College Astronomy

   I've recently taken a big step in my adult life and have decided to go back to college full-time. For the longest time, I was very anti-higher education. I believed that college was just a way to ease teens into working life, with some relevant skills outside of knowing how to put on a condom or change the oil on their 1989 Honda.


   I have since changed my mind after completing half a quarter of classes. This quarter, I'm taking Japanese, International Business and Astronomy.


   The latter is where this post comes in. Astronomy is pretty awesome. Check out this sweet planet-graph I came up with all on my own:

   I know you're grateful cause I'm dropping some hard-earned college knowledge on you right now for FREE. I had to pay for this class. I just want to cover a couple things that I thought were interesting.


Overall, the Universe is currently functioning on what (we think) is a normal, calm schedule. It didn't used to be (we think) so calm OR scheduled. Things exploded and other things imploded and hot gases turned into stars and shit smashed into each other to make planets and moons (we think).


   Our Sun is kind of a bloated guy. He's got some gassy issues, sometimes he burps & shit breaks all the way here on Earth. (Referencing my planet-graph, you can clearly see that we're very far from the sun & solar flares still reach us.) Crazy, I know.


   Pluto, omfg, Pluto IS NOT a planet anymore. Yes, I know this decision was made by brains sweeter than mine back in 2006 but what am I gonna do at the end of the song we learned about the order of the planets in grade school?

   Pluto is now classified as a "Kuiper belt object" (Pronounced KAH-ee-purr) & hangs out with a lot of ice and rocks smaller than "normal" planets. Don't tell Pluto, but there's actually a Kuiper belt object that's bigger than he is - Eris. I don't want to spoil anything, but I feel like there's gonna be a fight over who is the rightful 9th planet.


  There are A LOT of asteroids flying around our solar system! I mean, there's the asteroid belt that separates the inner planets from the outer, but there's also the Kuiper belt, the Oort cloud, and... What, what is this? The big thing right by Earth.
What in the everloving name of...

   Right now, (August 9th, 2011) there is an asteroid that is 1300' in diameter just "passing by". It's only 3.5 lunar distances away (lunar distance is the distance from the Earth to the Moon, duh.) The last time something this big flew by us was in 1976 and we had NO CLUE it was happening. Right now, Mars is like, "oh shit, hey guys, umm, there's something you should see..." This thing is angry that it's been flying around space forever and I'm sure it would love nothing more than to smash into something as nice as the Earth. (Although, NASA scientist brains are adamant that it will not have any affect on us.) 1300' across doesn't seem like that much, but really, if this thing smashed into us, we would die.


   So now, I'm contemplating how much freaking chaos is actually happening in our solar system at any given time daily. My brain is getting so much sweeter with this college education but I'm suddenly now aware of how many more ways I can die.
College education = anxiety.


But, I like it and my brain is getting bigger, so it's cool.

Special things I would imagine as a child...

After discussing the topic of childhood fantasies with a couple co-workers, I immediately realized that I have a few unique ones. I have compiled a list with the best (in my opinion):

1. There were dozens of tiny little people that lived in the food on my plate. They screamed and ran in terror as I started to eat their homes.

2. I was tall. ... 

3. My bed was a dirigible.

4. I was a cat. I would meow, purr, lick my own arm, and scratch people who made me angry.

5. I was a female wrestler named Cool Kitty Kristen. I always won wresting competitions with my cousin.

6. I could control weather with a stick standing on top of a certain stump. I MADE IT RAIN BITCHES!

7. Broccoli were trees and I was a T-Rex. (Yes, I understand now that the Tyrannosaurus Rex is inherently a carnivore and would thus, not be interested in broccoli.)

Drugs are bad

You know your life has taken an unfortunate turn when your cheek is smushed against a toilet seat and there's a floating head guiding you through an unwelcome rite of passage. 

 

A couple years ago, I was over at the boyfriends house, happily cooking dinner. A mutual friend had baked "special" cookies for all of us to enjoy that evening. I had never eaten this type of cookie before, and while I was not terribly eager to try it, my boyfriend insisted that I eat it in interest of trying new things. I picked at it while I was cooking, not enjoying the powerful herb flavor. As we were eating, boyfriend asked how I was feeling and I admitted that I only had a couple very small pieces of the cookie. Now, I understand that he just wanted me to be relaxed and have a good time, but peer pressuring me into eating the rest of the cookie was probably not in my best interest. Regardless - in the interest of trying new things - I ate the rest after dinner.

