"'Party of Evil': American Gang-Raped in Brazil as Boyfriend Forced to Watch"

Another gang rape.

Stop it stop it stop it. This is making me cry.

I know this particular case does not necessarily deserve any more media attention than the others—in cities, in villages, in marriages—that go unreported by victims and unreported on by journalists, but the fact that this is indeed a headline is profoundly disturbing to me.

Am I simply more sensitive to and thus aware of the issue now that I am a sexual being myself, and a young woman living independently in the big wide world? Is it my own fear of being threatened and assaulted and brutally torn apart that is welling up in me such a visceral reaction?

Have media outlets simply realized that stories like these fan multiple flames? Are they catering to the tides of public opinion about feminism, sexual politics, and young male violence? Do they file these news items with more regularity because the topic has become a hot-button issue, or has it become a hot-button issue because new agencies are finally making it so? Does this mean we will soon reach a saturation point and become inured to such records of violation? "Another day, another gang rape"?

Or—the worst answer—are the numbers of sexual assaults actually increasing? Are there so few real deterrents for harassers and such a culture of silence surrounding victims and such a patriarchal desire for bare raw power that rape is more than ever... an ugly but largely unavoidable fact of life?

That is unconscionable.

These are essentially the same questions I have about supercharged natural disasters and mass school shootings. Do we simply hear about them more often nowadays because the way news is proliferated has fundamentally changed, or are they truly occurring with more frequency than in earlier decades?

The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity. Are we slouching towards Bethlehem? Will our gaze be always blank and pitiless as the sun? Let us tame the rough beast soon, lest it consume us all.

Notes from New York

The happiest person in this entire city is the woman who says "Good morning! Heads up! It's your day!" with enviable exuberance as she hands out newspapers at the Bryant Park subway stop, as bleary-eyed commuters stream by her with their heads down. Or maybe she's the saddest, and the best at faking.

Did you know there are so many ginger Jews?

One day I will walk into the Church of Sweden on East 48th and just stand in their book-filled reception area. Something makes me think it will smell comforting. 

I thought a man was waving at me from inside an office lobby. He was just washing windows from the inside.

My boyfriend doesn't toss his finished cigarettes and it is this, in part, that I love about him. The sidewalks here are artifacts of the inconsiderate.

Moment Witnessed in Times Square at Exactly 9 O'Clock AM:
—Sightseeing-bus ticket-seller hails someone across 7th Avenue, shouting, "How's it going, brother?"
—Uniformed security man shouts back, "Have a blessed day, man! A blessed day!"

I will always be surprised when I chance upon a diplomatic mission (I have found Mexico and Botswana quite by accident this past week); they're little reminders that a slice of your home, whomever you may be, can indeed be found in this overwhelming urban jungle.

There are so many people here that it is particularly disarming when you recognize one—an acquaintance on the street, a stranger in a subway station. Circulate the same commute enough times and this second one will happen, if you're observant enough. But most startling is seeing in a passerby's face the semblance of someone you know well: your mother if she didn't dye her hair, your brother circa age six on a swingset, your uncle's doppelgänger in a wine shop—you, aged three decades.

Words That Should Be Banished from the English Language, Please

• Panties
• Inchoate
• Flaccid
• Crotch
• Pleasurable
• Frottage

A Collegiate Culmination

• Got drunk
• Got high
• Got pierced
• Got fucked
• Got fucked over
• Got brave

 Success? Success.

Things Classmates Do That Annoy Me: A Snark-Filled Compendium

• Pushing the automatic door button unnecessarily. If you are mobile and have both hands free, there is no reason why you can't open a door yourself and help conserve energy while you're at it, you lazy bones.
• Texting in class. Your head is down and you have no pen in your hand. Are you really so self-involved as to think that the professor can't tell? And are you really so self-centered as to think the professor has nothing better to do than have her lecture fall on deaf ears?
• Chatting near the toasters and coffee machines, especially during peak hours. We are here on a mission: to get breakfast and caffeine. I'm glad you're so chipper and ready to re-hash last night's drunken hedonism with your friend, but doing so in front of the bagel basket or the Splenda bowl greatly impedes everyone else's access to such necessary items. Why insist on crowding more bodies in an already congested area?
• Sub-complaint: buttering or cream-cheesing your toast while standing in front of the butter and cream cheese containers. Next time try this tactic called "glop some on your plate, then spread it on your bread once you have moved away from these highly desirable condiments" and marvel at how efficient you can be!
• Printing reading assignments on only one side of the page (particularly if you don't actually plan to read them). Have you seen the number of reams we go through every week? Just because a resource is (ostensibly) freely available does not mean that you are entitled to use it without regard for the cost (both economic and environmental) of its replenishment. 
• Sub-complaint: printing unnecessary pages from downloaded documents. Nope, you don't need a tangible version of the copyright page of that JSTOR article. Or that page with the final endnote (you weren't going to read the notes anyway, right?).
• Using two disposable coffee cups at once. Unless you're planning on saving that empty outer one to use at a later date, just suck it up and either use a (re-usable?!) mug-sleeve-thing or endure hot hands for the one minute it'll take you to walk to where you're going.
• Pausing at the end of enjambed lines when reading poetry aloud. No. Just no. Do you read posters that way? Didn't think so. Follow the punctuation. This is not a difficult concept. 

