yes, i am afraid of the dark

times are changing. big, new things are happening. i don't understand all of them. i hope that most of them are real, and not just the aftermath of this bizarre holiday-centric neurosis i experience annually.

this one is not mine. my family friend/older sister figure found another woman's underwear in the back of her husband's car. she is leaving him. she is living in my mother's living room. she is doing a lot of shopping, but she is ok. "nothing will ever be the same," she says. she seems happy about it.

this one is mine. i am being more honest with my parents, and, by extension, myself. i told them both my plans concerning boys, and they were both surprisingly receptive. next summer i am going to buy a bathing suit that does NOT conceal my tattoo. it's time. plus, i'm tired of adjusting every time i get out of the water. today my dad took me to see avpr, against his better judgment. it was terrible. i was happy when i got home; when my mom asked me why, i said it was because i'd convinced my dad to do something he didn't want to. i didn't even know that was true until it came out of my mouth.

i believe in all these weird little things, like signs. i'm too cowardly to go around saying that i believe in god, so any kind of faith i have manifests itself in an absolute confidence that things are true based on coincidence. i'm on the verge of completely embracing it and acting drastically. the other night my mom and i were driving home from placerville. we were coming out of a valley, and it was snowing - i looked up and couldn't see the hills on the other side. the amount of snow that was falling into the valley at that moment terrified me, and i figured out something pretty important. whether it's true or hormones, we'll have to just see.

all in all, i've made some decisions. we'll see how they work out.

i really enjoy this. why did i wait so long to get to it?

not to parody carleton too hard, but i am really enjoying writing this paper and i am KICKING myself for waiting so long to get around to the fun part. the problem is, i spent three days developing and then nitpicking my critical framework, and left the close reading until the last minute. i ALWAYS do this. i'm afraid to just say anything myself, so i research REALLY HARD and then try and work a million little tidbits i think are valuable into about four pages that passably resemble where i want to come from. then i have to pull an all-nighter to say what i want to say about the text, which, if you've ever been in a class with me, you'll know is where i get way prolific to the point of not being able to keep my mouth shut. that is the fun part.

just in case you were wondering, right now i'm doing a reading of the most graphic scene in alison bechdel's fun home. i kind of can't believe that i'm writing a real paper for a real class where i get to talk about 1. comic books and 2. graphic lesbian sex. any teenage nerds reading this, there's your wet dream material for the next week: a female grad school student (wearing glasses), getting hip-deep in an analysis of oral sex as presented in graphic narrative form. actually, there's no way a teenager would think that was hot, or that a teenager would be reading this. to think that was hot you'd have to be the dude i dreamed about a few months ago who translated things from french to english and then english to latin instead of making out with me. that actually was pretty hot. and to read this, well, i guess you'd have to be a sucka.

today's freudian slips

juggy (jiggy)
indentity (identity)
write (right)
wrote (wrought)
cited (excited)
beer (free)

you, trynna flex on me? don't be silly.

in case you were wondering, this is where i get all my sweet moves. also, watching the gettin jiggy wit it video like three times a day. oh my gosh, i love will smith. not only are reruns of the fresh prince still incredible, gettin jiggy wit it is my number one feel good song. it never lets me down. and no swears, even! no violence or gunshots, just a bunch of money flying around and a lot of smiling.

it took me all semester to figure out that studying at home RULES compared to working in the library. RULES. so far today i've had like eight cups of tea and two inspirational dance sessions with my roommate, plus two bagels and a bunch of chocolate. this is AWESOME.

procrastination rhymes with everything

my room is clean. i'm full. i took a shower. i have some water. my research is done. WHAT IS MY PROBLEM.

update: my problem was that i was not listening to rap music.

happy holidays

this made me cry.

sometimes being eccentric is not that delightful

first, yesterday was my birthday. i had an INCREDIBLE time. my grandpa took me to the vet for my cat's appointment and he's totally fine, carolann gave me wool socks AND pens, and a bunch of people came out for beers even though it was really, really snowing and they paid for a bunch of beers that i drank which i completely forgot to thank them for. hopefully they invite me to their birthdays and i can show them the same generosity. ALSO, my friends from portland sent me a huge box filled with COOKIES, so, i spent today's daylight hours watching amelie and eating cookies in bed. eating cookies in bed is maybe my favorite activity, and i thought i was going to enjoy watching amelie but this is the second time that it's just created a lot of problems for me. there are a lot of movies around - garden state, eternal sunshine - that imply that falling in love with an "eccentric" girl will solve your problems, the converse of this being that if you are an "eccentric" girl, someone will appreciate every insane thing that you do. "delightfully eccentric" was actually a phrase i began using to describe myself in high school, hoping that exactly this kind of mindset would become popular but it never did because it's completely false. guys are really into the "it's 2 am! let's go on an adventure!" thing for about five minutes and then they're just tired and you're there with your coat on and they realize that you're not just movie-weird, you ARE weird. basically, i have the same complaint that people have always had about representations of romance, which is that they set up impossible expectations and lead to disappointment, loneliness and despair, except this time i'm complaining that it's become popular for these representations to imply that love is even better if you're a crazy person like me and i know from experience that this is not true. it's just as messy, if not messier. in conclusion, f*ck amelie.

no. way.

so, a fine example is an incredible comic that i really like. first of all, you might not think that a legless pirate would be able to be a complex character. well, that's wrong. also, the way his son is drawn continually blows my mind, not to mention the idea of parking an enormous ship in the yard, having a zombie car salesmen you knew in high school for a friend (he wears a beanie, obviously), having a mother-ish figure who gives you peanut butter and jelly in a PLASTIC BAG in your lunch - it's all pretty incredible. if you scroll down, a couple days ago (yesterday?) someone commented on my blog and said that pauleen, the mother-ish figure, IS HIS SISTER. i couldn't believe it. so this morning i posted a reply addressing his comments, yeah yeah, and included my favorite appearance of pauleen's. then GUESS WHAT. look at the comments. you'll see. THAT IS WHAT. i feel like i know i would feel if rod stewart signed my forehead (i think rod stewart is really cool, so that might help you figure out how that would feel).

ah, buddy

i have a tendency to get extremely emotionally involved in the things i do for school. i'm currently finishing up a twenty pager on the religious reception of j.d. salinger's glass family and i just CAN NOT get salinger out of my head. i know that all he wants is privacy and that if he googled his own name he might just keel over thinking about all those people who think about him all the time, but i just can't stop!!! thankfully, i doubt he uses the internet very much, so i'm not going to worry about that for now. but every time i come across a negative review (which is pretty often, especially when you start getting into "hapworth 16, 1924"), i think about how salinger obsessed over it and it just breaks my heart. he ALMOST agreed to reprint "hapworth" through this tiny obscure publishing house, but the new york times found out and ran a negative review and the next thing you know, he's changed his mind. i don't want to be one of those people who are all like "oh look x happened and then salinger did y he must have been thinking z," but i just can't help it.

one of my friends from high school is a "salinger scholar," if that's even a thing, and he has all of his stories. i'm going to read all of it over break. partly because i'm burning to after all this thinking about him, and partly because i think that VOLUMES of previously unpublished stuff is going to come out after his death and i want to be ready for it. assuming he isn't dead already and no one knows about it, which is a distinct possibility. if i were salinger i would not keep in touch with margaret anne salinger. i HATE his daughter and i HATE joyce maynard and i HATE michiko kakutani. i HATE them.

to ricky - with sleepiness and trepidation

YOUR SISTER IS PAULEEN?!? this is incredible! this is pretty much my favorite one. the dynamic they have is . . . it's incredible.

no capitals isn't really a style. it's mostly just me being lazy. if this blog were a program that auto-capitalized at the beginning of every sentence, i would probably roll with it. don't tell bell hooks i said that. but you feel free to rip off whatever you want. also, before you credit me with anything other than my own name, you should know that most things i do i rip off my friend lizzy.

for some reason, i always had this feeling that my inner monologue might be of particular interest to other people. but like you, i realize that everyone who blogs feels this way, and that this feeling has led to an enormous amount of useless information on the internet. it's nice to hear though that maybe i'm a little bit right once in a while. however, don't feel bad if you don't care about how many coffees i've had this week or what i'm into on youtube right now. i don't think anyone should care about that stuff; i barely do.

that little guy in the picture is sitting on someone's finger. i don't know how clearly that comes across, but it's important to note that he is just that tiny.

and lastly, preach on about the pizza. that is a terrific story; i too was once on the "oh, it doesn't have almonds and like three kinds of goat cheese? count me out" trip. but i'm on two slices a day of real cheese pizza right now, all crisp and greasy, big ol doughy crust. it's an incredible high.

so dude, do you have a blog? let's see it! or, you know, facebook me or whatever.

