A Shockingly Serious Post

A girl at my university killed herself last week. I read it in the campus newspaper, that she hung herself in her dorm, just after the first week of classes.

I'm not sure how to react to this news. My first reaction is to say, "so? I don't know her, I don't live in her dorm, this doesn't affect me, so what's to react to?" Then I feel a little guilty because no man is an island and all that, and because sheesh, have I no sympathy at all? This guilt is fleeting, though, and leaves me in search of something else to think about this situation.

Overall, I'm just confused when I hear stories like this. What's to die for? You're a college student, you've got friends and classes to go to and maybe your life isn't perfect, but whose life is? I can kind of understand a person wanting to end it all because they've gone bankrupt and want their wife and five children to have the life insurance money or something like that. But what is there for a young, vital person to kill themself for?

I know, I've read Suicide and know all about anomie and the feeling of disconnectedness that occurs around the late teens and early twenties. But hey, I've been in a state of anomie before, and all it did for me was make me feel like my head was a little floaty and I was more distractable by pretty colors and shiny objects for a while. If anything it made me stick to my schedule more because I didn't really have the creativity or willpower to do anything I hadn't done before. But maybe different people are affected differently? I'm not sure. I sure am sorry for that girl, though. She had so much to look forward to, so much left to do with her life, and now she can't. I'll see if I can do anything extraordinary for her today, since she can't. This weekend I will celebrate my life.

Kids These Days

I don't know what my problem is, but recently I've been talking less and less like a normal human being, and more and more like a crotchety old woman who is indignant at the whole world.

This week marked the beginning of the semester, and as such we had numerous concourses of freshmen in and out of the doors of our office, trying to see advisors RIGHT THIS SECOND because their little scheduling problems are the most urgent issues facing the world of today. Part of my annoyance is due to the complete lack of respect they show for everyone they encounter, and another part is due to the fact that none of their stories are unique. I've listened to the same story over and over today, maybe a hundred and fifty times today. I'm going to listen to it again a hundred and fifty times tomorrow, and then again the day after another hundred times. Perhaps by Friday the sob story of not having the exact classes I want will lessen to about fifty, but that may be wishful thinking.

I wonder if this is how nurses feel at the end of the day, or lifeguards. Sheesh, here I have to go save another life, because another person did the exact same stupid thing that I've been telling people not to do all day long. And then after saving countless lives with little to no thanks (because it's your *job* to do that), you just can't get to one in time because you're busy saving somebody else, and then the dying one gets all mad at you, like come on, man, where were you? Why weren't you there to coddle me and save me when I did something stupid?

Or they yell. I get that a lot these days, too.

Ah, Wedded Bliss

The wedding was a happy occaision, the bringing together of two very silly families. It was very entertaining, knowing both families, to see them all meet for the first time, and guess what was going through their heads about their new in-laws.

While my hair did not beautify itself during the night, I was able to wrangle it into shampoo-commercial hair, all smooth and wavy and kind of elegant looking, if I do say so myself. I ended up making the 1.5 hour drive to the wedding site with the groom and his groomsmen, who were his old buddies from elementary school days (???). They've grown in slightly different directions during the past few years, though, which was good for me. While the groom is, as the bride puts it, a "loveable dork," the groomsmen are pretty cool and hilariously funny. We spent most of the time joking and laughing and having as grand a time as you can have in tuxes and a bridesmaid dress in 105 degree weather. I also helped them decorate the getaway car (are bridesmaids allowed to do that?), adding serifs where necessary to make their manly handwriting more readable. Little hearts and foofy borders around the "Just Married" were also left up to me. The bride and groom drove merrily away, probably glad to be rid of their micromanaging mothers (both of them! such bad luck) for the week.


About two hours after that reception ended, the one for my roommate began on the other side of town. That one was an absolute joy, as I was only a guest, and could come and go (and eat delicious wedding food) as I wished. Hers was a little more fancy and formal, which was appreciated after the chaos of all the family members earlier in the day. The happy couple looked very sharp, and more happy and relaxed than I've seen either of them for several months now. There apparently was a bouquet toss, but I had snuck out early, ready for some pajama time at home.

Ahoy

Sigh, two weddings this weekend, and important as they are I almost wish I could ditch them and sit by the pool for two days instead.

What was my friend thinking, asking me to be a bridesmaid? I don't have a bridesmaid body, and I absolutely do not have bridesmaid hair. Being the smart person I am, I decided to begin experimenting with hairstyles an entire 12 hours before I'm expected to be ready at arms. Hopefully some miracle will occur in the night and I will awaken perfectly coiffed in the morning.

Meanwhile our kitchen is slowly filling to the brim with little tubes wrapped in ribbon, the favors for my roommate's wedding, which will eventually (by tomorrow evening) be filled with... almonds? m&m's? I'm not really sure how that's all going to work out, but I did tie fifty little bows onto fifty little lids this afternoon. Fifty painstaking bows out of wire ribbon.

I'm very much looking forward to the beginning of the school semester.

Birthday Guide, 2007

Livers the Newsboy

Maybe a blender?

ah yes, a Vacuum

some good roommates (hah! I've already arranged to have some delivered starting in August!)

Some more of that perfume you bought me once, sis? Or maybe a new fragrance, like that rose one? Or almond? But I really do like the vanilla one. It's just getting low

Gather Ye Rosebuds

This summer has been a rather exciting and exhausting mix of bridal showers, weddings, pool parties, receptions, impromptu dance parties, bridesmaid dresses, packing boxes and a textbook apparently written for ten year olds. Throw in my job and trying to wash dishes once in a while and maybe feed the chinchillas every week or so, and I'm having a hard time flossing nightly. Also remembering my name.

Fortunately for me, work has recently turned into a part time affair, and my summer class is one day from being over. With my newfound free time, I've found that there is a lot more to do at home than I once thought. I've been doing some packing here and there to make things easier in a couple of weeks when I move, so now I cannot watch movies or read books because the media was the first to be boxed up.

All of this stress and work leads to a cranky me, which is why I am so looking forward to my five-day weekend coming up; I intend to drive far away, set up a tent, and do some hiking and relaxing in one of the most beautiful parts of this country. Circumstances beyond my control threaten that I may not get this holiday that I've been looking forward to and needing so much. Hopefully that possibility does not come to pass, because if it does I may just go insane.

#59: Go Places

I think I've reminisced once or twice before about my youth. This time it will be different!

My Backyard: a descriptive essay by ViolaSaint

From age since-I-can-remember to age almost nine, we lived in a blue and red house in Southern California. The backyard of that house was amazing, with a garden, a swingset with the steepest slide imaginable, and a pepper tree. Oh, also the grounding wires for the power line ended up in our yard. And a big pile of peppers and leaves and other random tree litter. When it rained, the porch would flood, and when it was dry enough my sister and I would spend the afternoon making mudmen (think tiny snowmen without the snow) and setting them on the brick wall to dry. My mother has multiple photos of my sister pushing me on the swing in the swingset, I guess that was either a favorite pastime or she just liked the way pictures like that looked. The January (?) before we moved, there was an earthquake that gave both my sister and I post-traumatic stress issues, and I remember during the weeks afterward we cleaned the house. One of my duties was sorting the stuff from the game closet, and I recall sitting outside in the backyard, sorting monopoly money while watching the dust billow around the mountains during an aftershock.

From age nine-ish to age, uh, 20, my backyard had a pool. A pool with a waterfall and a rock in the middle where we stood and pretended to be the Karate Kid. For a certain number of years the backyard was where our dog Jack lived, and we had to spend every Saturday walking around the side yard, picking up his droppings and being disgusted. We tried to do a garden in this backyard, but were largely unsuccessful. We grew a few things, but it proved impossible to keep the dog and the rabbits and the quail out of stuff, so most plants never got a chance to live before they were destroyed. For much of my youth in this house, the backyard was less a place to play than it was a portal to the wash behind our house. Stand on the waterfall and climb over the fence and you were into a wild, parentless territory where you could explore and make forts and hope they weren't discovered and messed up by the neighborhood boys. We found an old discarded christmas tree down there once, and set it up with flowers and other plants as decoration.