Given the number of times "(un)necessary" appears here, I think I might be a utilitarian. We cool, Jeremy Bentham, we cool.

A Real-Life One-Act

Acquaintance, upon seeing my medical alert bracelet: What are you allergic to?

Me: ...sugar.

Acquaintance: [awkward crickets] I used to wear one for penicillin.

My brain: But really your own pancreas, stupid. Get your medical science right.

Things I Should Have Realized About Myself A Lot Earlier, Part I

When confronted with surprises/challenges/unexpectedly crowded rooms of people, I always choose flight over fight.

If I can't immediately make fun of my problems with my usual scorn and condescension, my brain throws up its hands with a helpless "nope," my temperature shoots up to nine hundred degrees, and I just turn tail and run away, figuratively hiding in my mother's skirts. 

This is why I didn't enjoy my surprise birthday party in high school. This is why I hate arriving late to class. This is why I dread making entrances I am unprepared for. This is why I avoid being the newcomer.


(...this is why I drink vodka shots before going to parties? #UncomfortableDiagnostics)

Job Search Woes

Jobs Applied To: 19

Jobs Officially Rejected From: 1

Jobs "Cancelled" Instead of Being Filled: 1

Jobs That, According to My Low-Level Research, Were Secretly Filled but About Which I Was Never Notified: 2

So This One Time, As Requested, I Updated My Blog (Brought To You By the Word "Procrastination" and the Number "11:37 PM")

I am more than content; I am happy.

These are good months; I don't want them to end.

I suprise myself; he takes my surprises in stride.

Semicolons are useful; I like dashes a lot too.

Unnecessary Things That Annoy Me Unnecessarily

• Ugg boots
• Class rings
• Cardboard sleeves for hot beverages
• Pennies
• Leaf blowers
• Solid hand soap

A Snarky Explanation for My Lack of Holiday Cheer

This article explains a lot.

As a youngster, I used to cry when I received gifts I hadn't asked for because I felt so guilty that I was receiving an overabundance thereof when I knew that many kids weren't getting any at all. Now when that happens, though I know my mom is just being motherly when she can't resist buying physical objects instead of requested gift cards, I turn into a grumpy misanthrope who goes off on a feminist rant about the sexual coercion tactics of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" while my family tries to retain some Christmas morning cheer despite a noticeable lack of tree and snow. But more than some holier-than-thou refusal of presents that stems from an overwhelming generosity of heart (because goodness knows I rarely get off my lazy ass in service to others*), what it comes down to is that I'm not good at faking appreciation or accepting surprises, and I really would rather have something practical (like money, instant coffee, or, yes, even a novel) than yet another tchotchke.

I think this means that I officially prefer Thanksgiving—all the food and family, but without the materialism and acquisition-of-stuff-I-will-never-use-but-need-to-pretend-to-be-thrilled-with-anyway.

*I do always ask for donations to various charities, though, but none, to my knowledge, were filled this year—which is especially weird given that you'd think my parents would be more willing to contribute toward research that could find a cure for their daughter than giving her novelty toys... but maybe once I am myself a mother, this insistence on unwrapping bulky items instead of simply opening envelopes will be made clear.

Not Every Kiss Begins with Kay

He went to Jared's?!

Well congrats, because you're dating a brainless sheep. 

The prevalence of jewelery commercials on TV right now is more than a little disheartening. Do men really just default to shiny necklaces as the appropriate Christmas (/Valentine's/anniversary/birthday/oops-I'm-an-asshole) gift? Does America think that its males are so brainless as to be unable to come up with more personalized presents? (Because that's basically the premise of these 30-second spots: a man realizes belatedly that he has yet to procure a little somethin' for his wife/girlfriend/slampiece, then takes a hint from Santa to high-tail it to the nearest retailer of fine metallurgy. Which, taken as a whole, does not put much faith in the male memory or imagination.)

