Gonna lose my mind
Every time I write a journal entry, I think "Joy! That means I get to take five days off!" I coax myself into writing by promising myself time off. Last week I wrote two journal entries within two days, and had decided to reward myself with ten days off. It makes sense, if you think about it. I give about two hours of time for each entry. And really, I need to have about five days for anything worth writing about to happen.
So I wasn't planning on writing any journal entries for a while. I wasn't even going to feel bad about neglecting my journal. And I'm sitting here, in quite a bit of pain, typing away because I feel bad. Not because I've been neglecting my journal, not at all. In fact, I'm rather proud of myself. It's sort of like saying really horrible insults to someone, and stopping halfway through the insults you've planned. The person you've been insulting is hurt, and you're so proud of yourself for not saying the worst insult. I'm proud of myself because I didn't go ten days without updating. I did go five days without updating.
That isn't important. I update when I want to. It makes me infinitely happier to say that. What I did feel was the piling up of events. I knew that if I waited too long, I'd never get everything that happened this week written down. The short version: Monday saw the beginning of crew. Thursday I saw Maya Angelou. Thursday I was put on the wait list for Carleton. Friday I ran out of blood, and was threatened with my spot on the crew team. I've stopped taking my prozac and I broke my camera. I haven't heard from any other colleges. They aren't major events, but they were all rich with material to write about. In theory, when I finish this entry I shall have bought myself ten days of respite.
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Each year, for a few weeks, I become a blistered contortionist. I cram my body into shapes that are unnatural and strange, my hands and fingers become roughly calloused, I have bruises half way down on the back of my calves. I have an egg shaped welt forming on the back of my thigh, and the egg is covered in scrapes and torn skin and a range of intense colors. I hurt. Rowing crew forces the body to do strange things.
The coach tried to tell us the other day that the movement was as natural as sitting up from a chair. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but the motion of swinging along a seat on rollers, jabbing a thick oar into my belly, shoving off the built in shoes as hard as my cramped legs will let me is all horribly unnatural to me. If I am doing something wrong, it wouldn't be the first time. I'm not a great rower. I'm the first to admit that. I'm erratic, and unpredictable, and have a dreadful sense of timing.
So I try to make up for it by being pleasant. The operative word there is "try." I tend to be unsuccessful here as well.
So, a week into crew season, I've already invoked the wrath of my coach. She's a new coach, and has frankly admitted that she's trying to coax some rowers into quitting. We have enough rowers for two full boats, and then six left over. We need two rowers to start, or six rowers to quit. And it's easier to get people to quit rowing than to get people to start.
(If you let me, I will talk about the mechanics of rowing until you're all dead of boredom.) (What's even worse, I don't even understand the mechanics of rowing that well. So you'll die of confusion and scorn, as well as boredom.)
I saw Maya Angelou thursday. The entire time she was talking to the YWCA fundraiser luncheon, I thought "I never want her to stop talking. I want her to talk to me forever and ever." I've never heard a voice that marlvelous. There was something about it that was hilarious and sobering at the same time. She told stories about having to hide her Uncle Willy in the potato bins when the lynch mob, "the boys," roamed the streets of the Arkansas town she grew up in. She said to us, "You now know that you can say to yourself, 'Nothing human is alien to me.'" The words were on repeat in my brain. Over and over and over, "Nothing human is alien to you."
I never wanted to stop hearing her voice. So, it doesn't make sense that I was so intensely flustered when she finished speaking - a half an hour late. "I'm going to be late for crew," I huffed at my mother. We left straight after Angelou finished speaking, leaving the ditzy closing remarks to the women in charge of the luncheon committee.
I don't like driving on highways. I've never really taken to it. I don't even like driving fast. My car makes a horrible noise as you approach 120 mi/hr. I discovered this driving from the place where Maya Angelou had spoken to the place where I was ten minutes late for crew practise.
On friday, when I showed up to the boathouse to tell her that the nurse said I couldn't row after giving blood, my coach suggested that I choose my priorities. What a horrific stereotype she became as soon as she said "Put crew above anything but school in your life. Or quit." I've made a bad impression. The fact that I showed up to practise every day, that I never complained, that I was pleasant and good natured isn't a fact anymore. The only thing I ever had going for me in crew - a decent attitude and a bit of resolve - isn't existent anymore. And it's all because of Maya Angelou's voice and the red cross.
This morning I caught sight of myself in the bath tub. I was steeping in water made gray from the blood, dirt, and soap on my legs. While carrying a boat off the floating dock, I stepped through the gap between floats. The bruise underneath my thigh is now a magnificent plum dark color. I hobbled to my car, hurlting tears and phlegm in every direction. Parents waiting for their children to finish practise watched as I fired up the laundry-mobile and puttered away. I counted five people watching me, and no one asking if I was alright.
I could tell that they were slightly impressed, though. That's all I ever wanted from crew.
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"DiaryLand Loves You!!" said Andrew's omnipresent Diaryland voice to me just now. Diaryland had better love me, that's all I can say. I got this great new AIM screen name - Beelzebub's bum - and I talked to Andrew under it.
beelzebubs bum: I gave blood today.
beelzebubs bum: My brother punches me when I don't ask him to.
bearjerk: oh dear!
bearjerk: that's not very nice of him
beelzebubs bum: I ran out actually. Of blood.
bearjerk: but funny though!
beelzebubs bum: He's not that nice.
beelzebubs bum: Turns out I'm a zombie.
beelzebubs bum: And I don't drink enough fluids.
bearjerk: oops!! that sucks
bearjerk: do you just eat brains instead?
bearjerk: being a zombie and all?
beelzebubs bum: they eat brains?
bearjerk: yup! sure do
beelzebubs bum: wouldn't have thought you were the reigning sovereign expert on zombies.
bearjerk: that's a well known zombie fact!
beelzebubs bum: is it now? I don't know that much about zombies. They aren't my speciality.
bearjerk: theyre mine!
bearjerk: now you know!Diaryland has eaten my entries, messed with my head, and annoyed me with the brown and orange color scheme since the beginning. However, because it is run by a guy who is a zombie expert, I know I'm all set. Also, diaryland folk, did you notice the new banners? I didn't know Constable Whiskers was the cat's name. Nor did I know that Constable Whiskers approved of Diaryland. Now that I know that, I can probably die happy.
I think andrew exists to make us wish we were stranger than we are (because in being strange, andrew appears to have so much fun), work hard to be come strange, and then andrew laughs at us. That could be one explanation. I think that most things about people's personalities are determined by their site designs. The 'nomalous man's design is cold. It nearly contrasts the orange flowers and Constable Whisker's. But not... enough. They both mess with our minds. And I think Andrew's the more evil of the two. In a good way, of course.
This took three hours. Be kind.
2000-03-26, Rowing: Blisters and bruises.
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