cloverfield

Glad to know we weren't the only ones who felt ill afterwards.

my condo

Did anyone ever wonder what my condo looks like? Well, I created a Flickr account because I'm trying to sublet for the summer (ad here, if you know anyone interested).

Here's a link directly to the pictures. They're not great pictures, just thought I'd get some use out of them.

Also, while I'm hawking sublets, my friend in Phoenix is looking to sublet her house during the Superbowl (or has that already happened?). Anyway, if you or anyone you know is interested, here's the link for that.

19: the edge of reason

one thing that makes me never want to write blogs again is reading my old blogs. it's horrendous reading things you wrote when you were 19! it should be banned! this is the same thing with old diaries and things so the fact that other people have read the writing makes it all the worse. what's the point of writing if i never want to re-read it? that's not the point of a diary! at the same time, i want to remember things (note: i've made a new playlist on iTunes, songs of forgetting and remembrance), and my brain cannot be relied on for anything except -that time i dropped the milk in the cafeteria and everyone laughed-. (insert your own humiliating memory that you should long since have forgotten)

but then i thought: what if i'd done something truly terrible when i was 19? i know people do important things when they're 19 (in college, we had a whole list of these people, because we were 18 and gearing up for our big year, but right now all i can remember is that lauren bacall and julia roberts made their big-screen debuts at 19, and that's just okay, but nothing you can really aspire to), but they also do embarassing things. for instance, what if had named myself something silly, like 'the edge,' and was still stuck with that name at the age of 45? now that would be a truly terrible legacy of being a teenager.

Wow. I've never had to work so hard to work. See:

1) I want obsessively not to finalize this stupid paper I've been working on for a month. I should just get it over with, right? No, procrastination continually scrambles to find a foothold on anything and pull me away from what I should be doing.

2) And what a thing it has found foothold in! It is a constant, unsuccessul talking-to my mind is getting. My mind says "No, find the breakdown of energy use by sector," and I answer "No! I want to find Doctor Who blogs! And folk music blogs!" See, I'm having twin obsessive compulsive urges in the positive. Matched with the first obsessive-compulsive urge in the negative, it's a miracle I'm so close to finally finishing ("finishing") this project. This will be the third time I've finished this project.

So. If music blogs hadn't just come out with their Best of 2007 lists. If Doctor Who weren't hilariously transparent in his commitment issues (and in this incarnation, played by an actor that I know has a Scottish accent, underneath his Doctor Who talk). If I had any interest at this point in the year-long course I'm signed up for on Russian transportation policy. If I could get this one song out of my head and could at least temporarily stop trolling the music blogs! Then maybe this report would be top-notch, and done.

Ohhh....there' so much else I want to say, that I've been thinking about writing about. I realize that a few years ago (even before this blog regenerated into it's current form. Not unlike Doctor Who. Shut up, me!) I suddenly became really self-conscious about my writing style, and I find it hard to write. Even in the privacy of my own home journal. This is really an inhibition for blogging day-to-day (or month-to-month in my case currently). Also, the cats don't say much entertaining, and the only social interactions I've had since returning last week were at work and school. This is not an excuse for my month at home--my family said plenty entertaining. But the truth is I can't be bothered to figure out how to translate the humor of it. Tell me, does this work? We were all at the sushi bar:

Lilbrudder: Sis, do you want another crawfish roll?
Me: Um, not...no. Mom, do you want one?
Mom: Did you not like them?
Me: Not really, I don't know, they were okay.
[I turn to my other side to get plate from bro to pass to mom. Find him staring at me.]
Me: What?
[beat]
Me: What??
Lilbrudder: I'm trying to think of some way to make fun of you for not liking the crawfish rolls.
[Mom and I wait with bated breath]
[bro still making steady, weird eye-contact]
[beat]
Lilbrudder: Dork.


Nice.

I know it's probably annoying to some of you (especially given my current email phobia) to not have any idea what I'm actually doing with my life. But then it also seems like such a boring thing to update. So, here's what I'll be doing for this semester, mostly likely: 3 courses at LBJ (econ, psychology of management, transportation policy and GHG emissions. blah), 1 course at ACC (GIS systems), 1 kickboxing class, applying for summer internships (India or DC or New Orleans), getting ready for a May course in India (i.e. trying to rent out my condo, store my stuff). And, oh, safe to say, watching Doctor Who, and I would assume also Torchwood, the spinoff.

