My Life = School

I should be sleeping, but my brain won’t let me. It’s frustrating, because right now is when I need sleep the most.

So, I rode a bike again. It was AWESOME. It was only for about 10 minutes, in circles, in red square, really slowly, but I am still giddy about it, and am trying to build up my legs so I could potentially go on a real bike ride soon! I also have a killer cane now, and can walk quite a bit faster.

I recently applied for a second major in Art History. I don’t really know where I am going with it, but it seems like fun, will keep me in one place for another 6 months or so, and is doable. I actually got the okay from my adviser, when I was convinced she would tell me that it was a silly idea. I am hoping to really tie Film Studies and Art together, and I think with the help from an English Professor into art, and an Art History Professor into film, that it should work out pretty well.

I am currently writing a pretty big essay about Tim Burton and his relationship to German Expressionism. In the essay I end up talking about the Gothic and the sublime, as well as Goya… Which my Professor was actually into, he told me to add some images of paintings, and go a little more in depth. So it’s already working out really well. =D

I recently signed up for classes, and am incredibly excited. I am taking Trash Cinema, Culture and Politics of Desire, and Installation Art. Trash Cinema is about the aesthetics and appeal of cult films (among other things), Culture and Politics of Desire is about Cyber Culture and the visual culture associated with that, and then of course Installation Art is Installation art. I am hoping to do some video work for it. We shall see how that goes.

Anyway, while most of you readers already know all of this stuff, I just thought I would share my excitement, again. Because I am sleepy. And that is what I do.

New Classes, Responsibility, and Recovery

So this quarter is looking pretty good so far. I had a pretty bad week (so many things went wrong, it was ridiculous.), but for some reason I suddenly felt optimistic after my most difficult class. It was awesome, I knew things, actually volunteered information, and got to say a little about Creative Commons. This quarter I am taking Intro to Film Studies (Which I am feeling like I am going to be a tad bored in, but it’s for the minor, Kaveh is teaching it, and I get to feel all knowledgeable and stuff.), Recycled Cinema (Writing proficiency class, 400 level, skipped the pre-reqs, balls, etc. But also taught by Kaveh. =D) and Intro to Sculpture (Teacher seems like he’s more into experimental work, which could be pretty interesting.).

I’ve been told of most of our assignments in my film classes, and I am pretty damn excited. In Intro, there are a couple basic essays and tests, not very interesting, but I am presenting on “The Death of Cinema,” which I have taken to mean (I could be entirely wrong), the change from the old cinematic traditions to the new technologies, such as digital video, viewing movies on I-pods, and the rising popularity of the DIY film culture (Youtube).

In Recycled Film, we have three big projects. The first is a “recycling project”, where we have to create something out of old film material. It can be in any media, even writing, but I am going to try to make a found-footage piece entirely from Creative Commons. I’ve wanted to try something like this for a long time, but have never had any real reason or motivation. Our second project is a 20 minute class presentation and I have to lead a discussion. The topic I got was “Film and Museums.” This is pretty exciting because I potentially get to talk about more artsy stuff, such as video art, and installation, as well as actual film archives. The last assignment is a 10-12 page essay on a topic of our choice. I haven’t officially decided yet, but I am thinking that I would like to write something about how Tim Burton appropriated everything he has ever done from German Expressionism and early Vincent Price films.

Besides the classes, though, I have been feeling a little weird in general. I have been at my parents for 3 months, so being responsible for myself is a strange change. For a while feeding myself was very difficult, and I didn’t really eat anything for a couple days there. Also, having to drive myself everywhere, and having to do adult things is intimidating sometimes. Living alone is also kind of lonely, since I am used to living in a loud house with many other people. I think I will adjust to it, though, especially once I get busy with school work.

And then there is the recovery. My leg is actually doing quite well. I can put about 50 lbs on it, which was quite a bit at first, but I feel like I go over that sometimes, accidentally. I am going up to Harborview next week, and will hopefully get full weight bearing privileges. Then I can start swimming, and kicking ass. Also, it is looking more and more like a real leg, which is very exciting, it has a tiny bit of muscle growth. Unfortunately it still hurts. Sometimes worse than others…

Bike Crash – Roommates

Roommates were a big deal in the hospital, too. Some were worse than others, but they were all strange. Also, my perception of the room was completely different for each roommate. (Probably had something to do with my level of drugs at the time, too.)

