There are cacti outside my window.

I like the American southwest. It's so... red. You don't get much of that color in the Midwest.

Also, it's downright rapturous being outside of Michigan.

For now, I am sitting in the lobby waiting for my mother to feel better and my cousins to wake up and eat breakfast, at which point we will converge and surely good things will happen. Like seeing lizards.

The flights were pretty nice--I'm always terrified of flying, thinking morbid thoughts ("If the plane goes down, what will be my last words? This will be my date of death. Should I call all my friends?") until I'm actually in the air. The worst part (also the best) for me is the take-off, and the way that occasionally during the ascent, it feels like you're slowing down, like you're going to fall. After that I'm fine.

I didn't get a window seat on either flight (we switched planes in Minneapolis), but I did get to lean over and see the Grand Canyon from the air. Which I recommend doing, if you ever fly over Arizona.

The first thing I noticed when I got here is how cold it really is. It wasn't even 50 degrees! Next week it's supposed to be warmer, though.

ALSO: People of Arizona, you are single-handedly causing global warming! Please, stop buying SUV's. I know your terrain is a bit rocky, but honestly, how often are you really speeding through the desert soil, leaving clouds of red dust and rugged Bob Segar songs in your wake? Probably not as often as you think. For shame.

People here are friendly, though. Like Pete ("like 'pet' with an E! 'Peter' without the R!"), and the staff person outside, who was telling my mom all about his untimely divorce yesterday while we were waiting for my aunt to pick us up, and I was deep in a Chuck Klosterman book.

My like my aunt. She has an excellent accent (Australian), gave me chai tea to drink, and wants to take me to Trader Joe's. I met my younger three cousins yesterday (4, 7, 11). I like them, even though kids and I don't usually mix well--these ones are sweet. They say "mummy" and call my mother "Auntie Anne", pronouncing it "ahntie". The youngest, Sophia, kills me. While we were eating dinner, she left the table and came back with floss, whereupon she proceeded to floss her teeth.

My mom and her brother intermittently floated into conversation in German, for whatever reason, which was strange, but not as annoying as when I'm in Germany and no one speaks English at all.

I suppose I should study now, or do something similarly productive.

tomorrow, there be sun.

Oh man.

If you're ever going through your dresser drawers in your parents' home, because you haven't looked in them in more than a year and hey, your style might've changed, and you come across a shoe box full of old notes, it might not be best to sit down and read them.

I had about 20574684367 "crushes" before 9th grade. Which meant, I think, that I desperately wanted to fall in love and since it hadn't happened yet, it was liable to happen with just about anyone.

Also, I was completely insipid until about 11th grade (maybe 10th grade, if I'm being really nice). That may seem like a harsh self-criticism, but my complacent ignorance of everything but my own life... it's really boring. But maybe that's just 8th grade for you. I guess I have a more romantic notion of what constitutes a 14-year-old--like changing beliefs & their associated crises. But I guess that isn't something you tell another 14-year-old girl, at least not in this time period. A note is generally more "OH MY GOD I saw Billy walking out the door after practice and he sort of half-waved IS HE IN LOVE WITH ME?"

OK. I guess that's still the case. Only now it's more "You know that guy with the eyes and the hair in my bio class I told you about? Well, we discussed global warming before class today and then he recycled his water bottle. It was amazing."

AND, you do discuss changing beliefs & their associated crises with your friends... the crises you thought you'd have at 14.

...apparently at some point Convictions became more romantic to me than Romance. Last night I had a bad love-related dream and woke up feeling crappy. Poor me, blah blah, loneliness, blah. Then I turned on the news and learned how a couple Pakistani terrorists had killed Benazir Bhutto, and along with her hope for actual women's rights and an actual election. I remembered our Hindi TA, an expert on Pakistani issues, spending a whole session just talking to us about the state of that country. And I watched the already unstable nation give way to absolute chaos. And saw footage of people crying in the streets. And it all seemed a lot more sad and real to me than my bad dream.

Anyway, tomorrow I leave for Fonix. I am a little nervy, as I always am about airplanes. :/ I repeat the favorable statistics like mantras.

I'm bringing my laptop, so I'll write from the land of the Saguaro Cactus.

debilitating december.

The past week has been a headache.

Literally. I have had a headache every day for almost a week now. I think it's more like one long headache that intermittently strengthens and weakens. And it's of the tension variety--I know this because it feels like a band around my head. Also because a couple years ago, after having frequent headaches, I had half-convinced myself I had a brain tumor, and went so far as to go to the hospital and get a CT Scan. Just tension, as it turns out.

Normally I don't get them more than once or twice a month and it's fine, but I'm really getting tired of it now.

Maybe it's the switching from book to screen to book to different screen to book again. Or the switching from contacts to glasses to contacts to glasses. Or my diet of half celery, half sugar. Or my new sleeping schedule. Or my longing for my friends. Or the constant gray of my surroundings.

But hey! Friday I'm going to a place where there's sun and modest, spring-like temperatures, and I will spend less time looking at screens and more time meeting my family. And just a week after that, back in my city with tall buildings and public transportation and a healthy acceptance of and respect for tofu--it always comes back to my need for the Chicago.

I feel like I should say something about Christmas, but I'm just really not that excited about it. We already opened our gifts, and I'm not much of a Christian. And even if I was, Jesus was born in April or something.

...you try being cheerful with a vise on your head.

snow & specters

It's snowed so much that it's hard to distinguish the street outside.

Mmmmmnnn, a specter is haunting me tonight, one borne of fictional representations floating close to my nonfictional realities. I hate the television, and the feel-good movies from the late '90s that Christmastime spurs.

When when when will I be over the metaphorical hump? I feel like I sat down to rest near the top of a mountain, got frozen, and now I occasionally thaw long enough to trip on a branch and roll back down to the bottom. When I get near the top again, I sit on the same log and refreeze. And it's the bad side of the mountain. The one that gets all the rain; the windward side. That's another thing--all that wind.

That's officially the weirdest metaphor of the year, but it feels pretty accurate. It might make sense to the people that know me.

And now I have to know that I wrote about it. I blow too much thought on this crap.

I hope it snows so much the street IS indistinguishable. And people are stuck at home with their canned vegetables and each other. And the power goes out. And they light candles and talk.

Just a nice reason for a November swim!

This morning, I found a handy link on the NYTimes website, providing each candidate's opinion on global warming and what should be done about it. I will be voting for a Democrat, so here's (briefly) what I think of their stances--

Unimpressive: Joe Biden, Mike Gravel
Decent: Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama
Impressive: Dennis Kucinich, Bill Richardson

But that's just my opinion. I put a lot of weight on their actions in Congress, and, specifically, whether or not they voted for increased standards for gas emissions, since that's where they tended to diverge. Also, Kucinich & Richardson actually provided somewhat specific plans for improving the environmental situation--much more compelling.

The site is worth checking out.

I also came across an article about a tropical disease outbreak in Italy--a result of warming temperatures bringing disease-bearing mosquitoes north.

Just so you know, here are the Republican candidates still shooting the shit about there being no "scientific consensus" on global warming (i.e., global what?):

• Duncan Hunter
• His Highness Ron Paul
• Fred Thompson

I can't forget Tom Tancredo, who recently dropped out of the race (shame), and who thought it might make sense to blame global warming on immigration...."The fact is, Americans consume more energy than anyone else, so if a person moves here from another country, they automatically become bigger polluters."

Really, people, it's time to face the facts: global warming can be largely blamed on the immigrants running across the border and immediately falling into extravagant, ridiculously unsustainable lifestyles. Because that makes sense.

Also, it's OK if Americans live like that to begin with. Because we're American...

I'm thisclose to becoming Swedish.

claire's so-called life.

I gave my mom her Christmas present today--Season One of Arrested Development. She wants to laugh, she always talks about needing to laugh, so I figured that would work. Fortunately, it did. We watched something like 8 episodes of the show, and it got me thinking about how well-produced it is, how likable it is, how great the characterization is.

I spend a fair amount of time imagining a television show, roughly based on my life & circumstances. I feel like this is something everyone does, but I think I have that out-of-body perspective almost constantly.

Maybe it's because I write things on here, and while it isn't as though I get a million hits a day, I'm still fashioning my experiences and thoughts to be read by other people. Think of yourself as a writer, or a potential writer, with even an ounce of seriousness, and you've got a state of mind that's incredibly hard to shake. It's more of a pain than a benefit, I think. I frequently get lost in a conversation because I float away and watch the conversation. I sometimes have a terrible time speaking fluently because I stop thinking of my topic and start thinking of myself speaking. The self-consciousness is overwhelming sometimes.

That said, the hyper-observance has me forming my life into stories, my friends into characters (even my friends' lives into stories), everything manipulated to fit into a box, to place into a text. Conversations float immediately into words on a page, or re-spoken in a re-enactment.

It used to drive me crazy that no character you read resonates true like a real person, because in order to "characterize" someone, you package the person to be predictable. I don't think many real people are as predictable as characters necessarily are.

In creating a story, I think my ultimate goal would be to make it feel as close to reality as I can.

...I'm sort of digressing.

The point is, I've given a lot of thought to this show. The story of three college students at an intense university in the city, with a cheap apartment and widely varying backgrounds and families. I would manipulate us and sharpen us a lot, of course, for characters. T's character would be transfixed with language-learning (and maybe linguistics) and sort of all over the place with integrating different cultures into his life. He would be worldly. And also one of the few characters on TV who would be gay without it being the main purpose for his role (refreshing!) U. would be the econ major with a heart, confusingly enmeshed in a world of soulless I-bankers. (You would definitely be Sri Lankan, U., because I feel like there could be a running joke of people not knowing where that is.) My character would be a disheartened environmentalist with a lot of opposition and strange ideas. (Don't think I see myself as nearly as cool [or proactive] as the character would be.) I can see a lot of the supporting roles, too.

