Dorienne's Log

Wow! For the first time in quite a while, I feel like I’m in a good place. Despite everything that’s gone on this week, from car breakdowns to spider issues to almost subjugating myself to less than Christian scruples, I feel like everything’s moving in a flow perfectly adjusted for me. I’m losing weight, getting my classwork done and writing more than and still have time to study the Word. Everything actually is fine…for once. I don’t even feel like complaining about all the things that had gone wrong in the past few weeks. I feel perfectly content to be perfectly content. What an odd feeling…

I’m reading 1984 right now, and I must say, it has me intrigued like few books do. There is a part of me that’s screaming, “Get on with the bloody story!” while there’s also another part of me that’s just enjoying every inch of the developing story. What has me most intrigued are all the things that may need to be changed in this upcoming book of mine. While not nearly comparable, Winston and Luka seem to ask the same questions toward the beginning, though Luka will be a good deal younger. The message in the book is completely different than what I’m going for in my own, so I’m also wondering if I can get away with slightly referencing 1984 since the rest of the story is so different. I guess it’ll be necessary to just finish the book first before wondering what I’ll be forced to change in a book I’ve not yet started writing.

Just thinking about writing in general, though, piques my interest further. I love to write. Whether it’s here, through my website or actual stories and poems. I love the written word. Over these past few weeks, I’ve come to love creating my lessons for Sunday School because I have to write out my lesson. I thought at first, I just enjoyed watching characters develop and the way either myself or other authors use dialog to further along a plot, but what I really love are the words themselves. The fact that I can read and comprehend and create with something so simple seems almost baffling when I consider it fully. Twenty-six characters can be shaped and molded into something that can have depth and take on a meaning of it’s own. Now, I’m simply rambling, but I felt it necessary to mention this, because I realized today that get so wrapped in the words that I sometimes forget it is pertinent to yield some attention to actual living people who may one day receive my words. There are many times, I’ve found, that I would much prefer the company of my own characters and inside a world of my own making rather than facing the miscreants that hold dominion over this literal one.

Adventures in Vegetarianism #5
As I approach the end of my seventh week as a vegetarian, I must note that the urges are returning. Some time on Tuesday, I nearly broke down and got a chicken basket at Dairy Queen. It was really close, too. What bothered me was that it seemed so easy to fall back on old habits. It seemed like the most natural thing to do: go to DQ get a Blizzard and a chicken basket and scarf down twice my alloted caloric intake in one sitting. But…I resisted and I feel better for it.

I’ve lost just five pounds in these weeks and I don’t feel any different, but I know there is a positive somewhere in this. The only thing I can really say to myself about this is that I didn’t put on all this weight in six weeks and it won’t come off in six weeks either.

Half of my problem is that I go through periods where I’m OCD over one food and then I tire myself out over it and I start to eat out again. It’s not as bad as my pre-veg days, but it still isn’t good. Pre-veg, if I hadn’t cooked anything for dinner, I would be at Skyline pretending that since I didn’t think of hot dogs as actual meat it was okay. At least now, I stay out of places such as that. I figured that I would have started feeling weak by now, but I still haven’t. I’m not sure why, but I suppose that means I’m getting enough protein elsewhere, I guess…more like suppose…

Today, I had my first Sunday School class. I was so excited and nervous and scared, but mostly excited. Last night, I had this terrible nightmare where everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. I’d forgotten my Bible and all my notes and the pastor didn’t like any of the things I had to say and a whole mess of other crap was going on that just didn’t make sense. But, thankfully, everything went fine. We started out with just two at first and then another two showed. Several others told me they’d be coming around next week. I really hope they do. It’s the Young Adult class and I think it’s completely necessary since there are a lot of us young adults in church and there was always that feeling that there was no place for us since we didn’t want to be with the “old” people in the main adult class, but we were all way too old to be in class with the twelve year olds. I’m so excited to be teaching it and this forces me study the word every week. It also keeps me accountable to my church and not just for me. People will be depending on me.

