art shows, movies, and IB

last night, i went with sam to check out his art show at the high school, which reminded me of when i did my own IB* art show as a senior. however, mine was a fat joke, and should not be confused with the quality of the stuff i saw last night. my brother is an actual artist with actual talent, so seeing his work on display was really exciting.

my fever wasn't as fleeting as i thought it'd be on monday. i have a cold, and although i feel much better than i did, say, yesterday, i'm still stuffy and gross. it hasn't stopped me from seeing people, which is nice, because i'm usually the first person to outlaw hanging out with sick people, for fear i'll catch their disease. both melissa and shiza weren't afraid of my infectiousness, so at least i got out of my house and saw my friends.

i've also watched a few movies i've wanted to see for a long time ("babel" and "children of men") and a few i've always secretly adored ("two weeks notice" and "deeply"). josh once asked me, during a long work shift, which five movies i would want with me if i were stranded on a desert island. my answers were, in no particular order:

1) "when harry met sally"
2) "zoolander"
3) "ghost"
4) "now and then"
5) "stand by me"

josh was really upset by the above list because it didn't include any cinematic genius, according to him. that's ok, though, because if i were isolated by myself indefinitely, those are the five films that could keep me endlessly entertained. in fact, even now, i think i watch "when harry met sally" at least once a month. at least.

so, spring break hasn't been amazing or intense or full of booze (except for saturday, when steve and i shared a bottle of pomegranate schnapps, and i carried it around by the neck like an idiot pirate), but i'm going to be positive and say that it's what i needed. no, i didn't need to get a cold and feel groggy and sad and get sassed by my father for being lazy. i did, however, need to have some time to hang out and be by myself and take naps with my dog and then, sometimes, leave the house to spend hours huffing scented candles at furniture stores with shiza.

i bought a new digital camera, and so i've mandated that i have an adventure at some point. that means, i need to stop feeling shitty very soon, and start taking pictures of awesomeness.


*IB is the acronym for "international baccalaureate," still a word i have to google in order to spell. IB is akin to the AP program in high schools, except that it's billed as way better and far more prestigious than those silly advanced placement tests. the reason for this hype is that IB tests a) are more expensive than AP tests, and b) require much more out of class work. also, the IB program itself is super labor intensive, requiring an extra morning class and several thousand hours of community service, which must all be properly documented and fit into three categories (if i remember correctly: "community," "action," and "service"). IB ate my senior year of high school. IB convinced me not to take any AP tests my senior year because i was already taking five for baccalaureate. IB promised me lots of college credits. i entered college with eight non-transferrable units. eight. it was marvelous.

magical

i got another one of my magical fevers last night. it was magical for several reasons:

1) it came on super suddenly when i was at work.
2) it was really intense and made me feel like i had ebola.
3) it kept me up all night, as i tried to break the fever by bundling myself up in my comforter.
4) it didn't register on the thermometer at all, when, at 5 am, i accidentally woke up my mom as i shuffled around looking for some motrin.
5) it is totally gone now, and i'm left only with the last vestiges of it (namely, the feeling that all my organs were just cooked for twelve hours).

my neck hurts.

i'm also sad because i had to cancel dinner with my grandparents, even though i feel much better, because my mom didn't want to risk infecting them before they go on vacation to san francisco.

i did, however, get to spend the entire day in my bed, watching movies and drinking hot chocolate, totally guilt-free. guilt-free because i'm resting - i was just very sick, you know.

interesante

this afternoon, i was supposed to go to lunch with my grandparents, but that didn't pan out, so they came over after their lunch with my great-grandma, and we just sat around here gossiping (i learned from the best). i adore that i can hang out with my grandparents and feel totally comfortable and maybe even tell them things i can't tell my mom. it's a nice way to spend time,

last night was interesting, to say the least, but i think i'm starting to expect that whenever i come home. it was interesting, but it was good, and definitely much different than it could have been. there are some things i'll have to work out, but i'm confident everything will be ok. i think i'm in a good place with myself right now, and that's a really new, exciting feeling. simply put, i'm together, finally.

now, i have to head down to westwood to work for approximately three and a half hours, which means i have to fill up the tank in the car (again, something i should come to expect when i'm home).

