So yesterday was Halloween.

I wore a science blue Star Trek TOS uniform dress, and got a few compliments on it. I saw my friends' costumes, which were weighted rather more heavily toward "obscure" than "recognizable". I got to see something that almost simultaneously made me feel happy and heartbroken.

And then, after work and dinner and Greens, there was a showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the Sommer Center, which was pretty well attended, had one lady there doing a one-person floor show, and aside from that semiprofessional fan I was more or less the only person shouting callbacks. And I remembered a lot more of them than I thought I would! So here's to doing things over and over and over when you're a teenager that stick with you when you're an adult. I'm pretty sure the first time I saw RHPS I was fifteen, so it's been a long time I've been watching this movie, and I'm pretty sure last night was the only time that counted because I've never seen it on a big screen before. So yay, I'm not a virgin any more, although it's been a technicality for a decade.

And then I stuck around to help clean up, because Doug asked for SAGA and Sex Collective to support the showing, and he meant financially but I think everyone who stayed to help clean was part of at least one of those groups. So we were practical.

....and now I am done with my lame little October project. I hope my gleefulness has at least been amusing to read for the past month. Now I'm going to go back to bitching about things and whining about my life. ~*~SO HARD~*~

I FUCKING LOVE SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY.

Seriously. This game is the highlight of my roleplaying career to date. I have so much fun with my character, and it's obvious that Phillip is having a lot of fun running it, and last session I got to hang out with EINSTEIN and this session I got to hang out with JAMES JOYCE and Phillip just gave me a look when I asked if we were going to run into T.S. Eliot SO I'M GOING TO TAKE THAT AS A YES and just, this game makes me so fucking happy, I love it I love it I love it.

And Alastair is turning into more of a klepto than I thought when I designed him, but it works, and he's a lot less suave than I intended because I am just not a suave person and I can't even fake it convincingly, but he's a total badass. And I was told that I have the best name in the group. ALASTAIR HAZARD, BITCHES.

And, you know, I have issues that go beyond this, I discuss my issues at length here, you all know about my issues and how they're getting worse and not better even though I can cope with them. So when I space out and find my mind going places it really should be staying far away from, I just shake myself out of it and think about other things really determinedly, which... works less well than I would like it to. And doesn't work at all unless I have something else to focus on. But when we're in game, I have plenty to focus on, and my issues can be dealt with in a productive fashion, and I just look really engaged and not pathetic at all. At least, I think I do. If I actually look as pathetic as I feel, I wish someone would tell me so I could do something about it.

So I'm... just going to go to bed. And try not to think the things I shouldn't be thinking. The problem is that they're really fun thoughts. I need to have better mental discipline. Although if I had better mental discipline, I wouldn't be having the problems I'm having. Or emotional discipline. Something. If I was more in control of myself. I need to take more responsibility for the things I do that no one else even knows I do. If I can't be accountable to myself, I can't be accountable to anyone.

Or something.

You know what is great? Weed is great. It's so much better than alcohol. Alcohol just makes me dizzy and slightly stupid, weed is way easier to be social on/with.

Which is to say that Friday night I went to a party at Fairlane, and then yesterday Mary and Jason and Chuck and I had special brownies, and it was just really hilarious and fun both times. I am awkward at parties until I get a little stoned and then I have no problem being conversational with everyone. Last night they had another party, but I went to bed early because I am an old lady and I can't deal with staying up late two nights in a row... and tonight is Spirit of the Century, which will probably run until midnight because the newest addition to our group works until 8.

So I'm going to go look up a list of 20s slang and decide what Alastair would actually say.

So yesterday I had some of my poetry writing classmates thank me for being in the class because I am demonstrating "what real poetry is".

And nobody had any criticism of the poems I handed in officially, and even though Bennett printed the sestina I told him to save for next week and we didn't get around to it, they said they really liked the sestina.

