ACT XXI

Memorial Day, 2006

My family has never really celebrated Memorial Day with picnics on the holiday Monday or trips to the cemetary to honor those who have fallen defending their country, but today was special. Mom, Chelsea, and I woke up late (Dad is still in Nevada) to the most beautiful morning all year. The sky was the purest blue I've seen in ages and the plants and flowers all around the backyard were fresh with new life from the light rains on Friday. I think it's really summer. I looked over the ads in the paper while Mom made pop-overs, parfaits, and fresh orange juice, and once Chelsea woke up, we took our breakfasts out onto the patio and sunned our shoulders while watching the dogs roll around in the long grass and try to fly after the birds also having breakfast in the feeders.

As I mentioned yesterday, I told Cody hat I would read the Lord of the Rings by the time he gets back from Europe, so I read The Hobbit over breakfast and later in the crooked blue armchair in the living room.

My camera broke today. It firgures -- three weeks until Europe and the zoom lens will not retract into the case. Thankfully, the nice manager at Staples said that if the camera malfunctions within the time of the waranty, I can just bring it back and he will exchange it for a similar model. The camera I bought was the floor model and the last one, so I'll get the newer model. I didn't get it in writing, so we'll hope that he remembers his promise. Either that, or I'll just have them fix it under the protection plan we bought. I just really want it back before Europe! I don't know when I'll get to go to Europe next, so I'll have to take home as many memories as possible, and hopefully in a more permanent medium than just my mind.

Oh, do you like the new layout? I think I like it, but I would like your opinion. Yes, you.

Cody comes home in 14 days! I miss that guy so much. He'd better bring me a present. Like one of the beaver hats the guards outside Buckingham Palace get to wear.

I have jury duty again tomorrow morning, so I best be off. I postponed it a week so Heidi and I could go together and keep each other company. I hope she remembered.

posted by Jess @ 9:58 PM 0 Comments

"In summer, the song sings itself."

-- William Carlos Williams

Today finally felt like summer. I woke up late, stayed in my pajamas and read the paper and some of O Henry, got dressed and went to Target with Mom, read a little more, and completely redesigned my MySpace. What do you think of it?

I got a new desk lamp because mine never actually worked. The sad thing is that I've had the lamp for about four months now, and it's been little more than a decoration.

The reason Mom and I went to Target was to start buying things for my dorm room at Woodbury, but when we got there and started looking around, I couldn't buy anything. I'm not ready to start thinking about moving away yet. I had already spent all morning filling out forms for Woodbury and that was enough for one day.

I bought Mom a gorgeous ring at a jewelry place also. It is some kind of topaz that is a deep greenish-blue. It's not often that I get to buy my mommy presents! I think my love language is definitely gift-giving.

I've been keeping up on internet news and I haven't heard anything about a plane crash, so I assume Cody got to England safely. I miss him terribly, but I know he's having a great time. In the next two weeks while he's gone, I'm going to read the Lord of the Rings books (they're his favorite), whiten my teeth (or at least try to -- did you know that American Indians have naturally brownish teeth and bones? I always though they were brown, and now I know it's not from drinking tea and coffee), organize my room, get in touch with friends I haven't seen in ages, visit my grandparents, and take a trip up to Woodbury.

My toenails are a cheerful orange color to celebrate the coming of summer. And this summer is indeed a reason to celebrate! Cody is coming home, my dad will be home (he's still off work from the surgery, but he's healing miraculously -- praise God!), I'll see Mom every day at work, Chelsea and I are making plans for Tahoe trips with the group and a couple concerts, Lanie from up north (hi Lanie!) is coming to visit, and like I just mentioned, we're getting some friends together to go to the Tahoe cabin! I am in love with summer. I love the long days and short nights, the hot beaches, the barbeques in the backyard, the annual trips to Tahoe, the tanned skin and lightened hair, the pool parties, the 4th of July at the Ackermann's, Cruisin' Grand, sleeping with the fan on -- these are my summers.

My toenails are dry so it's time for bed. Goodnight, dear reader! Happy summer!

posted by Jess @ 1:34 AM 0 Comments

"The emptiness the whole world sings at night."

The school year is over and I feel absolutely nothing. Maybe it's because it was Palomar and I don't have any new friends I'll likely see again and I missed a final, forgot about a weird deadline which resulted in the worse grade I've ever earned, and forgot to turn in a paper (luckily my grade was so high in that class that I still earned an A). Thank God it's over.

What's wrong with me? I would never miss a final or an important deadline or forget to turn in a paper in high school! Is it that I had too many classes and was working too many hours to keep track of everything in my head? Or am I completely losing it? It feels like the latter.