I think it would be cool to have environmentalism be the main attribute for the character I'd create because it'd put that focus right out in front of people. There've been enough doctors. I want to see a show with social justice as a main character's focus. I think that'd be seriously awesome. And I don't like using that term, so I don't use it lightly.

Also, I don't think there are a lot of shows with college settings. I saw one episode of Gilmore Girls last year, but I don't think that counts, really. And I also don't mean stupid, California college like the O.C. (if that ever got that far.) I mean nerdy, serious college. With ironic and funny jokes. Have there been any of these?

I've also decided that the opening credits to the show would go along with one of two songs:

1) Strange Apparition, by Beck, or
2) On the Table, by A.C. Newman

Maybe slightly edited to fit correctly. In my head I can picture it.

It'd be fun to try writing for my nonexistent series.

...in other news, I seem to have reverted to nocturnal functioning here in Michigan. And my brother is talking in his sleep.

The Story of Stuff

Watch this.

EPA suckage, Woody Allen ownage

One of the wisest things my roomies and I decided to do when we moved into an apartment was to declare it a television-free space. We have lots of nice things in our living room--a bookshelf, painted walls, a hookah--but one thing we do not have is a TV. The practical aspect of this is that it would be one more temptation in our already distracted lives, but the more important aspect is that the gray box is a drain on intellectual and visual aesthetics.

Being home, however, has accustomed me to the ugly gray box once again. The first day I could only watch about half an hour, and I think it was the news. Gradually I drifted to the National Geographic Channel and HBO, but now that my mind has been officially recolonized by the maggots that produce the crap that gets shown, I'm ashamed to say that it no longer turns my stomach to flip through channels.

If I sound so pretentious it's turning your stomach, just ask yourself: with your mental capabilities and potential, with all you don't know about, say, the nation of Uzbekistan (and I, for one, know nothing about it), with all there is to learn about exotic Indonesian fish, or the benefits of Vitamin B-12, or the guy you never talk to in physics..

...do you really want to spend your time watching 4 brainless plasticky pretty people fight over some other brainless plasticky pretty person? With 10 minutes of advertisements in between?

This is what I've learned from my past few days of painful, rapt television-watching:

1) Almost every show now is a competition to become a model;
2) FOX News has become somehow even more conspicuously reactionary, and yet they're still promoting that "fair and balanced" bull;
3) About half the commercials on TV operate on a self-ironic basis--make your audience laugh at you, and they'll think you're cute and buy the product;
4) HBO has the same movie playing on at least three channels at one time;
5) Politics is about 95% entertainment to the American public;
6) I prefer slow and painful torture to the sound of a laugh track.

You know, what really creeps me out is that people just sort of... go along with how stupid it all is. If they fed us a show of a group of people competing to date a wall, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of a guy bashing his head against a wall for half an hour, we'd watch it. If they fed us a show of the daily trials and tribulations even faced by a wall, we'd watch it.

WHY?

In happier news, I got Annie Hall from Netflix today, making just slightly more of a dent in my Woody Allen filmography self-education. I loved it. I watched it twice; first by myself, then with Kristin at my mother's apartment (after an attempt at tofu soup that called for about 5 times too many split peas, such that it became split pea stew with other vegetables and tofu in it).

I think Woody Allen might be my favorite director. Everyone, I feel, should have a favorite director--and I've adored all of his movies so far.

Here's what I've seen:

--Annie Hall
--Manhattan Murder Mystery
--Match Point
--Small Time Crooks
--Take the Money and Run

..OK, so it's a small fraction of what he's put out. But I'm getting there. Next in my queue is Scoop, and though it hasn't gotten the best reviews, I love Scarlett Johansson.

Also, Woody Allen's birthday is December 1, which means he joins Noam Chomsky on my list of very cool people that redeem December birthdays.

(In other news, the EPA sucks and is full of crooks, cronies, and just general shitheads. Or maybe just a few people that encompass all three important political qualities.)

-------

Last note: Today is December 19, which means I've fulfilled my goal of writing every day for a month. I think I might keep trying to write daily, though, because a) It gives me a tangible goal, b) I like it, and c) I don't have any other sort of journal to record my thoughts/misexperiences.

What existence do I have if I'm not documenting? At least for the indefinite-feeling time that I'm here, in the cold rurals of many-churched, mini-vanned boringland--near non-existence.

woo.

I'm in one of those moods, the sort of mood where you feel like you'd say exactly what you wish you could say if you were in the kind of situation involuntarily controlled by the emotions. I hope that made sense--it was poorly written.

Unfortunately I'm:
a) here
b) now

So maybe I'll just go to bed.

carpets.

Here's something to think about: the smell and look of a carpet store.

It makes me feel bad. Poignantly bad, in a way I wish I knew exactly how to explain.

Does that make sense to anyone?

Turn and face the strange.

I think one of the strangest things for me to face as I've gotten older... is how severe change can be.

When I was younger, and I used to envision myself a little bit older, I would always imagine the changes that would take place. At 10, imagining 16--at 16, imagining 20. And I've always been not just wrong on the surface, but deeply wrong on a fundamental level. For example, I might have seen the 16-year-old me dating somebody, experiencing romance for the first time, and starting to figure out what I want to do. Really, the 16-year-old me had experienced romance but not quite in the Suzie High School way I had expected, and the fallout from it had left me beginning to question my values, my beliefs, myself.

At 16 imagining 20, I saw myself filling with knowledge, coming home more complete, content to see myself here on the breaks because I had something to show for myself. Now, I can see that gaining more knowledge has had the impact of not just fulfilling me, but altering how I see the world, especially my old world, in an extraordinary way. I have a very difficult time relating to my parents. They scoff at my entertaining radical ideas about the environment and politics the same way I'm further and further distanced by their consumption and stagnancy. I end up feeling depressed and tongue-tied, and they feel lectured-at.

And yet I'm at conflict with myself, because they're the ones paying for this education that so baffles them. I would hate to leave my school, to settle for something less challenging. But what about my perspective? Is it right to use their money, when I don't know what I'm going to do with myself, when I want to be able to proudly and respectably defend my ideals? I know the debts will all be landing in my lap in a couple of years, but my consumption of their money, and then inwardly and sometimes outwardly critiquing their spending habits and lifestyles--it's not really fair, is it?

And here I thought I'd be worrying about literary analysis and finishing a paper at this age. I've changed monumentally.

I have more to say, but I'll save it for later.

brain transplant

My room is bedless, and my floor is littered with boxes filled with my mom's things. I've been sleeping on an air mattress (the same one I slept on for about two months last summer), next to a pile of too much bedding.

I feel very transplanted on this trip home.

My mom is in an apartment not far from here (even more in the middle of nowhere, somehow), and this house feels huge with just my Dad and me. With my stuff all gone or moved or overtaken by my parents, I can see how my parents are living without me. And with me, it's not much different.

I think I upset my mom. I've been very irritable lately, and she's been sensitive to it. "I just wish you were happier to be home," she said. But, though I love my parents (however little I understand them), it doesn't feel like home.

I've written about it but haven't really been able to convey how being home in Hastings makes me feel versus being home in Chicago. There is something so... so insidiously small about this small town.

I tend to be very sensitive to my environment. When I was in Germany, the language barrier left me feeling terribly lonely. When I was in Boulder, with the flatirons and cyclists all around, I felt reinvigorated. Even when I went to the Schaumburg IKEA, outside of Chicago, all the sprawling, flat chain stores on the way left me feeling slightly dead inside.

The feeling this place gives me, however, is unique; I lived here for 18 years, after all. What I notice, what makes me feel a deep kind of despair, is just how static this town is. The same people will be eating at the same restaurant; the same man will be walking the same dog around the same block; the same cashier checks me out at the same store. Maybe it all sounds comforting--the constance, the reliability--and I guess it all was up until the age of 12. But in truth, once I began to stretch beyond just wanting annual rituals, it started to starkly show how stifled and meaningless things are here. I'm so powerfully influenced by it that I start going into old habits; watching TV, getting too lazy to clean anything up.

I've grown accustomed to my life in Chicago. The people I hear walking and laughing below my apartment window at 1AM. Our neighbors' parties, which, due to our face-to-face living room windows, we can not only hear but watch, if we want. Foreign food (not to mention vegetarian food), foreign people, foreign language--all not far from our front door. Environmental awareness. Public transportation. Sirens. Bookstores everywhere; students reading Marx and Durkheim in coffee shops. That's comfort. I love the dynamics and busy feel of the city; I was meant to live there.

In Chicago, I feel like I can write substantial things, like I can make my way to other countries somehow, like life-changing things and people are within my reach. Here, I feel cut off from everything and even start wanting to question my capabilities. Here, I wonder how a person who leaves this town can decide to come back to it. I feel like I would do anything, anything, not to live here again.

I have a terrible headache and long for tea, but at this point it's too far away...

the big 2-0.

Yes. I am 20. Twenty. Twentytwentytwenty.

I am eating Teddy Grahams and pondering how such a seemingly innocuous age can feel like the existential equivalent of 50.

Oh man. I think it's my mindset as of late. Before, when I used to be depressed, it was because the world was stupid or I felt momentarily empty. Now, it's because I'm strapped under the massive burden of my future, and I'm all too likely to be a colossal failure. At least that's how I perceive it; and that's not really a terribly outlandish fear, as I dream big dreams.