Or alternatively, are America's females really so materialistic as to prefer generic polished rocks to something that shows how well their significant other knows them? (Because that's basically the outcome of these 30-second spots: the woman who has just received a pricy diamond showpiece bestows upon her man a passionate kiss of surprised gratitude, while the man knowingly looks into camera or at Santa, aware that he will be getting something hard of a different nature later that night.)

Wouldn't you rather have spent money on an unforgettable outing or on something that you'll use and appreciate every day than on a pair of sapphire earrings that get worn at a drama-filled holiday party but then spend the rest of their existence lost in your underwear drawer? Plus who says that a present needs to be expensive in order to demonstrate the depth of your affection?

Then again, one year my dad joked about getting my mother a toilet plunger, so maybe these ads do help the clueless among us. 

But hey, at least a plunger is practical.

My Tropes, My Tropes, My Lovely Lady Tropes

A List of Topics I Unconsciously Keep Writing Poetry About (Apparently)

• Silence and quietness
• Patience
• Things and words left unreturned 
• My childhood remembered
• Virginity
• Layers
• Outer space
• Liminal spaces
• Tree branches
• Bulwarks
• Bones and blood
• Writing on paper
• Unfamiliarity
• Hot air balloons
• Eggs
• Being methodical
• Trying not to be methodical

My Flaws: A Partial List

• Jealous
• Indecisive
• Anxious 
• Captious
• Supercilious
• Judgmental
• Diffident
• Ambivalent
• Fickle
• Highly susceptible to hours of internet-trawling when other Important Things must be done

Return of the Native Procrastinator

It's funny how, having finally experienced some moments of that wrenching thing called Life, I see my own life in nearly every piece of media having to do with relationships that I come across. That's the mark of a good story, of course, but I haven't felt so (uncomfortably, terribly, importantly, confusingly, reassuringly) close to a fictional character in a long time, until the past six weeks in my real existence have proven themselves full of That Human Drama That Novelists and Script-Writers Thrive On.

Which all just goes to show that I am as fallibly human as everybody else.

...and we'll just gloss over the fact that all three of the stories I have in mind have to do with selfish and egoistic young single women living in British or Irish manor houses.

FEELINGZ: I haz them in abundance.

On Silence

For Father's Day, my dad and I went to "The Tree of Life," which was beautifully shot albeit an hour too long and at times more like a trippy National Geographic special than a narrative film. It showed the majesty in the macro and the micro of this world, where human drama is but a dust mote in the universe. Those nature-video parts were wonderfully quiet—no dialogue, just classical music and incidental sounds. Every minute that the movie didn't feature people talking, though, two women in front of us (who together constituted one-sixth of the theater's audience) carried on a conversation with each other. These were not quick side comments or whispered jokes or sympathetic groans, but full-on back-and-forths about mundane topics. Do people really find silence so uncomfortable that they must fill it whenever it arises, even in venues where silence is encouraged? Why do humans find it so hard simply to sit back and let themselves be washed in awe?

HALLELUJAH

I finally finished Mrs. Dalloway. When did I start this 194-page book, you ask? The answer, I tell you, is last July. As in almost a year ago.

What a slog! It's the only Woolf I've ever read, but damn, does it make me very unwilling to pick up another. Maybe because I'm still reeling from the wit and ingenuity of Ulysses or maybe because I had such high expectations in the first place, but I am actually flabbergasted at how boring I found it. The protagonist was insufferable, I didn't find any of the language terribly moving or beautiful, and the only character I was remotely interested in went and killed himself.

So suck on that, Stereotypers of English Majors: here's one who will not soon be joining the Virginia Is For Lit Lovers club.

The Revolution Will Be Televised

You know you've switched from a college athletic center to a YMCA in Connecticut when the televisions in front of the ellipticals are permanently turned to Fox News and some stocks-and-investment channel instead of E! and the Food Network.

On a related note: We recently acquired AT&T U-Verse, so now I can watch the aforementioned Food Network while not huffing and puffing and cursing whatever sadist enjoyed working out to "Cupcake Wars" before my turn on the treadmill. (Though as it turns out, the suspense of pastry competitions—what will the judges think of avocado frosting?!—makes for a rather good incentive to keep running through the next commercial break. Especially when compared to line graphs involving capitalized abbreviations and little arrows.)

Also, what gym has only one rowing machine? I realize there are many lakes in which I could actually go rowing in, but that involves tying a canoe to the car and wearing a lifejacket, which are even less appealing than waiting awkwardly around for the sixty-year-old men and pre-teen girls (the only members whom I have seen using said rower) to finish their stroking workouts.

Ha, there's a euphemism to add to the arsenal.

On Joyce (the Man and the Seminar)

lexiphanic (adj.): using bombastic or pretentious wording or language

Regarding the title: I don't mind it in the former, but find it irritating in the latter. Is that hypocritical?

