self-pity: destroyer of class presentations

Well, I have this big presentation tomorrow, plus I'm trying to leave for New Orleans right after class (which involves some cat preparation, packing, loading up with audiobooks). So, what am I doing? Feeling all sorry for myself. But then I found a way to make myself feel better. Unfortunately, it's not by throwing myself headlong into all the work I have to do. It's by making myself the Perfect Breakup Mix. I'm still working out the songlist and order, but here's a first draft. You have to know some of the songs for them to make sense in their order, but this is one of the few mixes I've done that has more to do with the lyrics in the songs going together, rather than the general mood of the song. Some of them are chosen primarily for their title, though. Also, it was interesting that at my first instinct, the PJ Harvey, Radiohead, and Beatles songs were naturally clustered. I guess I have my favorites for certain parts of the mourning process. This list is separate from the list called "Breakup Songs -- Too Sad." This is the "up" list. I think this is several dying/breaking up relationships all in one. There are multiple speakers in this tracklist-conversation.

• You're So Great - Blur
• For No One - Beatles
  and in her eyes, you see nothing, no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one; a love that should have lasted years.
• Is That All There Is? - PJ Harvey and John Parish
  Then one day, he went away, and I thought I'd die. But I didn't. And when I didn't, I said to myself "Is that all there is to love?"
• This Mess We're In - PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke
  I don't think we will meet again; and you must leave now, before the sun rises over skyscrapers
• Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
  When routine bites hard and ambitions are low, and the resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow.
• You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go - Madeline Peyroux (Dylan)
  Situations have ended sad, relationships have all been bad. Mine've been like Verlaine and Rimbaud. But there's no way I can compare all those scenes to this affair.
• Seeing Other People - Belle and Sebastian
  (at least that's what we say we are doing)
• We Can Work It Out - Beatles
  Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting
• Dear Boy - Paul McCartney
  I hope you never know how much you missed, dear boy. And even when you fall in love, dear boy, it won't be half as good as this.
• Creep - Radiohead
• Metal Heart - Cat Power
  Metal heart, you're not worth a thing to me.
• How to Fight the Lonliness - Wilco
• Wise Up - Aimee Mann
  You got what you want, now you can hardly stand it. You're sure there's a cure, and you have finally found it.
• Breathe Me - Sia
  I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again, and the worse part is there's no one else to blame.
• Only A Broken Heart - Tom Petty
  I know your weakness, you've seen my dark side; the end of the rainbow is always a long ride.
• Everybody Hurts - REM
• Let Down - Radiohead
  Don't get sentimental. It always ends up drivel...you know where you are with floor collapsing, falling, bouncing back.
• Song For the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
  So you wanted to take a break, slow it down some and have some space; well, fuck you, too.
• We'll Meet Along the Way - Hem
  Go easy now....later on the road is going to break your world in two.
• Fidelity - Regina Spector
  Suppose I never ever met you. Suppose we never fell in love.
• If I Needed Someone - Beatles
  If I had some more time to spend, then I guess I'd be with you, my friend.
• I'm Looking Through You - Beatles
  Why tell me why did you not treat me right? Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.*
• Red Rubber Ball - The Cyrkle
  Now I know you're not the only starfish in the sea. If I never heard your name again, it's all the same to me.
• All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
  Now the darkness only stay the nighttime. In the morning it will fade away. Daylight is good at arriving at the right time. It's not always going to be this grey.**
• True Love Will Find You - Daniel Johnston
  Don't be sad, I know you will. But don't give up until true love will find you in the end.
• Time Has Told Me - Nick Drake
  So I'll leave the ways that are making me be what I really don't want to be. I'll leave the ways that are making me love what I really don't want to love.
• Cast Of Thousands - Darren Hanlon
  We broke up about a year ago--we split amicably, of course. Then I heard about your accident. You fell off a horse. Ha, ha, ha.*** You had a cast of thousands (of signatures). And charts recording fluctuating temperatures. You handed me a pen and pointed just below the knee. It's nice to know there's part of you reserved for me.

*Sometimes I wonder at the gall of the Beatles lyrics. Because you know they had about 5 years of their lives total that a lady might have possibly not treated them 'right' before they went on the road and slept in mattresses made of groupies. But goodness, they did lay claim to all those wonderfully simple love-song pop rhymes.

**This whole album, All Things Must Pass, is wonderfully soothing. I guess some would argue that it's the kirtan meditation influence...

