Man oh man

Okay. I'm pretty sure you all need to go over to Albino Blacksheep (there's a link on the left) and take a look at Brokeback to the Future. It's about the funniest thing I've seen for... well, for an hour. But that's only because I just heard a guy describe himself as having "washboard abs," then amend it by saying that there's "a load in the wash."

Anyway. Go see Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd in the roles they were truly meant to play.

What I did over my summer vacation, I mean this weekend

I'm back! The trip was very fun, and I'm sad that we couldn't have stayed longer. As it is, though, I got to see the city, meet new friends, go sledding and geocaching, get lost, get unlost, eat at a fun health-food restaurant, and nearly freeze to death taking pictures at the border in what must have been minus 40 weather and wind (oh, how windy it was!).

We also spent about 45 minutes in a cool indoor market that reminded me of the farmer's market in LA, then out to run around a few hundred yards east of there where people were playing hockey on the river, and there was an ice skating path on the pedestrian bridge that went over the lake. We didn't have any skates, but we had fun sliding around on the slick ice, and scurrying out of the way when we saw somebody skating towards us at high velocity.

We mostly hung out with a cute semi-newly married couple, who live in a cute brown house in the cute French area of town, right near downtown, convenient to everything. They enjoyed going caching with us, and the husband and the guy we came with had fun racing each other through the park to where they thought the cache was, then back through the park to the car, making their way through knee-high snow, leaping down into the streambed and climbing back up the other side. Us ladies took it a little slower :).

It seemed like everywhere we drove in the city, there were these huge snow sculptures that people had made; not like snowmen, but like things that could easily have been permanent granite statues and works of public art. I believe there's a bunch in the downtown here in Parts Unknown, and since I have the week off, probably I'll go and take a look at them today or tomorrow.

It was a great weekend, kind of a whirlwind trip. For awhile I considered staying for a day or two in Parts Moreknown, where I dropped off my travelling companions, before heading back home, but by the time we got there, I was ready to sleep in my own bed, bathe in my own shower, and eat more normal, non-trip food. I made my way home therefore, and the trip seemed to go by really quickly, even though it was a 2 1/2 hour drive. I played music and sang along really loud, and stuffed fig newtons down my throat to keep myself awake. The fig newtons and singing seemed to work very well, as I didn't really feel tired until I got out of my car and started the long trek from the parking lot to my apartment.

I now have had my share of fun and adventure for this week, and can spend the next 7 days doing homework and getting prepared for the rest of the semester. Hooray! I guess a fast and short trip was the best thing all around, giving me time to have fun and time to do work.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane

Or rather, leavin' in my car. With a couple of friends. On a spur of the moment (alright, planned two days ahead) trip.

This will be the most spontaneous thing I've done so far... in my life. I guess. Well, I guess coming to Parts Unknown was a spontaneous decision, but after the decision, I still had like 6 months to prepare. Anyway. We drive East on Friday. With the wind.

Perhaps I should start packing.

Happy St Valentine's Day!

I will be celebrating by going to the gym and getting sweaty, then coming home and studying for awhile, then to top it all off, I'm going to go compare prices on printers!

I hope you all have days as wonderful as mine will be.

My final final

Yup, I'll be done with worrisome tasks on April 21. Just so you know. In case you wanted to, you know, fly up here and have a road trip with me.

I think I just electrocuted my lips

I have this bad habit of putting things into my mouth. Things like small toys, pencils, my fingers, and anything else that is smooth or brightly colored.

I now know one more thing that I shouldn't put in my mouth or on my lips: the firewire cord for my iPod when it's plugged into my computer.

No, Mom, I'm not damaged. Neither is my computer. Nothing exciting happened, I just brushed it against my lips and felt heat, kind of a popping like if you spread pop rocks on your lips. And now that I know what it does, I will not do it again.

I am a human being, and I learn from my mistakes.

Sweat is apparently a good thing.

What a wonderful feeling it is when you come home from the gym in the evening, and talk to your roommate, who tells you "Good Job!"

