people when you're doing scenes with them, so I did. I wish I could remember some of our earliest conversations, but I know that any social discomfort dissolved pretty quickly and fairly soon afterwards, we were making each other laugh while we waited for our parents to come pick us up from school. And then we exchanged email addresses. Things just sort of went on from there, and we became friends.

I do remember that the first time I spent time at Becca's house, we spent the better part of an hour vandalizing her Harry Potter postcards. I have no idea how we even started down that path, but before we knew it, Ron Weasley had turned into a Goth and Draco Malfoy had turned into a painted lady who put most of the women we knew to shame. We were laughing ourselves breathless and I'm pretty sure her family thought we were crazy. But then, they had nine kids, so maybe they were used to it. Somehow, I don't think so.

In fact, I'm fairly sure they still think we're crazy, because that stuff still happens when I hang out with Becca. It's been seven years and somehow when we hang out, we still manage to find the craziest possible thing to do or conversation to have and end up in stitches. The most recent one had something to do with cats, dogs, London, rain, the Black Plague, and pudding, and...yeah, it was so weird that I'm not even entirely sure what the whole of it was even now. But nothing--NOTHING--tops Pride and  Potter. 

We were (and are) Jane Austen and Harry Potter fans, and at the time this came up, we were going through a phase where we listened to and memorized Every. Broadway. Musical. In Existence. That month's flavor was The Secret Garden musical, which for some reason included a cast recording where Mandy Patinkin was Archibald Crane. Just to clarify, the "for some reason" modifies the casting choice and not the recording itself. There's this song called "Lily's Eyes" which could just as easily be a duet between James and Snape as a song sung by the Crane brothers, which Sahara and I had discussed, and I was in the process of telling Becca about it. We were laughing, and then one of us said something about Harry's "Fine Eyes." I'm going to paraphrase this conversation, so don't be mad if I don't get it right, Becca. I'm doing the best I can.

Me: What if Snape is actually Darcy?
Becca: And that moment in the banquet hall where he stares at Harry is like where Darcy is staring at Elizabeth at the first ball?
Me: And what if Quirrel is actually Caroline Bingley?
Becca: "I was meditating on the very great pleasure a pair of fine eyes in the face of a student can bestow."
Me: Ewwwwwww! "And may one dare ask whose the eyes?"
Becca: "Harry Potter's."
*peals of laughter*
Me: What if Ron is Lydia!?
Becca: *gasping* YESSS (Side note--Becca HATES Ron Weasley with "the burning passion of a thousand suns." And yes, that is a direct quote)! And what if Moaning Myrtle is Wickham?
Me: Dean Thomas would have to be Kitty--
Becca: Dumbledore is Mr. Bennet--
Me: Hagrid would be Mrs. Bennet--
*peals of laughter*
Becca: Seamus could be Charlotte Lucas.

It went on like that for about another hour and a half, and it didn't get any less funny. We eventually gave up casting everybody, because we couldn't find a suitable character for Hermione, and just started riffing off of moments in the two respective book/book series that fit into our scheme. Pretty sure that whatever brother who got sent down to her basement to summon us to dinner was actually kind of scared by the volume, intensity, and the slightly hysterical tone of the laughter. They usually were.

Our friendship is so weird and telepathic and awesome that I don't even think I can fit it into a single blog post. We definitely had some rough moments (because all friendships do) but we've managed to stay friends. And she's only tried to marry me off to like one of her brothers. Okay, two. Okay, sort of three, but I drew the line there because after the second brother she tried to convince to marry me they just keep getting progressively younger, and I refuse to marry someone who is that much younger than I am. It sounds weird and feels vaguely Mrs. Robinson-y, and I am not that kind of gal.

College steered us in different directions, but when we do meet and hang out it's never awkward. It's never like time has passed at all. I mean, we got together and laughed about pudding and cats and dogs and London and Rain and that was only last December and before that I hadn't seen her for six months.

I'm lucky to have so many friends of that quality--the kind where it's as though nothing has changed, no matter how long it's been since you've seen each other. Becca is definitely one of those. She's the Jo to my Beth, and even though I'm not the wan, vaguely tubercular creature I was in middle school, the metaphor still applies.

And someday, if you're all very nice to me, I'll have her guest-write a post about the One-Legged-Creepy-Eyed Goat Hobo.

You can blink at that sentence all you want, it's not going to change. Those words really are in that order. I'm completely serious. It's a good story, too.

But I'll only tell it if you're nice.

Circa 2008? I think? My awkward phase was in its last few years. 

My Laptop Breaks, Gets a Name, and Gets Repaired: George's Great Adventure

Part One: My Laptop Breaks

My laptop has been the sustaining factor of my college career.

Well, you know. The sustaining factor of my college career was actually the people who love me unconditionally and in spite of the fact that I'm slightly awkward in social situations and occasionally talk to myself when I'm thinking about characters.