Within minutes, I was in the fetal position in the corner of the couch, with my heart feeling like it was going to beat out of my chest. I was so anxious at this point that I just started crying. Boyfriend calmed me down, assuring that it would soon pass and I would start feeling really good. He advised that I pick something to focus on and to keep my breathing steady.

The closest thing in my immediate field of vision was unfortunately, a clock. I focused on it like I was going to blow it up with my mind. Seconds seemed like minutes. Time was moving so very slow and all I could think of was that it would be a long while before I would not feel so awful anymore. The second hand slowly and painfully made its way through the numbers. Taking boyfriends advice very seriously, I continued to focus on the clock. I studied the shape of it (admittedly very plain and round, but that night it was captivating), the way the hands moved so gracefully, admiring how the numbers were perfectly spaced. This clock had utterly no flaws. It was a perfect piece of machinery that had been under appreciated this whole time.

Feeling like I had just gained a new understanding and that I could now move onto the next object of interest, I turned my head towards the TV. This was a detrimental mistake. Immediately, the movement and color of the screen completely threw off my equilibrium. I was floundering, spinning, falling into a deep hole. I tried to breathe, looking away from the TV, back to the clock. The clock was no longer my savior. Knowing that I had left it unattended, aware that I had so easily neglected its shape and beauty, its mechanical perfection, it spite me with more vertigo.

I realized at this point I was fucking baked and that it was probably only going to get worse.

I picked myself up from the couch, walking like the undead with my head to one side, hips thrust out in front of me and back slouched, I made my way towards the bathroom, intent on purging the remaining cookie of fail from my stomach. I stumbled down the hall, mumbling something like "gonthrowupbadcook". I sat down directly in front of the toilet, fully expecting to urp up my release from this hell.

Nothing happened. I was still feeling dizzy but not nauseous at all. This frustrated me. I tried leaning into the toilet, in hopes that having my face closer to the bowl would bring back bad memories of being sick to assist with the current process. Nothing. I was mad at myself now, I needed this out of my system. I attempted to force my stomach muscles to push it up, mocking the natural process. While I was pushing, I was also intently straining my tongue, as if that would assist. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my mouth and with dread, I realized that I had gotten a cramp in my tongue. I was in pain and my tongue was stuck outside my mouth. I staggered back to the living room, with my masticating appendage stuck out for the world to see. Boyfriend immediately started laughing and asked why I had my tongue out. I sat down in front of him with a serious look on my face.

"I hah a cahnuh inh mah tongueh"
"You what?"
"A cahnuh inh mah tongeuh!"
"... You have a cramp in your tongue? I didn't know that was possible."
"Ih hurhs. Googehl cahnuh in tongueh, I hingk ihs suhuckh"
"You seriously want me to Google cramp in tongue? ...It's stuck? Try to move it."
"Nuh! Ih hurhs!"
"Go sit down and try to relax some more."
"Nuh, mah tongueh hurhs! Googehl ituh!"

His laptop in front of him, he pretended to look up "cramp in tongue" as I had diligently requested of him and after a moment, looked up.

"You're going to be ok. Just try to relax, it will get better."

Resigning to no longer argue with him, as attempting to talk had compounded the pain in my mouth, I turned to look at the TV as my vertigo had lessened in intensity. I could not tell you what was on the television, I just remember it being a rerun of an old show. I believe that I was able to make it through a full episode before I decided it was time to attempt heaving up the cookie again. I half stumbled, half crawled into the bathroom in a dream state.

As I lay with my face pressed up against the toilet seat, a floating head appeared just above the toilet. It was male and had long, white hair.

I spoke to it with my mind, as we were obviously both well-versed in telepathy. I tried my hardest to form coherent thoughts.

"I want to throw up. I need this out of my stomach so I don't get any more high."
"You are not ready yet."
"I'm ready, please, I don't want to do this anymore."
"You have not yet passed."
"There's a test? I'm really sorry, I'll never smoke weed again, ever. Or eat for that matter."

It just looked at me and then restated that I was not ready yet.

"I promise, I will never ever ingest any sort of weed again. I'll even advocate against it. I'll speak about how drugs are really bad. This is awful, I would hate for anyone else in the world to have to go through this experience."

Now, you know that you've gone down the wrong path when you're pleading to an imaginary floating head that if it heals you of your plight, you will go into public speaking.

Giving up on this round, I decided I would head back out to the living room to pass more time with whatever was displaying in the glowing box in the center of the room. When I turned away from the toilet, much to my horror, I realized that I had forgotten how to walk.

