the nutritional value of the ruling burger

lately (within the last 24 hours) i have been obsessed with the idea of self-presentation. maybe because i am so, so bad at it. i'm not really sure where this is going, but i can tell you it will involve the following:
roland barthes' essay on wrestling
the ultimate warrior
50 cent

first of all, that essay is my favorite of all the "mythologies," and i have never even been into wrestling. well, ultimate fighting for a short period of time during which i was mildly acquainted with tim mcginty, alias "the irish warrior." he actually wanted to be called "the international lover," but that wasn't aggressive enough, so they gave him "the irish warrior." he was a great dancer. i have no idea what kind of lover he was, for the record. i was like sixteen and into skinny nerds, and the dude had no neck. i also have no idea what kind of fighter he was.

the ultimate warrior. how to discuss this. wwf grandstander in the 80's/early 90's, face painted like a neon hawk, either insane or a brilliant pr craftsman. in 1993 legally changed his name to "warrior." later began a wrestling college from which no one graduated. avid follower of hulk hogan's career, believes in "what hogan's doing" (whatever that is) but believes he can take it further. amateur metaphysical poet. professional motivational speaker and MANIAC.



50 cent. i'm currently developing some theories about the appeal of "get rich or die tryin" (the album, not the film, although the film is also awesome). they're related to stockholm syndrome and the desire of an abuse victim to stay with the abuser. i think the keys might be the intro - 50 cent piece falls on the floor, gun gets loaded - and p.i.m.p., the one with steel drums in which he addresses his hos.



as for the movie, this is what quest library catalogue has to say about it:
"A rap superhero is encased in muscular flesh like armor, his face is an impassive mask, he reaches out to destroy his enemies with his unique talent."
yeah, i ordered it on interlibrary loan. i also ordered princess bride. we have it on vhs here, but i already know i probably won't feel like watching it in the living room so i lied and said i needed the commentary that's on the dvd. no one's called me on it yet.

also, i found the real sugar at the dean's office.

sometimes i wish i had an enormous dog, the biggest you can imagine, pachyderm-sized

i guess maybe not pachyderm-sized, because how much would a dog that size eat, really.

so i found out tonight that i am stretched a little thinner than i thought. gail sent me a text message around six informing me that her coworker had not been fired. a little after seven, i got home to an empty apartment and picked up the mail from inside the door. there was some junk, and a bank statement for gail that had the words "behind you" written next to her name. i looked at it for a couple seconds and then just FLIPPED OUT. i walked around the apartment and tracked mud allll over the floor, called gail who was at work and so didn't pick up, and then called my mom who told me to go to the cops. i did, and when i got there one of them gave me a hug because i was shaking so hard. no matter what rappers say, the brighton police are some pretty nice guys. they told me that gail would have to bring the letter back in since she filed the initial report. so i walked over to the hospital (crying and calling almost everyone i know, at least everyone with a car or who is taller than me except for james because he is still technically kind of an invalid), where an operator pulled gail off the short-staffed floor. gail thanked me for caring enough to completely SPAZ OUT, but also told me that that is just something the post office writes on our mail sometimes and brian has been getting letters that say that since before we moved in.

what is my problem. maybe it just gets dark too early. please don't tell my grandparents about this. they will move in with me. as fun as that would be for a couple of days, i would still like to try taking care of myself for a while.

i guess i can never believe in my horoscope again. oh well.

happy birthday, alan alda

so things seem to be falling apart a little bit.
gail: death threat
carolann: bronchopneumonia, 1/4 life crisis, a heck of a lot of poetry
marissa: hiding under the covers
james: staph infection
i'm scared to talk to friends in other places because who KNOWS what is going on. my horoscope tells me, though, that today is a day when i will see the good side of people, but encounter complications if i spill to them. seeing as i am currently pretty low on existential crises (probably because arcade fire has gone completely unrepresented in my recent listening repertoire), i think this means that now is a good time to help everyone else deal with their problems. i am pretty good at that.