The Function of Lists in Personal Weblog Entries

finals menu
early: bagel, coffee
at some point if i come across it: a banana
later: two pieces of cheese pizza from sabatino's, eaten on the way home
throughout: diet coke, water

tallies for the last four days
pizza: IIIIII
bagels: IIII
medium mochas: IIIIII
diet cokes: like a million
hours of sleep: 16

omg omg omg

aaaaAAAAHHHH!!!!

(btw, i think this is terrifying, not adorable.)

update: uh-ohhhh.

ok, i messed up a lot

i love how v. ice just CAPITALIZES on that ish. i can't wait to get home and watch
1. the first one
2. this one
3. both bill & teds
4. hella law & order
5. a bunch of my so-called life

think what you want of me.

so, i messed up a little bit by not starting this paper earlier. but, i'm not beating myself up about it because
1. i didn't skip work in order to get it done
2. i'm doing a good job of keeping warm
3. i called my mom today
4. my cat has a cold and i'm ready to take care of that in a grown-up way.

we are in danger of flunking most heinously tomorrow, ted.

here's something depressing: i've been up late enough every night this week to open the next day's little window on my advent calendar. so far i've had the willpower not to "travel into the future" in order to eat an entire week's worth of cheap chocolate. we'll see how long that lasts. i'm not sure how much i believe in the time traveller's code of ethics. it's been a long time since i last watched bill and ted. too long. we are destined to flunk most egregiously tomorrow.

finals mode

1. sleeping in my clothes
2. eating (mostly unhealthy) food not prepared by me
3. staying up late
4. taking an hour to fall asleep, during which i silently freak out, try to relax each muscle individually, and wonder if i should just get back up and keep working

. . . really?

twenty people looked at my blog today.

they are suckas!

i love pizza. that is probably something you should know. i can't believe it took me all semester to figure out that 1. there is a pretty rad pizza place right at my t stop and 2. the walk home is exactly how long it takes to devour two pieces of cheese pizza. i'm kind of worried now that i have.

yesterday, my grandparents stopped by with two enormous bags. each contained a winter coat. i actually have three or four coats - they know this - but they were worried that none of them went down far enough and that i would be cold. so they made me choose one, and took the other back. first, it says a lot that they bought two and let me choose instead of just buying me one and handing it to me. second, it says even more that this is finals time, so instead of making me pick one out myself, they just brought them to me. third, they were worried enough to do it at all. i LOVE having relatives. even more than having pizza.

also, right after that they took me out to lunch and then gave me a ride to school. when we were done with lunch, poppy went out to get the car and pull it around (he ALWAYS does this, i never have to walk from the car to anywhere or from anywhere back to the car, this is a thing that a gentleman does) and while we were waiting my grandma apologized to the boy at the table behind us for interrupting his solitude (my grandma is the queen of starting conversations with strangers and being incredibly well-received). he thanked her, and then went on to tell us how lucky i am to get to spend time with my grandparents. don't i know it, i said.

INCREDIBLE

aaaand that's it for youtube today.

i just do what i'm told

i got told to go here and they were right. i liked it.

conclusion to yesterday's dilemma: NONE

finally, i found someone else who is into this video:


for some reason it just never caught on with anyone but me. here are some things i like to think about it when i'm watching it:
1. do they say "i love you," or am i making that up?
2. is that her real voice?
3. would this be considered pretty risque?
4. is that a culturally insensitive question?
5. what is up with the girls' pants?
6. how much of the dance moves are based on traditional dance moves, and how much are they based on michael jackson?
7. is that a culturally insensitive question?
8. do people really roll like eight dozen deep in india?
9. is this india?
10. i think you probably know what 10 is.

goodbye, sneakers. hello, boots.

just one week after retiring my converse (too cold, too wet) in favor of my sambas (fewer holes, more popular*), it is time to switch to boots for the winter.

obviously it snowed last night/today. at school, james and i were all excited because, hey, IT'S SNOWING! we threw about two dozen snowballs and missed each other mostly, and then we realized that NO ONE ELSE WAS INTO IT!!!! what?! it's snowing! where are the snowmen! snow angels! snow forts! none of this was happening! no one was even charmed by our antics! we got some dirty looks and NO LAUGHS!!!! yes, it's cold. no one knows that better than i do. and yes, finals are pretty much on. but come on! there's got to be at least like two other people from the west coast that find this mildly exciting!

then it stopped snowing and got maybe even a little bit colder, if that's possible. here's a dilemma. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WALK ON THE SIDEWALK WHEN IT IS ALL ICY. it took me like twenty minutes to walk home from the t today. also, boots: you are warm, but not that convenient.

*recent conversation.
me: "yeah, my feet were getting pretty cold, so i retired my converse for the season. everyone is wearing sambas now anyway."
howard martin: "who wears them besides me and that sean kid?"
me: ". . . that's it."

update: it . . . it's just too cold to do anything but go to bed!

finally, my scrabulous tyranny is over

lizzy beat me after about a dozen games in which i savaged her consistently. while it did feel pretty good to have such a long winning streak, i think i did gain some empathy for dictators because it takes a lot of energy to rub things in other peoples' faces for so long and then wake up every day knowing that all of those people are going to try and stab you in the back. the good news is, losing at scrabulous doesn't hurt as much as actually getting stabbed.

the other thing is, i'm really glad that i can root for the underdog even when i'm the top dog. that's a nice thing to know about myself. for a while there i was watching a lot of nature videos, and they depressed me because in nature the underdog NEVER wins, ever, and i was worried that underdogs were a fake idea, but now i know they're not and i am on their side.

in memoriam

evel knieval died yesterday. he had been suffering from diabetes (bad diet), pulmonary fibrosis (smoking) and hepatitis c (contracted from a blood transfusion) for several years prior to his death. i assume you all know about his accomplishments, but just in case you don't, he jumped over a lot of enormous crazy things on his motorcycle, some of them on fire, and broke most of the bones in his body. he once spent a month in a coma after attempting to jump the fountains at caesar's palace in las vegas. the following are some quotes of his that i found poignant, touching, and hilarious by turns.

"I foresee the Chinese ruling the world. What are you going to do to stop it? No president of the United States will ever have enough power to stop the Chinese when they want to take over the world."

"I've been in a treatment center for drinkin'. I stayed for two days, then escaped. "

"But you come to a point in your life when you can't pull the trigger anymore. "

"The other thing I wanted but never got to do had something to do with Liz Taylor but she's getting a little old and a little fat. "

"I thought I was bulletproof or Superman there for a while. I thought I'd never run out of nerve. Never."

AUGH

i had too much coffee too close to bedtime and now all i want to do is watch my so-called life and think about how it feels to have a crush on someone when you're a teenager. it NEVER feels that way again, does it?

UPDATE: THERE IS SUCH A THING AS MY SO-CALLED LIFE FAN FICTION. DO NOT READ IT.

i don't think it's helpful to listen to interpol while reading articles by my professors, because while i'm sure that Jim Smith has some feelings regarding "Remembering Ireland's Architecture of Containment: 'Telling' Stories in The Butcher Boy and States of Fear", I'm also pretty sure that it's not ABOUT him. i'm doing fine, but maybe it's time to start avoiding music with "feelings" again just so i don't get confused.

it feels great to get back to my normal oral hygiene routine. for a while i thought maybe i had pissed off one of my roommates and they had poured salt on all my oral hygiene materials and i threw away all my floss and my mouthwash just to be sure, but then i realized that the sea salts i got a long time ago to soak my nose when i got it repierced had just spilled all over everything. i got new floss anyway. oral hygiene is really important if you want to keep your teeth for the rest of your life. vitamin c is really important if you don't want to get sick when you have papers due. preventative measures are important in general.

every time i see someone whose situation looks kind of unfortunate, i want to call my grandparents and tell them i love them because i know i will never, ever let their situation get unfortunate. but i can't tell them that, because how do you say something like that? "don't worry about aging, i got your back"? ridiculous, and disrespectful. i'm going to call my grandparents as soon as i leave this coffee ship (that was a typo, but after looking at it i decided it's kind of cute so i'm going to keep it) after finishing up one more annotation for irish fiction.

in other news, i'm kind of in the middle of something bad. two bad things, actually. one misunderstanding, personal and sort of silly, that i've been letting happen and i feel sort of obligated to inform someone about, and one possible misunderstanding/strong opinion that i accidentally catalyzed through a more personal misunderstanding based on a not really rude so much as irreverent thing i said early on in the semester. but, i have at least one other person on my side for the latter, so we'll see how it goes.

this is a poem by bucky sinister

there's an alternate universe
in which bruce wayne is poor
and i have my shit together.

actually, things are kind of awesome

my professor is taking me to a lecture about comic books. did i mention she encouraged me to write my final paper on comic books? she did.

i've talked to my mom on the phone for half an hour for the last two days in a row. i love being related to people and then figuring out that that's not the only thing you have in common.

i have a new computer. my grandfather bought it for me.