That feeling is topped, however, when that roommate continues, saying that her mom (who was over a few days before) asked if you had lost weight. Yes, people, the change is significant enough for my roommate's mom to notice.

I think I'll strut around the apartment with my fists on my hips, looking proud.

More details to come, when I'm less tired

remind me to tell you guys about the escapade the LHC and I had tonight. Hint: it involves snow.

What kind of socks do pirates wear? :arrrrrgyle!

I’ve got these two friends at church, who for some reason, think I’m the funniest person on the planet. I therefore feel encouraged to be funny, and say things that I usually only let myself think. Today I had to go out, but all of my jeans were dirty, so I instead wore my only other pair of pants, some orange plaid capris that I think are pretty snazzy. However, since it was snowing, I thought it best to wear something to cover the rest of my leg, as well. When you’re wearing orange plaid pants, you can’t try to look normal, so I figured it’d be best if I went with the feeling, so I wore a green robot tshirt, and pink white and blue argyle tights under my pants. And some white tennies with blue stripes. The ensemble was pretty striking, and I put my hair up into two buns, like you might see on a sailor moon character. When my two friends saw me, they both started laughing, and told me how cool I looked. And they really thought I looked cool. As they remarked on my clothing, I simply said to them, “Happy Laundry Day!” My little holiday caused quite the stir, and several people came up and told me how much they liked my outfit, &c. Not sure how many really enjoyed it, and how many were just trying to be free and accepting of my weirdness in order to look Hip and With It. At any rate, I completely stole the evening, and my two friends were pretty much hysterical for about ten minutes, not because I said anything particularly funny, but because they expected everything I said to be funny, and therefore found it that way. It makes me happy to be so entertaining to my friends.

I’m going to have to declare Laundry Day more often.

We're not that close

My roommate and I both walk out of our rooms at the same time, preparing to go to bed. She's in her pink bathrobe with a towel in her hair, and I'm in a tshirt and pj bottoms. We stand at opposite ends of the hallway, facing each other, and silently wave.

"How're you doing over there?"
'Good. I'm putting this stuff on my knuckles because they're all cracked and dry.'
"...what?"
'My knuckles' (I hold my hand up, to illustrate). 'They're really dry.'
"You don't even want to know what I thought you said just now."
'Do you really think that's something I would even say out loud?'
"...well, you ARE getting more comfortable around us..."
'Not that comfortable.'

In this city, "east" pretty much means "south"

After a couple of hours of do-gooding at the local rescue mission, we were to go to a supposedly great toboganning hill on the north side of town. Being unfamiliar with the north side of town, I got directions from a girl who lives up there on how to get to the hill. I must have missed something she said, because we drove straight out of town, and were pretty much headed for the north pole before we realized, hey, it's really foggy out, and it doesn't look like we're in the civilized world anymore. We turned around, and headed back towards town. During this little trip, I learned that turning your brights on in fog actually makes it harder to see, not easier. Good thing there wasn't anyone else on the road for miles and miles for me to run into.

We finally found our own way to the hill, and being unfamiliar with the park it's in, we parked on the wrong side of the hill, and it was a mighty hike to get to the top. It was worth it, though. There's something beautiful about going sledding with a group of people, with no one else there, on a lovely foggy night. Especially when the fog intermittantly turns to cute snow. We had fun, and I got to experience going on a long sled, with like four other people on it. They all said that the best seat is in the front, but I've decided the best seat is in the middle, because in the front, you can't hear what anyone is saying, and you feel responsible if the sled turns sideways.

The evening culminated at a friend's house, where we drank hot chocolate and played mafia till about two in the morning. It took a surprisingly long time- we played twice, and it took two hours. Perhaps it was just because most of the people hadn't played before. Anyway, it was a grand evening with the Long Haired Christian, and the guy who still has no name, because I still haven't decided on a suitable 'nym. As well as several other fun people who I know even less well.

