happy halloween!

i'm going to west hollywood tonight when udeitha and assorted other peeps tonight, which should be really interesting. i don't have a costume so much as i have a hideous prom dress from senior year, one which i paid a woman to make and thought was going to be adorable and that is just really ugly. (i didn't wear it to prom). the only use i'm gonna get out of this thing is on halloween, so i might as well. plus, i don't have the money to buy some little dirty pirate hooker costume, as sad as that is.

i predict many, many stories tomorrow.

i have to write another article for the flying squirrel in the next three hours, because the guy who was supposed to write it decided not to. i'm not complaining, though, because i love the paper and would write as many articles as they decide to throw at me.

there will be more tomorrow, i'm sure, but for now, i must write the article and solidify plans and make myself feel ok about going out when i should be studying for a midterm.

happy halloween!!!

ring of fire

the internet in our apartment is way shiesty these days. the irony of this is not lost on me. i finally have a computer that functions properly, and now the internet is acting all crazy. it's pretty representative of my entire life, though, so maybe it's fitting.

i went to the market, finally, after work last night and bought some apples, bananas and yogurt. it feels nice to eat perishables again, having spent the last week and a half eating pasta (whenever mad or andy made it), extra breadsticks from the olive garden (where dan works these days), and unsalted pretzels that my grandma sent home with me the last time i was home. i can eat apples and peanut butter all the time again, and soon may even be the proud owner of a peanut farm, considering andy offered to give me one last night.

this week, i'm all about joaquin phoenix singing johnny cash on the "walk the line" soundtrack. maybe that's because i'm all about mr. phoenix in general. case in point:



or:



(i just discovered the "insert picture" icon, and i intend to overuse it all the time, just to warn).

listening to this johnny cash music has made me miss the "little saddles" dance team i was on for about two years when i was ten, and it's not usually something i ever think about, much less miss. we used to dress up in southwest-themed skirts and cowboy boots and perform at this psuedo-country bar in my hometown. in retrospect, it was a little strange to have a bunch of little girls doing the electric slide while surrounded by middle-aged men drinking in the middle of the afternoon.

i have a feeling i would really like dancing if i ever had a chance to actually dance, and not just grind against some nasty at a party. one of the singular most fun memories i have is being slightly buzzed with a friend of mine at a party, and swing dancing in the middle of the dance floor during a 50 cent song.

summary

way ridic quiz question: has anyone recently told you that they like you more than as a friend?

answer: yes, and it was set to the tune of a wham song.

fright night

dan scared the shit out of me last night. i come from a family that loves tricks and pranks and halloween and scary movies and i have a demon brother who tries to freak me out all the time, and still, last night was the most scared i have ever been in my entire life. mad and i had finally gone to bed at around 2:30 am, because it's almost impossible for us to stop being hilarious. at 3 am, i woke up to mad whispering my name, and telling me that there was someone outside our front door rattling the handle. i was tired and way sad that i'd been called out of a wonderfully deep sleep, so i told her that the door was locked and i was sure it was just some drunk guy and could i please just go back to sleep?

alas, i could not go back to sleep because she kept talking to me about how scared she was. the only solution, i thought, was to get up and investigate the sound and make sure that the front door was indeed locked and then go back to sleep. so, i went and made the rounds, checking the hall closet and the living room and the kitchen and all the various prime burglar/kidnaper hiding places in the apartment. i was about to come back into the room when i figured i should check the bathroom, while telling mad, and i quote, "there is no one here, unless they are made of air," and i was really confident and proud of myself for being so brave while she cowered in her blanket. i was fully awake now and way full of myself for being such a ghosthunter, so i casually pushed the door of the bathroom open to prove that there was no one hiding behind it (a trick i used in my house all the time, when i was younger and being the only person sleeping downstairs used to really scare me). and then, the door stopped, and dan leapt out from behind it and i swear to god, i was in tears. there's nothing like thinking you're about to be killed to get you crying. it was terrible, considering it was 3 am and i assumed everyone was sleep.

maybe it's hard to articulate how horrible it is to be frightened to tears for no reason (aside from the fact that one of my roommates is way patient and can wait until the middle of the night to prank us), but i had to at least try. because after that, i had all these crazy dreams about a friend's creepy stepdad, who has always made me feel uneasy, and when i woke up, i was all out of sorts and upset.

there is some good news though: i'm sitting in powell having just finished my tremendously stupid anthropology paper, something that has been weighing on me since it was assigned three weeks ago. it was one of those things that i just could not bear the thought of, until this weekend, when i absolutely had to have something to turn in this coming monday. and i'm done! i'm also currently getting the stare-down from this girl who just reapplied her bright red lipstick and inspected her giant boobs. maybe it's the halloween-themed plaid ribbon i'm wearing as a headband, the ribbon i stole from andy's "halloween care package" of chocolates he got from home. and maybe that's compounded by the fact that i'm incredibly shlubby today, considering i was planning on spending the entire day at the library (and i am). if i had known i was going to be competing with cleavage'd out diva queens, i might have tried a little harder. as it is, though, she's still staring at me every time i look up at her, and that's unsettling.

earlier, when i was still laboring over the anthro paper, some guy got trapped in a doorway leading into this room. his huge athletics windbreaker got caught on the moulding and he struggled with it for a little while, saying "i'm stuck! i'm stuck!" and, i kid you not, waving his arms around all crazily, before he finally freed himself.

so, that being said, i don't know how it's possible to not have interesting stories to tell, because interesting things seem to happen all time.

fund-less

i bit the bullet. i bought a mac. i decided that for once in my life, i wasn't going to wait until i got totally owned before i fixed a problem. i was haunted by images of my computer crashing while i wrote my paper, and my losing everything and being really crazy and out of my mind as i scrambled to write it again. that's what happened my first year (about three months after i'd bought the computer), and all the detailed, first-quarter-at-college book notes i'd taken to help me during finals were locked, inaccessible, in my computer's hard drive at best buy for three weeks, and i wasn't able to use them for my tests.

i'm not sure i'll ever be over the sticker-shock guilt of buying something so expensive. it wasn't outrageously expensive by any means (i made sure of that), but it was new-laptop expensive, and i'm the kind of girl who goes straight to the sale racks in clothing stores because god forbid i have to pay full price for a t-shirt. i hate monies. it stresses me out to have to think about it. and that's not to say that i'm way flippant and that money is no object to me and that i love spending it willy-nilly (yes, willy-nilly). what i mean is that i wish it didn't exist in the first place and that i didn't have to worry about how i was going to pay my rent and get a working computer and have a part-time job that doesn't pay a million dollars an hour. i have this fear that i'm never going to eat/go out/buy orbit ever again.

what a sad life that would be.

irritations

so, surprise, surprise: my laptop is working again. and that forces me to feel way guilty about any potential computer purchase. i don't know what andy did, but he messed with the battery and cords and other accessories and got it to turn back on. i almost wish it would have just stayed out of commission. true, the enormity of a new laptop purchase was weighing on me a lot, but i really do, in my heart of hearts, think i need a computer that doesn't need two day power-naps in order to function (read: run until it decides to overheat and shut down). i just don't know if i can justify buying a new one when this one technically works. and that is precisely what i've been saying for about a year. dammit.