Adventures in Vegetarianism #3
As I delved into this third week of vegetarianism, I felt this urge and absolute weakness. This craving for meat seemed to overwhelm me and I nearly broke this afternoon. It’s getting close that crimson tide and the Skyline craving was quite strong. I drove past one as I went to my parent’s house and I almost veered off the road just to sink my teeth into a chili dog. Then up the street, there’s the gathering of a Panera, a Chipotle and, of course, a Wendy’s, all on the same block. It was close, very close, but I stood strong.

What I do find interesting is that I do feel a bit weak just like that girl in my class said I would. I’m beginning to feel like my body is missing something important and I’ll be looking into a multivitamin tomorrow. I’m not sure if the reason I ended up sleeping for five hours after church has anything to do with this weakening of my system or if it was just stress from everything. Speaking of stress my cousin slash niece slash second cousin-niece was baptized today and she passed out a bit later. I was very worried and was still worried even after her mother told me she was okay. Children collapsing is so unnerving.

I bought another hundred dollars worth of groceries again and I didn’t even buy anything worthwhile. I’ll cook tomorrow, probably cabbage and some wild rice, something is simple. I am very worried about this weakening of my system, though. It’s not like I’m hungry all the time or anything, but it’s just a bad feeling overall.

Writing
I haven’t made much progress on the SVU fic this week, which is unfortunate because I haven’t done anything else either. I feel like I’m coming to slow point; all the creative juices have stopped flowing. I know it’ll start again, but I can’t help being impatient. I want it all and I want it now.

**Sigh***
Finally! Back where I belong and everything’s falling into place. For the first time in months, my outlook does not look so bleak. I’m doing what I should be doing and at the end of this quarter, I’ll be taking a long-awaited and long-deserved break. Of course, I’ll still be working, but at least I won’t be working and in school at the same time for a week.

I feel like this over-bearing weight is every-so-lightly lifting off my shoulders day by day, and I really do think that everything will be all right. I attribute 90% of this to going to church this week and making it to Sunday School on time. Everyone was so surprised to see me there, not racing in just before consecration. I start teaching on my own this Sunday and I’m really excited about it. I hope it’s not boring for everybody. I suppose if it doesn’t work out, they’ll either move me somewhere else or fire me altogether, but I’m hoping I don’t let anyone down on this. There’s a Wednesday night service tomorrow and I really can’t wait. I’m half mad since I didn’t get to put my tithes in on Sunday because I completely forgot about it. Usually I just have Mother throw it in for me, but she was busy with her own things and wasn’t there. I’ll have to find someone I trust to put it in on days when she can’t be there.

The written word is in the air and it’s loving me! I’ve been writing everyday and I feel like the well of words just keeps flowing. I’ve never been this in tune with a piece before. I feel like since I’ve completely laid out the plot, writing the details is all the more exciting. I love looking back on my old work and see how I’ve progressed as a writer. I wish this book was 100% my original with all my own characters and such, but all I can keep saying to myself is that this is just my way of proving to myself that I can write; that I can create and stay on target. God Lord! The day I actually finish it, I’ll be singing from the rooftops. I sort of want to delve into some of my other works, but I know I mustn’t. I must stick to this and finish it out; must keep the ADHD at bay! It’s what always kills me in the end. I finally have an idea on what must be done with A Ten-Minute Speech and I’m so excited to start, really start, writing the Luka books, I could just burst into flame. It’s all I want to do and all I want to think about. Sometime last week I found myself daydreaming about my own characters. My characters! That never happens and I keep wondering what it really means. With this fanfic novel, I’ve finally conquered my PC-writing demons. For years, I haven’t been able to writing creatively on a computer, forcing me write everything longhand and spend the next year deciphering my longhand as I type the entire thing. It’s a good thing that I’ve learned this now, because I’ve realized I have the tendency to be quite verbose. I’ve only just finished the first chapter of Flight and the book’s 10,928 words and 20 M$ Word pages. I’m wondering just how long it’ll take me to break my goal of 100K. The first chapter’s just on one day and there’s nineteen days in the first part of the book. I doubt every day will be 11K long, but still…my writing just gets flowery and I while I try my hardest not to ramble, I can’t help but delve into the characters a bit more. I don’t want to just write an episode; I want to create something unique that reads like an actual book and could be taken seriously, were it not actually fanfiction.

