Checking In

It's been a while since I've had a chance to write. I've meant to for the last three days, actually, but somehow I haven't found the time.

Most of the last two weeks have been extremely productive. The day before yesterday, however, was not... I did manage to play the drums for a few hours, but other than that I got virtually nothing done. I don't remember what it was I spent my time on. Playing games, most probably.

Anyway, that night I dreamed that Unilove called me and said, "Dave wants you to succeed." That's all I remember. I've dreamed of Dave often, both when he was on earth and afterwards... never of anyone else connected with him.

Yesterday I spent half the day playing the drums. I've learned a new beat. I went out, did a few errands, came back, installed my new copy of Sims Pets, and played for several hours.

I bought a journal the day before yesterday, expressly for the purpose of setting goals and achieving them. In Chasing Down the Dawn, Jewel talks about the process of "manifesting dreams--that is, writing down a goal and the daily actions required to achieve it.

The first goal I chose is a long-term one, and an important one. My goal is to spend Christmas 2007 in London. I've always wanted to see England, especially London, probably because I grew up watching British television and my favourite series of novels is Harry Potter, which takes place in England. Dave and I had talked about visiting it "someday". I guess now it's up to me to make "someday" real.

Anyway, as i said, my goal is to spend Christmas 2007 in London. More specifically, I plan to visit London from December 23, 2007-January 2, 2008. This morning I achieved the first daily task I had set myself. I did some research on-line to find out how much this would cost.

I would have to stop-over either in New York or Boston, so I might as well plan to visit my parents for the week-end of Dec. 21-23rd and then fly to London early on the 23rd. It looks like this is the cheapest option; with hotel fare and a few sightseeing passes, it comes to about $2500.

My next task will be to open a savings account this coming Monday and transfer $1000 of my loan money in as a starter.

After that, I'm not sure yet... I know I need to earn the rest of the money. I probably have enough in my loan money, but I need to save most of that for daily expenses (and drum lessons should I ever find a teacher, but that's another issue... the teacher I was referred to at the music store isn't returning my phone calls as of yet)

I need to get a teaching job (so what else is new?). Im not sure what else to do to get one, and I have no idea how to break that down into daily tasks. I call the HR representative every Monday. I also call in to Adecco in case they have any temping work for me. I guess I can look in the classified ads as well...

Well, maybe I'm thinking too narrowly. Maybe I have to have several options as to how to earn money. (Of course if I publish my novel and it becomes a best-seller I won't have to worry about any of this, but I'm in the very beginning stages of that. Currently I have 25 copies of my short story out. According to Stephen King, you have to publish about 6 short stories in order to be looked upon as "serious" by agents and editors. OTOH, JK Rowling published Harry Potter without having published anything else at all, so I suppose revising the novel and submitting it on its own is worth a shot.)

Wow... my goal is growing... I have all these sub-goals I have to plan for. I think I should buy my own copy of the Writer's Market, since I had to give the library back theirs. It's time to begin working seriously towards publishing my novel AND towards getting a teaching job AND towards publishing my short stories...

And, oh yeah, I'm going to write a new story called Chasing Ghosts. I'm not quite sure of the details yet. Plus continue working on Elsie Worthing (which is NOT a waste of time despite being unpublishable other than on the Internet because of copyright issues) and continue studying the drums on my own.

I am going to be very busy starting this Monday...

Chasing ghosts

Boy has it been a long time since I've written in this blog. I have a legitimate excuse for last weekend, because my parents were here. I had a wonderful visit with them. I cooked for them two days out of three and the other day we went to Red Lobster. I'm really proud of myself because I skipped the 1170-calorie crab alfredo (which is what I REALLY wanted) and instead had the snow crab legs, potato, and broccoli, which was on my diet. I also had one piece of bread, which technically wasn't, but I ate it very slowly and made it last so I wouldn't have any more.

The last couple of days have been very strange for me. My emotions have been all over the place... yesterday morning I was in a great mood and last night I missed Dave so much I cried myself to sleep. I dreamed the night before last that he called and apologized to me for dying. I haven't dreamed about him in a while.

Yesterday morning I was writing a post to my on-line class discussion board and I mentioned this guy I knew in high school, who always made films for his class project. I liked him back then... so much so that I never talked to him, and senior year I found out that he liked me but thought I thought he wasn't good en ough for me. Well, so yesterday morning I was seized by this strange impulse to look him up, and I found his Friendster page almost right away.