last night, i had to work from 6 pm to 8:45 pm. there was a performance in royce and i had to work will call. we gave tickets to the actress amy brennaman, who was in that show i never watched "judging amy". she was judge. isn't that such a clever name? when i finally got my ass back home after a way long day, i realized i lost my giant turquoise ring, the one i bought in mexico and loved, mostly because it was the jewel to end all jewels. at this point, my computer wasn't working, i had a fat paper to write (and i still do), i was tired and stressed out, and losing that ring, as insignificant as it sounds, made me so upset. i had a mini-breakdown in the bathroom, because the apartment was crawling with roommates, and then went into the kitchen and ate some cookies. i feel guilty about the cookies.

after i'd used food as a crutch, i used mad's computer to write my article for the flying squirrel (something else that i hadn't gotten around to doing for days), and then andy "fixed" my computer, as tentative as that statement may be. i was able to back up all my pictures, make sure nothing was destroyed and also talk to people online (i still cannot believe that not having AIM was so irritating for me). and then, as i was getting into bed last night, i rearranged my comforter and my huge turquoise ring flew off my bed and bounced around on the ground.

it was so amazing to find that jewel, as stupid as i'm sure that sounds. and i know that my problems pale in comparison to any real issues, but i haven't felt that overwhelmed in a long time. i don't want to blame work for my not studying as much as i could, because it's not like i'm working building walls or digging ditches or something. i answer phones and it shouldn't exhaust me like it does. mostly, i blame the crazy food schedule, because i basically don't eat between the maybe-food i consume as i leave the apartment in the morning (and even that is rare), and when i get home at around five (if i'm lucky and don't have work/meetings). i guess i need to figure out a good way to balance everything.

the point is, i went to sleep much more ok with my life than i was when i got back to the apartment last night. and i can't complain about that.

benedict arnold

i'm currently continuing my glorious computers-around-the-world tour, and writing from a computer at work. i went to look at a mac in the student store between class/ticket office, and i think i'm going to get one. i'm a little nervous about the money because i've never paid a grand for any one thing before in my life (i'm not counting checks for dorm housing because it wasn't really my money and it wasn't paying for one small, five-pound piece of equipment). it's a little scary (i know, i'm dramatic) to think about having to learn a whole new system, especially because i scoff at my mom all the time for not knowing how to work basic technology. now, i'll be one of those people. however, i've heard from almost everyone i've talked to that if they were buying a new laptop, they would most definitely invest in a mac. and, i'd much rather spend a little more now and get a stable computer than spend $500 on a crappy desktop (an idea that has crossed my mind) and have it crash ten times next year.

i've also been taking on or around fourteen thousand calls today at work.

plus, i think i have adult-onset dyslexia. i'm having trouble lately reading and writing numbers and words in the correct order. that's pretty great.

maybe tomorrow i'll be able to write on my brand-new mac. i kinda feel like a traitor, leaving the world of windows behind. i should probably get over it, though, because windows hasn't treated me all that well.

dzamn

my computer is totally fried. completely and totally fried. i'm currently writing this from mad's computer, lest my huge audience of four get really nervous when i don't update this thing tonight. i got back from the flying squirrel meeting (and a dinner with peeps), and was looking forward to putting in some computer face time, and the machine is totally wrecked. suddenly. like, more wrecked than it has been in a long time (and that time, i had to get the entire motherboard replaced, which is something i am not going to do this time - it's not worth it at all).

so, the awesome thing is that i'm computer-less for the one weekend when i absolutely need a computer. absolutely need. i have to write a fat paper for monday, and my plan was to write it this weekend after i go to another 21st birthday party on friday and work all day on saturday (there's a football game and we ticketmongers must sell tickets at it). now, i'll probably have to write it by hand, which sucks hardcore, and then run to the computer lab in franz to type it up the morning it's due. i predict that that will be way awesome.

my life is crazy and stressful right now, and it's all my damn computer's fault. i guess maybe it's my fault too because i've been bitching about this piece of crap for a way long time, and decided to wait until it turned into an absolute disaster to do something about it. but do something i will! i'm getting a new computer tomorrow at ackerman, where i can maybe get a student discount. also, i believe i'll be investing in a mac, because lots of people have convinced me that they are cooler, and talking to joel and cory about their respective macs made me even more interested in getting one. they're more expensive, sure, but i've only heard good things about them. plus, the apple store guys where geniuses. what could be any better? money is no object when it comes to having the means to pass an anthropology class (via the important paper i will write on my sparkly, new computer). screw having rent money, right?

also, there are a few people in my life that i communicate with solely over the internet, which is sad and upsetting, but also at times unavoidable, so to all of them (and you, steve), who i don't see on a daily basis and now can't tell over AIM that my computer has expired: know that i still adore you and would be sitting online telling you all the awkward things that happened to me recently (there are many) if only i didn't suck at technology so much. hopefully, by tomorrow or friday, all of that will be remedied.

i'm so cosmopolitan. i even apologize for not being online online. how fabulous is that?

ipods, magnets, and hot cross buns

i think i might love my dermatologist. plantonically, of course, but that's still interesting, considering i've seen him a total of four times, for a total of like one hour. he's just way awesome and makes me feel a lot better about this entire shitty situation. also, he told me that i have accutane-induced eczema now, and that was a much better diagnosis than the one i'd given myself (much to the horror of my roommates). i thought i had ringworm. yummy, i know. i don't, though, and that's the most important thing, yes?

after my appointment, i decided that it's high time i did some little errands that i've been meaning to do for months. i went to the apple computer store in the local mall to get my ipod fixed, and that place is out of control. they have studio, genius, and various other types of "bars" where only specialized people can help you with your issue. i asked some guy if he could help me, and he had me make a computer reservation to speak with a "genius", some guy who i could have just verbally announced my presence to. the guy was seriously standing about ten feet away from me, but i had to send him a message over the internet. it reminded me of the "high tech" appointment system my high school adopted my senior year, which allowed the secretaries to send instant messages to the counselors to alert them that their students had showed up to talk to them. so, the counselors got IMs from the front office, again about ten feet away. i guess people think that that is more streamlined, but it strikes me as kinda ridic.

i spent ten years looking for jeans this afternoon - jeans that fit me properly. it took a really long time, but i finally succeeded and that was grand.

also, i bought a pair of magnetic stud earrings, and am wearing one of them in my nose right now. no one in my family thinks the fact that i want to test out a nose piercing is a big deal - they're all just appalled that i have a magnet in my nose. clay told me that that is "disgusting." whatever. i wanted to see what it would look like if i did in fact have a crystal in my nose without actually having to shove a needle through my nostril. actually, my mom told me that she kinda wants one too. that would be interesting. the verdict is that i'm gonna shop around and see if i can find a place that looks clean and respectable and then i'll probably get my nose pierced. and this will forever prevent me from doing the play at the museum ever again.

sophie and i went for a walk this afternoon. i say it like that because i found myself treating her like a person, and not like a dog. we went for a way long time, and i got kinda loopy/bored so i started talking to her and telling her what direction i thought we should go, and maybe it's just that she had the route memorized already or something, but i could have sworn she was listening to me.

being home this time was way less annoying than it was the other weekend. i was probably just being a moody bitch. clay wrote a story for school and his teacher told him it was "the best thing any student has written in her class ever." i told him i wanted to read it, considering it was so awesome. and that led to him chasing me all over the elementary school campus, yelling at me to give it back to him. it was really juvenile of me to play keep-away with my little brother (and i didn't even get to read it because i was running), but it was fun regardless.

one of the highlights of my day was making dinner with my mom. my grandparents came over, and we had a fat feast. clay played "hot cross buns" on his clarinet and then allowed everyone but me to read that damn story, and i'm sure he felt like a prince. it was a good time.