The thing is, though, I'm a commitment-phobe. If I feel the least bit tied down to something, I struggle until I'm free and then run and attach myself to something new and exotic. It's a bad habit. I'm addicted to the novelty--the opportunity to keep the door open.

I've only encountered a few things in my life that I haven't grown fatigued with, or dropped for fear of them cutting off other options, and those have understandably had a considerable impact on me as a person (writing is one of them).

Throughout my life so far, this has been okay, because everyone has always said, "You have time!" And then I relax. And read a book. Or study. Or fall securely into something else for a while.

But now, now is the time when I'm actually supposed to be going, "Oh, yes, that. That's what I'd like to devote myself to fully." I have serious trouble doing that. I feel trapped far too easily. I look around and see the everything I can't simply devote myself to, and I panic. I study Hindi and I panic for not studying Russian, or something. I get embroiled in environmental problems, and I start worrying that maybe I abandoned literature too rapidly.

What happens to people like me? Those who really just can't get no satisfaction? If others exist, they certainly don't get their problems put into sitcoms or easily solved in movies. Until they have problems getting married.

Maybe the problem is just that I'm not a specializing kind of girl. I fear the work week.

I don't know. I just know that 20 throws these issues into sharp relief the way 19 never did. Teenagers are allowed to be confused. Once you hit the twenties, I think you're supposed to figure it out. Oops.

ANYWAY.

Happy birthday, me. I got to talk to some friends, which only makes me think more than I already do about how much I miss them. I LOVE you guys. More than cheesecake.

In more exciting news, I'm going to Phoenix in a couple weeks! Turns out my mother's promise to get us out of here was sincere. Her brother, his wife, and their six kids (count 'em--girl, girl, boy, boy, girl, girl) live out there. I WILL SEE A CACTUS. And, more importantly, the sun.

CHECK IT:

I Have an Announcement

I think I want a new birthday.

I'm sorry, December 14, but I think we're done. You've been a very bad birthday.

Let me count thy ways:

1. Lots of people get into snow/ice-related car accidents or die in other tragic ways in December. As a result, everybody feels emotionally heavy and no one wants to celebrate.
2. It is almost Christmas, so everyone's stressed and depressed. You might get all blahblahblah Christmas-Spirit on me, but just take a look around. Do you see a lot of jolly ho-ho-ho crap going on? NO.
3. It's "break", so I'm separated from my friends and back in my stifling small hometown. BUT, none of my friends that live here are back yet.
4. You're not even fluffy and snowy, most of the time.
5. People don't like that it's my birthday because they think I want stuff, and they're sick of buying stuff for Christmas. (I don't want stuff, incidentally.)

On top of this, I wasn't even supposed to be born on you. My mom was never very good about timely deliveries--my brother and sister were each two weeks late, while they insisted on pulling me out two to three weeks early. My REAL due date was December 29/30, which means I was waiting for the new year, when everyone's actually happy, so I could have an excuse to eventually have kickass New Years Eve/Celebrate My Birth parties. But no.

Next year, instead, how about June 1st? That's a great birthday! I would also accept anytime in March, July, August or October. Or even December 29 or 30, like we'd planned.

Think about it.

Now if you'll excuse me, there's this show at 10 on the National Geographic channel I want to see. About people crossing to the Americas in boats, instead of crossing the Bering Strait on foot.

...what about the boat times?

my country 'tis of crap

Some things that bothered me about today:

1) This morning, at the train station, a woman came around bedecked in purple, ringing a little bell and collecting money for Alzheimer's. She was friendly and a little persistent, as anyone fulfilling that role is expected to be. She walked around the line of people waiting to get their tickets checked and shook her bell. "I can wait here all day," she joked and smiled at the group of women ignoring her. "No--I'm just kidding," she said. "Have a nice holiday!" And she walked off. One of the women, seeing the Alzheimer's lady leave, leaned toward someone and said conspiratorially, "And I can ignore you all day." Then she laughed. She was wearing silver earrings and stupid eyeshadow, and she was carrying a shopping bag from Neiman Marcus (or some other high-end fashion store) with little Christmas decorations on it.

Did she honestly think she could spend her money in a better way? I loathed this woman. I hope her stupid Neiman Marcus bag and the stupid pink cashmere sweater I'm sure is inside burst into flames.

2) Whenever I hear news coverage of the writers' strike in Hollywood, it's always told from a perspective sympathetic to the corporations.

Example:

Cindy: "Jim, what will be the effects of the ongoing nature of this strike?"
Jim: "Well, Cindy, if the writers continue to strike, many of the shows you know and love will probably not be airing for a while."
Cindy: "What should viewers be preparing for?"
Jim: "Reruns, Cindy. Prepare for reruns."
Cindy: "And how will the corporations be affected?"
Jim: "Well, ___ should be OK because it has 'American Idol'. But ___ and ___... well, we just don't know."
Cindy: "Tragic, Jim."

Since when is mindless entertainment more important paying people? And since when do massive, controlling, multi-billion dollar corporations--corporations that basically have all-out monopolies on communication--garner the public sympathy? You don't really hear an opinion like, "Gee, maybe they should pay writers, who are basically the brains behind each show, enough money to get out of the apartment with the 3-foot-wide hole in the ceiling, even if we have to remove one olive from the salad of each CEO during the meetings, and downgrade from Evian to tap."

Maybe we should turn to Rupert Murd--I mean, FOX News--for the latest in manipula--I mean facts. Obviously, writers' creativity is just there for our consumption. IT IS A PUBLIC GOOD. Besides, I'm sure Bill O'Reilly says it's immoral to separate families from their televisions. I mean, can we really endure--gasp--reruns?!

The real crisis we should be considering is: If we stop watching television, who will pay for his crappy patriotic ties?

(Oh, and there's that global warming problem going on too, but who cares? Carbon emissions aren't entertaining!)

---

America. Ew.

(If you haven't seen this: Daily Show writers on strike.)

poking poultry and time travel

I've been feeling particularly happy the last couple days. Whether it's due to the sudden command over all my time, the lovely communal dinners I've helped prepare and eat, or simply my own determination to be lighthearted, I'm not sure.

It might have also been my admittance to both my parents and myself that I want to write, and whatever else I have to do will always feel secondary to that drive. I know that I need to make it a central part of life, and I've spent more time recently deciding how to make it a commitment on top of all my schoolwork. (Here my train of thought begins to veer off into The-Education-System-Is-A-Mess territory, which is another story altogether. Watch this anyway.)

I spent last night drinking various white drinks (wine, Russians) and preparing chicken for the host of the dinner party I was attending. My job involved using an incredibly sharp and expensive knife to cut the meat from the bone (carefully, to keep it in one piece). After this, I rolled the meat around some sort of stuffing made principally of mushrooms, stuck through pins to keep the whole affair together, and then tied it up with string. I couldn't eat the end result, but creating it was an interesting experience nevertheless.

This morning I had yet another eye appointment, and I finally got my new contacts and a new solution to go with it (mystery, by the way, partly solved: my old solution got RECALLED in May, and here I'd been using it for months.) I only get to wear them four days a week, but it's still much better than wearing glasses all the time.

After my appointment, on a spontaneous whim, I decided to get my hair cut. It's a short layered deal, with legitimate bangs, and it intermittently makes me feel like a 5-year-old tomboy, or like a 1920's flapper girl in need of a long, stylish cigarette--both of which are more fun than my dull, longish hair with halfhearted waves.

What really comes back in full force when I look in the mirror is a picture taken of me when I must have been either four or five. In it, I am wearing a dress with apples on it and a pilgrim-style collar, and a ridiculously serious expression. I have roughly the same hairstyle.

I feel funky and weird. Which is mostly how I felt as a little kid, too.

I ran quickly on the way down to the basement laundry room tonight, in an effort to keep from getting really wet on the soggy wooden stairs. The result of this was a fall that would have been more the mildly entertaining to've seen, in which I actually did the splits on one of the platforms (a flexibility feat I've never been able to pull off.) These were my feelings, in succession:

1. Embarrassed, because I'd fallen.
2. Pained, due to the fall.
3. Impressed, that I'd done the splits for the first time.

You know what I thought?

That's like a metaphor for life, man.

and the yogic energy permeates...

Yesterday my dad took a nap in my room, and mentioned liking the book beside my bed.

This morning he went back into my room to get a few things, and as I passed him on the way out, he stopped me, and, looking terribly earnest, implored: "Do you think... over break... you could bring home the little book on your bedside table? I'd really like to look at it more."

The book in question?

"Self-meditation: 3,299 mantras, tips, quotes, and koans for peace and serenity"

Some of the wisdom imparted from this book:

--"If it is false, harmful, or cruel, do not say it."
--"Bow humbly to the earth, bending over to touch your toes."
--"Bring your full self to everything to observe and feel."

I have tried to give my room a zen feeling--painting it green, accentuating with earthy colors and candles--and this book, given to me by a friend, tops it off. The sheer volume of wisdom is overwhelming, so I tend to just read one or two "tips" before I go to sleep.

That my dad wants the book is touching in a way I'm not sure I can explain. Maybe it's that I can see him trying to stretch himself beyond himself. Seeing him less vigorously defend his beliefs, seeing them begin to change. Thinking back to even five years ago, it's hard to imagine him do anything but roll his eyes at the idea of meditation and spirituality. But maybe it's me; maybe I just haven't looked hard enough.

People are sometimes so consistent that you forget they aren't automatic.

That's a bad thing to forget.

a tasteless pizza, a tasteful soup

My parents are down here today; my mom has an appointment tomorrow.

They took me out for lunch at the Med, which is where we always eat. As we were waiting for our food, the conversation turned to My Life, which frequently turns into me semi-patiently attempting to explain my mind, and the world as they don't see it. It feels like the mental equivalent of swimming upstream.

