
So, it turns out that it wasn't just PTGSAS -- post traumatic grad school application syndrome. I'm actually sick. I don't think I have the pig flu because my main symptoms have been low-grade feelings of fatigue and apathy, which can easily be mistaken for failure and PMS. When I realized that the chest congestion, loss of appetite and cough were not among my usual responses to fears of an unjust MFA god, I decided I needed to get proactive about my healing.
I wasn't well enough to drive all the way to the health food store, so I went to Safeway to see what kind of healing I could squeeze from Celestial Seasons tea and Stovetop Stuffing. I spent fifteen minutes scrutinizing the ingredients of all the herbal teas, muttering to myself about the lack of selection. Where was Grandma's Tummy Mint? Isn't it against the law to not stock this? I did find a few boxes of fantastic teas from a company based in the town in California I used to live in. But Safeway is apparently ignorant about which herbs would have been most helpful to me. Their buyer is clearly not an herbalist. So, I settled for Sleepytime tea and Tension Tamer. It was the best herbal combination I could come up with from the limited selection. Plus, it was two for five bucks, so that meant I would have enough money left to buy a piece of ginger root for maximum stomach settling power.
I bought a frozen dinner because I am sick of miso soup. I drank tea. I absorbed the super healing powers of two movies -- Planet of the Apes and Psycho. Yes! Anthony Perkins puts Vince Vaughn to shame as Norman Bates. (The remake was on last week. I watched it. Don't bother. Fake lezzie Anne Heche is okay as Marion Crane, but Vaughn was terribly miscast. He gave it a good shot, but he came off like his character from Swingers with a bit of Down's Syndrome.) And while Charlton Heston is largely annoying as the lost astronaut known to his ape captors as Bright Eyes, that movie remains compelling. Maybe it was my sickness, but I threw up in my mouth a little bit when Heston (as Taylor) decides his beautiful and mute (and therefore perfect)
mate (played by Linda Harrison) should go by the name Nova. He tries to teach her to say it. His misogynistic smirk pretty much conveys, "Damn, I love stupid snatch." Nevertheless, it's a great flick to be sick to. There is one scene in which three gorillas stand smiling and posing for photos behind a stack of humans they've killed. It is so Abu Garaib it ain't funny.
Since it's Halloween, I may have to conclude my healing with more horror movies. I'd prefer to see a marathon of What Not to Wear, but I may have to settle for Bridezilla. No, I won't. I can't take that level of bitchiness, even if it is one of my father's favorite shows and I have yet to watch it enough to determine exactly where this places my father in the DSM IV book. Really, I'd like to finish my library books. I'm trying to read this memoir written by a potential future professor of mine. But I can't do that either. It hurts to read right now. It makes me feel worse. You would think that spending a few hours watching crime shows on the Investigation Discovery network would also make me feel bad. But no. Oddly, I feel just a tiny bit better. Maybe because I consider myself matching the paces of the forensics team and figuring out before the narrator says it that "the neighborhood sweetheart has a taste for murder." Actually that's not a quote. I made it up. But it sounds right, doesn't it?
So, here's where I confess the truth. I didn't find Grandma's Tummy Mint. No. But I did find Mom's Pharmaceuticals. Holy crap! All I can say is that there must have been some magic in that old pink pill I found because when I put it in my mouth I began to dance around (no, I fell asleep for twelve hours.) And actually, she gave it to me. I didn't raid her apothecary (I mean her strictly legal medicine cabinet.) But I might tonight. For now I am drinking Tension Tamer and eating fresh fruit. The MFA application process didn't kill me, but it may have made me sick. Still, my applications are all where they need to be -- out of my hands. If I could I would hibernate like a bear and wake up just in time to pee and to read more than one acceptance letter. For now, I am accepting the things that I cannot change. Like the fact that Safeway doesn't know jack about herbs and that there is a long time between now and when I find out about grad school.