i made a resolution to dress like a complete slob until all my papers are handed in. i'm not sure why, i just did. i decided i was going to do the little kid thing and say "i want to wear this shirt and this sweatshirt and if they don't match, well, fuck you!" today i am wearing some pretty serious navy blue corduroy bell bottoms, an orange smock and a grey sweatshirt over it, which is short enough that i can put stuff in the pockets of the smock and retrieve it easily. i've never been happier.

things are o.k. so far

here is what has happened in the last couple days:
my mom and i found out that the credit union, to whom i finished making car payments this past february (no congratulations are in order, i already celebrated), sent us a COPY of the title along with a notarized lien release and sent the real title back to the DMV. this is the latest in a series of COMPLETELY NOT MY FAULT mishaps on the part of both the DMV and the credit union. in short, this is about the 4th lien release we've received and the third time the title has been transferred between them. it makes me crazy.

my computer's hard drive died on saturday night.

i walked into a door and cracked open my nose a little. it hurt pretty bad and still does a little and also looks terrible.


this is how they worked out:
someone from the credit union called today and had magically figured it out after reading all my emails again, and sent the title to my mom.

my grandpa bought me a new computer. how can i possibly express here how incredible that is, or how i feel about him, without making it seem like cause and effect?

there's nothing i can do about my nose except take pictures of it in the library on my new computer. btw - it looks a lot worse in real life than it does in that picture.

just because i need to post this all over the place

my mom tells me it's in swedish. also, make sure your volume is up.

well, i'm against it

having just seen and very much enjoyed american gangster, i'm wondering what frank lucas is doing now? writing a book? doing the talk circuit? getting honorary degrees? i wonder if any academic institution could possibly be convinced to have him as a commencement speaker. i'm pretty sure that institution will not be bc, but if it's anywhere in the tri-state area, i will go. (is massachusetts in the tri-state area? what is the tri-state area? my cousin used those words a lot this weekend but i'm not sure i know what they mean.) in conclusion, i'm really glad the gangster movie is making a big, high-budget, classy production comeback.

i also saw no country for old men. i need to see it again with someone who's willing to discuss it with me afterwards before i know how i really feel about it. jake called it a "literary" movie and let me talk about it for 15 minutes by myself before telling me he didn't want to talk about it anymore. i thought that was very generous.

this week was pretty good. jake came on monday, we did some boston things, ate hella, he met some of my friends, and then we went to thanksgiving at my grandparents' on thursday. that was pretty rad. my cousin nora, freshman at fordham, had come the day before and hung out that day and night. we walked around and got burritos; she was unable to get money out of her account, so i bought her charlie card and burrito and stuff. that made me feel good, like a real relative. nora is pretty rad and i think we could be friends even if we weren't related, if the age difference didn't stop us. what's weird is, if she wasn't mildly forgetful, she would make me feel really lame because she's pretty mature and aside from the fact that she's the size she was when she was 12 she could totally be the older one. we also saw her two older brothers, which was great - i hadn't talked to pat, one year younger than me, in maybe four years, and i didn't really on thursday, but i did talk to willie, four years younger than me, who i was pretty much best friends with when we were younger. i thought the few sentences we said to each other were pretty meaningful. also, jake did a great job, but again didn't really want to talk about it when we got home.

incredible.

i have been telling people that i regret nothing

whether or not that statement is a lie is something which changes every few minutes. sometimes, i regret not a single thing, including time wasted fbooking or watching heroes or complaining or talking about boys, even including the ridiculous things i say to boys; all of it contributes to the patchwork of personal experience and, in some way, reflects my essential self. i recognize that that is a pretty romantic and mildly optimistic notion, but i feel like i kind of have to believe that everyone has an essential self or i might just implode. sometimes i like to think about where in the body it could be located. i don't have any hypotheses about this, just some funny ideas.

at other, more pessimistic times, i'm paranoid and sure that nothing counts except your actions and that i should be in the library defining myself every free, waking moment. and that if i were indeed in the library every free, waking moment, my self-definition would become so intellectually expansive that i would be able to get lost in old books and completely forget about things like boys and heroes. so what is stopping me? i think it might be gluttony. how can i live in the library when i like pizza and beer so much?

i'm a regular somewhere

it's something i've always wanted - to have someone start getting what they know you want the minute you walk in the door, to banter casually with the people behind the counter and the other regulars, to have a "seat" somewhere. in some ways, it's perfect, and in some ways i'm totally paranoid that when the girl laughs a little and says my order before i do she is actually judging me for eating the same thing almost every day instead of laughing with me about my constancy. whatever, i live too much in my head and i'm going to stop thinking about it.

yesterday i went to the symphony with my aunt to see jimmy levine conduct mahler's #9. it was INCRED. the first and third movements were kind of an emotional roller coaster, but the second movement was beautiful all the way through. we sat where we could see most of the strings, and they alternated between looking like a field of high grass in the breeze and frantic insects. i wonder if, when symphonies are written, how the musicians will look playing it enters into the composer's mind? or when they will be turning the pages? anyway, levine was amazing - it's clear he's very passionate about mahler - but he drew out the fourth movement a bit more than it deserved, i thought. anyway, if you are going to fall asleep during the symphony, that is the movement to nod off to. the timpanist completely checked out during it and put his feet up on one of the drums. i heard on npr a while ago that in the 19th century it used to be really cool to fall asleep during the symphony, because it meant you were experiencing the music on a more subliminal, ethereal level. well, i'm a loser and i stayed awake.

it was a pretty great experience because first, most of what i know about classical music i learned from books, fantasia, or falling asleep in the car with my grandfather. now i understand a lot more about what going to the symphony entailed for all the characters in all the 18th century novels i've read, although clearly it's a much different experience now. i can't imagine not getting in trouble for making out in the hallway. second, because i always appreciate experiences that remind me that boston consists of a lot more besides the library and my room. i should probably admit right now that this blog details pretty much all of my extracurricular activities. that day i fished the ladybug out of the toilet? yeah, that was the only time i didn't think about school that day. oh well. good thing i like it.

anagrams!

me:
scolded loiterer
credited loser lo
discoed ell retro
is electrode lord
derelict red solo

i love anagrams! they all make me sound like beck!

my mom:
an nylon

my cat:
zeppelin (that's his name. no anagrams possible. i guess that's what happens when you only have one name.)

my bffs:
dreamland canon, cold nerd manana
jam kegs in, ska men jig
sailor moans, alas sir moon
ice lee gorgon, nice ego ogler
hick tree ablaze, bat lazier cheek

ex bfs:
machos at job
sinned kin brawl
jaded ensues

i'd say all of that is pretty accurate.

i ate it, obviously!

i'm in the library, spacing out instead of reading, the usual, when suddenly i get this compelling urge to 1. check and see if anyone took their scrabulous turn, even though i know it doesn't work on library computers and 2. rustle up a snack before i head over to the irish house to watch a movie for class. well, almost everyone took their scrabulous turns, and it still doesn't work on the school computers, but what was waiting for me when i sat down?! half of a white chocolate chip macadamia nut cookie!

new motto: asleep before midnight

i am really getting into this early bedtime thing. ok, so yesterday i went to bed early because i played an unfortunate game of never have i ever in which i had done pretty much everything and made my own little pbr pyramid, but still, before midnight! this used to be unheard of! and it's happening again tonight! i can't wait until it starts translating into getting up at a decent and respectable hour, although showering when i wake up instead of before bed has been a pretty good incentive so far because it means going from a warm place (bed) into another one (shower) instead of facing the temperature immediately upon waking. also my hair is better, generally. so there's that.

this week i wore the same shirt every day, and no one noticed. i don't know if that's sad or really liberating. i used to do it all the time in portland, but that was portland. things are different now and i'd better start getting used to it.

this week i got a decent if confusing grade on a paper, had my weekly email comment printed out and passed around to the class by the professor, and been told that i am in the top three in a class that i have felt was beyond me for the entire semester so far. also, i registered for three more classes that i am genuinely pretty much ecstatic about taking. things are just fine, thank you. as long as i don't think about money, i'm happy.

also i told someone last night that i would pick jordan catalano over brian krakow every day of every year. what is the point of making out with someone if you don't like them? none. there is no point. however, being 1. an english student and 2. a big nerd, i'm pretty sure my definition of "jordan catalano" is significantly different and probably closer to "brian krakow" than the majority's.

new bedtime: eleven p.m. no exceptions!

here is a boston dilemma: at intersections, if you press the "walk" button, eventually all the lights will turn red and you will be able to walk in any direction. this is not something i'm used to; in the cities i've lived in, the walk signal allows you to walk when the traffic driving parallel to you has a green light, and people turning left or right just have to look out. what does a good person do at intersections in boston? is it better to press the walk signal and wait and then make all the cars stop at once, or is it more polite to just not press it at all and walk when the traffic parallel to you is going, even though this might not be the safest but also doesn't result in anyone (except turners) waiting for you to shuffle across the street? mostly i do the second one and go as fast as i can, but last night someone else pressed it and i walked diagonally across the street and it felt pretty good to just be out there in the middle of the intersection.

