correction: i wasn't really happy on the 9th

in the past two weeks, i have:

1) had four midterms in three days;

2) had an emotional breakdown the likes of which haven't been seen around here in quite a while;

3) totally owned my hand on the hot handle of a mug, leaving me with a lovely blistery burn;

4) finished (poorly) the lay out of a whole issue of the flying squirrel while using in-design for the first time.

i feel like i haven't really had a chance to slow down for a long time. i don't even mean physically, although i am running around all the time (example: i must soon go collect data on elementary school kids, pick up ana pay for the copies of the squirrel, and meet lina, obstenibly before 5, when i want to safely back in westwood, tucked away from all the traffic of the world, where i can walk myself wherever i want to go). i'm just constantly sleepy. i woke up at 7 this morning, managed to make it until 9:30 and then tried to sleep for forty minutes, unsuccessfully. maybe that's my problem - restlessness. my mind is always running through ten bazillion things, which makes normal, ordered life very difficult.

this post is exactly like the last one, so i guess nothing's really changed since then - except maybe that sam actually offered up his new relationship as fodder for our phone conversation, immediately after telling me i should call him more. that's pretty impressive new ground.

you wouldn't know it, but i'm actually happy

i realized last night that i don't have enough control over my senses (or my sanity) to be a driver in los angeles. totally foul traffic is one thing, but the sheer number of idiots behind the wheel in this city is really shocking. true, i'm stupid too sometimes, but i blame that on my attention being diverted in six million directions, as i try not to be killed by someone else's crazy maneuvers. last night, i witnessed some guy cut across two lanes of oncoming traffic to make a right turn into a lane moving in the opposite direction. granted, i don't think this was his first intention - i think it was the byproduct of his realization that he could not, in fact, turn into the cars filling up the only lanes legally open to him. goddamn. i hate that i'm becoming one of them. i find myself doing stupid, defensive things in the car, simply to keep from being completely ignored and taken out. it's difficult to know that there's another driver watching me and thinking what i think at least five times every time i get into my car, which is, namely, "what a cock." i'm sorry, other drivers. it's your fault too.

i had four midterms this week (this is officially the last time i'll be able to use that excuse to get some pity), and it's been two days, and i am still fried. i slept many hours every night, and didn't pump myself full of adderall and red bull, but even so, just the stress and pressure of having so much shit to do all the time is bad for me (and anyone, for that matter). it's not healthy. for instance, right now, my neck and upper back are cramping and i'm exhausted, and all i've done thus far today is crochet, watch tv online and worry about the elementary school kids i'll have to collect research data about today, by myself. oh, and i've eaten a few junior mints, and i straightened my bangs. i guess that is pretty strenuous.

i want time to stop. i'd like to have time to myself, time when i'm not too wiped out to do anything but veg out and lay around. i guess maybe i could try to cook up some motivation. like i said, it's not like i'm working on the railroad. however, i will argue that mental strain can be just as tiresome. as the commercials say, depression hurts.*



*that is not to say that i'm depressed. it was a sick ploy on my part to get you to understand how my brain's exhaustion could make my body sleepy. see what i did there?

jesters and douche bags

it's been almost a month since i posted something, which is really a very good indication of what my life's been like recently. there haven't really been any good crazy stories (until this past week, hence the blog), and i haven't felt like sharing all the mundane details of life as a terribly boring busy college student. however, last night i was inspired:

i went home for my mom's democratic club halloween party, only because the great-aunts wanted me to keep them company, and because i wanted to see what my house looked like this year (as my dad goes all-out with fan motors and monster masks). the party was a fundraiser for a new show the club has on the local public access channel, and each person was asked to sign in and make a donation at the front door. a man taking the donations actually stopped me from entering the house until i said, "i live here," and barrelled past him. that immediately put me in a super bizarre mood. it's strange enough to come home from LA every once and a while and see how tall clay's gotten and how well life continues there now that i'm not really a part of it, but it was even more insane to be physically denied entrance to the place i grew up. i was, however, about forty years younger than everyone and wasn't wearing a costume, so maybe he just assumed i was there for the booze (i was).

the aunts and i didn't spend much time at the party, because it was crowded and someone fainted and had to be taken away in an ambulance (after much screaming about finding the landline and calling 911), but the time i was there was like something out of the twilight zone. my house was packed with elderly women* in jester costumes, and no one knew who the hell i was, so i kept getting "why are you here?" looks from ninjas and flappers. i was literally a stranger in my own (very, very creepy) house. there were also many leers from older men, which are super fantastic and which tie nicely with my next story.

the other night, lina and i went to study at a coffee bean in westwood, where we ended up talking outside for about an hour and a half, and being intermittently gased by some ass in a diesel volvo who periodically decided he needed to back his car into his spot just a little more. then, just as we'd shut up and started to read, a man in his late fifties came over to our table and began to ask us what we were studying, if we needed his lawyer expertise, if we would do him the favor of going out to coffee (again, i suppose) with him, because it would be really important to him. i just sat laughing about how ludricious life can be while lina tried to make him go away, until a man sitting at a table behind us called out, "maybe you should stop being such a douche." this was the first time in recorded history that another man had stuck up for us as we were being hassled by douches, and while it later proved to be a bad idea for the second dude to get involved, it made my heart glow a little. it was as if the universe finally told me that not every man, given no shame, would get into my personal space and make me hugely uncomfortable just to feel like a badass. it is here that this story becomes a long one, so i'll pare it down. let's suffice to say that the older man called security and lina and i and our unassuming textbooks were sucked into a petty fight between two guys who had nothing better to do on a tuesday night than be skeevy and start arguments. it's hard to explain, i suppose, the sheer unbelievability of that situation, but take it from me: it was pretty unbelievable.


*the one very obvious thing i've learned from all these democractic club gatherings i'm forced by my family to attend is that young people are either incredibly apathetic or totally denied membership - every single person there was at least ten years older than my mother. that's not at all a bad thing (until they start collapsing at parties), but it reflects badly on my generation, i think, for not giving enough of a damn.

corngratulations!

i came home this afternoon to take my grandma's seat at the local democratic garden party (this is the same event where my mother humiliated me last year - http://mocassinsocks.blogspot.com/2006/09/sadtown.html). even though a senator's daughter was the guest speaker and clay and i are usually very well-behaved, we couldn't handle sitting and listening for hours, and we left. (clay scribbled me a "let's see a movie" note on a luncheon program using a piece of hershey's chocolate - that's desperation.)

so anyway, clay left the table first, following shortly by me (so as to not attract too much attention as we got up and walked out of a speech by christine pelosi), and we eventually made it to the movie theather. my genius brother suggested "mr. woodcock," and because i wanted to be santa claus and make everyone's wishes come true, i didn't fight him on it (although i did say, very kindly, "are you sure there's nothing else you'd rather do?").

the movie was terrible. almost more terrible that i knew it was going to be before i bought the tickets. it was essentially a waste of time and money, and the only way clay and i are going to be able to live with ourselves is if, and i quote him, "we stay up for two extra hours tonight and do all things we should have been doing while we saw that movie." the only funny things in the film were corn puns, such as "let's go to the cornival!" and "say hello to all the corntestants!" i'll admit, i laughed at those. i like puns.

and now that we're back home and waiting for my mom to get back from the market, i have to think of ways to excuse myself from dinner here without having my parents make me feel guilty about what a horrible daughter i am.

excedrin & cold-eeze

disclaimer: i haven't been feeling 100% for a little while, and i think that's fried my brain, so i apologize for how totally incoherent this entry is.


i was up at 7 am this morning. it was a combination of having to ignore a 6:55 phone call (and subsequent voicemail) from a homeless man who has my phone number (long story) and who has called (and been ignored by) me for about a year and a half, and living below a woman who vacuums her apartment early in the morning. she has a dog who hates vacuums, so that's pleasant.

for the past few days, i've been battling a pretty impressive migraine. this morning, day three, when i could feel the headache creeping back, i overdosed on caffeine and excedrin migraine to try to keep it at bay. i then started feeling achy and shakey, which means the headache could be the forebearer of something more insidious, like a cold. so, it's only 10:45 am, and i've put enough caffeine and zinc into my body to combat migraines and viruses for the rest of my life. (note: never, ever chew a sugarfree zinc tablet.) we'll see if this works.

it seems, though, that someone is having a worse morning than i am, as there is a woman outside my window screaming, "bitch! bitch!" at someone (presuming over the phone, because i don't hear any reply). i would go peer out to see what's going on, but i don't have the energy to cross the room.

clayton

i just talked to clay on the phone and it was proven, once again, that he is the coolest little brother in the universe:

1) me: what scary movies did you rent?
clay: well, we've got "the marsh" with forest whitaker, which should be terrifying.

2) clay: your car smells like cigarettes* and mint. no, basil. basil.


*i feel it's important to note i don't smoke. there is no reason why my car should smell like cigarettes. or basil, for that matter.

work, work, work

i'm about to drive myself to campus and pay for parking for the second time today. i'm just so over having to walk back and forth between the apartment and campus to work events at all hours of the day. i decided to grin and bear the incredibly overpriced campus parking in order to spare myself the inevitable rage i feel when my entire day gets eaten up by irritating back-and-forths. besides, i have a car now, and i figure that should help facilitate my getting to the last few events i have to work (i'm not going to work at the ticket office during the school year).

today was sorta productive. as in, i went to work and then made copies of flying squirrel flyers to pass out tomorrow at an activities fair on campus. i'm hoping to trick some first-years into joining the paper, because as it is, i think i can count on about three people returning from last year. goddamn graduation.

i've been wearing the same outfit to events for the past week and a half. it's my way of sticking it to a job that makes me do hygienic* things like shave my legs and wear nice clothes.


