OOOOOOOOOKlahoma! Where the wind comes sweeping down the turnpike....

Ok so I have been gone for a year. I'm in grad school. I'm not gonna give any excuses because no one cares anyway. So off to new and random thoughts!

So Oklahoma, the land of my people. Well, at least for the last two decades or so. I tend to like it because its really cheap to live here, my friends and family are here, there are some beautiful landscapes and lots of history. However, there are quite a few stereotypes about Oklahoma and you know what they say about stereotypes: they're there for a reason.

I was watching an episode of Criminal Minds the other day and while other states have had serial killers that were portrayed as intelligent and sophisticated, Oklahoma's serial killer was a mentally retarded taxidermist that was fixated on honing his glass eyeball technique. Not that I feel slighted on the social status of our serial killers in fictitious media, it's just the principle that despite gleaming and beautiful cities full of successful people and rich histories, the best they could come up with to represent the 28th most populous state was a recluse man in a raccoon hat killing people with ashtrays and stuffing wall-eyed mountain lions. I resent that.

And how about the episode of Friends when Chandler (Chanandler Bong to those of you groupies) was transferred to Tulsa? Now I am well aware that Tulsa holds no candle to the Big Apple, but you got the feeling that both Chandler and Monica would consent to contracting a strapping case of herpes before having to live here because all there was to do was eat BBQ and... eat more BBQ. In fact, apparently the only place Chandler can be considered sexy is... you got it- Oklahoma. Bollocks.

Many moons ago, I used to live in South Carolina. I moved there from Oklahoma and of course, turned around and came back when my father's company transferred him, again. I remember my last day of school there when all the kids asked, "Are you afraid that you'll die in the tornados?" Really??

And let us not forget that Charlie Sheen invented Tulsa.

So, point taken. We're known for some pretty lame things. But despite the fact that we're 49th in education, first in early death, so subsequently dead last in health, and that the populous spent $304,000 welfare dollars on tobacco last year, some of us are proud to live in Oklahoma and actually enjoy it. And despite the fact that that we have the junkiest roads in a 15 state radius, that our weather has an uncontrolled case of bipolar disorder, and are 5th on the DEA's list for one of the top methamphetamine producing states in the union, some of us call this home and you won't find a friendlier population of people. And just go ahead and forego the fact that the media portrays us as all as cowboys and indians who spend all day out hunting, eatin' BBQ and beef jerky out of our truck bed, just to come home to our trailer/teepee and cook up some toilet bowl cleaner so we can sell some meth, buy a new deer hauler, and go huntin' again tomorrow. Despite our tarnished image, we really are a great and diverse people who take pride in where we live, who we are, what we do and that we do it with with sophistication and style. Welcome to Oklahoma!!

Neuroticism and other new traits

So I am erupted back from the dead by a lovely head cold that has snapped me back into one of the few remaining artifacts of my former life: my blog. Since my last post, I have been accepted to graduate school, met a long -lost sister, planned a wedding, got married, quit my job, moved, and became a full time student. Life is so different from what is was just four months ago, I fear the fall out or absolute meltdown that may lie ahead. No one switches up this much crap and gets off scott free.

I have embarked on becoming a physician assistant because apparently I think I am smart. I really just think I'm a damn good actress that fooled a lot of people. I sit in my class everyday soaking up thousands of little bits of information concerning the human body in hopes that one day I might even be able to pronounce it, let a lone recognize it and actually help someone. There is so much data cramming into my neurons, the little person in my head that sits back off to the side and is amazed at it all. Now this side person, I'm convinced, is a product of my sheer loneliness. She needs a name, for she's somewhat stylish and pretty funny. Come to think of it, she reminds me of my former self. But I digress. Many of my fellow students have felt the same sentiment. One girl wanted a cat so she'd have someone around. Another one admitted to talking to pictures of her friends. So really, having this imaginary person to talk to in my head doesn't seem so crazy.

I think she's stylish because she wears cute outfits, much unlike myself these days. I was so used to buying fun, professional attire. Now that I am just wear jeans and tee shirts, I feel like everyday is the first day of my period. Or that maybe I was kidnapped as a child and raised by bums. Either way, I feel pretty not pretty. This person in my mind is also pretty amusing. She tells good jokes. Everything in class is so serious, so detrimental, so pertinent. It was beyond old after the first week. I'm tired of everything being a flipping emergency, like the western hemisphere is going to burn down if someone gets a B because they didn't know that diarrhea was a side effect of some obscure tropical disease.

At home, I am a wife. I think. This new abode I live in was his prior to the wedding and some days I feel as if I live at a hotel only without the maid service. I'm not very good at cooking or cleaning, but I try in between paragraphs of human behavior and power naps on the kitchen table. The laundry room looks like downtown Beirut. I have so many clothes missing, I swear the lawn guy comes in the house and shops in my closet for his wife. Its the only explanation I can come up with for the missing athletic shorts, white dress trousers and black flats. Whoever has them looks really good from the waist down. I'm also in charge of grocery shopping. Currently we have chocolate soy milk, an over-ripe avocado, some spaghetti sauce and pretzel sticks. Apparently grocery shopping requires an unoccupied brain. We eat out a lot.

So needless to say, life has gone from one kind of crazy to another. Instead of a year planning for massive change, its a new year of coping with its aftermath. It's trying to keep up while finding moments to relax/silence my brain. Sleep is a hot commodity. Its figuring out my new role as a wife, sister, in-law, and roommate while creating another as a student and medical practitioner. It's exercising all morning just to eat it all back on trying to stay awake while reading physiology. So really, there's no figment, there's just the apparition of my former life I'm clinging to for some means of stability. And I feel its only fair I get to post up a little bit of neuroticism every now and again.