my week essentially ended yesterday. classes feel like an afterthought, like “oh yeah, i guess i should go do that …,” not particularly important. i don’t have huge weights on my mind. yet i’m still sweating and getting headaches which vary in position (so i know that they’re not signals of oncoming migranes, thank god) intensity and type of pain. the worst ones hit yesterday morning while i was struggling blearily to make it thru Murder!: the pain was extremely sharp, about the width and height of a coin slot, and located unusually on the middle-top of my head.

i alarmed my mother by not being coherent last nite. i guess i should just go to sleep before i do more damage. the strangest dreams keep plaguing me tho: last nite i dreamt i was in a fairy tale. seven other girls and i sat around a wooden table and each had one specific complaint she kept harping on. i don’t remember what mine was but i started pulling my hair out. i had this thick glossy black hair that fell halfway down my back and when i looked down after a certain point, i saw what must have been most of it in a sad-looking pile on the floor.

now is the time to tell me you like the new design. i spent all evening wrestling it into submission; i’m still sweating in fact. sore, exhausted, but happy. come on, tell me it was worth it.

my friend ari wrote a really sharp, funny entry yesterday. as i’m too near braindead to do any independent thinking, i’m going to urge you over to him. i myself got 2 hours from sleep last nite, between 6 and 8 a.m. i flunked my stat midterm early, left the room in a daze but ran into elizabeth and bridget who for my amusement played an ultracompetitive game of tic tac toe glaring across the table at each other and never looking down at the board. also they’re witty, which helps.

i went home to be further comforted by ben who was serendipitously at the barn when i arrived, ready to hug me and tell me it’s all going to be okay. (i think cliches exist specifically for times of stress) ross and i kept each other functional through the nite, brainstorming ideas, reviewing each other’s drafts, suggesting corrections, mindlessly transferring popcorn, chocolate, and edamame from fingers to mouths. rebecca came home late, laid herself facedown on the common room floor in a position that looked like she’d landed from a fall, and stayed that way for a while. joel, the only one of us who seemed not to have a workload, tried to soothe.

anyway, it’s better from here on out. i keep discovering more reasons why i should/need to stay on campus this weekend so i’m somewhat turn. mckeownlanajamienomi tho is a strong pull ….

listening to beth orton, shoulder muscles so tight i feel like invisible fists have dug into my skin and grabbed, determined to hold fast, about to go take my 2nd stat midterm and miss my film class, and when i’m done to go see/review/preview/fuckthemallwriteareviewofHarryPotter for the phoenix but first maybe grab dinner at kohlberg — have to eat something — altho it won’t be as nice as my impromptu sharples lunch where the girls i happened upon bought me food so i could sit w/ them while they discussed SQU, leading me to wonder how it came to pass that my female friends right now are queer[friendly]. spent much time poring over Murder! documents w/ ross, reading bits aloud in funny voices and laughing. it’ll be less funny when i finally get home and finish the review/preview/fuckthemallreviewofHarryPotter (estimate 12) and roll up my sleeves to start writing. must finish and have printed out by 9 a.m. ohdearohdear.

i spoke too soon. not long after i started playing w/ the template once it was fixed, i discovered that netscape’s interpretation was smugly, inexplicably fucked up. i’d been in a good mood up to that point — that soured it. i deserved it tho really: i should have been working on Murder! rather than my dumbass website. with some effort i forced myself to leave the screen for the page and made an outline and emailed it to the prof, asking for an okay. (desperate for approval? me? go on.) conflicting opinions from my editor of the phoenix, who wants me to write a review of a student production on campus, and the director of said production who would really rather i didn’t. meanwhile i’m sulky b/c i just want to write my review of harry potter.

frustrating/boring stat review session (midterm tomorrow for which i have to miss a film screening that i can’t make up because the films are on 16mm); a semi-cathartic scream w/ sarah k.; and home to miso soup and tempura. the worst thing, hands down, about moving back onto campus will be missing the food my flatmates cook. ah well.

going home this weekend (right? right?) to see ms. mckeown and ms. warner in concert. that will be relaxing. two people whose online journals i checked had private entries today. [“what’s with today today?”] i’ve torn a lot of hair out. i barely notice til i look down and see hair like shrubs growing out of cracks in a wall. i wonder whether other people think i’m weird, constantly tugging at, straightening or curling my hair. i wonder if i would be so fixated if my hair were short or straight. i wonder whether everyone’s kind of tired of skool at this point or whether it just happens to be the folks i spend time w/ and/or read on the net.

