( Saturday fun / ink )

Oh, Lord, where to begin?  I guess I should start with yesterday.  

I might get frustrated with academia sometimes, but this has always been the one area of life that I have never failed at.  I have always strove to be the absolute best, and this will continue.  

I just have to remember that on May 8^th, I will be officially done with this Masters and hopefully on my way to getting ready to start my second.  

I am still slightly debating what I want my second Masters to be in right now.  I am seriously considering Women and Gender Studies since to understand why women are so often the most common victims of crime, I gotta understand why women are perceived to be these so-called horribly weak individuals who can’t defend themselves.  

Personally, you can let some things accomplished with a kind word, but you can get a lot more accomplished with a kind word and a boot knife, a buck knife at your waist, and a tire iron in your trunk.  

It never fails.  I stay up late, but try to fall asleep at a reasonable time.  I play a little Tekken, watch a little TV, and end up crashing.  End up falling asleep between 1:30 and 2.  Of course, it never fails, though.  For the second Sunday night in a row, my stomach decides, “Naw, bitch, I ain’t gonna let you sleep.  The fuck you thinkin’?!”  Ugh, stomach pain.  I hate it. 

Anyway, while I’m awake, I might as well update this.  The past two days have been a little calmer than it was the night I made my first post of the year.  That was such a horrible night.  To be honest, I don’t remember much of Saturday.  I woke up late and just felt blah.  Bruce didn’t get home till like 7 at night after spending the night at Wayne’s.  We stayed up watching a movie and then I crashed out at about 12:30.  

Sunday, I woke up around 11 in the morning after I kept waking up all of Saturday night / Sunday morning.  I got up and had nothing to do.  A water pipe at my next door neighbor’s house burst, so from around 11:30 up until midnight, Bruce was working on fixing that.  I, meanwhile, actually found cleaning my bedroom exciting.  I looked horrible.  I put a pink sweatband in my hair, wore jogging pants and sweatshirt and dove into cleaning dust.  I stated my boredom on Facebook and almost immediately got a response from Kiara, saying that we couldn’t let this stand and I had to do something with my day.  So, she suggested we go out, get coffee, maybe some lunch.  I added in Tekken and asked if she wanted to play.  Who knew Kiara was an undercover gamer?  She jumped at the opportunity.  

So, around 5 or so, I picked up Kiara, she put gas in my car (yay, lol), and we drove to Starbucks.  My gift cards from Christmas are pretty much spent at this point.  I’ve bought coffee for myself, of course, but I also bought some tea for Lindsay last week and some coffee for Kiara.  Meh, I don’t mind.  From there, we got some food at Arby’s, then came back to my place for a Tekken match.  I had no idea she was so good.  I am only just starting in Tekken, and Bruce, Tony, and Kiara have now all wiped the floor with me on that game.  I guess I just need more practice.  I ain’t used to playing this shit yet!  Anyway.  At some point, Kiara informed me that she had never played Guitar Hero, and I couldn’t believe it.  I tried to show her how it’s done, but after a few minutes, she really wasn’t interested.  She just wanted me to play the songs so she could sing along.  So, I played and she decided I needed a pedicure.  She got out my nail polish and painted my toe nails a deep red, which is funny since my fingernails are right now a shimmery, glittery pink after we got our nails done last Thursday. 

At some point, Tony called me.  He said he wanted to talk before he laid down to sleep and get rid of a headache.  It made me happy to hear his voice.  We just talked about normal things, like school coming back this week, our financial aid moneys, and stuff like that.  I told him that I am trying my best to understand what he is going through and I am trying to give him the space he needs to figure everything out, which is why I had not called him since we last talked Friday night.  I told him that I wasn’t trying to pressure him, but I’d like to see him at some point this week.  I told him it was fine if he didn’t feel ready for that, and we would take things slow.  Right now, I just want so bad to be understanding. 

On another note, school does start back this week.  Classes begin on Wednesday and I only have two classes this week.  I have classes every day from Monday through Thursday with a break on Friday.  I still have to remember the order of these classes, but I think my schedule looks like this:

Monday – JA 596 (Race and Gender Issues) – 4:00-5:15 p.m.

Tuesday – JA 519 (Domestic Violence) – 4:00-5:15 p.m.

