By FRANK RICH, NY TIMES

ON the morning after a black man won the White House, America’s tears of catharsis gave way to unadulterated joy.

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k). Few wanted to take yes for an answer.

So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.

The most conspicuous clichés to fall, of course, were the twin suppositions that a decisive number of white Americans wouldn’t vote for a black presidential candidate — and that they were lying to pollsters about their rampant racism. But the polls were accurate. There was no “Bradley effect.” A higher percentage of white men voted for Obama than any Democrat since Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton included.

Obama also won all four of those hunting-and-Hillary-loving Rust Belt states that became 2008’s obsession among slumming upper-middle-class white journalists: Pennsylvania and Michigan by double digits, as well as Ohio and even Indiana, which has gone Democratic only once (1964) since 1936. The solid Republican South, led by Virginia and North Carolina, started to turn blue as well. While there are still bigots in America, they are in unambiguous retreat.

And what about all those terrified Jews who reportedly abandoned their progressive heritage to buy into the smears libeling Obama as an Israel-hating terrorist? Obama drew a larger percentage of Jews nationally (78) than Kerry had (74) and — mazel tov, Sarah Silverman! — won Florida.

Let’s defend Hispanic-Americans, too, while we’re at it. In one of the more notorious observations of the campaign year, a Clinton pollster, Sergio Bendixen, told The New Yorker in January that “the Hispanic voter — and I want to say this very carefully — has not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.” Let us say very carefully that a black presidential candidate won Latinos — the fastest-growing demographic in the electorate — 67 percent to 31 (up from Kerry’s 53-to-44 edge and Gore’s 62-to-35).

Young voters also triumphed over the condescension of the experts. “Are they going to show up?” Cokie Roberts of ABC News asked in February. “Probably not. They never have before. By the time November comes, they’ll be tired.” In fact they turned up in larger numbers than in 2004, and their disproportionate Democratic margin made a serious difference, as did their hard work on the ground. They’re not the ones who need Geritol.

The same commentators who dismissed every conceivable American demographic as racist, lazy or both got Sarah Palin wrong too. When she made her debut in St. Paul, the punditocracy was nearly uniform in declaring her selection a brilliant coup. There hadn’t been so much instant over-the-top praise by the press for a cynical political stunt since President Bush “landed” a jet on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in that short-lived triumph “Mission Accomplished.”

The rave reviews for Palin were completely disingenuous. Anyone paying attention (with the possible exception of John McCain) could see she was woefully ill-equipped to serve half-a-heartbeat away from the presidency. The conservatives Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy said so on MSNBC when they didn’t know their mikes were on. But, hey, she was a dazzling TV presence, the thinking went, so surely doltish Americans would rally around her anyway. “She killed!” cheered Noonan about the vice-presidential debate, revising her opinion upward and marveling at Palin’s gift for talking “over the heads of the media straight to the people.” Many talking heads thought she tied or beat Joe Biden.

The people, however, were reaching a less charitable conclusion and were well ahead of the Beltway curve in fleeing Palin. Only after polls confirmed that she was costing McCain votes did conventional wisdom in Washington finally change, demoting her from Republican savior to scapegoat overnight.

But Palin’s appeal wasn’t overestimated only because of her kitschy “American Idol” star quality. Her fierce embrace of the old Karl Rove wedge politics, the divisive pitting of the “real America” against the secular “other” America, was also regarded as a sure-fire winner. The second most persistent assumption by both pundits and the McCain campaign this year — after the likely triumph of racism — was that the culture war battlegrounds from 2000 and 2004 would remain intact.

This is true in exactly one instance: gay civil rights. Though Rove’s promised “permanent Republican majority” lies in humiliating ruins, his and Bush’s one secure legacy will be their demagogic exploitation of homophobia. The success of the four state initiatives banning either same-sex marriage or same-sex adoptions was the sole retro trend on Tuesday. And Obama, who largely soft-pedaled the issue this year, was little help. In California, where other races split more or less evenly on a same-sex marriage ban, some 70 percent of black voters contributed to its narrow victory.

That lagging indicator aside, nearly every other result on Tuesday suggests that while the right wants to keep fighting the old boomer culture wars, no one else does. Three state initiatives restricting abortion failed. Bill Ayers proved a lame villain, scaring no one. Americans do not want to revisit Vietnam (including in Iraq). For all the attention paid by the news media and McCain-Palin to rancorous remembrances of things past, I sometimes wondered whether most Americans thought the Weather Underground was a reunion band and the Hanoi Hilton a chain hotel. Socialism, the evil empire and even Ronald Reagan may be half-forgotten blurs too.

If there were any doubts the 1960s are over, they were put to rest Tuesday night when our new first family won the hearts of the world as it emerged on that vast blue stage to join the celebration in Chicago’s Grant Park. The bloody skirmishes that took place on that same spot during the Democratic convention 40 years ago — young vs. old, students vs. cops, white vs. black — seemed as remote as the moon. This is another America — hardly a perfect or prejudice-free America, but a union that can change and does, aspiring to perfection even if it can never achieve it.