Words Bandied About in My English Class Today That Made Me Disillusioned (Yet Again) with My Choice of Major

• Jungian
• Hegelian
• Socratic dialogue
• Post-post-Structuralist

Did I unwittingly sign a form consenting to cross the threshold from "Let's talk about the beauty of language" to "Let's put all literature in terms of dead white guys' generalizing theories"?

Carpe Annum

Instead of resolutions, here are my 2011 rules to live by, in the hopes that publishing them will make me adhere to them (even if, much like those inspirational quotation books with pictures of cute animals on the covers, they are more likely to be displayed than read).

1. Only eat food worth eating, and all in moderation
2. Make room for a half-hour workout most days a week
3. Feed your brain on things outside a computer
4. Don't sweat the small stuff (and sometimes schoolwork is small stuff)
5. Don't waste the daylight (and don't hoard the nighttime)
6. Don't revert to your ante-Rome self,* but embrace the va bene lifestyle

*Partly why I got the nose ring—so that contradicting this rule is on some level impossible.

And, y'know, cultivating peace and love couldn't do any harm.

Incongruous Things I Have Seen In or Near The Vatican

• A Swiss Guard in full uniform reading Stieg Larsson by the Scala Regia
• A monk on roller skates gliding down the street
• A black cat meowing in the rain near an x-ray machine under Bernini's colonnade

My Pavlovian Response

Apparently I am at my giddiest when, all alone, I press "play" and the up-beat theme music that you can mimic with a series of "doo doo doo"'s or "ba ba ba"'s (i.e. "30 Rock," "Arrested Development," "The Office," "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "How I Met Your Mother," "Flight of the Conchords") starts playing.

I begin literally squealing and squirming with joy.

Nuovo Cibo

Before coming to Rome, I detested zucchini and had never really eaten eggplant (or drunk wine, but that's another story). Now I am obsessed with both, especially when the former is sautéed and accompanied by melted mozzarella on ciabatta. In wondering why the States haven't caught on to the fact that zucchini flowers are edible and delish, I Wikipedia'd them... and was met with this wonderful fact:

"In a culinary context, zucchini is treated as a vegetable, which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower." 

So now you know. 

I also had rabbit (in pasta sauce) and basically raw beef for the first time on Saturday night. Adventures for my taste buds!

Carpe Diem

I did something impulsive today.

Well, kind of. I had been thinking of it off-and-on as an "If I were a different person..." sort of thing for a few years, then let myself be convinced to do it for real about a month ago, then tried to pursue it two weeks ago but was foiled by misinformation and was crushed into resignation that it shouldn't happen after all. But today, quite unexpectedly, the opportunity presented itself—and, without my usual waffling and listing of all the hypothetical consequences, I took the bull by the horns.

Or more specifically, I took a needle to the nose: a souvenir of Rome and a symbol of the newer person I've become since landing here.

I Miei Nuovi Amici

• Single-serving containers of pesto
• The secret coffee vending machine
• ACE juice
• Pear juice
• Nutella boat cookies
• Zucchini-and-mozzarella sandwiches
• Vino bianco for less than 2 euros

(Do you sense a theme? Oy gevalt.)

I'm attending the canonization ceremony at St. Peter's this weekend, so maybe by Monday I can add Pope Benedict XVI to this list too—or at least an Australian cardinal.

The Top of a Muffin

I'm pretty sure I have gained weight since arriving here a month ago, despite the heightened amount of walking I've been doing. This gelato-and-pastry habit I've fallen into (or just carried over from my binge-eating in the states) has to stop, for the sake of my wallet and my waistline. 

Those cornetti con cioccolato are divine and a scoop of stracciatella hits the spot every time, but I am putting myself on a restricted diet of no more than two pastries and two small cups of gelato a week, starting this Friday in Venice. Quality over quantity. Try to avoid diabetes.

EDIT (Sunday): Well, that was a fail. Starting over tomorrow. Cornetti don't count.

I should probably also stop buying those 38-cent packs of wafer cookies at the supermarket. They disappear embarrassingly quickly down my throat.

In related news, apparently spoom is a thing.

Wanted: Peacock Logo

I haven't watched a movie or TV or even a web video for four weeks now, partly so as not to use up our precious bandwidth and partly because I need to break that habit but mostly because I should spend my time exploring Rome instead... but right now I miss my NBC comedies.

I need some Liz Lemon and Michael Scott in my life.

(I would also really love to go apple-picking. I miss New England in the fall.)

Or Maybe It's My Trusting Face

In the past week, at least six couples have asked me for directions somewhere—most of them in Italian.

I couldn't help them, but at least it made me feel like a local.