visiting is cool especially when you get tea and a nice little chat

everyone is blogging these days. nell. carolann. basically, people whose inner monologues i never would have expected other people to have access to. besides myself, obviously. and not that i think a blog is an accurate reflection of a person's inner monologue. mine is certainly at least slightly more complicated than the consistently awesome narrative embodied by "boston n00b" would imply. but, it's exciting. that is what i am trying to say. i like visiting my friends online because i really suck on the phone and don't go out that much in the winter. i also like visiting books in the library, visiting other people's pets, and, in the warmer months, visiting the ducks at the pond. i have to bring my own tea to most of these activities, but if you have seen how rad my friends' pets are, you would know that it is worth it.

in case you have a use for it

Pet´ti`fog`ging
a. 1. Paltry; quibbling; mean.
n. 1. Pettifoggery.

achewood is getting really incredible

i'ma fuck around and barf!

aaron platt-ross:
tiniest kid in our class, hands down.
could not say a not ridiculous thing.
laughed like a donkey laughs at a clown.
MARRIED.

jesse escobedo:
nature shirts with wolves on them. tye-dyed.
sat across from me in ap calc and sneezed into the crook of his elbow. by the end of the day, it was all crusty.
MARRIED.

here is the best part.
jamie mcdonald:
once found out a girl liked him and covered her entire car in glue. it wasn't me. i didn't even drive in high school.
refused to eat fruits or vegetables. ate eggo waffles with fake strawberry syrup for breakfast every morning. one morning, he refused it. his mother looked at the label: they had switched to strawberry concentrate from real strawberries.
dated a girl who wanted m&m's from the vending machine but spent fifteen minutes in front of it looking for the "m" button.
i can't think of any more, but i know this guy and can testify to how completely ridiculous he is.
MARRIED.

i couldn't make this shit up! clearly pizza is the ONLY remedy.

update!!!

james king is OUT of the hospital! i guess that means i won't get to bring him pizza anytime soon, but still!!!

also, i edited my last post, finally, so if you read it already maybe read it again because maybe it's slightly better now. it is still just a blog though so don't expect anything fantastic. ever.

sorry i badmouthed you, poetry, you're cooler than that (not you, amateur contemporary poetry, you still suck)

when i worked at tin house i really started hating poetry. probably because we had to wade through about one million attempts to describe a grandparent's funeral or how it feels to lose your virginity. i hated all of those poems. i found some incredible stories though. some really great ones about unicorns. unfortunately, my name did not make it to the masthead until after i left.

it has been pretty cold lately. cold enough that i've started complaining about it, although only a little and only in private. i've really been trying to be on my best behavior. it's pretty beautiful today though, so i took a walk around a little lake my grandma knows about from when she was little. i spent some time in the sunshine and checked - one more time - to make sure the ducks had migrated. i have enough things to worry about. i don't need to worry about ducks getting cold.







for the record, i know i'm not any kind of photographer. i mean, these pictures were taken from my phone. when i take pictures with my phone, it's usually because something is so awesome that i can't bear not to take a picture of it. today was like that. i've never seen a body of water completely iced over before. i was pretty excited. just ask the lady who was walking her schnauzer around.

i gave up the search for omens - carolann and marissa are going to the ball, so so am i. that's it. it's decided, and if i back out again i think marissa will slay me.

yesterday we visited james in the hospital. we made a bunch of jokes about heath ledger because it is impossible to acknowledge that your big strong friend is in a hospital gown with needles in his arm. i cried a little bit but covered it up by hugging him and then wiping my eyes in his hair.



then when we got in the elevator we felt pretty bad for all those jokes. it's my contention that his od - which i want to believe was accidental (also he had pneumonia i think) - was a direct result of his attempt to really "become" the joker for the new batman movie. he spent a month alone in a hotel room going insane on purpose. i know he was recently divorced and possibly gay, but i think that kind of thing could really break someone and probably had a much more significant effect on his drug use than all of my friends that i have talked to about this think. i'm not sure if i'm going to be able to see the movie believing that it killed someone by torturing him slowly. i do think, though, that it's going to take on some crazy significance like the whole brandon lee/the crow phenomenon. goths, welcome to the comic book world. read batman: arkham asylum. you'll love it.

also, lizzy, i'm pretty sure samuel johnson never said "choose life."

i love sugar but nutrasweet sucks

everyone in the dean's office is on a perpetual diet and it is all we have. my coffee tastes HORRIBLE because i didn't anticipate how much i would hate nutrasweet and i put in as much of it as i usually do sugar and now i think my teeth are going to fall out of my head.

