leave kentucky; come to tennessee
this past weekend was novi-nats and i had a great time mostly. 5th in extemp, 9th in parli, 5th in ld and only about 340 put downs from kevin. and washburn took 1st which was really amazing. we had a great time too. i think jotto and i are a lot closer now or at least have realized that jokes cross all of our ideological differences. and it doesn’t matter that sometimes we think differently anyway cos she’s a yankee fan and baseball should trump politics in everyones book. (oh fuck, i voted for a redsox fan in 2004! i might go cut myself.) so that was really good. also we had tons of fun adventures and meanwhile we performed well. the “talking ichabods” definitely fulfill that desire for family that i had when i joined the squad. and we’re all pretty ridiculous and insane. but i have a theory to describe this: basically, when you’re in high school you do forensics and debate because of scholarship opportunity. like colleges are like “whoa that looks good on her resume” and independent organizations are the same way. so you join the squad and you have fun while you do it and there is at least some rationale why you chose what you chose. in college though, this rationale goes away.. sure you have a scholarship in most situations. but we figured it out and our best paid squad members make about 17 cents an hour. and that doesn’t include time outside of the meetings working. so you have to just be completely insane. and it doesn’t matter if you’re an interper or a platformer or a debater or any combination of the three. you’re insane. deal with it. this is why we also all get along so well. because there’s no logic behind our actions. so we love each other because someone has to put up with our insanity. and its awesome.
kentucky was also really good for steve and i. we’d been having some issues lately mostly concerned with my relationship with joe and i think that being in kentucky helped us both realize a slew of things. but probably me moreso than him. i think he realized that i’ve been making concious efforts to keep my relationship with joe in the unquestionably not cheating side of the spectrum and it helped me realize that i should do more work there. joe and i have a really good friendship and we’re naturally both flirty (read: slutty) so sometimes what we think is okay in a relationship is not seen the same by those around us. and even though steve doesn’t necessarily mind most of it because he knew about my flirty personality before we started dating, i think i need to put myself in check a lot more than i do. and just be like “alright jess, the jokes about you cheating on steve with joe should stop.” and staying the night in his apartment a lot is probably out too. but i think these are all going to be good changes because it shows that i’m no longer trying to push steve away which was what i was doing for the past few weeks or so. mostly i just get really afraid to let someone know everything about me and give them the power over how my heart feels. i’m better about that. so that’s good. a lot of this process was overcoming my pattern of keeping alternative boyfriends to the ready. or girlfriends. whatever. generally, i think i lead people on as a way of making myself feel safe that my relationship could end and i wouldn’t be alone. but i think this pattern has changed along with my fear of being alone. in fact, i think that if i weren’t seeing steve right now i’d want to just not see anyone. first because i’d be absolutely devastated, but also because i think that it’s important for me to spend some time outside of relationships in between them. so i’m really happy with steve. go jess.
on other unhappy notes i apparently got cut from the NFA list which i’m really angry about. first because i think a lot of it is on gender lines not on merit lines and because it sucks that bad budgeting means we don’t get to go to NFA. and i dont’ think i’d be that angry about it but both coaches told me this weekend that i could go. and they told steve, jotto, and sleepy the same thing. so this is pretty much a bitchy stunt to pull. and whats worse is that at shoney’s we were ordering an unnecessary dessert on the school’s tab and i suggested “why don’t we just get a couple of pies for like 8 dollars each instead of like 15 slices at 2.49 each?” and then i got made fun of for being like kevin’s dad. maybe i’d rather go to NFA than eat a goddamn slice of shoney’s pie that isn’t even that good because their crust is bizarre. i want to go to nfa really badly because i’d like to do a couple of platforms next year.. like maybe an inform and a persuade and prose or impromptu in addition to extemp. i want to be a forensicator/debater that they can put anywhere and feel confident that i’ll win there. mostly because i want to be an asset to the squad and i want to work hard to prove myself. but all they show me is that they’re not willing to make the investment in me. i think we’d kill in sweeps with no question of anything if we were all working for the squad. we have the talent. and we have the desire to win. but halfway through the tournament you throw off my mind game and get all condescending because brandon and i don’t break to quarters when the flow judge picks us up and you’ve never fucking criticized our style in debate and even gone so far as to stifle any comments from the coach attempting to coach our performance and see how well i do in the first round of LD?
fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
the last time i tried to cut myself was june of last year. maybe the 6th or 9th or something. and the last time i actually did cut myself was june 20th. but lately i want to relapse. for a variety of reasons. first its like a crutch you know.. something i used to do that gave me comfort. and sometimes.. even though i’m a grownup or whatever i still want to crawl back into bed with my parents because i’ve had a nightmare. and when life increasingly has these nightmarish parts and there is nothing i can do about that small feeling that i get when people put me down or don’t regard my feelings when i’m upset i want to revert back to my way of overcoming that. by self oppression i guess. you can’t hurt me if i hurt me first. it’s also about that euphoria. you know? like its not that i want to hurt myself necessarily but if i hurt physically then i don’t hurt mentally. so it’s nice. because everything is just this ache. and i remember so well how the skin burns and how gratifying it is when you first start to break the skin. and then after it scabs to feel the burn as slightly more flesh tears when you peel off the scab. i miss it sometimes. i miss it because its my favorite coping mechanism and i just can’t be an alcoholic like a lot of the people i know. nor can i smoke pot pretty habitually to help me deal with things. i know plenty of intelligent people who can use cocaine to feel better about how shitty everything is and i guess that could probably work. in part because of clarity of though and supression of emotion. so maybe i’ll start doing lines. and if it doesn’t work i’ll use the razors for that to make some lines on me. because a lot of the times i don’t know what to do with these feelings. and i don’t remember how to deal with them. and i’ve had like 3 panic attacks in 2005 and its only the beginning of march and i don’t think i had 3 panic attacks that were related to something other than competition in all of 2004. for that matter i can remember these panic attacks vividly and they were all for completely valid reasons. like erica dying in a car accident. or jarod choosing to trip acid instead of hang out with me and i’m pretty sure that wasn’t even a panic attack. or me trying to deal with my uncle’s suicide (twice). shitfuck. it’s ridiculous. i’ve had 3 panic attacks this year. the first was brandon saying something about animal cruelty. the second was joe saying something about animal cruelty. the third was joe calling abortion murder. maybe a lot of it is that i expect more out of these people. because i don’t think i’d be too terribly mad if someone i hardly knew said something unless they got really obvious about their apathy to my being upset (case in point, melissa and that other girl last year). but i don’t know. i just know that i don’t handle put downs the way i used to. maybe because i think they’re more destructive now and realize that just because you take a joke well or handle it well doesn’t mean that it’s not destroying or creating reality around you.
i might take my brother out to dinner tomorrow. and i might try to buy some kb from james. because i think that these things would be beneficial to my emotional health. i miss devon a lot and he’s always kind of been my stability. and you know. a little anti-depressants never hurt anyone.