Still, change may come slowly to the undying myths bequeathed to us by the Bush decade. “Don’t think for a minute that power concedes,” Obama is fond of saying. Neither does groupthink. We now keep hearing, for instance, that America is “a center-right nation” — apparently because the percentages of Americans who call themselves conservative (34), moderate (44) and liberal (22) remain virtually unchanged from four years ago. But if we’ve learned anything this year, surely it’s that labels are overrated. Those same polls find that more and more self-described conservatives no longer consider themselves Republicans. Americans now say they favor government doing more (51 percent), not less (43) — an 11-point swing since 2004 — and they still overwhelmingly reject the Iraq war. That’s a centrist country tilting center-left, and that’s the majority who voted for Obama.

The post-Bush-Rove Republican Party is in the minority because it has driven away women, the young, suburbanites, black Americans, Latino-Americans, Asian-Americans, educated Americans, gay Americans and, increasingly, working-class Americans. Who’s left? The only states where the G.O.P. increased its percentage of the presidential vote relative to the Democrats were West Virginia, Tennessee, Louisiana and Arkansas. Even the North Carolina county where Palin expressed her delight at being in the “real America” went for Obama by more than 18 percentage points.

The actual real America is everywhere. It is the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of 9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in the name of “patriotism.” What we started to remember the morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who we are.

So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Obama said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that they reclaimed their country.

You guys I'm so excited. Things may not change at our level for years but I truly believe after January 20th things will be different. At least I'll know that our powerful leader is competent. There's can be a big different between a skilled, experienced politician and a competent leader.

As for Prop 8, it's the stain on election day. But I still think that if Obama's presidency succeeds in changing our political culture we can look forward to someday gaining equal rights for everyone sooner rather than later. Sadly, it's similar to the civil rights movement in that the blatant inequality is allowed to continue and accepted simply for the reason of status quo. I think at least now there's hope that we can overcome this, as well as racism (which certainly isn't gone either) and general acceptance of selective apathy towards human suffering or the degradation of everyday life. I guess I'm just a fuckin socialist like that.

So. Fuckin' McCain. The moment he said "pro-abortion" I was pissed.
OK, let me start with abstinence only education. How are we supposed to raise every single girl up to never have sex, ever, unless she wants a child? Never mind the fact that the byproduct of our fabulous free market society is pressure on girls, even young girls (gotta make $$$), to give into sexual temptation. Never mind the fact that having sex IS HARDWIRED IN OUR BRAIN. Never mind the fact that people have been having sex when they want since the dawn of mankind. You're fuckin' religion is going to stop that?! How dare you put women in this situation in our modern day? It shows 0 respect to the gender that has been making the world turn round forever and I despise it.
Realize that it's absolutely 100% IMPOSSIBLE to stop sex. Abstinence-only education insures that all the girls who receive it will not know how to prevent getting pregnant, unless their parents supplement the education themselves (which an unreliable amount do). Everyone is going to tell these girls never to have sex, but secretly everything is geared to make you say yes when you're taught to say no. Our country is putting over a billion of our fucking tax dollars a year to force women into having babies whenever the biology feels like it.
And now we get to the abortion part. Even people who know about birth control get unlucky, or lapse with it, and end up pregnant. And when you can't afford and/or want a child, and going forward with the pregnancy would be a huge psychological, physical, financial ordeal, it is ABSOLUTELY the responsible choice for a woman in all aspects to consider abortion. And believe me, no woman WANTS to have an abortion. Nobody is pro-abortion. An abortion still can take a huge toll, and at a minimum it's a hassle. Then there are women who find out that their child will be born with problems, or the pregnancy will have complications, and they must make a very important, personal decision. The people who push the pro-life agenda don't know what it's like to be a woman, otherwise they would KNOW that motherhood is an extremely important thing to us, and NOBODY takes it lightly. Abortion is serious, and we want to prevent it, but shit happens. It's part of life as a biological organism.
When McCain calls it a pro-abortion agenda and sarcastically scoffs at and finger quotes around "the health of the mother," I take it very, very personally. When McCain supports the Republican's abstinence-only education, he is forcing American women into a life as a baby-making machine with absolutely no regard THEIR wellbeing (as well as that of her partner's).
Damn right I donated more to Obama today! Stupid people are swayed by advertising, and as we know, the undecideds are, ahem, stupid, so we must try to insure that they are given massive amounts of Obama advertising. I refuse to live in an America run by Republicans.

Ugh I'm so stressed out. Work just threw all these important crazy confusing projects at me AND I signed up for the wrong class. Sometimes, at the end of the day, things seem unable to be overcome. At least that's how I feel a lot. I'm tired. Now putting brain on stand-by until tomorrow.