i just spent half an hour in an office down the hall discussing prom/reunion/formal event horror stories. here are a few:
• girl loses 25 pounds, has fight with boyfriend and refuses to wear expensive dress mother bought or even think about attending prom. has to be put on xanax.
• husband and wife go to husband's 25 year high school reunion. husband leaves reunion with high school sweetheart (not wife).
• divorced woman attends 25 year high school reunion. husband is there with new, younger girlfriend. divorced woman's rejected prom date is handsomest man at reunion. he doesn't recognize her.
• all girls' friends vow to go prom stag, together (is this possible? what does "stag" really mean?). the next week they all have dates. girl asks boy with locker next to hers. they become friends between agreeing to go to prom together and the evening of prom itself. he tries to kiss her during slow song. she freaks out, runs away, begins dating best friend's prom date.
guess which one is mine. i've been trying to interpret these stories in a way that will yield some sort of omen directing me to either go or not go to the grad students' winter ball in february. at first i was excited, but that was about four or five months ago and i'll get excited about anything if i don't have to do it right away. then i dreaded it a little bit but had promised marissa i would go and already gotten gail to say she would do my hair and makeup and maybe marissa's and carolann's too. then marissa found out i was dreading it and released me from my promise, and i was relieved. then two separate people that i would expect to hate this kind of event told me it was going to be rad and i should go, and then i tried on my dress and it makes me look like the kind of cupcake a princess would eat. augh. maybe i'll throw a party and wear the dress. maybe i'll stay home and do work. maybe i'll stay home and watch bill and ted and blog about how lame i am, while wearing the dress. in the end i'll probably do whatever carolann does, i guess.

all the ladies in the deans' office love my bangs.

i guess school is a real thing again

it's back to the backpack today. bag, it's been a good run, but it is ridiculous to carry three books in you.

my roommate has a meeting with the hospital administration today, finally. i'm mildly furious that it took this long for them to get around to making a decision about an employee who threatened another employee's LIFE. granted, he was probably bluffing, or at least i assume so because he hasn't come around, but we still act like he wasn't and so should they. anyway, if he doesn't get fired, i would make her quit if i could make her listen to me.

for those of you who miss me, i will eventually return your emails, and in the meantime here is something i've watched about twenty times in the last couple days. watch it yourself, and imagine me giggling the whole time but laughing especially hard at the part where germaine catches the apple. actually at pretty much all the germaine parts.

threat level plaid: an introduction

i should preface this by saying that i have no idea what the actual threat levels are and i have absolutely no motivation to look them up. i would say that this constitutes neither dissidence nor internet laziness; dissidence, well, i guess i just can't really imagine that a failure to blog about actual threat levels is going to do or not do anything for anyone, and i'm pretty sure it's not internet laziness because i just spent twelve minutes searching for the video of an snl sketch i think i remember about hilarious patterns for threat levels. i didn't find it. clearly.

this morning my roommate came home from an overnight shift in tears because her coworker made the following comments:
"i'm gonna follow you home, stand at your window, and shoot you."
"i have great aim. i know where you live."
"in my country [trinidad], we treat rats like we treat fags. i'm gonna shoot you like a fag."
despite obvious rhetorical problems, the main one being that she had no idea why he thought she was a "rat," another being that he wouldn't have to follow her home if he already knew where she lived, she was terrified. i made her sit on my bed and write up a detailed account of every interaction they had (numerous) and who might have been around to hear it (no one, he's totally sneaky and has clearly pulled this before), which she then emailed to her supervisors. then we went to the brighton police station to file a report. then we got bagels.

that was an experience. the police station is being remodeled, so they're operating out of a trailer in its parking lot. this trailer smells a lot - a LOT - like dope. this exhausted blonde woman helped us, taking gail's information (she asked if gail was married - is that weird?) and squinting at the computer as she typed up all of the above and more with a completely straight face. at one point i cracked a joke about playing guard dog for the next couple days, but being concerned because the only self defense i know is tae bo. she smiled for the first and only time. we made a lot of other jokes too. that was pretty much the weakest one. people mystify me. she also called a detective in; gail and i watch a lot of police-oriented shows, so i think we were both poised to fall completely in love with him. well, that happened. he was small with this incredible unselfconscious pompadour and a black peacoat. he actually looked nothing like mark wahlberg, but of COURSE we both left and could not talk about anything but how much he looked like mark wahlberg. oh also, everyone had boston accents as thick as a brick wall.

