hiatus (i.e. I'M LAZY)

So the fact that I haven't posted anything since December is evidence enough that I am CLEARLY NOT ON THIS BLOG ANYMORE ;;

But I figure I might as well officially say WE ARE IN A STATE OF HIATUS, PEOPLE

So sleep well, or wake well, just know that you will be doing so WITHOUT THIS BLOG for the next few months!

Productive Day

Now that it's December, let's take a moment to reflect on the passing of November. Ahh, November. I remember it like it was yesterday...



Speaking of November, I should probably say that I WON NANOWRIMO!



My final wordcount was 50,390, which came out to about 185 pages (when counting the front and back of each page as two pages, the way a printed book would). I can't say it's the BEST writing I've ever done, but it is by far the most I've ever written for a single project. The novel itself isn't complete--I've got at least one more act to write--but having this much done already is definitely a huge help. I'm really excited to finish writing it and get to the editing process.

But that can wait until AFTER this semester is over.

So today is Thursday. I know, Thursday is a bad way to start the day, but luckily I had a Red Bull this morning, and so that evened things out a bit.

As you may or may not know, I am pretty damn good at my European History class. I have an exam for it tomorrow, and so I've been studying here and there for it all week. BUT, I am by no means ready to take the test yet!

So I get to my European History class today. I take my usual seat by the front, I pull up the tiny desk extension of my chair, I take out my notebook and pencil and I title/date the page for today's lecture notes. No big deal. I do this everyday. The only thing off about it today was that our professor still wasn't there after the first few minutes.

And then the teacher's assistants walked up to the front of the class. Counting heads. Holding scantrons.

We were taking the test today.



There are no words to describe the feeling in my heart at this point. It was like dropping a bowling ball on a trampoline and then lying underneath the trampoline as the bowling ball comes flying back to hit you in the face over and over and over and over.


Over like this.

If my bladder had been full, I might have peed. Instead, I managed to grab one of the hundred thoughts flying though my brain and decided on a course of action. I flipped my notebook open to the previous days' notes and frantically studied as much as I could in the 30 seconds or so I had before the test. My eyes were like a swarm of moths fluttering wildly about the florescent light that was my notebook.

And then I got my scantron.

It wasn't the test.

It was an evaluation form about how we felt about our professor.

That's why he wasn't in the room.



Now if my bladder had been full, I still would have peed, but it would have been a pee of RELIEF rather than of sheer terror. It took the entire time filling out the form for my heart to finally calm down, and the bruises from the metaphorical bowling ball were still aching for the rest of the lecture.

I guess it took that little scare to make me realize just how UNPREPARED I was for this coming exam. So after class, I grabbed a buddy, ran to Starbucks, got myself a peppermint mocha and headed for the library for SUPER STUDY SESSION. I don't know how long we were there. More than 2 hours, less than 3? Time flies when you're staring at disorganized notebooks and trying to translate them into a cohesive self-made study guide.

At about 6:30 I packed up and ran to get myself a decent meal at Chik-fil-A, and talked to my momma on the phone while I walked back to the apartment. NOMS were had and now I'm sitting here on the couch, fat and happy and trying to study a bit more before giving up and going to bed.

Also, my roommate left for the weekend, so, well. You know.



I got bored but didn't feel justified in slacking off, so I took a 20 minute break to clean the kitchen a bit and make myself a cup of tea. If you're the kind of person who cares about that sort of thing, you can watch all of that happen below. Sped up, of course. I will never make you watch me clean a kitchen for 20 minutes.



I look like a Sim on full speed...

Anyway, now that I've been productive and awesome and everything that I was NOT yesterday, I'm going to try to fit one more hour of studying in before saying BLARGHHRLBRAFFLLLL and going to sleep.

Goodnight all. Sleep well! Or wake well!

Single Thread of Sanity

Hello, my fellow internet dwellers. I feel that I should let everyone know that I AM SKIPPING MY GERMAN CLASS TODAY, AGAIN

JUST TRY AND STOP ME



There! I've said it, it's out there, now let me justify WHY. Brace yourselves--I'll do my best to keep shit from getting real, because I know how you all don't like that real shit. You come here for the nonsensical verbiage and amusing gifs, not for the serious ramblings of a college student!

And so! What on earth would compel me to skip such an important class? I'll try to explain, and in order to do that, there's an important distinction that needs to be made: handling stress is not the same thing as being stress free!




!! SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH !!






I know, how even. But that's the truth. It's printed in a book somewhere, so I have legitimate sources. "Somewhere" is the key word in that sentence, as in, not here, meaning, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOU CAN'T FIND THAT BOOK.

