Today started to slide into “last straw” territory.

As I walked alone through the hospital halls, wearing a heavy school backpack and smelling of chain-smoked cigarettes, I realized what a rock and a hard place I live between.

After a long day of classes, homework, and meeting with professors to discuss my “circumstances,” I spent the next three hours at the hospital bouncing between family members’ rooms.

On the East Wing lay my maternal grandmother, dying. Sort of. She’s actually “stabilizing” after an E-coli infection that ran a muck in her bloodstream. But she also suffers from what my father calls “chronic emotional pain,” which is actually just high anxiety and really bad dementia.

She was shaking, moaning and spitting out food when I arrived. She pleaded me with to save her from some sort of kidnapping, but the story changed plotlines several times throughout. Some guy was free or needed to be free or she needed to be free or lord knows what. I took her by the hand and asked her to trust me, that she was safe and that I loved her.

All she said was that I’d better save her, or free him… or her, or (and this part I understood clearly) it would be on my conscience.

But I just couldn’t stay. My mother was on the West Wing, being admitted as part of a cautious recovery after her fourth round of surgical radiation to the liver. An embolism, they call it. She’s weak and dizzy, much like she was the last time, which required 2 ER visits, 1 surgery, and a 5-day hospital stay.

All of this would be less alarming had her oncologist not told me just yesterday that she has a few more years, at best. I did ask. In private. But still. HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT.

Of note is that my paternal grandfather died two weeks ago. Or was it three weeks ago now? I haven’t yet had time to mourn.

People keep expressing this sort of half-assed empathy that usually includes some sort of statement like, “I can’t believe you’re still in school,” or the more general “I can’t believe you’re still functioning.” To which I often wonder: IS NOT FUNCTIONING AN OPTION?

As I was busy leaving 20 minutes late for my dreaded Research Methods Lab, my father informed me that my mom had called him in tears.  Mumble mumble, something about cancer spreading to her lymph nodes.

“I’m on my way to school…. and I have a huge day ahead of me….” I said, my lower lip quivering.

“Oh, shit.  I forgot.  I’m sorry!” my father replied.

And then I drove as if blackout drunk in the pouring rain, and arrived to class dripping wet from my clothing and my eye sockets.

But it turns out that we just don’t know anything.  And that, while things are worse, we don’t know how much worse.  Which is supposed to be comforting.

So my life is slightly in turmoil right now.

There were free tarot readings, uninspired novelty T-shirts, and a performance by Peter Wolf Crier.  The night before I had wept on the phone to Nick about the lack of joy in my current day-to-day routine.  He explained the importance of a carrot for my proverbial mule.

So I got in line for the tarot.

Strange how the world melted away, there on the front steps of Coffman Union.  But it was probably due to my desperation for a cosmic intervention.

She said some seemingly clairvoyant shit about my constant tendency to “help” the guys I’m with.  She essentially said: STOP IT.  Because!  Next year, I am going to meet the love of my life.  Allegedly.  And he’s going to be a super hunk.  Who won’t put up with any attempts to fix and/or help him.

So that’s something.

The bouncy houses were a strange touch to the “art fair,” and I couldn’t tell if it was more offensive that they were there, or that students were actually making use of them.

Today’s carrot is the falling temperature, and the fact that I may actually get to wear my new leather jacket in public.

The goddamn little things.

This summer came and went like a flash in the pan that produced a barely-nutritive amount of scrambled eggs.

When it began, I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed; so fucking excited for a wealth of possibilities.

Things happened.  I mean, time passes and — by default — the future becomes the present becomes the past, and its contents shape us as human beings.  But I think I experienced the minimum amount of personal growth.

Three months is kind of a long time.  It seems like a whole year has gone by since June, when I was cleaning graves with a knife at the Jewish cemetery as penance for parking in a handicap space.  And it feels like even longer since just last week, when I finished my summer writing project in a blaze of short-lived glory.

But the more I think about it, a lot happened this summer.  And why should the fact that I didn’t earn any money, travel abroad, or take part in a career-launching internship limit my perception of myself?

This summer, I:

-Joined the Free Sushi Podcast.  I love those dudes and I always enjoy being the Elaine character in any cantankerous group of four.

-Spent Fridays bonding with the C.C. Crew

-Finally cleaned out the basement (and the porch!)

-Had great sex with an elusive asshole several times

-Realized I’m happier alone

-Saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros on an outdoor stage

-Threw a party

-Started a screenplay

-Lost and gained the same 15 pounds twice

-Drove two childhood pets to death-by-injection

-Adopted a kitten.  Lola Yenta is bad ass.