the detective did a really great job of letting gail know what her options were, what the likely consequences of those options would be, and generally making us feel safe. what really interested me was their special concern about the homophobic nature of the comments. at different times, both the lady and the detective took a close look at both of us and said in a serious tone (actually, EVERYthing was in a serious tone, so maybe just a slightly lower tone), "now, we need to know. what is your sexual preference?" considering how much gail and i talk about boys, this is pretty much a hilarious question. gail explained that she is straight (actually what happened was both times i blurted out "we're not gay! we're just roommates!" not that i have a problem with being thought of as gay - some pretty hilarious things happen on the street sometimes when people in cars think that - but i was tired and was having a crush on the detective and i was worried that if i wasn't convincing enough they would take the threat less seriously, which it turns out is totally wrong), but is a gay rights activist and works with lgbt youth and her coworker knows this and has made aggressively homophobic comments in the past to her and several other coworkers. it was at this point that the four of us had a short debate about whether or not to get in touch with the hate crimes division. ultimately, we thought the threats had more to do with the categorization of gail as a "rat" and not a "fag," but the fact that this could have been considered criminally hateful because gail is a gay rights activist was pretty cool.

the bagels were great.

then we went home and took four hour naps, and then i walked gail to work and ate toffee for dinner because i was tired and it was there. THEN i found out that my friend james has a staph infection in his leg. i have not been able to find enough information on the internet to reassure me that he doesn't have a flesh eating virus. right now i am vacillating (no s - who knew?) between googling staph infections and looking out the window until a cop car rolls by. so far they have been averaging about one every fifteen minutes. they told us they would pay special attention to our house on regular patrols, and i am thoroughly impressed enough to sleep at least until i have to get up to walk gail home from work. i am going to put myself to bed before i worry myself into a coma.

ny resolutions update: as it turns out, cutting down on the swearing means that "like" starts popping up everywhere. this is pretty shocking as i was raised in a household with only two rules regarding speech: don't say "like" all the time and don't end every sentence like it's a question. oh, also, if you're going to be on television, spit out your gum because it makes you look like a cow. anyway, being someone who is pretty concerned about negative stereotypes attributed to californians, i have followed the first two pretty closely. i've never been on tv so i don't think i have to worry about the third, but i am extremely disappointed in myself right now for how much i sound like those girls from baby got back.

obligatory political post

i'm not exactly pro-hillary, but this makes a point i've been trying to make for weeks. it's a little extreme, but maybe now that someone official has said it people will listen to me.

i wish i was any good at art at all so i could make a tribute to stan lee

some pretty cool artists recently did a tribute show to stan lee. i feel pretty great about this. have i said anything about how i think civil war is his retirement project? well i do. the guy is old and has inspired way more people than anyone could hope for with something that used to be and still mostly is considered fluff. anyway, here are what i think are the highlights:
stan lee's superhero band
the hulk drinking tea with a chihuahua
wolverine smoking a stogie
the real 50's-style dr. strange portrait
the spiderman stained glass is pretty incredible, also the series of panels where everyone is spiderman, including the dog
the magneto portrait, obviously

in celebrity news, brad renfro is dead. i think i wrote him a fan letter once in about fourth grade. i know i had a crush on him. i feel pretty bad about how badly his life went downhill, because we are the same age and i am broke but happy and doing pretty well, which includes not abusing substances. well, coffee. does green tea count? no, i don't think so.

carleton: how many blogs a day do you read, dude?! i read, like, yours, mine, and two others, maybe. oh, also, perez hilton, obviously. well, i guess there's also slate, the drudge report, and several actually respectable political news sites (thanks ivers), as well as keeping up with portland news via the mercury and the willy week. do those count as blogs? is the internet a substance capable of being abused? i don't really watch tv, but i guess if i tallied up the hours i spend on the internet every day i would probably be pretty shocked and disappointed with myself, now that i think about it. well, my resolutions are already made for this year, so that will have to wait.

