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.

heidi

i've started braiding my hair all crazy like i'm heidi living in the swiss mountains (i'm not). i don't really mind, because at this point, i've given up on the crap growing out of my head, and any variation of throwing it up in a bun is welcome.

i'm still super happy, as i've been for the past couple weeks, and i'm hoping that the midterm i have in behavioral neuroscience next wednesday isn't going to totally destroy this elation. i'm going to get my nose pierced, finally, with udeitha tomorrow, after i work for the entire day. i can't believe i offered up my class-less friday to my work schedule, but at least this way, i'll be doing something productive. i'm just upset that i'll miss tyra at 11 am.

i saw my dad just now, because he came over after work to drive me to the market, and when he heard me talking to joel about the piercing, he said, "you are such a conformist," which i think is kinda hilarious. i mean, yes, once he said that to me the first time (there have been several conversations about the nose thing because i've been trying to get it done forever), i've noticed that everyone in the universe has their nose pierced. however, liking something because i saw it somewhere makes me no different from him and his decision not to wear the pastel flower tie he got for easter three years ago because he doesn't like it. that was a really convoluted sentence, but i'm too lazy to change it. i hope you can decode that.

i just silenced a call from a random phone number, and i hope they leave a voicemail, so that i can eventually call them back. as a general rule, i do not answer calls from numbers i don't recognize, mostly because for several months i was getting really upsetting phone calls from lots of different payphones, placed by a man who made me really uncomfortable. and, because i'm far too attached to my phone number to change it, i just decided to be hardcore about screening phone calls. so, a word to the wise: if i don't have your number, leave a message.

the random caller just now did not leave a message. i will never know who that was. that's frustrating.

beaming

there was a time when i didn't cut my fingernails for three years. wow, that looks super disgusting when it's written down. it's not like that my fingernails got long and yellow and curled under, rendering my hands useless. i just really liked having long nails, and would let them grow until they chipped and broke. ok, now i'm super ashamed of that (in my defense, i did use a nail file). the point of my airing this dirty laundry is that now i'm totally against allowing them to grow out. just now, as i was messing around on the computer to avoid trying to find a quiet place to study, i noticed that i have claws again and that i need to remedy this situation. my fingernail tastes have changed, much like my food tastes have changed, making me actually crave things like tofu hot dogs, which used to make me want to cry.

i'm really happy right now, with everything. lots of things seem to be working out, and i feel more together than i have in a long time. there's really nothing i can complain about (that's kind of a lie, but i'm choosing to ignore the things i could complain about, and that's positive, right?). my classes are good, as of right now, and i like myself, and i've been spending a lot of time with people i adore, with one being particularly exciting. i'm beaming, and having fun. i think i've said that before, and then written really sad posts about how much my life sucks, so i guess there's no way to guarantee that this feeling will last. i'll just try to enjoy it while i can.

i'm also going to enjoy never changing out of the new overpriced workout pants i bought at ackerman the other day. they are way comfortable, and i love them. i don't know how i lived so long wearing jeans and only jeans. i hope the world is prepared for me to be super schleppy for many, many days.

i'm an idiot

i broke my toe at the beach three years ago, when i decided to wrestle gilmore on the sand. and, since then, every once in a while, i'll do something to aggravate it (such as going on a five mile run with andy wearing terrible shoes), and it will be a bitch for a few days. i'm in the middle of one such episode. it feels like i broke it again. it's all sore and makes walking all over westwood really delightful.

on monday night, after i got on the bus to go to cory's seder, i started listening to my ipod and zoning out. this was a mistake, because not only did i get on the bus going the wrong direction, but i also didn't realize i was going the wrong way until i hit the ocean in santa monica. i then had to walk about ten hours to find another rapid bus stop (i now realize that it's so "rapid" because it never stops), and then get back on the bus going the opposite direction. my favorite part was that the bus that eventually picked me up the second time was the exact same one i'd ridden the first time. that was awesome. i was super late to the seder, and was really humiliated to interrupt the whole dinner when i finally got there, but after the prescribed four cups of kosher wine, no one seemed to care. i had a really great time, and i'm happy cory invited me, even if my getting there was a complete and total disaster and made me look like a moron.

today, the squirrel was "featured" in a daily bruin article, and we made the front page (albeit under the fold). it's nice timing, too, because we have a new issue coming out tomorrow. i am, however, poorly quoted in that article, and there's nothing like sounding hugely inarticulate in one of the most widely circulated college newspapers in the country.

my mom's supposed to come down to visit me this afternoon, and i'm excited not only to see her but also to go out and do something, even if it's just a movie or food or something.

snooze

i spent a long time yesterday reading for my evolution of human sexual behavior class (which wasn't all that torturous, even after i discovered i'd accidentally read ahead, because that class fascinates me) in order to prepare myself both for lecture and for the possibility that this morning's 8 am class would have a pop quiz. and then, i woke up to mad's alarm at 7:30 am, and totally freaked out. i've never slept through my alarm. i was entirely sure that it was impossible for me to get to class on time, as i then had to spend approximately six minutes brushing my teeth, washing my face and slapping some bobby pins on my head. i don't think i've ever gotten "ready" so fast, and it definitely showed. i was hideous, but i got lucky with stoplights on the shuttle and actually made it to class right on time, to discover that my professor had in fact decided to give a quiz today. i suppose it was worth it, because i did well on the quiz, but i'm gonna have to figure out a way to never sleep through my alarm again.

