i've been a piss-poor blogger. the high hand of veterinary school has dictated my two-to-one moves across the board. my cat is pissed at me. i haven't seen my dogs since november. i owe a dozen or more people emails. i'm still trying to understand how others tick, how i tick. and this is definitely an awkard space for attempting such feats. today, in our issues course we had a talk from teri austin, an animal rescue activist. turns how she spent eighty-seven seasons on knots landing. i used to watch knots landing with my stepfather on thursday nights at ten when i was in the single digits. i don't remember her.

i make so few connections with people outside of my schooling. i make it a point to hit romano's macaroni grill once a month, merely because the waiter knows my name. i request his table, he asks how i'm doing. knows my order. the mushroom ravioli and about three liters of ice tea. his name is daryl. i was sad when i'd by chance heard the restaurant was closing a few weeks ago. i went in to say my goodbyes, and he happily informed me that he'd been transferred to the same restaurant a few foothill boulevard towns away. i happily ate my ravioli and listened to him sing opera for two women at an adjacent table. he wrote on my check: 'thank you alice! you're the best!' i keep the check on my desk, near my audobon society guides, near the picture of my eight year-old brother effing around in my sister's bikini, to keep me sane.

i've won two scholarships and a morris animal foundation summer grant for circovirus research in common murre feather follicles. the academic accolades never seem to be the problem...

i'm thinking of moving closer to the ocean, where i can get cotton candy on the pier. where i can walk my dog on the beach. where i can jump on the pch and go anywhere on a saturday morning. i have built my school around my life (not to mention my life around my school). i've been doing it for more than eight years, now. i'm incredibly lonely sometimes. others, i fly. i'm thirty-four next month. i don't like even-numbered years. regardless of their contents. i need something to love right now, so i'm bottle-feeding a two-week old kitten that purrs like a 1x1 skipping across a picket fence.

i watched simon pegg's latest flick tonight, a distant second to the others. but i walked in weepy and miserable and out as if a cancer had been excised. thank whomever for these moments of reprieve. i bought a set of stamps with jimmy stewart's likeness on them, just so i could look at them when i need to. by the way chester hates the two-week old.

i have to write my dissertation. now. or maybe this summer.