*that is indeed how you spell "hygienic." i know. i looked it up.

:(

the hamster died on thursday. i'd taken her to the vet because she wasn't eating or drinking and her eyes were crusted shut. i was at the office for an hour, and in that time, the prognosis went from "let's clean her up and give her antibiotics" to "do you want us to euthanize her?" it was super bizarre. i know it sounds insane and little over the top to formulate conspiracy theories when your hamster dies, but the circumstances were really very strange. about a half hour after i told the vet that no, i didn't want to kill my animal, she came back with a little corpse, telling me it had died of fright while they were cleaning it. personally, i think they fucked up somehow with the medication. whatever the cause, i still had to pay them $53 for killing my adorable pet. it was awful.

today is yom kippur, and while i'm absolutely too lazy to attend temple, i like fasting. it's super difficult for me because i'm the kind of girl who will force handfuls of disgusting candy corn into my face simply because it's available and i'm bored. so, not eating for an entire day is, for me, always the sort of soul cleansing adventure it's supposed to be on yom kippur. normal people can go from sunrise to sunset without foods and be ok. it's now 11:41 AM and i'm already starving.

pannnnic (and hamsters)

i've been having a megacrisis for the last few days, and it's only getting worse. my parents desperately want me to apply to grad school this fall, to prevent me from totally fucking up my life by taking a year off. i desperately want to go to grad school and prolong my dependence on them and put off the day when i will inevitably have to grow up. my problem now is that i only have a vague idea about what i'd like to go to school for, and i have zero personal relationships with professors, and thus have zero chances for a good letter of recommendation. i think i'm afraid of being totally mediocre. i'm not a good applicant right now. so, i'm drowning my sorrows in kasha with bow ties, bowls and bowls of kasha with bow ties.

some lighter news: i bought myself a hamster on saturday, after coming back from celebrating my birthday in beverly hills with laurie. maybe i figured it was ok to spend extravagant amounts of money on a small adorable rodent to brighten up my life after seeing how much people in beverly hills pay for everything. so, i bought a hamster, and took it luke's and now he's in love with it too, which is almost as adorable as the little thing itself.

recap

happy rosh hashanah, jews! i'm going to laurie's tonight to celebrate the new year, eat delicious foods and hang out with my cousins' two-headed snake, which looks totally disgusting in the pictures i've seen.

i'm sorry i've been so lazy about posting. i've had a busy few weeks. i've:

a) come back from portland, where i chased little children around for a couple days and had a fantastic time;

b) spent labor day at my grandparents' house with luke and the fam, and had the first "summer" day of the summer;

c) worked the byu football game for many hours, wanted to scream and cry, and ended up channeling my frustration into

d) randomly getting my nose pierced on saturday night, which led to

e) my totally freaking out about having a metal stud in my face;

f) i celebrated my 21st birthday at the alamo with margaritas.

sidewalk monster

i am a crazy fast walker. i have absolutely no idea how to pace myself, so i always end up sprinting around westwood to get to the various places i need to be, often arriving at work really early (which, i guess, isn't so terrible). what is terrible, however, is getting trapped behind slow people, who have no problem pacing themselves. i think i've discussed the wonder that is the slow walker who can take up an entire sidewalk by himself. he is unpredictable and therefore leaves those behind him unable to pass him, as he may, at any time, decide to veer directly into their paths. i encountered a small old woman wearing too-short polyester pants the other day, and she was, by far, the best (or worst) sidewalk monster in the world. she knew exactly where i tried to get around her, every single time, and totally preempted me, literally stepping out to stonewall me. maybe she had mirrors in her giant sunglasses, allowing her to see exactly where i was all the time. i should have been seriously irritated, but it was so amazing that i was actually kind of entertained.

my millions

it's kind of incredible how much my bank account fluctuates. i don't know what i'm going to do when i can't ask my parents for help. hopefully, one day i'll have a real job and will be able to pay my rent at the end of the month without having to panic, grovel for a hundred dollars to tide me over, and then discover that my mom has transferred over way more money than i asked for/ever anticipated. it's a very schizophrenia relationship. they make me feel terrible and irresponsible when i realize i need a little help, and then after making a huge deal about what a burden i am, millions of dollars arrive in my account without my asking for them. my diamond shoes are too tight.

vanity

i was reading an online article about bill murray's recent arrest for driving (a golf cart) drunk around in sweden, and, because i'm incredibly superficial, was saddened by how old he looks:



he used to look like this:



and then, i thought about cary elwes and val kilmer, who look radically different than they did when i was twelve and madly in love with them (for the record, there is no way see "tombstone" at thirteen and not wish hopelessly that doc holliday beats tuberculosis).

exhibit a:



and now:



cary elwes, who went from being westley and robin hood to having to cut off his own feet in "saw," also underwent a terrible change, from this:



to this:



now, i'd be the last person to judge someone based on their appearance, but that doesn't mean i can't be shocked when i realize what's in store for my face in thirty years.

mtv

i just heard the most amazing thing.

and i quote: "it's ignorant to dislike someone because of their personality."

actually, michelle from "engaged and underage," not liking someone because you hate their personality is the least ignorant reason to dislike someone.

maybe i should watch less mtv.

hypochondria

i'm flying out to portland next week with the great-aunts to visit my cousins michael and sara, and to help the aunts babysit their adorable children when they leave to go to a wedding. in order to prep for the wedding, sara wanted to go get a manicure and pedicure, something that she and i aren't really all that familiar with. she invited me to go with her, and we're taking her five-year-old daughter, and it should be fun, right? i can to pretend to be a real girl for an hour. (the closest i usually come to "real girl" is when i buy boxed hair dye at drug stores and get my eyebrows threaded every six months on westwood blvd).

that being said, i'm probably the only person in the world who worries about getting flesh eating bacteria from a pedicure. i have this fear because my mother is a hypochondriac and made us all wear water booties into the ocean until we were fourteen, lest we step on any glass/hypodermic needles in the sand. she has forced me to live in constant terror that i will get some horrific disease as a result of my casual careless at the beach or the mall or the doctor's office. also, i watch too much tyra banks. she often has shows entitled "i sacrificed my health for beauty," which are real news stories criticizing the beauty industry for making young women take crazy risks for perfection, while at the same time hoping we all forget that tyra banks is a supermodel who created a reality show all about how to succeed in that very same industry. (i was just about to call that hypocrisy, and rant about that, and then i realized that i've just admitted to being obsessed with miss banks, which makes me a hypocrite too. so, no, tyra banks isn't misleading, at all. she's perfect. just like me.)

so, long story short, i'm nervous for my pedicure. the last thing i need is for some microbacteria to crawl into the crevices between my skin and toenails and make my legs break out in terrible sores that will result in permanent, humiliating scarring (it happened to some girl on tyra). that would be bad.

"so, then i said gre..."

the idea of having to figure out my life scares me. i made the terrible mistake of saying "gre" to my parents yesterday, and my dad proceeded to lecture me (again) about how i'm totally fucking up my entire life if i don't take that test in the next three weeks (i'm not taking the test in the next three weeks). i've been putting it off 1) because i'm lazy and 2) because once i take it, i need to apply to grad school, and i have no idea where i want to go to grad school. i brought up a potential year off yesterday, and was able to successfully steer the conversation to civil maturity, which was surprising, considering the previous talks about my future i've had with my parents. i just have absolutely no idea what i'm planning to do. i know i want to go on with school, but i don't know what i want to pursue, and i can guarantee, barring any mystical revelation, that i won't be any closer to an answer to my life plan in three months, when i'm expected to apply to schools. i know i don't want to do psychology anymore, mostly because i've decided that having a doctorate in psychology (to use as a stepping stone to other things) isn't worth spending more years of my life plodding through material i can't really stand. so, that's out. now, i have to narrow down all my other interests (such as education or journalism), and then find the schools that are best for each one. fun times.

corollary: i decided i'm going to try to become the uber person i once was. i'm going to find a bunch of volunteer opportunities and i need to re-teach myself the four years of spanish from high school, so i can take the placement exam and hopefully get out of having to take a crash course next summer in order to fulfill my language requirement (i've finally realized that my totally amazing score on the spanish IB test is, regrettably, not going to be recognized by the university).

ugh.

double eyelid surgery

i just googled "double eyelid surgery" because i've always been curious as to how it works and what people look like after having such a surgery. i had previously placed double eyelid surgery on my list of "things never to discuss with anyone, despite how interesting and intriguing they are, because everyone will think you're a hatemonger." however, i've decided to come right out and let you all know that i have in fact, on occassion, wondered why people would want to have eye skin surgery - what are the pay offs? what would make someone want to cut their face skin open? i suppose i would ask the same questions of someone who had a nose job, if nose jobs were as clouded in intrigue as this eyelid surgery has been. anyway, i satisfied this curiousity this morning, and it feels nice to know. however, there are still many, many things on my list, things i don't dare ask anyone about, even though they are perfectly acceptable scientific inquiries, because if i did, everyone would be shocked and horrified that i'd put them into words. where am i going to get answers?