ROOMMATES

1. She had been in a coma for about 2 weeks, I think, and had recently woken up. She was incredibly loud, and obnoxious, calling the nurse in every 15 minutes. She also complained about me for being too loud at night, by calling the nurse and asking for ear plugs. She left fairly quickly, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. She had gotten in a car crash with her boyfriend, and he had died. She didn’t have any family or friends to take care of her, so she had to go to a nursing home.
2. She was an 18-year-old Korean who had come to America to go to the University of Washington. Within her first couple days in the country, she was crossing the street, and got hit by a car. The car drove off, but luckily there just happened to be a Harborview doctor nearby, and he took care of her. She was my roommate for about a week. I felt very bad for her. She stayed hidden in her portion of the room, and I heard her crying a couple times… Her mom finally flew over from Korea to be with her. She had a collapsed lung, so she couldn’t fly back home for 6 weeks. She was able to go back to school, though, she only missed a couple days.
3. The next was a diabetic Hispanic woman, who didn’t understand anything the doctors or nurses told her. She was there for less than 24 hours. My mom spoke a little Spanish, so after saying hello, she wouldn’t leave us alone, because she thought we understood…
4. The next woman was the worst. She was there for 2 weeks, or so. She had fallen down a hill for about 50 feet, I think. She had a crushed face, broken jaw, broken shoulder, broken wrist, broken ribs, and a broken hip. She wouldn’t shut the fuck up. She was an avid Republican, and didn’t have good health coverage, which I found a little funny. My dad talked to her about how horrible it was that we didn’t have community health coverage, but I don’t think she really got it… She kept talking to me, and giving me advice. About the constipation, about walking, about healing, about I don’t even know what… She was like a grandma, but worse. And she frequently had her grandma friends over. Who were also loud. She finally left, to a nursing home as well.
5. The last lady I only saw for a couple hours, because I left that night. She was very old, and was suffering from horrible blood clots in her legs. She was in a lot of pain, and she couldn’t move either of her legs. She seemed quiet, and nice, and she had previously spent 2 sleepless nights in the ICU. I felt bad, because we did all my discharge stuff at midnight… But we left, so hopefully she was able to sleep a little.

PERCEPTION

1. I had no idea what the room looked like, but it fluctuated from being regular shaped, to being angled, and claustrophobic. I also saw wires, and tubes all over the place, especially in corners. Wrapped around things, in piles, twisted up in the corners. That was definitely the drugs.
2. The Korean girl always had her curtain closed very tightly. I saw her a couple times, but just barely. I had a better idea of what the room looked like, but I thought my side was much smaller than hers, and more open to people looking at me. There was also always the sound of flowing water. I thought it was a fish tank, for some reason.
3. My side of the room was still much smaller. I felt like she could move around as she pleased, while I was stuck. She also slept with the light on… ~_~
4. I had a little better of an idea what the room actually looked like, because I was able to get up and walk, eventually. I got to see the bathroom for the first time, which was much smaller than I had imagined, and I saw her side of the room. What bugged me the most, was the fact that she kept opening up the curtain, and coming and sitting in my portion of the room, because it had windows. I felt like I didn’t have any privacy with her. Especially because she listened to my conversations, and gave me advice. I got to show her my ass, though, so that made me feel better.
5. I finally knew what the room looked like, and I felt like a jackass for being loud and obnoxious…

Bike Crash – 24 Days in the Hospital

The first 3 surgeries happened fairly closely together. And within the first week and a half, all of the first 4 were taken care of. I spent most of that time sleeping, hallucinating, and watching television shows. I watched all of Buffy 1 and 2, and lots of Star Trek. The pain started to go down, I finally accepted that I was pretty damn injured, and I wouldn’t be able to go to school, and I started to eat, gradually. Mainly fruit and oatmeal. I also got off the damn catheter after 2 weeks, and after the fourth surgery, I started to want to go home. They also finally listened to me complaining about my hand, got it x-rayed and put a splint on it.