Wednesday – JA 596 (Race and Gender Issues) – 4:00-5:15 p.m.

Thursday – JA 519 (Domestic Violence) – 4:00-5:15 p.m.

It’s not really a bad schedule.  No matter what, I will be home way earlier than I have in any of my 3 previous semesters.  I also have two other classes, but one – JA 522 (Serial Murder) – doesn’t meet until March 22^nd (my birthday) and JA 698 (Professional Paper) has no in-class lecture time, so I am simply free to write it over the entire semester as long as it is done by April.  I don’t particularly like having classes every single day of the week, but I guess since they are pretty early classes, I can’t complain too much.  

Hopefully, I will be receiving my residual money today from school.  I found out I will be at least a grand shorter on this amount than I was in previous semesters, but I will have to make the most of it.  I automatically have to give my parents an entire month’s rent, which I am not looking forward to.  I have to buy my books for school, which will give me a chance to look into something while I am on campus, but I will explain that in a minute.  I want to go look at used cars today and see if I can afford one.  I am tired of using Bruce’s car, and I just need one of my own.  I have to pay my cell phone bill, my Bellarmine loan.  Ugh!  God, I am really starting to hope I get some money back on my taxes this year.  We didn’t do half bad last year, but I am not sure about this year yet.  I am also hoping to get unemployment soon.  That would help, especially if I have a car payment due every week or whatever.  

Oh, yeah, the campus thing.  I really wanna start working out.  I am getting pudge where I do not need it, especially around my already wide hips.  So, I wanna start going to the fitness center at U of L or Bellarmine to do some working out.  I wanna try to work on my arms, too.  Maybe I can get Lindsay to start working out with me, or anybody else.  

Well, that’s all for now.  I might as well take dad to work in a lil bit.  *Sigh*  Let the day begin. 

“So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness” – Sidney Poitier

Well, I guess with some of the things that happened since 6 this morning, I can officially say my life is completely random.  As much as I may have tried, I did not go to bed this morning until 4:30.  I tried to lay down at 11 last night while I was alone and Bruce was playing on the computer.  I ended up getting up 30 minutes later after not being able to get comfortable and although my eyes were tired, my body decided it didn’t want rest.  Eventually, Bruce came in and we decided to watch a DVD of Criminal Minds from Netflix.  We did not end up finishing the shows until about 3.  Then, I just sat up on the computer for a bit before deciding to try and get some rest at 4.  Even then, I couldn’t fall asleep until 4:30.  Sure enough, an hour and a half later, my dad came into the bedroom and asked me which one of us was taking him to work.  I decided since I wanted to make a Wal-Mart run anyway, I would do it.  

So, I dropped my dad off at work and found out that everyone had a VTO.  Not surprising the day before Christmas Eve.  I thought about going to McDonald’s for breakfast, but just decided to buy some stuff and eat at home.  I drove to Wal-Mart, did some grocery shopping, and then headed home.  Here’s the first randomness of the day.  I was driving down the Greenbelt back to my house, going about 55 mph or so, when for a brief second – no more than a second – I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  I don’t think anything could have prevented this because I had absolutely zero time to react. In a split second, I saw a pair of eyes and ears heading toward the car.  Within a second, I saw this and then felt a huge bump against the car that scared the living piss out of me.  I realized what had happened.  A deer – a doe, I think – had hit the passenger side door of my car!  

I was absolutely frozen in shock.  I had never hit an animal with my car before.  In fact, I go out of my way to not hit animals with my car, no matter how small.  I have come to complete stops before to avoid hitting squirrels and even birds!  I didn’t know what to do.  I hadn’t meant to hit the deer.  In fact, I hadn’t even seen it until it was too late and it hit me, not the other way around. I knew I couldn’t stop in the middle of the Greenbelt to check on it.  I was too petrified to look in my rearview mirror to see if it had lived.  I drove on, but when I got to the street light by my house, I decided to turn around and go back.  I turned around in the parking lot of the school by my house, but when I went to go back, I stopped myself.  I was too scared to know if my car had killed it.  I just drove home.  I felt so guilty.  When I got home, I checked out my car.  I didn’t find any dents or anything in the dark, but I found hair on the door.  Ewww…

When I got in the door, I just had to call my dad.  He had had a similar deer experience a few months back, only the deer had jumped in front of the car and he had hit it unintentionally.  The other difference is that the deer was only stunned and got up and leaped away.  I did not know the fate of mine. 