Dad: "So, what classes are you taking next quarter?"
Me: "Second quarter of IS, second quarter of Hindi, Human Heredity, and.. um.. well.. an anthropology course. About............ the Incas."
Mom: "JUST DON'T major in Anthropology" (in long, nasally-whine)

She sounds so horrified here. Like I've just announced I plan to major in Common Carpet Patterns, or Really Tasty Cake.

Me: "I don't understand. When you knew I was majoring in just International Studies, it was OK. Now I would be majoring in both International Studies and Anthropology, and that's not OK?"
Mom: "My cubicle-mate Cindy's daughter--" (tearful story about how Anthropology BA led to life in box)

My dad is fairly inoffensive, until my mom sniffs out his moderate disapproval and urges him to share his thoughts. Which are, of course, inevitably: "I just don't understand what you plan to do with those degrees. Maybe it's old-fashioned. It used to be that people chose what they wanted to do, and got a degree in that field."

Me: "I want to write." Irritably. Then, actually sounding poignant: "That's all I want to do."

I said I was confused. I tried to explain, probably in vain, that I can't see myself doing one thing and being happy. I said I needed time to figure it out for myself. I think I ended up sounding all existential, but inarticulately existential. Which is a pretty neutered state to be in, when you're trying to bare your soul to your parents. I've never been able to do that properly.

I understand their worries. A lot of people here don't have a situation in which their education is their parents' biggest and riskiest investment. A lot of people here have wealthy parents who can afford to let their kids make their own mistakes and forge their own paths.

That said, probably many more people deal with parents outright refusing them certain decisions, and most, I think, would not send their kids to this school by sacrificing many of their own luxuries. My parents are paying for my education now, and I'm choosing my major. This is scary for everyone.

And so I ate my now-partially-tasteless four-cheese pizza, and wished for half an hour earlier when my biggest concern was finishing "The Golden Compass" on time to see the movie. I would say something about how this is adulthood, but I'm not certain it is. I'm pretty certain it's more of a half-assed welcome party to your twenties.

To completely losing interest in what you thought interested you!
To lying despairingly in your bed while listening to the jubilant drunks next door!
To the bloated, uncontrollable silence in between you and what you want!

I raise a toast. It certainly ain't a movie.

I may have been buried under the weight of my generous patrons' anxiety all afternoon, but a couple of things brought me back down to equilibrium.

Firstly, I made a hearty tomato soup which was enjoyed by my parents and roommate. I did something practical--to feed--and I did something creative--to cook. A beautiful practice. A lovely marriage of two qualities that deserve to go together.

Secondly, but not last of which, I signed up for a yoga class for next quarter. At least three mornings a week will find me focusing on breathing. Three blessed hours in which my single duty is to stretch and breathe. My late-adolescenthood could definitely benefit from this procedure.

"Where's my shoe...?"

We went to the party last night. It was impressively stocked with people, for an apartment party, and with a school this size, it's very easy to see people who are familiar but in a I-see-you-in-Cobb-around-1:30-every-day kind of way. There were also the kind of the people that you met once, but don't know if you're both going to pretend you didn't. Honestly, parties can be very socially complicated.

My problem is this: I frequently meet people, but don't really get into in-depth conversations with them. There are lots of ways this could happen-- usually I'm with a friend, and briefly introduced on the side. This is a decent way to meet people in quantity, but it also means most of them almost immediately forget you. Which inhibits me (although it probably shouldn't) from approaching one of these people and starting a, "Hi, how are you, how's your life..?" Especially when these people appear deeply engrossed in conversation, which, despite movie depictions, is how most people at parties are. It's difficult to approach someone. It's nearly impossible to approach a group of people.

That said, last night was not as awkward as it could have been. People were very drunk, and I saw enough people I know/met on my own; approaching in this context is easy. I also was approached by two guys with a third in tow: an Italian guy whom it was apparently important that I meet. Except that Guy #1 spilled wine all over the floor, and seemed highly perturbed ("What should I do?"), Guy #2 left, and as I was explaining to Guy #1 how to Clean Up A Spill, Italian Guy took the opportunity to flee. I then had a very slow conversation with a very drunk Guy #1.

I talked to a few other people, and then decided to leave.

Except that I could only find one of my shoes in the shoe pile. I spent about 15 minutes looking through an array of soggy boots and tennis shoes, looking in closets and under the couches. Still, one shoe.

Luckily I knew one of the hosts, who traded me my one shoe for a pair of decidedly rather sexy boots. If there's one thing I don't have, it's a pair of sexy shoes. Cute, yes. Sexy, no. So it was a nice walk home, and I don't think I could have helped strutting a bit to the tap-tapping on the concrete. If I don't own a pair, I might as well enjoy my borrowed ones.

I was reading in bed a while later when I saw my door slowly open and U. stick her face in. "I found your shoe! But I forgot them..."

Apparently, Random Party Person had "borrowed" my shoe--one shoe--to go outside and smoke. After coming back in, she'd forgotten to take it off. U. noticed this as she was knelt
down, putting on her own shoes, and she saw one of mine walk by. There was a lot of shoe-borrowing going on last night.

Yeah, that was the most exciting thing that happened.

"Words can't bring me down."

--Christina Aguilera.

Errm. Do you remember that persistent, intense sleepover debate that posed the timeless question: "Which is better: Britney Spears, or Christina Aguilera?" (Prerequisite: you're a girl between the ages of 18-22, and your preteen life was public-schoolishly insipid.)

I always said Christina Aguilera, and throughout the years have stuck to my decision. She can sing. Britney can't. But I swear, everyone around me still said Britney.

Did you not think I was this superficial? There was supposed to be going-out tonight, but U. is apparently engaged in a very intense phone conversation and I'm one vodka-tonic under and rediscovering "Xtina" on youtube. I can't even pretend to be tipsy, so I'll just come out and admit it: Some of her songs please my pop sensibility.

I said some. Others, admittedly, fall flat.

I do like the "Ain't No Other Man" video. It's stylin'.

I could make a disclaimer about the quality of lyrics in comparison to, say, Fiona Apple's, but I won't. Because obviously. Except I sort of just did.

Anyway. Just gotta throw in my pop culture opinion, to keep all those E! readers coming back.

In other news, A. created a blog and gave me permission to link her. Read it.

The Unanswerable Phone

I don't much like this Henry Crown.

Normally I work at the Ratner gym, which is all new-fangled and makes me feel disproportionately rich when I work out there, because every treadmill has a nice flat-screen TV, and the whole facility is just new and shiny.

But today I was recruited to work at ye olde Henry Crown, the U of C's first gym, which was built.. well, I don't know when it was built. But I just researched it on the athletic facilities page and got this--"Henry Crown looks like most of campus -- a castle. However, it also smells like a castle and is about as old as a castle." So there you go. (Also, the caption for the picture is "Ye Olde Field House", which just shows how apt my powers as a descriptive journalist are.)

Now then. HC does not exude an aura of fun and excitement. It has concrete floors and white-painted brick walls and exposed piping and red iron fence-like barriors everywhere. A white-painted metal staircase leads around one side of the building, with an iron yellow-painted railing. A built-in iron ladder crawls up one wall, starting spontaneously in the middle of it, apparently leading up to the ceiling.

Everything is painted white, red, or yellow (or is naturally gray); everything is made out of iron or something harder. Loud, indistinct buzzing, like two air conditioners and three fans at once, is surrounding me on all sides. Things are dusty; there is a rip in my chair.

Henry Crown may sound like a castle, Mysterious Euphemism Writer, but on the inside it looks and sounds like a sewage treatment facility. Which can be creepy, when you walk in and the women in charge says "That's there," and promptly leaves me all alone.

Many women want to be celebrities. Or millionaire socialites, or--if you're respectable--Mother Theresa or Jane Addams. I am the gatekeeper of the sewage facility.

Finally, there is a phone that keeps going off. I feel obligated to answer it, but it's located inside an utterly caged-off room that is locked from every side (and I'm in the closed-off area, myself.) I can see the phone ring behind its red iron jail cell--for what feels like forever. Long, guilt-inspiring minutes, and the phone just three feet away is silent. What is it? Fire? Murder..? (That wouldn't be surprising, around here.) Cat in a tree? Did someone drown in the Ratner pool? What sort of emergency warrants 7AM incessant calls to an unavailable, or invisible, or nonexistent person caged up in a gym?

This place is weird.

books and Buddha

100 Best Novels Ever Written, according to a big-shot publishing company, and submissions by readers.

I have read 12 of the board's choices, and 14 of the reader's choices. I can't believe they chose "We the Living" as #8--I thought only I have ever read that book. It has to be one of Rand's least read. The Objectivist/Scientology theme of the reader's top ten makes me a little shaky on their value as critics.

It surprises me that almost all of my favorite books are in the list. It also surprises me that "Atonement" is not on the list.

Some books on the list I want to read:

• Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner
• To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
  
• Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
• The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
  

This place is a mess, and ridiculously hot (the heat is back, incidentally). A. is asleep in an afghan by the window. We ate lunch at this new Buddha-themed restaurant on 53rd St. called CHANT, and I had an inexpensive pumpkin-coconut soup. It was pretty heavy on the lemon flavor, or the salt, or something that felt overbearing, but was OK all the same. It's all about ambiance, and we rubbed our little bronze Buddha's belly and wondered why the Buddha is always so obese.

We might go ice skating later. Ah, winter.

paleowhatever

I don't like nights like this.