bugs i rescued today: 2 earthworms, but it's early yet

things i've seen today so far:
one friend
two mixed race couples
one DELICIOUS bagel
the sun
two vespas, one with a rider so tall he had to hold his legs out to the side because they wouldn't fit
the end of my advanced research reading for the week
two stomped earthworms. i failed them.
a million confusing emails

now i'm on my way to the cemetery to hang out and do some reading. sometimes it's really nice, and i'm content with the amount of respect i have for the dead, and sometimes i think about something creepy and just book it out of there. last week i left one of my books and had to go back for it after dark because i needed it for class. i let it slip that i go there sometimes when i can't get anything done because too many people are talking to or around me, and my dad and meaux looked at me like i'm insane. but they look at me like that a lot - this weekend was no exception - and i was proud of myself for just pretending like i didn't notice instead of backpedaling and stammering like i usually do.

i'm changing my fbook status to something a little risqué, but really true and also an ll cool j quote. will that be considered daring, or just vulgar? let's find out.

i am a jerk

ok, so i just found a ladybug in the toilet. what was i supposed to do? it couldn't swim! so i fished it out (not with my hands, i know that's how you get pinkeye) and brought it outside. it tried to climb up my shirt, it tried to go to sleep in my palm, it tried everything except getting on the leaf i was trying to get it to go on, so of course i was talking to it, maybe even shouting at it a little because i was cold and had to get back to work. so i'm standing there holding a branch and shouting at the middle of my hand and who should walk by but the most well-dressed, perfectly coiffed person of approximately my own age that i know. "you're a crazy," she said. "i am not!" i said. "i just like nature a little!" just a little, though.

it's true, i am really good at scrabulous

my dad and stepmom/step significant other/w/e visited this weekend and they told me that i have to be good at something in life. i said, "i'm smart! i'm in grad school! what more do you want!" they looked at me like they had been joking and i just freaked out out of nowhere, which is a little bit true because they probably had just been joking and i had been spacing out instead of listening, but they also tend to just toss out things like that without considering consequences like FEELINGS. my dad once told me, "deird, you could be pretty if you just tried." that was like ten years ago, and i still whine about it when i'm drunk. i'm not drunk now, i just think about it a lot, ok?!?!

anyway, i didn't think they would accept "scrabble" as a thing to be good at, and i know from previous experience that they would look at me like i was an alien if i tried to talk to them about being good at school, so i just said teaching people things. that's pretty much true, and they went with it.

today whoever is in charge of things is really on top of it. i got an email about registration (thursday, my alarm is already set with a reminder about why i'm getting up early), one about exams (i'm not thinking about it right now), and one about the winter ball (hopefully not thinking about it again, ever). it's a lot to digest and i'm having a silent freakout in a corner of the undergraduate deans of arts and sciences' (freshman through junior) reception area. it's not too bad. there's coffee.

tv can really mess you up.

it's true. it gives everyone all these "ideas" about things. then again, if real life were on tv, it might be boring. that's disappointing. what am i saying? real people are ridiculous, and we deserve to see them on tv so we know who to avoid in the street and at parties.



this is a video my friend lizzy made. if you read her blog, sometimes it's a window into my own inner monologue. sometimes. the weather is actually really bad here though. that's one difference. but basically both of us live by the philosophy that if you like someone they should never, ever find out, even though the world doesn't work that way at all. what i'm trying to say is, we're both a little backwards and constantly optimistic and disappointed at the same time. also, i don't believe in sandals. that's another one.

everything nice that i own was purchased by somebody else

this is j.d. salinger's autobiographical statement:

"I was with the Fourth Division during the war. I almost always write about very young people."

that's it.

oh my dang

the ladies in the deans' office are talking about where they're going to be buried. the following is verbatim.

[talking about one's late husband - she has remarried and divorced since he died]
"mike's dead seventeen years yesterday. 1991 - is that seventeen?"
(no, but i'm not going to correct her about how long her husband has been dead)
"oh, patsy. where is he buried?"
"st. joseph's."
"oh, that's a beautiful cemetery. you should go there!"
"well - "
"i would go there! oh patsy, you should go."
like it's a restaurant.

then they started debating the ethics of using the plot she has next to him if she's been with someone else since his death, which i guess is pretty appropriate.

a couple True Stories, and one small Victory

this really happened. when i get off the t, i walk down a street where there is a high school on one side and a children's hospital facing it. each of them have a street lamp that flickers right in front of them. it's pretty spooky. one night last week, i was coming home from the library pretty late, maybe around midnight. i got off at my stop, and a large dude got off behind me. warren street is a pretty busy street, and there are cop cars driving down it every thirty seconds, but when a large dude gets off the streetcar behind you you're always a little uneasy. anyway, he passed me just as we were crossing the street, and i looked up at him. he looked back with this expression that just said "don't worry," and then started walking pretty fast and i know this is illogical but i felt a little like he might be doing it to put me at ease. when he got to the point between the flickering lights, he was about 100 feet ahead of me. he looked up at one, then at the other, and then did this little flick with his right hand - not really a wave, more like a tiny dismissal. the lights stopped flickering, and he looked back at me, smiled, and waved, and then kept walking.

today on my walk home, i found a little dead bird at a bus stop. nothing violent had happened to him, he was just lying there with his little feet up. at first i walked on by and thought about what it meant for there to be a dead bird there. bird flu? west nile? did it just get too cold too fast, and he didn't get out soon enough? is it a sign that i did something wrong? then i realized that it is arrogant to think that a bird died to prove something to you, and that it is wrong to leave a dead bird at a bus stop so i picked up a newspaper and hid him in some grass by a construction site, and then came home and washed my hands because what if it's west nile after all?

then the irish guy across the street invited me in for a beer and i turned him down to write this blog.

actual conversations i had walking home along washington st. after 3 am

dude on balcony: "you wanna rassle?"
me: "not really."
dude: "yeah, i'd prolly dominate you."
me: "i studied with billy blanks."
dude: "holy shit!"

one block later:
dude on balcony: "isn't it a little late to be walking home?"
me: "i know self-defense."
first dude and other dudes: guffawing.

i love living in brighton. genuinely. also, my guardian angel lives here. more later.

barf!

is that onomatopoeia?

i would like nothing more than to finish my reading for visual studies tonight - it's arguably some of the most interesting reading we've been assigned for that class so far - but i am currently desperately trying to finish a paper for jim smith, man of the century, so that i can con one of my friends into reading it before i actually attend class at 7. also, my back tire is flat.

if i have a guardian angel, i saw him today.
1. riding a bike on the sidewalk
2. white hair under an embroidered yarmulke
3. hi-top chucks/shorts combo
4. leather jacket

today i added interpol and dinosaur jr. (mostly green mind, also in a jar off of you're living all over me) to the list. let's face it - pretty much the only thing that's safe right now is greetings from asbury park, and even then i can only listen to blinded by the light and spirit in the night. did you know that the traveling wilburys track tweeter and the monkey man is a bruce springsteen tribute? well, now you do. i know i was supposed to use like a million quotation marks in that paragraph but i just don't care. everything's fine! geez!

yesterday boston was san francisco. today, it's portland.

i'm in pretty serious denial that i live too far away from home to drive back in a day if i really need to. i've never actually lived this far away from california, and i never realized how strong the pull of home could be. boston's been cool so far, but i'm starting to hate it a little bit because it's not home. portland was never like this. i can't put my finger on the difference - sure, the accents and footwear are different, but most people in san francisco are stuck in the 90's just like people in boston and it's only different enough be funny. but there are other more serious differences that are really affecting me, and if i could just figure out what they are i could pretend they don't exist.

let's add cat power and elliot smith to the "feelings" list. they're pretty much givens, but it's important to be clear and comprehensive when coming up with things one isn't supposed to do.

cogito ergo sum

last night i dreamt i liked a boy, and instead of the usual making-out dream i have, i dreamt he was translating phrases from french into english, and then from english into latin, while i sat back and thought about how hot that was. i'm not thinking about it.

some "phrases [a woman i work with] has:"
"you catch more bees with honey than you do with a knife"
"blessed are the meek, for they will be comforted"
"singing to the choir"

also, i got bought a smoothie this morning, i'm going to get a catered lunch, and i could be doing reading right now if i wasn't blogging. this job is incredible.

things i'm not allowed to listen to because they give me too many "feelings"

1. arcade fire
2. carole king
3. sloop john b
4. sean kingston
5. everything

brighton is just full of people complaining

girl behind me, with a native american headdress tattooed on her shoulder: complaining to her visiting mother about every boy she's ever slept with, although making it ok by saying she was "seeing" them.
girl over there: can't figure out webct.
woman + coworkers at table next to me: so and so stayed up too late playing video games last night and is now saying he can't come into work because he has fleas. this may be the best one.