Then came that final surgery, and all hell broke loose. That was some of the worst pain I have ever experienced. It was worse than the original surgery, because they wouldn’t put me on strong enough pain medicine. They had me on the morphine, with the button, again that first night, and I couldn’t sleep, of course. Then took me off that, and gave me oxycodone, with morphine injections every 3 hours. Which didn’t work, and I spent the first day crying, and moaning. Finally that evening the nurse decided to get the pain down. She made sure I got the oxycodone whenever I could, and gave me shots of morphine every hour. It really helped. The pain was down completely by midnight, and it didn’t come back. I was able to sleep.

It took me an entire week post op, to get out of the hospital. During that time, I started walking with a walker. Using the toilet, like a real person. Sitting in a chair, every once in a while. It was exciting, and difficult. It was very hard to move, I was so weak. My right leg was the thinnest I have ever seen it, and I broke a sweat walking 8 feet to the bathroom. I started eagerly anticipating my release, which took much longer than it should have. It was very frustrating. I felt ready to go, but the doctors wanted to keep an eye on how the leg was healing. The continual oozing bugged them a bit, as did the fact that I couldn’t walk too far without getting dizzy, and nauseated.

But I made it out. I told them I wanted it really badly. I walked as much as I could, and eventually made it. They put a cast on my hand, had me fill out some paper work, gave me drugs, and sent me on my way, at about midnight.

Bike Crash – The Surgeries

WARNING: Photos in the links are really gross, so if you don’t like looking at the insides of people, or swollen limbs, I’d recommend not clicking on them. I just thought I would put them there so interested people could look.

All in all, I had 5 surgeries. There was that first one that lasted 10 hours, and was incredibly brutal. I learned yesterday, that my leg was without circulation for about 8 hours. I am so incredibly amazed that they were able to save it, since it was basically dead. The vascular team did an arterial bypass of the torn open part of my femoral artery. They went in there, cut a hole in my thigh and my calf, took some veins from my right calf, sewed the end to the broken artery, stuffed it through my knee, and then sewed the other end on the other side of the damage. After I got blood flow back, the orthopedic team put the external fixation on, and opened up that fasciotomy to release the pressure, from the compartment syndrome. They also put a wound VAC in the fasciotomy.

Two days after that first surgery, they went back in, took out the wound VAC, debrided the wound, and closed it all back up. I don’t remember going to sleep for this one, either. I think they put me to sleep before I got to the operating room.

Then I waited the weekend, and had another debridement of the fasciotomy.

The third surgery, they actually closed up the fasciotomy. They had had to wait so long, because my leg was still very swollen. They feared that they would have to do a skin graft, to close up the wound. However, they did not have to do that. The swelling had gone down enough, so that they could just slowly ease the sides back together, and close it up. It’s just a straight line, now. They did, however, have to remove some dead tissue, including 10% of the muscle that bends my big toe. I felt so much better after that surgery, though, because the big hole in my leg was closed up. I got out of bed for the first time.

Then I waited, for about a week, and had my final, and potentially the worst, surgery. This was the one where they removed the external fixation, and put in an internal fixation. They had to open up an incision that snakes around my knee, and goes down my shin. They were very happy, because they were able to match it up with the place where the bone came through my leg. Then they had to remove a bunch of shattered bone, and grafted in a bit of cadaver bone. Then they screwed it all together, with tons of titanium screws, and a couple plates. (I will post x-rays later. It looks really cool.) Then they sewed me all up.

Unfortunately, because of the grafting, and other issues, that final surgery took much longer than they had hoped, 6 hours, actually, and recovery for me was really hard. The pain was incredibly intense, and I got out late at night, which was incredibly difficult for me. That night I had one of those buttons again, but I did not enjoy it.

