Spiral of silence.

As my phone stays silent but my depression lessens (much more sleep + less PMS?), I've decided on a couple things to do/remember/chant through my nose and shout through my mouth this next week.
Exam Week Resolutions Because New Year's is Too Cliched and Broad:

•  I will not call, text, email, or Facebook Bluetooth. He never responded last night. Not even an "Am still sick *sneezes plague into phone*", "Bitch please," or non-sequitor. Any of those would prevent me from hating him a little. Now I hate him a little. I deleted his shit from my phone.
  A comment of his on his own Facebook page: "If you look in the YouTube comments, there is at least three marriage proposels." There ARE. THERE ARE THREE.
• However, if I don't hear from him by this coming Friday late dinner time, I will call him (CALL, not write/type and send/hand over something he can ignore for however long he wants) and make sure we both understand what we want from each other. When this conversation ends, I will either get laid or tear up his business card and move on.
• I will not care what people think of me.
• I will not shame myself for feeling frustrated over a guy. I will not chastise myself for feeling "all girly" about not knowing why a guy stops talking to me for no apparent reason. I will acknowledge this frustration (*ACKNOWLEDGE ACKNOWLEDGE.*) and why it bothers me (I don't know what the fuck I did or did not do). I will acknowledge that maybe he's not doing this on purpose, maybe he doesn't know this frustrates me so much, or maybe he's not worth my time. Yeah.
• I will only use the rest of my Benadryl pills to get to sleep the nights before my exams if I need them and not as a general sleeping aide. 
• I will get out of this dorm at least once a day besides the five seconds in the morning when I go to the student union to get a cherry Coke Zero. 
• I will wear jeans, undergarmets, and a new shirt each day, even if they're the same ill-fitting secondhand man's jeans, pink bra, and variations on layers of t-shirt, hoodie, and pea coat. Sweatpants equal giving up.
• I will not go downtown exclusively to walk pass my ex's condo lot. I will try my utmost to minimize my time and not get raped or mugged if I do go downtown after sunset.
• I will not go on Facebook more than an hour a day. I will not watch any more online back episodes of Greek. I will be allowed to watch the new season one episode at a time when they start in January. 
• I will brush my teeeth twice a day, wear my retainers every night, brush my hair every morning, and shave every week. See point about clothes.
• I will invent a new recipe by using my leftovers and the dorm stovetop tonight: macaroni quesidillas. They will be delicious and possibly go well with chocolate milk.
• I will not call my ex. (Have been good at that lately, as in I can't remember the last time I caved and called.)
• I will clean that goddamn bathroom. It's getting disgusting. 
• I will go down and watch Elf with the rest of the dorm tonight.

There you have it. Time to go to CVS for...something. Cleaning supplies? Couple of laps around the shampoo? Dinner additions? Maybe dinner additions.

Feats of Strength

I didn't sleep last night, at all. I've been awake for about (got up at 9am Friday, now it's 4pm Saturday so that's 24+3 hours to noon+4 more=) 31 hours straight. It probably has something to do with the two liters of diet Dr Pepper I drank between 6:30pm yesterday and 7:30am today, but those last two glasses were pure resignation.
After everything settled down last night (which was already early this morning), my brain went in every direction at once and would not shut off. It's still doing that. I laid down, turned off my light, closed my eyes, and waited. Got up to pee, laid back down, closed my eyes, waited, turned my light back on, read a little, turned my light back off, laid back down, closed my eyes. Waited. Nothing--well, no. Everything.
I gave up about 4:30am, turned my desk lamp on for good, finished Wishin' and Hopin' (Wally Lamb's Italian-American parochial school version of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is a good thing), started George Singleton's Novel. Watch the sky gradually turn bluer and bluer until it was daylight again. Worried about my brain.

Being alone lets me indulge in my eccentricities. But this insomnia is getting ridiculous. 

My lunch was a cheap box of macaroni and cheese mixed with salsa and canned mushrooms.

That's a crappy short story but a good table mat.

Dad called right when I poured the noodles in to boil and we talked for exactly seven and a half minutes, which makes for good noodles and happy parents alike.
Dinner might be identical or it might be the rest of the quesidillas.

...Really? I'm posting about food that took like five minutes of effort to make? It's all come to that? Shit cheese and save the cracker.
This is all to cover up how much I want to go to Bar I Like Downtown tonight and party with one of the radio DJs who does the party DJ thing, too. But I'm scared of getting mugged or raped if I go by myself. It's been happening over there a lot lately. But if I don't get out of this dorm at least once today, I'm never going to sleep again, I can just feel it. But I just texted Bluetooth to see if he'd go with me but he hasn't answered yet but it doesn't start until 10pm but maybe he's actually sick but maybe I need to study some more and not fall asleep at Bar I Like Downtown and not care. I'm so close.

Geek stamp.

Tonight was...frustrating. 
I made apple chicken quesidillas by hiking to Food Lion after my last normal college class ever; chopping up two apples, an onion, a little bit of a tomato, and a can of corn while baking chicken legs; dumping everything into buttered tortillas and gluing everything together with cheese and a hot skillet; and skittering into different clothes and red lipstick and my badass shoes at the last second.
I'd like to say I can play the sexy domestic hostess without any effort, but it took most of like three hours and upper arm strength I will never have.