So there was an earthquake today! My biggest one yet. I was in my biology lab going over heritable traits between shaded circles and squares. When it started I was like, huh, I think that's an earthquake, and then I was like, wow this one is big and shakey! We all ran out of the classroom and were dismissed from the class, which was almost over anyway. And then I took a math placement exam and am being placed in like, stupid Algebra. Which is actually ok because it'll be the easiest math class I've ever taken and nobody cares about math classes when you're an artsy kinda major. I have Casey to do my calculus. Anyway, afterwards I called Casey, and when I came home my mom had left a message on my machine for Gatsby, which was something like *singsongy voice* "Hiii Gatsby, this is your grandma, I just want to let you know that Rani and Case willl be home soon and everything will be ok, and I hope you can go back to sleep." lol
So after listening to the message I went online because I wanted to know how big of a deal it was. It apparently was a very big deal for the news, which is ok for local, but national? And now the headlines say we're "jaded Californians" who didn't even care about their own slightly exciting earthquake. For the record, it was slightly stronger and longer than the average quake. But my Celexa makes me jumpy and then I vaped (thank you Laura) so I just shake like a vibrator if I'm even a little nervous about something (and by shakes like a vibrator, I mean it's more like a vibrator than a calm hand is, not that my hand plus nervousness equals pleasure potential). So I thought I felt an aftershock while vaping and I was like, Hey is this the big one? I have been anticipating this "big one" that's supposed to have a 99% chance of occurring within the next 30 years and is gonna kill a million people. And I'm sure this activity is just a sign of the big one that will hit tomorrow. Jesus christ.


OK in other news everything else is great! But I have cramps : (

So school has commenced and I have succeeded in being a good student for two weeks. Today I left at 7:45 and went to two classes and then directly to the bank and the farmers market. I got home at 1 and found Gatsby had eating a box of 12 cubes of rat poison. He seemed happy enough and didn't appear to even realize what was going on until he was taken from my frantic arms at the vet. They made him throw up and then pumped his stomach. Poor guy. Maybe he learned his lesson about sprouting wings, flying up to shelf 3 feet above his head and out of his eyesight, and eating whatever boxes of tasty poison he finds there.
The poison was meant for the rat that has been eating the grease out of our barbecue for months. I will buy a mechanical trap this time.
Oh and here is the story of how I discovered we had a rat eating the grease in our barbecue: It was three in the morning, I was very out of it but determined to catch the animal in the barbecue. His scuffles had awoken me from my nude slumber, and I grabbed a flashlight and stood on my balcony staring into the grill at this god damn rat running around. Then the neighbor - whose windows are about 15 feet directly across from our balcony - turned on their light. And so I crouched to hide my shameful nudity and felt stupid and silly. And then their light went off and I went to bed.

I'm trying to not freak out about the dog, because Casey will freak out enough for the both of us. I have been told that I have a strict-walk-about-the-apartment-fixing-puppy-hazards coming tonight. Ugh, after I was up late last night and early this morning studying for my biology test, after all week of this god damn boring as hell class and lab, after doing my errands, after arranging to start working at a new job, after cleaning up the plant that Gatsby had also destroyed and strewn about before/during/after the poison consumption, I just really wanted to smoke some bowls and eat food and watch Judge Judy.

I start school tomorrow at the ~community college~. FINALLY. I just hope that I don't get sick of school in the first week. I know I'm lazy but I also like to think I'm motivated so we'll see how it works out. I really want to not procrastinate like I did in high school, but I did get things done with good grades, and it's better than just doing nothing like in college.
It has been so freakin hot here. Yesterday we drove out to Hesperia to get Casey a Roland electronic drum set. It was expensive, but it was also his birthday. He has been talking about these drums and checking craigslist nonstop for over a month and it wasn't long before I couldn't even try to look like I was paying attention or cared about the difference in MIDI outputs between the TD-3 and the TD-6. Living with a nerdy engineer with a penchant for talking through every problem and explaining every detail can be like living with a TV that is frequently on the stuff-that's-only-interesting-to-engineers channel, except it requires that I say "uh huh" and "oh" and "yeah, I see" a bunch, and I frequently have to tell it, "I understand, please don't explain this to me for a fifth time because I didn't care the first time."
Did you know Casey and I don't fight? I can only think of a few times where I have been genuinely angry and upset in an argument. We disagree very frequently, and this is how it usually goes:
I expresses an opinion or urge to buy something, or Casey blames something on me (it frequently is my fault, but it is often not my fault).
Casey, in a mockingly high voice, wittily rephrases what I said to make the point that I am frivolous and/or extremely sassy.
I begin giggling, which does not stop until the "argument" ends, and tell him why I am right. If I truly think I am right, I am very insistent. If I know that I am being too frivolous and sassy, I will still defend my stance, but eventually with some self-deprecating, ironic statements that start Casey laughing.
By this point, by mocking each other and ourselves, we're both laughing heartily. I will usually end the argument by stating something completely irrational but with truth still behind it, and I will get very haughty and accuse Casey of oppressing me before we both drop the subject and recover from the laughing fit.
Casey and Rani: A Marriage in Turmoil!

