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."