i hate feeling disgusting during the day, and there's nothing like pretty much rolling out of bed and into class to help me feel disgusting during the day.

unleavened

i'm still not eating anything leavened. this is a big deal for me considering i already have some pretty insane food rules (no meats, eggs, cheese or milk). i haven't eaten anything but lettuce, carrots, apples and matzah for six days. oh, and potatoes. potatoes, too. there has been zero cereal, bread, chips, torillas, rice, crackers or even wonderful cakes and that makes me sad. crabohydrates are my friends. i have, however, lost a noticeable amount of weight, which i guess is to be expected when you are pretty much only eating water in solid form. this must be super healthy.

this afternoon, i was supposed to go with udeitha to finally get my nose pierced, but my family ended up coming down to LA and i went to the farmer's market and to lunch with them. we ate at el coyote, and even though i pretty much breathe burritos, i had to have a salad instead. so boring. also, my mom pointed out a cute guy sitting near us (who i couldn't really see, because i refuse to wear both my contacts and my glasses these days), and clay proceeded to stare at him for a way long time, and continue to loudly announce, "he looks like george lucas." i suppose there are worse things than being told you look like mr. lucas, but the point is that my brother hasn't yet grasped the concept of not gossiping about people in the most obvious ways humanly possible.

tonight, i'm heading down to irvine with meeko and weil to hang out with shiza for her birthday. last year, shiza got really sick and that kinda put a damper on the night, so hopefully everyone stays happy and hilarious.

run through it

last night, i was totally ready to take a shower and go to sleep, when andy knocked on the bathroom door and asked me if i wanted to go for a run. i didn't really, but i needed to, so i went anyway. andy had just spent some time watching "work out" on bravo, a reality show about jackie, a personal trainer who is in incredibly good shape and who likes forcing her clients to continue their workouts even after they've thrown up all over themselves. so, when we turned around and had to run back up to the apartment, and i decided to walk a little bit because i didn't want to throw up all over myself, andy kept telling me to "run through it" and i wanted to punch him in the face. (unfortunately, he's too tall for that to ever be physically possible.) after we'd gotten home, and had about fifteen glasses of water, we googled how long we'd run, and it was something like 4.5 miles, which impressed me. although i was a huge disappointment and had to walk for a little while, that's still longer than i've gone in a way long time. and i didn't die, which makes it even more exciting.

passover was amazing, as usual. udeitha came, and clay led the seder, and everyone was loud. udeitha and i drank about four glasses of wine, so after the seder, when everyone was comatose after eating pounds of matzah and charoset and bitter herbs, we sat at the table and laughed hysterically at all the stories clay told us. my family sent udeitha home with an entire box of matzah, some charoset (which is, for those non-jews, the most incredible mix of cinnamon, honey, pecans, dates, figs, raisins, and walnuts in the history of the universe), and matzah ball soup, and now she says that she's also not going to eat anything leavened for the rest of the eight days. this is forcing me to do that as well, because she's shamed me into it. it's nothing but apples and matzah for a week.

we also had a really interesting conversation with my great-aunts about who they've dated recently, and the importance of bikini waxes, which they apparently get all the time. my family is awesome.

i'm gonna sleep for a little while, considering i just got back from my 8 am class, and i'm tired, and i don't have any other real responsibilities (aside from reading a little bit) until 6 when i have to head out for the flying squirrel meeting.

april fool's day

so it's april fool's day, and the only trick i pulled was telling gilmore i slept with someone he would never have expected (which, fyi, is not true). i had to retract my statement almost immediately because the complete shock that registered on gilmore's face made me nervous. mason decided to use april 1st to make me think i'd destroyed our friendship. that was bitchy.

the last few days made up for my lack of activity on the days that i was sick. in the past two days, i've gone shopping with shiza in LA, hung out with what i will collectively call "winter break" (sans matt, though, which was sad), spent four hours watching disney movies with steve, and gone on an adventure with melissa and gilmore. i suppose that that's not so exciting to all the people who went to cabo, but whatever. it was good enough for me.

if i don't take clay to see "blades of glory" today, he will disown me. therefore, that's my immediate plan for today.

i also just had a dream, right before i woke up twenty minutes ago, about running into joan cusack and adam west in the gift store of a mountain lodge while trying to track down my aunt to give her her room key. i don't even want to attempt to peel away the layers on that one.

udeitha's coming home with me tomorrow night for our passover seder, and that will be way interesting. my mom's trying to make it more hardcore than it would have been because now we'll have a guest judging our jewishness. i think it will be good for udeitha to sit through an edited version of a real seder, because those can last for hours and be horribly tedious, and that would definitely not be fun for someone who doesn't have a brother or cousin around to be disruptive with. (yes, i just ended a sentence with a preposition. on purpose.) i'm a little disappointed because my little cousins won't be there, but i rest assured that it will still be total chaos, and that udeitha will get to see my "big, fat jewish seder" (which is the title of a straight-to-dvd movie i saw lying around in blockbuster, a movie whose subtitle was "when do we eat?", which is very fitting and classic).

now i have to shower and get ready to spend five hundred dollars on my brother at the movie theater, because he doesn't seem to realize that i'm not my father, and do not have a regular job, and can't afford to buy him an overpriced movie ticket, popcorn, icee and whatever the hell he wants me to get him to win his love. maybe i can convince my dad to go, and then he can buy all of that for me.