So I'm like... a real poet or something. Or at least my peers think I'm a real poet, and my professor thinks I'm a real poet, and the visiting poet thought I was a real poet. I'm willing to accept other people's word on this matter.

I just get so warm and happy on the inside when people compliment my poetry! And I've been revising everything according to what the class says, so when I go to hand in my portfolio at the end of the year everything is right there at metaphorliteral. And I'm selecting the poems I want to submit to the Chronicle, and I'm getting Bennett's help with that because I really want to turn in my best work. One of the things on my 101 list was to get something published, and I could get up to five poems published in the Chronicle. Which is exciting! SO EXCITING.

So if anyone has any feelings on which poems I should submit, you should let me know. I'm open to suggestion.

Getting work done on my thesis is great.

I know I have been talking about my thesis a lot, but it's kind of important to me personally and to my college career. I am a little bit under halfway done with it now, I have to write the neuroscience chapter and then the bipolar experience chapter and then it's just the conclusion and I will be done. Tomorrow we have peer editing again, so I really need to write at least a couple more pages tonight. The problem is that I still don't really understand the neuroscience, so anything I say will just be me regurgitating facts without being able to synthesize the information.

On the bright side, I had Dr. Blowers check my research, and he said that the articles I found are very good and I'm highlighting all the relevant information. So I'm on the right track, at least. And he let me borrow a really cool book about the brain, so I really want to do as much of the neuroscience this weekend as I can so I can get his book back to him.

The down side is, I have basically one friend in the psych department, so as much as I would like to get my friends' opinions on my thesis, I can't very well hand my chapter on neuroscience to a bunch of history majors and expect them to be able to criticize it. Although I will probably make them read it to test how understandable it is to lay people, because I don't want my thesis to only be understandable to psych people.

...why are so many of my friends history majors? and English majors? Probably because this is a liberal arts school.

So yesterday we had choir. And out of the five first sopranos we started the semester with, there were two of us there yesterday. Sarah has left Wells for good, and she was the strongest singer/the section leader, so now it is super obvious when people fuck up because her volume isn't there to cover it, but I found myself stepping up and singing louder and actually being really accurate and not getting pulled off key when the other first made mistakes... so I might be rising to the position of section leader, which isn't an official thing or anything, it's just whoever sings right and loud more than other people. And I really do know what I'm doing. So that's pretty cool.

I should really be working on my thesis now, but it's so grey and rainy and blah out that my focus is basically nonexistent. So I'm going to do poetry criticism instead, which is much less mentally intensive than neuroscience, and then I might take a nap. Despite the fact that I slept until 11:30 today. My sem was canceled, which was nice. Now I can watch Dracula over the weekend. And I have to finish reading Dracula by next week, so maybe I should do that instead of napping.

Today I got a lot more work done toward this Zap Panel SAGA will be holding in November, which I have pretty much organized single-handedly up to this point, including letting the panelists know they've been selected and setting up the Facebook event. Phillip is going to handle reserving the room and emailing the athletics director and the RAs, which is good because I'm not very efficient about email, and hopefully on the 10th we will run a kickass event that will make waves on campus and open people's eyes to the reality of the LGBTQ experience. Although it's actually LGBTPA, because we're having a pansexual (that'd be me) and an ally on the panel.

And Phillip thanked me for handling it, and for being so involved with running SAGA this semester, and for being "a generally great person", so now I am smiling like an idiot and I can't stop, because goddammit, it is really nice to be recognized for the hard work I am doing, because pretty much my highest aspiration in life is to be useful to other people, and that goes double when I'm being useful to people I really like. I am also involved with the setup and running of Erotic Ball, which is not this weekend but next weekend, and Mary and Shane appreciate me for that.

So I'm just getting completely satisfied as far as getting positive feedback from the people I know and love goes.

Also today was the first meeting of Bookworms for the semester, and I suggested we should read Good Omens as our next book, and that's the book that was picked! So I'm having a real concrete impact on the clubs I'm not directly involved in running, too.