But my laptop takes a close second. I acquired it the summer before my Freshman year--Summer 2010. It was my graduation gift, but I did have to pay for half of it--which was a pretty fair deal, in my eighteen-year-old (and indeed, in my 22-year-old) opinion. It was love at first power-up. And it's served me well. Four years, Lewis Caroll knows how many words, essays, internet searches--and nary a problem. I considered myself to be pretty lucky.

June second I turned in the last assignment of my undergrad career, backed up my entire schoolwork folder to a USB drive, and probably went to bed sometime after midnight. The next morning, I was burrowed in bed, trying to convince myself that I probably should get up and get ready to go help with renovations, when my mom came in (yes. I live with my parents, currently. It's not permanent. I'm actually hoping to move out sometime this summer, but frankly I consider myself pretty lucky just to have a place to sleep and eat. I'm a poor college student whose marriage failed, I'm not living a super lucrative lifestyle here).

Mom: Hilary? You awake?
Me: ...yeah.
Mom: Something's wrong with your laptop. It makes weird noises when it's starting up and then it crashes. It did it twice. It's off right now, but you should probably go check on it.

So I got up and turned my laptop on, and sure enough, it was making these terrible choking, whirring noises like it was in a huge amount of pain and would rather be put out of its misery than be made to function. And when it finally did start up, sure enough, it crashed. So I restarted it, and the same process began again.

Part Two: My Laptop Gets a Name.

As I was sitting there, staring at this poor, choking contraption, I realized it had a name.

You can't force names on things. Anything from pets to cars will not accept any name but the right one. Same goes for inanimate electronics. I've named my smart phone the Oracle (because I consult it for answers) and that stuck from the beginning. My laptop was trickier. I never had a name for it besides "the computer," "the laptop," and sometimes, more affectionately, "my compy" (thank you, StrongBad and homestarrunner.com for shaping my entire middle school existence and, by proxy, my life).

Anyway. I digress. I was sitting there, helpless, and then I just knew. This laptop's name was George Clooney, because it is silver and distinguished and, while fairly old, is too young to die. I definitely did not pick out the name myself, because while I like George Clooney well enough, he is NOT on my list of Top Five Favorite Male Actors or even Top Five Male Actors I Have Raging Crushes On. In any case, I knew I had to save my laptop. Being a writer, this thing is my livelihood. Well, actually, my imagination is my livelihood. But this laptop takes a close second.

This sudden christening caused a lot of confusion amongst my inner circle, who didn't understand why I kept updating my facebook status saying "George Clooney needs to get repaired." Certainly it made me sound crazy and a little bit delusional (because if Actual George Clooney was actually hanging out with me, I certainly would never say he needs repairs). But inside, I was scared. Was George Clooney  repairable? Would I be up the creek without a laptop?

And while that's not the actual metaphor, and I have no idea what good a laptop would do on a creek, you understand my point.

It was kind of a hassle finding a place to fix George while running around from Workplace #1, home, and Workplace #2, but I finally got it up to a Simply Mac that's not far from where I do hot yoga on occasion. The diagnostic equipment was down so it was with a heavy heart that I signed over my trusty sidekick to the hands of a technician with the promise of hearing word in a day or two.

Part Three: My Laptop Gets Repaired.

After dropping off George, I went to Workplace #2: Kombucha, and tried not to think about a future without George. I had no idea if the problems would be fixable, or if they were fixable; would it cost more than it was worth to fix? And if George was either a) broken or b) cost more to fix, would I 1) buy a new computer or 2) continue to save up to buy a car or 3) continue to save up to move out?

This is why growing up sucks popsicle sticks. Not popsicles. Popsicle sticks. The kind that could possibly give you tongue splinters and only serve to remind you that the popsicle is gone. Not that I personally have had tongue splinters from popsicle sticks, but you know it's probably happened to someone.

I got a call while I was working (which I did not answer, because I was working) from the technician who was working on my laptop, and he left me a voicemail. So, as soon as I could, I listened to it. Apparently my hard drive had just fried itself. Like, completely. That was where the choking noises were coming from, and the heating up, and the stalling and crashing. And all the data that I'd saved to the hard drive was gone. Gone. Which, I had backed up everything for school, mostly everything for my own personal writing, and mostly everything that belonged to a third unnamed vague category that is a combination of internet purchase receipts and recipes (receipts and recipes. Ha). I hadn't backed up my iTunes library, or my photographs, but I didn't realize that those would all probably be gone until later. But, the tech guy said, George would be fixable. I just needed a new hard drive, which would cost much less than buying a new computer. And of course, the tech guy didn't call him George. Why would he know? He wouldn't. Don't be silly.

So I called the tech guy back, asked a few more questions about the longevity of the computer if I were to install a new hard drive, and told him to go ahead with it. They finished installing the new hard drive later that day, and I just picked George up this afternoon.