The year I was twenty, my backyard wasn't a backyard. Living in the dorms, when I looked out my bedroom window I saw a driveway where the snow accumulated, and beyond that, the gym. During the winter I would stare across at the people running on the track, and during the spring I watched the teenage boys practicing their mad skateboard skillz on the walkway beneath. Don't worry- I didn't spend all my time staring out the window. I spent my fair share of time actually in the gym (about an hour every weekday) as well as in class and walking around the lake that was on the other side of the dorms.

My current backyard was so full of promise when we moved in a year ago, and has been horribly underused. It is very large, with a clothesline, a tree and these big sheets of rusty corrugated metal put up like a strange privacy screen. There's a little patch of brick that has a fun L-shaped bench around it, and the yard would be so perfect for backyard camping and barbeques and beach parties without the beach. However, in the Fall this nasty grass grew in it, grew a foot tall, two feet tall, three feet tall! And then in the winter this three-foot-tall grass died and we've had three foot tall hay in our yard since then. We could have and should have ripped it out or mowed it or something so we could use the yard, but we didn't. Our landlord was apprised of the situation finally, and has hired somebody to do something about it, but this somebody came about a month ago and chopped it all down and raked it into piles and decided that it'd be too hard to take the piles away, so I guess his job is done. No progress has been made back there in the past three weeks, except for this one evening when a friend and I felt like doing somthing useful and bagged up three of the piles. We're moving again in a few weeks, and our window of opportunity with this yard has all but closed. Unless the magic yard fairy comes and blinks away the hay tonight, there is very little chance of our ever having that barbeque of our dreams.

On Campus Today

A woman walks toward the student union with two girls, maybe six years old each:

Woman: "Do you know where we are?"

Girl 1: "We're at COLLEGE!"

Girl 2: "No, we're at cartilage!"

Girl 1, giggling: "We're going to cartilage!"

Woman: "No, we're at college. Do you know what cartilage is?"

Girl 2: "It's it's it's it's..."

Woman: "It's kind of like bones, only softer. It's in your ears."

Girl 1: "Ooh, the squishy stuff? I have cartilage in my ears!"

Girl 2: "You have cartilage in your ears. And you have cartilage in your nose. You know where else you have it? You have cartilage in your BOOB!"




Wrong squishy stuff, kid.

Marching Fourth in July

One of the best holidays, I think, would be Independence Day. You get to stuff yourself full of hamburgers, play all day, lay around in the park while the symphony plays rousing music, and watch things explode. If you're lucky or daring, you get to be in charge of making things explode. While I didn't have an opportune moment yesterday to use my contraband firecrackers, I did get to do all the other things in the above list.


There's no more American sight than a stranger in a patriotic shirt, waiting to board the shuttlebus to the park. We Americans refuse to walk!


The symphony's excitingly lit tent:


This is the picture you get when you set fireworks off yourself, with only one chance at getting the shot:


And this is the picture you get when you have fifteen minutes of continuous, professionally produced fireworks:

Frustration

Rather than explaining the coolness of this picture, and giving a witty monologue about the summer solstice festival where we saw the alien-giraffe people, I will simply let it stand as a monument to that day. The picture will also stand as a monument to my frustration at not having a simple, useful Photoshop-like application in my computer. You have no idea how long it took me just to crop the blonde lady's head out of the picture.

Smell

Our couch suddenly smells like B.O. It isn't really bad or really strong, but every once in a while a hint of B.O. wafts its way up to my nose. This isn't a huge problem for me because it is one of the commonly agreed-upon bad smells that I am very tolerant of, but I'm not sure how the rest of the household is going to react. For the past hour since I first noticed it, I've been going over in my mind who has recently sat here, and I've not come to any conclusion. The only people who have used the couch in the past 24 hours are people who I'm familiar with, and who have used the couch before without incident. This leads me to believe that either some person was having an uncharacteristically smelly day, or we have the ghost of a hobo haunting our living room, lying on our couch and eating beans out of a can.

That would explain why we have so much trouble with the can openers in our house.

For Rent

I've become a jealous home-renter. Although we plan on moving somewhere smaller in August due to a general lack of roommates, I feel very angry and defensive whenever a car slows down in front of our For Rent sign to take down the information. This is *my* house! *I* live here! I'm Not Gone Yet!

On the Rez

Invited to the reservation by a friend working there for Americorps, we headed out in search of adventure and excitement. We found there:

--a couple sitting by the side of the road, selling $8 watermelons out of the back of their truck. Excited by the idea of purchasing fresh fruit, we pull over. "These look good. Where do they come from?" The man looks at the crate in the truck, turns to us and says flatly, "Texas."

--a skinny horse and its skinny foal. We drove past them on the road, where they were roaming freely in search of weeds big enough to eat. In fact, we drove past them at least three times, as the map we were given was very much not to scale and labeled poorly.

--the cultural center, finally. It ended up not being in the town we thought it was in originally, which caused great confusion. Once we parked and walked in, most of the celebratory activity was over. However, they still let us into the museum and gave us paper fans, programs, and cheap plastic visors for coming. We looked at some nice (contemporary) art by the people of the nation, and watched a half-hour long video on traditional basketweaving, filmed at least fifty years ago. It felt odd- watching this movie with a bunch of people from the tribe, while the narrator calls them "indians" and uses a tribe name that they no longer associate themselves with. I wasn't sure whether to criticize the old movie, or be respectful of it since they were showing it at their cultural center.


The drive home was somewhat more squashy and uncomfortable, as we added two watermelons to the five people already in the car, but the conversation was sparkling and dinner at a Mexican food stand on the South side of town was excellent.

My morning dialogue with my hair

Me: Hair, be straight.

My hair: No thanks.

Me: Hair, be straight. I will turn up my straightener to eleven.

My hair: I prefer to be snarly.

Me: How about if I put some hair goop in?

My hair: How about if I turn into a triangle? I can do that real good.

Me: Please, hair! I beg you, be straight!

My hair: What's in it for me?

Me: I'll put more hair goop in and run my fingers through you! I will love you forever!

My hair: Are you sure you don't want one side wavy and the other side stringy?

Me: Yeah, I'm sure.

My hair: How about this: I'll pretend to be straight now, but throughout the day I will gradually poof into a triangle again.

Me: I'll take it!

Feeling Lucky

I'm home from Texas, I have a dice in one pocket and a penny in the other. Surely my Tuesday will be filled with joy and good luck.

Greetings from Texas!

While the weather has been perfectly lovely this week, I've decided I could never live in a place with humidity. The blessed coolness and the giant green trees and the beautiful Riverwalk (it's like Europe, in Texas?) are all tainted with the fact that the crooks of my elbows and the back of my neck are sticky and weird continuously.

It's raining today in San Antonio, which is lovely and wonderful- the rain has been going nonstop since about midnight last night- and completely foreign to me. Never have I seen rain rain for so long without stopping. Unfortunately, we took the opportunity to splash in puddles on the street just now, completely forgetting that duh, nothing ever gets dry here. Thus, we will be going wedding dress shopping with damp knees and wet hair. They will love us there, I'm sure.

Certainly I've posted more recently than that?

Finals are over, hurrah, and I made the dean's list, yippee.

I went to a training session for one of my summer jobs, and excitement galore, I got a free ($0!) shirt.

I've been getting lots of hours at work, so I'll have actual money to pay my landlord with, rather than the pound of flesh nearest the heart I usually have to give. This newfound money will also fund my extensive travels this summer.

In three hours I leave for a big, big state. You might even call it a Great State, if you were so inclined. I'm very excited about this, as I've never actually seen the state before, aside from the inside of its airports. I am also excited because I get to skip a week of work in order to do this.

Maybe I should go to bed? I'll probably feel like a steamrollered pile of crap in the morning either way, but maybe if I sleep a little, I won't feel like one right now as well.

But I need to take a shower, so I can pack my shampoo.

Plus, I can sleep in the car, after eating the (apparently) obligatory doughnuts and orange juice for breakfast. Except thinking of that combination leads me to believe I'll be more likely to puke than to sleep after such a breakfast.

One good thing about beginning the trip at 4 in the morning is that the car doesn't start out blisteringly hot. Hurrah!

Now I'm just prolonging taking a shower and getting to bed. Bad idea.