I have the kind of Lonely that's much worse than being literally alone. I wish I could do the whole "No one knows what I feel!" thing, but I'm sure plenty of people know how I feel. I could blame it on my distant or recent past, but that wouldn't be very nice as my collective Pasts weren't supposed to work out.

I've been reading a lot of paleoanthropology/evolutionary stuff as of late, and when you do that, you start to think of everything as pretty deromanticized and scientific. Like sex, which is just the propagation of the species (even the fun in sex has its evolutionary reasons). Kissing is just our courtship behavioral ritual. Jealousy is perceiving and reacting toward a threat of your mate being taken away (whom you need to propagate your species, obviously).

Still doesn't stop the Lonely. I blame that on culture.

Left of somewhere

I love Noam Chomsky.

Because I was done with exams, and because Netflix offers a certain amount of free movie viewing online, and because no other movie looked particularly engaging, I found myself eating spinach tortellini and watching a documentary about Mr. Chomsky--someone I knew nothing about except a) linguistics, linguistics, linguistics! and b) an affiliation with the University of Chicago. The second appears illusory, as I've found almost no Google evidence supporting this idea, and Wikipedia makes no mention of a connection (except we've given him an honorary degree, along with every other academic institution ever).

The man is brilliant. You can tell he's brilliant, because when he talks, it all comes out naturally, apparently unrehearsed, and without the force of someone fearful of challenge. At the same time, Noam is wonderfully accessible. He refuses to fill his speech with large, obscure words simply because he knows them. He speaks intelligently but normally, to an intellectual audience with an interest in useful, clear information.

Other things charmed me as well. For example, in his pullover grey sweater, clunky outdated glasses, soft voice and sunspots, he looks like he might be your grandfather. Yet, along with this, he delivers scathing (softly scathing) criticism of American foreign policy--not the kind with simplistic platitudes and unnecessary attacks that make you cringe, but rather the sort meticulously researched, well-analyzed and fair-minded. And he isn't just a figurehead of the left--his anarchist ideals alienate him from many who simply wave the party flag, and he's just as willing to honestly analyze leftist problems and faults (NPR, for example, a network he doesn't appear to disrespect but says has even more strict leftist adherence than the ideological strictness of some of its conservative counterparts).

What I especially liked, though, was his willingness to deconstruct the philosophies of right and left a little bit, rather than just blast one side from behind the barricade of the other.

For a while--mainly since my Soc class last year, which inundated me with texts about Society and Culture--I've been trying to look at politics in more of an enduring social light. It's strange, because both the "right" and the "left" seem to have emerged recently, whereas in the past there was usually a blend of the two leading social thought. Early societies, for example, definitely appear to have been more about the care of the social than the freedom of the individual (I'm talking very early, by the way). But few people really think of liberalism as anything traditional.

Noam pointed out that the push in society for privatizing things like social security and education is essentially saying that you're not supposed to care about other individuals and their welfare--only about how many pairs of shoes you have, whether you're comfortable and happy. Social security might be a strain on the government, but it reinforces the idea within our society that it matters whether or not the old lady down the street is fed.

Without the government--essentially the alter which society prays at, with religion playing so marginal a role--establishing the morality and sacredness of social care, we're looking toward a very empty, frightening, apathetic and individualistic society. Personal responsibility, yes. Of that I am a big advocate. But social responsibility, too.

According to Wikipedia, Chomsky's birthday is December 7. I feel so happy to find a fellow December baby--left alone all this time with Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and Aaron Carter, I thought I might have been doomed to the least intellectual birth month ever.

Happy Birthday, Noam.

this is what I mean about the whale:

Oh bio, oh my-o

For whatever reason, I'm just ridiculously tired. Tomorrow night I'll be done with exams--I have Bio in the morning, and then I have to finish my last Environmental Studies assignment. Hindi and International Studies are now neatly packed away for the next month.

Here are some things I learned in Biological Issues and Paradigms this quarter:

• I like biology
• We eat the whole cake because we're evolutionarily programmed to eat the whole cake. If Homo erectus successfully tracked down a cake, you'd better believe he'd eat the whole effing thing. Who knows when you'll get your next cake?
• Boat-tailed grackles are becoming less and less efficient fliers because the ladies think the less efficient tails are hot
• Now = fingernail. Then = claw
  
• Ruminants have a farm of protozoans and bacteria to digest their food for them--talk about badass
• The original food pyramid was manufactured by a bunch of ignorant bureaucrats for a bunch of ignorant U.S. citizens
  
• Ancient whales were really seriously hardcore
• Charles Darwin was a college dropout who was put aboard the U.S.S. Beagle to hang out and drink with the captain
  

Yep, I think that's about all I need to know for tomorrow.

freezing bedroom, warmer heart, old words

My apartment has a heat problem. Which is to say, we do not control the heat, and it's a problem. When you're walking around in a bra and boxers and fanning yourself with your homework in mid-November, something is wrong with your heat. My room is the hottest. To deal with it, I have taken to opening the window and putting the fan in front of it, directing the freezing night air straight onto my bed and legitimizing my comforter.

Except apparently they've recently realized that 90 degrees might be overdoing it and scaled it back to what feels like a comfortably goosebumpy 52. I took a nap earlier and left the window open and fan on--now my bedroom is an icebox. I write from inside my hoodie, from inside my nest of blankets.

I don't want to write much tonight because a) I have my IS final tomorrow morning, b) I'm on the last chapter of The Origin of Humankind and let me tell you, things are really getting intense, and c) I want to participate in that archaic custom of Sleep.

I little while ago, for the first time, I went back and looked at all the "drafts" in my blog--the stuff I wrote and didn't "publish" for whatever reason (discomfort, unfinished). It's always strange and comforting to read something I don't remember writing, because I tend to react in a "I so know what you mean" sort of way, like I just met someone who really gets me. Which is really what a person should be to herself, I think.

Here's one.

December 6, 2006--

I, like a fool, like a child, never give up hope.

3AM and what helps when I feel like I will certainly throw up is a cold cloth over my heart, to slow it down. Really, that should be indication enough. Is it the sickness that comes first, or the tailspin of thoughts down into some truly ridiculous psychological territory? Each encourages the other, and I get into this unhealthy mindstate, sort of everything pent-up being allowed to play and multiply, until I'd do almost anything to get myself to relax. I understand the mind-body connection, Love in the Time of Cholera, those desperate early morning actions that completely betray every rational thought a person has. Phone calls, plane tickets, a climactic obliteration of pride and self-respect, a surge of primal need.

It isn't sane... everything you can say adds up to nothing. What if it happened, if you got the person's attention? Then what? Words can't possibly explain it. It's all you, a feeling dancing in your mind, a fantastic vent of frustration and anger and longing all sort of culminating in something incommunicable. Because it is fundamentally not grounded in reality. It's psychological, subconscious vomit rising to the surface. It's essential humanness. Centered, admittedly, around someone important--but no one worthy of such intense emotion should have allowed you to get so far gone.

I'd like to believe I'm not alone in this, that everyone descends into a melodramatic puddle once in a while, reaches into their past and grasps for what has most strongly represented life. I guess it's a nervous breakdown. Except I'm publishing it rather obscenely, maybe for the sake of catharsis.

Almost December 6, 2007--

To me, one year ago:

It's okay. You're here, you're sane, you're faulted, you're loved.

Before the year is out, you'll better understand a few things about love:

1) You know better than anyone what you feel. Period.
2) A truly complicated relationship is no less complicated when the apparent tumor is removed. That only means you have to look dysfunction in the face.
3) In a relationship, more important than how deeply you care for someone is whether you're cared deeply for.

And, on the other side:

4) It is terrifying to be held responsible for someone else's emotions. Especially when you care for that person.

I would tell you to proceed with caution, but you will do no such thing. I would tell you to wear sunscreen, but you didn't do that either.

When you get to this date, you won't be resolved. You won't be satisfied.

You will be embraced. You will be progressive.

You will be okay. You have your friends.

You have me.

Fire and Ice

It started snowing early this afternoon. Now, the world outside is turning to ice. Everything is crispy and shiny with the orange of street lights. It makes me remember why I like winter. And wonder whether or not I was born on a day covered in snow, or ice, or whether it was just gray and dark.

Yesterday I watched "Match Point", and this is what I liked about it:

1) The character that is supposed to be sexy and smoldering and detached and exciting eventually descends into someone needy and whiny and inconvenient (understandably so). Anyway, this displays that sexy detached excitement is a pretense and that underneath it, everyone is really someone who pays electricity bills and wants to sleep soundly. Treat lightly the first impression.
2) The climactic moment that makes you go "Ooooh" gives you completely the wrong idea before the end.
3) It leaves you unsatisfied in exactly the way you're supposed to be unsatisfied--this is how it makes its point.

welcome, december

...you're beautiful in your way.

The past few days have been really nice. They have involved:

• Cookies
  
• Quiet music while lying on the floor with two other people, looking into the Christmas lights hanging over the window
• Weather finally supporting the use of long underwear
• Sleeping in
• Talk about boys
  
• Painful nostalgia tempered by soft blankets, hot tea, and a rational mind
• Tofu soup (upon which I may be growing increasingly dependent) at the Snail with 3 wonderful girls
  
• Third World Cafe
• An amusing conversation about Mormonism
  
• Dances--most notably Kate Bush's perturbed-fairy dance in the "Wuthering Heights" music video

And a reunion with a song that takes me back to 13 and daydreams of pagan Celts dancing around a bonfire. I speak, obviously, of this song.

I think, if I believed in reincarnation, I would suspect that I existed about 2,000 years ago, had red hair, and spent a decent amount of time walking along the rocks that border Ireland's Atlantic coast.