The last three days have been a little difficult. Cody came home from college on Wednesday and I spent Wednesday night, Thursday afternoon and evening, all of Friday, and Saturday morning with him, then -whoosh!- off to Europe for another two and a half weeks. I am so excited for him that he gets to go to Europe, I really am, but at the same time I feel like Dr. Reynolds is teasing me -- letting him come home for a weekend here and there and then a couple of days once summer comes, and then he's gone again. And this time I won't even talk to him until he gets home. Apparently we can create Harry Potter's invisibility cloak, but we can't figure out international cell phone service.

Don't you go calling me selfish, because I want him to be there because it's a wonderful opportunity. But when we've seen each other at best every other weekend for nine months, I am allowed to want him home.

Things at church (the one at which I work, not worship) are interesting... I won't say anything else; I know better than to talk about work on the internet.

This blog totally sucked. I am sorry you read through that. I'm going to post it anyway because I want to put something up. My brain is fuzzy and my life is in slow motion and these are the blogs that result.

posted by Jess @ 9:45 PM 0 Comments

Miscommunication

I got this in my inbox today:

(I protect the innocent.)

So I don't really know what to do with that. I do claim some responsibility because it was no one's fault but my own there was a miscommunication, but at the same time, I think he should realize that it was simply a miscommunication and not in any way intentional. I realize that he can't make an exception for just me, and I'm not asking him to; I think that if other students simply had a miscommunication, then why should they be penalized for that? I think that taking my grade from an A (I think the highest grade in the class) to a C is a little extreme, especially as a lesson. "Do not let it happen to you again" - that really bothers me. It implies that I let it happen the first time. The only way I could let it happen would have been if I knew what time it really was and I knew what time I thought it was and chose to go to the time I thought it was anyway, realizing that I would miss it.

Well that certainly puts a damper on the end of the year. I guess that's that.




P.S. If I am ever a teacher, I will never do that to my students.

posted by Jess @ 9:52 PM 1 Comments

Desperate

This is quite possibly the worst day of the semester. Good thing it's the last.

I missed my art final, I overcommitted myself again, I didn't realize my Interior Design class ended a week before the rest of the semester so I tried to cram as many quizzes in tonight as I could but the Palomar website crapped out right in the middle of one of the quizzes so I have a zero for that one, and I still have to do laundry, clean this hole of a room, and pack before I go to work tomorrow to figure out how to do something on a website that is waaay above my knowledge and experience and it's already 1:45 in the morning.

I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE.

posted by Jess @ 1:42 AM 1 Comments

If you look up "irresponsible", you'll find a picture of me.

I wake up this morning, check my email, eat an apple, and get ready for class. I get to Palomar at 10:55 and am at my classroom by 11:00. The room is dark. I wait outside, thinking the final might have been postponed an hour. I don't know why I thought that. I do some errands around campus and come back. 11:30. Still no one. I go into Mr. Levine's office, and there is no one there. I ask the teacher in the office next door and he said Mr. Levine already gave all of his finals. Oh no. I borrow his copy of the class catalogue and sure enough, 11:00 classes on Tuesday and Thursday had finals on Tuesday at 11:00. I wrote down the wrong day in my planner.

I don't know what I'm going to do. Lose my "A" in the class, probably.

posted by Jess @ 10:39 PM 0 Comments

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

- Mark Twain

I am so bad at Minesweeper. I put mines where I want them to be so the pattern will look nice instead of where I really know they are because I can count. (Anyone who has never played Minesweeper would be totally confused by that sentence.) I love playing it though, especially the expert level, because I know when I finally do beat it, it will be such an enormous occasion that somebody better be around to hug.

I was trying to think of a metaphor for that last thought, but all of mine were incomplete, so make your own! It can be a game inside our heads.

I went shopping today! I think Cody and I are going to have to move somewhere far far away from a Nordstroms because I swear that place is going to make us homeless (but well-dressed). I got a lovely plaid skirt that totally isn't my usual style but I fell in love with the dusty colors. I think I'll wear to the park on Wednesday when I go to study between my classes.

I just realized that because this is finals week, I won't ever be able to go lay down in my car or sit on the grass and get some sun on my shoulders and listen to the children laugh in the school yard right next to the park after this week. I treasure those afternoons and now they're almost gone! I'm sure Burbank has parks though, and probably one just as lovely.