It looks like we still have a lot in common... Harry Potter and books and music. He plays the trombone in a No Doubt tribute band and teaches Latin to high school students (I'm guessing at a Catholic school, although I don't think he's religious--his web site sounds as irreverent as he was in high school). I sent him a message. So far no response, although I don't know how often he checks his Friendster account, as the last comment he got on it appears to have been from 2005. I found out this morning he has a myspace page, which it looks like he updates every day, but I don't want to write him again right away in case he did get my Friendster message and didn't want to respond... I don't want to seem like a stalker or something. I'm going to wait a week and then message him through his myspace account if he doesn't respond to me. That way at least I'll know one way or the other.

Anyway, after I sent him the message I started thinking about things. I felt the same as I did when I was 17... like I really liked this guy but didn't know how to proceed and was sure he didn't want to hear from me after all this time. And then I wondered whether I ever would have looked him up if I hadn't lost Dave, and whether I really liked him or whether I was just trying to ease the loneliness... and then I felt like if anything did happen to develop it would be a betrayal of my memory of Dave even though Dave would have been happy for me--he never wanted me to feel tied down to him. He always said that as long as we stayed best friends he didn't care whether we stayed more than that.

Anyway, considering that I haven't gotten any answer yet at all it's silly to be thinking about all this...

It seems as if I am chasing ghosts... Dave's ghost and the ghost of a relationship that never was when I was 17.

I got my drums! (and some other news)

I got my drums today (as you can see). I was going to wait until after the week-end so that my parents wouldn't say anything about how much it cost. But one of my loan checks cleared yesterday, and it was way more than enough to pay off the balance on the drums. I was tired of playing on desks... I wanted to hear how I actually sounded. And I decided that I'm NOT feeling guilty about buying the drums. Technically, the loan money is my money (although I think I'm really supposed to use it for education-related expenses...), and I think I did the right thing by getting these for myself... I wanted to keep going with the gift Dave had begun in me. Drumming is a good outlet for me too when I feel like I can't sit still or when I'm upset about something.

Anyway, since I'm not ashamed of having bought the drums, I see no reason to keep them secret. My parents can be upset about it if they want, but I don't expect them to be. At the most, they'll probably tell me not to spend any more of my loan money on big-ticket items.

I'd never put a drum set together myself before. Dave had told me it was important to know how to do it so that you can set up at gigs and again when you get home, but he'd never pushed the issue... I'd helped him set up but he mainly told me where everything went.

The main thing, for me, was remembering where all the pieces go... I knew enough to know that you sit behind the bass drum and snare, but beyond that I wasn't sure. Luckily the drums came with instructions--I kept looking at the pictures to get an idea of what should go where. I had trouble putting my snare on its stand and I put my hi-hat clutch on upside down at first but eventually I got it together.

I have a small "porch" off my living room... there's a door that goes directly outside and the other door goes back into the living room. That's where I put the drums. They took up a bit more space than I thought they would... mainly, the problem was that in order to have room to play the bass drum I had to move it forward more than I wanted to. Right now my CD player is just a little in front of the bass drum... I may move it because it's not great for the sound, but so far its working. I also took the set of plastic drawers that I'm not using for clothes out of my bedroom and put it in the drum room so I could have a place to keep my drum key and tools, as well as the instruction booklets and spare batteries for the CD player. I didn't have a place for the cymbal bag that came with my cymbals, but for now I slid it behind the set of drawers. I also put a fan in the room--it's closer to outside, which makes it hotter, and drumming can make me hot!

I wish the room was just a little bigger so I could take a picture of the whole thing. Unfortunately the wall between the living room and the drum room is in the way... if this was a Sims 2 house I would be using the build tools to get rid of the friggin' wall! I can't get my drums all in one shot, to my disappointment... I had to take the picture on top of this post from the side.

It's 8:30 now so it's a little late for playing :( I did get a chance to play a little earlier. I tested out the CD and drums. It sounds so good to play real drums, as opposed to tapping on the desk. The snare is rattling a little. Tomorrow I'll look on-line for informatin about tuning so I can take care of that.

I can't wait to begin lessons. They gave me a phone number at the music store. Next week I'll call and see if I can make arrangements. I hope it's not too expensive. I'd better find a job SOON if I want to keep this up...