i'm really considering going to get my hair straightened via the "yuko system" at a salon in westwood, which is probably a terrible idea, as i have gotten tremendously horrible haircuts in westwood, and this time i would be surrendering much more than just the ends of my hair. however, given the huge convenience of the salon being two seconds from my apartment, and the even huger convenience of maybe never having to use a flat iron all the time, i'm really, really tempted. i could trick myself into thinking that when my hair grows out a little, it'll be easier to manage, but that will only mean that i won't have to use as many bobby pins when i throw the mass into a bun.

i'm so vain.

coooookies

it's far too busy in this phoneroom for me to be comfortable. and by comfortable of course i mean lazy. i have a book here by augusten burroughs (the poor man's david sedaris*), and i really just want to read it. the good news is that i think i've gotten back into the flow of this job, so i don't feel like i'm constantly screwing people, which seemed like a very real possibility on monday.

i emailed my mom begging her for her pumpkin cookie recipe this morning, and i'm hoping she gets back to me before i leave here at 4. i want to go to the market and pick up what i need because the more i think about them, the more i'm fixated. i must eat those cookies very soon.

an asshole just called me. again. that makes number four in the 55 minutes i've been at work this morning. i have encountered approxiately .75 assholes at the chocolate factory in the two months i've been working there. in the six hours i was there yesterday, there were zero assholes. i guess maybe it's the being put on hold and listening to insane musac that makes everyone who calls the ticket office an enraged craze.



*i was by no means knocking mr. burroughs. i mean, i continue to purchase his books each time i discover a new one exists, so i actually really love him. he's just essentially david sedaris, without the fame and the fanfare and the sold-out spoken-word performances on campus that even i, the ticket office worker bee, couldn't get tickets to.

parking brakes

if sam is any indication, the children in my family are severely lacking in the common sense department. this was again proven to me the other night, as i tried to leave zoe's house. i attempted to drive up her steep dirt driveway, and got about halfway up before the wheels began spinning in place. i tried this a few more times before i realized that the parking brake was still on and that i was slowly destroying the inside of my car. nice.

i'm back at the ticket office, barrelling through my first day back in about two months. i'm waiting to go to lunch with josh at 2:30, when i'm going to try to throw as much food into my face as humanly possible in a half hour. apparently, we all got raises (i still have to figure out if that includes employees like me, who disappeared for several weeks), and that will be nice, because i want to save up money for portland and my birthday and for life in general, as i realized today that i need to order another supply of contacts (read: expensive), and should probably do that very soon.

my aunt carole saw me yesterday and said i'd lost weight. yipee! hurray! i'm thin(ner)!

i'm dirty and need to take a shower. gross.

grosstown

i have a pimple. this is not supposed to happen anymore. i ravaged my body for five months to stop this from happening. i'm panicking about how my entire face is being prepped to explode into the doomed craziness i so very recently escaped. i really don't know i dealt with all my skin being covered with this shit, because this is making me nuts.

"no, fuck you."

driving in LA is always an enraging activity, but this morning, something really infuriating happened and i felt i needed to share. some douche in an enormous truck was trying to make a left turn out of a strip mall across four lanes of traffic, and instead of waiting until all the lanes were clear before pulling ahead, he decided to block the lane closest to him. this was, incidentally, the lane next to where i was heading toward him, and as i got closer, i noticed that he was going to pull out right in front of me. i'm getting pretty good with my horn, so i honked, and he didn't look (of course) and proceeded to move in front of me and stop his car, blocking two lanes of traffic as he waited for the cars to clear on the other side. i honked again to thank him for almost killing me and making two lines of cars wait for him to stop being a total jackass, and he finally acknowledged me with a "fuck you" screamed out of his giant window. i will never stop being surprised.

sugar free

i have become such a weeper. it's fantastic. i can remember watching oprah with sam (totally by accident, as we were flipping through channels one day), and being morbidly intrigued by how easy it was to get her going. show oprah a clip of some birds flying around set to enya, and the waterworks begin (or so it seemed when i was eleven). fast forward to twenty minutes ago, when i finished reading "the time traveler's wife,"* and ended up bawling like a five-year-old because the ending was so terribly sad. thank you, hormones.

i've stopped eating sugar again. as of yesterday, i will consume no processed sugar (save for the chocolate almond milk i bought last week, which is flavored with cane juice, and which would be a terrible waste to get rid of). yesterday, at the store, i was practically itching to throw a piece of caramel or chocolate or peach gummy into my mouth, and i'm proud to say that i did not. a chocolate store is the absolute worst place to work after you've sworn off candy. temptation abounds. i had to make chocolate covered marachino cherries, and was required to taste a cherry pre-chocolating to make sure the batch wasn't rancid, and so i chewed it up and spit it out, as swallowing the cherry would mean i'd eaten sugary goodness. it has now been thirty hours since i decided to stop the sugar IV, so we'll see how long this continues. i've learned that after quitting sugar cold turkey, it takes about two weeks to stop wanting to cram every bit of it into your mouth, but after that, it gets much better. i just have to hold out at the chocolate factory for a week and a half. we shall see.



*i would like to apologize for turning this blog into a summer reading list. i'm only working nine and a half hours this week and i need something to do. also, reading is cool.

august!

it's august! i'm sure i've had this revelation before, but when i think back to previous months, to december and new year's eve and all these crazy things i allowed myself to be a part of, i cannot believe i'm come as far as i have, and have the life i have right now. that's not at all meant to imply i was a drug addict or a prostitute or something equally heinous and seemingly insurmountable (and if i was, you'd probably know about it). i just progressed, i think. i credit the accutane with that, because, as vain and terrible as it sounds, getting rid of my terrible skin problems allowed me to take serious inventory of my life and what i was letting happen to me, self-inflicted or not. this year, the beginning of each month has been almost like the start of a new year, and on the first, i can mark yet another month that i've put between me and the enormous fool i used to be. granted, i'm not totally fantastic, i'm not all put together, but i can go out without hiding behind make-up, i can let someone amazing love me, i can finally decide who i want in my life and who i don't. i'm proud of that. it may be difficult to understand, but i'd be willing to bet that many people have had something happen to them that shaped them negatively for a long time - and they'll know how amazing it feels to have it define their lives positively for a change.

also, rent is due today, so i have to come to terms with the fact that the massive bank account i've created will be destroyed when i write the check.

the jungle

i don't know if i've mentioned this before, but i hate myspace. i'm often tempted to delete my profile because it's just horrific (i'm far too elitist for it, if you must know). i haven't deleted it mostly because if i did that, i would have one less thing to do online when i'm bored, and these blogs would get even more irritating for all (three) of you.

because i've decided to stop spending hideous amounts of money all the time, and because i've discovered i may need more sylvia browne in my life, i stopped by the local library yesterday, on my way to borders, where i was going to torture myself with the prospect of purchasing books without actually allowing myself to buy any. i found my sylvia browne book next to some dream interpretation books and "the idiot's guide to wicca," and am now the (temporary) proud owner of collection of stories about "the other side." yipee.

i just finished "the jungle," by upton sinclair, something i've been meaning to read for years. it was really fascinating, as slow a read as it was, and i enjoyed it (i secretly love incredibly verbose books - my favorite book just might be "ramona," written in 1884 in the most ploddingly slow prose imaginable). what i didn't love was that sinclair, a socialist, dedicated the last thirty to forty pages of the novel to socialist rants, writing those pages as speeches by various local socialist leaders. i don't particularly have a problem with the idea of socialism (send me to guantanamo!), but i do have a problem with heavy-handed soap-boxing. i understand the purpose of the book was to expose the exploitation of workers by capitalist meat packers, but i also am sure i would have understood that point without having it thrown at me.

no time for syntax

a few things i like:
1) spending all day rolling around in bed, reading and cracking up.
2) working in a chocolate factory.
3) summer.

a few things i dislike:
1) having to leave bed to
2) go to work, and
3) walking there in the unbearable heat.

"that'll be three galleons."

the other night, i babysat for the first time in many, many months, and i totally lost control of the six kids i was watching. they were insanely wired and also excited to see me (as i am the most amazing babysitter in the entire world), and i realized very early in the evening that any attempts to reign them in would most likely result in a terrible child revolt. therefore, when they wanted to mix butter and cocoa powder and bottled lemon juice to make butter beer (see "harry potter"), or run around screaming the latin equivalent to "i've killed you!" (again, see "harry potter," i think), i let them. they were crazed. they had fun, and so did i. at one point, after chasing four kids around downstairs and telling the youngest that their butter beer had to be made over the sink, i snuck into a room where one of the boys was half-finished writing the name of his wand shop in green marker on a small white blanket. i then said, "i think maybe you guys should use paper instead," and when that didn't register, i went back downstairs to make sure that no one was cooking their beer over an open flame.

he finished making the sign on the blanket.

at the end of the night, i was commissioned to tell them all a story, which is my babysitting speciality, and one of the conflicts i chose was giving the princess two different colored eyes, about which the subjects of the kingdom teased her mercilessly. upon hearing this, one of the boys said, "um, why didn't she just wear giant black sunglasses?" touche, ten-year-old, touche. i saved by a little five-year-old voice that countered, "they weren't invented yet." (the thing i love most about telling these kids stories is that they don't realize how much of the plots they're creating themselves. also, i like to think i'm inspiring them to keep doing it. i'm really important and have always been a pretty fantastic role model.)

in other news, i've stopped spending outrageous amounts of money. andy didn't think i could do it (because the last time i made this resolution, i then went to the mall with him and did some damage), but i'm actually doing really well. i'm doing so well that i didn't even buy a copy of "psychology today," which, though a magazine, is a psychology publication, making it a little more legit. basically, i grew self-control, and that's exciting.

oh! something else. i've stopped using concealer, which is a super huge thing for me, as i have been painting my face for several years (what with the leprosy and everything). i'm done now, though, because i essentially look the same anyway, and it was just a time-consuming security blanket. also, i figure that the residual scarring will fade faster if it isn't always covered with some terrible animal fat concoction.

i'm going to go use the new papaya shampoo i managed to get my mom to buy for me. i just realized that i won't feel ready for this day until i'm clean.