For about a week after the crow incident nearly every time I went outside 1-2 crows would follow me around, swooping over my head and flying from tree to tree, cawing at the person with a dog who took their friend. I had animal control come and get the poor thing.
Right now I am sitting here periodically scanning craigslist jobs and sucking on my vaporizer. Yeah it's a Tuesday morning. Right now there are tree trimmers outside. They absolutely butchered some other trees so I attempted to ask them if they could please take as little as possible off the trees in front of our apartment which shade us from some afternoon sun. It gets really hot over here and sure enough they chose the beginning of summer to chop off all the branches and leaves. We'll all probably have higher energy bills this summer. Anyway I hope they understood what I was saying because my spanish cannot qualify as fluent any more.
My mom came last week and we went to one of Sami's concerts and spent the next day doing what there is to be done around here: went to the farmers market (exciting for mom, bought too much food), went to the dog beach (exciting for mom), went to the Japanese mall food court for lunch (very exciting for mom), and then went to the mall (probably more exciting for me than my mom, but she's so much fun to look at clothes with because she knows a lot about textiles and sewing. We looked at some AMAZING dresses at Bottega Venetta). While she was here she was hoping that my dad didn't go a buy a puppy while she was gone because she did not want him to go buy a hunting dog at this point in time. Sure enough the next day they have a puppy.
What else...I saw Indiana Jones (blah whatever) and went to a friend's graduation party. Almost all of our friends are planning on marriage, so we are expecting weddings in the next couple years. Two of our friends are getting married this fall. They lived at home with their parents through school and have been working for five years saving money and now they bought a god damn house and talk about registering at Home Depot and stuff.
And Casey wants to buy an electronic drum set so he can play Rock Band on a better set. He only has 5 songs left to pass on expert, which is respectable, but dropping $1000+ on a god damn drum set is not. We just bought a new tv and he had to get 11 fillings at the dentist. But he makes the money so there it is. Plus I spent a lot on my "medication."

so yesterday morning I was walking my dog and there was crow in the middle of the road that had gotten hit by a car and it was still alive, so i picked it up and put it on the grass under a tree so it could at least not get smushed, and i didn't think it was going to live. this morning it's hopping around in the gutter right next to the road again and i was like, damn it, i'll put it farther away from the road. so i did. and the damn thing wobbled out again. so i was like, well the bird is much better today, but it just needs another day to un-dizzy itself, so i put it on our balcony since at the time it wasn't flying. this afternoon, i'm like, well it seems to be alive enough to not be in danger of dying but screwed up enough that it can't function, but when i called animal control they had closed at 2:30pm (wtf). so now i've got this dying crow wobbling around my balcony and it's my god damn fault i have to take it to get euthanized.

but i thought i would have a crow friend or something...until it became apparent that he was all kinds of messed up. his head is on sideways now, and his wing is broken, and his tail is wonky....ugghghgh. i just couldn't let an animal die brutally! i had to let it "recover" (in this case, slowly die) on my balcony.