i don't have anything to complain about that isn't my own fault. well, i can't hear out of my left ear, but that just sometimes happens because i inherited a really narrow ear canal. it's not a big deal though.

also, it's supposed to be 80 today.

i'm pretty sure you'll know my favorite part when you see it

i thought you knew enough to just roll with it when i condradict myself

not that i don't deserve to be called on it, but often, my more recent opinion is a product of further learning and research or at least a sincere desire to be a better person, or appear as such. mostly i just reread my earlier posts and realized that i posted some real "opinions," which were a result of coffee and intellectual discussion, even though they may not seem that way. not that i don't feel them, i just may not always feel as strongly about them as i did at cafe nation this morning, surrounded by people who were either my friends or impressed with my tshirt (the law & order + batman one) or both.

on another note, i've been lying the past couple weeks about not being interested in sports, particularly the red sox. i am interested in the red sox, i just don't have time to watch all the games. but i watched the game tonight and it was incredible. drew trottin out his skills, youkilis and his incredible header, and then of course pedroia, my fave, love child of casey affleck and giovanni ribisi. i was a little sad daisuke didn't see the mound, but i'll have plenty more chances to convince people that he has a mowhawk under that hat (knock on wood). i called my grandpa after youkilis owned that base, and he was pretty excited that i was 1. "becoming entrenched in the geography" 2. having a good time 3. ecstatic about baseball.

augh! some things!

first of all, this whole "1,000,000 strong for colbert" thing is out of control. it is a huge mistake for colbert to run because, while i support getting 18-25 year olds excited about voting, it's nader all over again and we are going to end up with a candidate we're ambivalent about supporting because all the kids voted for colbert. if anyone i know votes for colbert, i will slap them. i don't care what state you're in or if you crunch enough numbers to make it "okay" because your vote "won't count." voting is our constitutional right and if you use it irresponsibly i am furious with you. votes always, always count because it is your one opportunity to say something that will be heard (unless you have a really big megaphone and stand somewhere in washington dc). exit polls, stats, people pay attention to these things and actually believe that they represent something, and a vote for colbert represents that our generation cares more about a couple laughs late at night than the state of our nation. while i understand that the state of the nation is frustrating - this is why zombie movies, with their promise of the erasure of two-party politics and credit card debt, are so popular - but to buy into the "i don't care, imma vote for colbert" mentality is to hand the country over to old white rich men forever. i just pray that at the last minute before the primaries, colbert takes his whole facebook group aside and says: "hey guys, thanks for your support but i'm not actually going to run, although now that you're all jazzed up about voting why don't you go out there and throw your lot in with ______?" that is the only way that i can support this. if it goes anywhere else than there, i'm just furious.

also, i pretty much hate queer, feminist, postcolonial, and ethnic theories because guess what? when you break up with someone and then hate them vehemently, that's still a feeling you have for them. when you're furious with heterosexual, masculine, colonist, or white perspectives and form a theory in reaction to and which excludes those perspectives, you're still defined by them. also, no one listens to a zealot, and let's face it, that's pretty much what's goin on right now, or at least how most people see it ("people" meaning people entrenched in the academic world, which i understand represents a privileged minority). i'm not going to say that these theories are "invalid," i'm just going to say that a lot of products of liberal arts universities, like myself, are just SO SICK of hearing them that the second they hear "heteronormative" or "subaltern" they just tune the heck out. so what's the alternative? i don't know yet, but carolann, james and i are working on it.

all families have secrets. not just catholic ones. also, even if your parents were raised catholic but had completely abandoned it by the time you were born, you're still catholic. i don't know what it is, but you are.

"okay. i'm going to pretend for fifteen minutes that i care what i am wearing to the reading. maybe a sweater?"

my friend lizzy wrote that in her blog today. i have that fifteen minutes every morning, except it's usually more like five and goes a little like this:
"crap!"

dressing "professionally" is just really hard for me. i like superheroes, bands, and bookstores, and so my tshirts say so. i don't know what to do about it, especially when it's too warm for a sweater and most of mine are bright colors anyway. mostly i just wear my converse and think: "well, my grandma's cool with it."

i'm really sad that psychoanalytic criticism has fallen out of favor

because i'm really pretty into it. theory in general usually takes a little grappling for me - lc's curriculum was a little theory-lite, to be completely honest - but thanks to professor tom schoeneman, psychoanalysis is an arena in which i feel particularly comfortable. not that i believe any of it. i was pretty jealous when a classmate presented on ecocriticism yesterday and said things like "our canon" and "our mission." not that i want to be an ecocritic, nature is pretty ok but i like sleeping indoors and zealotry makes me uncomfortable even when i agree with it, it's just that it's probably really satisfying to believe in the lens through which you read literature. i love the psychoanalysts, but most of what they have to say is pretty self-congratulating flatulence. but it's also really interesting, and i find i have a lot more positive things to say about it when it's applied to literature instead of people, especially since a lot of contemporary authors have read Freud and Lacan and so you know that some of them, at least, have it on the back burner while they're writing.

i know a woman named marge

isn't that weird? i didn't think real people were named that. i thought it was reserved for, you know, chickens and other farm animals, except for cows who should either be named "bessie" or after a flower.

so clearly my new m.o. is to pretty much just blog while i'm in the office. it's fine by me, and i don't care what you think, so there you go.

my grandpa dropped off my grandma's bike last wednesday, and i've been riding it around a little. i'm used to a road bike with the bullhorn handlebars, and decided to be a little bit of a snob about things and get them changed as soon as i had the chance, as well as the rusty pedals. but then i rode it around the block and as it turns out i am pretty much in love with it and refuse to change anything, including the pedals, because they are weighted and so don't spin around when you're at a stoplight. it's the lightest frame i've ever ridden on - my favorite bike up until now has been my schwinn varsity, which is a gold color and has the original seat and handlebar tape, but which is a little big for me and heavy as a tank. my grandma's blue miyata has girl handlebars, but i am way into them. my posture's much better than usual, at least while i'm on my bike. the back brake cable snapped a couple days ago, but i guess that's not as big a deal as i thought it was - i was pretty sure that if i ever used the front brake, ever, i was going to fly right over the handle bars. apparently, though, a lot of people use the front brake and this rarely ever happens. the tension on the front brake was a little overeager, but i fixed it myself during the simpsons, which is pretty much the first time i've ever fixed anything on a bike myself and things have worked out perfectly. i also put on my light brackets (safety is sexy) and my bell with a brontosaurus on it. my favorite thing to do with my new trusty steed is to ride home after dark and go really, really fast past the graveyard right by campus while whistling. that is living.

last friday, i went to a party at a professor's house. i don't know what i expected, but this was not it. i drank two sparks, one secretly, before leaving so that if any of my professors were there i wouldn't be too nervous, and if there were any boys there i wouldn't blush. well, i got there, and my scariest professor was there, but he was wearing flannel and didn't want to talk about school at all. he touched my classmate's hair, and laughed a lot. i did blush quite a bit, though, i'm pretty sure. i went into the bathroom with other girls a lot, used a professor's 1. mouthwash 2. hand lotion, actually opened a beer with my lighter and then cut the heck out of my hand when i tried to be smooth and do it again later, and got overstimulated about a dozen times and had to go outside. the whole thing came to an end (for me) when carolann and i got in separate but parallel shouting matches - an italian was trying to ask carolann out on a date, and the classmate with the hair was trying to tell me that i'm smarter than him, or at least make more valuable comments in class, and if there's one thing i cannot abide it's an intellectual compliment. we're all intelligent. that's why we're in grad school. we don't have to debate the nuances. end of story.

the next day, i saw darjeeling limited again. if it's not clear yet that i just don't really care what other people say, this will prove it: i was and still am crazy about it. i don't want to talk about it here, and may not want to talk about it in person seeing as a small guy with glasses pretty much took up all my talking-about-wes-anderson-films quota for the year at carolann's party last month, but i really loved it. so there.

then i went to dinner with my aunt and uncle and grandparents and got sent home with the following: 1. a bag of fresh produce 2. chocolate-covered cranberries 3. a lollipop 4. cashmere socks. having relatives never gets any less incredible.

the nicest email i've ever gotten

here it is, verbatim:

subject: a sizzling taco, a mushroom cloud: the perpetrators of awful acts, and the atrocities in eye sight

Sugar,

When you're sad I just want you to think of fuzzy, friendly ponies galloping to see you. Behind them are baby goats and pony. They know how cute and nice you are. They are eager to see you. They know about you, because I told them and I'm right behind them.