useless

a few posts ago, i wrote about how much i love my little brother. tonight, just as i came home, he came to the door of my room and looked really pained and awful. he said, "you know, i'm not even supposed to be down here." i thought he was referring to the sty in his left eye (it must run in the family), and to my mom's tendency to quarantine any of us when we're sick. no, he said, he's just not allowed to leave his room unless he's eating a meal (or, obstensibly, going to school). he'd been so proud of himself a few weekends ago, when i was home, because he'd been able to kick some of the compulsions and was living relatively normally. now, he's not allowed to leave his room, or read books, apparently, which i discovered when i asked him to not only leave his room but to hang out down here with me and read something. i held that little kid in my arms as he cried about how the rituals rule his life. he confides in me and cries to me and lets me prod him for answers i know he doesn't want to give, and i can't help him. we can't help him.

it breaks me inside. almost literally. he's in the bathroom right now, brushing his teeth with one of the three tubes of toothpaste he still keeps in their original boxes, and touching the doorknob three times behind him. i'm not here to see it get worse, and when it does, it breaks me inside.

it's been a long time since i've cried about something important.

spring break begins

this morning, i took my last final, came home, slept, got dressed again (i hate wearing sweatshirts in public - they make me feel sleepy and gross), and packed all my stuff to go home tonight. and it isn't even noon. that makes me feel really accomplished, so i guess you can tell how much i usually get done in a day.

i'm waiting to hear from udeitha, with whom i'm 1) getting a haircut, 2) eating lunch, and 3) watching many hours of gerard butler. i love my friends, especially when i don't have to be the only one suggesting we watch hours upon hours of gorgeous scotsmen (phantom, anyone?).

that's about it. i guess there's some other stuff too, but, unlike leah, i have to edit my life for this blog because i'm not brave enough to talk about everything. agonizing skin problem? sure! terribly foul eye infection? of course! people i'm interested in? absolutely not!

i'm lame. and done with finals!!!

putzing

finals week of last quarter, i discovered the abc show "day break" online. that show is pretty terrible actually, and i kinda only continued to watch it because there was nothing else i could do to take my mind off my tests. (i handle test stress in an interesting way that includes studying way in advance and then putzing around for the time leading up to the exam, so that my head doesn't pop off my body in a fit of terrible anxiety.) this finals week, i found "30 rock" and it is by far my favorite show of all time (right now at least, when i'm stress-eating baked lays and drinking trader joe's apple juice directly from the bottle). it is absolutely hysterical, and i demand that you go directly to nbc.com and watch it immediately.

i need to go read some stuff (maybe), but i'll leave you with a "30 rock" tracy morganism:

"i studied fried chicken at the school of hard knocks."

genius.

too lazy to form paragraphs

recent developments:

1) i've finished two of my four finals and am basically just counting down the hours until this quarter is over.

2) i dyed my hair back to a color found in nature, and it's super dark and uniform, and makes me really happy.

3) andy and i went shopping for dishwasher soap, and i ended up with a bag of smarties and some chocolate easter eggs.

4) my hair smells like the intense color-treated hair conditioner that comes with the hair dye. i still can't tell if i hate this smell or not.

5) sam got into santa barbara, which is super exciting for him. i'm glad that the waiting game is over, and that he finally knows where he'll be going to school.

6) i only have tentative plans for spring break, and that's so fabulous. i'm going to see a ton of people, that's guaranteed, but the time and place of these magical meetings are tba, and that's great because i'm kinda looking forward to having zero responsibilities for a little while.

7) i've decided i'm going to have a classy affair here at the beginning of next quarter, with cocktails and finger foods and adorableness. andy will be my only partner in crime in this venture, considering mad seemed less than enthused when i pitched the idea to her the other day. i guess that just means that andy and i are totally awesome, and will be able to take credit for throwing a total awesome, adorable classy affair.

8) i want to bake something.

david cassidy

i spent tonight with matt and guthrie, who is currently in the process of changing his name to "g3." i'd missed them, and spent the entire night cracking up. there's something to be said about being around people who make you nothing but happy.

last night, after doing some reading for finals, i got up from my bed, put on some mocassins (i couldn't find my running shoes) and went for a two-mile run around the neighborhood in the middle of the night. it was really awesome. i didn't feel disgusting or exhausted or anything afterwards, and i was actually invigorated. i need to start doing that more often in westwood, even if it's only a mile. i forget how much i secretly love running until i do it again.

i do not want to do this, but i think i must: i need to get the crazy, growing-out layers of my hair fixed. i'm officially david cassidy right now, and i've decided that is not a good look for me. if i must sacrifice length for the sake of overall appearance, i will. case in point:

i failed fifth grade recess

here are two random pictures from the flying squirrel barbeque of cory trying to teach me how to play a hand-clapping game i should have learned when i was a fifth grader. i guess i was too busy with "miss susie had a steam boat..." to pick up on anything else going on in the elementary school hand-clapping subculture. i lifted these pictures off of someone's facebook profile 1) because i think they're funny and cute and cory's in them and 2) because they demonstrate my serious need to fix the hair color issue. also, i look like i have the body of a potato, and those kinds of flattering pictures are always the kinds i want to broadcast to the universe.