***In the version he did live.

It turns out that my new camera does work, but it will under no circumstances talk to my computer and tell it what it's seen.

Therefore, I went out and bought a $500 phone* with a 2.0 megapixel camera on it. Problem solved. Except for the problem of how will I pay for food for the rest of the semester? I've written out a budget. It seems that my cats' food costs almost as much as mine (not counting coffee shops and the weekend breakfasts at the Omelettry; they don't go with me there)!

*not an iPhone, and I did get a substantial discount for contract renewal.

Anyway, I've been checking my mailbox almost hourly for the phone (it's being shipped). I feel like I'm reliving that Calvin and Hobbes story arc where he checked every day for his mail-order beanie. I'm going to as disappointed as Calvin if when my phone arrives, it doesn't make me fly.





I'm lucky Xander has such a nice personality. I couldn't take living with Hobbes's constant snark and judgement. Xander does have similar appreciation for a good cardboard box, though.

well, i don't see what the big deal about sunday was. all that happened was that i ate a lot of potatoes and did exactly nothing that i was supposed to.

himALya, they say

And also, I just want to get this out there because it's true, and I will forget later. But in the last few months, things keep coming up that make me think that the Himalayas are going to be important to me personally. It's just a feeling, brought on by a combination of the stupid Conde Naste subscription, a marathon of geography quizzes, and a scene from The Amber Spyglass. Anyway, every time I placed a country near the Himalayas during the quizzes, I would imagine them, all beautiful and spiritual. And scenes from movies, including The Golden Child, Into Thin Air, Seven Years in Tibet.

Hmmm...that gives me an idea. What other movies are set or at least have scenes in the Himalayas?*

*(my idea is that I'm going to watch movies that are set or at least have scenes in the Himalayas.)

part of the process

Remember when I discovered that listening to the Hives's "Supply and Demand" on repeat didn't get my economics exam studied for? And remember when I discovered that watching the entire third season of Arrested Development didn't get my social psychology paper written? Well, getting Morcheeba songs stuck in my head is not helping me remember terminology and who theorized what in international policy. But it is making everything seem a little more chill.

Angry faces, cursing loud,
Changing places, falling proud
Behind the bomb, no one cares,
Time is money
Were taught to tear
How can we show, how to feel
Situation aint so real
Chopping wood wont stop the rage
We need targets on war we wage
Its all part of the process
We all love looking down
All we want is some success
But the chance is never around

In fact, this makes just as much sense as a theory for international relations as, well, anything else I am reading. Holy. Crap. I. Am. Effed!

the case of the bum rap!

OK, I got a camera that works! Now I will be able to upload tons of pictures of my cats. Speaking of which, this is what I woke up to (both as an emailed link, and as a representation of how my cat woke me up):



Once in high school, I said something was a "bum rap" and K said "A 'bum rap'? What are you, Encyclopedia Brown?" And even though I read lots of Encyclopedia Brown books (and very, very rarely guessed the ending), now all I can do is picture him going around with an accusatory finger extended, saying "It's a bum rap!" I do remember he had a butch girlfriend, which was cool. And I think his enemy wore a crown, like Jughead from Archie. Was that a style ever? Or are heads just easier to draw with crowns on them? Bugs Meany; that was his name. So that's what those spare brain cells have been remembering all these years!


Apparently, the fashion of the time also involved postage stamps on the crown.

ADDENDUM: I have found this, regarding the crown/hat. And also, there is Encyclopedia Brown fan-fiction. This doesn't exactly surprise me, but it does amuse me! (in idea--I haven't actually read it)

fishing

Thank you, everyone, for sympathy regarding Sphinx. I have appreciated it, and passed it onto my brother. I mentioned that Sphinx was his daemon in the last update, but only today listened to lecture and discovered the concept of daemon's is from Plato's Phaedo, not from Philip Pullman's trilogy. Doy...

This is one of those things I should wait a few days to update because I'll probably realize it's not as funny as I think it is, or at least that it's not going to translate well into a story, but here I go anyway because I haven't updated on this blog for a long time.

This is from my international policy class. We were talking about whether a country should stop trade or sanction a country if its industry is harming the environment. We talked about the scenarios of the country harming its own environment (say, an island's water supply) vs. a country harming the global environment (arguments that there is no truly isolated part of "the environment" aside). We got to the example of what if a country kills a lot of dolphins as it catches tuna. It was a heated debate! Then, E--, who has limited-but-pointed contributions to the class, and has a deep voice with a lovely accent (he's from Uganda) said after a reprieve in the debate during which several people were actively trying to not hate several other people:

What is so great about dolphins?