In the meantime, as I said, my parents are visiting for the week-end. They're leaving early tomorrow morning and plan to be here in the evening sometime (They're driving because they want to bring me my grandpa's rowing machine, which got donated to them and which I want to use.) If they get here early enough, they'll eat dinner with me. I'm planning on making a vegetable lasagna and another banana bread pudding tomorrow. I haven't planned my menus for the rest of the week-end. On Saturday we may go to the movies or the mall or something. I was going to take them to Red Lobster (across the street from the music store) one evening. There's also a really nice-looking Chinese restaurant next door to the music store. Chinese food is my absolute favourite... too bad it's s high in calories! I still have leftovers from last Sunday because I'm being very careful about my portion sizes.

In addition to getting the drums, I got out another 5 submissions today. I'm running out of printer paper so I will have to get some more before I can go on with the submissions process--I'm reprinting my manuscript each time, which is probably a waste of ink but is far better quality than I can get off the copy machines at Staples. I'm hoping to get out 10 submissions tomorrow since I doubt I'll be stopping by the Post Office while my parents are here. That'll bring the grand total to 18... I want to get a total of 25 out.

Tomorrow is going to be a very busy day because I want to finish cleaning up before my parents get here, plus I want to get caught up on my homework. So far I've cleaned the kitchen and bathroom. I feel so much better living in a clean environment... I was so proud of the kitchen I took a picture of it:















Tomorrow I plan on straightening the bedroom and computer room. I need to get rid of a bunch of papers that are lying around looking messy. I also want to clean out the inside of my car. It's FILLED with papers. I can just hear what Dave would say if he were here... "Come on, Professor," he'd say. "I'm gone for two months and you let your car get like that? What's wrong with you?"

Here's another picture of the drums to round out this post. I finally figured out how to get the whole set into the shot, although I don't see any way I could get myself into the picture because I have to hold the camera up to do this. Of course, you can't quite see the snare, but this gives you a sense of how beautiful this set is. I wish it wasn't so late so I could go play...

A cat tale and other news

The cat came by yesterday and tried to adopt me. I feel so bad that I have a no-pets policy in my lease... if it were up to me I would adopt this cat...

It was raining really hard over the past couple of days. I had hoped the cat had found someplace dry. But when I came back from finishing some grocery shopping, he was meowing on the porch. Since it was wet and nasty out, I decided to let him in.

And he didn't ever want to leave...

As it was, even though I fed him in the kitchen, he kept following me in and out as I took my groceries in from the car. He would eat if I was in the kitchen, but as soon as I went away from that room, he followed me, meowing hungrily. I added some leftover flounder to his bowl of shredded cheese (I had not realized I was out of tuna and so did not buy any).

When it dried up, I decided it was time to get the cat back outside where he belonged. He did not want to go. He followed me willingly if I went out, but he slipped back in as soon as I turned around to go in. He was chasing a flashlight beam across the house but would not chase it outside... he turned away every time the beam went near the door. Finally I put his food outside. He hesitated for a long time before he finally went.

When I came back from Toastmasters, he was meowing at the door again. This time I put his food outside to begin with, but he didn't eat it. He just looked at the door until I went in.

He didn't come back today but his food was gone. I feel torn because I love the cat and wish he could be my pet but I know I can't really have a cat. I hate it when I do what I'm supposed to and keep him out and then he disappears for several weeks, no doubt looking for someone who will really adopt him. And I know Dave would ignore the lease and let him in anyway. I used to be that way too. That's how I ended up with Kitty. But now I'm supposedly more mature and so I do what I "should" do even though I feel bad about it.

In the meantime, I bought myself a CD player to go with the drumset I will soon be getting. I have a back room that is currently empty. When my parents come I think they're bringing me a rowing machine, which will also go in that back room. I'm planning on putting the drums there and using the CD player for the music I'll be practicing with.

If all goes according to plan, I'll have my drums next Monday! I can't wait! I'm so tired of practicing using my sticks on the desk. For one thing, the fan I'm using as a hi-hat falls off the desk if I hit it too much and that messes my timing up altogether. Plus I can't hear the bass sound when I'm just tapping my foot. Plus the drums were such an important part of my life with Dave... I know he'll be watching me from heaven as I learn. I feel closer to his memory just having bought 5A nylon-tipped sticks like he always used.

Chapter Five of Elsie Worthing has FINALLY been published. Also, I sent out my first three copies of Disillusionment today. I want to get about 25 copies into circulation. I'm hoping to get about 5 out per day. I am going to get published. I can feel it. Maybe even one of these first three will bite, although of course I'm going to get all 25 out so I have the best chances.