yesterday was my first day of class. i am PUMPED about irish gothic. i was pretty worried that the professor was going to compensate for it being an undergraduate class by making me do a TON of extra work to get grad credit, but it's really not that bad at all and i am poised to completely nerd out on the material. the other class i had yesterday was not at all as boring, dry and grammar-centric as i thought it was going to be. i'm pretty jacked about it. we watched a segment of "ugly betty" and discussed depictions of teaching writing in pop culture and conceptions of "good v. bad" writing in order to later set them aside. also, we get to make nametags and write a "personal narrative." also the professor is pregnant, which i'm really happy about for some reason. i have a tendency to get sentimentally attached to younger female teachers. well, i guess it's really only happened once. she was also pregnant. it's not weird though, everyone was really attached to her. she was a great teacher. in conclusion, i am pumped about school.

except for one thing. this other class i had last night, pedagogy, is the class you take when you get a second year teaching fellowship. i really wanted it, and i'm glad and grateful that i got it. it's not up to me to judge my classmates, but it seems to me that there are a lot of other students who really deserved it and didn't get it, and it feels wrong to be in that class without them. i'm worried that it will divide our class, and this concern has helped me realize that i'm actually pretty invested in some sort of class unity and the friendships i've made here.

on a brighter note, my cat is now giving me the time of day again. when i first got back he wanted nothing to do with me and slept in my roommate's bed, but now it seems that's all in the past and i'm again his first choice at six in the morning when he wants to be fed. it actually really hurt my feelings when he gave me the cold shoulder, and i'm really happy about our rediscovered closeness. my roommate says he's really high maintenance, but i never really noticed because i think i am also high maintenance in that i need to pet him just as much as he needs to be petted. i think that's probably enough getting emo about my cat, school, and everything in general. i'm going to go decorate my nametag and listen to some guitar wolf.

about dern time

well it is!!! i finally came up with some resolutions, some feelings about school, and the resolve to blog about them.

resolutions:
swear less
moisturize more
do things in time to not be rushing (getting up, writing papers, dealing with bureaucracy, buying monthly t passes)
start liking green tea
i already brush my teeth regularly, so i think that about covers it.

well, i realized that i didn't even TRY to blog about portland. let's start with that. i had a great time. i think i was pretty mean to jake for the first few days i was there. i can't really explain why. it's hard to feel like you belong in three different cities and to constantly change your mind about which one you want to try to live in when you grow up, but that's not an excuse. i feel bad about it. but i got better. first, we went to jordon and laine's house, where we stayed at hotel jordo in an empty room, bed and everything, which was great because i was all prepared to stay on andre's couch for four nights and it was way, way better than that. we had a pretty good time on new year's, just hung out with each other, little miles and dave h. the next day we went to see superbad at the laurelhurst. can't beat those three dollar theaters. after that we went to the chaat house, which i dream about sometimes, and then to powell's city of books, which is a dream all on its own. i blew a bunch of money on books i really love that barely fit in my suitcase. we also hit up the avalon, which is a nickel arcade that is both a wonderland and a nightmare. we went to burgerville several times and drank a lot of incredible coffee. it wasn't that cold, and it only rained for like one day. i really miss portland a lot. i also saw sarah and matt (hey guys! i sent you something in the mail), which was incredible. i really love visiting friends and realizing that even in a situation where they could be "just work friends," you have a real bond with them, something that's important enough to maintain over long distances. keeping people in your life is a relatively new thing for me. i was talking to my grandmother about it in the car yesterday when she took me grocery shopping and to buy my books, and i voiced some surprise at how important all the people in my life are to me, and how that hasn't always been the case. i also expressed some trepidation for getting closer to them or, in some cases, living with some of them, and she said that it's perfectly natural to screw up friendships when you're younger but as you get older you figure out how to compromise in order to keep the ones you care about around. that made me feel better about several friends i've had serious "breakups" with in the past that i've been thinking about lately, because i worry frequently that all friendships are going to end like that but grammy made me feel like i'm old enough and not-teenage enough for that kind of thing to not happen anymore. so if any friends are reading this, you're stuck with me, suckers!!!