Bike Crash – Nightmares

Glenn spent most of those first nights with me, but during the weekend, my mom came down, and relieved him of duty. So that he could relax a bit, and try to feel better about the whole situation. The first night my mom spent with me, I had my worst hallucinations. Since I had been having huge issues going to sleep (every time I closed my eyes, I saw the accident), and Glenn had brought me my laptop, I watched Star Trek: DS9 all night for the first week, plus some. This was the night right after I had that second surgery. I was really out of it, but I was sleeping pretty well. Then I had a horrible nightmare.

Dad was driving me home from the hospital. There were other people with me, but I don’t really remember who. I was injured, my leg was kind of broken all the way across the calf, it hurt a little but not too much. We were driving through some mountains, down into a valley. I remember sitting in the front seat of the mini-van next to my dad, my leg was up on the dash board. Down in the valley there were a bunch of tornados, I was a little worried, dad said it wasn’t a big deal, they wouldn’t hurt us.

Just as we were reaching the top of a hill, on a very narrow road, a black man, who was wildly waving his arms and yelling came running straight at the car. Dad couldn’t stop, or swerve, and the guy hit the car, right infront of where I was sitting. When he hit I felt the distinct, horrible thud that I had felt when I was hit by the car. That was the worst part.

The car wasn’t really damaged, but the guys body was bent over the top, and his brains and bits of skull, including an eyeball, were spread all over the windsheild. At this point I tried to wake up, but I couldn’t. The man pulled himself up, and ran over to my window. He was missing half his head, one eye was hanging out of it’s socket, he was making gurgling, yelling noises. He started pounding on my window.

A helicopter came out of nowhere, but very close to the car. So close that it chopped the dead man into bits, sprayed them all over the car, and busted the windows on my side. We got out of the car, as men in suits got out of the helicopter, and what looked like an ambulance pulled up. They opened the doors of the ambulance, and there were a ton of dead bodies piled in the back. One man explained that they were androids, and the one that had attacked us had escaped their control.

I woke up whimpering. My arm was really hot, where I had just gotten a new IV. I pulled it out from under the covers, and I saw it dripping in blood. I urged my mom awake, saying, “Mom, my IV is bleeding!” She looked at it, and said it wasn’t. I tried to convince her that it was, but then I looked at it again, and it was fine. I told her about the nightmare. A nurse came in to give me more pain meds, and I fell asleep to Star Trek again.

I spent the next while slowly getting better. The whole time Glenn was there, I was really out of it. He had to go back to school, because it started that week, but I am really glad he got to spend some time. Him and my dad switched off. Dad took days, Glenn nights. They kept me company, called the nurse when I needed her, and gave me water and juice. It made that first week or so much more bearable, and it was very comforting to have him there.

That first week and a half or so, was spent trying to manage the pain, sleeping, and waiting for more surgery. I couldn’t really sleep without the TV on, and had many more nightmares. The hardest part about the nightmares was that I always felt pain in them. The pressure and pain I felt in my broken bones was very strange in dreamland. I would frequently be having a normal dream, but I would have a broken leg. Or my legs would be full of pins. Or a dinosaur would attack me, and I would feel the terrible pain. I also had some dreams where an extreme wind was blowing me in my bed. I couldn’t get up, I just felt a shiver and then hurricane force winds trying to blow my blankets away. Also, for most of these dreams, I couldn’t wake up, which made it so much worse.

One of the worst dreams happened a little later on, when they started giving me long release morphine pills. My dad was sitting next to my bed, and I was drifting off.

My dad was taking me into a hospital, because I was injured. There were a bunch of chairs and beds in a room, with a lot of other people there. They put me in a bed, and we waited. When I lay in bed, it was almost exactly like the hospital room in real life.

I tried to move, but I couldn’t. I tried yelling at dad, I couldn’t. I could see him, reading his magazine, but he didn’t understand I needed help. Then I woke up.

I tried to talk, or move again, and it didn’t work. I tried harder. I screamed in my head. Then I woke up.

I was much more relaxed, I let out a sigh, and then tried to move, but it didn’t work. I tried as hard as I could, finally moving an arm. Then I woke up.