I've started getting up early again... it is as if I am starting to remember who I am.

A short note

I've been really busy lately, I guess, because I haven't had much time for blogging.

I put a down payment on a drum set last week. It's a Tama Superstar 5-piece set, all white. For some reason I can't find the right picture online--I can only get the picture of the blue set (which I didn't get because it was too expensive, and also because the white drums remind me of Dave).

I can't wait until I get my drums. I bought a pair of sticks--nylon tips, 5A's. I wanted to get the wooden brushes like Dave used to use on the beach, b ut they didn't seem to know what they were.

The store I went to was interesting. From the outside it looks like almost nothing... a small brick building that makes you think there won't be much of anything inside. But when you walk in it seems much bigger... like a regular music store. They keep the sticks behind the counter, which is a little irritating because I personally like to look at all the sticks. Dave taught me how to roll them to see if they're good, something which I forgot until this very moment when my sticks almost rolled off my desk. But I know these are--unless I've messed them up by playing almost non-stop.

I feel a connection to Dave's memory through the music... he was teaching me to play and I want to keep it up. I also really like playing the drums. I'd forgotten how much I'd loved it... I stopped listening to music for a while and I certainly didn't have any sticks in my hands. I re-taught myself the beats Dave had taught me, and also learned some new beats from the Internet. I can play a swing beat now, which I'm really proud of because the website I got it from claimed it was a hard beat and recommended "coming back to it" if you didn't get it right away. Needless to say, I didn't take that advice. I've been using chairs and fans and whatever I can find as high hats and desks and tables and softer chairs as snares. I can't wait until my loan check clears so I can pay off the balance on my drums! I want to hear wht I really sound like, on a real kit, with cymbals instead of the top of a metal chair.

In the meantime, the job hunt continues. I got a call from Lumberton yesterday, asking me to come in on Monday to discuss working as a teacher's aide. I've been pretty persistent... the HR person there doesn't accept the new law stating that you can teach with a BA in psychology even if you don't have 24 units yet, but I've been e-mailing him to ask about other positions fairly regularly. I guess it paid off, because he finally called. He doesn't seem to remember that he met me last summer, which isn't a great sign, but he seems interested in finding me something since I'm insisting on looking in his district, which is a good sign. Lumberton isn't too far, about half an hour away.

I hope I get something soon... I'm tired of not working, of living off student loans and parental help when I'm used to being financially independent. I'm trying to learn to be more responsible for the things I want to achieve. I want to find a way to stop hoping to get something and get something, but I'm not quite sure yet how to do that.

Good day

I took a picture of my favourite tree through the window earlier today. I was too lazy to go outside... tomorrow maybe I'll do that.

This tree is gorgeous. More than that, it symbolizes life and hope for me. I know if Dave was still here he would love this tree. He probably would have taken a chair outside and sat down by it all the time. As for me, looking at it makes me feel happier... I remember that there's still beauty in this world.



Tonight was Toastmasters again, today being Monday. I had planned a speech about "recapturing who we are meant to be". I had meant to talk generally about the need to stay in the present and to figure out our purpose. But, as I practiced it at home earlier, it went in a different direction. I ended up talking about how I was too focused on the future when I lived in LA, how i was so eager to get on with my life that I forgot to appreciate what--and who--I had in front of me. How sorry I was after Dave passed away that I didn't verbalize how important he was to me during the last months we were together. How I almost fell, then, into the other trap of living in the past, of wishing those last months had been different.

When I got up to do my speech tonight, I still wasn't sure this was what I wanted to talk about, because it somehow didn't sound like it went with the title/subject of my speech. Really I think I was just scared to talk about something so personal.

But I did it. I was nervous, and when I talked about Dave I could feel the tears come but I still was able to move forward.

Afterwards, as always, in my head I didn't do well. I only spoke for 6 minutes (it was a 5-7 minute speech), I thought I jumped around too much, and I was sure I repeated myself too much.

And again I got an outstanding evaluation. A different evaluator this time, but he spoke about how meaningful my speech was, how organized, how powerful. Again, the only criticism was that I need to let go of the lectern and move around some. It's weird cause when I was practicing at home I was moving all over the place but once I got up there, it was all I could do not to forget my opening sentence.