the day after i went to the zoo, i did a bunch of laundry and didn't leave the house. the day after that, i went to the comic art museum. in terms of their standard stuff, i was surprised at how much information and material i was already familiar with because of my significant interest in comics - there wasn't much about the history of comics that they tried to educate me about that i didn't already know. the edward gorey exhibit was pretty cool, though. apparently, he put together a performance of dracula - sets, costumes, screenplay, everything, and not a reeinvisioning of the earlier bela lugosi broadway production that was made into film either - to be performed on the cape, which became so popular it went to broadway (starring john waters) and was eventually filmed. he had an apartment in new york, but also spent a lot of time with his family on the cape and did a lot of work there. in new york, he attended the new york ballet religiously from the 60's to the 80's in a fur coat and sneakers. he only watched television for one single six-day stretch, during which he only watched reruns of the original star trek. he liked it so much he went to see william shatner in a play on nantucket. the interviews with him were hilarious. he really sounds like my kind of guy. but you probably have to be rich and famous, or at least have a cult following, before you can be publicly eccentric. i wonder how famous you have to be to go to the ballet in sneakers and have people be cool with it. i went to to gift shop and got a copy of the gashlycrumb tinies, obviously. i wanted the original amphigorey but they were conspicuously out.

that night i left for boston on the redeye. when i got in the next day, i was homesick for about a dozen places, and very sorry that i didn't get a real burrito when i had the chance. so i drank a lot of water and cleaned the house, and then went to my haircut appointment. my stylist is awesome. my stepmom has a pretty close relationship with her stylist, and it's something that i've always thought was old-fashioned in a really cool way. people used to know the people that cut their hair, sold them groceries and dry cleaned their clothes, but that doesn't happen that often anymore, so when my stylist told me it was lame that i was going home to clean my room with hair that looked so awesome, we went out for bloody marys. i had a great time, although i will probably never actually go out partying with him because 1. he's way too stylish for me 2. he rolls way too expensive for me. but, it is cool to be friends with him, especially since he gave me an incredible "glam blowout" and i got my favorite haircut of my entire life, again. later i went out for indian food (not as good as either the chaat house or naan and curry, but still awesome) and some beers with other english students.

yesterday, it was sunny and i had brunch at my grandparents' house. if you've read this far you already know what i did afterwards. i said about two words about being worried about getting home with about fifty pounds of books and/or groceries, and my grandmother had her coat on and was halfway to the car. my mom says that they're retired so they're more than happy to spend time making my life convenient, but i'm always a little incredulous. and they're not the only ones either - during the holidays, greetings just flooded in accompanied by invitations to visit and offers of one kind or another from aunts and uncles all over the place. i love being related to people.

i was a little hesitant about being excited for classes because i was so busy vascillating between being homesick for home and being homesick for portland, but as soon as i got my books i got really hyper about school. i'll refrain about writing about them here because i'll probably write about them later and this is probably the longest blog entry i've ever written. also, it snowed last night and i've become infatuated with the way snow looks on bare trees. i've always been mildly obsessed with trees. for a while there, i thought owls were going to replace trees in terms of the main thing that is aesthetically pleasing to me, but i think the terrible pictures i took today prove otherwise.







oh, also, i have bangs now. just, you know, casual bangs. but i have them.

adventures in anthropomorphism

lizzy and i went to the zoo on wednesday. it was pretty incredible, as predicted. we got REALLY close to the giraffe.

let me tell you, it is completely ridiculous how a giraffe drinks. completely. they are too tall for their own good. "they're basically walking trees," said lizzy.

we also went on the carousel, which was delightful.




the tiger thing was pretty much the big joke of the day. lizzy and i are bad people in that we make light of others' grief and misfortune.



then . . . then we saw the real tiger. it was not scary, but we sort of pretended that it was, just for fun.



this isn't the real tiger, of course. the real tiger was shot to death with handguns by the police.

what there are not any pictures of:
how sad the silverback gorilla looked, and how we waved to him to try and cheer him up but he was having none of it and we realized he was way to smart to be cheered up by us pretending he is human
the giraffe frolicking while we stood on the monkey structure and talked about boys
the enormous rhinoceros which was pretty much a dinosaur except one third the size

i do however have one terrible photograph of the penguins.