This week is going to be insane. Here is my list of things to do:

- Study for finals
- Take finals
- Highlight sheet for the Sunday service
- Bulletin for the Sunday service
- Monthly Echoes publication
- Memorial bulletin

Somebody in the church died sometime this last weekend. My first reaction was not one of sympathy for the family, but "Great, one more thing I have to do this week!" Isn't that an awful attitude? I immediately scolded myself for thinking such things and apologized to the family in my mind, not because they could hear me, but I imagined that they could and I wanted to right it in my imagination. I swear I'm not crazy; I have an active imagination. Sure.


So today I have gone shopping, been at Adam's, helped Chels to make cookies, Photoshopped, made a playlist in Winamp, and played Minesweeper instead of studying. I just don't think I need to study and instead I just want to relax and easy my way into the lazy summer.

Bekah complimented my writing today. I never thought I was a good writer until Senior year when Mrs. Stempson said my prose analysis on the first party scene in The Great Gatsby was "a piece of heaven" and even since then, I've thought it was just that paper. Thank you for that compliment, Bekah. It made my day!

I sent Mrs. Ackermann a Mother's Day card and it wasn't until it was already in the mail that it occured to me how weird that might seem... it was more of a "thanks for doing such a great job raising Cody" rather than a "I love you, Mommy!" card, but still. Should I send Mr. Ackermann a Father's Day card to make things even? I think I'll get him this instead.

Here are some pictures I took at the beach and the flower fields yesterday on our Mother's Day excursion:








I think Mom had a good day. I wrote her a pseudo-haiku in the card I gave her and she started to cry a little. I thought the poem was crappy, but she liked it.

"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own." - Aristotle

That made me laugh.

I shall get back to studying. Goodnight!

posted by Jess @ 9:42 PM 0 Comments

Writing tired with little result.

I meant to write more than this. I hoped this would be a daily practice, but I knew it really wouldn't be. I have actually had a lot to write about, so it's not that my life has had nothing interesting to post, nor have I been too busy to write (I'm finally managing my time!); it's because my internet is stubborn. It works just fine when I'm looking at shoes or reading internet news, but when I really need it for something for school, it's gone. Well, it's not really gone. It's somewhere between the cable coming in from the street and my wireless card picking it up. Reason #342 for Cody to come back home: my computer isn't working. (I miss him.)

Freshman year is quickly coming to a close, and I find myself completely emotionless. I don't think I've been emotionless about anything before, but I think it's because as of next Friday, I will be doing the 9-3 conga line trying to get a little more in the bank. I really love working, don't get me wrong, but summer used to be a lot more exciting when I could get up every day around 8:30 and go out in the backyard to enjoy the morning in the sun and spend the rest of the day however I wanted. I could spend the whole day absorbed in a Shakespeare or Dickens or whatever my mood called for, or I could spend it at the park playing baseball or down in San Diego. Now I'll spend six hours a day... Whoops, I almost started complaining about work. I'm not going to get dooced.

I think a big reason why I'm not more excited for summer is because Cody will still be gone for three weeks. I'm not devastated because I know I'd be upset for a couple weeks and then it wouldn't matter anymore, so there's no reason to cry over something like this. I'll miss him like crazy, but maybe he'll bring me a present. If he gets to spend three weeks in Europe with Drs. Reynolds and Moreland, then I get a miniature figurine of the Queen or something. What kind of tourist crap do they sell in England?

I haven't seen him for two weeks already, and I won't see him until next Sunday, then maybe a couple days that week, then he's on a plane Saturday morning. I hope he has a great time. I heard that the British love tomatoes and Cody hates tomatoes. I have to stay home for three weeks while he's in England; he can eat the stupid tomatoes.

I keep forgetting that I'm going to Europe, too. I'm actually more excited about my trip than the one he's going on. Sure, I'd love to spend three weeks in a foreign town, but at this point I'd like to see as much as I can and come back later. London, Paris, Versailles, Florence, Pisa, and Rome in ten days. I will have lots of pictures.

Cody told me about Middle Knowledge yesterday. It's the theory that before God created the world, He thought of all possible worlds and created the best one. That's what I've been thinking about. I'll write more when I've thought more. This was a pretty pointless paragraph. That was an alliteration.

I had so much fun tonight. Megan, Chris, Lance, and I went over to Adam's and we watched movies and hung out for a while. I love it when everyone is back in town! We drove over to Thomas's house to be the welcoming committee (he got in today), and then his dad yelled at him because we were being loud, especially Adam. I hope we didn't get him into trouble.

I had always been taught that the Council of Nicea was where the Bible was compiled, but I found this today. The Muratorian Fragment was an earlier compilation with all but four of the books in the New Testament. That's something else I'm reading about.