Inconsequential Inconsistencies

1. There are fountains with drinkable water all over Rome, but few public bathrooms.
2. Most of the streets are made of treacherous, slippery, non-contiguous cobblestones, but all the Italian women walk around wearing heels at least three inches in height.
3. The best bar I've been to in Rome thus far has been Irish.

Diff'rent Furnishings for Diff'rent Folks

Things That Are Not In This Roman Apartment

• Mirrors in the rooms
• Different locks on the room doors
• Garbage cans in most rooms
• Window screens

Things That Are

• Three bidets

A Taste of Gender Inequality

Well, it's 11pm and the boys just slipped out for the night—which means that we girls basically have to stay in. Rome so far has seemed pretty safe during the day, but once the sun goes down, the catcalls, whistles, and date rape drugs reveal themselves (or not so much "reveal" as "conceal [in drinks]" for that last one). We've been warned that going out even as pairs of females is unsafe, and I am certainly not going to ignore that advice. I have no desire to end up in a dark alleyway (of which there are many in this city meant for chariots instead of Chevrolets) with an intoxicated man, be he amorous American or romantic Roman. In a place and culture (and under a legal system) that are foreign to us, we women cannot forget that we don't have the independence or protection here that we might back home. Part of that protection is supposed to be provided by our compatriot males, but apparently we may be cramping their style in their weekend bar-crawls, so tonight they didn't even ask us if we'd like to escape the residence for a while, thus resigning me to yet another night of browsing the internet in my pajamas while eating Nutella with a spoon.

A Quick Confession

I have but one complaint about Roman gastronomy thus far, and it is this: it is an unwritten rule that you must order at least two flavors of gelato even for the smallest cup, lest the scooper look at you as if you have suddenly grown a second nose. "Solo?" he responds with disbelief when I order stracciatella and nothing else. "Si, solo," I must answer firmly. He resigns himself to my annoyingly non-Italian ways, and hands me my cup of a single, lonely flavor, his secret heart hoping that this heretic will leave his gelateria at once. 

There are hundreds of gelato gusti ("Mozart" and "Hello Kitty" among them), and of course my goal is to try them all. (Well, not quite all—just as with ice cream, I'm not tempted by anything based in chocolate.) My pignolo today was delicious, and now I know to avoid the boring fior de latte or syrupy-sweet zabaione. But I would like to try them one by one: one flavor taking up the whole of one cup or cone.

It's not that I'm obsessive-compulsive (in most cases I will allow my food to mingle as much as it likes on my dinner plate), but that in order to enjoy the flavor most fully, I must not have to maneuver the ever-melting dividing line between multiple tasty scoops. Moreover, the size of an Italian scoop seems to be about half of an American one, so when two flavors are crammed in one tiny copetto, you hardly have the chance to experience one of the two on its own terms before you find your cup sadly empty. What it boils (or melts) down to is that I want a lot of one taste instead of half as much of two tastes, complementary as they may be.

So, dear Italy, please indulge me and let me sample your many tantalizing gelati gusti one full, unadulterated cup at a time. I promise I will enjoy them that way even more.

Ciao, Roma!

I like lists. Here is a Benvenuto a Roma edition!

Il Bene

• Pizza, gelato, blood orange juice.
• Tomatoes, basil, mozzarella.
• Individual containers of Nutella with dipping sticks.
• Shopkeepers who speak some English and/or appreciate my embarrassing attempts at Italian.
• Feeling as if one is on a movie set while one walks down the narrow alleyways at 8:00, passing a ristorante every two minutes where people are leisurely dining al fresco while lit by beautifully wrought street lamps and serenaded by busking musicians.
• Surprisingly good connection to home on my program-provided Italian cell phone.
• Very helpful, friendly, and understanding RA's.
• Smart Cars and teeny-tiny dump trucks (except when they come hurtling down a viccolo when one is walking there).
• The fact that my legs will be quite shapely from all the walking I have to do.
• Cobblestone streets: they're ancient!

Il Male

• My fifty-pound suitcase (with my books, towel, walking shoes, newly purchased clothes, school supplies, and toiletries) got left behind in Dublin when I transferred there on Thursday morning. Thanks a bunch, AerLingus. (Then again, thanks for being cheap and for having friendly flight attendants with great Irish accents.) Because it's now the weekend, the earliest the bag can be delivered now is Monday (though at least the tracking website suggests that it is indeed in Rome).
• A miserable first night. Jetlagged (Rome is six hours ahead of home), exhausted (didn't sleep at all on the planes), overwhelmed (by multitude of tiny streets with no discernible plan, compounded with my inability to navigate my way even out of the apartment complex), in pain (neck muscles), pitifully homesick. I am a four-year-old at heart.
• The heat. It makes me sluggish and grumpy, I hate being sweaty, and escaping the sun is difficult when one is constantly having to walk somewhere.
• Only two working outlets in my room means that if I and my roommate both have our computers plugged in, we can't use the fan. This probably deserves a remedy.
• The McDonald's directly across from the Pantheon. Come on.
• General miscommunication problems among the various administrations.
• The fact that I am so easily frustrated, disoriented, and panicked.
• Cobblestone streets: they trip you up!