So, Dreamgirls…Yay! Jennifer Hudson won her Oscar and I feel oddly proud of her. I guess I just love seeing black women win Oscars, but anyway I’m horribly addicted to the Dreamgirls’ soundtrack. Of course, I’m playing One Night Only to death, but honestly, it’s the reason I bought the darn CD and I’m going to play it until my iPod breaks. I’m also slowly beginning to fall for Beyonce’s Listen, which I really don’t think was worthy of the Oscar nod, but whatever. One Night Only (Hudson’s version, of course), was a far better song, but maybe that’s just me. I’m probably not the most objective person to consider the two songs since One Night Only is currently stuck in my head, but so on and so forth…Obsessions: just the writing and One Night Only. SVU’s even starting to subside, but I think it may have more to do with my not wanting to be unduly influenced by the show as I write. I still need like a crackhead, but I missed last week’s new episode and I haven’t had a break down…yet. Thank goodness for USA network. Keeping SVU fanatics in good health, around the globe.

Adventures in Vegetarianism #2
I’ve been a full-fledged vegetarian now for more than a week and the Wendy’s #6 Spicy Chicken cravings have subsided substantially. I spoke with another vegetarian in one of my classes and she told me I’d probably start feeling weak after a bit, but I’ll stick it out a bit longer before taking a multi-vitamin, especially after that nonsense on the BBC news about vitamins actually shaving off the years instead of adding to them. Oh well. I suppose we’ll all go when we do. But, I’m really enjoying this not-eating-meat thing. Tonight, I made a grilled cheese sandwich with olive oil instead of butter. I’m well on my way to becoming a vegan…except for the fact that I love cheese and yogurt and would sooner cut of my own foot and feed it to my enemies than give up cheese and yogurt. But, the point is, I’m not eating any meat. I wish I could say that I give a crap about cows and pigs and such, but I honestly can’t make myself really care about animals. I just don’t want to like the taste of them anymore and I want to just live healthier. I just can’t see any positives to eating meat, especially since I read something about average humans eating something like six times the amount of animal meat we need to survive. That just seems utterly crazy to me.
Anyway, I haven’t lost any weight to this vegetarian diet, but that’s probably due to the fact that I polished off this entire macaroni and cheese dish by myself as I practiced for the pot luck we’re having at work this Friday. It’ll be Dorienne’s time to shine! I also randomly made a bunch of cookies and frosted them myself. I don’t know where the crazy cravings come from, but they are bizarre. But, cheers to me for not even wanting to eat any meat! And a special cheers to me for at least trying to get back on eating like a normal person should…

I’ve been making a lot of notes for my In Darkness series and the more I ponder about souls, the more I realize how difficult it is for me to give up on the idea of souls being reincarnated or, really, regenerated. It just makes sense to me and it seems like no amount of church is able to trump this fact. It allows me to account for the idea that God wants everybody to go to heaven. This is the only way for me to rest at night whilest I wonder about the murderer sitting on death row, who never got the chance to know Jesus. I have been blessed with the opportunity to not just know about Him, but learn as much as I want about Him. If I screw up at this point, I deserve to go to hell. But what about some little African girl who lives out with the tribes of nowhere, who really will never get the chance to know Him? It just does not seem like something that a fair, just and awesome God could do; to allow someone to go to hell when they never had the chance to learn, to never know any better.
I think all souls continue to come back to “life” until they get it right. It’s the only logic that I can follow that doesn’t have me worrying about my religion and sending me packing once again. And I just can’t let go of it.