Here is the second randomness of the day.  So, I got home and just decided to sit up for awhile.  I figured that if I stay up all day again, I will sleep tonight.  It might work. Anyway. I am writing a long entry for LJ based on an inspiration I got last night.  It has to deal with my life story and my past and all of the sordid details that make me Chrissy C.  I started thinking about what my life was like 10 years ago and all of the people I knew back then and how they have changed.  In a true stroke of randomness, I thought about a guy I had not thought about in a long time.  His name was Rex – yes, that was his real name – and I met him at a dance in February of 2000 at my first high school, Holy Cross.  That night we had flirted and it ended up turning into something.  We never dated officially.  We never had the chance.  I met him only weeks before moving out of state to Oklahoma.  I knew there was no hope for us.  Nevertheless, Rex gave me my first kiss when I was 14.  I was convinced after only a few weeks and a few tender moments spent between us that I was in love with him.  Remember, I was only 14.  Months passed, and I moved back to Kentucky.  We met up again, but didn’t date.  We made out a few times, did a few other things, but the constraints of having a boyfriend and me being a virgin stopped any major playtime.  It didn’t stop me from cheating on my boyfriend with Rex.  

Anyway.  So, out of sheer boredom and just plain curiosity, I figured everyone these days has a Facebook account, so I typed in his name.  Sure enough, only one person popped up in the search.  He looked like the guy I knew, but after 9 years, a person definitely changes in appearance.  I wasn’t positive.  So, I figured what the hell, and I sent him a message.  I told him that it might seem awkward, but I thought we knew each other years ago and I asked him if he recognized me. I told him that if he was the guy I knew, we had met at a dance back in 2000 when I was 14 and he was 16.  About an hour later, my phone started flashing that I had a message on FB.  I checked and it was from him.  He said that he remembered going to that dance with a girl named Danielle.  I remembered her.  She had also been on a date with my ex-boyfriend Chris R. and had dated Nick T. at one point.  He said that my name sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place my face since my profile pic on there is of me wearing a hat that kind of hides my face.  He asked if I had a better pic.  I directed him to check one of my photo albums on there because there is a picture of the two of us that was taken at that dance.  He wrote back a short time later and told me that because of all the privacy things on FB, he couldn’t check further into my pictures and he was just going to add me as a friend.  So, I added him. 

Once I did that, I could see his full profile and I was shocked.  He had gotten married to a woman named Meagan.  I saw their wedding pictures.  There is no doubt in my mind that this is the guy I knew.  Same facial features, same height and weight.  Everything.  And before anyone gets the wrong idea, no, I am not looking to rekindle a long, lost romance.  But it is interesting to find people that you haven’t spoken to in years and see how their lives turned out.  I have always wondered what happened to him, what he became, what he looked like.  He looks pretty much the same.  He seems to have a great life with a nice house, a good job, and a beautiful wife.  I am happy about that. 

I guess this just goes to show how random life really is.  In the span of only a few hours, I got the life scared out of me by a kamikaze deer on a suicide mission and found an old friend.  I know I shouldn’t wonder, but I wish I knew what the rest of the day has in store for me.  

P.S. – During the middle of watching Criminal Minds last night, Tony called me from NC.  That made me smile.  He told me he is coming back on Monday.  I really got to figure out what I am doing for New Years.  I really wanna try to go out to that one party with him, but I got two other things to do, too.  Hmmm…

• 1 position paper (JA 520 - Capital Punishment)
• 1 research paper (JA 644 - Juvenile Justice)
  
• 1 quiz (JA 520 - Capital Punishment)
  

I never really write these things because so often in my life, I really haven’t felt like anything good ever happens to me or something makes me feel like I am undeserving of happiness. Not to mention, this year especially, most people would wonder what I really have to feel thankful for considering all that has happened. Like last Thanksgiving, I am left with a bittersweet feeling, but not for the same reasons I felt it last year. Nonetheless, this Thanksgiving, I want to show thanks for all the positive things that have happened in my life and for all of the people who make my life that much more special.