I was back in the hospital room. It was normal. Then I tried again to move, and scream, I was able to get up, and get out of bed. I escaped down the hall, which was hard because of the broken leg. I screamed, and woke up.

I was back in bed, I relaxed. Then realized I was still unable to move.

Then I actually woke up, crying.

Bike Crash – The First Couple Days

When I went into the operating room, it was about 1 or 2 in the morning, I think. I remember falling asleep, even before they pushed me away, and then I woke up. It was a slow, groggy waking up. I looked down at my legs, and saw that they were both wrapped, and I totally freaked out. I asked what happened, and they said that they had to remove veins from my right leg, to save my left. Then I probably passed out again.

Then I remember being in the ICU room, I saw the clock, and it was 4 or 5, I thought it was in the morning. My dad came into the room, and I think my mom might have been there, maybe Glenn too? They told me that I had been in the operating room for over 10 hours. Doctors came in, and poked my foot, and made me wiggle my toes. It all seemed so silly at first, I wanted to go, I was hoping to be well enough in a week to start the next quarter. I hadn’t really processed how much I had injured myself, I couldn’t comprehend what the doctors had done to save my leg, and how amazing it was that my toes did wiggle.

I really don’t remember much of the first week at all, I was on so many pain killers it was ridiculous, it’s all kind of a big, painful blur. That first evening my mom was there, and she fed me ice chips, and I slept a lot. The first night was complete hell. For the pain I was on dilaudid, which I gave myself with a button. That was good and all, because as long as I was awake, I could push the button every couple minutes to give myself a dose. But then I would fall asleep, and wake up 30 minutes later in extreme pain, I’d push the button, and it wouldn’t be enough. I spent most of that night lying there staring at the clock, crying, waiting for the 5 minutes to pass so I could push the button again. I didn’t know how to call the nurse, and since she was busy with other patients I couldn’t always get her. A couple times they upped my dosage, but it wasn’t quite enough. They had to move me, too, and to do that, they would just pick up the leg, and turn me over. From all the injuries, it hurt like hell, and I screamed bloody murder everytime they touched me. That night was the longest night I have ever experienced. When I was in extreme pain, crying, staring at the clock, waiting for those minutes to pass, it felt like hours.

The day was better. They finally got me off the button, once I requested it. Glenn was there, as well as my dad, I think. Glenn brought me ice, and held my hand, and I slept. They kept me pumped full of dilaudid and used some other extremely powerful drugs to make the swelling and pain much less when moving me. They touched my foot more. Dr Tran came and visited, and told us what he did, and talked a little about recovery. I don’t really remember it, but he saved my leg by removing two veins from my right leg, and creating an arterial bypass in my left leg.

Later that day they took me out of the ICU to a room in another part of the hospital. It was in the evening, and when I got there, I think they took me off the dilaudid, and started giving me morphine. Which gave me hallucinations. The hallucinations weren’t life threatening, or anything, but they were really weird. At first it was just when I opened my eyes, I saw wires and tubes everywhere. Built up in the corners, wrapped around the edges of objects, it was odd. Also, the room seemed really weird, it seemed to be different shapes, and my bed was in different positions frequently. They also started giving me pain pills, at some point, oxycodone.

I spent two days there, and then on Friday, I had another surgery. When they fixed my leg, they had to put on an external fix on it. There were two pins in my shin, and two in my thigh. The vascular team had to cut two incisions into my left leg, to create the bypass, and the ortho team had to open up a fasciotomy on the outside of the calf to release pressure. In this second surgery, they just opened everything up, and looked at the fasciotomy, cleaned it out, and replaced the wound vac that was keeping it clean.

Bike Crash – Ambulances, ERs and Helicopters

I awoke shortly after the tube was removed from my mouth, and was immediatly in quite a bit of pain. The first thing I did was ask for Glenn, and was told that he was in the front of the ambulance. Then the emt asked me who I was and such, while she gave me an IV. She was really great. From the very beginning she was very calm and in control. She told everyone what to do, and got me in the ambulance as quick as possible, as comfortably as possible. She rode with me all the way, and kept me pretty spaced out on drugs.