So now that we know the difference, let me say this: I am pretty good at handling stress! But at the same time, I am very, very stressed. A lot.

The problem with this is--wait for it--MY PRIDE. Cue the single shining tear of stereotypically manly strength rolling down my cheek like a liquid diamond catching the last glint of the rays of dusk.

What.



Yes, yes, we've covered this before. My pride is both my strength and my weakness. It's what gets me through the day, and it's what keeps me from asking for HELP to get through the day. That's about the crappiest personality trait ever. It's like the Captain Marvel Jr. of personality traits.

If you don't get that reference: Captain Marvel Jr. gets his superpowers by saying "Captain Marvel", but if he says his name again, he LOSES his superpowers. So imagine if you will...

"Oh my goodness, you just saved my life! Who are you?"

 "I'm Captain MarvelOH SHIT GOD DAMNIT FFUUUUUUUUUUU."

Also what.

And that's kinda how my pride works. It's what makes me feel awesome, but when I have to mention it in defense of my not asking for help or whatever--or even just to ask for help at ALL-- it's what makes me feel awful. And so I generally don't!

So you have no idea how much it pains me to actually admit that THINGS HAVE NOT BEEN SWELL WITH ME LATELY. I have no right to complain at all because there is so much shit, so much that is just GREATER THAN ME going on in the world right now, but damnit, there is a patchwork of strong faces and forced smiles that has been holding me to sanity, and right now there is ONE SINGLE THREAD.

AND THAT THREAD IS FRAYING. The hand that is the reality of how much the world and the people in it SUCK has come down on my head hard this year, and all I can do is overreact and flail wildly about.



Yeah, like that.

Regardless! The point of all this rambling is to show that, hey, we all have tough times, and WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SKIPPING MY GERMAN CLASS.

It has everything to do with it! I was stressed, and didn't want to admit it. Going to German would have made me even MORE stressed, because:

1) It's almost two hours long. +10 stress points
2) The class itself is incredibly small, which makes it really awkward when you don't know the answer, which is always. +15 stress points
3) It's Tuesday. +5 stress points
4) I didn't understand the homework. +30 stress points.
5) Because I didn't understand the homework, I wouldn't have understood anything in class, and thus would have been fretting about all the time I was wasting by being there and not learning. +50 stress points
6) I hate everything right now. +all the stress points



I was alright for my first two classes. I was getting by. But when I came home for the break between Chemistry and German, I found that it was a MESS. The coffee table is completely covered in like a poster board thing and I don't even know what. The kitchen sink is full of dishes, and the dishes are full of grody food water. There are puddles on the countertops that I'm not entirely sure are water. Something exploded in the microwave and was left to turn into a rock. The bathroom trash is so full that it's spilling out onto the floor. AND...AND...AND ALL THE THINGS. JUST. ALL THE TIME. ALWAYS A MESS. WHY ME.



And all of this, in the SINGLE DAY that I was gone since yesterday. Why. No--how.

Distraught and overcome with the unexpected tragedy that has been my moving-out experience, there was only one thing I could think to do: make a mini film documenting my pain, for your enjoyment.

HAHA. Yes.





Ok, so maybe I made this out to be a lot more devastating than it actually was. In my defense, the video does not do this masterpiece mess justice. THE PUDDLES. YOU COULDN'T SEE THE PUDDLES.

It's only the kitchen in the video, but that's because I had to stop midway to prevent myself from sobbing uncontrollably. HA, GET IT? It's funny because I actually DID end up sobbing uncontrollably two weeks ago! Remember?!

Well you SHOULDN'T. Erase it from your minds. IT NEVER HAPPENED ;;;

But no, no, in all honesty, I'm feeling much better now. And I actually did have a legitimate reason for skipping German OTHER than the fact that I couldn't deal with it--I now have extra time to study for the European History exam this Friday, the Chemistry exam next Monday, the speaking final for German (which going to class wouldn't have helped!) next Tuesday and the presentation worth 10% of my final grade for Latin American Culture next Wednesday--which my group members STILL HAVEN'T EVEN LOOKED AT.

Ok, I take it back. I'm NOT feeling much better.

Remedying this with good music and writing. And studying, yknow, some more later. ALSO I just remembered that I have Red Bull for the week!

I justify my addiction by saying that at least it's not alcohol--and also that I DO WHAT I WANT.

So CHEERS, and here's to the morning. May it be awesome and wonderful and everything that today is not.