In the meantime, I got my large student loan today. $12,500! I know I need to hold onto some of that money in case I have a problem with my tuition next semester or something. I'm thinking about buying myself a drum set. I want to keep learning what Dave had started teaching me. The only thing holding me back is that my dad co-signed the loan, and I'm afraid he'll be upset with me for taking out a loan on something "non-essential". It's not that I need his approval, but that I don't like to argue or have problems, especially when things have been better the last several months.

I've been thinking about the drums a lot lately. I miss playing. My new expansion packs for Sims 2 include various instruments for the Sims to play, inclouding the drums, bass, guitar, and piano. I love it when I get my Sims to jam together. Yesterday one of them started playing the beats Dave taught me and I almost fell out of my seat... I need to start playing again.

I have a bunch of things to do tomorrow, but I found out where there's a music store. Maybe after I deposit my check I can go look and get an idea of what I want and how much it'll cost. The check won't have cleared yet anyway so I won't be able to buy them just yet.

In the meantime, this lady I met at Toastmasters tonight told me that there's positions for Autistic Classrooms in her school, and gave me the principal's name. I'm going to call him tomorrow. He has the same ffirst name as my brother, which is odd because my brother has a very unusual first name.

In any case, we'll see. Things are looking up...

October

Well, it's October now. There's a gorgeous, orange-leaved tree outside my bedroom window.

October is usually my favourite month. Of course, this year I have mixed feelings because had Dave survived he would have come out here this month... we probably would have been together today. I dreamed about him last night, dreamed that he was here with me but he wasn't sure how much time he had. When I woke up, I thought that in my dream he was the way he was meant to be, and that must be how he is in Heaven.

Anyway, a new month always means a new chance to start over. I'm getting frustrated with my kitchen. When I opened the refrigerator door to get a banana earlier, not one but BOTH of my containers of pre-sliced green onions fell out and spilled all over the floor. I cleaned them up as best as I could, but it's yet another mess to clean up. In the meantime, I have dishes in the sink waiting to be put into the dishwasher, the dish towel fell off the rack onto the floor, the floor is a mess... again, and someone stole my outside trash can so I have to put full trash in the backyard until I can get a new can from the city.

Dave would not have been happy with how I keep the kitchen and, truthfully, neither am I. I have discovered that I like to cook, but I do NOT like to cook in a messy kitchen.

I'm making a banana bread pudding right now. I'm going to have a slice after dinner, which will be a veggie burger on a half bagel. I appear to be 90% vegetarian all of a sudden, mainly because I'm too lazy to cook meat or fish very often and anyway I'm supposed to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. It seems easier to accomplish this if I get 3 or 4 veggies in one shot (i.e a vegetable burger, a vegetable lasagna or manicotti).

I just looked over my food diary for this past week, and other than one slice of roast beef on a sandwich, I haven't eaten any meat at all. I didn't really set out to be vegeterian, but it does seem to be healthier.

Anyway, my banana bread pudding is done! Here's a picture:
















It's got bananas and French bread on the inside. It came out REALLY good... I'm going to send my mom the recipe so that she can make it for Thanksgiving.

I can't believe something like this is actually on my diet! It's perfect for my chocolate cravings... as long as I keep it to ONE piece at a time, which I did. I had to think long and hard in order to come up with a dinner that was healthy, fit all the requirements for my diet, and let me have a piece of this pudding. One piece is 4 points, and I had 10 points left. That meant I had to skip the idea of having something with a side of the pasta salad I made yesterday, because the salad itself was 7 points. Then I realized that I was short a milk. I went through about ten menus in my head. I even considered putting the pudding away until tomorrow but I wasn't willing to do that when I made it today... I wanted my first slice to be warm. I considered using some of my 35 bonus points so I could have the dessert AND the pasta, but I decided that I didn't want to do that because I didn't want to risk not losing weight this week. (Technically you're allowed to use as many of your bonus points as you'd like--you can add 5 points a day to your diet if you wish--but more points means more calories so it's less likely you'll lose the weight if you do that.) I considered skipping my second milk so I could have the frozen dinner I wanted, which would have been 6 points. And on and on and on, until finally I came up with the idea of the half-bagel for my veggie burger and a slice of cheese.

I've lost 4 pounds in the last three weeks. After this week I will have been on Weight Watchers an entire month. It'll feel good to have lost 5-6 pounds, which is a quarter of my initial goal. (Plus be out of the 190+ range, finally...)

Anyway, I should stop here because I want to finish my outline for the speech I'm giving tomorrow before Desperate Housewives comes on.