So recently the LA Times has had some columns about medical marijuana. It started with this one when the columnist decided to see how easy it was to get after hearing how "getting a cannabis card at 18 has become a rite of passage in some quarters" and seeing fliers advertising quick consultations. Of course, she easily got a prescription for her arthritis, and gave a good argument: She'd tried pharmaceutical drugs in the past but stopped because of the side effects, but still had bad days with stiff, painful hands that didn't work. The thing is, after she gets the prescription filled, she drives home with it in the trunk paranoid about cops, and even though her arthritis is so bad she can't even open the bottle, she has already decided not to try it, because the DEA raided some dispensaries and she was sure they were going to come barging into her house to arrest her. The next day she goes to work and flushes it down the toilet, and apparently has a lot to think about, because it was so crazy! As usual, whenever the LA Times has an article about acquiring medical marijuana, it instantly shot to the top of the most-read and most-emailed lists. It was a stupid article in which she presented her valid reasons for qualifying, was surprised that she did qualify, and then decided it was too crazy and illegal to even give it a chance. Fortunately, her next column was about how everyone called her stupid for not even trying it, but she had apparently "accomplished her journalistic mission" by seeing how easy it was to acquire. (This column was, of course, at the top of the most-read and most-emailed lists.) She goes on to write about all the kids she's talked to who got their cards easily after turning 18, and notes that many are law-abiding, school-succeeding, smart people who choose to get their weed the "smart" way. Still, later in the article she says that marijuana shouldn't be used by people that young, because it can so easily sap their energy and "turn a motivated kid into a slacker." Even though she didn't seem to come across any criminal threats to society, but rather kids who recognized a way to legally do what they think is a benign recreational drug. But she also presented cases of patients who truly needed it and whose lives have improved greatly. I guess she was presenting the medical marijuana system as it is: easy for those who qualify and those who don't really qualify, but it was a weird way - she herself felt like a criminal, and it's obvious she doesn't think it's a safe drug for the general public. That's ok, I guess, but I still felt in the end that she still didn't see it as a viable and effective treatment for almost everyone. I don't know.
The thing about California's system is that the law allows marijuana treatment for "cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis,migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief." It's the any other illness part that makes it easy, but if someone comes to a doctor and says that marijuana is their effective treatment of choice for whatever, who can say that they're shouldn't be allowed it? And I think the general consensus among medical users is that it should be absolutely legal anyway, which is why questionable patients are accepted among the general community of those possessing prescriptions. But it does threaten the validity of those with serious cases when anyone can get a card. And it is concerning when everyone reading the LA Times finds out how easy it is, because legal backlash is a threat that could endanger any user, even the most valid ones.
Am I a valid patient? California and my recommending doctor think so, and I know I was last fall. If I were to keep my use of it valid it would only be for panic attacks now, but no one is stopping me from getting high just to watch South Park. And I think anyone should be able to get high before South Park; it's the same as getting drunk before South Park. And don't even get me started on marijuana vs alcohol.

In other marijuana news, the government put out its regular report that teen use of pot can lead to mental illness. This is accepted as fact among most people in the health field, even though the data (which, coming from the government, is suspect anyway) doesn't differentiate between pot use leading to mental illness and mental illness predisposing marijuana addiction. I personally think it's the latter, even though no one seems to ever stop to consider it, because hellooo, drugs are bad.
"Using marijuana increases the risk of developing mental disorders by 40 percent, the report said. And teens who smoke pot at least once a month over a yearlong period are three times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than nonusers, it said. The report also cited research that showed that teens who smoke marijuana when feeling depressed were more than twice as likely as their peers to abuse or become addicted to pot — 8 percent compared with 3 percent."
This is how they based their findings - not with actual scientific evidence that getting high changes your brain and gives you mental illness, but that kids who smoke pot "acquire" mental illness. I have a very strong suspicion that mental illness predisposes teenagers to heavier pot use (and they even say it!), and frankly it makes much more sense to me when they can't even cite physical scientific evidence. Mental illness can manifest itself in many subtle ways long before it's diagnosed, and often it's just plain there long before being diagnosed. However, because the drug war against marijuana was started before almost anyone in America knew about it personally, 80 years later most doctors and scientists still can't look at it objectively. Maybe the study is right and it does make you crazy, but the source is suspect and the conclusion basically biased. Besides, many parents don't know if they're kids are depressed or mentally ill unless the kids bring it up, and there are a lot who aren't diagnosed until the parents take them to the doctor for smoking too much pot. When I was hospitalized at least 30% of the patients were there because their parents thought they smoked too much pot. Yep, we had suicide attempt victims, self-harmers, heroin addicts, hallucinating schizophrenics, and kids who got high after school, all being treated as if they were on the same level of crazy. And it was the doctors who sent them to the in-patient program before therapy or regular psychiatric treatment. Most likely doctors like my psychiatrist, who told me that everything I thought while high was wrong and fucked up and that I would be developing schizophrenia shortly. Nevermind the fact that the American Psychiatric Association unanimously supports medical marijuana. The thing that gets me the most is that the psychiatric world turns a blind eye to the dangers of pharmaceuticals, which they are paid commission to prescribe, despite the fact that they actually DO increase the risk of suicide, not to mention the crazy, unstudied side effects and long-term risks. (Note: not saying pharmaceuticals are completely bad, just that hypocrisy is prevalent.) Ugh, it's such a shame that the government seeks out as many ways as possible to demonize one of the most benign and effective drugs in existence (especially when tobacco and alcohol are taken for granted as acceptable drugs we all have the right to use). If only it was looked at objectively we could find out the REAL risks and benefits.

So I know that I never update, and I don't know how many people even read this, but...I'm thinking of getting a new journal (different name, that's all). This one is 6 years old and contains a lot of crazy stuff, and I feel like I need to start over with a blank slate, you know? This here slate has stuff that I can't believe I wrote and thought, stuff that really isn't about who I am any more. But that's not to say I'm still not crazy. Well, that's a little harsh, but...in my head I feel crazy, even if in actuality there's a lot of crazies out there with more crazy than me. Right? Right.

