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The 700-page Manuscript accompanying the 300-page book-to-be. A beast of a proofreading project that landed on my desk this morning only an hour before I found out that I'd be filling in for one of my co-workers who was out sick (about 15 minutes before the meeting I had to run in her stead took place). So instead of buckling down and getting a jumpstart on the project, I had a day filled with delays and interruptions (and the only slightly dissipated paint fumes from yesterday). Part of me is hoping for a snow day tomorrow so that I can work on it from home instead. And I found out that I have to complete the 69 hours of proofreading on before next Wednesday (which is complicated by the fact that our office Christmas party is Tuesday afternoon).

And the 75-minute, three-plus accident obstacle course (otherwise known as my usually 25-minute commute home). First, the major street I take to the interstate is down to one northbound lane because of what seemed to be a party of cops and firetrucks and one injured car. After I clear that hurdle, an idiot decides to change lanes while driving next to me and nearly knocks me off the road. Then, 635 was literally a parking lot. It look me twenty minutes to go one mile to the first exit ramp on my side of town. I get off the interstate to find that someone has apparently knocked out the signal (flashing lights and four-way stops are never a good combination) on the north side of the bridge. So I have to go back west on the frontage road to the last major road that goes north, which of course does not connect to the eastbound road I had planned on taking home, so I have to go an extra mile north before I can finally get back east again. All of this appears to have been caused by the fact that the meteorologists predicted that there MIGHT be a slight CHANCE of snow TOMORROW. Which is only scary to me because apparently nobody in Texas can drive when there's not a bloody cloud in the whole freaking sky. (And the sun hadn't even gone down yet, either.)

The one ray of sun in my day: I turned on my blinker to move to the far right lane on the interstate, fully expecting it would be at least a mile before I'd be able to actually get over, and the guy next to me signals for me to roll down my window. Curious, I do. [[It is important to note here that I recently acquired a Nebraska Alumni license plate frame and decal for my car. And the following song is stuck in my head: "All I wanna do is to thank you, even though I don't know who you are. You let me change lanes while I was driving in my car."]] The guy tells me that he was an '87 Husker and that he'll gladly let me go in front of him. I respond that he's "awesome" and quickly move over. I look forward to sharing that particular story with my Texas-loving grandad who predicted that if I put pro-Nebraska stuff on my car down here, it would end up vandalized. So in preparation for Saturday:

HUSKERS UNITE!

Follow-up Note: I've decided that Thai food is by far the best cure for a migraine. Though caffeine comes in a close second.

Pensive Thoughts

I've found myself thinking a lot about my gram lately. I'm not exactly sure why, but maybe it's because I think she'd be happy and proud of what I'm attempting to do (if only I can get through this entire process without losing what's left of my mind). As I've mentioned before, I love the movie Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. I especially love that it's not truly a kid's movie. It's more about figuring out who you are and accepting the tough parts of life, like losing those you love. The speech that Mr. Magorium gives to Molly Mahoney (who is about my age and going through a similar crisis) before he dies is so poignent. It really hits me and always makes me think of my gram and what a wonderful life she lived before she died my senior year of college. It reminds me not to be sad about it. To remember all the good times we had rather than all the future times we didn't.

"When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written, 'He dies.' That's all. Nothing more. No fanfare. No metaphor. No brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is: 'He dies.' It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with 'he dies.' And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with disphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words 'he dies' but because of the life we saw prior to the words. I've lived all five of my acts, Mahoney, and I'm not asking you to be happy that I must go. I'm only asking that you turn the page, continue reading, and let the next story begin. And if anyone every asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder and end it with a simple and modest 'He died.'" - Mr. Magorium

And now it's time for bed, because I've completed two applications and I might just be able to sleep tonight.

My Favorite Time of Year

The past four days have been quintessentially perfect fall days. Brilliant blue skies. No clouds. A light breeze. It feels crisp outside. Like the first time you crack open a brand-new book. There's something special about it. So cheering. Like maybe there's something right with the world. I have to open my moonroof and roll down the windows on my commute home. The perfect weather for a bowl of chili, a beer and a good game of football. Yesterday I got two out of three. My beloved team is breaking my heart. This is not unusual. I grew up during the era of amazing Nebraska football and it was so difficult to watch them play under Solich and Callahan while I was in school there. But I've stood by them through all of that. And I continue to stand by them; I am a husker through and through. But that doesn't mean I like them very much right now. They've let me down yet again. Whenever I start to think, "Hey we're good again!" They have a game like yesterday. And I want to shake them. And I ask myself why do I care? Why do I let myself care so much? Why can't I stop watching and caring about college football? Possibly for the same reason I can't completely right off my attempts to find a boyfriend. Despite the mountain of evidence from my past experiences that boys are unreliable and just cause trouble, I continue to search for "the one." In the past few months, my single friends have been increasingly getting boyfriends and it's making me feel more and more like a crazy old spinster. Except that I don't even have a cat (Allergic!) or dog for companionship.
In the meantime, I'm hoping for more beautiful fall days; I've had enough rain to last me for quite awhile.

My Social Life Got Shown Up By a Seven-Year-Old

It's amazing how time gets away from me and yet it seems like I've done nothing but eat, sleep and work. First, Mac visited for a weekend before going back to Tucson for more school; then two days later, my mom flies to town to pack up my parents' storage unit and have everything moved to another storage unit in Nebraska (where they plan to retire when they're tired of San Fran). Then, I made my first solo road trip to Nebraska over Labor Day weekend and finally saw my grama (who is having major memory issues, which makes me sad) and my cousin (who just started college and so makes me feel old--didn't she just learn how to drive the other day?). Then I came home and threw myself into all that grad school prep stuff because it must be done and done now.
All of which brings us to this weekend, which I'm spending at my aunt's and uncle's house across town babysitting my two littlest cousins; one is nine, the other seven. And my seven-year-old cousin has a "boyfriend." So it's official. I'm going to be a spinster old maid. Apparently I'm twenty years behind on this whole dating thing.