See, when I get to this type of updating, I have to delete sentences like "I watered my plants both today, AND yesterday!" But it's true that I did water my plants both today and yesterday. And the day before. What's sad about that is they are very, very, very clearly dead. Like, if I touch them, they crumble to dust. Me watering the plants is not unlike this story of the family dog who dug up the family cat and cleaned it off in the night to sleep next to it. Poor thing, my neighbors think, watching me water away, she doesn't understand the difference between alive and dead.

THIS should provide adequate sustenance for the Dr. Who marathon

• For $7.95, I got TC Surf N Skate, the old Nintendo game. I was always so jealous of my friends and cousin who had this game. Now I can play it all I want!
  
  

• There is some sort of football game tomorrow, here in New Orleans! For some reason, I'm wearing a bedazzled purple/orange tiger T-shirt! And I've put off my drive back to Austin one more day. How do these things happen?
  



• Oh no!! How DO these things happen? I'm on the second-to-last episode of the first season of Dr. Who (the 2005 incarnation). It's the strangest show I've ever seen! I don't think it's a really good show (maybe it is--it's hard to tell from the middle of a marathon), but I do love it. The premise, basically, is this: a magical man (think Q from Star Trek, but less powerful, and disarmable because most of his abilities come from a phone box called the TARDIS. for real) appears out of no where and takes average joes and janes on adventures through time and space with him because he's lonely. Short of that, there are no rules whatsoever to the kind of adventures they can have. I haven't seen the previous series and movies, so I don't know to what extent the campiness of this one is self-referential. But I can see where obsession might flourish.
(Incidentally, the man in the background is a bisexual con artist who pretends to be a US soldier during WWII; he fancies both Rose and the doctor)


• Speaking of flourishing, so my own horrifying green-slime alien experience unfolded over the past few weeks. It involved my family's Kentwood water dispenser. I asked each of them separately "Don't you think this tastes weird?" and got agreement only from my brother, who always thinks Kentwood tastes weird. I thought I was going crazy. Then we disassembled layers one and two of the cooler, and I saw green slime all inside it! But mom continued to deny that there was anything wrong with the inside of the cooler! It also smelled like death, but mom has no sense of smell, so I can't blame that on the conspiracy. Anyway, it turned out I was right all along, and I saved us all from something dastardly! I'm just like The Doctor!
  
  

mad men

oh, in addition to reading children's books, I've watched Smallville and Mad Men a lot. Mad Men is great!! And yesterday while on a walk, mom and I saw one of the actors!

Last night I played pool. Badly. Each game took about an hour and a half. Most of our cheers for each other were "Nice! That one almost went in!" and "Wow! That was so close!" For a while we pretended we were secretly really good, and were only playing like that because we were going to hustle some people. But no one came to the back room and said "Care to make this interesting?" as we had planned in our heads. One guy came back and said "Who's winning?" right when we were tied. I was trying to think of a way to say "I don't think who's winning is an indicator of skill level" when L knocked a solid into a side pocket and I yelled "I'm winning!"

Later, in the corner, what I had thought was a wasps nest turned out to be a cone of chalk. I covered my hands in it and yelled "L! Look what I found!" then when she asked what it was I yelled "I don't know! Chalk I guess!" I was being careful not to touch anything. Later during my turn, I heard her back in the chalk corner and she suddenly yelled "I don't like it, I don't like it!" When I turned around, there were white handprints on the wall, like Hiroshima, and L looked very unhappy.

Here is my new favorite joke:
A cowboy walks into a bar and orders a whisky. As the barman's pouring it the cowboy looks about him. 'Where is everybody?' he says. 'Gone to the hanging,' says the barman. 'Hanging?' says the cowboy. 'Who they hanging?'
'Brownpaper Pete,' replies the barman.
'Brownpaper Pete? Why do they call him that?'
'Well,' says the barman. 'His hat's made of brown paper, his shirt's made of brown paper, his jacket's made of brown paper and his trousers are made of brown paper.'
'Really?' says the cowboy. 'What they hanging him for?'
'Rustling.'

update! on my blog!

no actual updates have materialized for some time. But while I've been doing stuff out here in the real world, I've composed several updates in my head. I just can't remember them long enough to write them down. And when I do remember, it turns out they're not that interesting. Story of my blog.