Next on the priority list (before classes begin) is to find a nice cafe, order my first cup of Italian coffee, and people watch from a table outside.

RANT RANT RANT

I am SO FUCKING BORED.

I am literally turning into a blob of nothingness.

When I'm not glued apathetically to my computer, I am sleeping, eating, or flopped on some lounge-y piece of furniture bemoaning this lame-ass summer.

Besides my stint at camp, I haven't seen a friend since mid-May.

My town has no sidewalks, or look-out points, or cute boys behind the counter at Panera.

I had better stop being dead before my plane leaves for Rome in nine days.

Depilation Drudgery

I strongly dislike shaving. Maybe because it takes so long, maybe because I do it while showering and thus am not wearing my glasses and thus nick myself all the time, maybe because it reminds me how fat my thighs are. I do like the feeling of soft, smooth, hairless legs, though, so in the spring and summer (i.e. during seasons where one cannot justify wearing pants to cover one's calves all the time) I pick up that razor. I pick up that razor maybe once a week because goldarnit, even though I hate seeing my stubble, I can't be bothered to shave away those short, annoyingly dark "maybe no one will notice—who's looking at my ankles anyway?" hairs. (More power to the girls who decide to stay au naturel; I just don't have the guts for that. Though I don't wear makeup for a multitude of reasons, I'm still a servant to the shaver.)

So two weeks ago I noticed that a Nair + Special Two-Sided Sponge set was on sale at CVS. It promised convenience! It promised remaining hairless for longer! It promised that I too would be a high-kicking, grinning girl in short shorts! So I bought it, and I tried it. And again today, just to make sure I hadn't messed up the first time. But no. 

After slathering on and rinsing off this foul-smelling, chemical-loaded cream, my shins became stubbly again just as quickly as they do after shaving (like two days—my head hair doesn't grow that fast!). More frustratingly, though, this so-called depilatory didn't even depilate all those bristles that interfere with my chances of being found by model scouts on the street (sarcasm)—I had to shave afterward anyway! I had to methodically mow the random patches that the lazy grazing cows had left behind.

So now I am doubly irritated: firstly because my leg hair growth never takes a breather and secondly because the magical solutions provided for that very problem are not, in fact, magical solutions. Unless anyone has recommendations that do not require lasers or scalding hot wax, I am resigned to wielding bits of sharp metal, hoping that my knees don't start bleeding again—at least until corduroy weather rolls around.

On a similar "I am slightly pissed off" note, I have to wake up in seven hours to join the family on a visit to a college that wait-listed me way back when. Yup, I'm still bitter.

On an unrelated note, I finally watched "Donnie Darko." Wow.

Things That Are Currently Making Me Happy

1. That it is my night/day off, free from melodramatic middle-schoolers
2. Lorna Doone cookies on sale at CVS (a buck a box)
3. That I saw "Inception" for only $5.25
4. Jon Cryer as Duckie in "Pretty In Pink"
5. The thought of gelato in Rome

Finally Something Worth Blogging About

Today (well, technically, last night) a boy asked me to go for a walk with him. So I did. We chatted for nearly three hours. (We are co-workers and met on Saturday night.) As far as I can remember, that's the first time such an event has occurred in my usually dismal life.

So things are exhausting, but I've got a smile.

Movies I Have Watched Since Wednesday's Wisdom Teeth Extraction

Wednesday

• Speed
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Full Metal Jacket
• A Serious Man (first half)
  

Thursday

• 40 Days and 40 Nights
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Deconstructing Harry
• A Serious Man (second half)
  

Friday

• Every Little Step
• Hamlet 2

Recovery from sedation and looking like a chipmunk sure provide an great chance to veg out in front of the TV.

Missing You (from PostSecret)

Dear Emma Watson,

Please stop being so bloody gorgeous, intelligent, and lucky. You're making the rest of us want to crawl under our beds and decompose into dust.

Case in point: this Vanity Fair article. Selected quote (my emphasis): "Then she started meeting people: a roommate who had no interest in Harry Potter (phew!), some really friendly rower guys, and eventually one Rafael Cebrián, who's a rock musician and actor in his native Spain and has reportedly become her boyfriend."

