Hooplah.Org

I feel uneasy for some reason. Like something is sitting ajar in my world and throwing me off balance. Like something catastrophic happened and I forgot the event but remembered the effect it had on me. I know it has nothing to do with Matt, nor anything to do with him being here in less than 24 hours. I know it has nothing to do with me getting freaked out over the possibility of something bad happening with Matt’s flight (though I always get that feeling everytime a plane becomes involved in my life, that form of paranoia doesn’t feel quite like this… that feeling will probably hit me sometime tomorrow, before I head out to DC to pick him up). It’s like something that has already happened, and it’s as though I have not dealt with it properly. Unfinished business would be the best term to describe it.

There are things like how I took a class survey yesterday and accidently selected “strongly disagree” instead of “strongly agree” for the nice professor I have. All semester long he has been doing live class sessions, and sending biweekly e-mails saying how great everyone is doing and always offering suggestions and help for those who are taking their first online classes this semester (like myself). I sent an e-mail to apologize to him, explaining what happened, but as of yet he hasn’t responded to me. I felt awful that I was so careless to do that. I only noticed I had done it since I was planning on being far more critical for my programming design professor and for some reason the options at the top of my page caught my attention moreso than they had the first time.

There’s also the fact that whenever I clean (which I have done alot of the past 3 days, moreso than what would be required really, but it needed to be done) my mind tends to drift into deep thought. It’s been a while since I’ve dwelled on my past… and the past 3 days, that’s what I’ve primarily been lingering on. For some reason, it’s been my time with Andre that’s been wondering through my mind the most. Maybe I’m upset that I did not write more details about him, mainly in fear that I’ll have completely forgotten those 3 months of my life in a few years. I also thought of the last time I saw Alan, and how I said good bye to him… and how I never wrote that down, either. There wasn’t any real feelings or attachments with my thoughts as I was cleaning… it was just like dusting off old memories. A different sort of spring cleaning. Though, I think alot of my thoughts were brought on by the little pieces of my memories that I ran across while cleaning (like the ticket stub from when Andre and I went to that baseball game in Atlanta in May of 02, or the “rough draft” of a letter Alan was supposed to write me about why he wanted to be with me again back in October of 01. I’m not sure where the final copy of that letter was… or even if there was ever a final copy) and listening to the new Avril Lavigne songs through MTV.com, which are reminiscent of The Cranberries to me (and they are a big part and stable to my emotional past). I put all of the little pieces of my past that I found in a box, taped it shut, and shoved it in the corner of my closet. Over the years I’ve found that’s the best way to deal with the things that are choking you – hide it and forget it.

I don’t really know. Maybe it’s all the mindless rants on my regular game forms that I wish I could lash out and respond to, but I know better than to do that; nothing is ever accomplished and they end up attacking me personally in the end. Maybe I’ve been feeling tense about certain political issues (coughgaymarriagecough) that just leave me feeling powerless to help those that I love that are in that situation. Maybe it’s all the issues with the war, and maybe my unconscious decision to never really speak of it here has finally started to get to me. Maybe it’s from being so active over the past few days that I’m “crashing” by returning to my normal sluggish behavior. Or possibly it’s things like this that make me fell silly and embarrassed, and thus make me contemplate moving my journal to yet another script. Maybe it’s because it’s been a decade that I’ve known Carl, and I’d like to tell him that it’s been that long, but can’t seem to get ahold of him. Or finally, maybe I just want to get the hell out of here to Myrtle Beach and roam around in my shirt that I didn’t need to buy and forget everything else but ocean, sand, good seafood, and Matt. Hopefully my hormones will have calmed down by then.

I feel like I’m moving backwards in time.

I’ve been meaning to write an entry for a couple of days now. I guess part of me was so unhappy with the coding of the layout that it made me not up for updating the site in general I did spend most of the evening fixing Version 10 to something I can be happy about (for later note: The new layout had come up on the 12th). In truth it’s not all that different… my goal at first was to make a layout without using a table, and at the end I just settled for tables almost totally controlled by CSS, since I could *not* get the layout to look good in IE, Mozilla, and Opera at the same time using just layers. The archive pages still look like crap in Opera. Oh well, I’m lost as to why on that one.

I also converted (most) of the code to XHTML. I was surprised that through my anal tendencies that I was basically coding in an XHTML format all along except for the little / at the end of the tags that don’t have closes for themselves. Don’t know why people advertise it on their sites… I had anticipated the layouts would look the same in every browser if I used XHTML, but they still varied in ways that didn’t make sense.