AUGH.

everything about it is perfect. if you ever want to send me the perfect email, well, now you know.

here are some things girls know about boys that boys don't know they know:
1. all boys jerk off. we know this.
2. all boys look at other girls. the nice way to do this is when we're not around.
3. everything.

i'm really into the british invasion thing right now. specifically, the zombies. specifically, "friends of mine." i've been into this song before; for some reason, "june and duffy" just draw me to this song about twice a year. also, who can deny "time of the season"?

on an academic note: freakout.

i drank tea today

so there's that. here are some other things:

i had an amazing time on the cape on friday. fun with family, best sleep i've had in months, or at least since the last time i was there, probably around four stick-to-your-ribs meals plus one to take home, and carolann didn't even go out so i didn't miss anything. next night, hilarious time. carolann got in a dryer, we hid from the cops in a basement, and then stumbled home stuffing our faces, giggling, and littering.

the next day, i went to see darjeeling lmtd. i am currently livid that i will never, nerver, neverinero get to make out with adrien brody. but the theater i went to is incredible, and getting a student membership there ($35/yr, $3 off every movie, so $4.25 matinees) is the closest i'm gonna get to the laurelhurst. then afterwards, we went to eat pizza and elliot smith was playing. i was already in a pretty nasty mood from all the stumbling the night before, and while the movie was pretty much nothing but enjoyable, i was still mildly irritated about everything and elliot smith just made me feel cuh-razy. so then carolann and i decided to pretend we were still in the movie and we followed some people around. it was pretty hard to be in a populated area because a million people were holding hands with a million other people and it made me FURIOUS. the first smells of fall - ozone, leaves, wool - were in the air, and spring be damned, this is the hardest time of year to be alone. i thought about jake for 24 hours, but feel better, less crazy, and actually a little bit rad today after listening to hot rocks and the village green preservation society for eight hours and crying a little.

today, i met james at a coffeehouse for some gossip and light reading, plus a bagel. after a while james had to go do whatever boys do and carolann came on by. we did a little heavier reading, about equal on the gossip, and then headed for an incredibly successful trip to old navy and target. i got this. it's a locket. i don't know what i'm going to put in there, but it's going to be awesome.

another day at the office

so i decided i hate putting pictures of myself on the internet. don't look down.

on the other hand, i DO like putting pictures of my cat on the internet, even though that was something i said i would never do. in 8th grade, i said i would never smoke and i would wait til i was married. every time i drink tequila i swear i never will again. and now, there are pictures of my cat on the internet. so? he's cute, he's on facebook, i didn't make a website with a purple background with dancing sweaters, and i still only have one of him. everything's fine, nothing's weird, i'm not crazy.

it's warm again. and totally humid. gross. i hate weather. i would prefer to live in the complete absence of weather where i can choose to be wearing a tshirt or a sweater based only on my own feelings and not what's going on outside. basically, i miss san francisco, and this will get a lot worse come winter.

i'm going to be courtney love for halloween. for real this year. for REAL. not because i'm obsessed with courtney - i would actually bet ten dollars that she's doing a not very good job of raising francis bean - but because i would give anything to have been married to kurt cobain.

i'm also looking forward to thanksgiving, because jake is coming. he sent me a package with comic books and asian candy, which arrived yesterday. the candy is pretty much gone, but i don't think i'll be able to read the comic books until he gets here.

that's all that's happening outside of my academic pursuits. inside them, i am entering crisis mode, which strangely coincides with "party and get out of town" mode. i have a presentation today (all set, excited about it, sneezed and there was a five-page writeup about it on my computer, wearing my new dating-a-parisian-sailor-circa-1920 shirt), a presentation next friday, a paper or review due the 26th and an annotated bibliography on the reception history of j.d. salinger's "a perfect day for bananafish" due on halloween. i know that that doesn't sound like too too much for one month, but as professor najarian said last night, "there is a tendency in the profession towards hysteria." my opinion is, without that hyseria, none of us would get anything done.

also, this.

as of 10:30 this morning

still cold, still cranky, still with a lot of reading to do.

crisis time

well, it's just under 60F and i'm being a baby about it. i'm making my "cold" face and wearing my fancy coat. yes, it coat has a real fur collar. please don't hate me (nicole). i used to have a huge slew of reasons i used to justify wearing it, but the truth is 1. i bought it at a thrift store so in no way supported the fur industry by buying it 2. it makes me feel like batman's mom, or maybe margot tenenbaum 3. it's very soft.

clearly, however, gail and zeppelin are doing just fine.

hey sarah!

i have for sure been obsessed with over 70% of these videos, which i'm pretty sure you can attest to.

i might be homesick . . . ?

or maybe just really thirsty. sometimes i can't tell.

i'm just not sure what i would be homesick for. portland, clearly, but then also san francisco, and my mom, and a little bit for jake and usually some for my grandparents on the cape, but i'm here now so why do i still feel so thirsty?

i guess when i'm alone in the house i talk to myself. it started as talking to the cat, but then i was definitely just out on the porch singing a little ditty and laughing at something i said. which is funny, because i don't think i talk that much when anyone else is home.

the casual betrayal of gasson 105

so yesterday was pretty much a red letter day. i didn't have class, but i got up early to go out for crepes with my roommate, which pretty much turned into a major gossip sesh. but, that means i got it out of my system early and didn't spend a bunch of time whispering frantically in the library, which is where i went next. after a couple hours of highlighting and pretending to be surprised by things to alleviate the grueling boredom, i hit up my first set of office hours and met with my irish fiction professor. fantastic. he is an amazing man, and i doubt you'll find any of his other students saying differently. he was interested in my other classes, how i'm adjusting, my thoughts about authors not even on the syllabus - incredible. i offered to babysit for his first grader, obviously. then outside for a little reading in the 80F weather (still just as boring), and then more office hours, this time with my advanced research professor. there were people lined up in the hallway to talk to him, but he still took the time to talk to me about what i'd done between graduation and coming to bc, ask to see a copy of the lit mag i interned for, and tell me that although i was like "a deer in the headlights" (exact same words i used - scroll down and see if they're not) during my presentation, he was giving me an a.

rad.

then i went to a lecture/reading by thomas hayden, which was pretty good. afterwards, i bought his book and got it signed for my grandparents, who i think will be pretty into it even though it encourages a lot of political activity and, although they consistently volunteer large chunks of their time to various causes, i don't think they're really into rallies and stuff. after i asked him to sign it, he sat there and talked to a friend and i for about twenty minutes, which included an invitation to dinner. when we told him we had to get back to the library, he clapped us on the backs, and the guy in charge of food forced us to take an entire tray of cookies. well, not "forced," but he did say he was going to throw them out, and while i didn't want to eat ALL of them, that made me upset.

after that i spent a little more productive time in the library, and walked home. i should probably do that more often, considering it won't be this nice out for too long (in the 90's tomorrow, expect to hear about that), and it makes me feel like a million bucks, especially if there's no one around and i can do air guitar.

so, yesterday was a pretty awesome follow-up to a pretty good weekend. i had a great time at carolann's party - sparks, beers, mocking, then air guitar - and a relatively productive saturday - comic books, some loitering in a pet shop but a decision to ultimately not buy anything, although there was a peach-colored parakeet that i fell in love with, and her little friend with a mop top, but whatever, trader joe's and a trip to my aunt's for a home-cooked meal and some laundry. all in all, pretty good. and today i'm spending in an office with several administrative assistants, some of whom are kind, some of whom are hilarious, and at least one of which is a vindictive b*tch. so, there you go.

new haircut!

i got it at liquid, which is as close to bishop's as i'm going to get. at only $5 more, it's a pretty good deal. i'm way into it, although you should know that it won't always look like this. by the time i wake up tomorrow i'll look like a homeless person again, i'm pretty sure. also, i'm all red in the face because i just finished a 15 minute stint of jumping on my bed and listening to missy elliot and making lewd gestures at the cat. also, i'm pretty excited because i just figured out a way to wear my spiderman tshirt to a party and not look like a gamer (under a sweater).

so now i'm just waiting for friends and roommates to get their acts together to head to carolann's party. if anything exciting happens, you'll be the first to know! except for me, the other people involved, and anyone i see between now and tomorrow.

living a life of the mind: the deets

so many incredible things have happened. how can i explain them to you on the internet in enough detail for you to be able to relive them in your head, and still get to bed pretty soon?

the reason i haven't "blogged" (comfortable enough to use it as a verb, not comfortable enough to do so without quotation marks) too much lately is because i had a presentation in advanced research, for one of the most terrifying professors i've ever encountered, yesterday evening. first of all, it went ok. the content was, i feel, exactly what it should have been, but when i wrote it out i imagined myself speaking it as my usual gregarious self, and when i got up in front of the class i was a deer in the headlights. my hands shook, my voice cracked; i'm used to giving presentations at a school where you can come to class naked if you want to (no one did, but you could have), and this professor expects a level of professionalism that i'm not sure i'm capable of. so, it went ok.

after class, i went up to talk to him about office hours stuff while my classmates gathered in a corner to discuss previous arrangements to go out for a beer. i saw this happening, and once our negotiations were over, the following conversation actually occurred, like, in reality:
me: "so . . . these guys are all going out for a beer right now, but they're too shy to ask you. would you like to come?"
najarian: "haha, are you sure it wouldn't cramp your style?"
me: "haha, no, of course not. we'd be honored."
najarian: "well then sure. you're the brave one - jodie foster would play you in the movie."
me, thinking about how incredible it would be if someone made a movie about our advanced research class: "well, i'd actually prefer wynona ryder. she needs a job."
najarian: "haha, you're right. how generous."