"well, we were in a target."

today, my mom, clay and i went out to lunch and then to target, where i was planning on getting cheap running shoes and where i instead went shopping in the little girls' department and bought two extra-large dresses (i'm insane). while we were there, there was a power outage, and everyone in the place started going nuts. the cashiers started moving around in the really intense, self-important way people do when they're faced with a situation that allows them to pretend they're in a movie. a few of them actually shouted, "register 15 is open! register 15 is up and working!" as if scanning items had suddenly earned itself a red alert. i then made a joke about how unsafe i felt, seeing as we were inside a target, and left satisfied that i'd again been able to experience something crazy while doing something equally crazy (i.e. being caught in the pitch-black darkness while perusing the fashion options in the kids' department).

yesterday, i saw zoe and gilmore, and went to dinner with zo and shiza, and i'd forgotten how incredibly easy it is for me to be around those people. zoe had been gone for seven months, and while i did force her to listen to me throw stories at her at a million miles a minute, nothing at all was different. it's amazing to know i have a whole crew of people here who understand me almost entirely, and who will, despite all the time we spend apart and other people we meet (and fall in love with), continue to give me this fantastic support.

i went to a local camera shop this afternoon to have a picture doctored, and i could have done it myself, but the machine specifically said, "do not touch. password required," so i asked one of the older men behind the counter to help me. not only did he seem totally disinterested in helping me (while also apparently disapproving of the picture), he also blew his nose practically in my face. i've since decided that the only times in my life when i hate people is when i'm driving and when i'm forced to rely on surly strangers.

clay accidentally shanked me with the teeth of some car keys the morning, prompting me to spend the rest of the day whimpering about how much it hurt and asking my mom if she thought it would require a tetanus shot. he felt guilty for about five seconds before (purposely) slamming his hand into a chair, and whining about how the bruise would ruin his career as a hand model. sometimes, i really adore him.

poverty

i officially have no money. i just checked my bank account, and it is fabulous. i'm going to have to go to the ticket office and collect my last paycheck, something i would have done three weeks ago if i wasn't too terrified that they'd ask me if i'm coming back next year. i still don't know if that's something i want to do. anyway, i have to grin and bear it now because i need to pay the university lots more money (because that never stops), and until i do so, i can't sign up for classes, and if i can't sign up for classes, i can't graduate in four years, and then pretty much my whole life is fucked. oh, the drama! also, if i don't magically get more money, i can't go buy a parking permit, meaning i can't ever park at my apartment, meaning i will never get to live here, ever, even though i just paid double the rent for this month. adulthood sucks.

i just tried calling my mom, in a panic about this money situation, to ask her to transfer some dollars quickly to my account, which is something i never, ever do. i would just really like to not have any holds on my enrollment. that would be nice. however, the mother is MIA, despite it being 9:45 am, and not answering her cell phone, as i should have expected because she can never remember to actually turn it on.

i hate being responsible for myself. why, oh why, must i go pick up my paycheck and have to face the music?

writer's blog

i'm starting to get really angry with myself. this morning, i spent about thirty minutes staring at the complete emptiness of a blank word document, trying to put into sentences all the incredibly genius thoughts i've been having recently. no luck. instead, everything i started to write turned into a blog about a chinese food restaurant on olympic called "hunan taste," a name that, if you are like me, you initially read as something much more cannabalistic. so, basically, i can only write about myself, poorly. i cooked up this idea that if all else fails, i'll gather together all the blog posts and send them off to a publisher because that's an entirely fabulous idea for several reasons: 1) i wouldn't have to admit that i can't produce fiction; 2) this blog is totally remarkable and deserves publication; and 3) i've learned that people always really enjoy paying for things they can just get for free.*

i've started a real journal. a leather-bound journal embossed with the word across the front cover. i think i just heard someone gasp ("leather journal?!? aren't you a vegan?), so let me share with you the first entry in my handwritten blog: "this is not a vegan-friendly journal. i know this. i am also, however, a fake vegan who eats yogurt and ice cream and butter, so maybe it's ok to use a leather-bound journal. there's a method to this madness, as there usually is. i recently made a resolution to write all my insanely brilliant thoughts in a collective space, and even bought an environmentally sound notebook in which to do so. sadly, my first entry ended up sassy and bitchy. as totally justified as the entry was, i knew my new journal needed to be free of petty dramas and become a masterpiece. nothing says 'i'm serious about this' like leather and gilded pages, right? that's what i figured. thus, this book was born. a cow had to die so that i could feel mature about my diary. i'm a terrible person." i hope that helps explain to you all why i felt dead animal was appropriate (and necessary, much like the leather birkenstocks my mom got me, and the braided leather cuff that reminds me of zoe and rhode island). and, yes, i do actually write like that in my own personal journal. i'm a douchebag, and you should know this by now.


*i originally wrote those last two points to be snarky and bitter, but then i remembered the postsecret books, and realized that if someone can publish a collection of postcards sent to him by other people (and which he has already posted online), and really convince people to buy said collection (i've been tempted myself, and i read the website religiously), why can't i? what would happen to me if i published this blog in a book? that's worse than writing a memoir, i think. it's way more self-aggrandizing. then, i could say, "yeah, i created this whole website just to talk about myself, and then i published it, so that all the people who don't want to troll blog sites to read about strangers' stupid lives could feel voyeuristically tempted to read all about me in a bound book." also, i could then have a bound book under my belt, and after that, i'm sure i'd feel confident enough to start writing again. this is best plan ever.

shweaty*

every time i turn on my computer, i am amazed by the sheer greatness of the picture i've set as my desktop background. it's one clay took of himself at sam's graduation, when we were bored out of our minds and listening to yet another graduating senior totally destroy a perfectly good song (one girl screwed up the lyrics to "in my life," and repeatedly sang, "and i know i'll never stop and think about them," which, in my opinion, is a grievious error, as it completely changes the meaning of the song and makes it far less appropriate to sing at a graduation). in this picture, clay is wearing the ridiculous black knock-off ray-bans i bought on campus for seven dollars, and he is looking way adorable, because that's kinda his thing. the picture is really sharp and focused, and i can be seen in the reflection of the sunglass lense, rummaging through my enormous bag to find my cell phone or a pack of orbit or maybe just to to keep my idle hands busy as i suffered through a graduation ceremony full of a bunch of kids i didn't know, and only one i truly cared about. i don't know how parents do it. anyway, i like the picture and it makes me happy.

today was one of the first days thus far that i've felt summer. i know, that sounds really whiny, but i'll admit it: i'm still officially a child, and i still officially get summer breaks, and am thus still officially entitled to having a summer that feels carefree and joyous. this afternoon, and even now, i had the shiny, sticky feel of someone who has spent the entire shiny, sticky day in the summer air. granted, i wasn't really outside much, but the windows were open, which is essentially the same thing, and now i can say that i really, truly feel as if i spent the day in a southern mansion on the veranda, reading and drinking sweet tea (all of which is entirely true, minus the southern mansion and the veranda). it's funny what having normal skin will do for a girl. last year, at this time, i actually was in the south, and actually was outside in the humidity, walking around and being dewy. however, the massive difference is that last year, i was covered in terrible boils, and insisted on wearing layers of makeup, and when those two things are combined with rising humidity, it spells trouble. i guess maybe i relished being just a little sweaty all day because it's not something i would have enjoyed very much before i became a normal human being - meaning, now that i can enjoy it, my journey towards normalcy is right on track.