Gimp Toe 2: Electric Boogaloo

I should be writing for NaNoWriMo right now. But I'm at almost 30,000 words, and so I think that gives me enough time to take a moment to FINALLY recount to you all the stunning sequel to my last story, The Terrifying Tale of the Gimp Toe.

Keep in mind, again, that these stories are only INSPIRED by real events. Yes, I went to the doctor to fix my toe, no, it was not a sentient gimp toe.

So without further ado, it brings me great pride (or shame? I can't tell the difference anymore) to bring you Gimp Toe 2: Electric Boogaloo.

--

Most stories end rather poorly. Good stories end well. And great stories? Well, great stories never really end, do they?

But oh, how I wish they would.

It had been a week since the epic battle with Gimp Toe. It hadn't been easy, of course. The first attack had been the silver nitrate, cauterizing it to a weakened state, but that hadn't been enough. The final, fatal blow had ultimately been delivered via freakin-needle-straw and scissors. I felt fine. I felt great. Surely, surely that was the end of it all. I didn't need to look under that bandage. I knew it was gone. No, there was no reason to look. And so I didn't.

I went about my week as usual. Classes started up again, I took a few tests, all was well and dandy. From a distance, I looked like any normal person would. I was happy, enjoying the joyous feeling of a hero's victory. I was the wacky cop at the end of a buddy-cop movie, eating that jelly-filled donut I'd been talking about for the whole movie but was never able to have because my stoic stone-faced partner kept going like "No man no donuts on the job god you're such a stereotype why they gotta put me with you man what'd I ever do to deserve this I hate you get out of my car seriously I don't care if we're in the middle of traffic get out".

The fight had been fought, the battle won. Donut time.

But there was something off. I was forgetting something. What was it? Everything seemed to be fine, to be over. I was finally getting my life back together. What was missing?

It hit me.

I had forgotten a very important rule.

The cardinal rule of boss fights.

They always have three phases.

The realization hit me like that swinging pendulum from that one episode of America's Next Top Model where the models had to walk a runway with that freakin giant swinging pendulum. You know the one. Man, that shit was dope.

Unlike this shit. This shit was gimp.

I rushed home. I ran, the whole way fighting back the biting pain now growing in my shoe. The toe had awakened now. It was like this was the Peruvian temple with that golden idol, and I was Indiana Jones trying to freakin steal it. I had taken the idol, and this was my freakin boulder rolling after me as a consequence, and I was like nooooo freakin boulder why gotta be like that! I just wanted to totally steal your shit and now you gotta be rollin after me? And the boulder is just like THEY SEE ME ROLLIN

THEY HATIN

PATROLLING, THEY TRYIN TO CATCH ME RIDING DIRTY

What I'm getting at is that Gimp Toe felt like a boulder.

I ran into my apartment, turned frantically around and locked the door. Stupid, Gimp Toe isn't chasing me. It's a part of me. I just locked myself in here with it. Way to be in college, genius.
 
Didn't matter. At this point I knew I couldn't be saved. All I could do now was try to protect the others from Gimp Toe. With bated breath, I barricaded myself into the bathroom to investigate the toe. If something went down, like a fight, or dinosaurs, or World War 3, or dinosaurs, did I already say dinosaurs?

High likelihood of dinosaurs

--regardless, it would be contained here, in this room.

I looked at the toe. It was still covered in that bandage, the horrors beneath hidden from view. I took a sharp breath and held it in, mostly for dramatic effect.

I reached down to the bandage. Took hold of the corner. Slowly, slowly.

I pulled the bandage off. What I saw elicited the following thought process:

OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS

IS THIS THE DEVIL

I THINK THIS IS THE DEVIL

What I saw was almost beyond my comprehension. It was like looking at a box of crayons after all the good colors have been taken. There was brown and yellow and purple and white and all the colors that should never, ever be on a toe. Except as nail polish I guess. But even then, no, because those are just terrible colors.

I released the breath I forgot I'd been holding, and it came out as a hiss of pain. There was a sense of urgency overpowering me. Urgent, urgent, this is urgent shit. My next course of action, then, would be to go to another urgent care clinic. Except NO. I was finished with urgent care clinics. Urgent care clinics were like diet soda to me. Like, you want something fizzy and bubbly, but you have no legit soda in the house, so you settle for a diet soda, and then you're left sipping this abomination of a drink thinking to yourself why, why am i drinking this, why am i STILL drinking this, seriously this is a waste of my life and i--ew i just realized i drank all of it why was this even allowed to happen, ok, no more diet soda, ever again, ok, FROM NOW ON.