Broketoe Mountain

I think I broke my toe. This isn't a statement made lightly or capriciously. This is a statement made with about three months' proof behind it. My toe (the middle one on the left foot) never used to hurt when I went to crack it. I generally crack my fingers two times a day, and my toes once a day, and my shoulder any number of times a day. I always do it in the same pattern, starting with the first toe (like the pointer finger), then move down the line to the pinky toe (or "the tiny one," as my mom likes to remind me I used to call it), and finally ending with the big toe, since it has the most satisfying crack.

Anyway, to get to the meat of the story, for the past three months, when I try to crack my middle toe, it hurts, and it won't crack. Not just that it hurts too much to bend it far enough to crack, though; I ignore the pain and bend it as far as it will physically go, and still it doesn't crack. I must conclude, therefore, that my toe is broken, and never will crack again. Le sigh.

I feel so righteous

I love the feeling that you get when you go to your classes and turn in your writing assignments, and the professor approves of the approach you took in your assignment when you explain it during class. It makes me feel so.... free. So non-guilty. So righteous.

If I can finish reading As You Like It before 11 tomorrow morning, I'll be able to continue my righteous feeling another day!

Winter isn't all fun and games

So I learned one of the harsh realities of life today: snow isn't soft. At least, old snow that's melted and refrozen several times isn't soft.

The Long Haired Christian and I went sledding last saturday, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly. It's like, you're sliding down a hill, really fast! So cool! So we decided that we should go every saturday. So we went today, even though it hasn't snowed for more than a week now, and the snow on the ground is not so thick and not so fresh anymore.

We stood at the top of the hill and looked down for a few minutes, then LHC went down first. She seemed to do alright, and then disappeared beyond the crest of the hill. I decided to go down after her, before she climbed back up to the top of the hill. As I was sliding in a generally downward direction, I thought to myself, "self, it seems a little faster than last week." And so it was, because the entire hill was slick with refrozen snow. I zoomed past LHC, who was starting back up the hill, then realized I was heading for the trees, and at that point I decided to try and slow down. Apparently, my body's instinctive reflex was to throw myself backwards (but in the same direction as I was sliding in, since I had gotten turned around) off the slidey-disc, and land on my head.

I always listen to my instincts, so I went ahead and landed on the back of my head, making snow shoot down the back of my shirt, and simultaneously making my skull slightly throb in pain. Turns out that LHC had similarly landed on her head, and after that first run, we decided to find a smaller hill. Too bad all the smaller hills were covered in smaller people. Not wanting to look like losers sledding with all the 5-year-olds, we went and visited LHC's sister and her fiance instead. We played cribbage, and I lost. Thus ends my story, with a moral: don't hit the back of your head on the snow, because even though it looks soft and cushy, it's really hard, and will make you cold and wet as well.

Why I love Gmail

Because when you go to your spam mailbox, at the top of the page, it gives you links to recipes for things like "Spam and Linguini" or "Ginger Spam Salad." That feature alone makes it ten times better than any other email service.

As far as I know, this isn't going to become a workout blog.

This whole "being a responsible adult" thing is totally a drag. Like, I'm supposed to be awake every day before noon? And during the wee morning hour of 8:30 I have to be at the gym? Expending energy? Ugh.

Well. I've made it the past three weeks, working out at least 3 times each week. I haven't died or fainted or broken any machines yet, and it seems to be getting a little easier to work out for an hour straight than it was three weeks ago, so I guess that's a good thing. I need to up the frequency of my workouts to every day, though. That's my current goal, which will probably take another three weeks to fulfill. After that I'll probably try out for the Olympics or something. You know, just to keep myself going.

Oh yeah, you know the other thing I don't like about being responsible? Reading stuff and being ready for classes. Also going to classes isn't fun. Well, I guess it IS fun, just, it isn't fun to decide to go. Pretty much anything that's good for me, it takes me like ALL of my willpower to get up and go do it. Like, I can be sitting in my room, thinking, "I can't possibly go to the gym today. I'm way too asleep and don't have enough time," but as long as I get shoved out the door by one of my roommates or by my guilt, I have a great time, not tired at all, completely fine with working out for an hour. Same with going to class or church or grocery shopping. Except for my class last night. I really was too tired for that, as I found out when I had the hardest time sitting upright in my chair for that hour and a half. Ugh.