George is now back, which makes me the happiest. Even though he's a little different because all the things that we collaborated on are now sort of gone. Well. Mostly gone. Just a few photos and songs. Well. 200 songs. But I have an iPod with most of everything on it, so I'm not as worried as I could be. It's like being in one of those Nicholas Sparks movies that I saw a preview for once--that one where Rachel McAdams is married to Channing Tatum and she gets amnesia and he has to prove that he's actually her husband and that he loves her more than anything else and--

(I bet you all thought I was going to say "The Notebook." Well, I have a confession to make: I've never seen a Nicholas Sparks film--not even "The Notebook" and I'm not going to start now.)

It's like that. Except, you know, without marriage, car accidents, amnesia, Channing Tatum and his six-pack, and Rachel McAdams. But after those things go away, the similarities are just endless.

Welcome back, George!

Put in Sun for 20 Minutes or Less. Take Out of Sun. Cry. Apply Aloe.

You'll remember from earlier posts that paleness is one of my two very indoorsy superpowers, and that I burn more quickly than a stick in a fire pit.

Only a slight exaggeration.

In any case. At my Chocolate Shop job, we're remodeling for the next 10 days or so. Part of the remodeling has involved moving all of our production equipment out of our tiny little storefront, and the other part of it has involved spiffing up the furniture that we will be putting in to the new cafe. So, because AJ knows that the German in me will always do a finicky job right (it's the only German thing about me, since I don't keep a spotless house like my grandma does), he asked me if I'd clean the new (to us) chairs that were actually pretty gross. There were about 15 of them, and so I grabbed a bucket of soapy water, a sponge, and got down to it, thinking it wouldn't take me much longer than half an hour.

It didn't.

I'd gone out of the house that day, expecting to be inside, boxing up kitchen equipment, possibly painting, definitely scrubbing the floors. I had put sunscreen on my face, because I always do, but I neglected to put any on my arms, because--well, I thought I'd be relatively safe, and I don't get all that much sun-based vitamin D anyway, so I don't mind if the sun gets on my arms while I'm driving.

I gave about half a thought to getting sunburned while I was scrubbing, but I dismissed it with, "you need the sun, you pale weirdo. Anyway, you'll be done in no time." I even moved my scrubbing center of operations into the shade, out of the direct sunlight.

With the last chair as spotless as I could get it, I wandered inside the shop to finish up my last school assignment and eat some quartered grapefruit that one of my co-workers was sweet enough to share with me. I felt fine, heartened by the fact that I didn't feel any extraneous heat coming off my body. "Maybe I'm getting an immunity to the sun. Maybe I'm like normal people, now," I thought, cheerily.

My boss and co-workers left momentarily to go get the display case to see if it'd fit through the door. I finished up my essay revision and turned everything in, and looked at the shop in its utter chaos for a while, while I waited for their return.

They came back, and I went outside to get a look at the case. It was pretty dirty--it had been sitting in my boss's garage for a while, and I was fairly sure that cleaning it would be my next task, so I had to go take a look at the enemy. I stepped outside, and dang--it really was dirty. But then a weird sensation distracted me.

It felt like my arms were shrinking and sizzling. I've never really known what things in the oven feel like until today--even though I've been sunburned before, I've never gone in and then came back outside and felt the sun make me feel like I was fizzing. So I looked down at my arms, realized they'd turned the color of a strawberry daiquiri, and looked at my boss.

Me: AJ. . .
Him: Hmm?
Me: I'm burnt.

AJ is the kind of person who laughs a little bit at pain. Including his own, assuming it doesn't involve his head. So he kind of, well, he cracked up as I held out my poor little lobster-red arms for his inspection.

AJ: I told you you should play outside more.

AJ tells me all the time I should play outside more. He tells me that when I tell him I'm cold and I'm wearing a sweater in the shop when the AC is on. He told me that when I told him that my grandma was a little bit aghast at my whiteness. It's one of several AJisms that I'm accustomed to hearing at work. They're all pretty endearing, because they're all in jest, but he's never cold or freakishly pale, so he doesn't quite understand.

I love the guy. But he's always warm and vaguely tan. Even in winter.


The rest of my coworkers saw and heard me, so naturally, everyone else started laughing and asking questions and saying things like, "wait, how long were you out here?" "you SHOULD play outside more," "are you secretly a vampire? Could you see the smoke rising up off of you? Because I can see it now."

And I laughed along, but. . .

I never understood the pain vampires must feel at daylight until now. And while I don't drink the blood of virgins or have the ability to turn into bats, I totally get the aversion to direct sunlight. I have friends who sit in the sun *cough, Sahara* and bask in it like a reptile. I sit in the sun and come back in twenty minutes later looking like I actually spent the entire time being toweled down in sandpaper. Vigorously.