Another Year Older...and hopefully wiser?

I finally turned 27 this past week. For the first time since I turned 22 (such an anticlimactic age), I was actually looking forward to it. Because the entire year I was 26 sucked--majorly sucked. So I'm ready to turn over a new page in the book of my life. A clean page. In a way it feels like another chance. I've got a new job and for the first time in a year and a half, I like what I'm doing. I believe in the company I work for. I'm not spending all day proofing ads that everyone just throws in their trash with barely a glance for a company that steals people's money (albeit in a legal way) and for an agency that is slowly destroying my soul. It's demoralizing to get up and go to a job every day that you hate. That you know you're not great at and that nobody truly appreciates the work you do. My title at my previous full-time job may have been Copy Editor, but I (and all the others in the proofing department) were treated as the agency scapegoats. Because problems weren't solved unless blame was apportioned. It was less about fixing errors than about never making them, unless you were an account rep and then your errors were never your own; it was our fault for not figuring out they were errors.
But back to now. Now I'm at a job I like. The people work together. The goal is to produce the best product possible; not who can make the most people look bad in order to work their way up the corporate ladder fastest. And my co-workers like me. They like how I do my job. And if I find something in a later round of proofing, nobody ever says, "Why didn't you find it before?" Despite the fact that I'm commuting on the interstate now (something I've always tried to avoid) and my commute is sometimes 45 minutes or more, I don't dread the trip because I like the job I get to do when I arrive.
But I'm not forgetting everything I learned while I was unemployed. I don't want to stay in the rat race of Corporate America for the rest of my life. So I'm still going to apply to grad school. It's just that now I don't have to do so while sleeping on my grama's couch. It's a nice feeling to know that I'm paying my own way again. As I've mentioned before, I enjoy my self-sufficiency. I always have. So here's to a new year (because the one in January did not come in with a bang). It can't be worse than the last, so I'm letting my hopes become buoyant again.

More Photos from Yosemite

Yosemite National Park

A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: Hiking Out, A Return to Normalcy, Plus a Recap

Yosemite Park Hike: Day 4 Miles Hiked: 4.6 Total Miles for Entire Trip: 26 (this includes the nearly two miles we had to hike to get from the Trailhead to the Visitor’s Center where Mom is picking us up)
Today we hike out of the valley and back to civilization. The wind is completely gone. It was a perfect morning for fly fishing, except that today the fish are refusing to bite. This is because I have finally managed to figure out the whole casting thing. Dad assured me that had there been fish, I would have caught them. That is just my luck. I was happy just to know that I’d finally succeeded at it, though. That in itself was enough of an accomplishment for me. We tried fishing again later on before heading out of the canyon, but still got nothing. It’s my belief that the bears ate all the fish and that’s why we didn’t find either one (my dad had a bear with cubs visit his campsite on a hike on another trail in Yosemite earlier this summer). On our way out, we found a number of trout feeding about a mile or so downstream, mocking us.

We finally reach civilization and take advantage of the bathrooms in the campground to tidy ourselves up a bit before heading to the grill to have what Dad has called the worst hamburgers ever. While Dad gets the food, I talk to an older guy (probably in his fifties or so) who has hiked from Yuba River and is on his way to Mono Lake. It seems he is a perpetual backpacker who mails himself provisions to pick up at different stops along the way. I’ve decided that apparently the backcountry attracts the most interesting characters. On our way from the grill to the Visitor’s Center, we also meet a bearded hippie and his girlfriend, who are backpacking the entire Pacific Crest Trail, from Mexico to Canada, though they admit to cheating and taking a shuttle from one area of Yosemite Park to Tuolomne Meadows.

All the rocks/mountains in Yosemite are granite. A long time ago, a huge pocket of magma bubbled up under the earth here and after it cooled, pushed its way to the surface. As it came up, the pressure caused the rocks to crack and form the mountains and valleys of the park. And then the glaciers came through and carved the land up even more. (This is a much simplified version of events, for more in-depth explanations see Huber’s book Geographical Ramblings in Yosemite.) In much of the area we hiked through you could still find sheets of granite not far beneath the dirt. It makes for a landscape unlike anything I’ve seen before. In the areas where the ground is too moist for trees to grow are these vast meadows through which the main branch of the river winds. Where the trees are thick, the dirt is loose and silty, in some places it is nearly as fine as sand (and as difficult to walk on).

My favorite moment of the day is when Mom pulls the car into the lot and hands me the bag with my clean clothes. I run to the bathroom and change into new (CLEAN!) clothes for the first time in 4 days. It's just about the best feeling in the world.

A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: Longest Day Ever (But Only in Our Minds)

Yosemite Park Hike: Day 3 Miles Hiked: 5.2, 5 hours
Today we got to hike back down “My Mountain.” It is slower going than the hike up (I have to watch my steps more carefully) but not nearly so tiring. It felt like the longest hike so far (we actually passed our first night’s campsite before finding one for tonight), but mileage says otherwise (this is probably because we meandered around more on the hike up but we simply came straight down on the way out).

As much as I’m enjoying the surroundings and this experience, I am glad to be headed back out tomorrow. I feel dirty, smelly and gross at this point. The top three things I’m looking forward to most on my return:
3. Bathroom (ability to wash and dry my hands at any time!)
2. Deodorant (starting to think it’d be worth being eaten by a bear)
1. SHOWER! (the special bathing wipes my dad brought only work so well (surprisingly well, in fact) but at a point it all becomes an exercise in futility and merely seems that I am moving the dirt around rather than actually removing it)
See? Communing with nature does make you aware of the important things in life. I don’t miss my computer or internet or TV. I do wish I had another book as I finished the one I was allowed to bring (the lightest book I had: Then Comes Seduction by Mary Balogh) earlier this afternoon while Dad went fishing.

Today’s campsite (which took Dad forever to find; as I mentioned before, we passed the campsite we used the first night, so we’ve only got a couple hours of hiking left for tomorrow) is probably the best yet. There’s a large flat rock that not only shields us from the path, but has a great view of the river and valley; making it the perfect place to reflect (or read and nap).