then, i chased down our classmates to ask where we were going, and he said he would meet us there. i was the hero of the bc shuttle. we couldn't go to the bar they'd chosen, because someone had forgotten their id, so instead we went to applebee's (i know, right?!) and the kids at my table and i proceeded to make him laugh so hard he spit out his beer, tell a bunch of stories which we wisely giggled at and then absorbed for later sucking-up references, and let us pay for his beer. incredible.

also yesterday i got a position as a writing tutor, which, in addition to supplementing my measly income as an administrative assistant to the dean of arts and sciences (more on those incredible office politics later), is great experience and will look awesome when i apply for the teaching fellowships over which everyone in my class is in secret competition. except for me, james, and carolann (look them up on facebook if you haven't already), because we are bff's and i would sacrifice my chance at the goblet of fire to help them if they twisted their ankles. except james totally doesn't need it because he has a scholarship. but some dude yelled out his car window that he "love[s] lesbos, totally love[s] them" at me and carolann today, so clearly i would do anything to help her if her ankle was twisted, including vulgar hand gestures at a dude. also, i'm not going back to apple. i don't like working in retail, the commute is an hour and a half, and if i'm away from my post at the library for more than 12 hours i have an existential crisis.

ALSO the landlord painted our apartment today. totally, completely rad - gail (my roommate, also a significant presence on facebook) and i are planning some real, true, girls-trying-stuff-on parties in celebration. yes, they totally happen, even for me.

and instead of coming home and doing reading, i went to the bar with the finnegan's wake reading group after class. let me tell you right now, even if you absolutely aren't attracted to him, there is nothing in the world like being complemented by an italian man.

and, much like the boat cruise, i've been constantly going over the things i'm going to wear, say, and do on the dance floor at carolann's party tomorrow night. i figure, yeah, the boat cruise didn't live up to my imagination, but i am in my element at a house party. anyone dressed up looks too dressed up, and if there's anything i can dress for, it's not dressing up. also, there will be a keg, and some people that i'm interested in yelling witty things at over the music. and i'm getting a haircut tomorrow, and i've promised myself a sparks, and it's like 80F this week as opposed to last week when i seriously considered wearing mittens and thought about nothing but how screwed i was in this completely alien climate. what could go wrong?

well, clearly, plenty, and i will keep you updated on my good and bad decisions, although mostly the way i phrase them will make them sound awesome. i f*cking love you all.

omg j naj + me = bf4e, nbd.

deets ltr. srs, srs, deets.

chainin' up in b-ham

the one talking about "pre-hookup operations" is one of my two new bffs.

living an an old city and hanging out with superstitious people is doing things to me. i myself am pretty superstitious, but also extremely sensitive to the "common sense" of those around me, so usually i can avoid totally freaking out by just engaging in conversation and subtly bringing up something that's terrifying me, which, when the other person laughs it off, becomes mundane. but in the last couple days i've heard real ghost stories told by someone who really believes in them, and when i look around, no one is laughing. i'm starting to see things moving out of the corners of my eyes, and i've caught myself considering the run-and-jump when coming back to bed in the dark. it's actually pretty exciting, like a layer is getting peeled away from either me or reality and the things i've suspected have been there all along, but i've seen all the movies and i'm ready for them.

isn't it weird how when someone has a crush on someone else, the last thing in the world they want is for that person to find out? i mean, secretly, they've got to want that because that's the only way progress is going to get made, but it's also like, if they find out, then you lose. not that i'm going through that right now - i just remember it from high school and how it's pretty much crippling.

bf4e

so, this. clearly. can i join respectfully? probably not. am i going to join, post zero pictures, accept no friend requests, and log on just to read peoples' profiles and listen to the self-produced rap they post? absolutely.

also, this. i really enjoy that he calls courtney love fans a minority. it's . . . there's just so much there. i once in a paper defined satire as a quantifiable distance between the voice of the narrator and the voice of the author, the reader being able to distinguish the author's real message through his or her disgust or discomfort with the assertions of the narrator. with chris crocker it's almost impossible to figure out how wide the gap is, and i am way, way into it.

last night i saw 3:10 to yuma with my new bffs - it was terrific. i'm clearly in love with russell crowe now. i mean, no other outcome was possible. the hardest but also best thing was, my new bffs and i are so smart that when we were walking around boston garden after the movie, there was nothing to explain. every time i brought something up or gave an opinion, they already agreed with me, so we couldn't really talk about the movie because we all already knew everything that the other two knew. also while we were walking around, not one of us was jockeying for position or trying to be in the middle or trying to get next to someone. i know that sounds like maybe the least important detail, but really, it was just so comfortable. then we went and had a few beers at a bar where i had a spiritual connection with the dj (he played gettin jiggy wit it just as i got up to go to the bar and could dance a little. little did he know, that is the feel-good song of the year, every year) and then we went back to my house and told every secret, ever. i know my roommates probably think i had a threesome because we were all up giggling so late, and i'm tempted to fail to disabuse them of that notion, but really, we didn't. if we had had one, would we be able to watch chris crocker for an hour and then go out to breakfast? never, because here's what would have happened if we had: nothing, because it would never happen.

update

the prehistoric bird is actually just a large parrot. there's been a sighting. i'm pretty disappointed, because for a minute there i thought that some sort of time warp was going on and next thing you know i'm riding a triceratops to school. i think that my family could maybe have predicted my vegetarianism because when i went through my dinosaur phase, as every child does, i only identified with the herbivores (as much a a five-year-old can identify with a dinosaur, anyway). triceratops, brontosauri, pteradactyls (if they're not herbivores, don't tell me); these were, and still are, the gentle giants i admire.

deets

which is, by the way, what my grandparents call me, just to get that into the open right now. so, the boat cruz. what can i say - when you hype something like that up in your mind like i did, creating fantasies about it and emphasizing its importance as a life event, it can never live up. i did have a great time - went to dinner with the cool kids getting their ma in english, our own little version of the breakfast club; snuck whiskey on the boat; never got too cold; danced a lot; envied black culture and made attempts to appropriate it; made a new friend who was impressed with 1. my whiskey 2. the impact that bill and ted have had on my life; saw a view of boston that actually made it look beautiful and not full of litter and bad drivers; got home and had a peanut butter bagel. by all standards, a great night out, and a good time was had by all the cool kids. but clearly, i did not need to be preparing for it emotionally and practicing "cool expressions" for an entire week. i'll tell you what may be a life event though: my friend's party next week. maybe those cool expressions really will come in handy. maybe i should come up with some new ones.

i guess it wasn't fun enough to precipitate an existential crisis, either; i haven't done a lick of reading all day. a little showering, a spot of cleaning, a grocery excursion, a little watching tv in bed, plus the purchase of a new comic book, yes, but absolutely no reading. now i'm out to go see 3:10 to yuma (which, by the way, is a line from a warren zevon song, although i just remembered that this film is a remake and probably the lyric came from that), and then after that maybe i will do a little reading. we'll see, we'll see.

omg

i just realized that my four-year obsession with mary tyler moore as a symbol of independent feminine strength may owe its origins more to my middle school obsession with weezer than any actual power her reputation either on screen or in real life may wield. man, that is terrible, and also shallow.

i will write about the boat cruise tomorrow. really.

how do you know when you really live in a city?

sometimes, i think it's those little secret moments that don't seem important enough to tell other people, or maybe they just belong to you so much that you don't want to. like, when an apple or a leaf falls right in front of you, or you catch the sunset just at the right moment when you're walking home and you happen to look down mapleton street. clearly these things have happened to me. also, in the last six hours, i have given relatively accurate directions to two people. i have a friend who is just so genuine-looking that he gets stopped on the street even in foreign countries to give directions, and secretly it has always been my ambition to look comfortable enough on a street to get asked as casually as he does. granted, both of these people were japanese, so who knows what they were thinking when they picked me (she's wearing converse, we have those; she's the only person looking me in the eye when i look at her; she looks academically insane, like hermione), but they did, and i helped them, and now i feel a little like i really live here and might think twice before just picking up and leaving the next time someone makes me cry.

other things that happened to me today:
the suspicion that a prehistoric bird lives on my street. i know that no one alive really knows what a pterodactyl sounds like, but picture a pterodactyl and think about what it might sound like, like the entire range of sounds that includes salutation, conversation, and celebration, and what you're imagining is happening in a tree about two houses down.
bones scattered all over the walk by a building i went to to drop off some forms. i know that someone probably just didn't clean up after themselves after eating some chicken wings (there's a lot of litter here - i myself threw a beer cup right into the harbor today and no one cared), but seeing bones all over the place is a little disconcerting. i thought it might be an omen, but i had no idea what kind. one time a bird pooped right on my head at the zoo and my grandma told me it was lucky; i hope it's that kind.