And at the Campus Greens meeting, I suggested that maybe for the swag this semester, the new people should get the same hoodies as the people in the club got last year, because our budget isn't really good enough to get something awesome for everyone, but it's more than sufficient to do that. And I said I'd pay part of the cost for it if I had to, because I REALLY WANT a Greens hoodie, they're really nice looking and apparently very warm, and it would be the only swag I get from any club because SAGA and Sex Collective don't do things like shirts. And they took that under consideration too!

And, best of all, today Will gave me the Ravenclaw scarf he knitted for me, and it is super warm and cozy and perfect and I love it and he is now my favorite. And I kind of wanted to hug him but he's not a very touchy person and I don't know how he'd react, so I didn't. But one of these days I'm going to get a hug from that boy, damn it. I will hug all of my friends if it's the last thing I do at Wells.

Last night I had a fantastic dream about playing a hilarious D&D session with all of my friends and then going back to Phillip's room to play with the kitten he smuggled onto campus. I woke up feeling so cheerful! And I had a good day. Sundays are always good days. Tea time, Scrabble, today we had pie, and then roleplaying. Although Little Fears was highly unpleasant tonight. But next week is Spirit of the Century. I really look forward to Spirit.

I just hope I don't have nightmares tonight.

I felt sick last night-- I felt like I had vertigo for a couple of hours, which is always terrifying to me because vertigo is the major symptom of Meniere's Disease, which is why my father is on disability now-- but despite wanting to throw up, I dragged my ass to Dodge to participate in Nerf War. I really love playing Nerf War.

We started out playing SWAT, so I brought my stuffed animals to play hostages, and it was hilarious seeing people running around carrying Olivia and Mr. Squishy. Then we played zombies, and then I felt too bad so I left for the night, but it was a lot of fun even though I felt sick. Joe is really good at running the club, he keeps coming up with fun games for us to play.

I think I might ask for another Nerf gun for Christmas. I already have a Maverick and a Barricade, I'm not sure what else I want. I'm going to have to look through the different types. I don't want anything too big, and I already have a semiautomatic, so I don't want any battery operated ones. Maybe something that takes a clip. I will have to ask the other people in Nerf Club what they think is good.

Yesterday I went to talk to my thesis advisor about how my thesis is coming along.

She basically said "Just keep doing exactly what you've been doing. Your writing is very readable and is in an appropriate style and tone, your citations are good, your grammar is good, your content is interesting."

LIKE A BOSS.

Today we had the visiting writer come to our poetry workshop. His name is Jay Rogoff and he's a poet and dance critic, and the book he's promoting now is The Art of Gravity, of which the first half is all about dance and the second half is a sonnet series called "Danses Macabre" that personify Death. And he really helped with editing Repairman, and pointed out a huge contradiction in the poem which no one else who read it caught, so I fixed that and tightened up the language in a few places, and I think it's just about finished now. I posted the revised version on Facebook and edited the post at metaphorliteral.

So I just really love poetry and I want to write more of it. I'd like to do another sestina.

And I went to his poetry reading, and he signed my book "for Danielle- a most talented poet" ♥

And now I am totally exhausted and want to go to bed.

So I know this has been getting some national coverage, but I don't know if any of you have been following it. Wells College is technically within the town of Ledyard, and the town clerk has been refusing to sign same-sex marriage licenses. There's a write-in candidate running against her, and tonight they had a debate at the college, which I attended and videotaped. I will be posting the video as soon as I can get it into an editing program and break it up into Youtube-friendly chunks, and sharing it with as many blogs as I think might be interested in it (any suggestions? Mary says I should send it to Joe My God.), and I will put it up here if any of you are interested.

So I attended this thing, and I actually got to ask a question, and then the press took a picture of me! And it's a pretty damn good picture, so I'm using it for my Facebook profile now. :D

And then the WRC did Love Your Body day and I got to paint my tits and smoosh them on paper and put them up on the wall in the WRC. And had long, fascinating talks with women I go to school with, most of whom I like quite a lot, some of whom I wish I knew better. And then hot apple cider and pumpkin pie.