I think I hear my roommate snoring in the bathroom? Perhaps she shouldn't stay up so late, either. See you in a week!

Baby Steps

I may have said this before, but I'm very excited and proud of myself for my monumental achievement. I had a dental appointment this December, and as the hygenist wrenched at my teeth with various picks and brushes, she made the same remark that every hygenist I've had has made since I started going to the dentist as a child. She stated that everything would be so much easier if I flossed, like, ever.

Each time previously, I've always noodded penitently, but inwardly thought, why torture myself with that horrible painful string every day when I can just have you people get rid of it twice a year? I'm not entirely sure what made the difference this time, maybe it was the cool plastic flossing wand she handed me on my way out the door? For whatever reason, I decided to start flossing every day. I've done pretty good so far, in that I started doing it on the first of January and I've only missed two days since then. I know that I've got a lot of work to do, and that this is only the beginning, but I'm just so proud of my accomplishment so far. Here's a quick chart to show the progress I've made:

Years spent flossing (blue) vs not flossing (purple)

Apparently all I'm good for is lists

Another one, just to catch everyone up. Tonight's theme? Ways to know you've had a good night.

1. You're exhausted.

2. You got dinner, dessert and into a club, and only spent two dollars

3. Your mouth still feels a little funny from the atomic wings you ate, and don't even think about rubbing your eye with those fingers

4. You found a picture book in the grass

5. You're sweaty and smelly

6. You have gunpowder residue on your hands

7. You had two dates to the formal dance you weren't planning on going to

8. You hope that guy didn't think you were coming on too strong when you tackled him and knocked him down in the parking lot

9. You still can't figure out why that biker woman at the club had a stuffed lapdog on a leash

10. Oh yeah, you think you did well on the final you took in the afternoon

Musical Selection

I heard these things on campus today, all within five minutes of each other:

-campus radio, blaring rap across the mall

-a guy playing the digeridoo (sp?)

-the hare krishnas, doing their thing

-a campus tour guide, singing the school fight song for some very bored looking teenagers and their parents

Please, no photographs

I had to delete that last post and replace it with itself because I'm a moron and didn't have comment moderation on. Please, from now on, don't leave incriminating evidence such as names in your comments. I'm sure it was an honest mistake. Thank you, and good night.

Here it goes again (again)

Finals this coming week and the week after. The last time the word "finals" will be a terrifying thing to me, I hope. Next semester won't count, because next semester will be full of unicorns and chocolate cupcakes and poppies blooming all over the place.

Before I crawl into a hole for the next two weeks (the same hole I've been in for the past two weeks?), I thought I'd leave you with some thoughts.

1. Today while walking around the neighborhood in a luxuriously relaxed manner, my roommate and I witnessed white people in the park (?) playing cricket (??). This reminded me of Hitchhiker's Guide and the many books that I would like to read, but currently have absolutely no time to even consider doing so. But seriously, cricket? Where do these people think they are, Britain?

2. I hate this time of year. I hate it 80% because of the nasty insane allergies that make my life a living hell from March till October, and 20% because during the day it's sweatily hot and at night it's the most beautiful temperature imaginable. What do we do? The house gets too hot to think during the daytime, and stays uncomfortably warm even when we open the windows at night, but it seems silly to turn on the air conditioner when it's so nice out half the time.

3. We've got the windows open right now, and awhile back our college-guy neighbors drove up, radio blasting. As they opened their doors, the music briefly assaulted our ears. It wasn't hip hop, it wasn't rock or death metal. It was something I never would have expected.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

During the past fourteen days, I've done the following:

-written three papers
-spent three hours interviewing my roommates for an upcoming paper
-spent about six hours reading backed-up readings to prepare for a midterm
-taken one midterm
-driven six hours (highway time), plus minimal city driving
-met my roommates' parents and younger sister
-seen the most amazing playground in the state
-eaten ice cream with my parents
-watched two movies (both in class)
-gotten my hair cut about five inches? maybe more, maybe less.
-received 25 emails offering me prescription drugs I don't need
-gotten angry at walgreens for not bypassing my insurance's time hold to get me the one prescription drug I do need
-made three slices of cheesy toast in the toaster oven, my new best friend


You will note that nowhere on that list have I mentioned feeling guilty about not updating my corner of the internet. This is because I've been so busy with these other 13 events (give or take sleeping, eating, and going to class and work) that I pretty much forgot it existed. As a gesture of goodwill, I'll dig through my recently taken photographs and find a good'un for you to view.











Boxer!

Huh.

Strangely, my bestest friend of all time, Uffish Thought, has crappy taste in music. Let me rephrase that, because it's probably not true. Uffish has divergent taste from me. I have come to realize that when she suggests that I go and listen to something by such and such an artist, 7 and a half times out of ten I will not really enjoy it much at all. I've accepted this strange fact and moved on with my life.

Which is why I was so surprised the other day (ok, a month or two ago) when she told me to listen to Regina Spektor, and I listened to it, and liked it! Even more crazy is that that exact same night, I went to my sister's house to photograph her process from girl wrapped in duct tape to girl with a homemade dress form. Guess what cd was playing when I got there? Yup. How funny how that happens sometimes!

So I'm going to play the game here, and suggest some music to the internet in general, via Mimi Smartypants. Psapp, which awesomely enough, has an arcade game where you are a cat on a renegade mission to collect keyboards.

Adventures in Ghetto Groceries

Being a starving student, I've learned a few tricks of the trade when it comes to grocery shopping.

1. Buy the dollar wheat bread: what you lose in nutrition, you gain in sheer number of slices!

2. Buying certain foods in bulk: cereal (Malt O Meal cheerio knock-offs!), peanut butter, giant blocks of pepperjack. The uglier the package, the more you save.

3. Oreos cannot be cheapened. If you can't afford name brand, you don't buy the cookies.

4. When the store has a ten for ten dollars sale on anything you're likely to eat, stock up! You will be thankful for the 15 boxes of brownie mix someday.

5. A $1 bag of house-brand pretzels can be a lifesaver, providing "lunch" for days on end.


The reason I bring all of this up is that the other day I rode my bike to the store in an effort to be green and thrifty and also because it was a nice day out. I ran into a few issues with this trip, though. The issue of milk (not to be confused with the issue of blood) was easily remedied: buy a half gallon, so it will fit in the pannier more easily. The issue of bread was more perplexing. If I bought my usual dollarloaf, it would surely be wadded into a big doughy ball by the time I got it home, smashed in with all the other groceries. But I was out of bread! Whatever to do?

Enter my good friends, the tortillas. Yes, slightly more expensive. Yes, will make fewer sandwiches. Their one redeeming quality (besides being tasty!) is that they are infinitely flatter than a traditional loaf. Satisfied with my wisdom, I placed the bag into my basket and strode off in search of a huge tub of raisins.

In Which You Hear About My Childhood

1. We used to live in a large-ish town/ smallish city, and our house was up against the hills, with just the railroad between us and the big grassy slopes. We walked a lot more then- we would go up and walk along the railroad tracks when the trains weren't going by, we would walk to the school and play on the playground, we would walk through the neighborhood and down to the Thrifty to buy ice cream cones at the ice cream counter there. I liked the mint chocolate chip ice cream, and we would sit on the curb outside the store, eating our cones before we walked back home. I remember going on afternoon walks around the less familiar streets in our neighborhood, while one or the other of us kids learned to ride a bike. I kind of miss those days, when we had the time to take walks just for fun.

2. Also during that little-kid era: we had an ugly little barbeque, one of those dome-shaped ones that looks like a UFO. Sometimes we would cook marshmallows on it in the backyard at nighttime, and sometimes we would sit out late at night watching meteor showers. And oh! When it rained, our patio would flood and we would call it Lake Smith* and when it wasn't raining we would play in and around the big old pepper tree that grew in the back corner of the yard. We had a garden that sometimes grew tomatoes and we sometimes made mudmen (like snowmen, only we lived in a snow-deprived region) and set them up to dry on the brick wall, and after the earthquake we used the bricks that fell down to build mansions for our tiny troll dolls. We also had a horribly dangerous swingset that wasn't quite embedded in the ground enough and the slide had an upsetting slope. Our backyard was a magical place.