*this was originally going to be "shweaty balls," but i didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea. i'm all girl, ok?

like a cholo

i'm supposed to be conducting a database search to find call numbers for several articles for a TA i had last quarter, but i'm almost done, and super frustrated with the system, so i'm taking a break. also, i'm at home, and taking advantage of the fact that i'm allowed to be lazy at home. i'm allowed.

it's about ten million degrees in this house right now, so that's fun.

this past weekend was absolute craziness. andy and i moved out of the apartment all day saturday, and even though it took a long time and was hellish and i'm still sore in places i didn't even know i had muscles (i.e. the inside of my forearms), it was much, much better than i had anticipated. we're moving up two floors in the same building, into an apartment that isn't yet vacant, so we had to move out on saturday and find a place to store all of our crap until next weekend. initially, we braced ourselves for several trips back and forth between westwood and my house, with lots of loading and unloading, with the promise of having to do it all again next week. however, our manager was super amazing, and is letting us use her private storage unit in the garage, which is so incredibly fabulous, it's hard to articulate. after moving everything down to storage, still a huge task in and of itself, i realized how totally horrendous it would have been to have to move everything out of the building and back. terrible. andy and i not only had our beds and desks and room junk, but also all the living room furniture and kitchen stuff - it was a mighty job. i'm not really looking forward to doing it all over again. a good thing about moving though is redecorating, or, in my case, decorating in the first place. i'm going to try to make the place more home-y. i think that last year i was just so giddy that it wasn't a dorm room and had an actual kitchen that i didn't really care about personalizing it. now, i don't particularly want to live in a showroom.

after moving out, i drove home really briefly to unload some things we'd packed into the van before we realized we could use the storage unit, and then showered quickly, managing to bitch at my brother and my mom in the short ten minutes that i interacted with them. i then drove down to irvine with shiza for quach's twenty-first birthday, where shiz and i were the dd's for the guys, who, by the time we got down there, had already been playing beer pong for an hour and a half. it was good to see everyone in one place, but there were some glaring omissions, the biggest being zoe, who doesn't home from peru for five more days, and who will be forced to see a lot of me once she's back.

i got pissed off on the way home from LA this morning because i was listening to the radio, and that "lean like a cholo" song came on. it pissed me off for two reasons: 1) i can't seem to write a damn thing these days, and somehow, someone managed to write and release a song about how to lean like a cholo; and 2) every time i hear this song i am reminded of how my drunken, jewish uncle danced to it at the bar mitzvah, and that, my dears, is frightening.

i just reread this entry and it's a terrible summary and was probably hugely boring, and i apologize. my brain is melting out my ears (it's very hot here). if you want to know more about melting brains, please consult "stiff," a book about cadavers by mary roach, which is actually way fascinating. after that, you should read "spook," another mary roach book about ghosts. that way, you can blame all future morbid thoughts on me.

p.s. i would like to dedicate this next little gem to leah, who should know by now that i wholeheartedly support her complete and total denial of the fact that she's expected to shut up and march in line. i say never be ashamed of your innate ability to challenge people and their beliefs and their fears. embrace it, because they will probably encounter very little resistance to their opinions (especially where you are), and i don't think that there is anything more vital to a person's life than their acceptance of the diversity of the world. upon review, that sounds like a voice-over from an oprah special (which i did, in fact, just watch, so please forgive), but i felt i needed to get that out. do not ever shut your face, leah. you have beautiful teeth.

sloppy

yesterday, i talked to gilmore for a little while, and he said, "you're not like a girl in all the bad ways," which could be taken two very distinctly different ways. apparently, after i grilled him for clarification, he meant that i'm female in all the good ways, which is the only acceptable answer. he said he meant that i don't care about giggling and shoes, and that almost makes me sound like i'm really sloppy all the time, and i tell you that if that's true, it's unintentional. yes, sadly, this is what i look like when i'm actually trying. my conversation with gilmore reminded me of an exchange i had with my grandma's close friend at jonathan's bar mitzvah. it went something like this:

joanie: oh, your hair's so short! i love it! who cut it?
me: my boyfriend did, actually. he's available for appointments if you're interested.
joanie: you and your mom are just the same. you don't really care about all that, do you?
me: you are a master at the backhanded compliment, joanie. please go sit far away.*

now, joanie loved my hair. she had no problem with the actual product, but, being the kind of woman is very concerned with appearances, she couldn't understand how i could have allowed a non-professional to cut my hair, or how my mom hasn't had botox (not that she needs it - she's going to look much younger than she is for her entire life, because she kept all her skin pigmentation to herself and didn't give me any). i guess i don't really care. i can't bring myself to spend so much time on myself. that's probably because it would take a long, long time to make me glamorous.



*i didn't say that.

pill popper

i took two tylenol an hour ago, and i still have a splitting headache. so, i'm keeping myself busy thinking about how i'm going to force my dad to take me to in n out on the way home. something about french fries seems really, really appealing right now.

i'm going home this weekend for jonathan's bar mitzvah, and i'm using this opportunity to take home some of my crap, hopefully making the whole moving out ordeal less painful. i spent the afternoon watching andy take apart the giant useless black ikea bookshelf that had been taking up space on the far wall of the apartment, and also reading a little, cleaning out my closet, and trying desperately to get rid of this headache. i'm such a whiny bitch.

i don't know where my dad is, but i hope he knows that his being late is severely hampering my throwing greasy potatoes into my face, and that that is very upsetting to me.

i'm a craigslist bigot

for those of you who don't know (namely, everyone), i am now on birth control. announcing this doesn't embarrass me as much as i thought it would because i am not, surprisingly, five years old about everything. i'm making this declaration now because i absolutely must bitch about the side effects. i must. and i can't very well list all of the annoying things that are happening to my body without giving it a context because then everyone will think i have some terrible contagious disease (i don't). i've already mentioned that my lower back is throbbing, but i haven't yet shared that the lymph nodes in my neck have been so swollen for a week and half that i've been popping cold-eeze zinc tablets every hour and that my entire body sometimes flares up, leaving me with a giant fever. i spent several hours yesterday languishing in bed (because feeling crappy makes me more depressed than anything else), and being waited on by someone who already does far, far too much of that.

i'm currently trying to find a subletter for my room beginning in july, and i swear to god, people make me crazy. i have thirty-year-old men sending me emails about wanting to room with me and girls demanding that they get their own rooms, and i want to reply simply with, "read the goddamn post, please." if they did, in fact, read the post they would see that it clearly states that i want a female roommate (even though gender requests are a big, prejudiced no-no on craigslist) and that the room must be shared, lest i have nowhere to live. i get really frustrated with people sometimes.

i went to see "wicked" with luke and his mom on tuesday night, and andy told me if i came home signing the songs over and over, he'd punch me. he's lucky i don't sing out loud because he'd want to punch me. i've had the soundtrack to that musical playing on a loop in my braincase for nearly 48 hours, and even listening to the few songs i bought off of itunes (again, because i buy all my music, because my father is all about truth and righteousness) hasn't helped shake them from my mind. i don't really mind, though, because i had a really good time, and it never hurts to be reminded of fabulous times.

a good thing about feeling like your entire body is energy-less is that you don't want to eat. i haven't wanted to eat all day. maybe it's because i've already retained enough water to make me bloated and fat for the rest of my life.

1 800 fuck off

i spent the whole weekend with people i love, and i'm beaming about that. i'm also really, really tired and my lower back hurts really badly. i guess i'm too old to run around with ten-year-old girls shrieking like a craze. on saturday, at sam's graduation party, i whined to my grandma about not having an upper lip, to which she responded, "oh, you have one! it's just really thin." nice.

today was my second day at the chocolate factory, and i can still smell the caramel on my hands. i think i'm really going to love that place. there are so many worse things than smelling like caramel apples and melted chocolate.

on sunday, i took clay and sam to best buy and added many movies to my collection. i suddenly felt that i was missing some really spectacular important films, and thus, i bought about seven of them. clay and i stayed up late watching "tommy boy," which is, to this day, one of the most hysterical things i've ever seen.

my back really hurts. i wonder what that is.

some 800 number keeps calling me, at least once a day, and not leaving a message, which is super irritating and makes me want to throttle whoever it is. this has been going on for about two and a half weeks, and you'd think whoever it is would eventually figure out that i'm a) not going to answer their random phone call, and b) not going to call them back. it reminds me of last summer, when i submitted an online application, out of desperation, to be a salesperson, without knowing what i would be selling. when i found out i was going to selling knives, in ventura, i decided against going in for my interview, and some poor secretary called me and left the exact same message for me for about a month before giving up. she must have had a fat list to go through every day, because there is no way she could have willingly or knowingly left so many of the same messages for the same person. sad.

yipee! hurray! hahahaha!

i'm home! it's just for the weekend, but i'm home! and done with finals! and about to switch apartments so i can live somewhere i feel comfortable! yipee! hurray! hahahaha! (i wish i was will ferrell in zoolander, dressed up as little cletus, laughing and licking a lollipop. that's how happy i am. if you have no idea what the hell i'm talking about, you should watch that movie immediately.)

i went to sam's graduation last night, and successfully avoided everyone i didn't want to see. i ran into gilmore, which was a fantastic surprise, as i love him very much and miss him when we're at school. ah, good friends. clay and i were freezing, because the temperature dropped about ten thousand degrees toward the end of the ceremony, and we tried to share a single windbreaker, which was hilarious until he was a man about it and let me just take it. he's such a gentleman.

my mom and my aunt made special posters for sam and my cousin, who both graduated this week and who will both be at a joint party they're throwing at my house this afternoon, and the posters are really nice, and adorable, and thoughtful. i was looking at them last night, marveling in their adorableness, and i realized that "congratulations" was spelled "congratualtions" on one of them. and, because i have the loudest mouth in the universe, i told my mom, who is now obsessed with how her posters aren't totally perfect. oops.

i'm going to go shower, and begin the slow ascent into being ready for the day.

test anxiety

my neck hurts. not my throat - my neck. i make this clarification lest anyone suspect i'm getting sick, which is absolutely not true and must be absolutely untrue because if i were, by some terrible twist of fate, to get ill before this weekend, i would have a panic attack and cry a lot, i think.