And then talking for hours and hours on end with someone who makes me feel better just to talk to him in any circumstance, but especially when I can try to cheer him up, and just-- this maternal instinct has to be slapped down, hard. I have the problem of wanting to tend to my friends when they're ill. And try to help things be better. And I shouldn't, but if I don't who will? I'd rather be the one to do it anyways.

Whatever. And now sleep, long delayed, but precious for the delay. Who needs caffeine or adrenaline to keep you up when you have a frank conversation with a close friend? Not me.

You know what's really great? When a teacher says "forget the due date, hand it in by the end of the semester." Apparently enough people asked her for an extension that she just said "Auntie Linda seems more in charge today; Professor Lohn has already sent out two draconian emails." So she cut us a break. We still have to write about specific sections of the course, but she's basically letting us come up with our own topics and arguments, which is why I get to write a paper on film noir, which is awesome. And now I don't have to try to rush out a terrible paper tonight, I can take the weekend and really do it right.

Also, the visiting writer is coming on Thursday and I'm really excited to hear what he thinks about my poem. And I printed out the new one and a couple of revisions to take to Peter tomorrow morning. I am so stoked about poetry right now.

I am also stoked about actually getting some writing done that isn't for an assignment. I had two hours of waiting at the med center this morning, I spent half of it reading and half of it writing, and then spent pretty much all of sem writing something different. One of them is almost done, and one of them is a later part of something I'm writing now, and they both make me really happy to write. I'm probably going to turn one of the parts of one of these in for the erotica reading next semester. I want to sweep it for my whole tenure at Wells. xD

And I am super happy about spending time with people I like. Hearing about people's plans is really cool. Jason wants to get a mandolin and start writing music.

And pretty darn happy that I don't have an ear infection, I just have swollen sinuses, so a nasal spray and a decongestent pretty much make me okay again. Also, the doctor complimented my left eardrum and told me I have ears like a four year old. I don't think my ears are abnormally small...

And happy about my yoga class, which is now two hours long once a week, but I do not think it will be too much for me. Although I am disappointed to hear her say the half-lotus positions are part of the primary series, because that means we have to keep doing them and they really hurt. I can't get my foot up that high, definitely not while I'm standing up.

SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY IS SO FUCKING GREAT.

I can't even explain how much I love playing this game. It is completely ridiculous, we pushed Phillip past the point he had prepared tonight and he just KEPT GOING and got more and more COMPLETELY CRAZY as we went on, and it's just so much fun I want to do it forever. And only half of us were there tonight because Matt and Jason are bitch-ass bitches who want to drop out, but whatever, if they drop out then McKenna will start playing and I'm going to ask if Peter wants to join us because he said he wants to get in on a D&D game but I think he'd have fun with Spirit, as long as Phillip says it's okay, but he's going to try talking to Matt and Jason first.

Also Scrabble is great, I got in two games of Scrabble today and I just enjoy it so much, even if I am never ever going to win a game against Phillip ever. I almost could play "quilted" today, that would have been such an awesome word to get in, seven letters and it would have been across a triple word score! but I got to play "quilt" anyway which was still good.

I looked really nice today. I broke out the sweatervest for the first time this semester, and I kept my hair in braids, and I just looked really put together. And I drank too much chai, if there is such a thing as too much chai.

And hey, did you hear that Zachary Quinto came out of the closet? Good for him!

Having people drastically underestimate my age is fucking fantastic.

Seriously. I feel SO OLD around all my friends, because they range from 18 to 22, and I'm 26. Which is not that old compared to the 22 year olds, but is pretty old compared to the 18 year olds, and still pretty old compared to the 20 year olds.

So having a 19 year old tell me he thought I was his age was pretty flattering. :D He seemed pretty dramatically shocked when I told him how old I am. Of course, part of his surprise could have been finding out someone he slept with was so much older than he thought she was, but I really make no secret at all of my age, and I frequently complain about it. Plus my birthdate is posted on Facebook, so anyone who does even the most basic creeping can find out how old I am.