I lowered the foot down to the floor, and it glared at me. If toes could glare, it just did. Go home, Gimp Toe. Just go home to whatever terrible evil place you came from. Nobody likes you. Most of them hate you, actually. Get out.

Though sentient, Gimp Toe had yet to develop a mouth (thank god) and thus could not speak in reply. Still, if it could, I imagine it would have yelled back at me in a ghetto accent, talking about how it does what it wants and doesn't give a shit what anyone thought of it, haters gonna hate, it's gonna take over the world like a boss and then what? everyone's gonna be gimp as shit and then who'll be laughing? Nobody, cause when you're gimp as shit, you only laugh at the wrong time, like when someone says something really serious and you're just like HA HA HA WHOA MAN WHOA YOU BE HILARIOUS, and they're like "My dog just died wtf is wrong with you", and they'll be like DUNNO MAN I'M GIMP AS SHIT. AND NOW YOU ARE TOO.


Zap. Gimpified. Didn't even see that coming, did you? No one will. This it the world as it would be under the rule of Gimp Toe. Hide yo kids, hide yo wives, AND hide yo husbands, cause they be gimpin ERRBAWDY out here.

Whoa. What? I realized then what had just happened. Gimp Toe couldn't talk, but it could talk to me, in it's own way. Another realization. Another skipped heartbeat.

That was it. This was the whole point. Gimp Toe couldn't take over the world on it's own. It needed a vessel.

Me.

I scrambled back, away from nothing in particular. It was useless, of course, as Gimp Toe was connected to my foot. Damn you Gimp Toe. Damn you and all your hopes and dreams!

I knew, then, that if I stood any chance of defeating Gimp Toe once and for all, I was going to need help. And not just decent help.

I needed the best of the best.


A podiatrist. 

If urgent care clinics were diet soda, a podiatrist was freakin Red Bull. If urgent care clinics were faulty-brake Toyotas, a podiatrist was a freakin Ferrari. If urgent care clinics were GOD, then a podiatrist was the thing that freakin MADE GOD.

It took some effort, but I managed to get ahold of one and explain the severity of my situation:

"Hi, I'm calling to make an appointment."

"Okay, what seems to be the problem."

"Well, you see, I...I have...GIMP TOE."

"OH HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHY HOW IS THIS EVEN OH MY GOD OH MY GOD."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"

"Ok we can see you at 4."

And so I went. And waited. 4 o clock rolled around and it was time. I was ushered into an examination room, and the Red Bull-Ferrari-God-Maker walked in.

This time, I knew the drill. Or at least, I thought I did. This was phase three, after all, and required all the big guns.

Step number one? Bitch slap Gimp Toe in the face.

Not even joking. Legit bitch slapping occurred. The Red Bull-Ferrari-God-Maker withdrew a strange weapon I had never seen before, placed it over Gimp Toe, and bitch slapped it.

There. Gimp Toe had been sufficiently humiliated and step two could now be carried out. Freakin needle-straw? Go. Sharp pain erupted from the site of injection as Gimp Toe fought viciously back against the attack. This time, I heard it's cries.

no what the shit this stuff sucks i hate it forever man the first thing i'm doing as Lord Gimp Ruler of Gimp Earth is gimpifying this shit up to high hell. I say high hell because I'm going to put hell on top of the world and heaven below it. No real reason. Just to be a total dick. ah man i can't feel my face. i just freakin grew that face too. shit sucks

The pain ebbed back, slowly. I was left to wait for the freakin needle-straw to take full effect. I think we've established that waiting completely jacks up my perception of time, so I won't go over that again.

When the Red-Bull-Ferrari-God-Maker returned, it was time. RBFGM withdrew a pair of scissors. Something was different about these scissors. They were special somehow, stronger and almost...legendary. The urgent care scissors were like the Kokiri sword. These scissors? The goddamn Master Sword. 

The scissors set to work. Unlike before, this time there was pain. I died inside, and then I died again, and once more, and then a little while after I thought "Ok, I've already died this many times, what's one more time?"

I died again and then it was over. The pain cut off as if it had been a waterfall and someone had just went up and punched it so hard that the water stopped falling. I sat up and breathed for the first time in what felt like ages. I leaned forward.

RBFGM held out the pair of scissors, and clamped between the blades was the root of the problem/ Gimp Toe's life source. The brain stem of the horror that had been plaguing my foot for I couldn't even remember how long.