I dragged myself with my arms, intermittently attempting to make feeble kicks with my legs in hopes of propelling myself down the hall. I reached the living room and lay down on the floor. I was upset that I couldn't purge the cookie from my stomach and irritated that I was somehow now involved in a crude rite of passage. I laid there for an unknown amount of time, it could have been 10 minutes, but it felt like hours. I asked boyfriend to call an ambulance because I was most certainly near death. He said that he wasn't going to, that I needed to relax. My face on the carpet, I noticed how intricately the fibers were woven to form it. Every piece of lint, every piece of dog hair was larger than life. 

Carpet was fascinating.

I had been woken from my open eyed coma by a faint queasy feeling. I knew this was my only chance. I dragged myself back to the bathroom as I had dragged myself out not too long ago, trying my hardest to hold on to the feeling but to also keep it under control until I reached the toilet. I pulled myself up onto the bowl and the face re-appeared.

"It is time."

I happily dispersed the contents of my stomach.

Feeling elated that I had triumphed but still higher than a kite, I carpet-swam my way back to the living room as I had not yet regained the ability to walk.

At some point, boyfriend carried me to bed, where I fell into a sleep of the dead. I woke early the next afternoon, still feeling out of sorts, but at least I was able to work my legs again.

I decided not to pursue public speaking.

Back from hiatus... Maybe.

So very long since I posted! I've been thinking about a lot of good stories, but have been hesitant to publish/make art... I have been compared to Allie Brosh of Hyperbole and a Half quite a few times in the past month... While I can't really change up my sense of humor & my stupid MS Paint pictures have always looked... Stupid, I am a little nervous about appearing to plagiarize the work of someone else.

Thus, I am considering putting the blog to rest. I haven't made a decision yet at all, but it's been a bit frustrating hearing how much I'm like Allie Brosh. (Flattering as well, but mainly frustrating)

Class Pet

A couple weeks ago, I licked a gecko on a whim, which reminded me of this story. While I'm still obviously impulsive and often have a hard time focusing, I was textbook ADHD when I was little.

In 4th grade, I was overflowing with distraction and awkwardness. I had a teacher that was... Tolerant of me, but definitely not fond. I had one friend who would run across the playground with me pretending we were power rangers instead of playing soccer like the other normal children. Looking back, she was so kind to look past my social retardation and still play with me. 


In the classroom, we had two guinea pigs as the class pets. We took turns bringing them home for the weekend and taking care of them. The whole class absolutely adored the guinea pigs. There was a male and a female, and the female had recently become pregnant. Every chance we got, we would touch the them, pet them, hold them, baby talk to them, etc. They were like family to us.

On one spectacular show and tell day, a classmate had brought in his iguana.
While show and tell was a normal embarrassment for me, (as the only thing I ever had to show off were my X-Men collectible cards and vegetables that had grown in our garden) an iguana was a sure way to achieve cool kid status. I was jealous, but revered him for having such an exotic pet and great parents for letting him have  it. 


He brought it to the back of the classroom, where each of us could get a chance to pet it if we wanted to. Of course, most girls didn't really want much to do with it, but everyone else (myself included) couldn't pass up the chance to get up close to the lizard. Our teacher told us that we could all pet it if we wanted to, but we mustn't pet it and then touch the guinea pigs under any circumstances without washing our hands first, as the iguana carried Salmonella. 


I was so excited to be able to pet the lizard - I had always really enjoyed watching them in their cages at the pet store, wishing that I could have one. I waited my turn in line as patiently as I could, and was nearly bursting when it came my turn. I ran my hand down it's rough scales, noting that it wasn't slimy or gross at all. I looked at it's claws and tail, studying how different it was from normal pets. It soon came time for my turn to end - I was really happy that I had the chance to spend time with the lizard, but disappointed it was over so fast. 


Feeling the need for more animal companionship, I suddenly remembered that we had the guinea pigs too, so quickly forgotten when the more exotic pet had made an appearance. I quickly went over to their cage and took both out. I sat down with them both in my lap, gently stroking their soft fur and listening to the small, content noises they made. I was proud of myself that I had remembered them, and thought that they must have felt left out. I was being so kind to the poor guinea pigs!  


Show and tell time ended and we went back to our normal class business. The day progressed as any other day, and I went home to tell my parents about the iguana that the boy had brought into class.