And the professor (kind of nerd-gone-cute, somewhat frenetic, high-voiced) quickly said:

That's a good question! Does anybody know?

And after giving only a moment's silence, before anyone could collect their thoughts on the topic, he answered his own question (in a Boston accent that was a reference to something no one knew):

Because they're wicked smaht! E-- here might be okay with eating a dolphin sandwhich, but most people are just as likely to eat tuna that was caught along with live humans!

I think most of this debate on global public goods got lost in the debate on morals. The one person that was staunchly in the camp of under no circumsances do you meddle in another country's workings lost credibility when she reveals she didn't believe greenhouse gases caused climate change. I think you have to believe there really is an issue that a country can contribute to globally before you can decide what policy choices would be "right" in dealing with it! We probably should have changed the topics from dolphins and global warming, and in fact we did: to fishing rights, and it became much, much more boring.

ataxia

First, the sad news: Sphinx, my little brother's cat, died unexpectedly on Monday. We are all very sad. He was my brother's daemon, and we thought they'd be together for years to come. We still think of him as "little cat," the kitten that could fit in the palm of your hand and had a desperate love for cookies 'n' cream ice cream. Maybe he had a stroke, maybe he got poisoned somehow--it's not worth an autopsy. He just faded away Monday night after a few days of dizziness and no clear diagnosis.

Second, I am updating because my first midterm is tomorrow, and I have grown weary of this week's Bizarre Procrastination Technique I developed: reading the plots to every slasher movie I can find. Besides, I only get nervous about the exam when I start studying (because I realize, 'Oh, I don't exactly remember how to do all the so-and-so problems'), but feel confident and nonchalant while not studying. So, by not studying, I'm saving myself a lot of worry. It's open book anyway. What could go wrong?

bumper stickers

Let's vote on which blatant presidential lie is more horrifying:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
or
"This government does not torture"

Sadly, though I like powerful bumper stickers (Who would Jesus bomb being my favorite), I don't like the one that sums up the above question (No one died when Clinton lied), I think just because it rhymes (la-ame! Like if Mother Goose were leading a protest rally).

When you get an MRI, before they put you in the tube, they give you headphones and a panic button.

The panic button is for if you suddenly freak out or get claustrophobic. There's not much to think about in that tube. I tried meditating, but of course when I do that, I think of the one thing I am trying not to think about. In this case, for a good portion of the hour in the tube, I was thinking "Don't get claustrophobic." I'm never claustrophobic, but I did have a few moments of thinking I might suddenly be. Then for a while, when the machine was making really loud noises, my brain happened to think to (and about) itself "Skull, give up your secrets!" So for a while, all I could think was this phrase. It was an appropriate thing to be willing to happen, I guess, I just wish my brain had hit upon a less silly phrasing.

The headphones are for listening to music since the machine is so loud. I should have been more specific about what station to put it on, but I figured I'd be fine with the mix station she said it was already tuned to, so I said OK. The closest I actually came to hitting the panic button was when "My Heart Will Go On" came on the radio. I don't think I was actually panicked, I just wanted to get her attention to change the channel, but I didn't want to be stuck in that tube any longer than necessary (since I was developing claustrophobia), so I didn't squeeze the button.

I will try to remember to update results, since I know I sometimes leave readers of my blog hanging (BC has never turned up; the thing in my cupboard was mice--I still have it taped up and empty. Every once in a while, I untape it, spray it down with about a gallon of bleach, and tape it up again; the bamboo flooring looks lovely; the cats have ringworm; but the cats really love each other and area always cleaning each others heads, so they bring me sorrow and joy in equal measure, but giving pills to cats is my least favorite thing to do ever). But I'm not worried about the MRI results. My headaches have all but vanished since I started school. I'm taking it reeeal easy! I'm thinking of 1) taking 5 classes next semester and 2) adding on a second masters degree in order to get 2 in 3 years!

JOB ALERT: Those of you in Austin, if you know someone who is a good typer and moderately smart, the place I do medical transcriptions needs some help because the full-time person quit, and, as I said, I'm taking it easy and don't want to add on a full-time job to my schedule right now. Contact me for details!