So not that I'm planning on sleeping in a coffin and trading daytime living for moonbathing (moonburn is probably a very real possibility), I'm definitely going to be carrying a freaking bottle of SPF 50 in my purse for the rest of the summer, because

this is just embarrassing. There is no filter on this picture. I WAS OUTSIDE FOR TWENTY MINUTES.

And I hurt.

I like the story that Native Americans told about the white men they first encountered; that they were half-baked, unfinished somehow. While there is, I believe, a larger commentary to be made about how it could be argued that the white men who colonized the Americas were basically morally unfinished because they thought it would be okay to subjugate an entire culture and kill off hundreds of thousands of the original population (subtle hint: it was NOT OKAY, in fact it was reprehensible and gross and nothing justifies it); the unfinishedness of the total lack of melanin in my skin is accurate. Can't re-bake something that's been not been baked properly for 20 years and expect it to bake right the second time.

Moral of the story is: while it's fun being lily-white and knowing that women in Romance Novels are described that way for some reason, it's not super conducive to scrubbing chairs, unprotected by sunblock, at noon in eighty degree weather.

Signs You Might Be an Anglophile

Hi, my name's Hilary, and I haven't watched an episode of Sherlock for. . .four days.

Hi, Hilary. 

 I'm not sure when I realized I love British culture, British people, British accents--British everything. Certain aspects of my personality have specific moments when they took shape that I can remember distinctly, but my love of British things seems to have just happened slowly and gradually until I realized that I would much rather be British than anything else.  I mean, growing up American, I felt a certain token amount of animosity towards the British, since they were apparently jerks who hated freedom, but that sort of faded away as I got older and I realized that the British were not in fact jerks who hated freedom, but instead. . .

That they are actually really cultured and that their men are the most attractive and their accents are amazing and their TV is so good and nothing can really compare to their acting skills or literature, and dayum, can they write a good mystery novel.

So. Here are my signs that you might be an Anglophile. Just based on my own Anglophilia. I mean, Anglophilia manifests itself in different ways--just like any old love of something.

Top Ten Signs you May Have A Case of Anglophilia.

1). You secretly think your fake British accent is better than everyone else's. Not that you'd do a British accent IN Great Britain, because you know how tactless that would be. But you're pretty sure it'd pass muster if you did. You'd blend in. You'd be accepted.

2). You drink tea. Frequently. Regularly. You feel sort of lost without tea. And you feel special, somehow, when you drink Earl Gray or English Breakfast.

3). You buy English Candy and frequent the local British shopping market that may or may not be just a few blocks away from where you work. And when it rains and you go in there, you just pretend you ARE British.

4). 99% of all the television you watch is from the BBC, and at least 75% of radio you listen to is BBC radio and radio-plays. You laugh at jelly babies and jammy dodgers. You use catchphrases like "Hello, Sweetie," "Spoilers," "Exterminate" and you carry a sonic screwdriver in your purse. Your version of "Planking" is actually "Sherlocking" and you can quote the entire first episode of Sherlock from memory--but Jeremy Brett will always be your Sherlock Holmes. You even watch the obscure British TV shows and you're glad that Billie Piper is married to Lawrence Fox because they're both so beautiful.

5). You carry an umbrella in your purse even though you live in the desert because you're convinced the desert will turn into Great Britain and it'll start raining at any moment.

6). You're in love with at least one British actor. Possibly two. Or six. Definitely two (Who, me? No way. Not at all.)*

*I'm a shameful liar. I've had raging crushes on at least two British actors and if you follow me on facebook or pinterest, YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO THEY ARE so I'm not saying it here. 

7). You're homesick for England, even though you've never been there. You're pretty sure when you set foot on English soil, your life will make sense and everything else will fall into place.

8). Your sense of humor is so dry from watching all those BBC shows that people have a hard time recognizing your sarcasm. Or they just give you quizzical looks, shake their heads, and go back to doing whatever it was they were doing.

9). You actually genuinely like malt vinegar on food.

10). You've read more books from English authors than you have American authors. If Great Britain granted citizenship based on how many British books you've read, you would be a citizen yesterday. And you know this because someone from Great Britain told you that you're almost more British than they are. You are both proud and slightly embarrassed of this fact.

It's a bit weird. I get it. It is. Like I said, I'm not sure why this is part of my reality now. But it is, and I'm just going with it. I'm not ashamed that I painted my nails TARDIS blue for the release of the 50th anniversary episode or that tea is like my most favorite beverage (right after the cold-pressed juices from Vive Juicery--hi guys!). And I'm pretty sure that any British people I befriend in the future would be a touch confused by my enthusiasm for their culture, because all of my American friends are. Well, with the exception of those that are Anglophiles like I am.

And those guys don't think I'm weird at all. Which is a nice change of pace. . .believe me.