A long, jagged splinter of toenail, twisted and bloody. At the base of the nail piece was the abomination of skin that had only seconds before been Gimp Toe. Gimp Toe, Lord Gimp Ruler of Gimp Earth, now just a piece of biohazard trash. Plink, into the trash bucket. In all honesty, skin shouldn't have made a plink sound upon hitting the trash can, but at that point I didn't care.

I didn't have to care. Now, for certain, it was over. I could finally say that and feel like an honest man--woman, thing. Whatever. All that mattered was that I was Gimp Toe free.

RBFGM wrote a prescription for anti-Gimp medication, a kind of magical ward meant to prevent the return of Gimp Toe. Or maybe it was like, science or something? Whatever, man. Whatever.

I don't even care anymore.

I slipped my shoe back on. The pressure was normal, ordinary, healthy. I took a step forward.

Toward home. Toward life.

Toward freedom.

--

AND THERE YOU HAVE IT FOLKS WHAT THE HELL

This should have been posted weeks ago but um, NaNoWriMo.

UNTIL THE NEXT TIME SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENS TO ME, I bid thee adieu. Or adios, or auf Wiedersehen, or FREAKIN BYE, GUYS.

The Terrifying Tale of the Gimp Toe

(IMPORTANT NOTE: what you are about to read was not based on a true story. It was INSPIRED by a true story. I really did hurt my toe this weekend and had to go see two doctors about it. BUT IT DEFINITELY DID NOT GO DOWN LIKE THIS)

Everyone who reads this was either there when this story happened, or has probably heard the story already.

Thus, in the spirit of Halloween, I am going to take some (serious, serious) artistic license here and recount to you all: THE TERRIFYING TALE OF...

THE GIMP TOE

Let the absurdly overdramatic, wildly exaggerated, terribly written, purple prose commence...

~~

It was a night like any other night. Dark. Dangerous. And full of doors. At the time, I was unaware of what horrors lurked literally three feet from my face. If I had known then what I know now...I might not have smashed myself directly into that door with as terrifying a force as I did.

Maybe. I actually have no idea.

The door was as tall as a 7 foot door. That is, it was 7 feet tall, and also a door. And it demolished my toe. The pain was incomprehensible, the thoughts rushing through my head with such speeds that I could only catch fragments of the pain, broken sentences colliding with the walls of my mind like that one dog who sleep-ran into that wall. Like in that Youtube video. On the internet.

why did this even

this is the opposite of what I wanted

ow

I stood back, staggered, and beheld the state of my toe. It was a mangled, mishapen mess of skin, in my mind. In reality, my toe appeared no more harmed than as if it were a fly shaken gently by a 7 foot tall door-shaped gust of wind. The site of impact, the left side of the toe, throbbed angrily, but seemed to be more or less "dealing with it", as they say.

I thought nothing more of it.

I was so foolish back then...

Days passed, a week came and went, and just like that one movie about that video tape and the tv and the well and the dead girl in that well and also the tv again in case I left it out...seven days later, something happened.

When I woke up that morning from unsettling dreams, I found my toe changed in my sock into a monstrous wound.

Screw you, toe. Why you gotta be like that. I thought we were pals and then you go and do this.

Panic-gripped, I flew forward from my bed. Rushed into the bathroom, fumbling with the door handle until I got it locked. Gasping for breath, I looked down at the toe once more.

It was bad. And it looked hungry, the kind of look you get from not eating for a while.

What do you want, toe? Go away. Seriously, get out.

The toe didn't answer. Not knowing that toes don't usually respond to verbal threats, I foolishly assumed that was the end of it. The gimp toe would heed my warnings and get out.

If my actions following this incident are ever examined as evidence in the final trial against mankind, God help us all.

I continued to go about my daily life, feigning normality during the day, creeping back to appease the growing problem that was my toe by night.

After three days, things got serious. Seriously wack.

My gimp toe had become self aware. Now a sentient being, it had only one mission: to spread it's gimpness across the land, turning everything in it's wake into seriously gimp shit. It was then that I knew this monstrosity needed to be stopped. It was invincible to peroxide now. I was going to need a bigger gun.

Figuratively. Maybe figuratively.

And so in secret, I organized a trip to the urgent care center. Unbeknownst to my toe, this was not a trip I had taken "just because I felt like it" as I had initially lied. This was Operation Stop-Being-Gimpy-Seriously-You-Suck. I was getting rid of this problem, no matter the cost.

The doctor walked in. I froze--the Gimp Toe knew. I had to act fast. Before the doctor could speak, I ripped of the bandage covering the monstrosity that was Gimp Toe and shouted "KILL IT. KILL IT FOR GOD'S SAKE. KILL IT WITH FIRE."