i have another final today, at 11:30, but true to form, i'm not looking at the material anymore because it will freak me out. no one really understands why i can't/don't use all the many hours leading up to a test to study for it, but it's a little jedi mind trick i must use on myself to keep myself calm. my stress level is way high right before tests, and stress doesn't make it any easier to retain information. therefore, i end up looking at the information and not being able to process it, making it even more stressful to know that i'm about to be tested on it. so, instead, i'm listening to eric clapton, and denying my urges to shovel baked lays into my face.

last night, i had a bunch of really fulfilling dreams, almost as if my subconscious knew exactly what i needed and totally delivered for me. thank you, subconscious.

pfa*

right now, i should be studying for the final i have at 3. the operative word in that last sentence is "should." i am not studying for the final i have at 3, at least not at the moment. bear in mind that i have studied and that i probably will study before i have to leave the apartment to go take the goddamn test, but right this instant, i am silently boycotting being tested for a class in which i don't feel i've learned anything worthy of testing. true, i've learned a little and have definitely concocted ways to use this new insight to change things in my own life, but i really don't feel like i've been given enough information to warrant a final. thus, my plan is to sit around and wait for it to happen and see how well i can do. this isn't about how lazy i am (although i definitely am lazy), because i'm really excited to take my other finals. this particular case is one of my terribly ill-advised protests that, in the end, don't get any point across except that i'm not allowed to shop at kohl's or eat at mcdonalds or get an A in a class that should pretty easy. i recognize this. however, it's finals week of spring quarter and i shouldn't be expected to care.


*this is a new disease, discovered by andy, that joins the ranks of such gems as "pma, post-midterm apathy." this new ailment is "pre-final apathy," and i'm currently contagious.

revelations

1) i need to get my cat stevens back from my dad. i miss him very much.

2) i need to move out of my apartment.

3) i need to be done with finals. actually, i need to start finals. i need to be able to say that i'm on my way to sanity.

4) i need something beautiful to happen today.

senor rico the second

i just ate an entire cup of senor rico's, purchased at a ralph's in k-town for fifty-one cents less than i would have paid at cvs. yipee! speaking of k-town, i'm so incredibly grateful that i have somewhere i can go to feel absolutely content and comfortable, especially because that's becoming less and less possible where i actually live. also, the company in my little escape is fantastic and he knows that.

while i was inhaling the rice pudding just now, i was also drinking a tall can of starbucks iced coffee, which i'm hoping will help me focus and concentrate on the human motivation i want to study tonight. i don't necessarily have to study it tonight, but i think it would make me feel better about myself and about life in general to get some work done. god, i want it to be six days from now, and i want to be home at sam's graduation party, and i want to be showing off my new favorite person. i hate that i have to get through four finals before i can do that.

ok, time to work. work, work, work. disgusting.

senor rico

i went to campus without any money this morning, and so, all i fantasized about all day long was some of senor rico's rice pudding, a delicious treat i discovered at cvs a long time ago, and i practically ran out to the store this afternoon, after i'd showered and done my laundry (two very, very important hygiene concerns i'd had for a while). i was so excited for rico. so excited. classically, there was zero rice pudding to be found. i was way disappointed, and ended up buying a shitload of other terrible foods to help me through finals week.

i've had a pretty insane week, but will not discuss it because it's hugely not worth it, but let's suffice to say that the craziness has forced me to eat a lukewarm tapioca snack pack, even though it's produced by conagra foods, which i've been trying to silently boycott for five years, since i read "fast food nation." i need to sooth my soul, and this crap is the closest thing to rice pudding i could find at the drugstore. have i mentioned that i'm disgusting? do i need to?

today, we distributed the squirrel for the last time this year, and i was approached by a really interesting character with an accent who commented on the fact that my black bra was hanging out of my red shirt (i'd left the house this morning pretending that maybe no one would notice), and who asked me if i like "the pick up," which joel and i interpreted, after this guy asked me what kind of girlfriend i'd be, to mean, "do you like getting hit on by total strangers who use really vague, round-about ways of expressing interest, and who enjoy the occasional berating of those who very nicely decline your offer for 'pick ups'?" it's a shame that he did, in fact, end up calling me "strange" and walking away shaking his head like i was some alien creature for not taking him very seriously. if he hadn't gotten frustrated with me so quickly, i would have been able to tell him that yes, i do indeed like getting hit on by total strangers who blah blah blah, and i would have asked, can i please blog about you? as it is, now i have to do it without his permission. sad.

retraction

*it was a quart of jamoca almond fudge. and it's almost gone.

jamoca almond fudge

i'm writing on my new computer, because my dad finally brought it down for me last night. it's beautiful and will be cared for very much. however, something hugely frustrating happened when i tried to access all the music i've purchased from itunes (yes, i buy all my music, because my father is dr. law). apparently, i've already "authorized" five computers to play music i've purchased, and this new computer can't be ok'd. and, because i'm a genius, i just charged my ipod on this laptop, meaning that i lost all the songs i could have tried to salvage. annoying. i'll have to wait until i'm not so tired before i try to figure out how to fix that.

my second neuroscience midterm is officially the only one that i didn't totally rock. (i'm really modest.) and i really didn't rock it. this quarter needs to be over, and i need to have summer and all that that implies.

so, i just decided that straightening my hair in the middle of the night is much more pressing than trying to produce anything intelligible right now. also, i need to get up and put the pint of ice cream i've been working on all night back into the freezer.

chocolatiering

last night, i wanted to beat andy. i guess that's nothing new because i always want to attack him, but last night, he forced me out of bed so that he could introduce me to someone who may take dan's place as our fourth roommate next year. i'm sure this person is very nice, and he seemed like it when i briefly shook his hand and then floated back into my room, but i was sleepy and crazy looking and really not in the mood to meet anyone at 11 pm. why, you ask, was i in bed so early? am i not in college? those are very valid questions, and i don't really have proper answers to them, except that i was super exhausted by actually having to go to class and function like a person yesterday, after a four-day weekend of nothing but laying around and eating with one of my favorite people in the world.

also, i think my chocolatiering dreams may be realized. i can't remember if i've mentioned this hope of mine before, so i'll go over it quickly right now. i want to work in a chocolate factory. this idea was spawned as i tried to think of places i could be employed that would not force me to speak to demons enraged by the location of their football season tickets. where, i thought, could i work that would attract only the happiest, most content customers? and, thus, the chocolate factory dream was born. no one goes into a chocolate store when they're irate, and, even if by some terrible stroke of luck, they do, they won't leave irate because they will be soothed in submission by the cocoa beans. i turned in an application for a chocolate store in westwood yesterday on my way home from campus, and immediately got a phone call to schedule an interview. i go in tomorrow morning. hopefully, i will be selling chocolate-y delights to extremely pleasant, smiley patrons very soon.

i have an ashe appointment this afternoon, after work. it's not because i have some new bizarre and hideous health problem, although i guess that wouldn't be so surprising. i'm just trying to be a responsible adult, and if that means humiliating myself in front of a total stranger, that's what i'll have to do. i should write codes, i'm so cryptic.

today, i got another paycheck, which is always nice, because it makes me feel far less guilty about spending money all the time. at least my vice is novels, and not crack or something much more expensive. this morning, in my forty-five minute break after my class and before work, after i'd printed tons of anthropology articles at powell and called udeitha to apologize for totally sleeping through a phone call i should have been awake to answer, i wandered into ackerman and to the book store, which is incredibly dangerous. luke introduced me to christopher moore, who is a sassy bastard, which has endeared him to me forever, and i just bought his newest book "a dirty job," something i'm going to read instead of all those anthro articles i just mentioned. i would be reading it right now, in fact, but i needed to post a blog, because i've been itching to for a while, and still don't have my computer back from my parents, who enjoy withholding important things like laptops and accutane prescriptions from me so that they can call me demanding and selfish when i ask them to drop them off for me. also, i need to help edit some new articles for the squirrel, which goes to the printer at the end of this week, but i'm chronically not funny at the moment.

my stomach hurts.

i know that many more ridiculous things have happened to me recently, but i can't think of them, so, unfortunately, you will have to miss out on them. hopefully your lives won't lose all of their meaning without another story about how some crazy person approached me and acted like a total jackass. and, should you start feeling empty, just remember that that did in fact happen and does in fact continue to happen and will probably happen to me right as i leave the office today because i'm a magnet for that shit, so never fear. i will have more to share very soon.

randomtown

aside from the fact that i totally missed the mark on what time i had to work this morning (like by three hours - because i'm fantastic), i've had a pretty fantastic weekend thus far. i wasn't in the apartment for most of it, and that's not to say that the apartment isn't conducive to awesome times; i was just definitely very happy where i was.

i painted my fingernails this really horrible bubblegum pink color because i was inspired on my way to cvs by a way tan blonde girl with pink nails. i guess maybe it doesn't work for me because i'm not blonde or tan. weep.

i also really enjoy sending my anthro TA hugely idiotic questions each week as demanded by the professor. i love the class and my TA and the material is fascinating, but i seriously have a terrible time thinking up four thoughtful questions every sunday. this trouble comes from the fact that i think i really understand and agree with what they're teaching, so i don't do the reading with a red marker, trying to pick apart all the problems in the arguments. i mostly just want to meet the authors of the articles and be their friends.

earholes!