The Effexor weaning symptoms lasted until maybe around February, and since then I've been getting a real life back together, which is way harder than I thought. School applications and registration take place long before I can actually be in school, so I'm twiddling my thumbs until Fall 2009 when I will finally be attending a 4-year school again. In the meantime I'm starting classes this summer at community college to get some GE stuff out of the way, and will be working part-time when I can find a god damn job. Previous to now I've always gotten a job wherever I applied, and now I'm learning how lucky that was, because shit, I'm sending out a lot of resumes for jobs that I and 2 million other people are qualified for.

I have been offered a very special and tempting job working at a medical marijuana collective. That means that every time I go to work I can smoke all the medical stuff I want for free, and get paid to sit around in a very pleasant-smelling place. The issue I have is that the collective moved from one location in Long Beach to downtown, which would make the trip 30% longer each way, and getting out of there around 5 or 6 will not be pretty. It would be a lot of driving for a job that only pays $10/hour starting (even though it's all in cash and not taxed!) Also, I've been told pretty blatantly that though these jobs are extremely hard to get, my main qualifier is being cute. While that was extremely flattering, I would be working with all guys, and 4 out of 5 patients are male, so that would be a lot of guy exposure. A lot of stoner-guys-wanting-hugs exposure (this is my experience there so far), and I don't know how much I'd have to, or want to, constantly be around that, because to be honest it's creepy and puts me in a defensive position. On the other hand, I could be freaking out about nothing and have it entirely in me to deflect that kind of stuff, plus I'd get to meet a lot more cool people than I would answering phones at a real estate office. And that brings me back to my issues with the commute again. And then I think FUCK RANI, you hated working in offices doing all that crap office stuff - HOW COOL IS THIS JOB OFFER? But on the other hand, I need a job to pay for college, and if I can get $14/hour to be a receptionist part-time with a 10 minute commute, then that is really more practical. And perhaps more soul-crushing, but ultimately better. WHAT SHOULD I DO???

Oh and I went on a honeymoon to Mexico and it was fucking awesome. I have some pictures on my myspace and facebook.
I also got a sweet vaporizer. It was a little late since I've cut back on smoking a whole lot, but it still kicks ass.
Aaaand my puppy is a sweet little butthole.

EDIT: It looks like I very well may get a job at my old place of employment that has the incredible commute of 5 minutes or less, depending on the traffic lights. If so, problem solved - sorry Long Beach Collective.

One of the things I've realized most with my stoned mind-wanderings is that I need to start playing clarinet again. I went for a couple years basically without playing and I'm absolutely out of shape in the face and sound like shit. But I have to start again and keep going because I was going to spend the rest of my life bitter and jealous. If clarinet is going to go out of my life it needs to be on my terms and not the result of crappy situations and my wounded pride. When I stopped trying to play I was upset and saw the clarinet being connected to my parents and my quitting a way of sticking it to them. Yeah, that's what I seriously thought. So I've been going around with a grudge against them - it's their fault I couldn't play music any more, look what they did to me. But now that Sami is studying at UCLA those feelings snowballed into more jealousy and pain (and it didn't help when her oboe professor insulted me for going to Sacramento State - thanks, asshole). All that quitting did for me, though, was give me an excuse to hold on to my resentment and jealousy, which was never going to go away as long as I wasn't playing. My parents don't care at all, because they think I'm a lost cause anyway, so I was just torturing myself. Yeah, I just realized this. As much as I like money and want to actually have a real weekly paycheck, I can't do something else (at least in substitution). I like everything about music - the endless practicing, hard critiques, horrendous competition, asshole conductors, whatever. And I continue to like it even though I cry nearly every day after practicing because I'm a perfectionist pussy and everything seems so hard. I'm going to have to get over everything, most of all my pride, and just do it. And it's really, really hard to get over pride. And all that jealousy too. Because I'd like to be able to attend one of Sami's concerts without having a nervous breakdown or something ridiculous.

On another note, after months of searching for a good fake version of my coveted handbags, I decided that I'm going to not break the law and just spend $250 omg only $168 on a cute bag without the prestige. Behold the Elliott Lucca Etoile satchel:

I think I want it in black patent leather. Yes yes yes, handbags heal my heart.

I don't understand how I can weigh the same and be a completely different size and shape. I need clothes so bad. So baaaad!!! And worst of all, during the past year, in which I haven't been able to even afford a cheap-ass Forever 21 shirt, I've lusted after the most expensive things. Because if I can't afford anything then everything is up for lusting after. And I was lying when I said I couldn't even afford cheap-ass clothes, because I've purchased about $100 of cheap-ass clothes in the past year, all of which show their price after a month or two of wearing. I might as well not spend money if I can't get clothes that last me at least until the next season. Oh friends, friends...My dreams of employment and money-making are on hold until after Christmas and after a few weeks settling in with my puppy. OMG DID YOU HEAR I'M GETTING A PUPPY FOR CHRISTMAS/LATE WEDDDING GIFT TIME????