The doctor paused for a moment. Then nodded. Understood. He left the room in search of an approriate weapon with which to defeat Gimp Toe.

I was left alone.

Waiting.

Time moved slower than the speed of a really fat dog who doesn't like walking and does everything in it's power to avoid doing so, even if you drop a steak in front of it, it's just like meh.

Seconds felt like minutes. Minutes, like hours. Hours were also disproportionately slow in comparison to their usual passage. Finally the door opened.

The doctor walked in. In his hand, the ultimate weapon. Silver Nitrate.

I could feel it in my mind, Gimp Toe's anxiety. Its fear. In all my time with Gimp Toe, I had never known it to express such a fear. It knew what was going to happen. And it was powerless to stop it. I grit my teeth as the magic of chemistry went to work against Gimp Toe. The searing of flesh, nerves firing in every direction, screaming for relief, an urgency indescribable, except I just described it, so it was an urgency kinda describable.

Gimp Toe's life force flickered dangerously like the guttering of a candle. I knew it would be over soon.

Too soon. The searing stopped. I opened my eyes. The doctor was walking away, seemingly satisfied with the amount of damage dealt to Gimp Toe. He thought he was done. Fool!

No. Wait. That was too easy. Where are you going? This isn't over!

I realized too late that shouting these words in my head was the opposite of what I should have done. The doctor was not a mind reader, or if he was, he was being a jerk about it. Regardless, I had suffered with Gimp Toe long enough to know that, though gravely injured, it was far from finished. A black shadow crept over my heart. The end was nigh.

Solemnly and without hope, I hobbled home. I could feel it in my mind, a foreign, swelling victory that was not my own. Gimp Toe had been victorious. And I...

I had failed.

The rest of the day wandered on. The terrible realization that I had doomed humanity to a fate of eternal Gimp was like that same really lazy fat dog, sitting on my shoulders, being fat, being lazy. It was impossible to carry this burden. But it was mine to bear. I had caused all of this. And for what?

My pride.


A night of fitful rest passed. I awoke the next morning. Slowly. Cautious. A dull clinging hope hanging in the air that maybe it had all been a dream. I stole a glance at Gimp Toe.


Still alive.


That was it. That was the end. There was nothing else that could be done. Unless...

It was only a legend. Tales told in the dead of night. Stories of urgent care clinics that stay open on Sundays. Everyone knew it was a myth. The greatest things are always closed on Sundays. Like Chick-fil-A.

Screw you Chik-fil-A. Why you gotta be closed on Sundays?

But that was all it took. That hope, small and meager, flourished to terrifying life at this prospect of one more chance. A chance to deal the final blow to Gimp Toe. It was now or never. I packed a bag, only the essentials.

I set out to find the elusive urgent care clinic open on Sundays.

For what felt like hours, I searched. Far and wide. Near and narrow. Low and high. Left and right. Forward and backward. Diagonal and also diagonal, in the other direction.

If there were more directions, I would have searched them too. But I didn't need to. I had found it.

The urgent care clinic.

Open on Sundays.

My last chance.

Let's do this.

I walked in, a dramatic air about me. The room fell silent. Or, it was already silent, and I just walked into it. Nothing happened for a moment because I just stood there.

Finally, I walked through the automatic doors and into the waiting room. Except I wasn't here to wait. I was here to do the opposite of wait. I was here to act.

I acted brave. I acted fearless. But I was lying to myself. Gimp Toe would not be fooled again. We both knew where we were, what was supposed to happen. We were both here to win. But like the Highlander, there can only be one.

I walked into the examination room.

The room was small, the stale smell of sterilized air clung deep in my nostrils. I sneezed. The force of it sent my leg out in an reflexive kick, and in that moment I caught a glimpse of Gimp Toe once more.

It looked like it wanted to punch me in the face. I think it actually might have, if it weren't for what happened next.

The Sunday clinic doctor rushed into the room. The tension was palpable, thick and heavy around me, as Gimp Toe waged a mental battle against the doctor. After a moment, I spoke up.

"The last doctor I saw tried to kill it with fire. He failed. I don't know what else to do..."

A pause. A beat.

Then, "We stab it in the face with a freakin needle-straw and rip it out."

Well shit.

What could I do? There was no other option than this. Bleed or die. I nodded mutely in agreement, and the doctor vanished to prepare.

I steeled myself. Time once more did that weird slow thing. I thought about the events that had led me to this moment. I thought about the kind of person I was slowly starting to become. I thought about an ultimate cheeseburger and how I really wish I had one.