(we kinda look like we're about to engage in some robot hand-to-hand combat. please forgive me. it's 2 am.)

i'm a spoiled bitch

it amazes me sometimes how quickly phone calls with my mom can severely alter my mood. i just talked to her, because we need to coordinate how i'm getting home tonight (so that i can sacrifice my saturday-before-finals to go to a peace protest with her), and she said something like, "sam really doesn't want you using his car," as if my plan was to come home and go on a roadtrip, and he had to stonewall me before i committed grand-theft-auto (that's not the plan, fyi). it was unnecessary and totally unrelated to what we were talking about. that immediately pissed me off, because i've been raging about how he gets a brand-new car for a while now. i'm not going to apologize about the rage, either, because i'm not being a spoiled bitch about it. i don't really need a car at school right this instant, and i certainly don't expect my parents to buy me a car. however, i would appreciate a little parental support when i'm home for a day and want use "his" car to go buy something at the drugstore. i cannot handle that he gets to use the car to fuck around all the time with his friends, and i'm expected to obey his commandment that i don't touch the car, ever. my reasoning is, i'm only home for a sum total of three days a quarter, so if they could cut me some slack, and maybe treat me like an adult and allow me to drive at some point, that would be totally awesome.

god, there really is no way to explain my tremendous irritation without sounding like a fat asshole.

damn.

play by play

today was an intense day, as wednesdays usually are. even mason, who, at this point, i exclusively speak to online (which is sad, and should be remedied), has noticed that wednesdays are insane for me. i had class and work and the flying squirrel meeting, which consisted of only six of us because everyone else was studying for finals. after the meeting, joel drove me around west LA, looking for good vegetarian places to take the date he has tomorrow night. as a vegetarian, i feel like i should have contributed more to the search, but because i rarely get out of westwood, i could only offer a few suggestions, all of which were denied when he learned that this "vegetarian" eats fish. what a fake.

i've started using the magical jergen's tanning body lotion i discovered last spring, and in only two days, i am no longer transparent. it's really amazing. i'm also not orange, which is important.

also, on campus this morning, i saw someone i dated my first year. i wasn't wearing my contacts or my glasses, so i couldn't tell it was him until i had probably been staring at him for way too long. that was great. especially because i thought he'd graduated already.

i keep thinking that tomorrow (or today, i guess) is friday, which scares me because that means i'm one day closer to finals week. and each time i realize that it's not in fact friday, i get really excited and content. i really don't want finals.

limit 8

me: there's a limit of 8 tickets per person.
customer: so i can't buy 20?
me: no.
customer: can i buy 4?
me: yes. because that's less than 8.
customer: but not 20?
me: no.

this is why i love my job.

friending

the other day, when i was sitting on the roof talking to andy, he analyzed our different romance strategies. he hooks up with friends, and i friend my hook ups. that is pretty much the truest thing i've ever heard andy say. i don't think there has ever been a time in my life (ok, there has been one time) where i didn't immediately friend some guy i was interested/had been interested in. it's like this terrible curse that forbids me from lasting more than two days with a new "interest" before becoming just one of the guys. it's awesome, and has happened to me enough times in the two and half years i have known andy for him to construct an entire theory about its existence.

i talked to my aunt laurie for a long time today, after she called me just to see how i was doing. she's in the process of putting together a musical, selling a screenplay adapted from one of her novels, and writing a pilot for a tv network. needless to say, talking to her has gotten me all interested in getting a magazine internship again, which is something i researched a lot last year, after my cousin michael got on my case almost daily about how i was wasting my youth in los angeles by not applying for some sort of writing job. i figure i might as well apply, considering i'm going to be living in the apartment over the summer, and will need something to fill up the tediously boring days when everyone else has summer school. (i'm staying here over the summer because i can't handle the thought of having to find subletters again, and then, having found subletters, allowing them to live in my room with my stuff.)

i finished my anthro ethnography tonight, after rereading it and realizing that i didn't really "finish" it last night. i also read in the dread adolescent development textbook, which will go down in history as the most painful thing for me to read. i don't know why it's so difficult for me. also also, i tried writing an article for the squirrel, failed miserably and absolutely could not be funny, so i'm going to let it sit for a little while, and hopefully be able to get it done at work tomorrow, so that i don't get attacked tomorrow at the meeting when i have nothing to show for the week i've been given to create something good.

