Thursday, October 25, 2007

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.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

it feels like autumn.

Today is a tofu-soup, Joanna-Newsom, black-sweatpants, fetal-position, drink-tea-in-the-rain-on-the-back-porch, finish-my-old-homework, kiss-someone-on-the-head, slow kind of day.

In case you were wondering what kind of day today is.

Friday, October 12, 2007

oh, and

Marla and I started a vegetarian/vegan food blog.

It'll probably be updated spottily, randomly, occasionally. But the food will be good.

kthxbye

dude.

Al Gore just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

....that's kind of awesome.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

just me and the bump.

I keep having pregnancy dreams. The number has probably exceeded five in two weeks. If you ask me, that's pretty excessive.

Usually I'm pregnant in the dreams, though one time it was my sister and another time my mother (with twins!). The premise goes like this: I am pregnant. There is no precursory sex; I'm (or they're) always already pregnant. In every case, the baby is a girl and this is already intuitively known. (In the twin case, there was a boy and a girl.) I always experience the anxiety of knowing I can't raise a child in college, and that my life and plans are suddenly irrevocably ruined.

Last night in my dream, I barely realized I was pregnant (very pregnant) before BAM, the baby was suddenly there. I realized, panicked, that I didn't have a name ready; I think I decided on Bridget, which is a name I used to like. The baby had big hazel eyes and I was very fond of her. Then suddenly I was in Mexico with some friends and the baby, and it was very exotic and there were lots of people. In the crowd I lost the baby, got very scared, and started looking everywhere for her.

I don't know why I have this apparent pregnancy fixation. I know some people who are expecting (someone any day now) and maybe it's working its way into my skull: the fact that my peers are now having babies.

Needless to say, I woke up early this morning extraordinarily relieved that I was, in fact, childless and my only worry was getting to Bio on time. I felt so.... independent.

God. Am I a woman now or something?

Monday, October 08, 2007

September CDX

I am a part of a CD-exchange group with eleven other members (including my sister). Each person is assigned a month to burn eleven identical CDs to send out, and every month you receive a CD. It's very nifty. I'm the youngest person in the group, and also probably the least obscure in music knowledge, which means that every month my taste and knowledge are improved slightly more.

My month is September. Instead of writing tonight, I'm going to post my 2007 track list, and link whenever possible to the song on the internet. Trust me--it's a good mix.

1. "Monochrome" : Yann Tiersen (youtube: Angsty-Emo homemade video)
2. "Green Bird" : Yoko Kanno (youtube: Cowboy Bebop-themed video)
3. "Weather and Water" : The Greencards
4. "City Hall" : Vienna Teng (myspace)
5. "A Better Wife" : Erin McKeown
6. "The Next Step You'll Take" : Club 8
7. "Draft Dodger Rag" : Kind of Like Spitting
8. "Wild is the Wind" : The Second Band (myspace)
9. "She Moves in Her Own Way" : The Kooks (myspace)
10. "Some of Them Were Superstitious : Midlake
11. "Shy That Way (feat. Jason Mraz)" : Tristan Prettyman (youtube: live and ridiculously cute)
12. "Tiger, My Friend" : Psapp (youtube: grey's anatomy video)
13. "The Pirate's Gospel" : Alela Diane
14. "Ashes on Your Eyes" : Deb Talan
15. "Serenade" : Emiliana Torrini (youtube: live with pretty dress)
16. "Rue des Cascades" : Yann Tiersen (youtube: on some french movie)

Here are some notes:

1. "Ashes on Your Eyes" may lack an internet outlet, but that doesn't mean it's not required. It's absolutely required. If you can't find it yourself, I will email it to you. The rest of the album (A Bird Flies Out) is highly recommended. It's all I seem to want to listen to lately, in fact.

2. While I couldn't find the Midlake song either, their myspace music must not be overlooked. They also have a variety of interesting music videos on youtube, including one for Roscoe which is somewhat bland but wonderfully historically Midwestern. It seems to awaken some weird ancient nostalgia in me, like the part of me that really wants to believe that when I was little I played in wheat fields and used wooden toys. Some things did exist, like hayrides (which poke like hell but smell lovely), but really it's Michigan and you can't expect too much in the way of prairie. Really this is all beside the point. Which is: I'm shamelessly promoting this band because I love them.

Happy listening.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

autumn is for l<3vers

There's something about autumn--a new breeze, the leafy smell--that drives people into each other's arms so quickly I can't keep track.

Forget what they said about spring. Spring is when people break up.

So while everybody and their uncle are all giddy and blushing and lovingly poking each other, I'm craving ice cream and feeling too sensitive and dreaming about the past. Two nights in a row.

I am having an off week.

