Shady Pines, Ma

I'm late getting around to this, but rest in peace Bea Arthur. The Golden Girls was a staple in my house growing up. Many an afternoon I would come home from school and watch back to back episodes on Lifetime. I haven't gotten to see as many recently, but it's still one of my favorites shows, and I can (and do) recite quotes from all the episodes.

I know I'll be sad the next time I watch the show, since Bea and Estelle Getty have now passed. But at least I will always be able to re-watch and revel in the funny jokes, perfect comedic timing, and of course, those outrageous outfits.

The pigs are coming, the pigs are coming!

Swine flu. It's all the media has been talking about lately. I understand this could turn into a Major Deal, but right now all of the people in the U.S. are recovering. More than sixty are dead in Mexico, however, and it seems like everyone in the U.S. contracted it from Mexico. So while this flu is serious, it irritates me that the media makes it sound like we're all going to drop dead any minute now.

I haven't been south of the border, so I'm hoping I'm good. Perhaps this scare will get people to realize that good hygiene is a great defense--seriously, wash your hands. It takes thirty seconds, and it can go a long way to help keep you healthy. Also, if you get flu symptoms, go to the doctor. I know a lot people are out of work and don't have health insurance, so if a doctor is not possible, at least try to stay home and not pass your germs to everyone else.

Thus ends my PSA.

Full circle

We were talking in class today about becoming your parents, which made me think of something that happened a couple of weeks ago. I was watching after my nephew, and I had to discipline him. I found myself saying to him the very same thing my mother said to me when I was a child. As soon as it flew out of my mouth, I knew it was happening, but I was strangely calm about it. My mom was great, and did a good job balancing being my disciplinarian and my friend. There are worse people for me to turn into (namely, my father).

I feel like as I get older, I analyze my actions more and relate them to my parents. I see myself doing stupid, mean things and see scary flashes of my father. He was controlling, cruel, and an alcoholic; he's everything I don't want to be. Awhile back I had too much to drink and wound up sloppily crying, making me remember all of the times growing up that I witnessed my father doing the very same thing. I do not want to be that person.

Most of all, I wish my mom were still here. I wish I could see her reaction to me in adulthood. I'm sure she would have stories to tell me about my childhood, stories that I could tell to my nephew. And I'm sad that we never got the chance to be friends as adults, because I know we would have been close.

OMGWTFBBQ

Where the hell does the time go? It feels like I was just complaining about April Fool's Day, and now it's April 21, and I only have a few weeks of school left. I worry sometimes that I'm going to blink and find myself thirty years old.

So, I'm thinking about trying internet dating. I know, I know, there's a lot of bad fish in that very big sea. But I'm not meeting any guys at school; being a literature major, most of the guys are either gay or not my type. I don't hang out bars, so I'm not meeting guys there. I just want to have fun, and internet dating will be a new, exciting adventure even if I don't find a good guy.

I'm going to wait until school is over (May 12!) to start, though. I still have to figure out what sites I'm going to use, and anyway, I don't need the distraction right now. It's hard enough to buckle down and work right now; I've got all sorts of things I need to accomplish by Monday that I just have no motivation to do. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous and warm for the rest of the week, making me want to go outside and play rather than write a paper about Andy Warhol. These next few weeks are going to be hell, I can tell.

This is a disjointed rambling mess. I should probably stop now.

Fear factor

Every time I step onto the elevator to go up to class, I get afraid that it's going to break down and I will be stuck. I know I probably shouldn't think this way, but the elevator always makes this lurch, and then a long pause, before finally opening the doors. And according to the chart inside the elevator, it's only inspected once a year. That just does not seem like enough to me. I'm paranoid that one day I will get stuck in there, with only sticks of Doublemint gum as nourishment.

Going from the silly to the serious, I live in fear that something will happen to someone I love while we're alone. For example, I'm afraid that my sister will be driving us somewhere and suddenly pass out, leaving me to handle the car. This fear stems from what happened to my mother; I was alone in our apartment with her when she had her aneurysm. I found her unconscious and had to call 911, answer questions from the paramedics, etc. It was incredibly scary, and I'm just so afraid that something like that will happen again. For the first year after she died I would keep my cell phone at my side at all times, even taking it into the bathroom with me while I showered, just in case I needed to call for help for some reason. I've broken myself of that habit, but I'm still afraid.

I don't know that I will ever fully overcome my fears. I don't have much family, and losing my mother was hard enough. If something happened to anyone else, I honestly don't know how I could go on. Hopefully, I will never have to find out.

Tweet, tweet (or not)

I don't have a twitter. I also have no time to write anything of significance here. So, here's a list of things that would be on my twitter feed if I had one, and things that I would expand upon if I had the time.

--Currently eating peanut butter from the jar using a plastic spoon I stole from Wendy's. Classy.
--My econ teacher always writes notes on my papers that I can't read. I do, however, nod sagely as if I'm taking his advice to heart.
--I AM GOING TO COME UPSTAIRS AND HURT THE PERSON PLAYING THEIR MUSIC SO FUCKING LOUDLY.
--My suitemate has been utilizing our bathroom for over an hour. Don't know why I'm surprised; she typically wears enough makeup for three drag queens.
--Realized I'm the epitome of laziness when I decided it wasn't worth it to walk the ten feet across my dorm room to turn on the light.
--Rewatching old Gilmore Girls episodes. Rory is still an annoying twit and Luke >>>>Christopher.

Life sucks and then you die

Last night's House was incredibly disappointing to me. I had read the spoilers, I knew Kutner's suicide was coming, I know Kal Penn left to go work for Obama (which is a fantastic opportunity that he couldn't pass up), but still I'm sad. Kutner was my favorite of the newbies, bringing a light-hearted spin to an otherwise dour set of characters. I don't know why I'm going to have a reason to keep watching the show--Thirteen and Foreman are bores, Chase is barely seen, Cameron still annoys me when she shows up, House is taking forever to work things out with Cuddy, and Taub is his best when he plays off Kutner. Now that he's gone, I don't know how they'll make Taub, a guy already suffering a lot of misery, an appealing character. There has got to be something fun happening, otherwise I'll walk away from the show every week feeling as depressed as the characters do.

I suppose the point the show was trying to make was that suicide can happen without warning. Indeed, we got virtually no signs that Kutner would kill himself. But I can't help but think that the fact that were no signs was because the writers intentionally left Kutner an underdeveloped character. Ever since the newbies were added to the show, we've heard all about Thirteen's life, her sexuality, her Huntington's disease, her relationship with Foreman. With Taub, we know about his infidilities, his money problems, his struggling relationship with his wife. All we were told about Kutner is that his parents were murdered when he was a child and that he was later adopted by a loving couple. We saw that he was a funny, sweet guy, but we didn't get the chance to get inside his head. And since he killed himself, he clearly had a lot going on in his head.

So while the point that suicide is unpredictable is valid, I still maintain that it would have been better to have gotten to know Kutner, understand his point of view, see why he would have ended his life. The writers took a character that they often used as comic relief and had him kill himself with no build up, leaving his death to seem like a cheap ratings stunt rather than realistic character development. The writers didn't know what to do with Kutner, Kal Penn was leaving, and so they decided to do something sensational. Last night's episode centered on everyone's reactions to this shocking death. House and the others will be haunted by what they missed, and what they could have done differently. Ultimately, Kutner's suicide stops being about him and becomes more about everyone else's feelings. Even in death, he plays second fiddle to the rest of the characters.

This is why we rock

North Carolina wins the NCAA Championship.