Sincerely,

Envious in Ohio

In Which I Am a Snarky, Detail-Oriented English Major

In one day, my institution of "higher learning" that prides itself on its "literary tradition" released two articles that made me want to transfer simply on principle to speak out against its evident hypocrisy.

Example 1 (in a piece featured on the website's front page): "I'd like to be a liaison, making science more accessible to the public through good writing and good graphics." She's had a taste of educating as lead tutor for the Chemistry Department's solar energy course, working at Kenyon's Match and Science Skills Center, and loves the work.

We have a Math and Science Skills Center (though a Match one might be helpful for the dating scene); obviously "good writing" does not necessarily entail proofreading. 

Example 2 (concluding sentence of a piece from the Office of Public Affairs newsletter): The ripeness, as Hamlet says, is all.

That quote is from King Lear. ("The readiness is all" is from Hamlet.) 

Of course people make silly mistakes, especially under the pressure of deadlines—but in something so public? Something used to lure in students and money? Something that is, for better or worse, part of "the face" of the college? Envision me shaking my head in disbelief.

Bonus Example: The Microsoft Word thesaurus returned "detective novel" as a synonym for "thrilled." Last time I checked, nouns and adjectives are not interchangeable like that. ("So how did you feel when he got on one knee and presented the ring, Annabelle?" "I was detective novel!")

Tik Tok: The Real College Student's Version

Wake up Wednesday morning feeling rather shitty

Grab my glasses so I can see, though they ain't too pretty

Before I leave, brush my teeth with a tube of paste

Though when I leave for the night I'll still come back chaste

I'm talkin' taking lots of tests (tests)

With little time for rest (rest)

Workin' a sweater vest (vest)

Laptoppin', wastin' time on FB,

Livin' in the library,

Gonna go a little stir-crazy...

Don't drop, buy some pop, teacher wants the paper soon
Tonight, I'm-ma write 'til we see the sunlight
Tick tock on the clock, but the deadline don't stop

Don't drop, buy some pop, teacher wants the paper soon
Tonight, I'm-ma write 'til we see the sunlight
Tick tock on the clock, but the deadline don't stop

Steamed and Pressed

The local dry cleaning "menu" lists prices for a hunting suit and an Elvis costume. Apparently these two outfits are worn by the populace on such a regular basis that they require special listings from the cleaners.

What an accidentally funny place this is.

That Teenage Feeling

My friend just facetiously defined teenagerhood as drinking, doing drugs, having sex, and crashing a car. 

If that is indeed seven of our most formative years boiled down to their highlights, then apparently, having snuck three of those four in under the wire, I did my job pretty well after all.

Still, I can't help but think that in my middle age, I will look back on my years spent in high school with a sense of wasted time and a deep regret that I didn't indulge in self-centered debauchery more often when I had the chance.

My mom sent me the letter I had written at nine years old to my future self (a Girl Scout project), and in addition to being a hilarious throwback to the years of boy bands and jump rope, it included the unexpectedly profound: "Dear Me, Here I am!"

Sad Fact

I don't think I'll ever feel ready to turn another year older.

Nerds for Life

We should be celebrating, not denigrating, the unironically enthusiastic.*

Tell me that your goal in life is to design the typography for an airline.

Tell me that you spend your summers selling pickles at a Renaissance Faire, making bawdy jokes to pull in customers.

Tell me that you grin at the thought of self-detonating ants.

Tell me that your favorite episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" is the one where Q transforms the crew into Robin Hood and his band of merry men.

Tell me that the possibilities of Wikipedia excite you more than side-boobs do.

I will love you all the more for it.

(Just don't tell me you like Twilight.)

*This phrase courtesy of the co-founding Nerdfighter himself, Mr. John "Animal Power Moves" Green.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

It's been happening more and more often: when I murmur a courtesy "Sorry" after nearly bumping into someone or awkwardly exiting a doorway that someone else is trying to come in through, the other person will respond with, "That's okay, you're fine."

You'd think "No problem" or a simple acknowledging grunt would suffice, but no—people follow it up with a comment on my state of being. Thank you for the affirmation, dear stranger, but I didn't ask for your opinion on the matter. Do I really seem so clumsy and self-conscious as to be subsequently wondering whether I have somehow made you think less of me during our polite dance of deference in an entrance-way? You are (inadvertently and with the best of intentions, I am sure) making me feel like a six-year-old.

"Bad Poetry? Oh Noetry!"

 

 (Amazon Page)

Sadly, I look like that girl right about now (the original facepalm?). 

I am also experiencing deep internal conflict: do I suck it up and get off my high horse or do I bemoan the fact that the art of writing has, apparently, been taken over by Verbosity for Verbosity's Sake, Shock Factor, and Eighth-Graders Crying for Sympathy?