The wind is gusting today, making it cold, even in the sun. It also seems to be making me thirstier. And it makes fly fishing harder. Even Dad has declared failure for today (he caught an even bigger tree than on the first day!). The wind always seems to come up when I get the release right, making my line blow back in on itself. I can see how it would be very relaxing once one had mastered it, but it is not so for me yet. The wind roars through the valley like a wild beast; I can hear it coming before it reaches me, and then continuing on down the valley before it circles around and returns.

Later. We’ve moved to another campsite, maybe 100 feet from the first. The first site was great in the afternoon, but it was in the path of the worst wind and more shaded, so it got colder earlier, before the sun had even sunk below the mountain tops. Our new site has the best fire ring of any we’ve found. It’s nice being back in the lower part of the valley, near Tuolomne Meadows as the mosquitoes are back to normal levels. Tonight for some reason I have the stupid “Soft Kitty” song from Big Bang Theory stuck in my head and it’s driving me nuts.

I finally stayed up late enough for all the stars to come out (the sun goes down early because of the mountains, but it doesn’t get fully dark until nearly 10 pm). It was like being in a planetarium. The edge of the sky along the mountain tops is a little lighter than the rest and the whole thing is circular like a dome and I’m the center of it all. I’ve always loved star-gazing, though I’m lucky if I can even find the big and little dippers (we did!) and Orion’s belt. (Sadly, Orion is not in the sky at this time of year, we did find Leo…possibly. I maintain we did as it is my sign.) It brings everything back into perspective. It relaxes me and makes me feel as if my problems are not as huge as they sometimes seem.

Spotted Today: Mountain Chickadee, Lazli Bunting Bluebird (possibly, we’re not sure, though it was definitely a bluebird), Deer (and I actually had my camera!), Painted Lady or California Tortoiseshell Butterflies (couldn’t get a close enough look at them to tell which they were for sure), Belding’s ground squirrel.

A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: Are We at the Top Yet?

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 2 (or, the day I fell in a river and climbed a mountain) Part 1
This morning when I went down to the stream to get water, I saw a doe on the other side, not more than 15 feet from me. It seemed as if she was trying to decide whether she wished to drink the water or leap across it to test out the other side. Then she looked up and we stared at each other for what felt like forever. Unfortunately, my camera was at camp. (Luckily, I caught one later on. See above.) Then she turned and went back the way she'd come to the shady side of the meadow beyond the forest the stream ran through. As we were finishing loading our pack at camp this morning, a gold mantel ground squirrel started circling the campsite in hopes we would leave some food behind. Not a very lucky squirrel after all (we are good practitioners of Leave No Trace).

In order to get back onto the trail after leaving our campsite, it was necessary to cross the many different branches of the river. Most of the crossings have rocks or sturdy logs to help one across. One crossing, which I'd encountered the day before on our fishing treks, had only two very wobbly logs. I already hated this particular crossing from the day before (and that had been without a twenty-pound pack on my back). Today, of course, it is wetter and as I reach the halfway point, I lose my already precarious balance, slip on the wet wood and my right leg ends up in the water, between the rocks on the bottom of the stream and the log. The only good things were that neither my pack nor my camera got wet. My shoes however felt like portable lakes for the next hour or so. Luckily my pants and socks were both of a special quick-dry material, so I didn't stay soaking for long. Still, it was about the least fun thing to happen, until we reached the mountain.

Earlier, my dad had mentioned that we were almost to the end of the lower canyon and did I want to go up the mountain to the upper part as we would have a really awesome view of the valley looking back? The first day's hike had gone so well that I said "Sure, that sounds like fun."

Now it's 1 pm and we've hiked 4.32 miles and are about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. As I informed my dad moments ago, the next time someone asks if I want to "hike up the mountain at the end of the valley," my immediate answer will NOT be "Oh sure, that sounds like fun." However, it is amazing sitting here (resting) most of the way up the mountain and looking back across the valley we just hiked through, in less than two days. (It has no specific name as it is merely the beginning of the Donahue Pass. I have decided that it shall henceforth be called "My Mountain.") We can see the river snaking back through the meadows and the trees and rocks on either side. As we’re resting, we see a guy probably in his late twenties or early thirties who is climbing the mountain barefoot. He is followed shortly by a guy with a Mohawk who had camped near us in the backpacker’s camp in Tuolomne Meadows the night before hiking in and who is hiking the entire John Muir Trail, which goes from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney.


Part 2 Miles Hiked: 2.1 (since 1 pm; daily total: 6.42 miles in 5.5 hours up 2,146 ft) Current Elevation: 10,258 ft above sea level
We have reached the pinnacle of our journey: the top of “My Mountain,” which is actually a valley with a glacier/snowmelt-fed lake (which goes on to become the river snaking through the basin of Lyell Canyon that we’ve been hiking next to for the last day and a half) and the start of the Donahue Pass. We are so far up into the mountains that the valley is no longer visible. There is actually snow on the ground near our campsite and the mountains with the glacier are at the far end of the lake.
The piles of rocks at the foot of the cliffs along with the glacier make me wonder what it must have all looked like hundreds of years ago when the rocks were part of the cliff face and the glacier reached into this valley and the other glacier that we saw earlier was probably connected to this one (all of this is complete speculation, but I did purchase Geological Ramblings in Yosemite by N. King Huber so that I can find out the truth of it all). The water here is crystal clear, not muddy brown like I’m used to from growing up in the Midwest and fishing in Minnesota and Texas. Nor is it like the strange, ethereal blue of the silty, glacier run-off streams I’ve seen in Alaska. It is so clear that as my dad and I stand at the edge of the lake (and earlier the rivers and streams) we can actually spot trout floating in the river, feeding from 30 to 40 feet away.

