My Cousin From Red Bank, New Jersey.

It's my time of the month. Sometimes it's worse than others, but typically I get alternately panicky and depressed for a few days. Little things, like running out of printer ink can put me in a black mood for an hour or two. Tears come easily, sometimes out of nowhere, when I'm waiting for a bus, or, recently, when I'm working out.

The rent and bills are due.

I'm grateful that I've had a break of a couple months from this monthly punch in the gut, but now my financial aid money is running out. I have to come up with some cash to get me through November and December. I applied for a job cooking at a cafe in the neighborhood, and I was hopeful that they'd hire me in September, but I haven't heard from them, and I've been so overwhelmed with school that I haven't followed up on it. I really only need to work a couple days a week to make enough to cover the financial aid shortfall, but even so it's hard for me to imagine
fitting that in with all the studying.

I was also holding some hope of a little windfall for the Lizzie Borden option. We're still waiting to get a proposed agreement from the producers. When that is finalized and signed, I'll get some money. It could be next month. It could be next year. It could be never.

I've been working out at the gym every day for two weeks. My body is different. Especially my arms. I don't think you'd be able to tell by looking. Even I can't really notice a difference when I look in the mirror, but my arms feel bigger. It's a weird sensation when I touch my arms and shoulders, almost like touching someone else. And I've lost about 5 pounds. I didn't need or plan to lose weight, and I'll probably gain it back in muscle. But all that time on the elliptical machine and the fact that I'm eating a lot less now that I'm busy all the time have had an effect.

My American Government test was easy, but not as easy as I expected. One question really stumped me, and I second guessed my second guess and gave the wrong answer. I haven't gotten my grade yet, but I think that was the only wrong answer. (If you're interested, the question was about women's suffrage and government efforts to clean up air and water pollution, whether they started at the state or federal level. I didn't know. I had a hunch, since the question said "started" that something happened with those issues at the state level before the national government dealt with them, but I wasn't sure. I decided that, since both were ultimately national issues, the answer was federal. Even though I'm sure I got a good grade on the test, I hate that I didn't know that. I should know things like that. We should all know things like that.)

I Like My Yeast to Stay in My Bread.

Yesterday I had an appointment at a clinic that I think is part of the U.T. nursing school. I don't have insurance, or income to speak of, so I rely on the kindness of strangers (i.e., free or sliding-scale clinics) for my health care. Thankfully, I don't have any serious health issues. But I have had a persistent case of Tinea cruris (look it up), and I was concerned not only about the fact that it wouldn't go away but also about the possible side effects of using over-the-counter anti-fungal drugs on my skin over such a long period of time.

We've been studying prokaryotic cells in my Biology of AIDS class, and something about the huge projected slides of yeast cells budding in colonies made me get off my ass and make an appointment to see a doctor.

It turns out there's not really a whole lot I can do about it that I'm not already doing. Some people are just more prone to these things. Especially people, like me, who sweat more than average. I'm an above-average sweater. Speaking of sweaters, lately I regularly see people, mostly women, walking around campus wearing sweaters. Oh my god, it's 93 degrees out! I can barely stand to be wearing pants.

The doctor who saw me was Lisa Doggett, daughter of my favorite Congressman. That made my day!

I'd Like to Thank God, Because Now I Know He Exists Because He Gave Me An A on My Biology Exam.

Just kidding. About god, not about the A. I got a 90! Actually, I got an 84, but there was a 6-point curve. If there are questions on her exams that less than 25% of the class gets right, the professor considers those questions to have been ambiguous or too confusing or just too difficult, and she takes the number of points those questions are worth and adds that many points to everyone's scores. In this case, there were three such questions. (I'm sure I could have said that in fewer words.) Even with the curve, the median score was 68 -- and I found that out before I knew my grade. Anyway, glory hallelujah.

I have a test in American Government tomorrow. My easy class. But I don't want to get all cocky and blow it, so I'll spend the evening studying the Constitution and Federalism and such. I have a quiz tomorrow and a test next Tuesday in Spanish and a 2-page paper due in English next week, too. Must be the season.

