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.