The valley is picturesque, but crowded. Everywhere I turn, there is another tent pitched. Most the mountains we’ve hiked by and up and through are nameless, but close examination of the GPS reveals that we are camped beside Tarn Lake and the peak on the far end of the lake—a mere 2.8 miles that we will NOT be hiking--is Mount Lyell and Lyell Glacier, the highest peak in Yosemite Park, to the right of which is Earhart Point (which has boulder-type cliffs rather than the pointed peak of Mt. Lyell). Earlier today we saw McClure Glacier when we reached the top of “My Mountain” before continuing on into the upper valley. Donahue Pass continues around the lake, up the cliffs on the other side and then behind the ridge to the left of Mt. Lyell (we are also NOT hiking this).

Despite the fact that the mountains surrounding us are probably a third covered in snow, it is warm enough for shorts and short sleeves. Tonight our campsite is surrounded by white bark pine (these have a five-needle structure), hemlock and the same Lodgepole pine from the day before. There is much more variety in the trees up here than in the valley below. We even saw a grove of aspen as we climbed up the mountain.

Thanks to the flooding in the Upper Lyell Canyon, which has created marshy swampy areas—ideal mosquito breeding grounds—the mosquitoes are AWFUL and surround me if I sit or stand in one place for too long (more than 20 seconds). Despite the fact that I’m wearing bug repellant, they have been hovering around me—sitting or standing—and so now I am walking in circles around the fire pit as I write this in what has become a futile attempt to evade the swarm of bugs that has formed around me. I feel like Pigpen from Peanuts with my own cloud that follows my every step. The bugs aren’t biting me (much) as I have coated all exposed skin with bug dope, but it apparently doesn’t keep them away. They are waiting to see if my movements will expose an area of skin (however miniscule) that they might attack, buzzing in my ears and flying up behind my glasses and in my mouth. I’ve had to take refuge in the tent and I really want the mosquito-net hat I saw a guy wearing earlier when he and his friends passed through our campsite. Even now as I’m writing this inside the tent, they are clinging to the mesh of it and trying to get to me, which doesn’t make me want to leave it anytime soon.

One hour and one nap later. The bugs are actually less bothersome by the lake than at the campsite. I’ve still caught nothing but grass and my own line (creating a knot so badly entangled that Dad just pulled the fly off). Fly fishing does not look especially difficult, but apparently years of casting with a spinning rod have ingrained a casting motion so deeply into me that I am having difficulty overcoming it despite the fact that I haven’t fished for years. While I scared away the fish and tied my line in knots, Dad caught two more trout (one brown and one brook).

Spotted Today: Clark’s Nutcracker, Tri-color Blackbird, Junco, White-Crested Sparrow, Yellow Swallow-tailed Butterflies (I’ve decided these all have ADHD, they flitter around without stopping and fly circles around me, pretending to alight on flowers and rocks, but then rushing off again before I can snap a photo), Lustrous Coppers, yellow-bellied marmot, gold mantel ground squirrel, Belding’s ground squirrel, deer (all does), chipmunks, chickaree squirrel.

A Writer's Adventures Backpacking in Yosemite: The Trek Begins

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 1 Miles Hiked: 7.78 miles (includes scouting for fishing sites without our packs) Elevation: 894 ft up from Tuolomne Meadows (we started off 8600 feet above sea level when we entered the lower part of the Canyon)

We're on the John Muir Trail to Upper Lyell Canyon. Today we hiked through forested areas, suddenly emerging in vast meadows spotted with giant boulders. It feels like we're surrounded by a bowl of trees with mountains rising up on all sides. In some places, instead of meadows, the ground is just rock with boulders strewn about and the bleached bones of dead trees that make it seem like Mother Nature's graveyard. The river changes without warning from quiet and meandering through the open meadows to bubbling brooks to roaring rapids in the wooded areas. The trees all look so different, but upon inspection later in the day we realize that they are actually all Lodgepole Pine. Sadly, there are no giant Sequoia or Redwood in this area of the park. Many living trees are bent, growing parallel to the ground—perhaps caused by the weight of the snow as it melts and compacts. There are also lots of saplings in the open parts of the forest, showing how Mother Nature replaces what she destroys. The treed areas remind me of my summers in Minnesota when I was growing up. The open areas and mountains remind me of Alaska, but greener and more varied.

Our campsite is surrounded by Lodgepole Pine. The bark on the older trees is a golden honey color with darker reddish streaks where black bears have clawed to try and get at the sticky sap inside, which looks like a thick, gunky, cloudy yellow honey where it's clotted on the outer bark. The younger gray-bark trees have no claw marks, suggesting perhaps that the bears only like the sap of the older trees as looking at the needle structure has revealed that these are all the same type of tree (not my first guess). Lodgepole pines have a two-needle structure, produce short, stubby cones and the needles themselves taste of gin. My dad said all we needed was some vodka to make ourselves martinis. It is warmer in this campsite than it was in the backpackers' camp in Tuolomne Meadows where we spent our first night before hiking in, despite the fact that we are at a higher elevation, or perhaps the slightly higher elevation helps as cold air likes to sink and sit in the bottoms of the valleys.

The aspen glow turns the air reddish at sunset and makes for an amazing view of the rocky cliff directly above our campsite. While I tended the campsite fire, Dad went for a walk and found trout, deer and a Sierra White-Tailed Jack Rabbit out at dusk. We made our first fly fishing attempt that afternoon. Dad caught six fish (three brook trout, one baby rainbow trout and two brown trout), two trees and a rock. I caught lots of weeds and a grass island. On our way back to our campsite, we saw a deer feeding on a bush (which Dad later said was probably some sort of willow tree).

Spotted Today: yellow-bellied marmots (which look like beavers and make a strange chirping sound; also they seem to love posing for pictures); chipmunks (possibly alpine, Lodgepole or shadow, it's difficult to be sure as they run when spotted and like to hide in tree stumps); Belding's ground squirrels (sit up and dart around, freezing when they suspect danger. At first I thought they might be prairie dogs); Juncos (my dad's gotten quite good at spotting birds. I am much less so.); trout (they look like twigs floating in the river when they're feeding); mountain chickadees (these birds like to crawl on the trees); Clark's nutcrackers (another bird, this one likes the tops of the trees); lustrous copper and Boisduval's blue butterflies (they often actually remained still on flowers and rocks long enough to identify and photograph); and gold mantel ground squirrels (slightly smaller than the chipmunks).