Not much has happened in the past week: my step-brother got married, and that was kind of nice, especially since they have two kids together, but the fact is they did get married. The reception was nice though because I got to spend some time with my step-sibs and cousins and it’s always nice to hang out with a bunch of people my own age for a while. I had a little to drink at the reception, but between the ride home with my parents and the sobering conversation I later had with my mother, all was well for the drive home.

Classes are wrapping up, but I feel no closer to achieving anything, so of course it’s time to set some deadlines/goals for myself.
1) Finish A Ten-Minute Speech by 26 September 2006
– this one is not important in the present, but it could mean the difference between doing what I want to do with my life and doing what I have to do just to make ends meet. Not to mention that this is way overdue. I first put pen(cil) to paper for this thing when I was eleven years old, and eleven years later I still don’t have it completed. NO book should take that long. I’ve “finished” it a couple of times, but it’s never truly been complete. It’s not just the act of completing the book by this deadline, it’s the act of completing something in total. I can’t remember the last time I actually successfully completed anything save for a sentence I was speaking. My birthday marks the beginning of my adult years, and if I can’t complete SOMETHING by the beginning of my adulthood, I might as well stop now. If I can’t finish this book, I have no business even pretending like I want to begin writing others.

2) Get an A in my 139 class.
– There’s no excuse for me not getting an A in this class, and at this point I think I simply need it for my psyche. It’s like, if I could just get the ball rolling, then everything would fall into place.

3) Lose ten pounds by my birthday.
– I’ve been trying to lose this weight since I started to gain and now that I’ve got nearly 100 lbs to get off of me, things are starting to look dire. I went shopping with my mother yesterday, I just looking at myself in the dressing room mirror, made me slightly naseous. I remember when not too long ago, I would have looked at someone who looked like me and giggled to myself wondering how anyone could ever let it get so bad. I guess I had never counted on depression weighing in on the subject. Get it, weighing in….Anyway, a month is MORE than enough time to drop ten pounds. It’s the same old, same old: eat right and exercise, but the when and where causes the issues.

4) No more McDonald’s breakfast. Period.
– If I’m ever going to make a dent in #3, this is a must. I must give up McDonald’s breakfast forever. Given that it was the only thing I ever ate there, I think I just have to go with edict that I just can’t eat at McDonald’s ever again. Probably not ever again, but at least until my birthday in ’07. There’s not nutritional value from it and really it’s not even that satisfying. Feeling the grease and fat from an Egg McMuffin or a hash brown, makes me feel my heart actually congealing. I don’t want to put myself in a position where I could have a heart attack 20-25 years before that should even be a concern. I can do better. I will do better. I guess this isn’t so much a quitting McDonald’s idea as a living a better, healthier life.

5) Read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.
– I started this goal a few years ago, and got wholly bogged down by the pages and pages of “begets,” but I think that all Christians should read the whole thing from beginning to end (literally). Even if I don’t understand all of it, even if it does contradict itself, even if it inevitably makes me question my faith in the end, I’ve got until 26 September 2007 to get this goal accomplished. I’ve even got a Bible-reading guide. There’s no reason to get this one done.

…and the little things before the end of this year:
a) Finish my The X-Files website
b) Recode my Calvin and Hobbes website
c) Get an A in Ochem
d) Do Something Great

…time to go a-complishing.

I’m still going strong right now. I’ve got my plans in place and we’ll see how this goes…

I’m still off fast food for the month. I’ve actually gone hungry instead of stopping at a Wendy’s or something, but I know it’s for the best. I caught myself wondering what I would be like at the end of the month. Will I be so accustomed to not eating fast food that I wouldn’t even notice when the end of the month came and perchance I could make it two months without any fast food? Doubtful, but there’s always the hope. I’m pretty sure I’ll be standing at Chipotle’s front door waiting for it to open on August 1st, but there’s still hope.