p.s. i can't believe rush limbaugh would make such a terrible, insensitive comment about michael j. fox's parkinson's. actually, i do believe it because he's a hypocritical asshole, but it makes me sick that he chooses to use his (unfortunate) media power to say such awful things. just shut up already and stop acting like a goddamn saint. to say that someone is exaggerating (for political gain or anything else) the symptoms of their crippling disease is disgusting and makes me want to slap him in the face. and maybe kick him in the knees too. very few things make me really angry (i've learned, with today's politics, to let a lot of shit slide so that i don't go crazy), but reading about that pissed me off so much. i could not believe that. and shouldn't have to, i don't think.

little bo sheep

i'm incredibly tired right now. i fell asleep in the car on the way back home (i'm back to go see my hometown dermatologist tomorrow), and even though that was about an hour ago, i'm still all groggy and crazed out. today, i had work and class and my psych research methods midterm and then two hours of work meetings, and i only had time to eat some "fruit and nut" mix at noon. i've since remedied that terrible situation, having stopped at baja on my walk back to the apartment at six-thirty so that i could finally have some real food. i hate the feeling of going from being way hungry to really full really quickly. it's gross.

my archaeology professor brought live sheep to our lecture this morning, to help illustrate the concept of the early human domestication of animals (and plants). it's not like they danced or performed or morphed into early modern humans or anything. they were just sheep, in a pen, in my 300+ person lecture hall in haines (which, for all those not attending my school, is one of the universities precious four original buildings). i guess it was cute or whatever, but i also guess that i'm allergic to sheep because my entire face felt like i'd been sprayed with some sort of horrible allergen. that compounded by the fact that as i left the lecture i was coughed on by about five different people made my morning really fab.

plus, i kinda felt bad for the sheep because everyone was talking about how tasty they were and they had to just stand around in their gated prison and hear about it.

angsty

i need to have more insane adventures. i don't have nearly enough of them. i've got the random encounters covered, but i rarely ever go anywhere crazy. steve told me today about how he "ran away" to san francisco this weekend, and i'm a little jealous of that. ok, a lot jealous. last weekend, when i was home for melissa's birthday, i told my dad about how some people wanted me to sign up to go to israel this winter break, but that i decided not to for lots of reasons, not the least of which being that the situation in israel scares me. then, my dad and my grandpa proceeded to tell me that being scared of things shouldn't stop me from doing them, which was just about the most infuriating thing i've ever heard, considering my grandpa is pretty famous for his spain pro/con list, in which "moroccan white slavery" and "rape" were very real concerns. in june, i lost count of how many times my dad called my summer hopes "irresponsible" and "immature." basically, the two of them threw the most incredible shit-fit this summer to stop me from escaping to europe, and then sat with me the other day and told me, straight-faced, that i should have booked a flight to the middle east. it was insane.

but i guess the point is that i want to go on adventures. i'm infinitely upset at myself for not just doing what i wanted this past summer.

god, that's so angsty.

dj shower

our shower has two settings: lukewarm and lava. and so in order to find a happy medium between tepid and boiling, i have to act like a shower dj and constantly mix the hot and cold knobs. this morning, i almost boiled off my entire back when i turned the cold water a millimeter to the right. i've survived to tell the tale, though, so that's good.

i didn't go anywhere last night, for several reasons. i think i was mainly too lazy. that's been a big problem recently. i'm not really very proactive these days. maybe that's because during the week, i'm running around going to work or class or meetings, so when i eventually get back to the apartment, i don't want to leave again until i absolutely must. i'm going for a walk today sometime, just to get out and move around a little bit.

i had a dream right before i woke up and in this dream, everything worked out. i can't remember the specifics now, but the general idea was that everything i was worried about came together and turned out marvelously. it was a dream that i wouldn't mind having all the time.

high five

lina and i met up at a cafe in westwood this afternoon, and i swear, no one i know meets as many men as she does. that is not at all supposed to be derogatory. i mean that as a huge compliment. while i'm attracting homeless men and fourteen-year-old boys on the street, she runs into groups of, and i quote, "hot french-israeli" guys, hangs out with them, and falls in love with one of them. i just argued with my roommates about how i don't necessarily attract more weirdoes than the average person, i just entertain their craziness for longer than a normal person would (i.e. i will have a conversation with a random on the street instead of walking by them quietly). however, the more i think about it, the more i realize that yeah, maybe i am a magnet for the bizarre.

case in point: some random guy gave me a high five when i was ambling around westwood.

i went to claire's apartment after i hung out with lina. i had no idea that it was going to take me fifteen hundred years to get from where i live to where the rest of my friends do. our apartment is pretty much on the opposite side of the universe from where the majority of the undergrad apartments are, and so i had to walk for a way long time to get to her place. i guess, then, it's good that i'm slowly tricking myself into being in love with walking places.

i had a really cool moment as i left my building to start the journey over there. the sun was starting to go down and it was really warm outside, and for some reason, i couldn't hear any cars. and for a few seconds, before i actually did hear some major street sounds, everything was covered in way cool yellow light and i felt really calm.

i may go out with claire tonight, to some halloween party, even though i don't really know anything about it and i don't have a costume (i haven't decided if "dirty pirate hooker" is really the direction i want to go this year). i haven't been anywhere this quarter, because i've been home every weekend since the beginning of the year, and also because our living so far from everyone else makes it difficult to go to "parties". i'm excited to hang out with her, and that's why i'm going tonight.

andy got pissed at me for allowing there to be a "ghost" viewing when he wasn't around. he also feels left out because we had a big apartment party (read: watched two movies in our pajamas) and he wasn't able to be a part of it. however, he had enough fun last night at the weekly meeting of "andy's secret santa monica friends" that he had to take a shower over there this morning, so whatever. i'm sure he'll get over it.

ghost like swayze part trois

wanna know what i did with my friday night? i forced dan to watch "when harry met sally" and "ghost" with mad and me (he's way lucky that we got the movies to work, because "phantom" was on tv, and that would have been way worse for him). i also left a demon voicemail on andy's phone because that bastard set up the dvd player all crazily, and then disappeared for the night, refusing to answer any of our many phone calls/text messages begging him to help us. we eventually got the cable box, dvd player and three-hundred-year-old tv to work together, and watched two of the greatest movies of all time back-to-back. i ate a lot of almonds, because i finally went out and bought more of the only food i eat. it was a pretty exciting night.

i hate to bring up swayze again, but i still don't understand him. he can act better than demi, though, so there's that.

i have a midterm on monday, and just went through the material in about an hour and forty-five minutes. i'm planning on doing lots of practice testing tomorrow, but it's always interesting to me that i never really have to put tons of effort into midterms. i have lots of premed friends who are pretty much in a constant state of fatigue and panic around this time of the quarter. when i talk to really hardcore people, i imagine myself stretching my arms above my head all lazily and saying, "yeah, i had a pretty tough weekend too. i studied for four whole hours."

cz

my dreams came true! i got my blood test done and i was only stuck with one needle, once. it was really miraculous (and yes, i'm still allowed to call things miraculous, despite the fact that i've been waging an anti-miracle campaign since i decided when i was twelve that if divine intervention existed, it wouldn't wait until someone was in dire need of its help before it swept in and saved the day). i ended up waiting in ashe for an hour, during which i texted andy about how i was contemplating bursting into tears while demanding that they draw my blood immediately. the wait was ridiculous. before they took me into my own little exam room (where i waited for another half hour), i had to wait outside and make small talk with a guy who forced me into conversation. i think i was just too tired and ravenous to carry on a normal conversation.