We got to the ER, and I got to be wheeled through the halls. I’d seen it in films and tv shows all the time, believe me, it’s not as exciting when you are the one actually on the gurney… In the ER they asked me tons more of questions, and other stuff. I tried to get them to tell me where Glenn was, but I was so passed out from the drugs, no one paid that much attention. Finally, as the paramedics where finally leaving, the man with the tattoos on his arm, talked to me. He said he would talk to my friend for me, and see if he could come back to see me. I complemented him on his tattoos, which I remember seeing over my head when I was in a daze from that happy gas.

Glenn got to come in and see me and held my hand, which made me feel better. The nurses and doctors bustled around. Poked at my foot, with fingers, and dopplers, and all kinds of stuff. They had to adjust my leg at somepoint, and that hurt like hell. Then I saw the blood. A huge soaked bandage. Apparently the bone had come through the front of my leg. I am glad I didn’t see that when I was flying through the air…

They carted me off to X-rays, at which point I had Glenn call my mom. When I was in the x-ray room, they asked me if there was any other part of me that needed looking at. I told them that my hand hurt quite a bit, they ignored it and just went for the leg. I was brought back to the ER, and then they told me what was going on, kinda… They asked if I had a preference of staying in Bellingham, or going to Harborview. I said that I wanted to stay in Bellingham. At that point, I thought it was just a minor fracture, and I would be okay. The nurse went away and consulted more. They came back and felt my pulse, in my foot, and it was barely there. In that time I talked to my dad, then let him talk to the nurse. Then she told me I might need surgery, and that they’d be driving me down to Seattle. That made Glenn feel not so good. I remember him start breathing really heavily, and he had to sit down. She left, and I talked to Glenn, held his hand, and told him to feed my snake…

She came back in with some other people, they put me in a neck brace, and on a backboard and told me that they were going to airlift me. At that point I was on so many drugs I didn’t feel the pain at all anymore. I asked again if Glenn could come, which of course he couldn’t, said goodbye to him, and was carted away to the helicopter.

Getting into the helicopter was really strange. They had a special gurney, which just kinda slid in sideways into what at the time seemed like a slot in the helicopter. There were two nurses with me. I got oxygen, and ear protection. Unfortunately, I had a neckbrace and backboard on, and I was drugged to high heaven, so I was basically knocked out the whole ride. I remember craning my neck to see a tiny bit of Seattle as we were touching down. Then they slid me out of the slot again, and off I went to the Harborview ER.

In the Harborview ER, there were so many people it was ridiculous. There were many doctors, nurses, students, you name it. My dad was finally there, and that made it a little easier. They all asked me questions, they all poked, and listened to my foot. Then they had to prep me for surgery, take all my clothes off, (I asked to save my blood stained, cut pants) remove my jewlery, put me to sleep and push me off to the operating room.

Bike Crash – The Accident

As anyone who reads this blog probably knows, I got in a very nasty SUV vs bicycle wreck about 7 weeks ago. This broke my hand, tibia and fibula, and ruptured an important artery. Since I just got my cast off my hand today, I felt like elaborating a bit.

The accident happened because I was being a little careless, and did not have a headlight on my bike. I did not know it, but it is illegal to not have a headlight. You’ll get fined for $103. As I did… I was biking down Indian, rather fast, when I saw a car in the opposite lane up ahead of me with the left turn signal on. I slowed, to make sure they saw me, but then when I saw that the car appeared to be stopping, I assumed they knew I was there, and I proceeded. As I was going through the intersection, they turned. I swerved, but it wasn’t enough. I hit the front left bumper, busted their headlight, and went flying through the air.

I don’t remember if I rolled, or if I just slid, all I do know is that as I was flying, my leg bended forward, beneath the knee. I hit the ground pretty hard, but luckily I was wearing a helmet, and I didn’t get any damage from the fall. Glenn was closely following me on his bike, and when he saw what happened, I hear he leapt off his bike and came running. He thought I had died. Fortunately I had not. The screaming assured him of this.