my earholes hurt. of course. i should know by now that i'm not allowed to wear earrings that aren't made of gold or platinum, as anything less than that pisses off my piercings and in turn makes me cry because i can't wear anything other than the terribly foul cubic zircona studs i bought only because they were sterling silver. sad. on my way home from work, i'm going to get some clear nail polish, so i can paint the posts of all the earrings i bought yesterday with udeitha, thereby sealing in the copper in their posts and preventing my ears from wanting to revolt. it's a rough life sometimes.

i wrote something really terrible for the flying squirrel just now. i am not hilarious. i don't know what i'm doing writing for a comedy paper. i waited until the last minute to write it because i don't yet have my replacement mac (although i did just get the call that it's come in and is ready for pick up), and i find that it's increasingly more difficult for me to write anything but class notes by hand. thus, the computers at work were the only opportunity i had to get something done. i think it's way more convenient (i.e. great for my laziness) to write something on a keyboard that allows instant corrections and speedy documentation. that's actually the main reason why this blog exists at all. if i kept a real physical journal, each entry would say, "today was good," and that would be the end of it.


i feel super huge right now. maybe it's due to the past few ravenous days i've spent eating cookies. that could do it.

bobby pins

this morning, because i was doing things more important* than showering, my hair was even more foul than it usually is (i.e. when it's clean). that's ok, though, because necessity is the mother of invention. i've discovered a new and interesting way to sculpt my hair with bobby pins, which is always a fun time because i seriously love bobby pins. i think i leave a trail of them wherever i go, almost as if to mark my territory. and that is precisely why i always need to buy more. i need to utilize them because instead of just allowing the insanity that is my hair to grow out to a uniform length that is way more manageable, i insist on cutting it shorter and shorter with more and more layers that require taming by bobby pins. the other day, i was watching tv, and i saw a really adorable short hair cut that's even shorter than what i have right now, and i was seriously tempted. i think i just want to have as little of this craze as physically possible.

udeitha and i were supposed to go see a movie tonight, a plan that has been postponed for many days now, but none of the times are convenient, so we're just gonna go eat somewhere (which is not a tragedy, considering food and i get along really well). i foresee a deep talk. we're good talkers. maybe i should pick up some red vines and corn nuts on the way to meet her so that we can truly gorge ourselves on disgusting crap and have a fabulous time. thank god for great friends.

there's a lot of reading i should be doing right now, but i don't see that happening, at least not until i get back from dinner and make an important** phone call and then decide to stay up way late to prepare for my 8 am tomorrow. that's always a good idea. i can't wait to feel like total crap.


*i'm very important.
**actually, i just can't think of any better adjectives right now.

computer lab deep thoughts

i've become a vicious beast. a vicious beast who chooses her friendships wisely and refuses to buy into the bullshit of people she's learned will try to hurt her. that sounds pretentious, i know, but i'm just that emotionally evolved right now. i think that the last year of my life has been really good for me, because it's allowed me to grow up in many ways i think i was refusing to for far too long. i refused to get over the things i didn't like about myself because it's almost comforting to know that you're in charge how you project yourself, to a certain extent. i didn't have to take full responsibility for the situations i allowed myself to get into because there was always the convenient "i'm sad and damaged" angle to play. i didn't have to acknowledge that i was being a dumbass - it's much easier to blame your low self-esteem than to take some sort of action and stand up for yourself. i feel like i'm doing that now, and that's so refreshing. i've gotten much, much better at figuring out what i need and what i want, and at knowing how to get those things and keep them cared for and close. thus, when someone does something that would have elicited certain feelings from the old me (namely, feelings of guilt and responsibility when i am clearly not guilty or responsible), i get over it and attribute those issues to the people doing the finger-pointing. i know that that sounds like another kind of psychological coping, but generally, i've found that it's both unhealthy and unnecessary to spend your life feeling guilty and responsible for the problems of people who couldn't care less about you. sometimes, it's every man for himself, and right now, that's where i am. maybe that's selfish and terrible and makes me a shitty person, but i think i warned you all about those personality traits at the very beginning of this post, when i labelled myself a "vicious beast."

laptops and ladybugs

i'm home right now because last night, denis and niki and weil and many others met up at the beach house to finally hang out again. we ended up on the beach, after everyone had had a few beers, and i'd had some rum straight (i refuse to drink beer, most of the time), cracking up about how difficult it is to walk in sand when you're out of your head. i had to leave early this afternoon to tend to my broken laptop, whose destruction was a new and exciting development when i got back to my apartment from campus yesterday. i came home from a meeting with joel to a passed out macbook that smelled like burning, and immediately cursed my terrible, terrible luck with electronics. luckily, though, the computer was still under warranty, and because i hadn't really had anything to do with its demise, the "genius" at apple's "genius bar" told me they're just going to give me a brand new one. that's really, really amazing, and is such better customer service than any i've encountered in my many experiences with fucked up PCs. i'm going to be computer-less for a few days, but i'm almost excited about not being connected twenty-four, seven. a lot of this excitement comes from the fact that i know that i am not, in fact, totally owned, and will be getting a new functioning computer in three to five days.

i spent the entire day with clay. he came with me to my computer appointment, in order to escape having to go to another one of my mom's democratic club meetings, and spent forty-five minutes playing the first three minutes of the tetris demo on my cell phone over and over again. my cell phone currently has zero battery. we bought tons of see's chocolate and wandered over to best buy, where i bought a few movies, including "kiss kiss bang bang," a totally fabulous movie that i definitely recommend.

clay and i then decided on dinner at the alamo, because we're both fatties and like our mexican food lardy and heavy. i love spending time with him. he really never ceases to amaze. he's so smart and funny, and i spent the entire dinner laughing with him about music and his crushes and his dream of living in outer space, far away from bird, which scare the shit out of him.

we then came home and freed a container of ladybugs my mom had sitting on the kitchen counter. apparently, aphids are eating my mom's artichoke plant, and the 1500 ladybugs are her biological warriors. releasing 1500 ladybugs is actually sort of terrifying. they lose much of their mytique and adorableness when they're swarming, and clay said something about he won't ever think they're lucky again, after seeing so many of them at one place at the same time.

dramatown

so, i rarely (if ever) post about the specifics of any drama i may encounter, in order to protect the privacy of those involved (regardless of whether or not they'd read this), but something really infuriating happened to me today, and i feel the need to share.

a relative stranger called me a "cunt" today. i don't have a particular problem with the word and really don't care at all if this person has a problem with me, but the connotation is obvious, and he apparently feels calling me such a thing was justified. this is a guy i gave my number to weeks and weeks ago, and due to many, many different circumstances, haven't really made an effort to respond to. his way of dealing with my lack of time and interest was to send me nasty messages about what a bitchy cunt i am, which so unacceptable i really can't put it into words.

a positive thing about all of this (and it's a massive positive) is that i won't have to deal with shit like that anymore, seeing as i no longer have to talk to random dudes. i'm currently spending time with someone who is impossibly amazing. i won't go into it, in order to spare you and also to protect the abovementioned privacy of myself and others. however, i will say thank you. so, thank you, l.

off to class

i went home this weekend and it was exactly, exactly what i needed. things have been going pretty amazingly at school, so it wasn't like i needed to escape or anything, but it was definitely so wonderful to change scenery and get some time away from some of the dramatics. it also helped me completely figure out how i feel about a lot of things, as my bed at home is a good place to think. i got to see clay and alanna and hang out with melissa and get a ton of studying done and sit with my dad in the living room, listening to gershwin and thinking about how lucky i am to have what i have. all in all, it was a very good time.

i can't believe it's seventh week already, and that it's monday, and that this week is beginning already. i also can't believe that i got up early enough this morning to be ready in time for me to quickly write a blog. i haven't needed very much sleep lately.

and leah, i will. very soon. when i tell you what's been going on, you'll hate me and my empty call-promises a little less.

i'm a tease

the last couple days have been pretty crazed. i didn't write about them because i was trying to figure out what i wanted to share about them, and i've decided, sadly, to share very little. there are some things, health issues aside, that i want to keep for me. however, that doesn't stop me from wanting to tease everyone into curiosity. so, the last couple of days have been pretty crazed, and i'm more excited about recent events than i've been in a very, very long time.

last night, joel called me to ask me something about the squirrel, and that call ended with him picking me up and driving us to zuma. i haven't been in forever. we drove by spruzzo, where i haven't eaten since right after high school, and where i must eat very soon because i remembered the deliciousness of their bread. i also rediscovered that i love the ocean, even when it's dark at night and terrifying.

our mini road trip, among other things, reminded me of my need for a car here. i want to be able to just get out for a little while. i've lived here for years now, and haven't really seen anything. i suppose i could have utilized the bus system more often, but buses aren't really good for "drive until you get somewhere" adventures like the one last night.

i'm going home this weekend for mother's day, and that should be glorious. i always like going home when my life is at critical mass because i come back to school infused with the calm of my house, where i basically just think about eating backyard-firepit s'mores and hanging out with my dog (and where i probably do both of those things). i'm going to have to study while i'm there, possibly at the local library, which i discovered last finals week is actually a great place to get stuff done.

i've been feeling guilty recently about how terrible i've been at getting back to people. i just don't have time. that sounds like a cop-out, i know, but if i'm not in class or working, i'm reading for class or eating or sleeping, or driving out to malibu in the middle of the night for no reason.