A Preface: Historical and Geological Tidbits and the Journey There

Yosemite National Park Hike: Day 0
In 1890, it took five days to get to Yosemite from San Francisco and the average stay was two weeks. Most visitors were wealthy; they had to be to have that much time off from work. Now, it takes five hours to travel from San Francisco and the average stay is only four hours. My dad and I went backpacking in Yosemite for five days. We hiked part of the John Muir Trail through Upper Lyell Canyon, but first, we had to get there. Which meant five hours of driving through the Sierra Nevadas.

The Sierra Nevada mountains are different from the Rockies, which I grew up visiting. They’re mostly rounded-tops and are covered with brush and trees instead of the barren, pebbled peaks of the Rockies. Many of the valleys have vast lakes, creating a beautiful, awe-inspiring view as we make our way to Yosemite. The road winds and twists so much that even at 30 mph, I am tossed around in the backseat like a rag-doll and reduced to clinging to the “Oh Shit!” handle in an attempt to keep myself in one place. Closer to San Francisco, there are a series of hills that have windmills lined up like sentinels on the crests of the mountains. There’s something about these windmills standing tall in perfect lines along the ridges that I can’t quite explain. Almost as if they’re standing guard or patrolling.

The night before we begin our hike, we camp in the backpacker’s camp in Tuolomne Meadows. Luckily, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as the campground my dad stayed at before his trip a few weeks earlier, so we were able to find a great spot that wasn’t surrounded by other people. Everyone is friendly (especially the guy with a Mohawk who had his tent pitched at the campsite next to ours and this guy who asked my dad about his tent and reminded me of a friend I used to work with), though I notice that very few people are carrying lightweight gear and packs like we are. I did not appreciate this when I was packing and Dad told me I had to leave three-fourths of the stuff I had planned on taking behind. I was GREATLY appreciative of the fact that my pack only weighed 19 pounds by day 4.

There was a Ranger Campfire Talk that night about the history and meaning behind Yosemite. The ranger started by telling us three stories about the meaning of Yosemite (obviously of varying degrees of historical accuracy). The first story is that the Mariposa Battalion, which was not actually part of the official army but rather a group of miners from the area, goes after the Miwok Indians in the valley for stealing horses and eating them (which they were doing because the miners were cutting down the black acorn trees that were a major part of their diet). The first group they round up is all from a smaller tribe of the Miwoks, Yos.s.e'meti, meaning we are called grizzly bear.

The second story goes like this: A miner calls to the cook across the mining camp, "Yo! Send me tea!" because he doesn't want coffee. It echoes through the valley and catches on.
The third story is most widely accepted as the true origin of the name. Members of the Mariposa Battalion confuse the Native American words for grizzly bear and black bear—ïhümat.i and ïsümat.i—to get Yosemite (I’m not sure of these spellings; I haven’t found this particular version of the story anywhere, so this is all from memory and online guesswork.). So it actually means Valley of the Two Bears, except that now the California Grizzly is extinct (except for its appearance on the state flag) and only black bears are found in the park. The ranger also told us that Tuolomne means land of the cave-dwelling mud people.


The ranger also mentioned Lembert (and some of the other settlers and business men who first came to the valley), who saw his face (past, present and future) in a cliff face that is now called Lembert's Dome (see above).

After telling us the stories of the meaning of Yosemite, he talked about what the park has meant to people, especially talking about the Wawona Tunnel Tree in the Mariposa Grove (it collapsed under the pressure of snowmelt in the 1960s) and the Fire Fall, which lasted from 1872-1968 when it was stopped because it went against the message of conservation the park was established to promote and the popularity of it was destroying the park land. Fire Fall (if you’re like me and weren’t alive when it was popular) was created by pushing a bonfire off Glacier Point (I think…it was definitely in the main valley near Half Dome) after dark and people would park and set up camp in the valley below to watch the smoldering wood tumble down. If you’re interested, you can see a real Yosemite Fire Fall in Humphrey Bogart's 1954 film, The Caine Mutiny.

Another Book List for Shits and Giggles

A friend sent me a link to NPR'S "Audience Picks: 100 Best Beach Books" and I wanted to see how many I've already read. (And remind myself of books to which I still need to get.) There are quite a number that I want to read or already have in my "To Read" stack (which takes up a couple of bookshelves in my apartment, sadly).
(color guide: read, own, want to read)

1. The Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling
2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
4. Bridget Jones's Diary, by Helen Fielding
5. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
6. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, by Rebecca Wells
7. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
9. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, by Fannie Flagg
10. The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver

11. The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
12. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
13. The Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan
14. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
15. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
16. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
17. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett
18. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
19. Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides
20. Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
21. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
22. The Bean Trees, by Barbara Kingsolver
23. The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
24. The World According to Garp, by John Irving
25. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
26. The Prince of Tides, by Pat Conroy
27. Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel
28. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
29. The Accidental Tourist, by Anne Tyler
30. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
31. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
32. East of Eden, by John Steinbeck
33. The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
34. Beach Music, by Pat Conroy
35. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier
37. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
38. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
39. The Thorn Birds, by Colleen McCullough
40. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

41. Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett
42. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy
43. Interview with the Vampire, by Anne Rice
44. Cold Mountain, by Charles Frazier
45. Empire Falls, by Richard Russo
46. Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes
47. The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
48. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins
49. I Know This Much Is True, by Wally Lamb
50. Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
51. Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
52. The Stand, by Stephen King
53. She's Come Undone, by Wally Lamb
54. Dune, by Frank Herbert
55. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Barrows
56. Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
57. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
58. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
59. The Godfather, by Mario Puzo
60. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
61. Animal Dreams, by Barbara Kingsolver
62. Jaws, by Peter Benchley
63. Good in Bed, by Jennifer Weiner
64. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
65. Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
66. The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
67. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
68. Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
69. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
70. The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler
71. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
72. The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy
73. Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
74. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
74. Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe [tie]
76. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
77. Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon
78. The Shell Seekers, by Rosamunde Pilcher
79. Prodigal Summer, by Barbara Kingsolver
80. Eye of the Needle, by Ken Follett
81. Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
81. The Pilot's Wife, by Anita Shreve [tie]
83. All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy
84. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
85. The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
86. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
87. One for the Money, by Janet Evanovich
88. Shogun, by James Clavell
89. Dracula, by Bram Stoker
90. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera
91. Presumed Innocent, by Scott Turow
92. Franny and Zooey, by J.D. Salinger
93. The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
94. Dead Until Dark, by Charlaine Harris
95. Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume
96. The Shining, by Stephen King
97. How Stella Got Her Groove Back, by Terry McMillan
98. Lamb, by Christopher Moore
99. Sick Puppy, by Carl Hiaasen
100. Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Women in the Spotlight: Sarah Palin

In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly Golightly says, "There are certain shades of limelight that will wreck a girl's complection." That's the spotlight I choose to shine on Sarah Palin this week. For centuries, women have fought for equal rights, both here in the U.S. and around the world. Sarah Palin is setting us back by a decade or two at least. Women already have to campaign harder to work their way up the political ladder and having someone as inept and blatantly idiotic as she is in the center arena does not make it any easier. A friend linked me to Vanity Fair's article "Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version" and it underscores just how unqualified this woman was for Vice President (or any other political position in my personal opinion). The saddest thing, though, is that she probably worked really hard on that speech and was proud of it. At least that was the attitude I encountered working at my first job proofreading content for apartment newsletters. I learned that many people in our country are so poorly educated in English that they don't even know how bad their writing is. And they got extremely agitated when I fixed the blatant grammatical errors (like subject and verb not matching in number) and say, "I worked on that for hours. How could you rewrite it?" And I wanted to tell them all, "I'm sorry, but you really shouldn't have." Meanwhile pondering how much worse the original version could have possibly been? (And immediately deciding that I'd rather not know.)
Now, this is all just speculation. I don't know how much time Palin spent on this speech or how she felt about it. Or even if it was her who wrote it (though VF made it sound like it). Regardless, she should be embarrassed for having given it, because it's one of the most poorly written (and factually inaccurate--she thought President Lincoln's cabinet was responsible for the purchase of Alaska. Isn't that the kind of thing a state governor ought to know?) things I've read since getting laid off from the newsletter company. My cousin wrote better than that in 5th grade. Sadly, most of her listeners probably saw no more wrong with it than she did. Which ought to serve as an indictment (or, preferably, a wake-up call) to us on the state of public education. Instead that's the first thing governments cut when budget crises strike (just look at California right now if you don't believe me).
Kudos goes to VF highlighting the spectacular-ness of editors. So many newspapers and magazines seem to be dispensing with these positions as they send things online. It's reassuring to know that someone is upholding the integrity of the written word in the media.

Women in the Spotlight: Amelia Earhart

While I was in SF, I saw Public Enemies and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, both were good movies, but that's beside the point. They ran a preview before both movies that made me particularly excited: Amelia. At long last, someone is making a movie about Amelia Earhart. Growing up, she was one of the women I studied in school and read about. I was obsessed with knowing about her life. And I couldn't understand how nobody could know what had happened to her. I felt a special affinity for her in part because she was from Kansas (the state where I grew up), Atchison to be exact.
Amelia Earhart was the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic ocean as well as setting many other records and establishing an association for female pilots before she disappeared over the Pacific ocean while attempting to circumnavigate the world in 1937. This is a movie I will definitely be going to see. And I'm almost glad they waited so long to finally make a movie about her, because I think Hilary Swank is the perfect actress to portray her.

Free At Last!

Saturday marked the end of my time working in shoe hell. Whoo! A day earlier than I had expected. It's one of the few jobs I've quit in my life. The only one since college. And no matter how much I dreaded working there, quitting was hard. Or maybe awkward is a better word for it. I'd originally said (in my interview) that I planned to stay even if I got a full-time job. And it wasn't meant to be a lie, if I'd gotten any of the jobs I was interviewing for last spring, I would have had to just to make ends meet and pay back my parents. Plus, I worked with nice, cool people. But as my mom reminded me there are plenty of people out there who need that job more than me now. Besides, I was planning on giving notice anyway so that I could go on vacation and move. Now I get to take my vacation without having to stress about coming back and boxing all my stuff up afterwards. It's a good feeling. Which is something I haven't felt in quite awhile. And hopefully, this means the end of my nightmares about shoes.

Apparently, My Friend Is God (or, biblical history repeats itself)

My friend and I were discussing (some might say arguing) the other day about links she threatened to send me. It all goes back a few years ago when she sent me a link to some comics and said, "By the way, don't read the first one on that page. It is the most disturbing thing I've ever read." Well, of course, I immediately wanted to know what would could possibly be that bad. So I read it. And, quite predictably, I responded with, "GAH!!!! How could you possibly send me that?!?!?" To which my friend said, "I told you not to read that." Which, I was forced to concede, was true.
Anyways, so when my friend says the other day that she found another link in the same forum that that link had come from, I automatically responded with "NO! Don't EVEN send me anything like that again." And she tried to convince me that a) it wasn't anything that bad and b) it was my fault for looking at it the first time. So I brought up the story of Eve from Genesis to explain why it was HER fault because she told me not to read it, so of course I had to read it. I was all like, see, you are like the serpent tempting me with this apple that I'm not supposed to eat by telling me all the reasons I shouldn't. And she pointed out that actually God was the one who told Eve she shouldn't eat the apple from the Tree of Knowledge. Which of course lead to her conclusion: "I'm like f***ing God in that story." (A dangerous concept all on it's own and the whole reason that I had to write this post. Because I had to use that as a title.) And I am unable to resist my curiousity. But I learned my lesson. If my friend says something is disturbing, I now trust her on it. Never again will I question what could possibly be that bad. So history may repeat itself, but hopefully we learn something at least from our own.