i want summertime (reprise)

brumm and i spent some time on the roof of our building this afternoon, and it was absolutely gorgeous. gorgeous. i'm totally fried right now, and can no longer claim to be "just the right amount of sunburnt." that would be a lie. still, though, i'm giddy about my redness because that means i've been outside in the sunshine. also, brumm and i actually had a chance to speak to each other, which is exciting because we've been noticeably absent from each other's lives recently due to our completely opposite schedules. we laughed about the huge fools who were outside tanning themselves and talking about business ventures, and we actually had the forethought to text our demonic observations to each other, rather than risk saying them out loud and being overheard by the abovementioned tools.

this morning, i went to church with camden, in preparation for the ethnography on an unfamiliar religious ceremony i have to write for my anthro class. to be honest, i was expecting to hate it, or at least to feel incredibly uncomfortable. however, i actually really enjoyed it. it's not something i believe or would believe, but it was really engaging and funny even. the only way i can properly describe how i feel about it is to say that it seemed really good. and not in the general, i-can't-think-of-a-better-adjective way. everyone there seemed really good, and really sincere, and that was grand. that's not to say that i expected the people to be terrible deems, but my only previous church experience was on easter at a born-again congregation when i was ten and impressionable. i can remember being so terrified of the preacher and the idea of crucification, and it was just all-around not a fab time. this, in contrast, was so positive, so good. sadly, i am still a fat atheist, and will never be anything else.

i'm at work, on a sunday night, in the phone room, where we were anticipating a deluge of phone calls about purchasing tickets to the first round of the NCAA tournament. surprisingly, no one's calling. maybe everyone's doing it online. there are a ton of us in the phone room, more than i think i've ever seen before, and none of us are doing anything. we're talking about the punny names of "air bud" sequels. yes, it has come to this. i'm super excited for two hours from now, when josh and i are going to throw food into our pieholes. i'm so hungry. i don't know what happened to me, but this quarter, tea and a granola bar are no longer enough to get me through a day. andy thinks i'm being a stupid girl when i obsess about my daily food intake and said intake's effects on my lower body, but whatever. he whined about missing his six-pack earlier today, so that makes him a stupid girl too.

i cannot bring myself to read the adolescent development chapterS i have to read. i'm officially caught up with the readings for behavioral and social psych, and in anthro, but i can't handle the adolescent textbook, and therefore, can't do the reading.

weep.

i want summertime

right now, i'm listening to a cd of the music that was played on the titanic the night it sank, a cd that is one of the last remnants of my twelve-year-old girlhood, seeing as all my leo posters have been thrown away. i listen to this music when i need to study, and block out all sound, because it is instrumental and i don't get distracted by any lyrics (ironically, it's this very fact that is distracting me from "interactions between s+ and s-: peak shift"). it sounds exactly like my grandparents' house in los angeles, because it's jumpy and brassy and sounds like it is pouring out of the player piano in their back room. i think i will always associate my dad's parents with antiques, polished woods, and the creaky pedals of a player piano.

today was the most beautiful day to be at the beach. i couldn't find my bathing suit, and didn't particularly feel like shaving my legs, so i went in jeans, as only i could, and still had a really good time. i finished "a heartbreaking work of staggering genius" and that was lame because i didn't want it to end. i talked to weil about guys, and he actually listened and understood me and offered advice, which i thought was cute. i helped him drink a bottle of wine. i'm just the right amount of sunburnt, and i feel exactly like i do on summer nights, after i've spent the whole day doing nothing in the sun and can look forward to doing nothing again the next day. this is why i hate that it's gorgeous in march. i have to go through several more months of responsibility before i can pool it again.

my mom and dad and clay drove me back down to westwood tonight, and then we went to see "the number 23" in century city. it was an ok movie, i guess. the four of us definitely did not look like we belonged in l.a., that's for sure. i don't think i will ever be cute enough for this place, mostly because i care and really don't care at the same time. i wish i could pull off leggings and tunics and have perfect hair all the time, but most of the time, i can't be asked to try. my mom bought me some judaica from a kiosk in the mall, and that was nice of her. sometimes, like tonight, i literally just have to point to something and say, "oh, that's nice," and turn my back, and she'll have bought it for me. this is not a trick i use to get her to buy me things. it's just a thing she does, and is also the reason i am now the proud owner of a cuff emblazoned with the hamesh hand and a keychain.