Winter Break Reading List*

1. The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman (so U. still loves me, and so I can see the movie)
2. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card (so I can communicate with half the people at UChicago)
3. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike (so A. can finally talk about it with someone)
4. something by Nietzsche

Maybe:

1. Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond (Dad X-mas gift?)
2. something by Jane Austen or otherwise Victorian, romantic, and unrealistic

Currently reading:

• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Origin of Humankind, by Richard Leakey (which is really not as weighty as it sounds)
  

*subject to additions and alterations

I might major in anthropology. Surprise, life!

feels like

The biggest accomplishment in life
Is how far one person moves
From the first one
Loved.

I want your... A's.

Thank you, George Michael... for getting me through the academic pain that is exam week(s).

Today was good. Not amazing, but good. Steady. And with brownies.

thanks, connie

1. ONE OF YOUR SCARS, HOW DID YOU GET IT?
Near the top of my right (from my line of view) thigh--I slid down a giant rock in our backyard when I was 4ish. I don't remember why there was a giant rock in our backyard, but it was taken away soon afterward.

2. WHAT IS ON THE WALLS IN YOUR ROOM?
Depressingly, nothing. Most of my posters are ruined from the move and I haven't gotten new ones yet slash plastered it with pictures.

3. WHAT DOES YOUR CELL PHONE LOOK LIKE?
One of those Cingular "go" phones. It's supposed to be temporary but I've had it for like 6 months.

4. WHAT MUSIC DO YOU LISTEN TO?
Lately angry girl music, emotional girl music, Okkervil River and Beck

5. DO YOU KNOW WHAT TIME YOU WERE BORN?
I think it was 4:41PM. It was 4:something PM.

6. WHAT DO YOU WANT MORE THAN ANYTHING RIGHT NOW?
To know what I want.

7. WHO DO YOU MISS?
My sister, and a guy I can never have a functional relationship with.

10. WHAT'S YOUR MIDDLE NAME?
Claire

11. THE BEST TV SHOW EVER CREATED:
I'm pretty sure I haven't seen it yet. But if you ask Audrey, Arrested Development.

12. THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO?
The cashier at CVS.

13. DO YOU GET SCARED IN THE DARK?
Sometimes. If I think about ghosts.

14. THE LAST PERSON TO MAKE YOU CRY?
Let's not go there.

15. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE COLOGNE / PERFUME?
Whatever I use. "Life" or something.

16. WHAT KIND OF HAIR/EYE COLOR DO YOU LIKE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
The hair should be kind of unkempt somehow. All eyes are nice, really.

17. WOULD YOU RATHER BE SMART OR FUNNY?
Uhh. Smart? I don't know. How smart or how funny? You can be smart and dramatic, but funny alone is sort of a sad catch. In fact, you sort of have to be smart to be funny.

18. COFFEE OR ENERGY DRINKS?
Latte.

19. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPING?
Sometimes they'll do tomatoes, which can be good. Or onions.

20. IF YOU CAN EAT ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Maybe cold rice pudding.

21. WHO IS THE LAST PERSON YOU MADE MAD?
Um. I don't know. I think I marginally irritated my mom recently.

22. DO YOU SPEAK ANOTHER LANGUAGE?
I try to speak Hindi sometimes. I played with Chinese for a while, was more successful I think.

23. WHAT WAS THE FIRST GIFT SOMEONE EVER GAVE YOU?
My bunny blankey, which was heinously thieved by the bastards at Learn 'N' Play. I'm still inconsolable.

24. DO YOU LIKE SOMEONE?
Yeah, in vein. I also love someone, but that doesn't work either. I fail.

25. ARE YOU DOUBLE JOINTED?
No.

26. FAVORITE CLOTHING BRAND?
The kind without the logo on the clothing.

27. WHAT'S YOUR DREAM CAR?
Prius.

28. WHAT COLOR IS IT?
Um. Silver.

29. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE KIND OF EXERCISE?
Dancing. Bad, bad dancing.

30. WOULD YOU FALL IN LOVE KNOWING THAT THE PERSON IS LEAVING?
No, I would stop myself. wtf? Come on, survey. Clearly rational circumstances have little to do with my feelings.

31. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO TELL SOMEONE HOW MUCH THEY MEAN TO YOU?
Love them unconditionally.

32. SAY A NUMBER FROM ONE TO A HUNDRED:
49.

33. BLONDES OR BRUNETTES?
Redheads.

34. WHAT IS THE ONE NUMBER YOU CALL OFTEN?
Upekha, maybe. Mostly text, though, because we already live together. And I hate phones.

35. WHAT ANNOYS YOU MOST?
My recent perpetual self-consciousness.

35. HAVE YOU BEEN OUT OF THE U.S.?
Germany. And Canada. And Amsterdam. And Austria, but barely.

36. YOUR WEAKNESSES?
Attractive and intimidating males.

37. TATER TOTS OR FRIES?
Fries. This is stupid.

38. FIRST JOB?
Hastings Public Library, as a page. And I'm still shelving now. Eeugh.

39. EVER PRANK CALLED SOMEONE?
I think I have, in the 14-ish age range at a sleepover, but I doubt I was successful. I've been prank-called, that was more interesting.

40. WHAT WERE YOU DOING BEFORE YOU FILLED OUT THIS?
Practicing Hindi at no one. Then listening to music.

41. IF YOU COULD GET PLASTIC SURGERY WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Um, no. Not ever.

42. WHY DID YOU FILL OUT THIS SURVEY?
I have to fulfill my goal and post something but I have nothing to say right now.

43. WHAT DO YOU GET COMPLIMENTED ABOUT MOST?
People like when I wear my hair down.

44. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF ALCOHOL BECAME ILLEGAL?
Continue drinking it when available. I mean, it's already illegal for me.

45. WHAT DO YOU WANT FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY?
For you to call. That's it.

46. HOW MANY KIDS DO YOU WANT?
Maybe two or three. Probably more like two.

47. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Not really, but my dad likes to think a great-grandmother Emma and a different one Clara. Really though, a girl in my sister's second-grade class.

48. DO YOU WISH ON STARS?
I don't think so, no. I wish on other stuff sometimes.

49. WHICH FINGER[S] IS YOUR FAVORITE?
Ring, I think. It's pretty & unassuming.

50. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY?
A couple weeks ago-ish. Wasn't a really good cry, though.

51. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
Yes, usually.

52. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Tofu.

53. ANY BAD HABITS?
Generally, not caring enough to devote my full attention to things.

54. WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING CD ON THE SHELF?
I have some of the earliest NOW's--before there were like 357. Also a Smash Mouth CD. It's at home, though.

55. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Not lately.

56. HAVE YOU EVER TOLD A SECRET YOU SWORE NOT TO TELL?
Of course.

57. DO LOOKS MATTER?
In terms of attraction, yeah. If there's no chemistry, there's little to be done.

58. HOW DO YOU RELEASE YOUR ANGER?
I grind my teeth. A lot. In my sleep, too. And I get a lot of tension headaches. Not much of a release, if you ask me. Which you did, kind of.

59. WHERE IS YOUR SECOND HOME?
In Michigan.

60. DO YOU TRUST OTHERS EASILY?
No, not really at all.

61. WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE TOY AS A CHILD?
I had this lamb. Also one of those glow worm things, I think.

62. HOW MANY NUMBERS ARE IN YOUR CELL PHONE?
I don't know--25?

63. DO YOU USE SARCASM?
OK, seriously.

64. DO YOU KNOW ANYONE FAMOUS?
Mmm, no. I know people who know famous people, though.

65. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN A MOSH PIT?
Yes, at the Flogging Molly show. It was involuntary and painful and sort of terrifying.

66. WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A GUY/GIRL?
Untapped depth.

67. WHAT ARE YOUR NICKNAMES?
Em, Emmy, Emchen, Emilchen, Emface, Emshum. I guess the "Em" is compulsory.

68. HOW MANY PAIRS OF SHOES DO YOU HAVE?
5, maybe. 6?

69. DO YOU UN-TIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
About half the time.

70. WERE YOU UPSET ABOUT STEVE IRWIN DYING?
Actually, yeah, I really was. I didn't cry or anything, but I was disturbed. It was weird.

71. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
French Silk--the chocolate mousse kind, not the coffee one. It's hard to find.

72. ARE YOU LAZY?
Kinda, yeah.

73. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE COLORS?
Deep greens.

74. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BAND?
That's too transitory. I love Okkervil right now.

75. HOW MANY WISDOM TEETH DO YOU HAVE?
All of them. Dental appt next month, I'm not looking forward to being told they need to be removed.

76. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
I don't care.

77. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
"For Real" by Okkervil River. Question #74 reminded me.

78. LAST THING YOU ATE?
Granola & milk. Mm, dinner.

79. LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
My mom, who was asking if I've heard from my sister a-freakin'-gain.

80. WHATS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ON THE OPPOSITE SEX?
Probably whether they're noticing me. Or how much they're requiring attention.

81. FAVORITE THOUGHT PROVOKING SONG:
I like most of the Shins' stuff for their lyrics.

82. FAVORITE THING TO HATE:
Critics of global warming.

83. FAVORITE DRINK:
Tea.

84. FAVORITE ZODIAC SIGN
I like mine--Sagittarius. It's like a centaur with a bow and arrow. Pretty badass.

85. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SPORT?
I miss volleyball, kind of.

