Ouchy Grouchy

[OK, it's been over a week since finals ended, and I'm still a mess. Sure, the bronchitis hasn't helped, but that finally seems to be fading, but aside from occasional respites, life is one string of grouchy, ouchy pfui. Unlike others, online and off-, I love the perfect weather we've been having, but moving thru it in a prickly mood just makes me feel worse because I feel like I'm wasting it.]

[Maybe concentrating on the respites will put everything else into perspective...]

[A voicemail from what passes as my school's career counselor tells me I qualify to be nominated for the state bar foundation scholarship...]

[Graduation last Sunday. It was hell getting a heavy box full of a sampling of the last three years' law reviews over to the Herbst Theatre (oh, sure, I can do it by myself), but lots of people bought this year's edition, and several complimented me on my article. The best comment has come from a couple of my fellow students: "I learned a lot." I teared up a little as the graduates' names were announced, knowing I will be up there in one year's time, in front of friends and family. Not too many grads were crying, but I know I'm just gonna lose it...]

[A lovely sushi dinner with Maria Gomez Tuesday evening. She'd just returned from a disastrous time with this English boy she'd hooked up with her last couple of weeks in London, and who'd come to visit her in San Francisco. I got to be the sympathetic ear, and was full of good advice and comforting words. Why is it so easy when it's someone else...?]

[The Buffy finale. Tin Man said it all, except for the personal connection: John and I started at the same time Buffy did, and I remember so clearly sitting on the bed in that hovel on 14th Street, eating KFC or Taco Bell from the joint at Duboce and Guerrero, laughing at the corny jokes, and...being newly in love...]

[(Oh, and Tin Man didn't mention the moment when all the slayers were created. Whedon very specifically showed women and girls in various cultural contexts of oppression, including a fat girl in what looked like an abusive relationship. As each got that "I got the power" look, I felt myself starting to cry. I asked Violet about it last night, and she said she did, too. Especially after my discomfort with the scenes of Caleb beating the crap out of young women (exacerbated by his Southernness and his preacherness: buttons duly pushed!), this was inspiring. John: "What is this, a Hallmark commercial?" Oh, get a feminist consciousness.)]

[Sigh. None of these respites is unqualified. Everything's all woven in with the bad stuff. I felt so burned out by events surrounding the law review sale at graduation it was hard to enjoy the moment. John and I fought (second Tuesday in a row, and bad) after Buffy, so what should have been a sentimental night turned ugly. Maria's moment was brought to us by an asshole Brit who'd sent her to the ER with anxiety. I got my bar foundation scholarship in just under the wire (with the stress that always implies), and who knows if my grades this year will justify even having bothered.]

[Walking home up Leavenworth from a completely wasted trip to the Kaiser pharmacy yesterday, I saw water dripping from above. I looked up to determine its source, and saw someone washing a window several floors up. Continuing to look up, I stepped off an unseen curb and fell, spilling two big bags of groceries and scraping hands and knees. I bellowed, loud and low, "GODDAMMIT! FUCK!" (In the haze of pain and frustration, my Dispassionate Observer found time to be surprised at the reasonable facsimile of manly outrage I'd produced. "Did that come outta me?") I tensed up all my muscles catching my fall, and today I'm still sore, as though I'd worked out or something (and we know that can't be the case.)]

[Please. Give me an unmixed blessing. Give me something to sing about.]

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