I was lying there on the ground, screaming, hyperventilating, not sure what was going on, in extreme pain. I couldn’t really believe it was happening, because that’s not something that happens to me. It’s something that happens to other people, stupid people, people I don’t know… Luckily I crashed basically in the driveway of the fire station, and they just pulled the ambulance out, and took care of me. As soon as they got there, of course, they had to ask tons of questions, which I don’t really remember. Right before they got there I do remember Glenn yelling bloody murder at the driver, and the cops telling me about the headlight thing. The paramedics got it under control fairly quickly, though. After they asked me a couple questions, removed my helmet and bag, they brought me the happy gas. That was singularly the most surreal experience of my life.

I started breathing in the gas, and immediatly felt a little better. When I closed my eyes, I really had no idea what was going on. I could feel a couple sensations, and hear some weird sounds. I could feel the pain in my leg, it felt like a pressure, I could feel my broken hand, and I could feel Glenn holding my hand. Unfortunately I decided to look while they were splinting my leg… That sucked… And hurt… But I was quickly off in my own little world again. They got me up on the gurney, and at that point, I had a lot of the happy gas in me, I couldn’t really tell what was going on. I was hyperventilating, but I stopped when I felt Glenn’s hand dissapear, I tried to say something, but it sounded really slow and slurred. I asked if he could come. He got the idea, and they made sure he did. I then felt safe enough to start breathing the stuff again. I nearly passed out from it. Everything slowed waaaaaay down. I heard weird slow noises, and because I wasn’t worried anymore, I tried to concentrate on them, then I realized they were words. They were giving me breathing directions, and Glenn was asking me for reassurance that I was okay, I also remember this one guy saying, “Can you do me a little favor.” I did what they were telling me to, and I was able to give Glenn’s hand a squeeze, and a scratch on the chest before they took me into the ambulance. I remember the the texture of his sweater very well, he was wearing his greenish hobo sweater, and it made me feel a lot safer. I let myself fade out.

Can Not Sleep: Journals and Last Summer

I haven’t posted in a long time. I don’t know why. Sometimes I think it will be cool to blog. Then I realize that I don’t really have anything important to say, talking about myself the whole time and assuming the world wants to hear it is pretty egotistical, and people whom I don’t really want to share with read it… But whatever, I can’t sleep. So who cares? Why the hell am I posting this on the internet?

School is over. It’s weird. It’s been a day, and I already don’t know what to do with myself. I feel antsy, and bored, and unproductive (even though I spent all day editing a video. [Might be why I am restless.]). I was browsing through my journal (the one on paper), today, mainly looking at the hand writing. It’s pretty cool to see how it changes. There was one entry that really caught my eye. The hand writing started out all normal, and progressively got more and more crazy, until I could barely read it. The entry itself was really strange, too. It started out with saying that: I am happy now, I have realized where I’ve been going wrong the past year, I am interested in things again, and engage in fun activities. Then I started ranting about PSP boy next to me. Which lead to no hope for humanity. Then, why do I think I am so better than humanity? I am the same shit as them. I am a egocentric, elitist, miserable being.

I must say. It was odd.

But, it made me think about last summer, and the kind of flux I was in. While at times I felt pretty insane, I really enjoyed that feeling of not knowing what was going on, having no idea where I would end up next. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly happy right now. I am probably the happiest I’ve been in a long time, my life rocks pretty hard. But, while thinking about last summer, and not being sure if I was going to be in Bellingham very long, I miss it. I feel like I’ve settled for contentment, when I should be out, homeless, exploring the world, or living in NY, or SOMETHING exciting. That’s what youth is for, right? Fucking shit up?

But I do have some excitement. I am enjoying my life a lot right now. Yes, I did kind of settle for Bellingham, but that’s OK. I can’t really afford NY right now. I can still have fun and excitement in Bellingham. And if I want to, I can make myself feel fucked up. Intentionally not sleeping, or eating, or what have you… Maybe thats not the right way to go about it.

I am sick of taking care of myself well, I am sick of being happy and spoiled, fat and placid, secure, stable and sane. I am discontent with being content.

But hey, I’ll be in Japan in a month, that should help me with some of my summer restlessness.