*last name changed, but you get the picture

3. Our family used to get together with another family fairly often, and we would all sing folk songs with the parents on guitars and the kids singing for awhile, until we as kids got bored and went off to play games elsewhere in the house. The parents would continue singing for awhile, but would end up just sitting around talking. I know this because once the singing stopped, we would all sneak back into the computer room, which was attached to the living room by long cutouts in the top of the wall. We would stand on the back of the couch and peer over, listening in on the conversation of the adults. It generally ended up not being very interesting to us, but it was still thrilling to spy.

James and Hal

Let me tell you about the two guys that I've spent the most time with during the past few days.

Hal and I spent an afternoon in my room. I followed him around, blocking him from going through the door or going into the closet or under the bed. When he bumped into me, he turned around and went off in some new direction. Hal is my sister's robot vaccuum, and I adore the little songs he sings. I wish I had a Hal of my own.

James, on the other hand, is a real person. He is, in fact, our old man neighbor, the one who sits out on his porch all day every day, watching the world go by. I spent about an hour with him on Tuesday afternoon on his porch, just sitting there talking, and then another hour on Thursday afternoon. On Thursday, we went inside and talked in his living room, eating banana muffins the Desirable One had made earlier. He told me about his youth, growing up in Mississippi on a farm, how his grandmother raised him because his mother died when he was very young. He told me about all of his family, about his uncle who built the church up the street from us, who was its pastor for a long time, about all his children and his grandchildren, about how his daughter (granddaughter? I can't remember) was the first black cheerleader at my University, about the other neighbors on the street. He knows everyone, because he's always out there on the porch. While we were sitting there talking, I had to wait three times for him to wave to people driving by or walking along that had something to say to him. James is amazing. My roommates keep telling me to bring a tape recorder with me when I go to talk to him, because he says some interesting stuff, and it's usually a good idea to record the things old people say, because who knows how long they'll be here. Looking back on the past six months that I've lived in this house, I feel bad about all the times I just waved and said good morning to him on my way to school, and never came to talk to him. Partially because he's lonely in that house by himself, but mostly because now I know how fun it is to sit and talk with him.

Sociology Rockstar

My head doth ache,
My hand doth shake,
I have a naughty pen;
My ink is bad,
My pen is worse,
How can I write well then?


As you may have noticed from the scarcity of updates during the past month or two, I have other things on my mind. Things like school. Things like the toughest semester I've had yet, with all upper division courses. Fifteen hours of work a week plus fifteen hours of school plus various other responsibilities like church and worrying about finding an internship equals me being one tired cookie.

The past seven days have been incredibly busy, what with school and work and going out of town on Saturday and researching for and writing two papers. If there is one thing that I hate about my major, it is the abundance of written work necessary. Sometimes I fantasize about being a math major, and simply having to solve problems all day long, with nary a paper in sight. Alas, it's too late to switch with a clean conscience, as after this semester I will be finished with the requirements for my major. But you know that if any of my scientifically focused friends offered to switch homework for the rest of the semester, I'd take them up on it without a thought as to what such a scheme would do to my GPA.

A friend of mine, who will be graduating this May, told me of her plan to burn all of her papers and notes that she has been accruing over the past four years in a happy bonfire. I think I may be obliged to do the same, especially since my December graduation will make for a better time to have a nice warm bonfire.

In the meantime, you and I will suffer together, achey heads and all.

Nightmares Return?

I used to have nightmares all the time when I was a little kid, and then they gradually went away, leaving me to simply have very strange dreams. I don't think I've had a true nightmare for several years.

Strangely enough, the past two nights, I've had unusually bad dreams- one in which half cat, half bird, half alligator type animals (150% terror!) hunted me down in a mountain village, and one in which I plummeted to my death in an incapacitated airplane. The airplane one actually woke me up out of fear. If there's one thing I hate, it's falling out of the sky at 4:17 am and then realizing that I have to go to the bathroom.

When I Grow Up

I'm telling you all this because if I tell it you, it'll give me some responsibility to actually do something. Like that time two years ago when I explained about my desire to go to Parts Unknown? So it really helps. I'm going to Career Services for the second time on Monday, trying to figure out what I'm going to do once I graduate (and possibly before I graduate, as well). Wish me luck: I took an interests inventory, and it told me I should either be an air traffic controller or a cheesemaker. I didn't even know "cheesemaker" was a career option.

And another thing! Here's something I haven't told to the world at large, although I have bragged about it to anyone who remotely seems like they'd be interested. One of my new year's resolutions was to floss at least three times a week, as per my dental hygenist's angry directions in December. I'll have you know that I have flossed all but two days this year. That's right, folks: forty-five days of flossy goodness. I feel so righteous.

Weekend Update

Plumbing situation: worse. We decided to call our landlord today, as only 3 of us were able to use the showers before sludgey water came back up the drain. My last roommate and I were obliged to bathe at a friend's house 45 minutes before church started.

As an added bonus, neither of our toilets work either. When we tried plunging one toilet, water came up into the other toilet and both showers. We don't think that's a good sign. Until the plumber comes and fixes everything, we'll just have to hold it or make friends with our neighbors.

Huzzah! Landlord just called to say the plumber will be here within the hour. Hopefully they will be able to fix it immediately upon arrival.

UPDATE: The plumber came, fixed the problem, (temporarily) and told us he thinks it's roots. Yay! That means the landlord has to pay for it. Which is good, because I'm perpetually broke these days.

I May Already be a Winner!

Today we got a call from Hunca Munca, who has been married for a few months and therefore no longer lives with us. She wanted to go on a walk. We wanted to eat ice cream. To satisfy both of our desires, we went and got blizzards from Dairy Queen, and then walked from our house to the park in our neighborhood. The park in our neighborhood where, unbeknownst to us, a Harambee festival was beginning.

Let me tell you, it is such a delight to stumble upon a free concert. We excitedly sat down, and pretended we weren't the only white people in the park while we listened to the jazz, R&B and soul music. We sat there, drank in the culture and the pure joy exuding from the musicians.

A woman came around, handing out strips of raffle tickets. A percussionist from one of the groups walked up to us, handed us a flier, talked animatedly to us, then wandered off to help set up the stage. The raffle started. A woman won some free pizza coupons, a young boy won a t-shirt. I won a vhs copy of the Official Earth Wind and Fire documentary, and two tickets to the local racetrack. I'm pretty stoked. Winning is an amazing thing.


PS. Um, plumbing issues? Ick. Sewagey water coming up out of the shower drain is NOT something I'd ever considered I'd have to deal with. This means a call to the plumber on monday. We are busy people. We work. We go to school. We do not have time to have a plumber over.

Another Culinary Masterpiece

This is what happens when you think you're smarter than the cake mix. Lesson learned: never use a mix again. I never liked them anyway. Now I have a reason.

The upside? They still taste fine.

18. Spill Everything

Well, I like the idea of this suggestion, but I've recently become very streamlined in what I carry with me- my wallet (not very interesting contents: one debit card, one credit card, driver's license, school/work id, library card and two insurance cards), phone, burt's bees lip gloss and notebook, all crammed into a pannier stuck onto my bike. Instead of investigating my bag, therefore, I'll tell you what's on my desk. Well, my half of the desk that I share with my roommate.

Here goes:

1 photo album, half full

2 picture frames

1 ceramic bowl, broken in half

1 camera+ connector cord

1 jar o' coins

3 head scarves

1 toque

1 pencil case

1 pencil jar, containing a rainbow of sharpies

1 basket full of various toiletries

1 belt

1 pair of pruning shears

1 ac car adapter

1 insides of a music box, plays Ding Dong the Witch is Dead

12 rubbings of sidewalk imprintations from on campus

1 moleskine notebook

1 empty container of Rx pills

1 burts bees tinted lip gloss

1 extra screw from my bunk beds

1 printer, Lexmark Z600 series

1 unopened bottle of emetrol, purchased after it would have been useful

2 smorkin labbits

1 lint roller

1 glass, purchased for 50 cents, depicting the 9th day of christmas

1 holiday Jack ball

1 mini stapler, orange

1 ziploc full of various unrecognizable hardware

1 travel floss

3 packages of airplane peanuts

1 albertsons vip club card

2 bandaids

2 bobby pins

1 empty tea box

1 grocery bag full of unused balloons and tape

1 pair of binoculars

1 handkerchief

1 notebook full of notecards

1 passport, 1 student visa, 1 used ferry ticket

1 mouse

1 bottle of advil

1 deck of uno cards, 1 deck of set cards

3 necklaces

13 pixy stix

6 tootsie pops

1 address label from approximately 14 years ago

Phrases Googled by the Professor During Class

Gary Busey

Falun Gong

Vic DiCara

Bling Cross

Bling Cross Bikini

Things It's Maybe Not OK to do at Work?