graham crackers and margaritas

i just cancelled my match.com subscription. that's about the only worthwhile thing i did today. that, and laundry. i can finally start wearing normal clothes again. i ate a lot of cinnamon graham crackers, some of which i had opened last night, to let them get a little soft and stale, making them even more delicious.

i didn't wake up until 12:30 this afternoon. i don't mean that i woke up at 9 am and then rolled around in my bed for lots of hours. i actually didn't wake up until after noon. that rarely happens. i went around checking various clocks to make sure my cell phone wasn't lying to me. i had several really good dreams, though, so that was nice. and, no, i'm not telling you what they were about.

i got to talk to matt for a little while last night. i was totally incoherent and crazed with sleep, but it was fab to hear his voice and crack him up when i said at least three ridiculous things in complete seriousness. we added lots of things to "the list of things to do when matt gets back from washington," including margaritas at the alamo at 11 am on my birthday. this list already includes "watch 'dumb and dumber'" and "obesity." i want summer.

today was exactly what i needed. true, i feel gross and unproductive and a little guilty for shuffling around the apartment for entire day, but it was also fantastic.

i'm gonna go eat some real food, and get ready to hang out with claire, because it's been too long.

beer and oreos

right now, i am laying in my bed, almost physically inable to move. i worked for ten straight hours today, and came home to free time, with no idea how i was going to fill it. i decided that immediately changing out of my work clothes and into pajamas and then drinking a beer left over from last night's meeting was as good a plan as any. so, i wandered around the empty apartment in sweats, swigging out of a bottle of beer, occasionally eating an oreo and listening to new additions to my itunes playlist. i also spent some time thinking about how much darker my freshly dyed hair is than what i expected it would be. i guess spending nearly five hours in a small cider-block ticket booth at a baseball stadium after working in the phone room for five hours can really, really fry my brain. at some point, i migrated to my bed and i can't seem to get out of it. i'm just super exhausted. not having anything to do this weekend will be absolutely fabulous. that being said, i really do want to catch up with people, and maybe not spend the rest of the weekend cocoon'd in my room.

bouncy

a few months ago, i changed the password to this account because the very same day i wrote my very first demonic unpublished draft, the subject of said draft yelled at me and told me i was a terrible person. and, in my extreme narcissism, i assumed this person had snuck into my account and read this stupid rant i'd written. thus, a password change was born. however, now i'm entirely sure this person is just a sassy bitch (no fault of my own), and yet i continue to constantly use the wrong password when i try to sign in, because the new one i chose is just about as random and off-base as it could possibly be. annoying. i'm changing it back.

when i woke up this morning, i pratically bounced into the shower - i had so much energy. that almost never happens, because i'm usually lentil-eyed and crazy for at least two hours after getting up. it was especially surprising given i only got three and a half hours of sleep last night (i spent many hours eating oreos, garlic knots, sour s'ghetti, and cheeseless pizza while pretending to contribute to a flying squirrel meeting). i'm currently still bouncing around, although i can feel i'm gonna need some caffeine at some point. i think i may just be super excited that i don't have something huge and terrible looming over me, at least for this weekend.

on the way to work an hour ago, i walked by someone who smelled exactly like the inside of a mcdonald's, which, in my experience, isn't really the best way a person can smell. also, i saw some girls wearing purses and backpacks, which i really don't understand. that just seems way inconvenient. maybe i'm alone in not wanting to feel like a pack mule all the time.

dickson plaza

i almost had a panic attack last night. i haven't come close to losing it in a long time, but last night, i felt super overwhelmed and wasn't entirely sure how i was going to deal with my life. i was busy from 9 in the morning until 8:30 last night, running from class to class to meetings to work to meetings. it was way, way fun. and then i came home and had to study for a midterm i have tomorrow, because tonight will be entirely dedicated to putting the finishing touches on the next issue of the flying squirrel. this midterm is probably going to kick my ass because it's all theoretical, and for some reason, i cannot wrap my brain around it. last night, i also discovered a twenty-five page article i had to read for class this morning, and another joyous bizarre body issue to compound the one i've been suffering from since last thursday (one which forced me to make another visit to the ashe center, the happiest place on earth). i don't know. i'm just going to have to have a massive celebration tomorrow after class, when i can finally stop for two seconds and chill out (and maybe return gilmore's call from five hundred years ago).

my stomach hurts and i probably have colon cancer.

switching gears, i hate walking to campus on mondays and wednesdays because i leave my apartment at 7:30 am, and have to walk by a huge line of cars waiting to start work in the morning. these cars are full of men who stare at me, and there's seriously nothing that irritates me more (seriously, and that's a mighty claim for i am always irritated) than being totally objectified just for having a vag. i hate that. i've never understood how women think that's impressive or exciting or a fat compliment. it always makes me feel hugely uncomfortable to not be able to walk down a street without knowing that some foul dude is staring at my chest, when i'm wearing a sweatshirt, no less. i don't pretend to be a card-carrying feminist, and yeah, it's fun to feel attractive, but there is definitely a time and a place, and walking through a church parking lot at the ass crack of dawn isn't really an invitation to be whistled at.

i'm currently listening to my coworker spell "dickson plaza" over and over again, and am thanking my lucky stars that every person who has called me today has known how to spell.

haircut version 14.0

i let luke cut my hair yesterday, because my hair was crazed and he said he had a vision. i really, really like it. i have to tame it with two bobby pins, but that's only because it's still the same type of hair i've always had (read: insane). the cut is pretty much exactly what i've wanted for a while, so that's fabulous. he spent a way long time making it awesome and then helping me clean up all the hair in the bathroom, and then having a deep talk with me (i love deep talks). it was way fun.

in other news, i've been ignoring the fact that i have a midterm on monday. i have extreme pma right now (for those of you who don't know all my acronyms, pma = post-midterm apathy). this has been going on since wednesday, so it's really not ok that i'm not interested in school. i should have bounced back by now. this afternoon, after work, my cousin jeff is picking me up to go to the previously mentioned birthday dinner for my great-grandma, and i think i'll have a few hours between the pick up and the actual fooding during which i plan on studying, because this weekend, i'm gonna have to take the time where i can get it.

(i love parentheses).

i actually have about twenty minutes before i have to leave for work, which is amazing because i'm usually flying out the door to get to campus on time. i'm going to drink some sparkling mango water and eat some cereal and enjoy the fact that i can actually do both those things.

books and midterms

i know - you're shocked. so am i. this is the first consecutive post in many weeks. i'm at work, and have some time in between calls, and really want to continue reading "one hundred years of solitude," but need to get my internet putzing done first. "one hundred years of solitude" is quickly becoming one of my favorite books, and i'm only sixty pages in. i'd be super surprised if jonathan safran foer (author of the marvelous "everything is illuminated" - the only book i've read twice - and "extremely loud and incredibly close") hadn't taken a lot of inspiration from gabriel garcia marquez, because marquez's style is very similar to foer's, only marquez did it forty years ago. wow, that was a really pretentious little tangent.

ok, i like the book. it's allowing my brain some rest from the craziness that is the rest of my life. that's how i operate. i must cram my brain full of craziness, and then allow myself to take a break, or else i explode. i was reading the onion before i fell into bed last night, and dan said, "whoa, i'm never prepared enough for a midterm to read a newspaper the night before i take it." he did not say this because he was in awe of how calm and collected i was. he was trying to shame me into studying neurotransmitters for several more hours. what he does not understand, however, is that it is far more detrimental for me to stay up all night before a test scrambling to pour information into my head than it is for me to steadily pack it away into my cranium for the days leading up to the exam, so that i can relax and take deep breaths as it looms closer. i can't retain information i "learn" right before tests, and looking at lecture notes super fast immediately before midterms only serves to make me feel less confident about what i know. now you all know how i study, which is something really important, i'm sure.

friday, i'm going to dinner with my mom's entire family to celebrate my great-grandma's 94th birthday. i'm seriously giddy at the thought of seeing them, because i adore them. dinner is going to kickstart a really intense weekend, full of work (saturday morning and 8:15 am to 5 pm on sunday), museums, and some more hardcore studying for the anthro midterm i have at 8 am on monday morning. mad once told me her sister thought of college as the process of constantly putting out fires, and that is quite possibly the best way to describe it. unfortunately, i guess life's kinda like that too, so i'll still be crazed after i graduate.

time to read "one hundred years" and try not to think about my midterm.

corn nuts

this afternoon, between classes, mad and i bought about sixteen thousand mini bags of corn nuts, and i've made a considerable dent in our stores in the past few hours. this is how i handle having midterms. to steal the words from a sorority girl who sat next to me in class today, "i cannot believe it's midterms already." yeah, me either.

so, lots of things have happened since my last post. none of them were all that interesting, which is probably why i didn't blog about them, but the nose piercing was cockblocked again, and i should have ranted about that. i went on friday with udeitha, after calling ahead and making sure it was all set, only to be told that the gun was broken and they wouldn't be piercing any faces. i don't want to keloid, though, so maybe being forced to find a place that uses needles instead of piercing guns is positive.

last night, as i was trying to find ways to entertain myself after i decided to take a study break, i hacked into my old snapfish account. i was happy to discover that all the photos that i thought my expired laptop had eaten and taken down into the depths with it are actually safely stored in albums on the internet. i found some old pictures of me with long hair, and i want it back.



i will never be satisfied. it's a curse.