Alright, time for bed. I have to meet Chris and Megan over at church so I can get my cell phone back. It feel out of my pocket when we were being thrown around the back of the car ("This kind of conversation is unbecoming of a Lexus") which is an awful reason to be going to church, but Emmanuel Faith has fallen out of favor with me lately, but I haven't found another church that I like more, so I've been doing church at home.

Goodnight, dear reader.

posted by Jess @ 12:59 AM 1 Comments

"...those whose hope is in His unfailing love."

When I sat down to write this, I was totally inspired to write something lovely, but then Dad sat down next to me (I didn't mind that) with a bowl of yogurt and Grape-Nuts. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH!!!!! Did you know that I hate the sound of chewing? Now you do. I have to distract myself when I am eating, with conversation or a book or something, so that I can forget that I am chewing so I don't drive myself mad.

Okay, so I know both of my readers are just dying to hear more about my little ordeal at the Bloodmobile.

I was already nervous about giving blood before I got to the donation center. I wasn't afraid of the needle or how much it would hurt, because I honestly felt that any amount of pain would be worth the life I might save. I was more worried about a complication, like they miss my vein or I pass out. Guess what? Both of my concerns came true!

So I had an appointment at 11:00, 10 minutes after my Astronomy class. I probably should have given myself a little more time to go and eat something or at least drink a bottle of water, because I think that was part of the problem. I'll get to that part in a minute. I waited for almost a half hour, re-reading Love Your God With All Your Mind by Dr. Moreland (Cody gets to hang out with him and Dr. Reynolds for three whole weeks... in England!!!), so at least it wasn't wasted time. I actually meant to grab Miracles by C.S. Lewis, whose covers look nothing alike, but I was running late and I grabbed whatever book I could find in my rush out the door, my hair still wet and only the mascara that survived the shower as far makeup.

So a nice vampire, er, I mean volunteer, named Sally brought me into a little room where she took my blood pressure and temperature with a nifty little throw-away thermometer. She pricked my finger and took a sample of blood, which she dropped into a solution of copper sulfate. If the blood sinks, then there is not enough iron in the blood to be a good sample. My blood floated on the surface, so I was okay there. She then asked a series of questions like whether I had been exposed to the West Nile Virus or the Bird Flu, or been to Europe in the last twelve months or to Africa ever in my life, or if I have lived under the same roof as someone with HIV or AIDS, or if I have ever had sex with a man who has had sex with another man. I embarrassed myself and laughed when she asked that one, but she laughed too, so it was okay. When I told her that I had been to Mexico in the last six months, she asked which part, and I said Tijuana, but on a missions trip, and that I probably hadn't gotten anything nasty. We started talking about churches, and she invited me to her church next Sunday. Chelsea and I have been looking into different churches, so I'm kind of excited about trying this one.

We finished her little questionnaire and she lead me through the tiny little walkway in between the tables and beds lining the side of the bus, and I sat on the side of the bed while she pumped up the blood pressure thing again so she could find my vein. She found what she thought was my vein, marked the spot to insert the needle, and got the tubes and bags ready. She cleaned my arm and inserted the needle. Okay, that is a freaking huge needle. If you hate needles, do not give blood. That needle will make you pee your pants in fear. I'm not going to lie, it really hurt badly, but pain only lasts a little while, and the life of someone who gets my blood will last much longer.

I could tell right away that something wasn't right. I can't really describe the feeling, but right away I wanted that needle taken out again. She came back in a couple seconds and notices that the blood wasn't flowing, but barely leaking out. She waited a couple more minutes, and the blood still hadn't reached the bag (by the time it reaches the bag, they have to pull the needle because I would have lost too much blood by the time they try the other arm) so they remove the needle and try the other arm. Sally went to get "the expert," Lola, to do the second attempt. The needle went in fine and things were looking great, until they came back to check on me and the blood was barely flowing again. They decided to give it a couple more minutes before they pulled the needle again. I started to cry because I was so disappointed that it didn't work, and hey! What do you know? That got the blood flowing quickly again. So the needle stayed in. This attempt didn't feel right, either, but I just went with the flow, literally.

