He started working at Starbucks as a stopgap because the band just moved (they all live together), and because they are still renting studio space to finish their album. They have a producer; they have record companies interested in them; they are doing well. I fully expect that one day I'll be saying I knew him when.

Yesterday, Ry and I were talking about his life. He says it's very weird, because on the weekends, he's a rockstar. He gets free booze, sex, drugs and groupies. He hangs out with famous musicians and other celebrities, he plays with bands high up on the food chain of fame. And then on Monday mornings, he has to come into Starbucks and make Frappuccinos, and he's not a rockstar anymore.

This week, after Journalcon, I feel kind of like Ry. Like, woah, what happened to all the love, man? I don't want to live in a world where I am not a rockstar!

I had to take Monday off. I was totally emotionally exhausted. It was a weird feeling. I spent the whole day reading entries, vegetating in front of the TV, and being incoherent when people tried to communicate with me.

It was possibly the most worthless day I have ever spent, but I needed it. I'm not fully decompressed yet, but Monday helped. I am starting to feel like my old, ordinary self again.

The SAT is on Saturday, which means that I am having my final tutoring sessions with all of my students. It sort of sucks to say goodbye to these kids-- you do get close to them after spending eight hours studying analogies and whatnot.

A lot of the final review lesson is timed, which means I don't have much to do except say "Go!" and then sit back and wait for time to pass. (I try to say "Go!" in a very supportive way.) I've been carrying around my thesis manuscript and doing edits during the downtime. It's much better than what I was doing before: doodling in the margins of my teacher's edition. Very professional.

Today I wrote a poem called "Calculations," and I came home and printed it out and got so excited I nearly wet myself. Because it is the perfect poem with which to start the thesis. The first lines are, and I swear I didn't do it on purpose, "it starts with the words / their lines and curves" -- can you beat that? And the name of the book is Curves and everything!

The last line of the poem is "& what the brain tells the body" so the last word is "body" and the theme of the book is "the body"! D'you know? It's the perfect introductory poem. The icing on the cake is that, as a poem apart from that, I like it quite a lot. (I would post it, except that the formatting's all wonky.)

It came out of the Journalcon experience, actually-- it's about having chemistry with another person, which happened over and over this weekend. It's about the science of language, in a weird way. How conversations can turn you on. How words can turn you on, whether it's an online journal, or a conversation, or a poem...

Actually I'm making all this up, but it sounds great. I might hate this poem tomorrow, but right now, I am genius. Pardon me while I bask.

One thing about Journalcon that I was remiss not to mention: Jenfu had a whole lot to do with my success as a moderator. When I was freaking out last week, she sent me a bunch of questions for my panels. Most of my panel questions came from her, so there you go. Yay Jen!

She also told me that I said "thingie" a lot during the panel. There's something cool about that. We always used to make fun of my grandmother for using the word "dinga" every time she didn't know a noun. It's Dutch for "thingie" -- not officially, but the way Grandma used it, it was. It was always the essential noun in the sentence, too. "Get da dinga out of da dinga, Minikie!" "What do you mean, Grandma?" "Da dinga! Da dinga!"

The really frightening thing is that eventually, we started figuring out what "da dinga" was. It kind of makes me happy that I've picked up my grandmother's catchphrase unknowingly.

I've seen a bunch of Journalcon pictures, and so far, there are no cute ones of me. I've seen one of me scratching my nose, one of me and Scalzi gaping up at the sky like idiots, and one where I am dancing next to Anna Beth, and therefore look like Jupiter next to Earth-- 1,000 of AB could fit into one of me. That girl is teeny!

(And then there's the picture in this entry, with Emily and Pamie and I looking confused by the masturbation video. Please note that I am dealing with my confusion by doing a weird little dance. It's the same exact dance my father does to every song, god help me.)

When I look at the camera and smile, I am photogenic and cute, I promise! Why was I not looking into the camera and smiling... ever? I am cute, damnit. You met me, right? I was cute, right? Hello? Could we get some testimony here, brothers and sisters?

Well, there's an up side. If I see enough photos wherein I look crazy and freakish, I'll stop believing that I am secretly a rockstar.

Or... not. Maybe not.