I’ve been finessing a lot of things lately, especially the code the websites I’m doing. One of the people on Coding Forums, brought up a good point to me as I was attempting to give advice to another. I know CSS and its basics, but I don’t know the theory behind it, so I end up with a lot of redundant information in my code. I get the style, just not the cascading part, but that will soon change.

I’m planning to start another blog, but the new one will be run completely by me since I’ve found the code to make a perfect blog under my own domain. It’ll probably be blog.doriennesmith.com, but I haven’t decided yet. It’ll be a lot on how the website is going and the “hows” behind a lot of my updates.

I’m taking a web class right now, I try as I might, I can’t resist the temptation to show off a bit. Hopefully, my instructor won’t mind that I used XHTML 1.0 instead of the crap code they suggest in the book. I mean I want to scream just looking at the code they are suggesting for their readers; especially since the book is no more than two years old. In fact….okay, the book was published in 2002, which brings up a whole new set of issues. Why on earth are we using a book that’s this old in the first place, especially when the class is on the internet and standards and such change every few years. I mean, honestly: the book is telling people to use uppercase letters and inline presentational code! For a class like this, all the textbooks should be less than a year old. Otherwise, the information is most likely ridiculously out of date by the time class starts. For that matter, I don’t see why a textbook is needed when the W3C is online all the time and holds free information for anyone who wants it; not to mention something simple like w3schools.

Speaking of being annoyed by this web class: we are forced to create our web project. (basically just a simple web page), using Geocities, which both “sucks and blows.” It is so irritating to go through all the work of creating beautiful code that validates using a Strict doctype and have to throw the whole thing in Geocities, which flays my code into some horrifying monster with its stupid and unvalidating side bar. Speaking of validation, I don’t know why I love, or am obsessed over having my code validate. It’s as if seeing the green “Passed Validation” page gives a bit of validation to my life….

Anyway, I always feel bad when I do work on my own website instead of making more progess on my church’s site. I think it’s just that there’s so much more to do for the church site. I mean I’m practically rebuilding the entire site. I’ve got the layouts already sketched out, but it’s matter of going through the daunting task of making my designs come to life in the code. Some things just are feasible from my inexperience, which means loads of time asking questions on Coding Forums and then waiting for answers, not mention all the new things that I need to create my “vision” for the site. (Sigh) There’s just so much to do, but one step at a time I suppose.

Last week looked like the end of my relationship with my mother. Honestly, it looked like we may never be on good terms again. That is, until I got a good look at what other people have to go through with their parents….It was only then that I realized how lucky I was to be in my situation, but have a clear, defined way out of it and with the support needed to keep me from failing. I’m just glad that Jesus helped me stay calm enough from going off the deep end and saying or doing things that could not be taken back later. I was so emotionally I had to revert back to the “Tweety Book,” my old handwritten journal, mostly because my language was getting slightly out of hand and there were things I need to write down that really are not meant for the internet. That’s something I think a lot of people don’t understand about the internet and blogs. EVERYONE can read them, and even if they’re are private, if someone wanted to, they could get to it still. I’ve never put anything on the internet that I didn’t want to be shown to the world. Pictures I would have problems explaining or truly personal moments don’t belong on the internet.

Anyhoo – It’s time to get ready for Sunday School. I haven’t been to Sunday School, literallly since I was seven years old, so this will be a sort of adventure in itself. We’ll see how it goes…

I’m feeling better today. Maybe it was that I got to veg and watch tv for a bit. Maybe it was the good night/morning’s sleep I got. Or perhaps that I was up until the wee hours of the morning cleaning and getting myself prepared for today. It was probably the latter.

I’m no better shape than I was days ago, but at least I feel like things have the possibility of going up instead of further into the abyss.