Almost 20 minutes have passed, and after 20 minutes, the blood would have gone bad. I just barely had the 600 ml needed, so they removed the needle and bandaged me up. I went to sit down at the front of the bus with my grape juice and cookies, and everything was fine for the first 10 minutes or so. The girl right before me has her snacks and leaves, feeling like nothing happened. The next guy came and sat next to me, and we were making small talk, when I started to feel really bad. I felt like I was going to throw up, then my ears started ringing and darkness began to creep in around my vision. I got really dizzy as I felt all of the blood drain from my face and little beads of sweat form on my skin. The only thought going through my head at that moment was, "Please help me," which I realized was both a cry to the volunteers and a prayer. The guy I was talking to told one of the volunteers, "Uh, I think this girl needs help..." I stood up to walk to one of them, and I start to fall forward. They caught me on the way down and lifted me onto one of the beds, lowered my head, and elevated my feet, holding ice packs to my forehead and chest. I don't think I actually passed out, but the moments in between being caught and on the bed are fuzzy. When the color started to come back into my face, they had me sip a can of Gatorade and lay there for about 20 more minutes. I felt well enough to sit up, so they had me go back to the front of the bus and have more grape juice and cookies. After 15 more minutes, they tell me I can go to class, which I am already 40 minutes late for. Total time spent in that little vehicle of pain, of both the physical and emotional variety: 2.5 hours. That must be a record.

I slowly walked back to my Astronomy Lab, and looking back, I guess I knew that something still wasn't right, but I thought my body was just recovering. I completely missed the lecture in class, which Professor Lane was a little upset over, until I took off my sweater and he saw the red wraps around both of my elbows. I was so out of it that I couldn't even figure out the scale to measure the velocities and distances of galaxies from Earth. I went up to Professor Lane to ask for help, and the same feeling come back - the nausea, the dizziness, the ringing in my ears, the encroaching blackness, the feeling of blood rushing from my head, the cold sweat coming from every pore in my body... Professor Lane looked at me when I didn't answer his question, and asked me if I was feeling okay. I shook my head and said, "I need help" - again, the only thought in my mind at that moment. He had me sit down and put my head on the desk (he was obviously never a boy scout - he should have had me lie down on the floor or something, at least so there was no danger of falling over and hitting my head), while he called Health Services. I don't know how long I sat with my head on my desk, it felt like no time had passed at all, but it must have taken them a couple minutes to get to the Astronomy classroom from the Health Services building. They took my blood pressure and asked me a couple questions, I couldn't answer all of them because I just couldn't remember the information they needed, like my ID number, and they helped me walk out to their little cart and drove me up to the Health Services building. Professor Lane packed up my purse and binder, which I thought was really sweet, and one of the nurses sat with me in the back and put her arm around me, so if I fainted, I would fall into her instead of out the cart.

I called Dad from the cart and he and Mom came and picked me up. The nurse very strongly advised that I miss the rest of my classes that day, and that I definitely should not drive for the rest of the day. I came home, changed into pajamas and slept for about 15 hours, waking up for dinner and to write a short art paper.

I have a massive bruise on my elbow from where the volunteer missed the vein. I'll hopefully get a picture up. My arms were still weak today, and my whole body longed for rest. The volunteer told me that I can try to give blood again in five years, but I think I'll do a breast cancer walk instead.

And you can never see my veins. That red mark in the center is where they kept stabbing me with the needle.


I know I'll never forget that feeling of complete helplessness. It reminded me of that moment in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when the sailor was about to die, and he called for help not in the language they spoke on the Nautilus, but in his native French. The only thing I could think of when I felt my body slip away, or maybe my consciousness slip away from my body, was to call out for help.

The best way I can describe that feeling or even liken it to any other experience I've had is when Cody left for school last fall. I felt like he had packed up most of me in that leather duffel bag and taken me along with him, and that not only was I missing him, but also myself, and the only thing I could do as I curled up in a ball on the cold floor in my room was to pray for help. I didn't even know what kind of help I needed, but just that God would see me there on the floor and do something. Of course, He did.

The rest is too personal to share on the internet, and maybe that was too, but that is the only time I have ever experienced anything even close to that feeling of complete dependency*, a feeling both beautiful and terrifying as I realized the frailty of life (not that I was actually going to die, but I was scared that I could at that moment).

I always thought that when I was about to die, I would try to be peaceful and calm, but as I fell into the arms of the volunteers and as Professor Lane helped me into a chair, I felt panic and fear. What if I wasn't going to be okay?

This is probably me over-analyzing something very minor in the course of the events in my life, but even if it is, I hope I never forget the feeling of needing help so badly.







*a dependency on God, not on Cody... Just to clarify.

posted by Jess @ 10:44 PM 0 Comments

I will never give blood again.

I gave blood today. Almost 20 minutes, barely the amount they needed, needle wounds in both arms, a huge bruise on the right one.

Then I almost fainted. Twice. I thin almost fainting is worse than fainting, but I'm not sure. I've never fainted. I'll write more about it later. I'm tired.

posted by Jess @ 10:50 PM 1 Comments