86. WHAT IS YOUR HAIR COLOR?
"Dirty" blonde.

87. EYE COLOR?
Green.

88. DO YOU WEAR GLASSES?
Recently, because of my myriad eye issues.

89. SIBLINGS?
John & Gina.

90. FAVORITE MONTH(s)
I usually like March, and June, and October. Sometimes December.

91. DO YOU LIKE SUSHI?
Yes.

92. LAST THING YOU WATCHED?
Manhattan Murder Mystery.

93. FAVORITE DAY OF THE YEAR?
I'm fond of the new year. Sometimes I really like Halloween.

94. ARE YOU TOO SHY TO ASK SOMEONE OUT?
I don't know--I usually just let the other person lead this part and act according to how I feel. I should become assertive. There's my problem!

95. SUMMER OR WINTER?
Autumn.

96. KISSES OR HUGS?
Kisses.

97. RELATIONSHIPS OR ONE-NIGHT STANDS?
The former.

98. WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
No one. I don't know.

99. WHO IS THE LEAST LIKELY TO ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS?
BLaah.

100. Create your own question! (Oo, so interactive!)

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO TELL SOMEONE RIGHT NOW?
Don't lose me. Don't put me where you won't find me again.

101. IS ANYONE IN LOVE WITH YOU?
No indeeeed.

too tired for titles

I keep forgetting I technically only have 3 days of "school" left this quarter.

Probably because the next week and a half--or maybe just the next 3 days--are going to be painfully full of obligation. Here's what I have to do (mostly for my benefit, so it's all written down somewhere)---

Monday: ENST assignment due; Hindi composition & five other homework(s) due; work 4:30-7:30
Tuesday: Bio quiz; Bio writing assignment due; Hindi discussion section; Hindi dialogue recitation
Wednesday: INST discussion section (articles need to be read); Hindi final exam

I'm done for tomorrow, but utterly unprepared for Tuesday/Wednesday. Might have to be late on the bio writing. Might have to cry a little during the Hindi dialogue.

Sigh.

Good news about today:

1) I made tomato noodle soup, almost without having to buy any ingredients (needed basil & non-moldy red pepper.)
2) I did my imminent homework.
3) I watched a good movie, called Manhattan Murder Mystery. I might soon go on a Woody Allen filmography self-education spree.

My brain/heart/soul is telling me to sleep. So much to do. But. I might listen.

bathtub uncertainty.

I love Chicago. I love baths. I love reading. I love reading in my bathtub in Chicago.

Now that we're up to date.

I am reading "The Namesake"--which is decently good but not lifechanging--and something I (also) love happened: the character's life intersected with mine. I just got to the part where Gogol (or Nikhil) Ganguli is taking a train home for Thanksgiving break, his sophomore year. He feels the same way about home that I do, is at a comparable university a comparable distance from home, and, well, the author is making him easy to relate to.

Which led to my epiphany. It has nothing to do with any of the crap I just mentioned. Rather, it came to me as I read about him veering from others' expectations and becoming enthralled with architecture, studying it feverishly, even outside of class work. Why? Because he loves it.

I thought of what I loved, what I found most inspiring this quarter. It wasn't in a class for either of my registered majors. It was in, of all places, biology, when my professor talked at length about human evolution. I love learning about human evolution--all the different hominids, where they lived, what they did, the slow progress into modern humans. It fascinates me.

Then I had this thought: I should major in anthropology.

It was jarring, in the way most "I should make this big change" ideas tend to be. But at the same time, it sounded remarkably freeing.

The truth is, lately I've felt boxed-in and depressed in thinking about the future. Before, it would always suffice to imagine myself reading and researching and writing--that was vague and lovely enough. But I'm a second-year college student now. I'm supposed to be more specific than that. International Studies I'm OK with, although the intro class is less than inspiring (who can blame it, though, 120+ people large and power-point-based?)

With Environmental Studies, I feel like I signed on with some kind of Save-the-World syndrome. It's definitely my biggest issue, but.. it doesn't fascinate me. As selfish as I feel saying that, wouldn't you be most productive in the field that drives you? The environment needs creative engineers, lawyers, and activists. And my vote.

I miss the humanities.

All this synthesis and all I end up with is: I'm happiest just sitting here writing. If you know someone that'll pay me to do that, lemme know.

Happy Buy Nothing Day!

Sadly, today was not Buy Nothing Day for me.

I needed a winter coat. And when I say "needed", I mean the pockets on my last one looked like they'd been attacked by a pack of savage wolves. So it was off to the mall for me.

Here's a confession: I hate shopping.

I hate mall girls and their mall boyfriends. I hate mall moms and their mall children. I hate watching people buy loads of plastic shit for people who already have too much plastic shit. I hate seeing the bloodthirsty look on middle-aged women's faces as they pluck $5 on-sale DVD's from the shelf. This is not spiritual.

If you're gonna be a spiritual Christian, I'd recommend spending your Christmas season abstaining from materialism. Nobody ever saw Jesus at a Target.

(Ahem.)

My mom likes to shop. She hovers toward make-up counters and inquires about "free gifts". It makes me cranky and headachey and depressed. Cranky because I have to walk all over and feel bored. Headachey because it's total sensory over-stimulation. Depressed because I too often feel drawn to the crap around me. And because 28th Street is all chain stores, zero personality.

Thankfully, the coat was the only mall thing we needed. There was a fair amount of furniture shopping (re: mom's apartment) but I sat in the car and worked on Hindi homework.

I have so much Hindi homework. Sigh.

Tonight I went to Kristin's and then to the coffee house and saw some people, which made me feel better. I can feel so disconnected in this town, but I will never feel uncomfortable in my coffee house. Good thing I should be picking up some hours over winter break.

Tomorrow morning I'll be going back to Chi. I've been gone all of 30 hours and still going back seems relieving. I am so easily affected by my environment. So the opposite of zen. I should work on that.

Oh, and I just realized today that my birthday falls on a Friday this year. What a waste. (On the upside, that means I'll be turning twenty-one on a Saturday!) Regardless, I'm thinking of possibly spending it in Chicago before coming back for break. It just seems like a better place to celebrate. Even if it's just me and the Thing in the cupboard.

Maybe someone will be around. T. might be. Eh. I'm on the fence.

I still have a headache. And gobs of Hindi homework.

Mmn. Hastings.

thank-u for all the tof-u

OK--so it's actually the 23rd; 12:25AM on the 23rd, to be specific. But I'm still up, so I count today as yesterday. Which means I'm still writing every day. Which pleases me.

I'm in Michigan, of course. I enjoyed a wonderfully birdless Thanksgiving, which amounted to two kinds of potatoes and green bean casserole. Not exactly a feast, but I was just thankful (you have to do that, right?) to be fed by someone other than myself. Still, I count watching my dad carve the golden, steaming turkey as the low point of vegetarianism. (More on vegetarianism later.)

My mom took me to see her new apartment which was empty and really sort of depressing. She acts excited about it, but I simply can't imagine living in such a large space, in such an empty region, alone. Especially in my mid-fifties. I can tell it scares her, too. I guess the fact that she's only living here another year and a half is enough for her--she has books enough to fill a library and that'll keep her occupied. As well as the apparent retail therapy she's been undergoing.

Mom: "All I bought was that chair. And an upright Swedish clock. For five hundred dollars."
Me: "A. A clock. For. Five hundred? Dollars?!"
Mom: "Well I don't have to pay it all back until next June..."

My dad also gave me the shock of the century when I asked him, amidst a pleasant conversation on the relative merits and demerits of Ron Paul, who he planned on voting for. Not Guiliani. Not McCain. Not Romney. Not even can-do-no-wrong, Gift-to-the-Populous Ron Paul. No. No.

Hillary.

Dad?! A DEMOCRAT?!!

Politics and clocks aside... however strange and fragmented my family is right now, it's still nice to come back to a place where everybody is excited to see me. I took advantage of the situation and unleashed the wittier, attention-seeking aspect of my personality, which has been paralyzed in hiding for a while now. I don't care that it's just my parents--at least I'm making somebody laugh.

Re: Mexico/Florida--my mother has something up her sleeve. I don't want to divulge until I know for sure, as she has some pretty deep sleeves and is known to lose things up there, but her current plan is even more lovely. I take it with a grain of salt.

there's a Thing in our cupboard

I'm sitting at the kitchen table, listening to something that's about ten feet away, under our sink, having what sounds like his own personal party.

This is what I hear:
"Psssh. Psh. Pssshh." (I assume this is wading through plastic bags)
SCRATCHSCRRTCHSCRATCHSCRRRTCHZ. (digging to China. Or through our apparently not-so-protective cardboard+duct-tape, hole-in-the-wall barrior.)
Shshsh, Shshshshshsh. (Quiet, slow moving around.)

These aren't cockroach noises.

If T. wasn't halfway to England right now, if he was securely and dependably studying Korean in his room through the wall to my right, I could ask him to investigate. He would open the cupboard door. If it wasn't the day before Thanksgiving, if I wasn't alone in a deserted, mournful, dangerous, gray and rainy Hyde Park, I'm sure I could call on a few others as well. As it stands, it's just me and those two closed, wooden, mocking cupboard doors.

On another front--

November gets me down. November and February. They're just two months I have to grind my teeth and soldier through, months that deeply acquaint me with the color gray, months that coin a certain kind of depression I sometimes feel. It isn't all everything personal that's going on around me right now. But it may be the long-term accumulation of personal things that I've avoided dealing with. Nevertheless, I've just felt down.

After talking to my mom, though, I feel a little better. That's because she floated this possibility: post-Christmas getaway in Mexico/Florida Keys/somewherewithsun.

Normally--how corny.
Now--how necessary.

...dare I dare to hope?

My Lovely Lady Lumps

At the risk of seeming creepy (or, as Lawrence Ferlinghetti would say, "constantly risking absurdity") I walked into the women's restroom in the Reynold's Club yesterday morning with the intention of taking a picture in one of the stalls....