Women in the Spotlight: Augusta Ada King

One of my favorite things about my new job is that I learn something new every day. A minute piece of trivia that I stumbled across on Friday inspired me to create this new column on my blog. Every week I will spotlight a different woman in history. This is by no means intended as a biography or other in-depth study, but merely a means of bringing to light women whose accomplishments that have impressed me in some way but that I never learned about in school. I will begin with the woman who inspired it all: Augusta Ada King, Lady Lovelace, who is credited with creating the first computer program (which consisted of holes drilled in a wooden card as well as the basic concepts of structured programming that are still followed today). She was also the daughter of poet Lord Byron, though she was raised almost solely by her mother. She not only suggested a program for a machine created by Charles Babbage that would calculate Bernoulli numbers, she also foresaw that such machines could go beyond number-crunching and calculations to create complex music and graphics and as such be used for both practical and scientific purposes. She managed to be both creative and analytical, mathematical and poetical. Which makes me identify with her because I've always been good at math, but had a passion for creative writing (a trait I've not found to be common among my other creative writing-inclined friends). It is a marvel to me that such a woman could have been raised in Georgian-Victorian England--a time period not precisely known for looking kindly on women's education or rights. And it makes me even more interested in studying that period on a graduate school level.

(Sources: Ada Byron Network, "Ada Lovelace Biography" by Betty Alexander Toole, Ed.D. and "Ada Lovelace" - Wikipedia)

Jaxx Recommends...Songs about Celebrity Crushes

One of the problems with living alone is that the silence can become overwhelming. This has developed a bad habit of mine to turn the TV on as background noise most of the time that I'm home. I often end up watching bad TV because of this, though I'm usually (as I was last night) reading at the same time. There's nothing like an evening of silly TV, romance novels and ice cream. Anyways, last night there was seriously NOTHING on that I wanted to watch and hadn't seen multiple times or have on DVD, so I ended up watching America's Got Talent. And it was surprisingly HILARIOUS. Needless to say, there are plenty of freaks in America, way more than people with true talent, I think. But this guy (though definitely not the best singer/performer of the bunch) amused me in a good way. And reminded me of one of my favorite singers of all time: Bree Sharp. I still remember sitting in the auditorium of Drake University in Des Moines with my mock trial teammate and friend listening to A Cheap and Evil Girl on her cd player. "David Duchovny" is the song that got me hooked on her, so it's only right that I post it here along with the song by David Johnson that everyone (and I know the editors flashed the photo of David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson together for exactly this reason) thought was just a so-so song about a some random celebrity crush, but luckily Sharon Osbourne held off on pressing her buzzer long enough for the surprise to be revealed. I still can't believe he actually made it on, but I thought it was a great lesson to see the two who pressed their no way buzzers be the ones to vote yes, and the one person who didn't be the one to vote no. And I'll finish this off with the question: What is it about men named David? (Though for the record, I've never understood anyone's attraction to David H.)

Maybe Quitters Really Do Prosper

This is a bit behind the times, but it's been an overwhelming past few days. Last week I finally decided that after getting rejected by all the companies I'd managed to get interviews with--because, despite the fact that I was applying for jobs for which I was amply qualified and going to be taking big pay cuts, they all had oodles of more qualified applicants to choose from--that maybe right now just wasn't the right time and I'd be better off focusing on grad school. I'd talked to my parents about consolidating my stuff with the stuff they already have in storage and moving back to Nebraska to live with my grama and uncle. I'd figured out when I needed to give notice at the shoe store and my apartment complex. And I'd agreed to go hiking in Yosemite with my dad in July. On Tuesday of last week, my mom bought me a plane ticket to fly out for two weeks (because, hey, I'm unemployed and if I'm going to fly out to see my parents, it might as well be a long enough trip to make it worth my while). On Wednesday, I get a call from one of the temp agencies I've been on the books with since September wanting to know if I'm available immediately. I tell them I can work out shifts at DSW but that I've got this two week trip planned for July that it's too late to change. I assume this is going to be it because every other time they've called me, it's all amounted to nothing, especially if I've had anything that might conflict. So on Friday, I'm at DSW to pick up a new pair of shoes before I turn in my notice on Saturday (I'd rather it not look like I'm only buying shoes to get the discount...though that's exactly what I'm doing), when I get a phone call from the temp agency wanting to know if I can start work on Monday morning for an indefinite (read as long as they like me and I like them) period.
So that's it. I'm employed again. I just had to completely give up all hope of ever finding a job in order to acheive it. Maybe quitting isn't such a bad thing after all. (Though my DSW managers aren't terribly happy with me for quitting on them, but as I've tried to explain, they were going to lose me anyway, and this job pays enough that I don't have to deal with the stress of working 7 days a week, so it's not worth it.)

Nash Always Makes Me Smile

My mom's favorite poet is Ogden Nash and so it is no surprise that he was one of the first poets I remember reading (along with Edgar Allen Poe). Sylvia Plath said, "There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." I think the same is true of poetry. At least for me. So tonight I have been skimming my poetry books and reading Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker and I had to share.

from Laments for a Dying Language by Odgen Nash
(It seemed to appropriate after my last post.)

V
Coin brassy words at will, debase the coinage;
We're in an if-you-cannot-lick-them-join age,
A slovenliness-provides-its-own-excuse age,
Where usage overnight condones misusage.
Farewell, farewell to my beloved language,
Once English, now a vile orangutanguage.

