  What a day. And good for me, I waited until I had a job well done behind me before I got into the rum tonight. It tastes better when Ive earned it. So the first day of school is behind me, and I have a split decision about my first two classes attended. The first, a bio course, will be an effortless slam-dunk. The other class, the Virginia Woolf seminar course, will require more of me than Ive ever had to put out (she said put out).
Like a lecture to the class on a secondary source article about one of the texts and a 15 page paper. And what, 350 pages I have to read before next week? Im one of four undergraduates out of the 20+ enrolled. And theres group work. Ive got to buck up and hit some hard targets to fair well in this fight. Shit, Im about to learn something!
Who knew a university experience could bring such a thing? One more bit of praise for the educational institution I patronize today, I saw it. The soul of the campus, the heart of the school is alive and beating. The new Kellogg Library is open beginning this morning. The lighting, like a museum (the Tate Modern, in fact except no view to the Thames). The stories upon stories of stacks like straight standing soldiers holding all the potential imaginable.
I felt pride wandering in and out of that clean, ordered palace. Our school is born today. Another bodily comparison: The womb of the school, kids Im happy, can you tell? So back to the classes. What a drastic difference between the two. Lets see an intro 100 science class of over 60 people in a huge auditorium.
All chatting away while the Swedish professor makes his way past the rude behaviour (why does he tolerate it? Was I this disrespectful when I was a freshman? ) and tries to enunciate as best he can in his very /second/ language. Noticing we werent going to go too far with the lecture, he lets us out after 15 minutes. So I entered the hallowed halls of the library. So its a good thing, right?
Juxtaposed with a 500-level author studies course with a professor I know and respect like hell, Dawn Formo. Im not the youngest in the class, but theres only one girl (who I know, and shes only 23) who beats me. the oldest is Wally, a man of 80! Whos in the grad program. I get intimidated listening to introductions being made by all these folks (women, come on theyre like all women) in the heat of writing their theses. I start to contribute my own contribution, feeling my ill heart (I need to get that checked out  somethings wrong) cramp up and my pulse accelerate.
I open my mouth and get out my name and my position in school and then I feel it. That always-present panic voice coming up my throat. I know if I speak, Ill sound like Im speaking to my dead grandmothers corpse. So I brilliantly pause. Maybe too long, but I had to wait a full three seconds before I continued. Why are you taking the course?
Well, shit! We all know why! Well, besides the lesbian angle. My all-time favourite Filmed Play is _Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?_! Sheet, dawg! Ive only got the movie poster repro on my wall in the living room!
So I speak. Ive loved this film with an unnatural passion, yet I dont know what the title means. Kerri has my copy of the film. I want it back  just waiting for the right time to ask for it back. I miss that movie. And as if I needed more reason to love Dawn Formo, she screens the film tonight!!!
TO EXPLAIN THE TITLE! Like Edward Albee wanted to call the play The Exorcism, but one night he was taking a piss in Greenwich Village and he sees on the wall the graffiti Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. So it sticks in his mind and he doesnt know why. See? You learn things at school. Today, I felt something.
Not so much by the end of the day, but earlier. (hold on, let me refresh mommys drinkie before I go here) Earlier, when I sat myself down in that chair in the big auditorium after the stair workout I so missed over break I sat down, glasses on, reading a VW novel and I stopped. I felt /there/. Just like VW writes about in her work, splitting the atom of a single moment, I felt exultant. The moment consolidated its parts into one whole. A whole I was into, if youll forgive the disgusting imagery.
I sat there completely aware of myself, a student, a student whos in her element. Finally, after all these years of having panic attacks at school, crying instead of attending, trying to attend on drugs with a secret fear tucked into my shirt pocket. Instead of fucking up, I was there with open eyes and a capacity to absorb. Ive come a ways to be in that chair on what looks like my last semester. (do I need to repeat a C-? ) Anyway, Im doing better than the fuck up I used to be.
When I first met Kerri-Lou and was knee-deep in free-basing and hyphen-usage. Small victory, yo. Or maybe I big one, but Im not into praise. Drops your defenses and allows for you to stop working. Best to shrug and focus on the negative. What still need fixing.
Whats still wrong? Like my cramping heart. All these meds + my lifestyle? (If it doesnt get better after I get some better sleep, I promise to go in. still though, Im frightened. I am.
Shit, I am. ) How about my weight? My sexuality? My mental illness? How about my talent for breaking up marriages? Hm My sequestered solitude?
No, no how about my broken body? Thats something never to be fixed/eased in its impinging on my full flowering . Thats a good one to focus on. Stir up the frustrated paralysis summore. Thats where I shine in my persistence. Im a tiger, kids.
Just align things so it sounds like self-abuse, and Im a bone fide genius. 