I also added cute little smilies. I made these from scratch, but since there’s only so much you can do in an 11×11 space, I’m sure there are already millions of exact copies elsewhere:
:smileevil: :ehh: :tongueevil:

But… on to some other topics besides my web page

I got my hair cut yesterday. I knew I wanted it cut for when Matt came here, but I dreaded the idea of it. The best haircut I had ever gotten was from a dual effort of both Michelle and Sarita, picking apart my hair piece by piece in my dorm room’s bathroom back in 2001. My mother has some background in cutting hair (as in, she look the classes for it before I was born), so I usually trust her more to cut my hair than some paid stranger. Usually when strangers are messing with my hair, I freeze up. I could see them shaving my head and I wouldn’t be able to tell them stop. I just don’t feel comfortable telling someone who I don’t know what to do. I stressed this again and again to my mom, but she seemed very reluctant to cut my hair for me. Add in the fact that I only had a vague idea of what I wanted… she ended up convincing me to go to a salon to get it done. She called in sick to work and made us appointments for 2 and 2:30.

When we got there, the room was full of high school girls getting their hair done. Supposedly it was prom night for 3 different schools in the area. I also saw Lindsay’s younger sister, and her mother as well. I said “hi” to her mother in the most awkward and horrible way… but that’s typical of me when I see someone I don’t expect to. While waiting for Cynthia (sp on name… girl who was scheduled to cut my hair) I looked through the usual hair books, trying to get a visual picture for what I was looking for. Magically, I was able to find one, as well as an example of exactly what I didn’t want. The girl that was to cut my hair was someone who I had always seen while I worked as a cashier at Food Lion. Back then she had seemed nice and she seemed to like me ok. The only thing I can guess is that yesterday wasn’t a good day for her.

First she shampooed my hair (because even though I had arrived with my hair wet, I was paranoid maybe there was some special ingredient in the shampoo that made cutting hair easier for her, so I told her she could wash my hair again if she thought it would help… and she said sure) and was quite rough. I felt really awkward sitting there, so my body actually ended up going quite rigid, which just made the back of my head bang against the neck support as she lathered. Fun.

When I was seated, I showed her a picture of the hairstyle I wanted. I even showed her the one I didn’t want as a contrast, just to cover my paranoid ass. The pictures in the book, despite being in the “long” hair section, were roughly hitting shoulder length on the models… and it was almost an after thought of mine to say that I wanted to keep as much of my current hair length as possible (which was about 5-ish inches above my butt, surprisingly). She warned me that she would have to take some off of the bottom, and I told her that was fine since it needed a trim in general, as I had not cut it in a year. Me saying this got the response of “a year?” from her… almost in a disapproving tone. When she started combing through my hair, she made a comment about just how long my hair was: “Your hair’s so long“… also in a disapproving way. Once she had successfully chopped off 2 inches, she fluffed my hair and said, “Much better.” She sounded relieved when she said it, and it left a real sour impression coupled with how she had responded to the original length of my hair. It was almost like the state of my hair had been making her physically ill.

For the record, when I’m trying to grow out my hair, I don’t cut it. I don’t see the point of cutting off a 1/2 inch every 1-2 months when hair only grows on average a 1/2 inch a month. It would have taken me two years to get as long as it was if I got regular trims. I’d rather have slightly shaggy hair and cut off a year of waiting, thankyou. I had said that (in a more polite way) to the girl cutting my hair, though I don’t think she responded.

She was giving me the typical layers, which I was sort of disappointed with. I’ve been getting basically the same haircut since 1996, and I can usually tell when someone is doing what I had requested or not. Course, the picture in the book might have had a different cut to it than I was expecting and I just wasn’t able to tell that from the way it was styled. Though, I have had my hair the way she cutting it before, and at the time it was nice… but I had wanted a haircut where I would not need to put mountains of hair on my chest in order to show off the length of my hair. With the “typical” layer haircut, if I attempt to put all of my hair off my shoulders and down my back, the hair that frames my face will swing forward and make it look as though I have a shoulder length haircut, because the cut crops off all of the hair in the front. The only long hair is in the back, whereas I had been wanting some longer layers in the front this time. That style is fine, but I am really sick of having to manually separate some of the back of my hair to show off in the front. And I thought I had shown her a contrast of a haircut that evenly put long and short layers in the front as the one I wanted, but she still moreso did the style of the second picture I showed her, which was what I didn’t want.

Everytime she cut a new layer, she would show me where it would hit in the front and asked if I wanted them higher. I found myself saying “sure” alot, and watching her just cutting away. After the third time she asked me (and I told her I’d be willing to have VERY FEW layers hit about 2-3 inches below my chin) I realized that all the length I thought I was ok with would be about 1-2 inches higher up once my hair was dry. I also watched her take a large portion of hair, all of the hair that would frame my face, and chop off 2+ inches from it. After that I started to panic, and when she asked me if I wanted more I told her that was fine, and thanked her. I kept chipper, though, since I wasn’t really upset at the time. Despite my general attitude about having my haircut by a stranger, I thought I had been polite as possible. But as I got up, my mother said she saw the girl shaking her head as she walked away from me to get a broom.