( Frustration and Graduation )

This is meant basically as a way to unravel some of the mysteries about my life and see how much the people out there in the internet world know about my life. Also, I wrote this primarily out of boredom, but it will be interesting to see how many questions you all will actually get right. I will post the answers later on in another entry, but first, let’s see how well everyone does.

· What is the common misspelling of my first name? ___________

· What is my middle name? ___________

· In what city was I born? ___________

· What is my birthdate? ___________

· What serious injury did I acquire at the age of 2? ______________

· What was the name of my first elementary school? ____________

· What are my parents’ names? ____________

· How old was I when I had my first kiss? ____________

· With whom did I have my first kiss? _____________

· What musical group was my “guilty pleasure” of the 1990s? _____________

· What are my main two topics of academic research? ____________

· What high school did I graduate from? ____________

· How old was I when I had sex for the first time? ______________

· What are my two Bachelor degrees in? _______________

· What is my favorite movie? _______________

· What is my favorite TV show? ________________

· What brand of cigarettes do I most commonly smoke? _____________

· What are my two favorite colors? ______________

· What was my high school mascot? ________________

· How many tattoos do I have? ___________

· Where are my tattoos located? ________________

· How many piercings do I have? _______________

· In what do I usually sleep (clothing-wise)? ______________

· What is my favorite fast-food restaurant? _______________

· What song did my cousin Angela and I sing together in karaoke religiously? ____________

· Who are my three best friends? __________________________________

· What is my favorite shop? ____________________

· What is my favorite clothing store? ___________________

Well, start with these and see how many everybody gets. Good luck!

I am often surprised how many people do not know what TWLOHA means, but even more surprised that they don’t know the meaning behind it.

TWLOHA stands for To Write Love on Her Arms. I first became aware of this national initiative last year after Matthew left my life. I had been feeling very suicidal and depressed back then and I logged onto Facebook and had gotten an invitation to join To Write Love on Her Arms Day. So, I joined and I found out much more about the organization. The philosophy of TWLOHA is sort of like a remembrance group. It caters to those who have lost someone in their lives due to suicide as well as for those who have attempted suicide and those who have self-mutilated. Most of the people in my life know that I lost my cousin Angela Rose this year on April 23 to suicide, I have self-mutilated in the past, and I have attempted suicide in my life 11 times – 5 times alone in the summer of 2004. I have the trifecta.

For the past year, I have been thinking about getting a tattoo that symbolized the spirit of TWLOHA Day. After Angela died, I thought about it even more and I decided that I had to get this tattoo done this year on the anniversary of TWLOHA Day. About a month or so ago, I scheduled the tat for November 13^th – National TWLOHA Day. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted the tat to look like. Rather than just having the word Love written on my arm, I decided to get the Chinese symbol for it. If nothing else, it makes for interesting conversation. Plus, I already have 2 Chinese symbols on the back of my neck. I like how they look. I wanted this symbol inside of a circular border of pink roses, since pink roses are/were me and Angela’s favorite flowers.

Last night, Kiara D. and I drove up to Twisted Images for my appointment at 6 and Tony T. met us up there. We were running a little late since I had to drop Bruce off at Wayne’s house, but Vinnie – my tattoo artist – was cool about it. When I walked in, Vinnie showed me the circular border of roses that he had drawn, but the symbol was wrong. He reworked it to include the symbol above. After smoking a quick cigarette, we all went inside and Vinnie started setting up. After about 20 minutes or so, Vinnie had the stencil on my left wrist and he started working. Not gonna lie, it fucking hurt. I had no idea how sensitive that area would be under a needle. It didn't hurt that bad to cut myself there years ago. Anyway. Luckily, instead of previous times in which I either had no one there or just Bruce, this time I had Kiara and Tony there for moral support. It was kind of nice this time having someone hold my hand or rub my shoulder or arm during the most painful parts.

Vinnie did the outline of the roses in black and the outline of the leaves in a deep purple. After the outline was done, we all smoked another cigarette and then went back in to finish it. He colored in the leaves in dark green and then light green near the bottom of the leaves and then a light pink in the roses. My Kanji is entirely black. I guess it took about an hour and a half for everything, I think. I love the final product!