Breaking news (but no more bad puns).

The Good

• I'M GETTING PUBLISHED. Sorry for getting all caps lock shouty, but hot damn I got the best phone call of my life on the night of the 17th. Alligator Juniper is publishing the two short stories I sent them for their 2011 new writers contest. No victory lap around the campus game room like I did when I found out I landed last summer's internship, but that was only because this time I was at home and it was 11pm and I had to go tell my parents why I woke them up (answer: victory shout).
  They emailed me my Publishing Contract yesterday. I'm signing it, scanning it, sending it back today. I will be a published author before I graduate college, with eight whole contributors' copies that I've already mentally handed out (Mom and Dad, Mike, high school newspaper teacher, New York writing friend, North Carolina writing friend, guitar teacher, Stephen King, me).
  Major life goal: check. And the best part? It's awesome and doesn't have anything to do with boys.
  
  • And as a happy little footnote, I was in the middle of writing a superhero story when the science fiction magazine I submitted to six weeks ago emailed me a reminder that they're still accepting submissions and they liked my writing. Would I like to try again?
    Yes. Yes I would.
• Also good but having everything to do with boys was when Bluetooth told me, during a scattered texting conversation, he got me a Christmas present. Set aside the fact that I hope he's just using me for sex because that's what I'm using him for: aw. That's sweet. So I said I had something (small, non-fancy) for him, too, and then the next time I went to Kroger I stood in the home shit aisle debating whether a plain white candle in a plain glass holder would be considered manly enough to give a guy who said one of the reasons he loves living off campus is because he can light candles in his own damn room. I added a three-position lighter (vaguely suggestive, adds more to the pyromaniac angle) and called it good.
  "Trust your instincts--they're spot on."
• Kanye West's new album. It's amazing and doesn't remind me of BF at all. 
• I made three As, one B, and one B+ this semester.

The Bad

•  I have ten-hour days to look forward to for my print journalism senior semester that starts in a week and a half. We're running our own paper, five days a week, and I'm terrified.
• BF still won't talk to me. I understand; at this point I don't even think I've ever had anything legitimate to tell him since we broke up. But it's really depressing, especially when my dad says it's weird we're together almost three years and just cut off contact like we did. Like BF did. I know, Dad, and it makes me feel like a helpless bitch.
• Bluetooth hasn't texted or answered the two texts (both last night) I've sent him the past few days. Again my brain jumps before it looks all the fucking time, so I'm half convinced he's gone back to his ex or found other better sex and just doesn't want to tell me while my other half (generally the bottom half) keeps reminding me that he's used phrases such as "next time" and "sleep over" and "I can never have a one-night stand" (although that was more of a physical reference, I think) and we both have those goddamn Christmas gifts (unless he's lying about all that! shrieks my top half) to exchange. Maybe his phone broke.
  This is when I realize I've gone through this cycle at least twice in the past month and as long as I know and want to have sex with him, I will want to strangle him because of his uneven attention.
  Once again, the plan is to call him when I get back to campus. See if he wants what I do. Make and eat enchiladas and strawberry pie with or without him, regardless of outcome. 
• I'm worried about my friends.

The Weird

• I had a wet dream about my hot Greek reporting professor last night. It involved volunteering to go on assignment with him somewhere we had to wear asbestos suits, and cunnilingus. I'm not sure in what order.
  ...Yeah, that's been the weirdest part of break so far. Not as weird as my first wet dream, which was about Bill Clinton and woke me up with a wedgie so far up my ass I thought could taste cotton.

Tonight I'm getting squiffy off a single-serving bottle of shitty wine from Wal-Mart. It's a combination celebration/trying to forget and move on ritual.

Play us out, fellas.

I'm going home for Thanksgiving break in a couple hours. I'm taking this cold and my Sanity Rabbit with me.

Not pictured: actual sanity. He can flip, too.

I won't have blog access, thanks to Dad's paranoia about me going anywhere except my email account on the home computer. But I'm not planning on having anything to blog about when I'm miles away from my ability to stalk or answer booty calls.

That sounds crude. I feel like I sound more flippant on this blog than I really feel. It's a defense mechanism and something I do all the time. I am most sincerely glad to be buried at home--but that's not right, either. I don't know how I feel.

It's been exactly three weeks.

Bluetooth has to return some videotapes.
Why do I know so many boys who like American Psycho so much?

I am the only one who thinks I'm going crazy.

Dispatches from home.

Mom: "You're the only one who knows what's right for you."

Dad: "I always thought he was a little selfish."

Mom: "It's better you realized how you feel now than later."

Dad: "You need to focus on getting the next step of your own life together--not in a selfish way, but you do have a bunch of stuff coming up fast."

Mom: "Want to watch What Not to Wear?"

Dad: "Want to listen to Buddy Guy?"

This weekend, man. This weekend made me feel loved and friendless and liberated and blackly depressed, all while I was hungry but disgusted by food, checking my cell phone every ten seconds (YES, I KNOW nobody's called, texted, or raindanced at me; I KNOW it's really unlikely; I KNOW this itchy, crawly, impatient dreadful unfufilled anticipation just makes me more bored and useless and depressed, but I can't help checking, oh sweet Christ on a cracker I wish I could), reading, realizing I can still play the piano, staring at the TV, and crying and listening to Oasis and the Tragically Hip and drinking the single-serving bottle of wine that has been marinating in the bottom of my bottom sock drawer since a guy gave it to me a year and a half ago as an end-of-sophomore-year present.

"Vaccination Scar," by the Tragically Hip

I got back to BF's Facebook page filled status updates that shocked me because they sounded neutrally cheerful. Since when the fuck does he go to the library unless I (his little book nerd) suggested it?
I feel like such a bad person for being angry about this. I want to see he's hurting too, dammit.

I can't stand the stillness of being completely alone. I know I have to get through it but right now I feel like a pile of shit with amazing typing skills.

It wasn't always this way. It isn't always this way, I should say to greet the day. Sometimes it feels great.

Mom also said I shouldn't feel obligated to tell them everything about my life. Really? That's contradictory to the vibe I get every time I contact them (especially on the phone).
Like when I told her a couple hours later that I'm off birth control and plan on being celebate until next semester starts? That's probably what she meant.
To be fair, that's not a typical conversation I'd have with anyone related to me.