they were trumpeting. it was ridiculous. pretty much they took turns sounding like donkeys. a guy in a nice suit with a really nice ankle-length wool coat came up to us and explained that they were looking for mates because mating season is at the end of this month. he pointed out the four youngest penguins, chicks conceived during last year's mating season, who don't have their tuxedos yet. i wanted to ask him why these chicks were so much bigger and fatter and clearly lazier than the other adult penguins, but with a swirl of his coat, he was gone. we talked about him for about half an hour after that - who was he? did he work there? wouldn't you wear rubber boots or a nametag if you worked at the zoo, or at least not really expensive clothes? lizzy said she thought he had a radio - maybe he was security, but in that case, why wasn't he wearing a uniform or a badge? was he some sort of high-up legal authority looking into big cat safety or the recent mauling? do high-up legal authorities have brooklyn accents, or know a ton about penguins? maybe. maybe they do. then we had a usual suspects moment where we realized everything he had told us was written on a sign attached to the penguin enclosure. so. i guess he was just a weirdo with a radio.

after that we went to the petting zoo. the usual goats standing on things and ignoring you if you don't have any food. when i was little i would get so excited because i thought all the goats were pregnant. i would run around to each of them to see if i could feel the baby kick. it was a real turning point for me when i realized they were all just really fat.

one of the highlights of the petting zoo was the birds of prey exhibit. we did not get to pet them, although we desperately wanted to. they were beautiful (except the turkey vulture, he was hideous. sorry frank. you are). my favorite was the eurasian eagle owl, "athena."

she was enormous and fluffy. i'm really bad with sizes, but i'm going to go ahead and say three feet tall and really, really fluffy, golden brown in a lot of places, pretty incredible. birds are strange because they move in really unfamiliar ways.

anyway, i'm going to get out of here and go to the cartoon art museum now to try and get out of the housekeeper's way.

zoo ahoy

it has been in the sixties in boston this week. i'm furious. mostly at myself, because i take this as a sign that i should have gone back east earlier than two days before school starts. but also at boston.

that said, i am having an awesome time at home. my mom just made cookies, i've seen my horse every day since i got back from portland, and i have a series of adventures lined up for every day before i leave. yesterday it rained, so i went to see juno (hated it, see entry regarding amelie) and bought a new hat on west portal - this was an adventure because going to the movies by yourself is always an adventure, and i don't usually wear hats. today i'm going to call lizzy and go to the zoo. tomorrow, i'm going to the cartoon art museum to see the edward gorey/dracula exhibit. did you know that edward gorey illustrated t.s. eliot's old possum's book of practical cats, which was the basis for the musical? well. he also did a series called the gashlycrumb tinies (this version will help you with your spanish!). my favorite is "n is for neville, who died of ennui":

oh man, i just got really excited about going to the comic art museum. but not as excited as i am about going to the zoo. i'm a little worried because getting into the zoo is going to cost money, and then i know i'm going to want a snack or a stuffed animal or something - i just cannot do something like go to the zoo without getting a souvenir, but i'm going to limit myself to a postcard because when the aquarium opens back up i am absolutely getting a stuffed invertebrate - and i also know that i'm going to want to buy an edward gorey thing tomorrow if only to show off to the professor who assigned dracula this semester and suddenly my adventures are racking up kind of a price tag. but once i get to boston i'm not going to have time for any adventures, and the only thing i spend money on is food and the occasional movie anyway. and beer, i guess. occasionally. although whenever i go out with nathaniel he pays for everything. i think he might have weird ideas of what modern chivalry consists of.

friday i'm doing laundry and cleaning out the cookie jar. if you've ever seen the amount of laundry i can accumulate, you will know that this is an adventure.

just in case you, like, care, or whatever

i've been thinking, and i feel the need to clarify a few things.

first. when i said i was happy that i had convinced my dad to do something against his better judgment, i meant that i was happy that i had been confident enough to ask him to go even though i knew he didn't necessarily want to. i do not find it enjoyable to make him sit through horrible cinema. we are not that kind of family. i care about him and i hope he didn't think it was totally horrible. i had fun, at least. i am a good kid.

second. my mom is not a bad mom. she didn't let it go totally unnoticed that i watched a teen drama from the 90's all day saturday. she made exactly the right amount of fun of me for it. she has a healthy attitude towards the occasional bout of self-indulgence, and i appreciate that. she is a great mom.