Eat a chewy bagel that must be ripped apart with the teeth, at the front desk

Spread cream cheese with the index finger

Stare blankly at blond freshman when she asks a dumb question, inwardly stick a pin in the freshman voodoo doll

Hope the staff meeting lasts longer than expected in order to thwart students wanting to see their advisors

Realize that thwarting students would really only create more problems, scratch that last one

Watch the phone ring a few times before answering in order to avoid the appearance of eagerness/ lack of more important things to do

Take unattractively large bites of bagel because no one is watching

Write about it on my blog

I would say that Hell had frozen over, but that's way too cliche

Here we go, proof that all that stuff about "global warming" is a complete fallacy.

Actual Word-for-word Descriptions of my Hair's Personality

Like a dancer

Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz

Irish Whore

A 1940's Starlet

Wild Woman of Borneo

Ironically, we'd thought about it, too

This comes from kottke.org, also known as "that one site I go to when there's nothing else to do at work."

I want to donate my own water buffalo! If I only had the money...

I Remember

Today I rediscovered why I like my field of study. It is not because I like helping people. I'm too lazy for that. It is not because I like to understand why people do stuff. I enjoy ignorance a lot, actually.

The real reason why I love my major is that I can start the day off with a good dose of emotionally moving, nigh-spiritual instruction (in this case watching an episode of Eyes on the Prize, the part about Birmingham and the water hoses and police dogs and the march on Washington), and wrap the day up with a lighthearted and pretty non-sacred look at world religions (today my prof. said enthusiastically, "Step one! Go out and find an innocent virgin so you can slaughter her and spill her fertile blood on the ground").

And really, that's what sociology is all about: diversity. The diversity of human experience is something I find fascinating, especially when you see all the stuff that we do have in common. That is probably why I wanted to slap my business major friend who bragged that he had graduated without ever having taken a class on diversity in the workplace. That, and because he qualified that statement with the reason that "women are the cause of all sorrow, so much more so women in business."

#35: Show Some Skin!

Huzzah, my first MightyGirl-inspired post! I figured I'd go in chronological order here, just to keep things organized.




Here we have my face. More specifically, the barely noticable (in the picture) pock mark a little bit above my eyebrow, exactly parallel to the dark part of my eyeball. This is from when I was four and had the chicken pox. We flew to Missouri (why? because we're crazy!), and my mother put a giant floppy hat on me so the stewardesses wouldn't notice and eject the plague-ridden four year old from the plane. I don't remember having the pox, but I do remember the flight. It didn't occur to my four year old mind that the plane landed in a different place than it took off from. I thought we simply went on an hours-long joyride through the sky for fun, and came back to the same airport.




This scar comes from not too long after the pox, maybe around five or six years old. We lived on a cul-de-sac, close to the opening, and down towards the other end was a single man with an immaculate lawn. He owned a spazzy little dog, a basenji named Bordeaux. Bordeaux was always chained up in the front yard, and when I would ride by on my big wheel, his owner would step on the chain to keep him from chasing after me down the sidewalk. One day, as I rode by, I decided that I could get by without waiting for my neighbor to step on the chain. I was wrong.

One of the neighbor ladies saw the attack, and swooped me up and carried my bleeding self to my house where my mother laid me on the floor by the front door and wrapped my arm in a towel. When we got to the hospital, I was pretty tired and cranky (and hurting). All I remember about getting the stitches is that the doctor kept calling me "Punkin" which annoyed me a little. But he was piecing my body back together, so I really had no room to complain.




Ah, the obligatory appendectomy. Mine happened when I was ten. I was sick for a week, and we thought I just had the flu or something. Once my mom realized that my whining was really too much just for the flu, we went to urgent care. They didn't know what it was. They sent us to the hospital. They thought they might know, but to make sure we should go to the other hospital. Cue the drive across town in the middle of the stinking night, moaning child lying across the back seat, writhing in agony. Finally, like ten hours after we initially went to seek medical help, they found out what it was. It was appendicitis. Or rather, it had been appendicitis until a few days before, when it turned into a ruptured appendix. For the longest time, nobody could tell what was wrong with me, then suddenly I'm sitting in the hallway and some tech comes up to us and tells us he's there to get me ready for surgery. Let me tell you, I wasn't happy about that. However, I was very happy after the surgery when I was introduced to the pediatric ward's rolling nintendo machine.




You'll have to use your imagination for this one, because you can't actually see a scar here. What you can see, roughly, is my eye. Sometime between late middle school years and early high school years, I had a picnic with my family in the park that adjoins the high school. One of my favorite things to do in parks, to this day, is to swing on the swings, and I did that happily during that picnic. A few days? weeks? after that evening, I noticed that there was a little brown spot on my eye that wasn't going away, that I couldn't wash off, that didn't feel like some dirt stuck on my eyeball. I watched it for a few days and when it continued in not disappearing, we again went to urgent care. They tried washing it out a few times, then referred me to an opthamologist who told me a tiny shard of metal had gotten into my eye and rusted there. We figured it must've come from the swings, then moved to the more important matter: how to get rid of it? It proved to be a most interesting experience, as the doctor got a tiny little drill and some blue eyedrops out, and proceded to grind away part of my eye. It is incredibly hard to sit still and not blink when a man is right up in your face, grinding away your eye with a drill. It didn't hurt, but it definately wasn't my idea of a fun way to spend the day. I did get to wear an eyepatch to church, though, which made up for the whole ordeal.

Pretty Confused and a Little Freaked Out

Um, commenter on my last post, would you please make yourself known? Like, could you call me up on my phone and tell me, "Hi violasaint, it's me, [your name here], and I commented on your blog the other day?"

And now to other news, I got a book for Christmas! A special, green book, with a picture of french fries on it. That's right, I got Maggie Mason's big book on blogging. I'm very excited, and intend to begin using it... tonight?

That is, if you're lucky.

My Week in Photos

Enjoy!

Hallelujah!

This brief interlude to say that sometime between 8:30 and 10:30 this morning, while I went back to bed after eating oatmeal way too early for comfort, my amazing father gave my computer a talking-to and I can now both read and post to my blog from my computer.

And another thing!

Elephant Humidifier!

alternately, because I like them both equally,

Frog Humidifier!

Hola Mi Amigos!

I've really enjoyed this past week or so, even though it was tainted by having a nasty cold for the majority of the week. The cold has pretty much gone and left a lingering cough in its place, and I chalk up the quickness of the cold's retreat to zinc.

Zinc! I praise thee and thy strangely good-tasting orange flavor. The best part is that because I got the tablet kind and not the nose-spray kind, I didn't lose my sense of smell, as I've heard is possible with zinc nose spray.

Tonight was date night, and we made a lovely dinner of ham and mashed potatoes and green beans and time-pressed rolls that were delicious, and homemade peanut brittle and also some brownies. I rather like doing date night- it's always very friendly, and I just realized it's kind of a grown-up thing to do. Dinner party with civilized conversation and ham, you know. Well, until Roommate X's boyfriend started dancing. I guess it seems more civilized and grown-up because we're all generally still in our Sunday clothes. After dinner we trooped up to the north side of town to see the live nativity scene put on by the church. It was fun to go as a big group and bring my very long blanket to share with my four closest friends, sitting outside in the (relative) cold night air. We played a Mannheim Steamroller cd on the way back home, and played cards for awhile.

Tomorrow I get to help cement details of Hunca Munca's bridal shower this week, doing things like buying blue crepe paper and cutting out snowflakes to decorate the house, making sure people know where and when it is, etc. I'm looking forward to it, and have already purchased four bottles of Martinelli's. I love Martinelli's almost as much as I love parties. Perhaps more.