OMG OMG OMG I seriously pee my pants every time I start thinking about it. No, not seriously, but if I was an exited little puppy I would be peeing.

Anyway, my point was that it pains me to be poor and in love with designer clothes. God. Damn. It.

BUT SERIOUSLY TOO A PUPPY OMG OMG OMG

So for the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving I was constantly nauseous and spent many days laying in bed feeling like crap. The nausea kicked off on the weekend that Casey's parents were down here, but I hosted my first grown-up dinner complete with hors d'oeuvres and marinated things which was supposed to make up for not spending actual Thanksgiving with him. I was short on patience but made it through everything fine. As soon as we hugged hello my mother in law walked straight through our living room, into the (dark) hallway, and opened up the (closed) bedroom door, turned on the light, and gave herself a tour. She's been here at least four or five other times and saw fit to check on the bedroom again. Casey warned me so no sex toys were out and about but I realized after chasing after her that my marijuana vaporizer was sitting out in the open. She even commented on the posters on the wall directly to the right of it. I don't know if she saw it or what but it certainly looks like paraphernalia of some illegal sort, complete with a sticky layer of marijuana stuff on the inside of the dome. I finally convinced her to leave our bedroom, which also happened to be full of the stuff from the living room I moved out to make more space (which made it look like I had atrocious cleaning habits in the bedroom). Later I was entertaining the adults with the xbox when we decided to show them some of the videos we can stream from Casey's computer. The xbox accesses the folder which holds all of Casey's videos, and for some reason Casey has it organized in a roundabout way, so I clicked the "Show all video" option. In the seconds it was loaded I remembered that the selection from the very top of the list starts with "__hot goth sex" and "00xxmultiple_orgazm," still sitting on Casey's computer since college. I pressed exit but the titles flashed on the screen as Casey's mom and uncle sat staring at the TV. Again, I have no idea if they noticed, but god damn Casey needs to get rid of those things or at least rename them so they don't show up all the time on our video list. Jesus fucking Christ.
And thus began the two weeks of nausea. I stopped eating and smoking for the most part, because getting high didn't help enough and then I'd just feel queasy AND high, which wasn't fun. On Thanksgiving I decided that I wanted to eat, god damn it, so for the first time in a month I took a little Effexor. It worked, I ate, and am still feeling alright, though I do have a persistent headache that has lasted since then. That getting high won't fix. Blah.
I broke up with my therapist on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Since starting the Effexor weaning since July I've, of course, smoked a lot of pot, listened to a lot of music, and have spent a lot of time thinking. Without the Effexor I started to react a lot more emotionally towards things that I encountered or thought about. I really think the pot helped me take this down time, scattered with lots of physical and emotional blah, and think about everything in a different way. I thought about all my anger, grudges, hurt, and fear and tried to honestly reflect on all the things that sparked those, why the other people acted like they did, and what I need to do. I've been keeping a lot of those negative feelings inside me, nurturing them, and really I haven't been honest with myself and reality. I'm really trying to open myself up emotionally and mentally and see things in a more thorough way, and by doing so I've made a lot of personal progress. Decisions that I've been trying to debate (and ignore) for many years are being solved as I lay in bed with a half-stoned, wandering mind. And I then I wonder why the hell I ever deluded myself into treating those things the way I have been. It's scary but for the first time in my life I feel like I've got the power and the competency to figure this stuff out. I've just been too scared and irrational in my narrow ways of thinking that I was stalling real progress. So I would definitely say that Tool and pot helped me so much more than that year of therapy I just did, which is funny, because I knew so many guys in high school who just smoked a lot of pot and listened to metal.

OMG and Casey's mom thought I was pregnant because I didn't drink or want to touch raw poultry. WTF I was so freaked out when she asked me. HOLY CRAP.

I think I have bronchitis. After my third night on the cough (too sick=too noisy of a sleeper), I am trying to decide if I should go to the doctor before or after the West Hollywood Halloween carnival. I'm pretty sure that if I go before, I'm just going to get sick again afterward, so unless my coughing gets more horrendous, I'm going to wait until November, when my cough shall certainly be impressive. Luckily I have had many opportunities in my life to practice working around coughs. I feel like I'm a kid again with this winter cough! Oh and the wind shifted and it is no longer smoky here, though until last night there OC fire was still going. Whatev, I'm more concerned about my home coming under attack of pantry moths.

I just have to say that after three nights and two days stuck inside, today I must venture outside. The smoky air permeated everything in my apartment and I am SICK. Listen, wind, it's bad enough that you took all of summer's pollen and crap and blew it around everywhere, but then you also had to blow obscene amounts of smoke my way too. Listen apartment, it's bad enough that you are not airtight, but I'M SICK now thanks to your poor construction. Yeah we don't have cold coming in but TOXIC SMOKE. THANKS A LOT. I have to go see my therapist today and I feel like shit. I can't sleep from the smoke, can't breathe from the smoke, can't DO ANYTHING.
And my Effexor is still making me really nauseous. My nose won't stop bleeding from the dry air. My car is covered in ash. The sky is orange still. I'M IN A PRETTY BAD MOOD.