thanks to rabi, i finally fixed this page so that it looks the way god intended on netscape. i can’t vouch for the other way-too-sophisticated browsers (opera? what?); i was quite pleased just to see that it worked on the conventional ones.

i don’t recall what inspired it. of course it’s still rough; feel free to advise.

marc suggested the color. i’m sitting w/ him now in his dorm in the lull b/w dinner (for which rob joined us, offering buddha-like advice) and co|motion (ross calls them “commies”: damn catchy and a pun to boot). i spent nearly the whole day w/ ross for the first time in a while, working on our latest Murder! assignment. he surprised me relatively early while i was still in my crazy pajamas. i went to sleep late after one extensive conversation w/ lana and another w/ ben. the latter ended only b/c the batteries on my phone died.

nori suggested, in response to the previous entry, that perhaps she’ll never get married and she doesn’t feel there’s anything wrong w/ that. got me thinking a little. it’s assumed that people factor marriage into their life-plans, if not make marriage their goal. why do countless movies and books end either at or two-steps before the altar? because it’s the pinnacle of achievement? or because nothing interesting happens thereafter?

hmm. do most kids this age (help me out, kids) fantasize about their wedding day? i just realized i never have. for one thing, i don’t look good in white …

oh so much. i’m back at the barn, deposited here by parents who took a cursory look around my apartment and sped off home. we drove all day, making it from my grandparents’ house in manchester back here in about 6 hrs, with stops; they still have another couple hours to go. considering the state we were in when we left i was scared we wouldn’t make it to new york. (my brother lost one of his case logics in packing — he thinks he placed it momentarily atop the car and then forgot about it. he and then the rest of us beachcombed the stretch of street b/w the motel, where he was packing, and my grandparents’ house, for it, to no avail. all his dvds and a number of cds it would give you a heart-attack to mention! i’d cry.)

i had weird-ass dreams tho. the first was that it turned out i was ten years older than i’d realized. amnesia had wiped my memory of giving birth to dan blim (he’s a senior here). in some hazy way, matt rubin was involved and i had definite negative feelings about the whole thing. in the dream i thought, “oh, so that explains it.” in the second dream, my bedroom was converted into an unused room in the top corner of a skool building. quite depressing.

on the more positive sleep front, i bought wonderfully comfortably warm bright red fleece pajamas. my cousin jeff upon seeing me model them called me mrs. claus. my dad compared it to a shador — all i needed was a veil. i think the outfit resembles a sari; clearly it’s up for interpretation. anyway i slept in them the last nite and had no bad dreams.

now i’m back at the barn, alone again, tho i talked to lana for over an hour and then briefly liz. maybe i’ll slip into my pajamas. maybe no harm can come to me in them.

doesn’t take much to make a good day (or should that be, to make a day good?) possible ingredients: leaving your last class pre-break. hearing the foreign study coordinator whisper “you’re in.” lunching w/ stefanie, maria, ben, sorelle, rebecca briefly / sarah k. blocking the hallway saying an extended goodbye. going upstairs to eliz’s room w/ sorelle. laughter. kohlberg chai. reading vagina monologues in sorelle’s room. helping maria make her love mix. watching cat on a hot tin roof w/ lodge 4 girls. saying an extended hello.

i’m sortof in the midst of packing. ma famille should be arriving soon in our new *shudder* SUV. they keep calling and saying it’ll be later. whatever. i hope i can do laundry up in vermont. and that the holiday won’t be stressful.

happy thanksgiving everyone (as sarah c. put it, “happy turkey, or vegan substitute”)

this is courtesy of william and kat:

Full name: ester sarah bloom

Name of school: swarthmore college

How often do you check your email: like five times a day.

Color of eyes: someone once said honey

Hair: auburn. this is very important to me. it makes baby jesus cry when someone dismisses my hair as brown.

Height: 5’1.5″

Zodiac sign: cancer but close enuf to leo that i don’t make any sense (the two are opposites) **is this ridiculous stuff important to me? clearly, yes.

there was more sappy stuff that i edited out but that last i just had to leave in. happy new week, everybody.

happy november 19 geoff, if you’re reading this. happy wednesday-before-thanksgiving, ben, if you’re reading this. gee, what a historically significant week this is for me …