Kryptonite Needles

I have great doctors.
I really do.
But I hate going to see most of them. Not that a lot of people take immense pleasure in going to see a doctor, but you know what I mean.
It's just that I hate needles.

Hate.
Hate.
Hate.

Well, I went to the doctor yesterday. They gave me a flu shot.
I had a bad reaction. Got up to leave, made it to the waiting room, and then had to be taken back to the exam room. Still feel horrible. Lucky for my friends and housemates at school though, I won't give you the flu. Unless it mutates and becomes some super-flu thing. Let's hope not.

Then I needed to get my blood taken for some tests.
Standard CBC blood panel.
Bad experience.

If you get queasy easily, stop reading.

I told them I have a bad reaction to getting blood taken (you'd think I'd be used to it by now), so they took me to a back room where I could lay down. The lady, nice gal really, tourniquets off one arm, says she can't find anything. Makes me get up, turn around, tourniquets off the other arm. Mutters a bit. Thinks she might have one.
Sticks me...misses.
I ask her if she got it, knowing she didn't. She says no. Ow! Alright then. Now I have to get up again, turn around, and she goes back to the other arm. Murmurs something, prods a bit. Then she says she's going to have to call someone else in. New lady comes in, they mutter to each other.
I'd tell you what they said, except this whole time I'm been trying to keep myself from hyperventilating and convulsing, so I have no idea. So, the new lady says she thinks she has one. Tells me not to move. I don't.
She sticks me...misses again.
I again asked her if she got it. She says nothing. Then, oh how I hate it when they do this, she goes fishing around for the vein. Hurts like nobody's business! Gets it, asks me if I'm okay. I'm trying to resist the urge to say some rather colorful expletives. I manage to tell her to get the needle out of me. They explained to me that my veins roll.
Wonderful.
She stuck me but the needle rolled the vein. So now I have been poked with a needle three times when I had only prepared myself for once.

The rest of that day and for a bit of today I have been walking around with arms bent at the elbows. Very T-Rex like. Just don't ask me to lift anything heavy, okay?

Temptation

"I can resist anything but temptation."
~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan


So, the other day I just happened to end up in one of my very favorite stores ever. Barnes & Noble. (Borders and other bookstores: you are not far behind, but where I live B&N has the bigger store and better selection so victory to Barnes & Noble on this one. Plus, it smells like coffee in there. Mmmm...coffee.) Yeah, that's right. Favorite. Store. Ever. It has been since I was a child. See, I told you I was a bibliophile.

Anyway, so I was in Barnes & Noble (p.s. Shopping on a Saturday in December by yourself is a very, very bad idea. Be sure to go with a friend or you may lose your mind.) and wandering around, looking for gift ideas, checking new titles, taking pleasure in being surrounded by so many books, you know, that good stuff. Then I saw it. It was so pretty, just sitting there all tempting and such. The collected and illustrated works of Oscar Wilde. All his stuff, in one book, there in front of me. Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works (Collector's Library Editions Series). So pretty. I want it.

And next to it and only slightly less tempting (due only to the fact that I own six of her novels separately already) was a bound collection of Jane Austen's novels. Jane Austen: Seven Novels (Leatherbound). It was an exercise in self-control to be sure. (A bookstore is one of the only places where I cannot be trusted with my money). I was not there to buy books for myself though, and I am proud (and slightly dissapointed) to say that I did not purchase the two volumes. I just stood there and stared at them for a while.

I want them both.

We'll see what happens.

Webcomics

Do it!

Come on, you know you want to.

Here are some webcomics I keep up on and a few links to specific comics to get you started.

xkcd ~ I love this one. So much. I cannot describe. I am such a nerd. Which is probably why I love it so much. There's a lot of science and math humor in this one along with a variety of other nerdy themes. And sarcasm. Lots of sarcasm. This is often dangerously close to how my own mind works.
*One on insomnia.
*One of my all time favorites.
*Just because you are an adult doesn't mean you can't make a fort.
*Velociraptors know no fear.