third, i was not totally drunk today. i had like one lemon drop in the sun after no burrito. i'm not an irresponsible horseback rider, although i know people who are.

i'm still going to the zoo tomorrow.

grisly is right

today i went to the mission and met a couple friends, one from high school and one from college. this happens a lot. i forget that these two groups of people don't know each other, or really any of the same people but me, and i plan to hang out with a bunch of them. you would think i would love being the center of attention, but i actually get really anxious trying to make sure that everyone has a good time. it's going to get worse with grad school mixed in. in fact, it already has. we had a great time today though. i got some really super burnt coffee from a muslim lesbian who runs her own coffee shop on valencia. regular coffee, not with a bunch of chocolate - i'm going for a purist/cheapest thing, although i usually end up dumping about a pound of sugar in as well as a bunch of milk. as much as i would like to drink it black (like jordan catalano) i am just not that cool. we finished a crossword in the guardian, which is a lot less reputable than i thought it was. i almost got a burrito, but i was too full of coffee, although i really could have used it because after visiting a CRAZY fish store and discussing everything we knew about ichthyology (very little, mostly made up except for what i know from youtube), we went to a bar with a patio and got drunk at 2:30 in the afternoon, in the sunshine (which led to a bunch of texting - sorry, everyone). i made it home by 5:30 (on time) and my mom took me out to ride my horse in the pitch dark, which was exhilarating. when i went in to the pasture to get him, i couldn't see ANYthing (also he is black), so i just stood there (still a little drunk) yelling his name and rattling some cookies around in my pocket. he thundered up to me like this big hole cut out of the sky and all i could do was look at the stars and giggle, so we ran around together giggling for a little bit and then i fed him. it was terrific. it is so incredible to have a horse. girls who want ponies know what i mean.

also i saw my friend dan wilson. he was on a bike. this also happens a lot, with dan and with dave h the original. that is a whole nother story.

tomorrow i am going to go to the zoo if it's not raining. i actually have a whole series of adventures planned out to do by myself this week. the zoo is first because it's not supposed to rain tomorrow and i have this sudden urge to support the san francisco zoo after the whole tiger thing. i know a little bit of gossip about that which i will share later. today i was walking around looking for coffee and there were all these hopeful banners up advertising the sf zoo's new "grizzly gulch." it really depressed me. i also just want to see animals, but that's pretty much all the time.

i miss jake. our visit to the zoo last year was probably both the best valentine's day and visit to the zoo i will ever have. i'm not saying i'm going to try and do better tomorrow. i mean, we saved a toucan, so i don't think that's even possible. i'm just saying i want to go, is all.

here are some of the videos that have taught me about ichthyology and the ocean's mysteries:
shark v. octopus
pistol crab [this is insane and i completely did not believe it the first time around (the SUN!!!)]
jellyfish
obligatory hippo clip

five days into the new year and i'm already a bad person again

today i spent all day in bed watching my so-called life. i watched the entire season. my mom was cool with it. i wasn't even sick. i'm starting to think that maybe what my mom thinks is not a particularly accurate barometer.

i'm in love with jordan catalano, who is a fictional character. this is a problem for many obvious reasons, the largest of which are that no boy in real life could possibly be as good at leaning or as bad at talking about feelings, both of which are huge selling points for me. if only i could just find the exact perfect ringtone to reflect this.

i get so angry when people on television forgive other people for doing undefendable things, like sleeping with someone else. they always forgive them within one to two episodes, even if the someone else was, like, a best friend. i would never forgive anything like that if it happened to me. actually, something like that did kind of happen to me, and i forgot about it for a while, but now that i think about it i'm really mad.

there's still a person living on our couch. this is beginning to infuriate me. she lived with us (in an actual room) in high school and infuriated me then, too. i've been back from portland for one day and i feel like i'm in high school again, like a towering behemoth compared to my bird-sized mother, a mean judgmental person compared to my dog, a loser compared to everyone on television, and a complete jerk all around. i also have this weird feeling that new clothes will help, even though i know it's a lie. i think i miss the library.

every time i come to portland something blows my mind. this was today's.