I measure the on- and offness of my weeks by how often the past interferes with the present. Which is immeasurably more likely when even my mailbox has a significant other.

You can't manipulate the past to make it more friendly. You can't deny it into submission. You can't change the past's opinion of you, no matter how articulate a letter you write. You can't make the past understand you. You can't make the past want to.

Even if all you want to do is invite the past over for tea, and talk to the past until everything starts going in a forward direction for you again.

In conclusion, the past is a filthy dirty bastard. And it's best just to forget about it.

In other news, apparently I turned 21. I received a letter from the state of Illinois congratulating me on that fact and strongly discouraging me from drinking and driving. Now I guess I'm living in the future? Does that mean Bush is out of office?

I need a pint of ice cream. I need Amelie. Then I might return to the present.

Friday, October 05, 2007

historical connexions

Today I realized, as I was walking home, that one of the houses I walk by daily is the (previous) residence of Enrico Fermi.

Viva la nuclear weaponry, I guess. :/


Thursday, October 04, 2007

Family Values...?

In case you didn't catch it, the president just vetoed a bill that would expand children's health insurance.

Read about it here.

Excuse me while I go burn a flag, then kill myself.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Because I'm Tired of Colonization Readings

I'm feeling a bit spastic and incredibly unfocused right now (it's only second week!) so I don't think this post will have any theme tying it together. I just wanted to note a couple things.

  • I recently decided to make the transition from washing my hair daily to washing it every other day. It's much healthier for your scalp, much more au natural, so it's what I'm doing. The problem, of course, is that once you've decided to wash your hair less, your scalp gets all confused and continues to overproduce oil for a while. This is what my friends (who are all every-other-day people) tell me. It takes a month or two to phase it out, I guess. I feel a little awkward the every-other-day my head is oily, but also sort of liberated. Sort of: "Look at me! I've got oily hair and I don't care! Now watch me go root around in the dirt and then swim in the river!"

  • I don't know how to cook very much, but I'm starting to adjust my diet in different small ways. I want to slowly fade out certain habits. I want to stop buying canned soup and more frequently actually make soup, for example. So far, I can make one: a pretty standard tomato soup. But I want to increase my capabilities. Pretty soon I'm going to try a tofu soup (the results of which I will describe). I also, in general, want to eat more fresh food. On Thursday, T. and I are going to the farmer's market over on Harper. A few days ago I made Brussels sprouts with Hollandaise sauce. U. made (amazingly amazing) corn pudding. I have the advantage of having roommates who both love to and know how to cook. T. makes red Thai curry with things like bok choy and bamboo shoots, and U. makes a South Asian curry with chick peas and lots of different spices. I need a specialty. I may need time, but I'll find it.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Pad Si Ew and Chanel.

I am eating last night's leftover pad si ew and reflecting on what it means to be a girl.

It's not easy to forget I'm a girl. It is, however, easy to forget what being a girl normally entails, especially here. For anyone unfamiliar with UChicago's infamous (lack of) social life, let me fill you in: We're nerds. Nerdy nerdy nerds. We're here because we like to study. And because we're attracted to other nerdy nerds.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not good at being a girl. I don't know how to do make-up. I don't have various smelly things to smear on myself, only deodorant and occasionally some perfume my mother brought me from Germany. I like jewelry, but never think to buy it and therefore have very few things with which to adorn myself. I've gotten my ears pierced several times, and I always forget to wear earrings frequently enough to keep the holes from filling back in. I can't dance. The list goes on.

Tonight some friends and I had Girl's Night. We ate dinner with fancy cheese and grapes and pita and hummus [Note: the Nile's hummus is amazing] and watched Sex and the City. Watching Sex and the City with friends is a bit of a common thing for me. Even so, watching Carrie Bradshaw strut around in expensive shoes and go into bathrooms to fix her hair was strange. I had forgotten. This is Girl Behavior.

What does it mean when you want to be attractive, but you want to be utterly world-conscious at the same time? The gap between girl-vapidity, even girl-normality, and Real Human Life sometimes looks vast. My mother swears by her millions of Liz Claiborne lipsticks and foundations, her small arsenal of Coco Chanel perfumes. And yet somehow I still grew up on the other side of the divide. Beyond my patterned blouses and one designated pair of Cute shoes (which bloody up the backs of my heels, incidentally), I can't do Girl.

I came home and changed into laundry-doing clothes: a gray shirt with a hole in it that I've had since 9th grade, and a pair of secondhand sweatpants. This is the time T. chose, in his loving-roommate way, to call me beautiful.

There's a reason there's a chasm between Girl and real life. Make-up makes me look like a strange plastic doll. There have been times I've made an effort with it.

Otherwise I look like me, which I think I prefer.