So. I was going to go to the store today because we're like out of food but Casey ordered a new computer and I have to be here to receive it. We just bought a $500 server...for ourselves. IT IS A NECESSITY, OK.

Kitty was taken away on Saturday morning. After unexpected hard rain there was an issue with the cat box that led, of course, to our ongoing fight about the year of promises I've made to rid ourselves of the cat Casey hates so much. "Hairy black asshole" is what Casey called him. He was an awesome cat! I miss my kitty, but the rescue I got him from and returned him to said that he'd be easy to adopt again. Hopefully by someone without a cat-hating husband. I guess I can think of my two years with Mr. Kittyface as an extended fostering where he was treated well and hopefully became a nicer kitty.

My sister Sami finally started school at UCLA just last week. I went up and hung out with mah friend Kurt and her and went to Venice and then Sami and I drove to USC to pick up her boyfriend and his friend and then we all went to Hollywood. Everybody was like WE'RE GOIN TO HOLLYWOOD! Which included a long drive through Koreatown, where I've never been before. Hollywood is a lot nicer than it was 10 years ago. We had a delish dinner with all the beautiful people at a celebrity-frequented restaurant that was not The Ivy. Sami's boyfriend's friend ordered his gourmet burger WELL DONE. We were like WTF. Our waiter, who was to-die-for cute, laughed too. Dining really points out non-Californians. What is an artichoke? I've never had asparagus. I've never eaten a good bloody steak. I don't eat fish. Calamari is fried squid?! Serious, people, we have the best food ever. I am such a California snob. OMG when we were in Hollywood I could have sworn I saw a clarinet player I was in youth symphony with. He looked at me real funny too but I was driving. I left a message on his facebook but bitch hasn't written me back.

Oh and I have been listening almost exclusively to Tool. Of all the bands with songs about raping children, I like them best. Even though I feel stupid when listening to them because I have no idea how they write songs in the time signatures they do.

I've been thinking a lot about life, my friends. My new motto is Fuck em, which I might have mentioned before. I'm going to take charge of my life! I'm going to get myself an education and an easy job that pays a lot! I will work so that in 10 years I can have kids and a nice house and lots of nice stuff. And then my kids will actually have opportunities instead of relying on scholarships and they'll go to good schools that actually send students to good colleges. I'm afraid to wait more than 10 years to have kids because I'm terrified of having a deformed or retarded baby. I know I'm a bad person, but after 30 the chances get higher of having a retarded kid. Maybe I will be ready for kids in 10 years.

Oh and I think I may go on a cruise for my honeymoon. Casey refuses to travel unless he can relax and do nothing, and I refuse to travel without seeing the sights, so it is a good compromise. Now I just have to convince him that we should go on the luxury cruise to Antarctica.

So it's my birthday and I went to Neiman Marcus at Fashion Island (which isn't an island, but a ritzy Newport Beach outdoor mall). They were having a 100-year anniversary event where you get a bag full of goodies for making a $200+ beauty purchase. And I needed new perfume!

OK, so my mom got me hooked on expensive perfumes because she used to work for a perfumer (?). Anyway, because I live in Orange County and am a fashion and style victim, I like lookin good, and I try to make it seem like you'd have no idea how much money I have to spend by just looking at me. I shop at H&M and Forever21 for cheap cheap clothes, and buy designer jeans at thrift stores in Santa Monica, and get a pair of the perfect Michael Kors shoes when they're on big, big sale. Perfume is expensive (I usually spend between $50-$100), but I can wear it every day for a long time, and it will always make me feel good. Expensive perfumes rely on natural ingredients which is why they're so expensive. Cheaper perfumes contain synthetic scents. The difference is that the natural ingredients last longer on the skin and evolve through the day but stay strong. A good perfume is mixed to smell best on the skin and not necessarily when you're sniffing the tester bottle. Cheaper perfumes don't last at all and their scent is noticeably synthetic to me. Oh what a nice, attainable luxury good perfume is!

I bought Tom Ford Black Orchid for myself, oh it's so sophisticated and sexy. I was planning on buying more but my saleswoman was like Nah you get the free gift anyway! I love nicer department stores like Nordstrom and Neiman's (my two favorites) because they're so nice to customers. So for $90 I got my perfume and a cool pewter handbag full of a bunch of different perfume samples and some Prada and Lancome beauty sample stuff.

Here is my birthday advice to you all: Go to a department store and get a nice perfume and wear it every day. Now you're fabulous, even if your shoes are cheap and your pants haven't been washed in forever and you're wearing a shirt your drunk friend left in your car 2 years ago.