Questionable Content ~ Hilarious, but you'd have to go back to the beginning to get the whole story. Which is totally worth doing, by the way. You'll be sure to notice how much his design style changes. Jeph recently gave the site a makeover. I like it, but I was fond of the blue.
*Here is the first one.

Kate Beaton ~ Hilarious stuff. History and more.
*The one about Mary Shelley is hilarious!
*I have to include the one about Jane Austen, of course.

Dinosaur Comics ~ I like dinosaurs. I like humor. This has both.
*The beginning.

Pictures for Sad Children ~ Very funny.
*This one, about Benjamin Franklin, is what got me started.

Parallel Parking...

is, quite simply, evil.

Unadulterated evil.

And here's why: I can't do it. Not for the life of me. I'll try, I really will. No good. It never works. I suck at parallel parking. It terrifies me. I get all anxious and twitchy. Occasionally, it becomes a deciding factor as to whether I will drive somewhere or not. Also, I get really nervous driving somewhere I've never been before, especially in the dark. Just like parallel parking, it sometimes influences whether I will go somewhere. If I know where I'm going, I'm fine, for the most part.

Don't mock. We are all entitled to our Kryptonite(s).

So, I have some theories:
1.) I am meant to be a recluse.
~Tempting. I might be able to last for a significant period of time if I had enough books, but I would miss my family and friends quite a bit. In the end: failure.
2.) People should visit me.
~I like this idea. Get off your lazy bums. You don't want to give me an anxiety attack do you? I'll bake you cookies. And drunk muffins. Mmmm...drunk muffins.
3.) I am meant to use public transportation.
~Actually, not a bad idea. More environmentally friendly than driving everywhere myself. May actually end up happening if I move to a large enough place. Eep! Big cities can be intimidating, though not so much anymore. That I'm getting better with.
4.) It is a conspiracy on the part of small villages.
~Perhaps just my own, but hear me out. A lot of rural towns are getting smaller and smaller. Kids graduate and decide to skip town. So what to do to keep the population up? Let's not teach our kids how to drive properly! Let's have a Driver's Ed teacher who falls asleep in the car, or one whose idea of teaching you to parallel park is not to have you park between two cones or anything rational like that, but instead to simply have you pull in behind a bus in an abandoned parking lot. Once. And heaven forbid we make sure anyone knows how to read a map. Why? Because if kids know how to drive properly, parallel park, and read a map, well heck, they'll be out of town before you know it, never to return! After all, in a big city or even a decent sized place these are necessary skills. You don't need to know any of these things to live in a village!
5.) It's just me.
~Unfortunately, the most likely. I still like number 4.

Penguins Eat Snowflakes

What to expect from this blog:

Rants. About anything and everything.
Rambles. Slightly less opinionated than rants.
Readings. Thoughts on what I have read recently.
Writings. Excerpts of some of my writings. Maybe some full pieces. Perhaps a character sketch, flash fiction, or something I wrote in an attempt to overcome writer's block.
Recommendations. Things that I think you might like. Sometimes just things that I like. Things I find interesting or important.
Randoms. A variety of other things.

Truth be told, this is mostly just a device to get me to write more often.
About anything.
You, dear reader, are just an unfortunate victim of mine.
My condolences.

Also, the title of this blog is courtesy of a friend of mine. She was kind enough to shout out this suggestion from across the hall when I desperately needed something--anything, to use as a title for one of my stories. That story has now been renamed, but Penguins Eat Snowflakes shall live on!

So, just who am I?

I'm a creative writing student. A total nerd. Bibliophile. Odd. An anomaly--which I realize is something of an inside joke. My life is, and always has been, insane but I don't mind it too much. I keep a humorous outlook on life. I accumulate vast amounts of useless but fascinating knowledge. You don't need to know anything more. In fact, you didn't need to know what I told you, but I was feeling all generous and such, so there you go.

...

Oh yes, and just a by the by, since I have a habit of getting overzealous when I organize things, you may notice numerous links that go here, where I get to elaborate or explain or exercise my compulsion to organize. It's just full of random little bits of information.