Could it be possible?

I've found something that makes me feel antagonistic toward one of my four favorite roommates. This thing? Politics.

Up until now, I've never really had any kind of problem with any roommate ever. As in, like, I have never felt in opposition to anything they have said or done, ever (except for that one time when I almost murdered my roommate because she beat me at a movie trivia game?). This is in accordance with the incredible patience that spontaneously sprouted from my heart when I moved from home.

Back to the point at hand, though. Somehow, I've realized that I really do have pretty firm opinions about politics and government, and I've come to understand that idea of how you're not supposed to talk politics with friends. Because, a sociological perspective of politics and government is very different from a... lawyerly perspective. Except I think her perspective is also a little different from the more common lawyer's perspective. In any case, we disagree, and since she has a stronger personality than me, and is better at asserting her opinion, she always comes out seeming smarter and more credible than me. This makes me very upset, because I know that my opinion is just as credible and sensible as hers is, but she never seems to see my point, and then I think unChristian thoughts about her, like thinking that she is stubborn and wrong.

I must needs learn to be less upsettable and less emotionally involved in such discussions.

December: the new November

Last night was a good night. Not only did I get to be all prettied up and eat a fancy dinner and dance with my friends, but I saw somebody that I haven't seen for awhile, and wasn't expecting to see. It made me happy, and we got to talk a little bit about this and that. I very much enjoyed myself. Great way to spend the last friday before finals start, I'd say.

Speaking of December (real smooth there, wasn't I?), I'm thinking maybe I'll include in every post this month something I'd like to have in my life. You know, for all those people who want desperately to buy me something for Christmas, but aren't sure what to get. Here you go,another gift idea.

Two posts in one day! Too bad it isn't November anymore.

Today, while walking around campus for work, delivering mail, I saw the following individuals;

1. A cute little girl, running around, playing on the mall and being precocious.

2. Some guy sitting outside the student union, eating McDonald's, with about a hundred little brown birds sitting all around him on the ground, on the other chairs at the table, and even on the table itself, about a foot away from his food. I don't know if he's like some bird whisperer, or if maybe he was feeding them crumbs, or if the birds just went crazy en masse, but it was a noteworthy scene that I wish I had had my camera for.

3. Santa Claus. He took a picture with a bunch of sorority girls, then continued on his jolly way.

Happy December, Yo

I just realized that my first final is only four days away.

Where has the time gone! I really enjoy the middle of the semester, cause it's just the plugging away part, you don't have to immediately worry about your grades, because you still have more to do. The end of the semester may be fun because you get many days of nothing, with one or two days of high stress, but I find it a little disorienting. Like, who am I? Who is this person who has to write exams? Who is this person who's lying around the house at weird hours of the day because she has nothing better to do?

Vacation time is pretty disconcerting. Except Christmas is nice, because you get to eat cookies and obtain gifts from people. Gifts like these, for instance. Or perhaps this.

Still Singing Newsies

Today has been a good day. I went to work, fooled around and ate a bagel, froze as I ran errands for the office, went to class, got out early, came home, wrote a paper, went shoe shopping (and was successful!), ate a delicious dinner prepared by my roommate, went to class again, came home and was entertained by the dancing antics of my roommate's boyfriend, watched Newsies again while having my hair straightened in possible preparation for the formal tomorrow. We'll see if it remains un-greasy enough to warrant letting it stay straightened and unwashed. However, with such a full day, I'm pretty exhausted, and I need my beauty sleep because tomorrow's also going to be a full day.

I must get up early to write another paper, go to work and school till five, then go home to try and make myself look pretty, go out to dinner with my date (I know, I have such a hard life), plus dance. A tortured soul, I am.

I think I may sleep in on Saturday, though.

This being the last day of November, I feel like I should remark somewhat on the NaBloPoMo experience. I'm amazingly proud of myself for missing only one day, and I feel like I managed for maybe 3/4 of the time to write something worthwhile, or at least interesting. As my readers, you may feel differently. We'll see. I kind of liked having a reason to look back on my day, though, and reflect upon what I do with my life, even if the results weren't very user friendly. I almost definately will not keep up writing every day from now on, but perhaps I shall do it more often than in the past, as it's a good way to sort out all the messy thoughts that clutter up my brain. It's been a good November.

Here's to December, being non-stressful (please?) and fun and full of holiday cheer.

Consumed by Shame, Again

I can't believe I missed a day! And so very very close to the end of the month, too! I am really too upset by this to actually say how much I am upset by this.

But such is life. I've been on a slight musical kick the past two days. Last night I randomly picked Guys and Dolls off the bookshelf and started watching it all by myself. By the end of the movie, most of my roommates were out there watching with me, one of whom had never before seen it (!). I am very glad we watched it. And then all day today I was humming the songs. That is, until I borrowed Newsies from a friend, and we watched that. Tomorrow, and tonight, I will be singing "open the gates and seize the day; don't wait around and don't delay! Nothing will break us, no one can make us give our rights away. Oh coooome aaaand seeeeeize thuhhh daaaaaay!"

Who knew that I'd be asked to watch a disney musical for a sociology class? But really, it makes total sense; unions and labor relations and all that. Very Marxian.

*Whimper*

I'ma warn you all now, so you're not surprised. I have four papers due in the next four days.

In other words, I will not be writing a lot of stuff here during the coming week. I'm sorry, because I know how much you all love hearing the tedium of my life in general. Don't worry, though- I'll be back and better than ever, in maybe, seven days from today. Because I just remembered the term paper that's due on Monday, as well. That's five papers in a week. I know I'm a wimp, but you'll just have to suck it up and wait out my busy spell.

I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke

But barring that, it's also fun to make the world some cookies, and keep it company. Tonight we mixed up a batch of peanut butter cookie dough, and trundled off to three of our favorite guys' houses, spending about twenty minutes at each house. Twenty is about the right amount of time to stick the cookies into the oven and bake them, take them out, let them cool, and most importantly, visit with the person the oven belongs to. I highly recommend this practice, as it's much more friendly than doorbell ditching pre-baked cookies, and you get to randomly surprise people by showing up on their doorstep with a trayful of cookie blobs. Who wouldn't want to open their front door and find friends and food standing on the other side?

Thanksgiving

Here's an abbriviated list of things I am thankful for this year.

• the weather? It's currently less than sixty degrees outside. Perhaps by Christmas I will be able to wear a sweatshirt outside all day long.
• my sister? She's amazingly cool and nice. She bought me a shirt because she felt pity for my brokeness.
• my parents? They're cool too. They gave me some helpful spot cash money to alleviate some of my brokeness, and they also have humored me all weekend long with the stuff I want to do.
• my roommates? They make me happy. They invited boys over tonight, and we watched Robin Hood and ate 60 chicken mcnuggets and talked a bunch and I got one high-five and two hugs goodnight.
• the boys we had over? They created a wonderful and varied conversation, and they knew when to leave to make them missed, rather than annoyingly overstaying their welcome.

Maybe Someday You'll See Them

Today being the day after Thanksgiving, I had the day off work. And school. Just like every other student in America.

Not like every other student in America, I spent the day taking pictures with various cameras- a fisheye camera, two pinhole cameras, and my trusty old digital camera. We got some pretty cool shots with the fisheye, as well as some truly mediocre ones, and we had mixed results with the pinholes. It was great fun taping towels and blankets over the door and windows of the bathroom to create our very own darkroom, and the little red lightbulb gave it the mark of authenticity (also the mark of being able to see what you're doing. A darkroom is, to put it bluntly, very dark). It was pretty nifty swishing the pictures around in the various solutions and watching them develop, and I hope someday to create more focused pieces. This being my first experience with this type of photography, it took several tries before my pictures came out recognizably, and even then they weren't very well composed.

Fortunately, I get to try again tomorrow.

(props to my mother, who is posting this for me, as I'm separated from computers that get along with blogger right now)

Home For the Holidays

I've got a lot to do today, between cooking the turkey and visiting with my family, so I'll make this short.

Happy Thanksgiving.






















You didn't really believe I'd cop out that easily, did you?

All of my roommates left yesterday for their various homes and celebrations across this great state, leaving me to sit around and twiddle my thumbs all alone last night. What to do when you're all by yourself for an entire night, you ask?

