xxx hardcore xxx.

It's 34 degrees in Christmas Island today, and I just got finished drinking a cup of tea on my front porch steps, sans coat, sans hat, sans mittens, and most importantly, sans goosebumps. I am so hardcore.

On a different, but still hardcore topic, there's been quite a bit written about success fatigue, "an indicator that your work patterns are not meeting your long term needs, and that your resiliency is not what it used to be. It has been described as a state of tension and preoccupation with maintaining high standards of performance, until those standards seriously strain physical, emotional, mental and relational limits." The phenomenon is generally witnessed in individuals with high power jobs, like lawyers, doctors, and corporate climbers. But what about academic fatigue? Isn't the pressure that comes along with years of higher education bound to result in the same general misery?

I'm scheduled to be done with school in 15 weeks, which in the grand scheme of things is not that long. But in the meantime, the perpetual juggling that grad school entails is wearing me out. Teaching, speeching, classing, and thesising leaves little time for actual living. Don't get me wrong, I certainly set aside time for people and cats and websites and online television, but even those moments of down time are overshadowed by the stress of everything else. This afternoon, academic fatigue is feeling like a pretty accurate diagnosis.

--buelsy (has the sunday blues).

CALIFORNIA: FIRST INSTALLATION.

I moved away on July 10, 2006. I told SD that I wasn't coming back. And I told my sister. Everybody else received after-the-fact phone calls. In retrospect that was a little harsh, but most quarter-life crises are. A and I went to California for Thanksgiving four months later. Those four months were the longest I had ever been away from my family, and the trip home resulted in hardcore emotional whiplash. I think the whiplash happened because we only stayed for six days, which I know now is not enough time for a prodigal daughter to properly return. I spent those six days trying to see my family and all of my friends, A's family and all of his friends, and negotiate my relationships with everybody. I hardly saw my family, and when I did, things were definitely not the same as they used to be. I felt crappy about everything, and I didn't go home again for eight months. We had Christmas on Christmas Island that year, which was hardly as perfect as the name similarity would suggest.

I went back to California for the second time on July 5th, 2007, almost exactly a year later. I stayed for three and a half weeks. A was living in Pasedena that summer, working on a show in Hollywood. I saw him every Monday and Tuesday, but every other day, I would just stay home and do Simi Valley things with my favorite Simi Valley people. Things were a little shaky at first. There were some fights about things that matter less as I get older. I didn't get to see my dad very much for various reasons. I had to take way too many trains to see the friends that I love. But I did spend quite a bit of time with my mom and the little people (who are all very much taller than me now). Each day that I stayed at home doing normal home things seemed to erase the fact that a year ago I had run away. That trip home was important because it determined my relationship with my family as an adult, rather than as a two-week-old college graduate with a little money and a lot of angst.

Going home for Christmas and New Year's this year matched and improved upon everygoodthing that had happened last summer. There were no screaming matches about the place of women in religion, or gay rights, or Democratic vs. Republican politics (only a bit of friendly banter on the latter). A stayed in Simi and became one of the family. I spent a lot of time with my dad. I saw *almost* every friend that truly matters and didn't have to take a single train. It was a good time. Leaving was overwhelmingly difficult.

There's one thing that has remained constant throughout all of my trips home. The smell of the bathroom at my parents' house. It is, without doubt, my favorite smell in the world. I've spent years trying to figure out what makes the smell so great. I've tried using the same soap, the same laundry detergent, the same cleaning supplies. I've tried closing my eyes and smashing my nose up against the walls, so that later when I go to Home Depot I will be able to recognize the smell of their paint. But I've never been able to replicate that smell. It's just one of those things that makes you want to keep going home.

--buelsy (older and better).

lions and tigers and mancats, oh my!

I gave a quiz in Oral Communication last week. The quiz included several questions concerning the types of communication identified by our rather nonplussing textbook. One of the questions asked which type of communication is transmitted through radio, TV, internet, and other electronic sources. The correct answer is mediated communication. Unfortunately, most of the 24 answers deviated greatly from this, including "mecha communication," "internet communication," "technological communication," and good old "communication communication." My absolute favorite deviation, though, was "mancatical communicaton." Yes, man cats. Man Cats! MAN CATS! This has to be the best catch-all phrase in the history of catch-all phrases. In example:

Q: What would you like for Christmas?
A: Man Cats.

Q: How was that Thai food you ate tonight?
A: Man Catastic!

Q: How are you feeling about the fact that it's almost February and your thesis is far from complete, Buelsy?
A: Man Catastical.

See? Try it out. It's about as good as the English language gets. Except for the word "schmaus," which is another story for another night.

--buelsy (is back and wants her a man cat)

hi there.

It's been a while. Crap, it's an entirely different year since I've posted last. I've been meaning to post all sorts of lovely installments about the California trip and how interesting and wonderful it was, but this week is proving treacherous. If you don't hear from me by Monday, consider me a goner.

buelsy (band-aids on her finger-tips).