But anyway, being told I can pass for 19 is kind of awesome. I always feel like I look old, but usually I'm just tired. And it's a lot more easy to criticize myself, because I look at myself closely in the mirror, and only a very few people get that close to me.

Also great is getting work done. But I have been working on this fucking project proposal all day (okay for like two and a half hours) and I just want to be done with it already. I have other shit to do, I can't take forever to do this, even if it isn't due until Tuesday. I have too much shit to do on Monday to do it then, I need it done sooner.

My friends are wonderful people and they make my life fantastic. I spend so much time with people I genuinely like to be around. I am including my boss, Amy, and Professor Staples who is also Amy, because I really like working with them. And even my teachers are all really cool people.

Today was the Wells celebration of National Coming Out Day, because we weren't here on Tuesday. We put up a fabric wardrobe (how many college students does it take to build a closet? three) and had people come out of the closet. So I spent lunch with Phillip and Mary and Shane, trying to get everyone I knew by name to jump out of the closet, and taking pictures of them when most of them did. I will be putting the pictures up on Facebook momentarily.

I have a lot of feedback on poetry to work on, so I think I'm going to do that for the rest of the night or as long as it takes. And I found a poem I started writing in 2004 and I think I want to finish it, it's pretty evocative.

And my computer keeps overheating, which is not fantastic. :(

Figuring things out about myself is great.

Because this whole polyamory thing is pretty new to me, despite the fact that I've been obsessed with the idea of threesome relationships since I was like 14. And I don't think I'm going to get to have one of those any time soon, because the guy I want to have a threesome with isn't interested in a relationship with one person, let alone two. And it's really complicated trying to figure out what the fuck to do with all of these ~feelings~ I have, because I have too many of them for too many people and it kind of legitimately sucks sometimes, but it is sucking less as I figure this shit out.

So I'm reading The Ethical Slut right now, and it's making a lot of sense to me. And a lot of this shit just seems like common sense, but I know common sense isn't really common at all, and it's still really good to see things laid out so clearly. So I need to do what I kept telling myself over the past two years I needed to do, and sit down and write out the manifesto of what the fuck I think I'm doing and who the hell I think I am, anyways, and just write down very clearly what my values are and what are the things I find important and where I want to direct my energy once I'm done with school and I have energy to direct towards things. And if that means I need to try to chart out the ways I think I can relate to people intimately, then that's probably a good idea.

But man, if I sat down and wrote a list of all the people I think I love right now, it would be kind of embarrassingly long and involve a lot of people I really shouldn't feel this way about. But it's not even like I'm being creepy and I ~want them so bad~ or anything... I just want them to be happy. And I'd like to be involved in their happiness. And yeah, I'd like to kiss a lot of them, but I don't like them because I'm attracted to them, I'm attracted to them because I like them. But I'm not going to pretend I'm some paragon of virtue or anything. I like to think I have everyone's best interests at heart, but the best thing for me to do is probably to keep my mouth shut and just be a good friend. So that's what I'm doing. I am willing to do pretty much anything for these people, whatever it takes to make them happy, and if that's geeking out over music or reading over someone's paper before they hand it in or listening while they tell me about how much things suck or giving them medicine when they're sick or just being around them, look, I'm really good at doing all of those things. And the things I'm not good at, I will try to do anyways.

I have a lot of love to give. In both innocent and non-innocent senses. And pretty much nothing makes me happier than being useful and helpful and making other people feel better. So I'm just going to keep on doing that.

You know what was really fucking great? ANDREW BIRD. He was fucking phenomenal.