Tell Me Why, I Don't Like Mondays.

My biology test today was hard. HARD. And I really knew the material. I could have a conversation with you about it. (Let me know if you ever just want to chat about nucleotides or eukaryotic cells.) It was a multiple choice test -- those always throw me a little anyway -- and this professor is very clever and she posed a lot of questions in ways that force you to think on more than one level, so it didn't feel so much like an evaluation of my familiarity with the material and concepts as a test of my logic skills. (For instance, she often included answers like "1 and 2 are both correct," or "two of the above are correct.") I rushed through the last several questions because time was running out, and on half the questions I didn't feel at all sure of my answers. Shit.

Biology and Spanish are really testing me. I study both subjects for at least a couple hours a day, often more, and several hours on the weekends, and still my grip is tenuous. Both classes require so much memorization, and it's relentless. This is the fourth week of classes, and I already have a stack of 250 words in Spanish that I need to know, besides the grammar. There are slightly fewer words to memorize in Biology, but they don't for the most part match a word in English that means the same thing. Rather, each word corresponds to at least a paragraph of plain English. And they're long fucking words!

I'm going to bed.

Fall.

I survived my first week at the gym. I'm still sore, but much less so. Now it's only a general soreness all over. In just a week, my shoulders are noticeably (to me) different, bigger, and that's enough encouragement to keep at it.

My first Biology exam is on Monday, so I'll be studying all weekend. I think I'm in fairly good shape because I've studied all along, but there's a shitload of vocabulary to keep in my brain.

The weather seems to be hinting the last few days that maybe, just maybe, summer will be over soon. If I have ever done anything remotely resembling praying, I am doing it now for that.

The Unknown Life of a Great Movie.

Did anyone see The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys? It was made in 2002, but I don't remember it coming out in theaters. I read an article about Jodie Foster in the New York Times by Manohla Dargis last week in which she mentioned this movie that I had not heard of. (I'm so happy the Times finally got rid of their stupid TimesSelect thing where they hid the good articles behind a pay barrier.) All the article said about the movie was that Jodie Foster plays a one-legged nun, which was enough for me, so I greencine'd it and J and I watched it last night.

Jodie Foster produced it, and she's great as the nun, but the movie is about the boys. See it if you haven't. It's full of the best kind of surprises. Most people seem to already get the comic book thing, but I never did really, until I saw this movie.

Ow.

Today I worked out on my own for the first time, and I came home feeling defeated because I could only do about half of what I had done with the trainer. I wondered if it might be because he was not there encouraging me, but a better guess is that it's because I'm so fucking sore I can hardly move. Yesterday I woke up feeling like I got hit by a truck. This morning it felt like the truck put it in reverse and backed over me. Most of the pain is in my arms and shoulders and chest.

I almost didn't go to the gym today. Since I could hardly lift my backpack, I wondered if it would really be productive to try to lift weights. Finally I told myself to just go and do whatever I could do. I didn't want to skip a day so early in the program. (Besides, my backpack weighs about 3 times as much as any of the weights I'm lifting.) Most of the exercises that my trainer had me doing for 10 reps I could only do 6 or 8.

I found out that the gym is much less crowded at 1:30 than it is at 5, so I may start going early on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday and Thursday I have a couple big gaps between classes, but I can't imagine going to class after the gym. I can't imagine doing much of anything after the gym. Honestly, I could barely work the computer to check my email when I got home. (I'm trying hard not to exaggerate, because that would be complaining, which I don't do any more.)

After I regained the partial use of my hands, I wrote my first paper! It's only a one-page paper, but it was exciting for me because it's the first in my second college career. It's called "Is That a Pen in Your Pocket?" It's a reaction paper to the Sandra Gilbert essay, "The Queen's Looking Glass," which is a pretty important piece of writing if you're a feminist literary scholar. Check it out.