this just in: i love my house. i slept like a little baby last night, and hung out with clay and giggled about stupid crap. i looked through old pictures with my mom and wondered why i will never, ever in my entire life be as thin as she was when she was in her early twenties. my dad and i had a deep talk about anything and everything in the car last night, and i always appreciate that.

oh, and i played with sophie:


i feel sufficiently rested and (kinda) ready for tenth week and, eventually, finals.

clay

i'm reading "a heartbreaking work of staggering genius" right now, in between doing a shitload of reading for school, and catching up in all my classes before finals start. and it is incredible. i bought it on a whim the other day, when i was left with some time to wander in the bookstore in ackerman (i've already discussed the dangers of my doing that). i want everyone to read it, so i'm not going to say anything about the details, and will just say that the author writes about his relationship with his much-younger brother. and while he must actually raise his brother and be responsible for him (and i don't have that with clay), every time i open that book, i feel so similar to him, because he feels such a sense of duty to protect this little kid from everything. i'm so glad i'm going home tonight, because reading this book has made me want to hang out with clay and see how fabulous he's doing. i love him so much. he's the first person i ever realized i could die for. do you have anyone like that? when that happened, when i knew that if there was a choice, it would be me and never him, that's when i started feeling about clay how i assume dave eggers feels about his brother. an overwhelming sense of responsibility for this little person, like what a parent must feel. i know that sounds ridiculous. i'm ok with sounding ridiculous.

i'm going home tonight because denis is home for his spring break, and apparently, there will be a beach house visit tomorrow. i probably should have gone home last night, to maximize my time at home, because i don't have class today, and because i'm going to have to come back down here tomorrow night in time to go to church with camden and udeitha on sunday morning (i need to write a paper about a religious service i am unfamiliar with). as it is, though, i'll spend tonight with my fam, and tomorrow with denis and weil and possibly brent, and can pretend for a day and a half that i'm out of school and don't have to worry about the four finals i still have looming over me.

beam

i'm actually beaming right now, because today was such a fabulous day. nothing stupid or annoying happened, and lots of extremely cool things did.

1) i met joel to see john edwards speak at kerckhoff this afternoon, and we ended up right in the front by the stage. he was a really good speaker, and really articulate and smart. at the end of his speech, he came down to, as joel put it, "work the ropes." i expected to just shake his hand, but he grabbed my hand with his left, and continued shaking other people's hands with his right. he held my hand in a vice grip for a way long time, time enough for me to think maybe i was assaulting him. except, when i tried to wrestle my hand away, it didn't work. i suppose there are worse things than being close to a powerful, smart man with an adorable southern drawl. and no, i am not ashamed of my crush. and you can't make me.







2) i rediscovered the gipsy kings. this music reminds me so much of my mom, it makes me sad that i'm not home listening to it in the car with her. i was super giddy when i found it on itunes tonight when i got home.

3) i "won" a "game" in my social psychology discussion section, and got myself two extra points on the final. that doesn't seem too impressive, but at this point, every little bit helps.

4) i got to talk to clay, and laugh about lazer cats, and just hearing his voice was awesome. i'm such a dork.


last night, mad and i watched qvc and tried to fall asleep to the gentle lull of the "gem show" until dan came back from work at 12:45 am and slammed the door. the only tv channels of interest that we still get are qvc, bravo, and several thousand spanish language channels. we saw something amazing on one of them last night. something mad so aptly called a "steamhut." this thing is essentially a massive collapsible laundry hamper that zips up on side and ends at the top with a shiny, plastic-y hood. it's a detox tent, apparently. if one were, say, hung over or gross or even feeling just a little too toxic, one could zip oneself into one's steamhut and sweat it out. it's seriously ridiculous. behold:

artiste

right now, i want to buy a canvas and try to paint something. this isn't because i have any talent at all. this is because i'm wearing a huge button-up man shirt and a thick headband to keep the terrible bangs out of my face, and this outfit makes me feel like an artiste. also, if i had a canvas, i would have a reason to stay inside all day, which is the plan anyway, considering i'm refusing to wear eye makeup at the moment. i'm over having eye issues, and i figure i need to give them a rest.

i got up relatively early this morning and read a little for class, and am thinking i should probably get back to that at some point, considering i've been spending the last week acting as if i'm no longer a student. granted, i was sick for a little while, but i'm not anymore and i don't think i should allow myself to wallow around in my own small, lentil-eyed misery for the entire weekend.

also, i need to do something school-related before i spend the rest of the day baking, so that i can bring fabulous desserts to the flying squirrel hang out tomorrow. the wonderful sweets will hopefully help me make up for the fact that i missed wednesday's meeting because i was sleeping off my illness in my bed.