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.