The next morning was when the horror was presented to us: Our beloved guinea pigs had died overnight. The teacher said that she wasn't sure why they died, but these things happen, and it would be understandable if we were sad. I was a little upset, the thought that we didn't get much time with them and that the girl guinea pig was pregnant when she died was definitely saddening. We were all so excited about the prospect of baby guinea pigs. 

This is when the awful and shocking truth hit me: I murdered the guinea pigs. I recalled like a vivid nightmare how I  went straight to their cage after petting the lizard without washing my hands. I held them and pet them without realizing the damage I was doing at the time! I spread the disease to them, I killed the two little creatures and the unborn babies! 

My grief and shock quickly turned into paranoid anxiety. Did anyone else know it was me? Did anyone see what I did? What was going to happen to me if anyone did know? I darted my eyes around the classroom, to see if anyone might be looking in my direction.

 I didn't notice anyone, but I slinked down into my seat hoping to become invisible anyway. 

I decided to keep this revelation to myself, hoping that someone else might admit guilt to doing the same thing. No one ever did. I felt little and empty in the giant universe, I was a horrible person. I felt like there was a giant spotlight on me, and that I would surely be ousted as Kristen, the class pet killer. In the days and weeks that followed, the memory of my crime slowly faded and the class recovered from the loss of the pets.I never was able to come to terms with my horrible unintentional act, but I absolutely couldn't bring myself to tell a soul. From that moment on, I was destined to join the ranks of the bad people in the world. I was now a bad person, and no action could ever undo what I had done.

I felt terrible for a long time over the poor, poor guinea pigs. I unknowingly murdered them by being the carrier of a deadly virus. I WAS A BIOLOGICAL WEAPON!!! It's unfortunate that I hadn't remembered this story before I had licked the gecko, or else I might have remembered the repurcussions of Salmonella. 


We never got another class pet. 

NyQuil

I have recently come down with something I have affectionately named mutant zombie death virus. Try as I might to sleep without taking NyQuil, my attempts have been futile. 


NyQuil is great and terrible all at the same time. It's great because 10 to 15 minutes after you have ingested it, you are completely passed out wherever you happened to be at that moment in time (hopefully you prepared for this reaction and were laying in your bed awaiting your coma courtesy of Vicks).


It's terrible because when you do wake up, you have completely no recollection of anything that happened after you took the dose of the green monster. You get up, take your shower, eat your breakfast, brush your teeth - Not because you are actually thinking of getting ready for work, you just know your morning routine and your brain is acting solely out of habit. No, you don't actually come out of the coma until you are a few hours into your workday and realize that you have absolutely no fucking clue to what happened after you took the NyQuil and the present point in time. 


What's also not so great about it is the taste. Vicks has made absolutely no effort in making the substance even remotely palatable. No, it's taste is in fact, absolutely abhorrent and offensive. 


Regardless, after I downed my shot of legal liquid rufies last night, I decided I would open up a notepad and write down all the thoughts that came through my mind. I have not edited the below, not even for grammar. Here it is in it's full glory. Enjoy:










I have a terrible cold, but right now, I am high on Nyquil. I decided that I would document this time and share it with the world... Random thoughts are flowing through my mind... I watched Star Trek: TNG all day today, so some of my thoughts have to do with that. Picard. Yeah. Other things, bit more random, like do butterflies fart? I had this really cool bush at my old house, someone said it was a butterfly bush - it smelled really good and the butterflies were all about it. Like a moth to a flame... Or a butterfly to a butterfly bush. Everything is super slow motion. Once, long ago, in a galaxy far far away - North Carolina - I wanted  to drink, but I was not of age to go get alcohol. Instead, me and my cohort had this great idea to go buy nyquil and drink that instead. She got half the bottle down and then threw up. I managed to get the whole bottle down. I shit you not, I was high for 3 days. I probably should have gone to the hospital. I was so high that I realized that I was really high but I didn't care at all, I was just enjoying watching all the moving things with trailers. Tripping balls, as it were. 
Bad experience. Never do that again. However, every time I take nyquil, it reminds me of that time. Don't do it. 
When you're all out of your mind like this, you really start to think of the meaning of things. Objects seem foreign, words seem misspelled somehow. Toilet. That's a weird word. What if you could magically transform into a pteradactyl? Would you use your powers for good? I think that I might do not so great things, like terrorize my exes. But, only if they didn't know I was the pteradactyl. But, I would probably get shot or something if I was a pteradactyl, so I wouldn't particularly want that power anyway. I don't want to get shot. Although, I'm pretty sure you need to take down a pteradactyl with something more rudamentary, like a spear or maybe even a bow and arrow. Pteradactyls might be immune to gunshots. Actually, I'm pretty sure they are. Magical Pteradactyls. I really like the color green. I went and got a new drivers license the other day... I made sure to do my make-up really nicely, brushed my hair, even practiced my looks in front of the mirror. I was trying to decide if I wanted to do a small, closed-mouth smile, like "this is my identification, I am not happy in this picture, it is only to identify me, it has no memory of fun attached to it." But, I was also thinking about doing the nice smile, so people who looked at my license might know that I am fun to be around and want to get to know me better. I also considered doing maybe even a bit of a funny face, like one raised eyebrow and a  coy smile. Like "yeah, I'm a total badass, I don't care what you think" I'm really not a badass, but sometimes I want people to think I am. Like, make up this completely different identity for myself that's a badass. Yeah, I smoke, I drink, sometimes I climb fences because I want to. I'm the most badass chick you'll ever know. That probably wouldn't really  work out, because I would inevitably show my true colors and somehow make a fool of myself. I really embarrass myself a lot. I would probably fall climbing the fence or rip my pants or something. I woke up on the couch earlier tightly wrapped up in my blanket like a burrito. I'm not quite sure how I got that way, but I was really really hot, so I threw the blanket off of me and tried to turn over but at that point I had woken up from my nap and would not get back to sleep, even though I felt so crappy. At least there's no more fleas biting me. I have seen a couple here and there, but I imagine that they're brought in from outside and die quickly when they snack on the cats which I have sneakily and cleverly put flea treatment on, thereby poisioning their food source. While watching Star Trek today, I realized that I really really want a food replicator. I'm sure I'd have to pay some sort of monthly fee for it, or it would be really expensive outright, but on demand food sounds pretty promising. Feel like mac and cheeze? You got it. Mashed potatoes? Super easy. French fries? Hot and fresh. I would probably get really fat. On the other hand, I would also probably spend a lot of time giggling and saying "Tea. Earl grey. Hot." ... I would use up a lot of it's resources doing that. What would it use? Some crazy sci fi tech resource like palladium or nutronium or poweryourshitonium. I get really loopy on nyquil. Everthing kinda seems a bit surreal, like I'm in a dream. Sounds are like, amplified. I want a burrito. Yeah. With rice. And beans. And sour cream. 

Baywatch Sandals

When I was a child, innumerable things went wrong in my little life to produce the colorful adult personality I have today.

While I will blog about many of these stories in the days and weeks to come, I wanted to share a particularly bad experience I had one summer when I was about 10.

Baywatch was a really hot show during that time, and I absolutely dreamed of becoming a buxom beauty that saved lives and always got the good looking guys.( Mind you, I had red hair, freckles and braces.) So much for that pipe dream.

One day, I was at Walgreens with my dad, and stumbled upon official licensed baywatch sandals. It was meant to be. Wearing those sandals would surely make me into that person I wanted to be.

Soon after acquiring said sandals, my dad and I took a road trip down the Oregon coast with a friend of mine. It started out a great trip - we stopped at Tillamook Cheese Factory, watched how they made the cheese blocks, ate ice cream and bought cow plushies.

The disappointment came when we reached the beach. I was very excited to show off my Baywatch sandals to the world, as while wearing them, of course I was not the geeky-looking kid. I WAS PRETTY.

Of course, my friend had not brought sandals with her and wanted to borrow mine so she could wade in the shore (as if she didn't KNOW how magical the sandals were...). Reluctantly, I let her use them, but on the condition that she was really careful to not lose them.

Inevitably, she lost a sandal. She told me right away and I immediately started frantically searching around for it with my feet and hands. After about 5 minutes, I lost hope, figuring that my poor sandal had been swept out to ol' Davey Jones locker. But then! I felt something bump into my foot! It was my lost sandal!

I quickly snatched it up,but what was in my hand was not my lost sandal.It was a crab.

As soon as I realized, I screamed and threw the crab up in the air.

Watching the whole scene from the beach, my dad was laughing his ass off.

It was time to leave anyway, so we packed up our stuff, my pouty face and all and headed back to the car.

Friend said she was sorry again about the sandal, and I said it was ok, but I secretly hold a grudge to this day.

When we got into the car, I was so distraught about my incomplete pair of baywatch sandals I ended up shutting my bare foot in the door.