You get in your pajamas at 7:30, watch chick flicks until midnight, then play online games until 4, so you'll be in your best shape when you get up at 8 to go to your parents' house.

For reals, though- Happy Thanksgiving!

Proof of the Sadness of My Life

I have a job. It doesn't pay terribly well, and I only get 15 hours per week, but it (hopefully) pays the bills, and it fits my schedule.

My job is kind of boring. I go in at ten o'clock, pick up a bunch of manila envelopes, walk around campus for an hour delivering them to various buildings, then sit around and file for two hours. If I'm lucky, the administrative assistant that I work with will order zucchini sticks and share with me.

Today, I had an invitation to deliver to the president of the university. Top floor of the admin building is pretty posh, let me tell you. And the secretary? When I gave her the envelope and told her who it was for? She said, "I am happy to receive it for him."

So cool!

Christmas List addition

Two more things that would make my life better if I had them:

Body Butter, the orange-smelling one

a Vaccuum. One that really sucks.


I spent the evening doing this thing that other people of the female persuasion find "entertaining", or "addicting" or "fun." I shopped with some friends. Rather, we wandered around the mall and touched a lot of clothes without any intention of buying them. The point being? I don't know, I really don't. Some things about women I really don't understand at all. Shopping makes me grumpy and tired, and when you add that to the fact that I was grumpy and tired already by three in the afternoon, that makes for a very grumpy and tired me at eleven o'clock after shopping for two and a half hours. However, because we stopped at the Body Shop, my hands smell very nice, and I remembered how much I like things that smell nice. So, if you're wondering what to get me, quit wondering and start buying things that smell good. I will like them.

Now for some bedtime advils.

I've run out of interesting post titles

I've hit the wall. I've been doing pretty good about having interesting things (well, interesting to me, at least) to post this month, but tonight, I've got nothing. I think it may be because I've done so much actual talking to real live, present people today that I'm all conversed out.

But tomorrow I get to go shopping! At the mall! Cross your fingers and hope I don't buy anything.

Sorry, Dad

As we drove through the burgeoning dusk, searching for the bus yard, I got the grand idea to call my mother and see if she knew what street it was on. My dad picked up the phone, and there was, unfortunately, static. He didn't hear all of the words that I said, so I decided to explain things in painful detail, so that he could deduce from the context what I was talking about, in case he missed some words. This led me to say the following sentence:

"So, you know, school busses? Those things that little kids ride to school? I'm trying to find that place where they keep those school busses, like at night. Get it?"

I'm pretty sure he thinks I was trying to be condescending and rude. Dad, I didn't mean it like that. I love you.

Music Video Madness

Last week we made a music video, and it ended in tragedy.

Today, we salvaged what progress we had made before our last effective save, and worked for another six hours straight, and created an even better video than we had made the first time. That's right, folks. Our video is complete. It is on a dvd, with a menu screen that looks darn professional if I say so myself (which I do).

If you'd like to see it, and are in town (sorry, Uffish. Maybe at Christmas?), feel free to set up a screening time with me. It'll take about six minutes of your life, unless you're like me and feel the need to watch it at least three times in a row. If so, it'll take around 18 minutes of your life. If you want the full movie experience, you can bring a bag of popcorn and pop it in our microwave.

I feel like I sound like I'm bragging (because I am), but this video is seriously hilarious. And the content has inspired the S.O. of one of the stars to hunt down and beat another of the stars. I hope I'm there when this fight occurs, because it promises to be at least as funny as the video itself.

Required Dance Talk

Him: so, what are you studying?
Me: sociology...
H: so, that's like the study of groups of people, right? So you could tell me, theoretically, why we're all here, moving rhythmically to music and being forced to make small talk?
M: yes. It all has to do with totemic clans in Australia, who come together in effervescent rituals every once in a while, to gain a greater feeling of community. When they come back from these rituals, they're all pumped up, but it only lasts so long. Then they have to go back and have another ritual. If you're really interested, you could read all about it in Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life, which explains it in more detail. Like 500 pages more detail.
H: ...oh.

Wintertime is Pajama Time!

My roommates love it when I come out of my room in the morning. You should love me too.

Busby Berkeley Dreams

How many of you have seen Oscar? The movie with Sylvester Stallone?

If you've seen it, I'm incredibly mad at you for not having told me how hilariously funny it is. Why have I never heard of this until now?

My life has been so empty and meaningless!


In other, less astonishing news, my arm is feeling less sore, so I can no longer claim that I am dying of tetanus. This is a good thing, although less fun for getting sympathy. Can sympathy work retroactively? Please send me sympathy for last night, when my arm was hurting really bad so my roommate gave me a long massage. The massage was so long, however, that she forgot why she was giving it to me, and tried to massage (rather, squeeze really hard) my arm. Whereupon I yelped so loud that her boyfriend, on the phone with her, remarked on how she abuses her roommates.

Xylophone

My car and I have been through a fair amount together during its short five years of life, and she hasn't come out of everything unscathed. I list here, for your reading enjoyment, the short and sordid history of Stacey the WonderCivic:

-fall 2002, I think: a truck I'm parallel parked behind backs up and munches the hood of my car. The driver takes responsibility and offers to pay for repairs, but under the condition that we take it to a certain body shop way downtown because he knows the owner and can get himself a deal. The body shop takes a long time, then tries to give us back the car when there's obviously a big crack in the windshield. They claim it was there before, we tell them it wasn't, they call the guy who hit my car to get his permission to fix it (?), he calls me fifteen minutes later and yells at me over the phone. We eventually get the car back, intact.

-sometime after that: as a new driver, I run over a curb at a gas station, and get a scratch along the side of the car.

-summer 2003: driving home from work at 3 in the morning, I notice that my driving feels.... lumpy. I pull over to find that I have a reeeeaaal flat tire. Being the wimp that I am, I call my dad and demand that he wake up, get dressed, and drive out to help me fix it. He complies, and my first tire-changing lesson is held in a gas station parking lot at 3:30 am with a very tired teacher and an equally tired, but less groggy, student.

-winter 2005: somebody leaves a light on inside the car overnight, and I get to watch my friend give me a jump in minus 30 weather.

-also winter 2005, multiple times: I foolishly drive into various drifts of snow, and require the assistance of passersby and passengers to push me out. The last instance was particularly exciting, as I parked on what looked to me to be the side of the road, but was actually a ditch, filled up level with the street, with snow. Dismay set in as the car noticably sunk several feet. 9 in the evening, on a lonely street, with no shovel. A few cars pass, and finally a kind-hearted guy in a truck pulls over and tows us out. I vow never to get stuck in the snow again.

-april 2006- there are a few here
:somewhere between Saskatoon and Calgary, the weatherstripping on the right side of the windshield comes loose. Superglue does not help.
:Vancouver, a few days later. We wake up to find the keyhole of the driver's side door munched up, the bike-holding part of the roof rack (as well as the bike itself) gone, and the little triangular window on the back right door smashed in. At least the thieves didn't smash one of the bigger, openable windows. How thoughtful they were.
:oh yeah, and they spilled coffee on the floor of my car, so for the rest of the trip it smelled like stale hazelnut. (not so bad, actually)
:somewhere just south of Pescadero, CA, we stop at a gas station. The driver of the car accidentally scrapes the side of the car along a blue pole. I hope people think the blue streak is really just artistic pinstriping.

I feel a little nervous, because it's been six months since anything really happened to the car. That means that whatever's coming up next is going to be really bad. I bet I know what it'll be, too. Aside from some monumental crash, somebody's going to try and break into it again, and ruin the lock on the passenger side door, and then I'll have no way of getting into the car, save climbing through the trunk. That'd REALLY give me and my car some character.

Two Kinds of People

I sat in urgent care for two hours today, reading Where Angels Fear to Tread and getting stuck by needles. You'll all be happy to know that I will not get lockjaw as I got my tetanus shot, and hopefully neither will I get the flu. They give those shots out there, too. The process had me talking to five different people- two for check in, then an initial nurse to ask me what was wrong, then the doctor who also came in and I had to tell *her* what was wrong, too, then a final nurse who actually administered the shots.