I love the fact that this next poem is written by a man, about men. Ha!
The Trouble with Women is Men

A husband is a man who two minutes after his head touches the pillow is snoring like an overloaded omnibus,
Particularly on those occasions when between the humidity and the mosquitoes your own bed is no longer a bed but an insomnibus,
And if you turn on the light for a little reading he is sensitive to the faintest gleam,
But if by chance you are asleep and he wakeful, he is not slow to rouse you with the complaint that he can't close his eyes, what about slipping downstairs and freezing him a cooling dish of pistachio ice cream.
His touch with a bottle opener is sure,
But he cannot help you get a tight dress over your head without catching three hooks and a button in your coiffure.
Nor can he so much as wash his ears without leaving an inch of water on the bathroom linoleum,
But if you mention it you evoke not a promise to splash no more but a mood of deep melancholium.
Indeed, each time he transgresses your chance of correcting his faults grows lesser,
Because he produces either a maddeningly logical explanation or a look of martyrdom which leaves you instead of him feeling the remorse of the transgressor.
Such are husbandly foibles, but there are moments when a foible ceases to be a foible.
Next time you ask for a glass of water and when he brings it you have a needle almost threaded and instead of setting it down he stands there holding it out to you, just kick him fairly hard in the stomach, you will find it thoroughly enjoible.

And I'll go out with one of my favorite Dorothy Parker verses:
Resume

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I'd always pondered the meaning of the title. I've now decided that it's because after nine months of sending out resumes to everyone and anyone, one has to be reminded of why not to commit suicide.

Shame on You, Kanye West

I came across a blog post talking about Kanye West's pride at being a non-reader and had to look up the article for myself, despite the fact that I knew it would only make me unhappy. I was reminiscing just a week ago with Citizen B on how Reading Rainbow was one of our favorite TV shows growing up. I think it is horrible that kids now have nothing like that and instead the people who do influence them say things like the following: "Sometimes people write novels and they just be so wordy and so self-absorbed. I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book's autograph." (Kanye West, Reuters.com) He also said that being a non-reader and a college drop-out gave his writing (he just published a "book", by the by, but make sure you don't read it because he wouldn't approve--not that it's a real book, though it may have a cover and pages bound together) a "child-like purity." I would like to point out that sounding like an illiterate idiot is not "purity." It's just flaunting your ignorance and trying to paint it in a positive light. How could any respectable publishing company publish a book by someone who tells people they shouldn't read books? And, Kanye, books can't give autographs and even if they could, I'm sure none would be fans of you either. As a writer, it astounds me the crap that not only gets published, but that people actually pay good money for. And it saddens me because it only serves to lower the value our society places on the ability to read and write well. It is an important tool, no matter what some "celebrities" may say. And I've always believed that if one is too lazy to say something properly, it shows a complete and total disrespect for the person to whom you are talking or writing. It says that you don't give a damn if they can understand you properly. Writing is an ART. And you canNOT write if you don't READ. Reading is the key to success of every kind. If you cannot read, then you cannot manage a corporation; you cannot sign contracts; you cannot communicate effectively with anyone. A world in which people are encouraged to be ignorant and illiterate is not a world in which I wish to live. My favorite bookstore growing up had the best slogan on their bags: "One reader is worth a thousand boneheads." Congratulations, Kanye, you're officially one of the boneheads.

Wedding Bell Blues and the Limbo Life

The problem with weddings is that they remind me of how chronically single I am. I don't much care for casual dating (and my go at it last August definitely didn't make me want change my mind) and I've found that while I like going to bars and can't imagine dating a guy who didn't like them as well, I don't like the guys I meet there. I'm not saying I'm not happy for my friend. Her wedding was beautiful; her husband was charming and everything one could want. Actually it wasn't so much the wedding as being there with my parents, my sister and her boyfriend. I felt like a fifth wheel, especially as the only other people I knew were the bride's family. We knew each other growing up, but our families moved so we didn't go to high school together. It also makes me feel more and more like I'm doomed to be an old maid as I go to weddings of friends who are younger than me. I'm just glad that my younger sister isn't ready for that yet. Not that it really matters as she and her boyfriend have been together forever. And so I'm stuck wondering what I'm doing wrong that I seem to be the only one who isn't coupling off as if ordained by some godlike force. It's not like I'm against marriage. But where is one supposed to meet anyone worth dating? And it's hard to even contemplate dealing with that when I don't even know where or how I'm going to be living at the end of the summer. Part of me thinks perhaps leaving Dallas is the right thing to do. But then I remember how long it took me to find friends and how much I love the friends I have here. I've never had a hometown. And I hated having to leave my friends behind when I moved from Kansas to Iowa between 7th and 8th grade. If I could take them all with me, then I would move anywhere. But that's not possible. And it makes me wish even more that I had a husband. Because then it doesn't matter where you move as long as you move together. You always know at least one person, no matter where you go. Although my friend who got married last week is going to spend the next six months on her own while her husband finishes his army training, which just goes to show that life is never easy for anyone. We all have challenges that we must face. And we have to be strong enough to face them even if it's on our own. Which sounds so trite and stupid. Just like everybody keeps telling me "Everything happens for a reason." And that when it's the right job and what I'm meant to be doing, it'll all work out. But with more rejection piling up on me each week, and emails informing me that more qualified candidates were chosen for jobs that I was amply qualified for, I despair of anything working itself out. Because I'm not doing anything wrong. I'm simply competing with people who I should never have to compete with in a normal economy for near-entry-level jobs that I shouldn't have any problems getting. I'd feel bad for the new college grads if my life didn't suck so much that I can't spare any pity for anyone else. At least none of them have been unemployed for 9 months. I don't know what I'm supposed to do until I manage to get into grad school (even if I apply this fall and by some miracle get accepted, I still have to find a way to live for the next 16 months or so and there's no way I can work as a retail slut for that long; I'll lose my mind). I'm living in limbo and I'm not talking a fun game to play at parties. I can't get a job; I can't get a guy; and I can't make any plans with anyone. I had to miss my favorite cousin's graduation this weekend to boot. It is the icing on top of a cake of life sucks. Black licorice-flavored icing on a cake in which the sugar was replaced with salt, the outer ring is dry and the inside isn't baked all the way through.