So yesterday I went to the concert in Rochester with Will. We were supposed to go with Alyssa, but she had a class she couldn't cut, so Ben came with us instead. And it was awesome. Will and Ben are both really nice people, very easy to talk to and I get along great with both of them. The drive there was defined by Sufjan Stevens and talking about drugs (which Ben and I do and Will does not, but he likes to make fun of me for talking about drugs all the time, because for some reason I constantly make drug references when I'm around him), and when we got to Rochester it was raining and we had time to go to dinner... so we cross-referenced Will's GPS with my phone to figure out where to go, and we ended up going to an Ethiopian restaurant called Abysinnia. I... would probably not go to another Ethopian restaurant again, but it was an interesting experience to have once in my life. But I had a glass of honey wine which was pretty good.

Then we went to the concert. The opener was Martin Dosh, who has toured with Andrew Bird in the past, and who plays with looping machines and drums. He was pretty cool. BUT THEN THERE WAS ANDREW BIRD. Who does things with looping machines that I didn't know were humanly possible. He stood up there with his violin and made it sound like there was a whole orchestra behind him. Like, one guy with a violin and a really clear whistle, blowing my fucking mind with every new song. And he played some of my favorite songs... although he fucked up on both of my favorites! A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left and Plasticities. And he stopped and said "I have played these songs so many times..." and it was just funny. I was hoping he would play Darkmatter, but I wasn't that lucky. Still, it was a freaking amazing show, I'm so glad I went. And I'm glad I went with Will, because I really like spending time with him.

I was practically asleep on the way back to Wells, but we listened to Bright Eyes and I sang along with the songs I only half-remembered because I haven't listened to that album since I was like 22, but that was the album Bright Eyes was touring on when I saw them when I was 18, so I remembered enough to recall crying like a little girl after Waste of Paint, and how shitty the drive home after that concert was sitting so close to the guy who broke my heart and the guy who helped put it back together. This was a much better drive home.

So yeah. Music is great, and I keep saying this because it's true, my friends are great.

I'm just condensing so I can catch up.

You know what's great? King Richard's Faire. I love going to Renaissance Faires, I've only been twice in my life but it's so much fun. The problem is that I want to buy ALL THE THINGS and that's not really an option for someone as broke as I am, but hey, I got some of the things, and I had a fantastic time with l_loire and hearts_blood and their family members. I rented a costume so I would fit in with everyone else, and bought some jewelry for myself and Shane, and cute little leatherbound notebooks as gifts for people, and a hat, and some really cool cards. I really wanted to get a puzzle box shaped like an owl, but I couldn't justify the expense to myself, which I regret now because that was such an awesome puzzle box. And it was really cool just wandering around checking out everyone else's costumes and looking at all the vendors' stuff. My biggest regret is that I didn't get to see the tiger show or the rat show. Next year.... next year I will see both of them.

Another thing that is great is hanging out with my family. While I was in New Bedford I got a pedicure done with my sisters and my cousin Kristen, which was really nice, and then the next day we had Julia's birthday party at our house and there was cake and revelry and too much football. And then we went to Amy-Beth's and got wasted, which made me forget how sick I was (it was pretty sick, I felt like shit, but being drunk erased the suck for a couple of hours).

One more thing that was great from the weekend: seeing my cat. I miss him so much. My mother sends me pictures of him, but pictures are not the same thing as picking him up and snuggling him, and that was really nice.

Other things that are great: not being pregnant, not being sick any more, having weed, having four more books for my thesis thanks to Shane, being back at Wells with my friends.

Traveling can be great. Sometimes. Taking the Amtrak was pretty bad yesterday because it was two hours delayed and sat on the tracks three times not moving at all once I got on it, but usually I love taking the train. And it wasn't totally terrible because I was traveling with Sabrina.

Driving was better. Being in a car with Brian and April is occasionally like listening to the sound of a TV show I don't know, but it's fun anyways. I played a lot of Fruit Ninja, they sang along to Elton John, it was a good time.

But right now I am suffering an allergic reaction and it is hard for me to think about things I like, so I'm going to save talking about King Richard's Faire until tomorrow, go to bed now, and hope I don't feel this shitty in the morning.