have the lambs stopped screaming?

okay, a couple things. let's harken (harken? hark? go?) back to the early, rough like rocks days of doesnotapply.com, where we wore bikinis for the first time and saw the white squirrel and the breaking of the other phone. we're harkening on back because i've got a hankering (like that? huh? "harkening" and "hankering?" i thought so) to present a list. remember lists?

1) today in criminal procedure, the till-now silent phone on the wall began to ring, ring ring ring, probably about five minutes in. ring ring. naturally, we all stopped our crosswords, our IMs, and our note? taking? in order to give the professor ring ring-a-ling some time to ring-ding-diiing answer the phone. but there was no answering of the riiiiinnnggggg-nnnggg phone, because this professor was just that rrrrrring-ng-g! dedicated. it rang on.

and on.

it gave rise to some thoughts, this endlessly ringing phone, thoughts like "is it for me? maybe it's for me. and everybody knows it's for me, somehow, and i'm just not answering it because i don't know. should i get up? who is it, i wonder? is it just that pressing?"

this concluded, somehow, after about forty straight minutes of ringing telephone, in the following thought: "my apartment is burning down, and my possessions have been engulfed in flames."

2) i arrived two hours early for school because i thought we had a make-up class. unfortunately, no make-up class. instead, i got a lot of work done, and you know what? i'm going to abandon this item altogether because it is just boring.

3) currently, i am having a mild panic attack. it's not really a panic attack in the traditional sense, if there is such a thing, but it's an rather unpleasant trip down memory lane for me. there are certain things that can come together in a way--like the weather, with just the right amount of humidity, just the particular strength of a cold front, just the precise angle the wind comes in, and you have yourself some phenomenon--that can create this gnawing sort of panic that sits in my guts. now prepare yourself, i'm going to try and be specific. i know. don't be disappointed.

what i mean is, there are two things that work with each other and one against: a deep fear of every ugly thing i've ever thought about myself being glaringly true along with a deep fear of being abandoned completely, with both of them pushing hard against the truth to crack it apart. and the truth is....i don't really know. but it's not those fears. it's someplace in the middle, just like everything else.

regardless, these things are working in me all the time, the problem is that sometimes things trigger their intensity enough so i notice, and thus the panic cranks up and sits in my guts--and sometimes makes its way to my stomach, and my chest, and then my throat. but right now it's keeping itself busy chewing it over down there, so.

that's specific enough.

4) in better news, i finished my book last night and will make a trip to the bookstore tonight in order to get another. and then i get to go home. and sleeeeeepsleepsleep. my secretary (ha! her words, not mine) emailed me this morning to say i have a full day of appointments tomorrow at work. my secretary also calls me "precious." not precious like buffalo bill. yick.