I’m not sure what I did to upset her so much. Even though I seem outwardly unhappy about the experience now, at the time I was as polite and tried to be as nice as possible. My mother also she also had some “problems” with her. I just find it so odd that she would be that way, because I had remembered her being so nice. Maybe I was just reading it wrong, or maybe I don’t remember her correctly from years ago.

When I got home, I gradually became upset about the haircut. It was exactly what I didn’t want… very few longer layers, and lots of short ones near my face. When I put my hair behind by back, the front would swing forward at shoulder length… and to top it all off, they were flipping out to either side at the ends. I guess for most people, that isn’t so much of a problem since they can try to style that out of their hair… but I don’t style mine. I just comb it back and let it air dry. So when it flips out, I’m stuck like that. I’m stuck looking like a very large airplane with itybity wings on either side of my shoulders.

Ehh…. I’m talking *way* too much about having my haircut. But it was a traumatic event, I swear! My mother felt horrible the about it the whole evening, because I had warned her that they would fuck up my hair, and had I called the exact way it would be fucked up too, yet she had still convinced me to go. My mother is *never* happy with a haircut someone else does, yet she always goes back and wastes money, despite the fact that she usually spends the following 2 weeks after the haircut snipping it daily trying to make it perfectly symmetrical. I just can’t do that myself… once a bad experience, always a bad experience. I doubt I’ll go back again.

Around 2AM this morning, when my mother had woken up and I was still awake before going to bed, she cut some the front of my hair to try to blend out the flipping ends. Magically… she was able to. Granted, the front layers are now at about chin length, but it’s so much better than it was. It actually looks like it flows together now, rather than my hair making an abrupt chunky layer at my shoulders.

So.. those are the updates for now. I spent most of last week playing Rollercoaster Tycoon, and alot of time putting off most of my homework until today. Nothing all that special. Most of the next week will be spent cleaning (oh, boy) for Matt’s arrival this Friday. And a week from today we’ll finally be at the beach. Shame I didn’t lose even 1 pound the past month, despite all my efforts to change my eating habits and do daily (or, well, every couple of days) exercises.

I’m not sure why I haven’t been updating. I’ve been slacking in general. Last week I waited until Friday to do my assignments, and put off doing the reading for my programming design class until sometime this week… which only means I have 2 chapters to read and digest before Sunday, as well as my usual 2 chapters from my other class. Wee.

While I was not doing what I was supposed to be, I managed to transfer nearly 300 of the 700 pictures for the upcoming return of my photolog. I’ve also been playing a great deal of Rollercoaster Tycoon 1, and am actually trying to unlock all of the other parks – something I never had the patience to do before in my 5 years of owning the game. I’ve also managed to create yet another layout. I had been craving something springy when I made this one, and while it satisfied that urge, my pursuit to have a stunningly simple layout keeps eating at me. I really think I have a “winner” in the works… and I hope I can make myself keep it up for as long as possible. Ironically, I recently took a blog personality test, and I had scoffed at the results which said I “will change the format of blogging or design frequently to keep it interesting and different.” Guess it’s turning out to be more true than I thought. Oddly enough, I long for the times when I kept the same layout up for almost a full year… back when I was wanting to be more like I am now.

In terms of news, nothing really has happened. Though, on the 5th we got a new front door installed. This house is about 40 years old (yikes!), and my parents have plans to replace the kitchen door and all of the windows as well due to them being unsightly and no longer fitting well in their frames. My father swears up and down that getting the doors and windows replaced will help keep the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. And I’m sure that there’s plenty of cold air and heat that seeps in through the large spaces in the windows and door cracks, but I’d personally rather see the AC/Heating system fixed so that it works properly first. My parents always seem to have a way of focusing on things in the wrong order… or, they focus on the things they can fix with a credit card, like how their new Lowes card has made this all possible. Either way, it will be nice for the house to look better from the adjustments, both inside and out.

My parents have swung into vacation obsession. My father actually came into the kitchen the other day, modeling his old bathing suites and asking my mother which ones she thought still fit him well enough. Once he had chosen the ones to take, he asked if there was a suite case set out to put them in… when at the time, there was still another two weeks until the reservations. He’s also been trying to do sit ups and tons of walks, trying to lose a little weight before the trip (side note: my father was complaining the other day about his stomach still being a little bit “lumpy,” despite him having a hernia surgery only a few months ago to fix that. Goodness, I wonder why it’s coming back, when as soon as the skin had grown back together he let the cats jump up on him while laying down and they did that kneading thing right were the incision was. Multiple times a day it happens, too. It’s what caused the hernia to be so bad before, and it’s going to cause it to come back. And he never pushes the cats off… ever. The only time he doesn’t let them is when he’s eating. Ugh… him and how he interacts with animals pisses me off so much. But, must get back to what I was saying, I’m just upsetting myself…) My mother has also been fussing about putting together 3 perfect outfits for the time there, which is why she did a mini shopping spree at Dollar General. There’s also been talk of my parents paying for an extra night while we are there, but I don’t think they can afford it. While I got it at $99/night through expedia, the rooms were $140+ through the hotel’s own site, and they were much higher on Wednesday through Saturday in general from both places. My father said it would be between staying another night at Myrtle Beach or getting the back door replaced… course, my father was thrilled when the front door was done. Kept going on and on about… he really seemed to think it was the coolest thing in the world. Personally though, I’d rather stay another night at Myrtle Beach. Doors just don’t thrill me that much