SNAP. Back to reality. The doctor returned, wielding a sharp instrument, undoubtedly the freakin needle-straw. I gasped for breath and braced myself.

The needle plunged. Metal pushing through skin. Blood welled up in protest. Once. Twice. A pause.

"Is that all?" I asked weakly. The doctor nodded. Told me to wait 10 minutes for the freakin needle-straw to take effect.

Waiting. More waiting.

I briefly wondered why this was playing out so smoothly.

I was an idiot.

A blur, or a flash, some indescribable muffle over my senses, and BAM, I shot up. Dizzy. Going to pass out. I leaned back to succumb to sleep and

No. Not going to pass out. Going to puke on everything.

I didn't puke on everything. I just puked on myself. I knew what this was: Gimp Toe's last attempt to destroy me. An ironic twist, I thought, to use my own body against me. But Gimp Toe underestimated me.

And I had overestimated the freakin needle-straw. Sunday doctor came back. The needle hadn't taken effect.

Shit.

In one last effort, the needle shot Gimp Toe once more, like in the movies where the main character dies and everyone keeps saying "nah man he's gone", but that one guy is like "no no way dude he's totally not gone" and he keeps using the defibrilator until the main character suddenly comes back to life all dramatic and that one guy is like "I knew it man I knew it you can't die man you're a hero" and everyone applauds and some people cry and then the movie ends.

It was like that except we were trying to kill Gimp Toe.

This time the needle worked. Gimp Toe was knocked unconscious, and it was time.

Freakin gnarly death time with scissors and tweezers.

There was pain. There was no pain. It was a transient feeling that didn't quite exist. I realized then that it was Gimp Toe, finally dying. Finally...

It was over. Sunday doctor said something afterward, but I could only nod deafly, still in shock.

I had won. Gimp Toe was dead.

But was it really?

We covered the resulting wound with a bandage. It's been two days since the battle.

...I still haven't looked under the bandage...


~~
Right now I'm pretty sure you're all looking at your computer screens like


If you're wondering what the hell you just read, don't worry. I'm wondering what the hell I just wrote.

What! It's almost Halloween and I don't plan on doing anything special for Halloween, so! I took a real life event and bastardized it into a campy horror story.

What have YOU done for Halloween?!

(PS: If you were actually entertained by this story, I highly suggest you pick up a copy of John Dies at the End. It's a comedic horror novel that's written a lot like this, except, you know, better. To give you an idea of what kind of story it is, let me just say that a sentient gimp toe bent on world destruction would not be out of place in it!)

(PPS: This little story is about 2000 words, which is around the same number of words I'll need to write a day for NaNoWriMo ;;;)

Midterms

The virtual fish app on my phone keeps reminding me, "Did you know you can change the name of your fish?"

My fish's name is Moose...


I DON'T CARE.

But back to stuff that matters: MIDTERMS

SO MANY MIDTERMS

TWO MIDTERMS.



I finished the first one in 10 minutes. I got a 74 on it.

Now, I'm still doing the calculations on this, but I'm starting to suspect that the speed in which a test is completed is directly proportional to the grade you get on it. This is groundbreaking, revolutionary mathematics I'm dealing with here so I'm afraid I can't definitively say "yay" or "nay" just yet. I need to tweak the quantum physics and double check my long division and

yes physics is involved shut up

I SHOULD HAVE AN ANSWER IN 9 YEARS. But by then I'll be out of school and will therefore have no use for it. So to save myself the trouble, I'm just gonna quit working on this equation and continue to work on the assumption that I can do whatever I want, always.


 Sounds like a good plan to me.

As for my second midterm, the one for my Chemistry class, I spent 55 minutes out of the 60 I was given to work on it. When I got to the testing room I was like OH LOOK, AN EMPTY AISLE SEAT

THAT SHIT IS PRIME REAL ESTATE IN AN AUDITORIUM. So I like BOOK IT over there as fast as my tiny baby feet cold carry me.



I got there JUST in time, too, because almost all the other seats were filled up by within minutes. So I'm sitting there, immeasurably proud of my achievement, and realize "Oh hey I should probably start filling out the information on this test sheet, huh."

And I reach over the arm of the seat to pull up the little desk extension and

IT WASN'T THERE. I reached around some more and, no, there was definitely NO DESK EXTENSION

So now I'm like WELL SHIT. I could use my binder to write on, but what if they thought I was cheating? Insta-fail, plus a mandatory "how to not cheat" class. DEFINITELY not doing that. So what did I do?

Sat there.