There are references to sisterhood. And nail polish. And the insufficient behavior of men. People gleefully talk about shopping, and our apparent natural tendency toward it. They bemoan the pain of baby-delivering, and emphasize the importance of remembering birthdays and buying diamonds. Oh, and, one word: shoes.

Culture speaks to your gender as if it already knows you, and women pick up the trend. People forever try to weave a thread through every woman in the room, or company, or country, letting us know what we have in common and how we stand in solidarity.

Rarely do I feel the tug of that thread, but standing in a bathroom stall reading a flyer for “Love Your Body Week”, taking in the responses, I did. I felt downright giddy.

It was all there.

The Cheerfully Sincere--“My Eyes!”
The Confident & Sexy--“My hips”; “My curves”
The Intellectual--“My mind”
The Shocking--"My clit"; "My penis"
The Practical--"My strength & flexibility"
The Irreverent--"My left elbow"; "My left fallopian tube"
The Vain--"My breasts, my nipples, my butt!"

Women are not tied together with shoes, or shopping, or purses--don't try to lump us that way, because it isn't going to work. We don't all have babies. Or want diamonds. Or hate men. Or love men.

But we do all go to the same room to pee. And if you ask a question on a paper in a stall, all kinds of woman are going to scramble in their bags for a pen and let you know their opinion.

It's in the bathroom stall, and not Victoria's Secret, that I feel the solidarity.

Express Yo'self

So,

for anyone (un)fortunate enough to tune into my life/blog between the hours of 4:45PM 11/18/07 and 12:00PM 11/19/07, you now know about my Mess. Congratulations. I figured it would be short-lived, and decided to remove the post today when I asked Connie where it fell on a scale of one-to-ten from Too Open to Way, Way, Far Too Open and she gave it a seven.

Oh, I'm wild.

In other news, last night I went to A's dorm to paint with her and Kyle. I needed to do something like that, or I would have Expressed Myself some other, less intelligent way. Like painting my ceiling black.

K. had a lovely set of canvases, and a lovely set of tempera paints. He covered the floor with The Maroon and an old Newsweek full of adverts for drugs--("Do you ever feel sad? Lonely?" beside a frowning white blob)--and put on painting music. Which was Caribou. Terrific painting music.

The only thing I felt like painting was a dog eating itself. So I did. Remarkably therapeutic.





In other news, I've decided I need Goals and Projects to help with the lack of inspiration I feel in my life. My first Goal is to write daily for a month. We'll see if it works/helps.

My computer's about to die and I'm battery-less, so I suppose that's all for now.

updatez

This quarter has found me something of a mess. Hence my infrequent updating. Hence the heaviness on my chest (which you didn't know about, but now you do.) Hence etc.

The upshot is--I'll get over it. Obviously.

Now for some (none-too-personal, but still totally intriguing) of what you missed:

a) I have very special eyes, apparently. I had an appointment with the... ophthalmologist? Or, to be really specific--the contact lens eye doctor. Actually, I guess she's the president of the American Contact Lens Association, or something fancy like that. She's kind of a big deal. Anyway, because the U of C hospital is kind of a big deal too, I got an appointment with her to be fitted for new, less irritating contacts.

I got poked a great deal by the intern, who told me I had spherical eyes (good, normal) and it wasn't a problem with the shape. The doctor, however, when she finally came in, had something of a panic attack when she started messing with my eyes. "LOOK AT THIS!" she instructed the intern, as I stared into my own large green glassy iris as reflected in a bright light. The intern cooed, impressed. "We need to get her out of her contacts, now," the doctor said.

So here's what's been wrong with my eyes: I had blood vessels growing down into my cornea. My eyes have been, effectively, starved of oxygen because of the contacts--because they have, evidently, "unusually high oxygen demands." Me & my unusually high demands. In addition to this, I have some kind of semi-intense mysterious allergy for which I've been using drops since a few months ago (and which has gone down). And, on top of those things, I had infiltrates--my corneas were apparently inflamed and had accumulations of white blood cells.

Amazing.

The doctor suspended my contact lens use, and gave me strange whitish drops to help my eyes get oxygen. She floated some possibilities--Tigasons, pinkeye--and made me another appointment (which was last Tuesday). Due to my white drops + allergy drops + no contacts regimen, things are back to normal and I'm getting fitted next week for special contacts that deliver oxygen better...somehow. I also have to change my solution (she said something about hydrogen peroxide) and keep using all sorts of drops. But I'm glad. I effing hate wearing glasses all the time. They're so... obstructive.

I don't know why I wrote about that in such detail. Except that it's obviously vividly fascinating.

b) If you get a chance to eat out soon, and you have some opportunity for variety...

...eat Korean food.

Last Saturday I went with some friends to Koreatown (which happens to be waaay-the-hell that way from where we live--think switching from bus, to train, to different train, then walking a mile). It's located in Chicago's Northwest side, nestled amongst a spattering of different immigrant communities. The walk takes you past a legion of Middle Eastern places with Arabic signs, then past a number of Spanish signs, until you're in Asialand. The left is finally on Bryn Mawr, and then everything is in Korean, and everyone looks Korean. We went to the Tofu House, because my friends love me enough to cater to my wayward vegetarian ways.

And oh. The experience of it.

It was small and unassuming at first, but the waitress sat us in our own personal room, with a rolled-up bamboo-like door, in case we wanted privacy. She brought us warm tea (instead of water) and heavy menus. We ordered 1) vegetable tofu soup (me), 2) miso tofu soup, and 3) two bip-bim-bops. My soup came literally boiling in a heavy metal or stone bowl--with a raw egg for me to crack into it myself, and with a side of rice in same sort of bowl, the bottom layer deliciously hardened and steamed. Everything else came similarly boiling, and she placed all kinds of pickled things for everyone in the middle of the table.

The soup was amazing, thrilling, wonderful. It was spicy but not too spicy. It was thick with vegetables. But the best thing was the tofu. Somehow, this place had managed to make the tofu really good.

Now, I eat a lot of tofu. And I will be the first to say that it's not exactly the food of the gods. But this soup--this tofu--I've craved every day since last weekend.

It came down to about $10 per person.

c) I got a new iPod, and now whenever I walk anywhere, whatever mood I'm in, I want to hear one song: "Unless It's Kicks" by Okkervil River. It's a wonderful walking song. It's a wonderful anything song.

d) My hair got longer.

thursday night, being.

I am on my fifth samosa of the evening. And it's delicious.

I am learning so much.

I am alone. I've been alone so long. But it's time for a new perspective on alone.

One thing I've learned: 1) You belong.

I am alone. Alone but free.

our cracking bones make noise.

Today somebody took my chair. At work. I usually sit in this tall chair where mostly I read or tell people when to use treadmills, but when I got there today... it was gone.

"I've been dethroned," I thought to myself. Which struck me as really annoying, but also funny. Who steals a person's chair?

We finally have internet. Tonight a really friendly guy (let's call him Sal) came and fixed everything. Sal is the sort of guy that is perfectly suited for grandfatherhood. He would whistle and say, "Boy, not good," and then repeat it five more times to himself, a little quieter each time and maybe sung slightly the last time. He had me go down with him to the electrical box on our building--where all the veins of the building go, the inhuman, shiny power that runs everything--and when it was all opened up, he flashed the light and saw that our yellow and black wires weren't alone. Something like four other parasitic wires were attached, leaching away our DSL. He cut them off.

Now I'm wrapped in a blanket and listening to "99 Luftballoons" on repeat and thinking about how comfortable the German language sounds to me. In nine months I'll see my mom's side of the family again. I want to learn to communicate a few things in German other than "strawberry" and "milk" and "the little night music". I don't even like strawberries.

If I'm not actually saying anything, it's because I'm wholly drained. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I can think of other things my heart is like. A hand grenade. A stick of butter.

Next weekend I'm sitting home with a book and a cup of tea. I am not touching alcohol. Some things should change a little.

one (wo)man wrecking machine

I am allergic.

my brain on coffee

I am ingesting caffeine. A latte, actually. For this, my body is very happy with me. Espresso makes me tipsy on par with alcohol. I become notably euphoric. It's pretty dramatic, really.

I need caffeine for today; tomorrow I have a potentially ass-kicking midterm in international studies. Those 50 minutes will probably be less euphoric. But now I'm ready to study. If I hadn't destroyed my favorite bandanna to repair some ripped jeans, I would don both it and a pair of leg warmers I found and then do some work. Wearing unusual accessories makes me feel more efficient. It's an interesting phenomenon.

The Arcade Fire think their heart (collectively?) is an apple. Which prompted me toward a creative exercise today, which is: think of three things your heart can be likened to. It's fun, try it. Here's what I got:

a) a fish. Swollen and slippery. Fish are not swollen usually, but I persist in identifying them as swollen. And I always imagine my heart as a fish.
b) a steamboat. Obsolete, cantankerous, irrelevantly Disneyish.

I haven't decided yet on the third one.

People don't like birds enough. I really like birds. In fact, I don't spend enough time thinking about how much I like birds. Did you know they're dinosaurs? I learned that today. The only thing evolutionarily separating birds and dinosaurs are feathers. My biology prof had a big long rant against intelligent design, and we learned birds are dinosaurs.

I was thinking today that non-religion is in many ways more poetic than religion.

Last night I dreamt I was in Saudi Arabia. It was desert, the sky was purple, there were snakes. I felt vulnerable, liberated, and curious. I think that set up my mood for today. I've also been on a steady diet of Regina Spektor/Joanna Newsom songs.

I've been mightily stressed out but I think that's passing over. Here's what you can listen to if you feel stressed out.

I hope that was a little coherent. I should study now.