the good news is that the woman who eventually took my blood was really cute and personable and told me right away that, "i never stick someone more than once." she was true to her word. she instantly found a viable vein in my arm, despite the fact that people are never, ever able to do that on the first try. and i can pick up the results on monday, which is way faster than the lab at home turns out results. yipee. i can still keep my appointment on tuesday, and i won't have to miss the much-hyped guest speakers in human sexuality next thursday.

i saw the neanderthal today. i bit my tongue and did not say hello to him, because it would have been awkward and terrible. also, he's a neanderthal, and anthropologists are still not sure if they can even speak in the first place. (i'm a bitch - but that joke was in honor of andy, and he thinks it's funny).

i'm now the proud owner of a pair of high-class sterling silver cubic zirconia stud earrings. i got them from glitterati in westwood, a virtual explosion of shine and sparkle and "burnished metal" jewelry. i had to buy them to placate my ear piercings, which have been rising up against me for the past few weeks. my skin expects very nice things from me, and i'm technically not supposed to wear any jewels that aren't (at least) made of sterling silver because i have a really terrible metal allergy. when i was little baby, i'd get little red circles all down the front of my body from the buttons on my little outfits. now that i'm older, this manifests in the occasional earhole revolt after i've worn copper/nickel jewels, during which my piercings hurt and scare me into thinking that they are going to close up. so, i'm going to acquiese to their demands. i'm wearing these hardcore stup faux-diamond deals only until the irritation heals, because i've always kinda hated things like them. as if i'm really tricking anyone into thinking i've really got huge diamonds. maybe if you happen to see me and i'm wearing really sparkly cz jewelry, you could pretend that you think they are real, and tell me, "my, what gorgeous jewels you have!" that would be grand.

what an ashehole

i didn't go to my intro to archaeology class this morning. why? because i just could not be asked to get out of bed. i decided i would sleep for another hour, but that was a fat waste of time, considering that five minutes after i checked the archaeology syllabus and realized i wasn't missing anything, i remembered that my next dermatologist appointment is this coming tuesday and i haven't gotten my monthly blood test done yet. so, i worried about that instead of getting more sleep.

i made an appointment for 2 pm today at ashe, but those are always really hit or miss. i once called in my appointment and spoke to an actual person, and then was turned away when i showed up because i had been assigned to an appointment category that didn't fit my health issue. i don't understand that, because if the doctors are doctors, they should be able to handle both a blood test and a sprained ankle. i guess i can't judge until i've gone to med school. and i won't go to med school, so i'll just shut up.

my dermatologist at home (the coolest person in the universe) tells me that it's not a big deal to miss a week of accutane pills during the treatment because the medication is so hardcore that it stays in your system (presumably forever, which is why it's so magical). thus, i'm not too nervous about having to maybe reschedule my appointment for later next week. what i am irritated by is the knowledge that i will, most likely, be told that ashe doesn't do blood tests, as crazy as that is, and i will have fasted all day for no reason. i learned the hard way that one must fast before one's blood test.

simply put, i'm hoping i can get out of ashe with a blood test behind me (and as little bruises as possible) and be able to keep my appointment on tuesday. doubtful.

spacek spawn

i saw sissy spacek's daughter in urban tonight. i was on my way back from my research methods review (which was just as unhelpful as i predicted) and decided that the one thing i needed to do above all others (such as studying) was to go look in the same three places i always go into, seeing as they are totally on my way back to the apartment. seeing sissy spacek's apparently nameless daughter in urban was interesting for two reasons: 1) because she's sissy spacek's daughter, and was in "orange county", for all of the pop culture-illiterate among us; and 2) because i'm not supposed to be in urban outfitters. this is based on a self-imposed rule from about three months ago, when i was working at my aunt's office and stumbled upon an article on the internet about how the ceo of urban contributes lots of campaign money to a really conservative asshole congressman. it was another one of the causes i adopt that hurt no one but me. i haven't been adhering to my relatively new rule for a while now, and was thus walking through the store tonight just in time to see the above-mentioned spacek spawn wandering around. it's a bit of a coincidence that i would see her right after i read an article about her mom's role in carrie (and i did that today, just to clarify).

i need to do lots and lots of things tonight and i'm so tired and bleary-eyed (mostly from the clear eyes, as ironic as that is) that i just want to sleep or lay or stare vacantly at my computer and not have to think. but i think i need to punish myself for doing those very things every night for the past three weeks, and actually get some things accomplished before 1 am.

also, i ate some salad today and will probably have e. coli by tomorrow, so i should take advantage of the health i have right now and get as much done as possible.

neurology department

someone shocked me speechless today. that almost never happens because, as evidenced by the fact that i'm writing a blog all about myself, i love talking to anyone who can stand to listen to me. this morning, i had just finished telling my coworker (the one who picked up the grease-soiled toaster oven) about how some guy had called me and asked me questions about his passport, an item which, sadly, the central ticket office doesn't sell, revise or issue. i was laughing with my coworker about this when i got another call, this time from a woman who said, "neurology department?"

neurology department.

i don't really know how someone could sit through about ten minutes of automated suggestions ("press 1 for athletics, press 2 for performing arts...") and still think that they are on hold for the neurology department.

FCPs

the other night, i went to borders and that was a really poor decision on my part because i love looking at books and love buying books and love reading books (regardless of how much reading i have for actual classes in which i will be graded). i bought "female chauvinist pigs" (FCPs), this pro-feminism book about how women have gone from wanting to be seen as anything but sexual objects to wanting to be seen as nothing but sexual objects (as evidenced by the popularity of girls gone wild and howard stern and playboy and breast implants). i'd be lying if i said that i agree with everything the author's written in the book, and i'm definitely not well-versed enough to have a complete opinion, but i've never really thought about the social implications of a women's movement expressing "liberation" and "power" through jiggling around in order to be ogled by men. mad and i talked about this weird objectification of women (in much broader terms) last week, when we had to walk through a parking lot full of construction workers who shamelessly stare us down every day, even though they can barely see us and we're walking fast and our boobs aren't on full view, just simply because we're women. it's gross and upsetting. i've never been the kind of girl who gets self-esteem from the slobbery approval of guys at frat parties or in passing trucks or at construction sites. (i have, i'll admit, been the kind of girl who hopes her skin clears up so she can stop feeling like a mutant - but in my defense, i feel like that's a slightly different issue). being assessed like that by strangers makes me feel kinda violated and uncomfortable. sure, maybe i want to be perceived as attractive, but that in no means implies that i want to be treated like a hooker just for having a vag.