Here are two things I've seen while on extended stay in New Orleans:

-Brangelina's hot pink placeholder neighborhood in the 9th ward, where environmentally friendly homes can be sponsored and rebuilt. It was actually really neat. Here is a link. Oh, Brad Pitt, I bet that hat cost more than $500! And your eyebrows are so sincere! If I donate $500, can I have your cute hat?

-Galactic at Tipitina's on New Years Eve, with Mr. Lif, and two brothers from Jurassic 5! It is now one of my all-time favorite live shows. I managed to have a hangover with just 1.5 drinks. They were champaigne. The hangover is still in effect (48 hours later). But the music was fantastic!

Then in Mississippi, I spent a long weekend reading children's books, and putting puzzles together, and playing GoldenEye on N64 with my brother. I've completely regressed, and it's great! But then the last night with my mom, we watched Agatha Christie and drank cognac, so acting like I was 72 for one night averaged out the rest of the time okay.

For Christmas: I got robots. Skippy and Cornpone.

(click play for audio effect of next paragraph:)



Today: Mom and I organized all the Christmas decorations before putting them away. This involved careful sorting of the ornaments, many of which have been unused for years. There is no way to describe the terror I felt. Sometimes the ornaments filled me with nostalgia. Sometimes horror: a loose angel's wing (where was its angel?); Jack Frost's face rubbed off leaving just a blank dummy looking in through the window at you; a sinister-looking Santa. Sometimes I would just hold up an ornament with a quizzical look on my face until mom noticed me and took it from my hands to throw away (a walnut crowned with tiny tinsel? A tiny gold foil candelabra the size of my pinky fingernail? Where do these things come from?) Finding a motheaten red bird ornament, with Mika's "Over my Shoulder" playing the background, became the most beautiful moment we could have hoped for, given the materials.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I memorized the sanskrit names to yoga poses instead of studying probability.

When do you wish for a dollar?

gaf, gaf.

The other day I was eating a cheese stick when the door knocked. I mean, someone knocked on it. Immediately I was suspicious. I commanded the cats to battle stations (apparently someone rewrote the code during the holiday and battle stations are in the closet and under the bed now) and opened the door. To my surprise, it was a special delivery of the graphic novel Laika, about the first mammal in space (I'm assuming microbes were on Sputnik). The delivery guy had an amused look on his face, possibly because my utter bafflement was accentuated by the way I was clutching tightly to my string cheese and juggling the package and the electronic signer with my left hand.

I've only read the first chapter, but just the mere fact of its existence, and that someone I only met once almost two years ago was thoughtful enough to send it to me, makes me smile every time I see the cover.

Also something which makes me smile, laugh out loud in fact, is this 'article' on the 9 most badass bible verses. I usually don't read those things past the jump, but I was really glad I did. I think #4 was my favorite entry, but it's a tough call.

At yoga last night, for any of the postures when I was low to the floor, I was able to see what looked liked flingsalt--large crystals of salt. Since we'd stay in the poses for several seconds, I would have time to look at the salt, and wonder about it. I wondered what it really was. I wondered where it had come from. I wondered if it was always there at the end of the day. I wondered if it would hurt me if it got in my eye. All kinds of things. But by the end of the class, my mind was pretty still, and I just accepted that I was one with whatever that salt was on the floor, and it was totally cool.

But then as I was packing up to go, curiosity got the best of me, and I cautiously reached out my pinky and touched a grain. IT WAS NOT SALT! It was gummy and cold. Suddenly, my mind's stillness was flooded with far more wonderings than before. It was stuck to the bottom of my yoga mat, too, so my wonderings were also filled with alarm.

Anyway, I wish I could end this story by saying "Well, the lab assured me it was just a silicate that commonly forms when yoga mats touch floors" or some such, but I really have no idea what it was. My yoga mat is taking a bath right now. I had been meaning to wash it anyway so it smelled less chemical, and more yogic. I'm going to spray it down with lavender honey milk, and its bath right now is the leftovers from my own mineral spirits one. But despite no clear explanation, at least things didn't end like a Star Trek episode (i.e. the entire crew of my ship didn't succumb to an alien disease that causes irratic and funny behavior).