sleepy town

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

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

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

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

cute and fun

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

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

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

how cute and fun would that be?

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

happy birthday, bill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

easy access

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

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

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

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

anxiety attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

end of an era

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

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

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

costco boots = way warm

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

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

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

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

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