my RAD roommate bought me a $2 shirt. that is the picture you're looking at. it's a combination muumuu/housecoat/prettiest, most comfortable shirt i've ever owned. she is rad.

more on the boat cruz tomorrow - thank you for your and your mothers' concern, it was fun and i was totally warm enough. i f*cking love you all.

today has already been successful

today, i have gotten my student loan disbursement (requiring no action on my part, but it still feels like an accomplishment), decided not to go buy whiskey (also no action, but an overall sense of self-righteousness because this is clearly a healthy and financially sound decision, and also i'm pretty sure that if i don't i won't have any reason to get sick over the side of the boat tonight), written on three peoples' walls on facebook, finished my reading for class today, decided on some things i want to talk about in class today, and effectively begged for a position as a writing tutor. also, i ate a good breakfast and drank some chai, a healthy and delicious alternative to coffee. i'm wearing my outfit for the boat cruise (a shirt with a ship on it, my yellow shoes), and now i just have to go to school and do a couple errands and then i will have accomplished EVERYTHING i set out to do today, or at least decided that i wasn't going to do it. i'm getting up early every day from now on, this is awesome. also, this morning i rediscovered the "proper double-armed yawn upon waking." i know i woke up about three hours ago, but i've been doing it and a few of its variations (legs out with toes pointed, head back, holding one elbow then the other) probably every 15 minutes, and let me tell you, i feel awesome. i've also already had like half of the water you're supposed to drink every day (i know it's hard to get in eight eight-ounce glasses, but once you get past the having to go to the bathroom every five minutes, you really are a better person for it). today is terrific, and i'm not even letting the fact that i have to go to the bookstore, buy a book i'm going to hate reading because i forgot it the first time around, and then carry it out on the town with me get to me. in the face of my other accomplishments, it's just not that big a deal.

boat cruz 2 nite!

boat cruz

today was a much better day. i helped some ladies in an office, and they were grateful; i saw a marching band, and a bunny. class went well and i feel marginally more intelligent than i did yesterday. tomorrow, my day looks like this:
get up
write some emails
eat breakfast
read (i was going to do that now, but instead tonight is going to be the first night this week that i haven't been up until 2 doing homework, and i have decided to save it for tomorrow. progress? stay tuned.)
buy whiskey
go to school
get cold in the library
class!
beers
BOAT CRUISE

sometimes i look at the big picture and realize that something i've been excited about for a long time is going to take up so little time and i get disappointed. i mean, i have been looking forward to this boat cruise all week - figuring out what shoes i want to wear and how to sneak booze on there, what moves i'm going to use to impress people on the dance floor, what music i hope the dj will play, how many maraschino cherries i'm going to ask the bartender for, everything. it's like the harry potter book. i theorized about it for MONTHS and it took me just over 24 hours to read it and then i was like, "oh. well that's over." the boat cruise is going to be fun and all, but i know i'm going to wake up on saturday and go "i spent a week thinking about that when i could have been reading." then: existential crisis! although if i don't regularly question my ability to achieve the goals i set for myself (getting up before 9, being on time to everything [everyone else does it, why can't i], eating fruit, like, ever, being in touch with my family, being a nice person, surviving at school), i don't do anything. so, i'm looking forward to tomorrow night, and after that i'm looking forward to eating fruit early in the morning in the library for the rest of my life.

WELL.

i was a pretty bad person today. this girl that i know had like a walk-home date with her own personal jordan catalano. that's great, right? i like her all right, and i don't have a crush on the boy, so great for her. but instead i was just upset. not mad at her, but not happy for her, either. sometimes seeing boys and girls who are making out and happy together makes me really mad, and i just want to push them around and say that i have that too, just not right now. then later i was in class with her, and i came in and sat down before her, and when she came in she asked me if i could move over one. at first i was like "hell naw" because i had sat exactly where i wanted to sit, but then she pouted and i was like "no way i'm dealing with this for the entire class" so i picked up my stuff and prepared to switch places with her when she was like "no i want you to switch places with the other dude so he and i can sit next to each other," and i got mad. i mean, rude, right? asking me to move so she can not sit next to me and sit in between the two people she wanted to sit next to instead? so i said: "fuck off." then i moved away and sat next to this girl i don't know as well, and she was really nice to me. then when the first girl tried to apologize a little by cracking a joke to me, i said "i'm not fucking talking to you." and didn't look at her all class. i think maybe coffee makes me childish. i know it gives me a sailor mouth.

in another instance of other peoples' fortune putting me in a bad mood, i rubbed shoulders today with some people who had gotten positions as writing tutors and get like some sort of stipend for it and are clearly shoe-ins for the teaching fellowships we are all secretly competing for. they're all nice people, and clearly deserve it, but the whole thing just made me feel terrible about my own capabilities. but, on friday i am going to a party on a boat and i am going to let go of this academic/social anxiety and quit being so cerebral for like ONE MINUTE.

wwmtmd

i knew that this year was going to be hard, and i've prepared myself by telling myself that i will eat right, spend my extra money on small luxuries (commercial rap songs on itunes, hand lotion, tiny bottles of jack daniels, a cup with a ship on it), and, whenever life gets to be a little too much, ask myself: what would mary tyler moore do? the answer is, inevitably, cry a little bit, then throw her hat up into the air while yelling "she's gonna make it after all! doo-doo-doo-doo! doo-doo-doo-doo!" and then listen to some commercial rap, and think about how she is probably the best white dancer in boston, or at least in the apartment, at least if her roommates aren't home.

today was a hard day. i overslept (but wasn't late, i just felt irresponsible). there was a dead possum in the road on the way to the train stop - that made me sad, but what made it even worse was that when i was younger, i would cry when i saw roadkill: i would imagine that they were just trying to get back to their little rodent families, and i would silently let the tears pour down my face, hoping that if i didn't make a big deal out of it i wouldn't look like i had been crying when we got to where we were going. but today, i just kept eating my peach and walking and thinking about what a bad person i am. then it was raining, and i had to interview with like ten other people for a job i've been doing for two years, and i listened to way too much arcade fire. also, i'm used to coming home and getting a hug. not that i don't think either of my roommates, or even my clearly lonely irish immigrant neighbor would give me a hug if i wanted one, but i don't actually want to touch very many of those people and i'm used to hugging someone i like to touch, like, a lot. usually all it takes is a hug to make me feel better, and like less of an inhuman monster for eating while walking past a dead possum, but from now on i am going to have to depend on this:

ACK OMG DID YOU KNOW THERE WAS A STATUE?!?! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EVER TELL ME!!?!?!

what really sucks is, it is in twin cities and i will probably never, ever go there. unless i achieve my ultimate dream: a cross-country road trip that takes like two years where i just go everywhere i want to see and everywhere i know someone and stay there until i know how i feel about it. but, no one ever gets what they want, so i guess i will never, ever see this statue in person. GREAT.

bang bang smash smash

let's all feel bad for my friend lizzy, who got in a car accident (she's not too injured, just enough to get drugs). i don't know about you, but i'm going to follow the progress of her bruise with invested interest.

plans for the weekend, already - awesome, or lame?

what i may have forgotten to mention about saturday is, i had a great time with my grandpa. he told some jokes that wouldn't come off well in a blog, we talked about how great my grandma is, it was terrific. i also had a great time with my aunt, but you may have inferred that from the mention of a pool. it was 95 F in boston on saturday, and humid as all get-out. no one had good hair.

so yesterday i spent about 5 hours in the library - my goal was 8, like a job, but i just don't have the attention span for theory that i do for opening cardboard boxes (my real job). speaking of which, i have my orientation today. is it ok to wear jeans if you're already hired? the answer had better be yes, because i think i have one other pair of pants and they are some ratty corduroys i've had for four years. i'll compromise and wear a real shirt, no comic book characters.

yesterday i also bought a ticket to a boat cruise on friday. i debated because of the price - $15 - but ultimately, i figured, i get two drink tickets, two long islands at about $7.50 a pop, that's my money's worth. also, i found out that tickets were $60 for law students. it was never really in doubt that i wanted to go to a party on a boat. if it sucks, i'll just pretend it's my sweet 16 and i'm getting a car at the end.

to buy the ticket, i went to the graduate student center - full of foreign students, as i expected - but what i could not have anticipated was, they were watching the fresh prince. so i sat down, we all had a good laugh, and when i came back from the library, i looked up the following:

is this version better, just because it's longer, and includes more of the fresh prince rapping, which he never actually does on the show? this might be because i'm biased and can do the entire short version with no prompting, and might actually do just that on the boat on friday, but i don't think that the part with his mom and the part on the plane are as quality. also, i remembered the plane part as him having eaten a philly cheese steak in his seat, and i was disappointed when that didn't happen.