-Taught myself through much pain and suffering that I am, in essence, a good writer, and that shit will come together if I let it.

-Listened to Kanye West’s “Power” on repeat.  A lot.

-Finished more books than normal.  And by that I mean: one.

-Attended several epic soirees

-Blew a guy wearing an ankle bracelet

-Smoked enough pot to forget the rest

I am operating under the assumption that no one who reads this blog knows my true identity (ha), and that there are no legal ramifications in admitting such a thing in this forum.

All I’ve really had to comfort me this weekend is my dark sense of humor, and it’s been working quite well.  That, and the Adderall.

My ex-boyfriend brought them over at midnight with a burger that I ended up vomiting up.  I remembered why we broke up.

Actual dialog:

Him (smoking pot on the couch in my mother’s living room): “Your hair looks good tonight.”

Me (yelling from the toilet around the corner, vomiting): “What? Are you serious?”

Him: “Well… um… it’d look better in my crotch.”

Me (knelt over the toilet, craning my neck to yell out the door): “WHAT?”

Him: “Yeah, this guy said it to this girl on Xbox live.  I thought it was pretty funny.”

I think he actually thought that might get him blown.  Which in no way happened.  But he did bring me Adderall so I can finish this writing project, which I am actually — FINALLY — accomplishing correctly.  And all it took was a little trust in my abilities.  Imagine that.

Incidentally, I did most of the rocking out before I took the Adderall.  But I am very comforted by their presence in my body.

One good thing about this weekend is the fact that I now know how badly my dog needs to be put out of his misery.  And that will probably lessen the pain of my 16-year-old brother-character from childhood being put to death on a veterinary table in a week or two.

Oh, I’m sorry, are my thoughts disjointed?  I think amphetamines are better for cleaning, and other physical projects.

But since I procured them for a specific purpose, I should probably get back to that.

I’m dogsitting Buttons, who is riddled with huge tumors.  His breathing is strained.  It’s really depressing and hard to get work done.  I’ve been instructed to merely keep him alive for the few days that my mother is out of town, visiting friends.  I’ve mostly been looking for Adderall and watching a Father of the Bride marathon on TBS.

I think I officially smoke too much pot.  I feel like I’m swimming through quicksand sometimes.  Mentally and physically.  Which is part of why I can’t finish this entry.

I think the last straw was last night, when I found myself watching Life is Hot in Cracktown at 5am on STARZ and legitimately wanting to kill myself.  Which I recognized as irrational.  So I vowed to make the next day different.  But I didn’t get out of bed ’til 3pm.

Even so, I took a giant leap outside my comfort zone and set up shop at the friendly neighborhood Caribou Coffee shop with my laptop and a wicked “morning” buzz.  Before I left, I received Nick’s epic 6 disc Joe-E-Palooza mix in the mail, and I’ve isolated myself from all distractions (except the ones inside my head) with headphones and personalized ambiance.

On the way over, I noticed the bustling life all around me.  People walking, running, biking around the lake.  The sun illuminating flowing patches on the water.  This is LIFE, damnit, and I’m glad I found it while forcing myself to get some work done in the eleventh hour.  I don’t live in Cracktown.  And I should probably quit acting like it.

Allow me to explain.

I apply for jobs all damn day.  I joke about not applying for jobs, but I actually apply myself very diligently (see what I did there?).  And the process is as soul-crushing as my brief stint as an out-of-work, overweight pre-teen actress.

Each day denotes a new personal standard that must be cast aside.  Working less than a 20-minute drive away was written off months ago.  Then jobs involving my career goals.  Followed by a livable wage, a flexible schedule, and an assurance that the job I’m applying for is not a scam.

And somehow I’ve managed to remain unemployed.

So I’m starting to revisit the urge to do phone sex.  Or web-cam entertainment for chubby chasers.  Or, dare I say it, prostitution.

Hear me out.  Lately I’ve been having a gaggle of empty sex.  All of which I have not been paid for.  Each encounter leaves me feeling used and slutty, so why not add a stipend to the mix?  I don’t love breaking the law, but I’m not against it.  And if I could limit my fully-compensated sexcapades to one wealthy guy with a deep cavern of loneliness (and a shameful attraction to full-figured women), I could probably live with myself.

This all stems back to my longstanding life goal of one day becoming a high-end call girl and writing a book about it.  As if that hasn’t been done.  And the best place to start anything is on craigslist.

Nick told me to get a job instead.  That insensitive bastard.  Ever since he became the overlord of the front lanes at a Milwaukee Target store, he thinks he’s better than me, or something.

That is all.