(i'm way stoked that i just used "vag"...finally!)

in other news, i nearly fell on my ass in mud today in front of haines. i was on my way to the flying squirrel meeting and was trying to be all badass and walk around the trash can and before i knew it, my ski-soled traction-less sandals went out under me and i did one of those crazy wobbles to regain my balance (and i did, and that was good).

also, i don't have to work tomorrow night, so i can go to my psychology research methods midterm review, which is nice because even though i know that review sessions almost never help me, i still have this weird obsession with going to them. almost as if my not going will karmatically (word? it should be) kick my ass when the test day rolls around.

i'm gonna eat some granola and dried apricots. and maybe try to do some school shit too.

dirty pirate hooker

this afternoon, when lina and i were sitting in front of starbucks gossiping, this complete craze with three band-aids on his left cheek and a way dirty sweatshirt walked up to us, introduced himself, and told us very seriously that he was only trying to make friends and that he wasn't trying to get "a piece of ass." he then held out an old, worn chinese food takeout box and asked us if we wanted to share his rice. when we said no, he opened the box and poured the contents down the front of his sweatshirt, a la that guy in airplane who has the drinking problem. i really don't know how i always get pegged by people like that as the one girl in the universe to come up to and talk to, but it happens all the time.

that being said, i'm really glad that lina and i are making concerted efforts to see each other. i missed her over the summer. i went back to "aahs" (twice in less than a week!) with her because she wanted to get some glasses for her "dirty intern" halloween costume. maybe i really should be a dirty pirate hooker, like i told mad i would be.

at work, they made me train someone. the idea of me training someone is so funny to me. this was only my fourth day on the phones by myself, and i had to try desperately to teach two different people how to answer questions and work all the computer programs. i hope i did an ok job.

i'm listening to "gone" by switchfoot, something that jeff introduced me to the summer after graduation, when we'd go to the beach and before he discovered that switchfoot has crazy religious overtones and decided to renounce any pleasure he'd gotten from their music.

i'm way itchy. my skin is way dry, and i am officially a lizard person. it happened quite suddenly, actually. i mean, i've been dry for a while, but in past two days, my hands have gotten all weird and red and the rest of my body is hardcore drying out. basically, i'm on my way to glamour-town right now.

today, after my human sexuality lecture, i was contemplating whether or not it's possible to be just purely platonic friends with someone of the opposite sex. i think it's totally possible, mostly because (i assume) i've got a lot of platonic friendships with guys. i never really questioned any motives behind girl-guy friendships (because they've always just seemed natural to me) until last year, when a guy i dated got incredibly angry with me after i told him i'd gone to lunch with one of my closest friends (who, incidentally, happens to be male). this guy i was dating thought i'd gone on a date with my friend, which was so off base that i didn't know how to respond and eventually apologized for simply hanging out with him.

what i think is interesting is that every guy i've asked about this tells me that, yeah, platonic friendships between members of the opposite sex are pretty much impossible. that's kinda sad.

thoughts?

impressive

on my way back from campus today, i overheard this girl saying, "jen's hips and thighs are huge. yeah, her hips are huge." her friend responded by saying, "oh, really? is her ass really fat too?" by this time, they were standing right next to me waiting for the stoplight to change, so i casually looked to see who could possibly be talking about someone so demonically. i expected abercrombie models or something, but the two girls standing there were the smallest, meekest, most unassuming people i've ever seen. one of them was wearing glasses and a disney sweatshirt (seriously). i don't like being surprised like that, because it means that you can trust no one. as the old adage goes, "it's always the quiet ones."

dan bought me veggie thai fried rice last night, which is awesome and dangerous at the same time. it's awesome because i can have that to eat for the next few days, and it's also dangerous because i can have that to eat for the next few days. also, dan showed me this kids' website (which i must actually post on here eventually because it's so amazing) run by fanatical christian ministers that has characters such as "habu" (the hindu elephant with so many gods he "lost count" of how many he worships), "hopsiah the kanga-jew" (which is my personal favorite, not because i'm half-jewish, but because it's so creative), and "professor giraffenstein", the creation scientist (who answers questions about fossils by saying that they are "the bodies of bad men and animals that lived 4,000 years ago before the flood"). it was incredible. seriously just what i needed last night when i was feeling shitty and sadtown. i haven't laughed so hard in a while.

udeitha and i have started taking turns bringing foods to the classes we have with each other five times a week. it began a few weeks ago when i bogarted half of her veggie sandwich when we were watching "kinsey" in lecture, and in return, gave her some trail mix (which, by the way, is just about the only thing i eat nowadays, when i don't have thai fried rice laying around). it's kinda like the college equivalent to the elementary school black market food trade ("i'll give you my capri-sun for your fruit roll-up."). so, long story short, it's my turn to bring something of actual substance (i.e. not nuts and raisins) tomorrow, and i'm thinking of going with the veggie sandwich from kerchkoff. i know, you read this blog for valuable information such as this.

i'm on my fourth cup of chai tea, and i'm still using the same tea bag, which is kinda gross i guess, but it's working out ok.

also, today i made a very primitive list of things that either impress me or don't:
-things that don't impress me:
+wealth
+inexplicable bitchiness
+gpas
-things that do impress me:
+senses of humor
+artistic ability (be that musical, visual, etc.)
+that i can never find a pair of jeans that actually fit me

these are all things i encountered while i was walking around campus, so all in all, i had a pretty balanced day.

where has all the happy gone?

i thought for a while about deleting my last entry, because it's sad and emotional and way private, but then i figured, not everything can come up roses all the time, right? and if this thing becomes just simply play-by-play of my lame days, then really, what's the point? i want everyone to say that they laughed and they cried, like if they were watching some crappy made-for-tv movie.

because that's what i want my life to emulate. a crappy made-for-tv movie. i mean, don't we all?

(the hilarity will be up and running tomorrow, i swear).

fix you

i really wish sometimes that i could just get over it. if i got over it, it wouldn't hurt me so much. what i've learned, though, is that five years don't just go away. it's so hard to unlearn something that you've spent countless hours teaching yourself. i spent all my teenage years thinking i wasn't good enough, and hoping that someone would see how much it hurt and finally help me. and now that i've found my favorite physician's assistant of all time and am taking all these stupid pills, i finally have what i've wanted for a way long time and it hasn't changed anything. not emotionally, at least. i still feel worthless most of the time, and now wonder how a certain person could ever really see past it. i mean, how could anyone ever really see me?

the only thing that makes me feel better when i'm really upset is thinking about how i felt when i was with the ex-boyfriend. i never saw in him what he hated about himself. not ever. and i think that's why i stayed with him so long; i hoped he'd return the favor and love me regardless.

goddamn, i have some fixing to do.

homeward bound

i've always been hugely lazy on weekends, and am even more lazy these days because the weekdays are so busy, so i don't know why it's so shocking to my family that i'm still in my pajamas wrapped in a comforter, scooting around the house looking crazy. my plan was to come home last night for mel's party and then have my dad take me back to westwood today/tonight. however, i forgot that today is my parents' wedding anniversary, and that means that there will be no driving in to the apartment until tomorrow. so, i'm stuck. absolutely no one is here and because i figured i'd be back at school today, i didn't really bring any books or class shit to do. i guess that's contributing to my complete and utter lack of motivation to get dressed. if i'm just gonna hang out in my house and watch movies/get sassed by clay because i "just woke up" (which is false), why get ready?

this morning, i woke up to my dad telling sam (right by my couch), "the thing about mid- to late-17th century political writers is..." and then i yelled at them to find another place in the house to continue their philsophical discussion because it's not my fault i have to sleep in the front room - they've cleared my room.

last night was way more fun than i expected. i'm always kinda nervous when i have to perform some sort of physical sport-like activity, because i'm really terrible at all competitive games. i have so little hand-eye coordination, it's laughable (hence my decision to spend seven years of my life running around on a crappy dirt track while my friends were playing soccer and volleyball and basketball). so when i discovered that we were going bowling in studio city, i was instantly worried that i would be laughed out of the bowling alley (because that's what happens when i go with denis and weil and gilmore). what i didn't take into account, though, is that everyone would be totally drunk by the time we even got there, and that i would actually be one of the best bowlers in the group. i guess i know what gives me my competitive edge: competing against drunkies.