The test was starting soon, and just as I was about to swallow my pride and ask one of the TA's what the hell I was supposed to do, LO AND BEHOLD, I accidentally eaves-dropped on someone and heard that there were stupid little clipboards by the entrance for kids like me who jumped too soon at the prospect of an awesome seat only to be let down by the piss poor deal I ended up with.

So I got that clipboard and was like AW YEAH, I AM SO READY TO KILL THIS TEST, NOT EVEN THE MATH PARTS CAN SCARE ME, NOT WITH MY HANDY DANDY CALCULATOR AND

wait shit

I DON'T HAVE MY HANDY DANDY CALCULATOR.



But wait! I'm not TOTALLY screwed, right? I mean, I can still do the math on paper! Of course! Haha! That's totally still an option!

No, not it's not. This is ME. Sure, if I need to I can do some pretty complicated math, but it takes me a hell of a long time. AND I DIDN'T HAVE TIME. What I DID have was my amazing multiple-choice-test-taking skills I'd gained in high school.

And so I totally had to bullshit my way through a couple of the questions with the logic that HMM, THIS NUMBER SHOWS UP TWICE IN THE ANSWERS, ONCE NEGATIVE, ONCE POSITIVE...

Eeny meeny miny moe...

POSITIVE, GOT IT, MOVING ON.

If I do poorly on this test, at least I have an excuse...?

Anyway, even if I DO do really terribly, it's not like that's ever stopped me before! My ego could power the whole damn country! It just, yknow, chooses not to.

With that, I think I've rambled enough. I'm going to stare at the NaNoWriMo countdown a little while longer and then go NIGHNIGHS.

Happy nighnighs to all of you reading this late at night. Or, hell, in the middle of the day, even.

ALL NIGHNIGH, EVERY NIGHNIGH. Sleep well, people!

NaNoWriMo (i.e. my impending demise)

NaNoWriMo is in 15 days. Basically two weeks.



THE ANTICIPATION IS SLOWLY MURDERING ME. Like, it's got a bag over my head, but it also has a gun pointed at my head, too, and there's a bottle of poison sitting on the counter inconspicuously. The only reason it hasn't killed me yet is because IT CAN'T DECIDE HOW.


So in preperation for what may very likely ruin my psyche, I signed into the site and spiffed up my user profile, added a brief, vague synopsis and a rough, rough, VERY ROUGH excerpt using what little material I've already written. You can find all that here.

If you're expecting to find me writing the way I do on this blog, then you'll be disappointed. There is a significant lack of capslock by comparison, and I don't ramble about the weather or how I'm a terrible human being and yet at the same time awesome. My writing style isn't very well developed, and sometimes it does whatever the hell it wants to. I'm not a genre writer, so I can't really say "It's an action adventure!" or "it's a crime/thriller drama!". The best I can say is that it's, uh, a story with characters and some semblance of a plot. And there's some stuff about superpowers in there? AND SCIENCE.

What, did you think you could escape the science? HA HA HA.

Science is always there. You can never escape the science.

I'm still debating whether or not to post what I write, AS I'm writing it, on this blog. That would guarantee regular posts, but those posts would consist of "AND THEN THEY ALL DIED, except they didn't, and then they suddenly noticed the weather and LET ME TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER FOR FIVE PARAGRAPHS. Coffee break. I mean, they took a coffee break, because I need a coffee break, and OK ACTION TIME AGAIN."

But maybe the knowledge that I'd have to upload what I write would force me to attempt higher quality, coherent writing? REGARDLESS of what I decide, if by some miracle I manage to finish the 50K word count and find a decent ending to whatever it is I create during the month of November, SOME OF YOU are gonna be forced to read it all over and tell me to go back to focusing on school because this is the stupidest thing you've ever read. And that's good! I MIGHT NEED TO HEAR THAT. So just, prepare yourselves.

Speaking of preparing, which I've technically already been talking about--I NEED TO PREPARE FOR MY MIDTERMS. I have two of them on Monday (that is, TOMORROW). Latin American Culture and Chemistry 151.



I've studied for the first one a bit, but it's not really top priority. Top priority is Chemistry, because as much as I like science, I WANT TO PUNCH CHEMISTRY IN THE FACE. I want to punch chemistry so hard it loses electrons and becomes a positive ion. Then I'll crush it's new positive outlook on life by hurdling those same electrons back at it's face with such a force that causes those electrons to SPLIT INTO TWO and therefore turn the newly positive ion into a NEGATIVE ION, doomed to live the rest of it's days out as a pessimistic frowney-face.

Basically the point of all that is, I haven't studied for Chemistry. I mean--HAHAHA. What?