And yes, those are my skeleton plates.

It was for the potluck dinner me and Suitemate and Mike and a couple of their other friends had in the dorm where Suitemate and I live.
Bluetooth couldn't come. He had a headache.

Pros of the Evening (optimistic thinking!):

• I do like cooking. I love how it's like playing music; there are written instructions, but those are more suggestions that you make your own. And I'm better at cooking than I am playing the piano. That didn't use to be true.
• Got to hang out with Mike. It was a little awkward until one of us made us both laugh. Then we were back in our comfort zone. That is where we'll always be. Minor sigh, but it's for the best.
• Good food. Quesidillas turned out AWESOME, thanks much, and so did Suitemate's apple crisp (yellow cake mix + margarine for the crust. Must remember.) and her friend's meatballs. 
• This photo. I got to play with Mike's sword.

That's my battle sneer.

I knighted him, too, in the back parking lot, before we talked about superhero movies but after he burst out laughing at something and exclaimed, "I love you, Melanie, you're awesome" in the same way he exclaimed he loved Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, it's awesome.

Cons of This Evening (embracing my inner cynic! It's my true nature that I can let fly freely now that I don't have to work around BF's unfailing cheerfulness):

• I hate chopping things into tiny pieces. It took longer than anything else, and it gave me a blister. That might've been my shitty knife.
• Had to hang out with Suitemate the whole time I was hanging out with Mike. That's how it's been EVER SINCE she figured out we all know each other. She wants to do everything with BOTH of us. I'm not in love with him, I promise, but I am definitely in hate with having to explain our random shit to her and then listen to her unfunny jokey interpretations. I want my best campus friend back, dammit. 
• I didn't really like the other people. I talked with the boys about Star Wars purity (George Lucus only made THREE MOVIES, dammit. The prequels NEVER HAPPENED.) and one's bar tending job. To be fair, that's how it usually goes, and I'm okay with that.
• Suitemate took that picture. She was with us the whole time in the parking lot. Parking lot discussions with Mike are my favorite. 
• I started my period today. Although I'm happier than usual about this, it and exam schedules mean I probably won't get any before winter break. Another pro, though--this also means I have time to get my diaphragm prescription filled so I can continue my double-protected ways. 

If I ever actually need it. 

"But then I'm a scumbag."
"Ah! But a scumbag with dignity."

Recipe for my first weekend up here alone.

Preparation:
1. Decide to not go home a second weekend in a row, especially with Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks so close on my and each other's asses.
2. Hope really hard that my roommate's open suitcase means she's going home so I don't have to explain why I'm still here instead of BF's condo.
3. Eat dried chicken (wonder why everybody who cooks thinks the breast is so great) and polite conversation during the j-school scholarship luncheon.
4. Walk to Food Lion, guiltily check for BF's car, stay paranoid of him and/or how it gets completely dark by 6pm now while you buy food and hike back.

Not pictured: my dignity.

Ingredients:
1 box Hamburger Helper
vague approximation of vegetables
1 12-pack diet cherry vanilla Dr. Pepper
1 good movie at the student union
1 Pastafarians talk
1 good friend (male)
1 cockblocking suitemate who probably doesn't know what "cockblocking" means
depression, lonliness, giddyness
1 call to parents laced with reassurances
2-3 servings of masturbation
1 low-neck sweater
1 sociology paper (5-7 pages)
1 journalism paper (5-7 pages)
1 library science homework assignment

Steps:
Combine Hamburger Helper, vegetables, 1 can diet Dr. Pepper. Consume at regular-ish intervals when needed by hunger. If nausea occures, try more diet Dr. Pepper.
Put on low-cut sweater (be sure to avoid makeup, tight jeans, visible bra, or shiny things near boobs). Go to movie with good (male) friend, cockblocking suite mate, and about 50 other people they both know somehow. Hate cockblocking suite mate when she wants to sit next to me; hate male friend when he agrees and takes his comfortable bulk away from anywhere I could possible brush up against it during the movie. Concentrate on how conflicted Leonardo in a suit is a fine sight and not on how much I have to pee.
Afterward, stand around with everybody first outside, then in the Cheap and Fast and Good sub shop down the street, talking (does not have to be about nerdy things, but it helps). Officially meet Bluetooth and notice eye contact from him by making my own eye contact.
When things break up at approximately 1:45am, don't walk male friend to his car but instead help Bluetooth find the bluetooth headset he dropped somewhere in the parking lot. Marvel at how useful the concept of "triangulation" is. Find headset by almost stepping on it; get hug and reassurance that headset is for listening to podcasts and not "looking like a douche while talking on the phone." Accept two-second ride back to dorm because by now I can't remember if I have toes or if the cold snapped them off.
Take Bluetooth's business card. Scribble my own name-number-email on back of another. Be slightly stunned at how easy that was and how much fun you just had with people who are actual friends. Realize this sort of thing is exactly what you've been missing from your Friday nights.
Bake journalism paper in intervals until done.
Call parents to let them know depression and lonliness have been used sparingly.
Go to Pastafarians talk. Let stand overnight.
Bake sociology paper until done. Suddenly remember library science assignment--pan fry that sucker to a reasonably consistent finish. Wonder if watching The Amazing Race would be too traumatic.