it was also really, really good to hang out with melissa again. we go way back, and i don't see her nearly enough. when andy's 21 next month, and we start having classy affairs and he starts teaching me about wine like he's been threatening to for the past two years, i'm going to invite all my classy friends down to the apartment to hang out and take "vino 101" with me.

yesterday, when my mom was driving me back from my aunt's house in the valley, she looked at me really seriously, and said, "hey, i wanted to ask you something...do you have a pumpkin at your apartment?" it was ridiculous. i was expecting her to ask me something really annoying or to tell me to send out my absentee ballot for the fifteenth time, and instead, she was just worried that we hadn't decked our apartment out for halloween. this morning, when i finally hobbled into my room, there were two plastic grocery bags full of mini pumpkins sitting right by my door.

i realized last night that the only song i can sing is "homeward bound" by simon and garfunkel. and by "sing" i mean not totally destroy.

succinct

many, many things happened last night that were way bloggable, but i'm in a total rush as it is to get to melissa's for her party, so i can't really go into it as much as i'd like to. let's suffice to say that leah and ashley came down and surprised me in westwood (i haven't seen leah since graduation, which is terrible because we were close in high school), i got hit on by a way shady character (a party-crasher who so not supposed to be there) at the flying squirrel get-together and i forced a new FS member to drive me home because i was that scared of the dude, and jeff called me from scotland to say hi. from scotland. i'm way jealous of him. way.

today was a cool day too, full of fancy lunches at le pain with my great-aunt carole and watching phantom and thinking about how much i hate emmy rossum because i just know that she's not as cute and nice as she'd like you to think and she is definitely not worth being the object of affection of both raul and the most gorgeously disfigured phantom of an opera i've ever seen. maybe i'm just upset that i'm not a big movie star and i didn't get to kiss gerard butler, as is my ultimate life goal.

so, there you go. twenty four crazy hours summed up in two concise paragraphs. that must be some sort of record for me.

debbie does bonobos

usually, i'd consider myself a fairly nice person. this niceness is destroyed only by those few things that drive me totally insane. one of those things is when other people make me a party to their hygiene issues. i realize this a broad topic, so i shall expound: i don't want to hear foul loud people eating/crunching/smacking gum (i eat and chew gum all the time and i think i'm pretty quiet-mouse about it); i don't like it when people spit in public because i don't like having to tiptoe around mucus; and i really don't like it when girls are so into their shining, lustrious hair that they must swing it around and touch me with it. that happened today in my human sexuality lecture, while we all sat uncomfortably through a movie about bonobo sexual activity. the girl in front of me full-on sprayed me with her hair when she flung it behind her. that's so gross. i can't handle that. don't throw your hair at me, please. i'm trying to watch the bonobos make out.

i've lived in westwood for (almost) three years, and i have never set foot inside the local "aahhhs" costume shop/doodad parade/crap factory. i think maybe that's because i know i love kitchy shit and if i were to ever go inside that place, i would come out with lots of magnets and buttons and t-shirts emblazoned with stupid quotes or sayings that i thought were funny or special when i bought them. then, i'd have all that crap in my room and that would be detrimental to my "get-rid-of-all-unnecessary-kitch" plan. so, imagine my surprise now that i find myself planning a post-work trip to "aahhhs" to buy some luau stuff and melissa's birthday present. it's kinda funny to me that when i was twelve and i had no idea what to get people for their birthdays, i would get them lotions or soaps or some other really noxious smelling potion from bath and body works. now, it's almost the same concept, except melissa's turning 21, so i can get her booze accoutrements.

i cannot believe that melissa is 21, by the way. i still remember being five years old and showing up at her house down the street the day we were both inexplicably wearing the exact same crazy early-90s kids' outfit. plus, it's weird to think that i've known someone for eighteen years. that's such a long time, and i still feel like such a huge baby.

sleepy town

it's ten thirty and i just got back from the meeting. in truth, i just got back from the dinner at lamonica's that occurred after the meeting. now, i have to figure out what i'm going to wear to the "formal luau"-themed flying squirrel social event tomorrow night, because i don't really have anything formal or luau appropriate.

i am truly exhausted. this morning, i had absolutely no desire to wake up, even though i'd gone to bed way earlier than what is the norm around here. i think i might have even gotten eight hours of sleepy time. still, having eleven-hour on-campus days is a little out of control. plus, on those days, because i've devoted so much of my day to school (or, more specifically, to campus) already, i cannot bring myself to do any work by the time i get home. it's a vicious cycle that must be broken very soon, when my assignments and readings actually start meaning something.

today, right after work, lina called me and i ended up going back to her apartment in the downtime i had between work and the flying squirrel. it's really nice - i especially like seeing where all my friends are living because apartments are so much more like homes than the dorms were.

udeitha and i talked about judaism for a little while at kerckhoff this afternoon. i like to say that i'm jewish (culturally), but sometimes that gets me into trouble because people who are geniunely curious about the religion come to me and ask me thoughtful questions that i really can't fully answer. i tried as best as i could to tell her what i know about the true meaning of passover and yom kippur and hanukah, but i don't think i did such a fab job. basically, i told her if she wanted to come to my family's passover "seder", she was more than welcome to, but that she shouldn't expect very much more than my grandpa trying desperately to hold a nice seder while the rest of my extended family yells over each other. i think it would be really interesting if she came, and i kinda hope she does. maybe, for once, my family would be motivated to have a real, traditional seder, even if it's just to impress a non-relative.

cute and fun

so, this is my second blog written on company time (different company this time). i'm waiting for calls to come in at the phone room, and it's a little slow right now. before you judge: my supervisor's on myspace. i'm allowed to blog.

i actually get this now. i can do this job and keep all the crap straight in my brain, and while i do have to ask questions every once in a while, i think i'm getting a lot better at trusting myself with finding it out on my own. and i guess that doesn't really sound like such an accomplishment ("she can sell tickets!!!"), but if you knew how intimidated and nervous i was the first day i sat in this office, you'd realize what a tremendous achievement my being comfortable with this is.

i talked to gilmore yesterday. he's playing rugby again, and got in a fist fight (that resulted in memory loss and a giant slice on his back) at the cal game last weekend. i really wish he'd take better care of his head, because i want him around for hang outs when we're all back home. talking to him made me realize how little i actually do to keep in touch with people i adore from home. i never talk to zoe or denis or gilmore (until last night), and the only time i talk to shiza when we're both at school is when she's freaking out about something way minor. i should send them all letters about how much i love them. that would fun and also way cute and then everyone could talk about how cute and fun i am.

how cute and fun would that be?

more later, when i get back to the apartment after the flying squirrel meeting.

happy birthday, bill

i just talked to my dad, who i apparently really embarrassed today. i left him a really stupid, incoherent message on his office phone this afternoon, because it's his birthday and i wanted to wish him a good one. i guess he and a bunch of his bigwig lawyer colleagues were waiting for a voicemail from a witness and when he played his messages back on speakerphone, they all heard me babbling about how i hoped he really enjoyed his birthday in trial and all this other stupid crap. that's actually really funny to me. plus, his coworkers scrambled around and found him a cupcake, and i really like thinking about all these people in powersuits deciding where to find the best pastries.