Tonight, I am going to sit down and really write for once. I’m going to try to get as much done as possible on MMS. The entire ending will probably need to be re-written, so I know I’ll have to just sit down and write it out. I waste too much time trying to think creatively on a computer. It has never worked in the past and I don’t see as how it will start now.

Also, he wishes to speak to me about everything. I don’t really know what’s left to say. Basically, his actions have caused me to lose faith in everyone I know. And unfortunately for him, I’m not her. I don’t forgive and forget. I knew they were going to get back together; it was almost a given. I’m just happy that after a few months, the whole thing will no longer a problem of mine. I want to say vindictively that I can’t wait for him to show his true self all over again to her and for her to be just as angry about, but go right back into it, but I don’t truly feel that way. I’m fine with whatever because come September, this will cease to be my problem.

But now, for a shower and some preparation for class today. Hopefully, I’ll make some headway in the re-write….

So, I couldn’t even achieve a goal I wanted to achieve….I don’t even have anything to add to this. I could rant on about what’s the point of going on when I can’t do the things I want to do and such, but I won’t. Life sucks, people suck. It’s these bright sunny days that make me really want to do it….

Whew! Got those stupid license tags renewed and the pain in the ass that that entailed….
I’ve decided to not get a new fish, but the whole thing does piss me off since I just spent all this money on a brand new tank for the damn thing, but the tank is far too loud for my bedroom, so maybe it can be a living room thing someday, and I cannot return anything because I’ve already thrown out the boxes and crap. Lesson learned: always keep boxes and receipts until I know for certain whether or not I intend to keep the product.

I skipped two classes today. I had intended to do some writing, but ended up sleeping instead. Oh well. I need to start exercising more. It’s kind of, well more than kind of, ridiculous that I have so little energy, but I’m 21 years old. I should be at the prime of my life. Tonight, however, will be spent doing work of both the curricular and extracurricular kind. So, I’ve decided to setup a timeline, so that I can feel bad about myself when I don’t stick to it this time:

April 15, 2006: Complete second edit of A Ten Minute Speech ~ this is way over due. I should’ve completed this YEARS ago and I don’t know what has been holding me back. I just need to sit down and do it. I’ll be proud of myself in the end.

April 30, 2006: Have two chapters written for the first “Luka” book ~ this isn’t really asking too much of myself. Again, I just need to set aside time to do it.

May 5, 2006: Finish typing up Oreos and Twinkies ~ given that I’ve decided to completely change around the plot, the title, the characters and the book’s underlying meaning, this is also waaaay past due.

These are important, not so much for school, but to put myself in a position to be able to realize my dreams. Without meeting these goals, how will I ever achieve what I want in life?

Oh, my poor Xanga….it’s been days….

Yesterday, I finally started my ‘plain-paper-pencil’ write of the first Luka book. I am calling it Sounds of Revolution for now, but who knows what it will be when I finally finish.

It’s been so long since I wrote, really wrote a new novel for the first time. I’m not in a re-write phase at all, it’s just straight creative and it gives me this rush that I could only compare to some drug akin to coke or heroin. It’s magical and I hate that there aren’t more hours in the day so that I could write for some eight hours then get a good night’s rest, then go to work at Anheuser, bright and early…..When the ideas really start flowing, the only thing that irritates me is that my hands won’t move fast enough to keep up with the thoughts coming from me.

On other notes, I can’t believe they are getting married. If you don’t have money to buy a ring, you don’t have the money, or sense, to get married less than a year when you first started dating, but all that’s besides the point.

I’m worried that he’s getting married and it makes me aggravated with myself. I don’t want him even though I did years ago, but thinking about it now makes me seriously fret about it. Why? I could never been with him; we’re not as close now, but the thought of it makes my heart skip a beat. And why be so ambiguous about it…..God, I have to know! I think I’ll ask every single day until I get an answer. At least then I can start to make my peace about it.

If he is, I hope I’m not invited. I don’t think I could sit through that wedding…..not without doing something really ridiculous.