Well, I must get back to doing other things to waste my time. Hopefully I can convince myself to do some of my homework tomorrow instead of waiting until Friday like last time. Nerf no self discipline.

I feel victorious. After sending about 15 or so messages back and forth to my professor regarding my assignment… yesterday I was finally fed up. It felt as though I was just repeating myself over and over. It was frustrating that no matter what reasons I provided, my professor either ignored their significance or asked me in another way to explain how I thought the question wasn’t possible to answer. After stating my reasons for roughly the 6th time, I included this last paragraph at the bottom of the e-mail:

Furthermore, I am getting tired of having to repeat myself again and again.
Most of the time, it doesn’t seem like you are even reading what I’m writing. It’s nearly been a week now. If you are not willing to discuss assignment grades, much less ever consider a compromise after someone has laid out a logical reason for what they did (no matter how much you can rebut my reasons, you were not there when I was completing the assignment), then you should have never given the invitation for such conversations in the Q&A you provided for the class. If I continue to have trouble getting a more adequate grade for my efforts, or at least some acknowledgement that my thoughts were correct on some level, I will seek a higher authority to evaluate the situation.

Apparently that threat was enough to get some action in my favor.

I spent all of yesterday worrying about how I would carry it out… I had decided my first step would be to contact my guidance counselor on Monday, the same one who I originally contacted about attending Strayer, and ask her what she would suggest… and from there maybe request the ability to get a second opinion from a professor there on campus. Worrying about what to do had me so unraveled that my IBS reared it’s ugly head for the first time in almost a week and a half, and toyed with me for the rest of the evening and for some of this morning as well. But, that was all in vein… because yesterday evening, my professor responded to my e-mail and told me to complete question 4 in place of question 1 and to have it in the dropbox by Monday. I completed it within 2 hours of getting the e-mail, and submitted it in the dropbox for week 4 just like he requested.

I just checked, and I now have a 100% for the assignment rather than the previous 25%. My grade for the class jumped from a 69 to a 94. There are very few things that I chose to stand up for… especially on an issue as serious as this. If I had had these classes in person, I never would have been able to gather my courage or my thoughts to fight for what I thought face to face to him. Sigh… why couldn’t I of taken high school online as well.

On to more positive notes… I believe both my mother and I can officially qualify as “white trash.” We’ve been shopping for clothes at Dollar General… and enjoying it. I actually found a very cute two piece looking shirt and skirt. I would ever, ever wear them together… but separately, they actually look really cute. My mother also bought me a shirt made out of a material I love that has an indi-looking design on it… It’s alright I suppose, and though I dislike the sleeves, she swears up and down that it looks good on me. I also got a white shirt to go with the new dress, and some new summer-y white shoes. It surprised me to find pretty decent clothing there. When Matt comes here, he says he’s going to take me clothes shopping, since most of what I have in my closet either doesn’t fit, or I no longer feel comfortable wearing. If he does successfully drag me into a store with the intention of buying me clothing, I’ll be heading straight to Wal-Mart and Target.

In the past 3 years, I’ve learned to accept alot of things about my appearance. While short hair may be fun, I look and feel more comfortable with long hair. While I may love bright, flashy colors to look at… I’ve come to accept that they don’t look that good on me. In combination with my long hair and usually thin frame, I look like a modern day hippie. And though I tried to fight it for quite some time… I am finally willing to give into long dresses and gypsy shirts. Should play the hand we were dealt, after all. I look at all the clothes in my closet, and all I see is the word “teenager.” I’m more than through with that time of my life, and am ready to start developing the 20-something me. Maybe if I get bored later, I’ll edit this entry and put in some pictures of the new outfits… but I wouldn’t count on it.

I wish I could take a job just for 1-3 days a week… doing something like factory work. I think I would excel at that. No customer service (thank freaking god) and I have no problem going as fast as I possibly can at work. I did it while at Food Lion and at Giant, and they never seemed to appreciate it… maybe I would at least hear “good job” or something at a place where speed is the most important thing. Sigh… I can dream.