i was put on the phone by myself today at work. i made one mistake and had to ask a ton of questions, but other than that, it wasn't too rough. i was a little freaked out at first, but i handled it, because i'm that awesome.

tonight, i should probably do some work, but i really can't bring myself to do anything.

also, i think that i have way supersonic hearing. i mean, i was worried that accutane would increase the pressure in my braincase and make me deaf, but i stood outside the door of my apartment just now and thought that someone was inside watching tv. when i walked inside, i realized that it was just that someone had turned off the cable box and left the tv itself turned on. i could hear that way quiet hum outside the door. i'm not telling this story to make everyone feel way bad and inferior about their ears - i'm really happy that i can still hear all of the world's most annoying sounds, and thus, am not going deaf.

there was a time when i thought my wednesdays were going to be out of control and non-stop, but now it seems that i'll have a few hours between when i get off work and when i have to go to the flying squirrel meetings. i was, more or less, kicked out of the watts tutorial program, mostly because i would have had to leave a half hour early to make it to the flying squirrel. i guess that means i have some extra study time.

steve called me last night. it was very nice to actually hear his voice - that was new. he's outrageously hilarious and has the best delivery. sam's like that. i wish i had the ability to make anything in the world hysterical. i can still remember sitting with sam in the kitchen when we were ten, and laughing at each and every thing he said about the coupons he'd found on the counter. if i'd tried to talk about the campbell's two-for-one deal, it would have been stupid. last night, steve said something about how he looked like a "wet mouse" with his hair cut short. and for some reason, that struck me as the most ridiculously funny thing i'd heard in a long time. i actually just chuckled writing it.

i guess if you want to impress me, you gotta make me laugh.

easy access

i did absolutely nothing of note today, except maybe going on a quest in search of hair dye that ended in the depressing conclusion that my hair might be too dark right now to dye with the store-bought stuff. and i'm not about to get my hair dyed at an actual salon because i am not a hillionaire.

i'm wearing what my homeless friends at food not bombs called the "easy access" jeans. the rip in the inside of my pants leg has now become a bona fide hole and is close to turning that side into a pair of shorts, and so i think that this is going to be the last time i ever get to walk around campus pretending not to care that my ass is hanging out. it was nice while it lasted.

also, i think i might have a tape worm, because there is no way i can be losing this weight all on my own. i'm not nicole ritchie or anything, but i'm definitely a lot thinner than i was, say, a month and a half ago, and i wasn't really trying (at first) to drop weight. i'll admit now, though, i am consciously trying to maintain.

i'm gonna go use the boxed hair color i bought this afternoon (and that i thought was ok before it got a resounding "no" from andy, who is my go-to hairstylist, because it was too light). i'm trying it, and we'll see how it goes.

anxiety attack

i'm weirdly anxious right now - it's the kind of feeling i get when i'm pretty sure something irritating or upsetting or terrible is about to happen. it's the feeling that i get when i can't sleep at night. i don't know exactly why i feel this way (although i think i might have a small inkling as to what's weirding me out), but it's annoying me because i don't think i should be nervous about anything.

andy and i are watching the discovery health channel, in an effort to not do any work, and whenever i see stuff like this, i feel like a real asshole for being upset about my skin. i mean, some people have really terrible problems, such as missing facial features or horrible tumors. at least i can say with relative safety that in january i'll be normal again.

i'm going to cut my hair tomorrow, i think. if my hair is shorter, it won't take as long for these stupid bangs to be the same length as the rest of my hair. but even if i don't find time tomorrow to go to annie's mullet salon to get yet another shitty westwood haircut, i know i'm going to dye it. i know, good story.

for the past two days, i've had the "uncle fucker" song from "the south park movie" stuck in my head. over the weekend, sam kept singing, "you're a boner biting bastard, uncle fucker," and i seriously cannot stop it from looping around in my head. and that's one of the last things i want to keep thinking about.

my three food groups are: apples, peanut butter, and almonds. i only have one more apple and like five more almonds, so i have to go to the market sometime soon to replenish my food store.

random note: there's a guy named "penix" running in the local elections in my hometown. my mom thinks that he is way aptly named. apparently, he's a dick.

end of an era

it's weird to be done with the play, as much as i was really, really looking forward to it being over. obviously, i secretly love doing it, because if i didn't i wouldn't keep coming back to it. on the other hand, though, it drives me totally crazy and each year i agree to do it, i want to kick myself for committing two more weekends of my life to partying like it's 1876. i think that a lot of my unwillingness to stop it already is that i hate losing people. i really can't stand the thought of never seeing the people who do it again. so, i keep torturing myself and volunteering to participate year after year. plus, i think it's strange to think that i'll stop doing something that has been such a routine since i was ten.

all in all, i'm excited that the play is over - i can paint my fingernails and cut/dye my hair, and i've wanted to do those two things for a way long time. now that i don't have to pretend to live 150 years ago, i can feel free to body-modify.

i spent the entire day reading a book, something i haven't done in a really long time, and something i've been wanting to do for just as long. one of the only interruptions i had this afternoon was my dad calling me into the garage, so i could marvel at the monster he's rigged up on the old bed frame and mattress that should be in my bedroom right now. i'm sleeping on the couch so that he can set up motorized zombies for halloween.

costco boots = way warm

i think it's a little hilarious that two seconds after i lamented the fact that i wasn't able to talk to my cousins, my mom burst into my room and told me that we going over to my grandparents' house immediately to see them before they drove back into the valley. because she forced me to leave asap, i went over there wearing what i'd changed into after the play: a peach zip-up sweatshirt, the blue mesh p.e. shorts i've had since seventh grade, and calf-high faux ugg boots that my grandpa bought me three years ago at costco. i was cold. that's my lame excuse for why i was daring to wear the boots. plus, they added just the right amount of ridiculousness, which, of course, is always my goal.

alanna is so adorable. she absolutely loves me, and jumped up from the couch the second i walked in, and refused to sit anywhere but on my lap. she ended up falling asleep on me before they left. she's got all this dental stuff going on right now (expander, braces, retainer, etc.) so she talks with a new lisp and her face is starting to look totally different (because, i guess, the expander is doing its job and widening her face). i have this weird motherly feeling towards my little brother and alanna and her brother because i'm so much older than them - now that i can tell that they are growing up, it makes me happy and sad at the same time. so i suppose i like it when she's cute to me because it means that she's not completely grown up yet. (how stup does that sound?).

tonight, at the play, the cowboy poet told me that he wants me to send him some more of my poetry. i've sent him some in the past, and he told me i was awesome, and it was flattering for about a minute, before i realized that i was basically baring my soul to a middle aged cowboy poet whom i just met, and that that was a little bizarre, even by my standards. i told him i'd look for new stuff to send him, but truthfully, i haven't really been writing at all lately (this blog has been the full extent of it), so i don't even think i have anything to lie about sending.

there was a "ghost" sighting at the museum tonight. some crazies in the park next to the museum ran down the hill and told a docent who was guiding tours through the play that they had just seen a man walk down the hill, through the iron gate and into the museum. my mom just told my aunt that story and she was incredulous. i couldn't believe that she wasn't all over the idea of a ghost walking around, because this is a woman who taught me, when i was nine years old, that: ouiji boards are most effective when they are handmade, shot glasses are the best conductors of messages from other worlds, and my blue teddy bears could, in fact, teleport to my house from hers (i later learned that there were two sets of "blue bears" and that my parents had been cooperating with the terrible trickery that got sam and me to believe her).

i still don't have a bed at home, so i have to sleep on the couches in the front room again, which means that inevitably, a member of my family will wake me up at 7 am tomorrow morning because they are inconsiderate early risers.

act one

one of (the many) thing(s) that suck(s) about accutane is that it totally increases the skin's tendency to scar, and i didn't really need any help in that department - i scar easily enough on my own. and, classically enough, recently i've become a huge klutz. i've sliced myself on just about every surface in our apartment and on lots of things in my bag, and so i can look forward to some more pretty impressive scars.

my two cousins came to the performance tonight, and i absolutely adore them so it made me strangely sad to see them in the room with me and not be able to say hi to them or hang out with them. alanna is nine and amazing and so cute, and she kept staring at me with this look of disbelief, almost as if she couldn't figure out why i'd put myself in a vintage wedding dress and made a fool of myself.

i'm being summoned right now - we're going over to my grandparents' right now to hang out with them. more later. i'm not done yet.