The nurses were both pretty indifferent, except the second nurse gently mocked me for coming in for such a tiny cut. Tiny yes, but created by a nasty piece of rusty metal that's been sitting in our backyard for a long long time. I'd rather not take any chances.

The doctor was very nice, and she had an interesting trait for a doctor. Her hands, when she grabbed my foot to examine the wound, were warm. Warm hands! On a doctor! I figured with how nice she was and how warm her hands were, that she must be an alien spy pretending to be a doctor.

All in all, it was a fairly good two hours- I got through four chapters of my book, and got both shots I wanted, and the whole thing was just a $25 copay. For some reason I thought that I would have to pay for the shots as well as the base fee for the visit. Maybe I should go there every year for my flu shot, instead of the clinics that charge you $30.

I Shatter

The day of the colossal disappointment that was our music video, I did something stupid. I did something that requires action on my part to make me not die from it.

(Ok, really, not so bad. I just ripped my toe open on a rusty piece of metal, and since it's been forever years since I had a tetanus shot, I'll need to find a doctor sometime tomorrow to get one.)

The really annoying thing about this, more annoying than hurting myself, more annoying than having to go to the doctor and get a shot that will hurt, according to my nursing student roommate, is the fact that shoes are going to be difficult to wear for the next week or so. Because my toe hurts, a lot. Normally, I'd just wear thongs all week and there'd be no problem. Normally, I wear thongs all year long anyway. However, the job that I got? That is so convenient because it's right on campus so I go there, then stay on campus for school right afterward? I can't wear thongs there. This means I have to wear things like tennies, or like mary janes, or things like something else that encloses my toeses, something that will hurt to wear. And I'll have to wear them all day, every day.

My life is really tough, I know.

Yeah! Oh, Yeah!

The day began with me squinting, rolling over and turning off the alarm on my phone and rolling back over for another hour and a half, at which point my roommate told me I was a half hour late for the activities planned for the day. I squinted again, but rolled out of bed nonetheless.

The day ends with me blogging. And with my roommates angrily doing housework. Not angry so much about the housework, but angry because the ten hours we spent working on conceptualizing, filming, and editing our music video today came to naught.

It was a work of art. We had spliced it together so well that the music and the lip synching were completely in exactly the right place. The visuals were inspired and stunning. We had gone through countless costume changes and filming locations. We had learned on the spot how to edit using iMovie. We had made it so perfect and beautiful and we were PROUD OF OUR CREATION.

Then, as we were moving the last audio clip to its place, the last click of the mouse, the public computer we had been using, and saving to, crashed. Well, no, it didn't crash, it just froze completely. And freezing completely means restarting, and restarting means everything we had been saving was gone, because it was a public computer that doesn't keep stuff.

Fortunately, we still have all the original film, so we can still make the video some other time, and it'll take less time because we know better what to splice together, etc. Unfortunately, the talent show we were making it for was tonight.


This experience has taught me three things:

1. Always find a permanent place to save stuff to, because you never know when the computer's going to hate on you.

2. I really don't get upset by things easily, even when they're things I ought to get upset by, like wasting an entire day.

3. My roommates really DO get upset by those types of things.

Or Gesticulate

Life goes on much as usual, and with Homecoming season upon us, I realize that I've never really been a part of the school community. I only went to homecoming once during high school, and pretty much never during college. I am going tomorrow, however. I'm going to obtain a free hot dog, and watch the floats, and then I'll probably run away in a fit of discomfort when I realize that I'm at a giant social event that I have no real reason to be at, aside from the fact that I'm a part of that society.

If you were Emile Durkheim, you'd probably be muttering to yourself that I'm a prime candidate for suicide (aside from the fact that if you were Emile Durkheim, you'd be dead). (And french).

Discovery

I have found that it is completely impossible to try and write a report while sitting in the lobby of a public building. Even if your intentions, like mine, are pure and good and focused on finishing the paper, five minutes after you sit down you will be accosted by some friend who has no regard for your worthy intentions. Once you finally push them away like very persistent gum off the bottom of your shoe, it will have been a half hour and you will be forced to pack up and move as your ride will have arrived to pick you up.

coming soon: Part II: why it is impossible to write a paper while sitting at home when all of your roommates and some of their boyfriends are watching a movie.


*I know I'm post dating this, but it's only because that's when I actually wrote it. For some reason unknown to man, I hit the "save as draft" button instead of the "publish post" button when I finished it, and then slammed down the screen of my laptop in a victory over being awake. Then I freaked out this morning when I opened it back up and found the wrong results page. But such is life.

And now, a word from our sponsers

milquetoast.

Seriously, what genius came up with this word? Oh, alright. It was Harold Webster, and it makes complete sense. But still, I'm truly amazed that this term came to be a bona fide word, a word that people use if not in daily speech, then at least in bi-annual speech. You should all use this word tomorrow, and report back to me on how it went. This word needs a lot more exposure, unlike words like bling and ....

and...

well, frankly, I'm too tired to think of another word that bothers me enough to viciously attack it. You'll have to use your imaginations on this one. Sorry.

Yo, Empress

It's been awhile since I've seen you. Perhaps we could get together, I dunno, saturday at elevenish? I'll be on campus at that time, because there's a hot dog with my name on it from my work. I guess I'd understand if you were busy, though.

You see, gentle readers, I'll let you in on the secret: the empress has a much better paying and much more busy work life than I do. I sit around stapling papers for people for three hours a day, five days a week. The empress, on the other hand, does a good deal more work, harder work, and at stranger hours than me. It is for this reason that she can afford to live in the cute, cute house that she does, with the porch and the claw foot tub and the random hole in the closet to hide mexicans in.

On the subject of great music, however, I would like to direct you people to The Magnetic Fields. Finally, some cool and funky music that I did NOT get from the empress! It's truly amazing. I've been making my way through this album, and there's some gems on it. There's some other songs that I really don't know what to make of, but the good ones make it totally worth it. Where else will you get a cd of love songs that includes "(Crazy for you but) Not that Crazy," "Busby Berkeley Dreams," "I'm Sorry I Love You," and "Love is Like a Bottle of Gin?"

My favorites so far? "Long-Forgotten Fairytale" and "Washington, DC."

I only love old people when I can mock them

As my mother can attest, I am not a fan of the elderly. They are generally poor drivers, obnoxious shoppers, and confused and selfish voters. We do have two old old people who live on our street, and I like them both because I know them as neighbors who wave to us when we leave for school and arrive at home, and let us borrow their can openers and stuff. They are friendly and nice, partially because they're downtown old people and not snobby suburban old people.

A n y w a y,

The other day I walked by an old man who was near the university (I was walking around delivering inter-campus mail for my employer) who had just gotten off his bike and was speaking on his cell phone. He was telling the person on the other end about his day: "I went to the coffee shop and read the newspaper for a few hours, then I got stuck on one of them suh-dookies for another hour. You know, those number puzzles? Suhdookie."

Three posts in one day! It's like some sort of record!

Really, I just wanted to show you all the creativity of Hunca Munca. We got to the store too late on October 31st to purchase an actual pumpkin. They were all gone. Instead, we did this:



I love Hunca Munca. Her gourd looks evil and cute.

Office Job

I've discovered a few perks of working in an office full of academic advisors. One of the perks is that they don't have a whole lot of work for me to do, so they encourage me to take my time on every project I do. I thus get to spend long amounts of time sauntering about campus, delivering "urgent" envelopes to various buildings.

Another perk is free and easy talking with advisors. While they are technically not supposed to advise me because I'm not in that college, one of the advisors has taken something of a liking to me and we are going to get together this week to talk about stuff. She happens to have done her undergrad and graduate work in my major, so I'm going to pick her brain a little bit.

As we were setting up my appointment with her, she stuffed a cd into my hands, telling me to borrow it and listen to the music, because she thinks I would like it.

I like my job.

Rawr!

I like this seal a lot, partially because it has an excellent motto, and partially because it's a big bear looking for someone to eat.

As a side note, but still related to the NaBloPoMo topic, when I signed up, I had not considered the fact that my site would be getting more traffic than usual and thus more comments than usual. This is an interesting feeling, knowing that at least two new people have found something worth commenting on within my feeble attempts to blog well. Encouraging? Very much so.