And I guess that's why they call it the blues

I just spent three hours sitting on the couch, watching some PBS shows on the Blues. It was truly fascinating stuff, and I enjoyed it, but I found something odd about it. During one of the shows, they had various current musicians playing old songs by old musicians- they would show the current person singing and playing for a good thirty seconds, then their name and the name of the song would pop up on the screen. Anyway, as I was sitting there watching, they showed an older, red-haired woman singing. I looked at her, and thought to myself, "that's Bonnie Raitt." Turns out, hey, I was right! The odd thing is, I don't really know who Bonnie Raitt is. I don't know what kind of music she generally plays, I don't know what her voice sounds like. I have no idea how it is I recognize her face and place her name with it, when I know absolutely nothing about her. And that, my friends, is my slightly interesting story for the day.

You learn something new every day

Really, you do. My roommates and I are always getting into conversations that lead us to discover some fun difference or other about our cultures. My Fun Fact For the Day has to do with climate, rather than culture: it gets colder when it's sunny out, and warmer when it's cloudy and snowy. This is because the clouds help insulate everything and keep the warm air close to the ground, and when there's no clouds, the warm air just shoots up into space, making us cold. I also note that it was like thirteen degrees colder today at noon than it is right now, at midnight. For a person raised in the southwest states, this is confusing beyond belief.

Also? I check beneath my window every night, and there's an increasing amount of snowmonster bunny tracks in the snow around the plants. I keep a careful eye out, but have yet to observe the snowmonster bunnies in action. Rest assured, though, that if I do see them, you, the internet, will be the first to know. I've sometimes been accused of sticking commas into places where they don't belong. I think the fact that I just used 5 in one sentence may prove my guilt. My name is Violasaint, and I'm a Commaholic.

Hey, that makes me think- WHY, if it's called "Alcoholics Anonymous," does everybody get up and the first thing they say is their name? I guess they don't say their last name, but still. Let's keep it anonymous, folks.

Horror of Horrors!

I had a terrible nightmare last night. I actually had several interesting dreams last night, but I only remember this one in such vivid detail because it was so disturbing. I dreamt I was in a backyard, just kind of sitting around doing nothing, and I fell asleep out there. As I fell asleep, I vaguely saw a ladybug land on the ground in front of me, towards my right.

When I woke up in the yard, I saw with my sleepy, foggy eyes a moving red blob. Focusing my eyes on the blob, I realized that the ladybug had multiplied, and there were thousands of ladybugs in a horrible, writhing mass! As if this wasn't awful enough, there were several of these masses all around the yard, most of them centered around some small, defenseless plant.

The most truly horrific part of the dream was as I turned away from this undulating scene of chaos. It was at this point that I noticed one more group of ladybugs around a bean plant I had apparently grown with love and care. The beans were eaten through, and had fallen on the ground. The ladybugs were HUGE. Huge, and spotless. As in, they didn't have any spots- they were pure red and pure evil. Evil ladybugs as big as your head. I turned and ran.

I awoke in my bed, sweating and breathing hard. Man, I am so glad that was only a dream.

Ell-oh-ell, man. Ell-oh-ell.

I went to the grocery store today with my roommates. We bought $200 worth of food, which is going to have to go for a long time, for how much it cost. Anyway, that isn't what I meant to talk about at all. What I meant to tell you is that when we were walking down the aisle, there was like a row of ketchup, and (really, I actually thought this, and meant it completely seriously) I thought to myself, "why in the world would people buy ketchup from the store, when they can get it from the hermit? I mean, come on! At the mall, it costs like 100 meat, while a hermit permit is only 30 meat! What a bargain!"

Then I stopped, and realized that I've been playing like WAY too much KoL.