"thank you for holding..."

today was my first day actually taking calls and wearing the coveted headset at work. it was a little stressful, considering i had to ask my supervisor questions about fifty percent of the time. i can't believe some of the information the other people working there can remember on the spot. it's ridiculous. despite how overwhelming it is, it's going to be such an awesome job once i get the hang of it. there's really nothing to dislike about just answering phones and selling tickets.

one of my coworkers is coming by tonight to pick up the hateful toaster oven that our jackass subletter destroyed (for me) this summer. i guess it's still perfectly good, as my roommates tried to convince me tonight, but since i'll never be able to use it to toast anything (i don't do months-old meat grease), i figure i might as well give it away and just start again. it's kinda surprising to me that my coworker wants a random, admittedly filty toaster oven, but i guess when you're in college, free equals awesome.

tomorrow, i'm going back home to do the play again. it's the last weekend. and that means that after saturday, i'm free to finally spend a weekend in westwood again.

picasso and zombies

this morning, my right eye hurt so badly, it felt like i'd been punched in the face. it's because i've been a rebel lately and have been wearing my contacts despite my dermatologist's orders that i stop that because my eyes are drying out just as much as the rest of me. my eye pain reminds of me of when a certain brother of mine hit himself in the eye while he was drunk ("just to see how it would feel") and then spent four hours of the next day in the emergency room because my mom thought it was a deadly sinus infection, and he was too scared of her to tell her the truth. i didn't wear my contacts at all today, and now it feels better.

i just got back from the first official general meeting (this year) of flying squirrel. twenty-four new people showed up, and that totally exceeded anyone's expectations. and, as i've said before, it was hilarious and great and made me feel, once again, that i've finally gotten involved in something i can really care about and appreciate. i also casually agreed to play a zombie in one of the editor's short films, and even though i'm almost positive he wasn't really offering me a spot in his movie, i'm going to pretend that he was and say that i'm way excited to be in a zombie movie. my brothers would be so proud.

when i moved in, i had no idea i was going to be living with my generation's picasso. andy's outside right now spray painting canvasses and flirting with our neighbors. ok, i lied: he's just spray painting. but he did leave my room's patio door open when he painted away for hours, and now my room has the incredibly terrible, faint smell of ozone-depleting, brain cell-destroying CFCs floating everywhere. i'm surprised i can even muster up the strength to type, what with my brain being suffocated. and, apparently, now he wants to start tagging areas around los angeles, so all officers of the law, heed my warning: if you see a giant blonde norwegian in a quicksilver party sweater lurking around, it's most likely my friend andy, and he's most likely looking for a place to "tag" a stencil of a face onto a background of gracefully painted leaves. yeah, you heard me.

on tuesday, i bitched to mad about how my face was so normalized (i.e. not too dry, not too clear, not too anything really) that i'd almost forgotten i was taking accutane, and that i was worried that it might not be working. and i swear, almost as if the gods of accutane heard me, i woke up yesterday with way dry skin again and today it's even worse. i can't really complain about it, though, because, as my grandpa told me, this is what i've been waiting for for five years. however, it does still kinda suck to know you're walking around with your face flaking off. it's delicious.

i'm really starvatious and thirsty and so i'm gonna go hang out in the kitchen with the boys (seeing as mad is busy running rehearsals for potential new members of her a capella group). dan's making brownies and andy's making pasta and they will both let me eat some because i said so.

still dirty

i'm way exhausted. andy and i just ran from the apartment to the westfield mall in century city and then (walked) up (most of) beverly glen. he made fun of me because i asked him to stop one stoplight before our apartment, but because he didn't want my body to fall apart, he let me take a breather. i actually like running; it's the getting-back-into-shape that is disastrous.

i worked a lot this afternoon, and my supervisor told us that beginning friday, we're going to start taking calls by ourselves. that really scares me. there is such a huge amount of information to know, and it's kinda intimidating to be responsible for people's money and the things they buy with it.

now i really must shower, and i need to, once again, figure out how to get by without doing my laundry. basically, hygiene calls. maybe i'll be able to think of more interesting stories when i feel less filthy.

1/4 short

andy and i left for class at the same time this morning, and instead of letting me take the shuttle to campus (as was, and always will be, my plan), he suggested that we walk to class, because it's "not that far." truer words were never spoken: it's "not that far" for andy at all. his class was about ten miles closer than mine was, so i ended up walking ten miles more than him by myself. and even though he made me walk all alone for a way long time against my will, i still helped him dye his hair this afternoon because i'm gracious and awesome and really, really forgiving.

today is yom kippur, but i couldn't fast because i needed to take my accutane with foods. i did, however, buy some kedem grape juice from the kosher aisle at the market last night, and drank that when i got back to the apartment because it reminds me of being at my grandparents' for holidays.

the loud, irritating girl who has been in all of my psych-related classes since the beginning of last year is in my research methods lecture. surprisingly, she wasn't loud or irritating today, which is quite the accomplishment because she almost never misses a chance to shout something stupid in the middle of lecture. she's pretty much a thirteen-year-old boy and i can't handle her.

i need to do laundry, but i'm one quarter short so i'm going to have to be creative tomorrow when i'm getting dressed. a part of me wants to just wait it out until friday when i go home, so i can save myself the three dollars. i'm cheap.

oh, and as a follow-up: my hat did not, in fact, make me shorter. dan was terribly wrong.

some thoughts

mad: can i write in your blog? ...........or would that be weird?
sarah: ...

hilarity and tiarity

i've been trying to read one chapter in my anthro book for about 36 minutes now, but i basically just keep cracking up with mad. it's going to be really dangerous for us to be roommates. also, i'm wearing a hat, and dan thinks that's bad for my height, because wearing hats inside "stunts your growth."

mad's wearing a tiara (it's her birthday) - i wonder how much wearing a tiara inside stunts her growth. the answer, dan says, is "a lot."

good news: i have a desk now. i'm currently swinging around laughing hysterically on my new wheel-y office chair. i'm glad i'm living with two massively masculine men who can help me with such things as putting together complex desks and accompanying chairs.

mad's outside right now "meeting" our next door neighbors by yelling at them between the balconies.

sadly, i think i need to get a new computer. my laptop is way insane and completely unpredictable, and so my goal is to save enough money from work and my grandma (who told me, despite my protests, that she'll send me fifty dollars precisely every ten days) to buy a new computing device of some kind. i'm still deciding if i want a new laptop or if i want to get a desktop. i'm gonna have to go to ackerman tomorrow and see how much of a student discount i can get there, if any at all. i need all the discounts i can get.