I sincerely wish I could do the former, but it's proving harder than I imagined it would.

Eyes(t)or(i)es

I've had glasses for more than a decade—since I was in third grade. Without them, 12-point print gets too blurry to read when it's farther than ten inches from my face. (I measured.) Myopia has been such an inescapable part of my life that it featured in my Common App essay (I claimed, perhaps erroneously, that it worsened because I secretly read by the light of my lava lamp after Dad told me to go to bed—this being a sign of my dedication to books and to learning, yada yada yada Amherst didn't want me but I'm not bitter [yes I am]).

Contacts have never appealed to me because a) I don't enjoy poking my cornea, b) I would probably be too lazy to keep track of how old they are and thus develop some blinding disease, c) my eyes aren't as blue as they used to be so it's not like I'm hiding anything spectacular, and d) I am under the illusion that having a strip of darker material across my face breaks up my pale visage and keeps me from looking like a homelier Bella Swan. Thus I am indebted to my frames... but my frames and I have had a storied history.

My first pair, whose lenses were significantly thinner than today's, featured Snoopy saying "Hello!" in a speech bubble on each faux tortoiseshell earpiece. (They were from Costco. I was eight.) This came in handy as a conversation starter, particularly in dance class when I and my fellow aspiring ballerinas were lined up along the barre waiting to jeté across the studio. Evidently my glasses were far friendly than I, though, because I remained the quiet girl who kept to herself and could never manage a double pirouette. Snoopy's gregariousness should have taught me a lesson in Not Being an Introvert, but I didn't take him up on it. I can't ever remember being called "four-eyes," but I might as well have been for all that I felt an outsider.

In either third or fourth grade, I was standing patiently in line in the classroom waiting to go to lunch when one of my lenses decided to pop out. Fortunately I found the tiny screw, so this was repairable—but the first of many glasses mishaps. When I was ten, my glasses slipped from my hands as I was napping in the aisle seat on plane ride to Amsterdam, so upon waking I was terrified that they had been stepped on and crushed and that I would soon end up wandering nearsightedly into a canal. Fortunately an observant flight attendant picked them up and had kept them safe, so I was able to witness my aunt's wedding without squinting.

The next memorable eye-wear was a light blue pair of frames that my mother was convinced would bring our my eyes. This might have been the pair that somehow I managed to leave outside by our hammock overnight, but the scene that I will never forget took place in the summer house my grandmother was renting for a week, about two hours from home. We were watching the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics... when suddenly my glasses just fell off my face, snapped in two at the bridge. To this day I have no idea how that happened—a desperate suicide attempt, I suppose. Until we drove back to our town and I could get new frames (apparently these were beyond fixing), I had to walk around with feeble Scotch tape itching my nose or simply holding the two halves up to my poor eyes.

Then I chose a half-rim pair in navy that went through quite a battering (I recall being quite irate at one of my siblings who had rolled onto them during one of our half-serious brawls) until I needed yet another new prescription, and reverted back to light blue, this time from LensCrafters in the hopes that they would last. And they did persevere into college... until they too gave up the ghost. On spring break last year, as I was just sitting at home minding my own business, once again my frames just snapped and tumbled from where they been so nicely perched. This was a clean break (again, cause unknown), but positioned where the left lens met the bridge and thus, apparently, irreparable. Fortunately I had kept my older but weaker pair and so was able to stumble through the week or so it took for my lenses to be fitted to new frames. 

There was only one pair of frames in the Costco store that would fit the lenses, and they were thicker then I had ever tried before. But it was time for a change—and besides, thin frames were obviously not up to deal with the apparently destructive forces of my face. "Havana" also reminded me of Tina Fey's frames, though they have not yet made me as cool as her. We're approaching our one-year anniversary, but since I am once again having trouble making out my teachers' writing on the blackboards, another trip to the optometrist may soon be in order. A girl and her glasses: it's a strange and wonderful thing.

Tune in next week for the second installation of "My Life Through Corrective Appliances," the Orthodontia Edition!

Note: Is it mere coincidence that my lame pun of a title also happens to look like it is wearing spectacles? Decide for yourself.

Tranquility

A warm room, a mug of chai, a snowy landscape, an afternoon to myself, annotating James Wright's "A Blessing." 

All that's missing is a cranberry scone, a purring kitten, and a pain-free back. 

Writers' Block Blah Blah Blah

Here is a set of problems:

1. I have lots of phrases stored in my brain for use in a poem, but can't find the ideas to tie them together.
2. I have lots of ideas stored in my brain for use in a poem, but can't find the phrases to convey them.

Here is a second, though subordinate, set of problems:

1. I can't seem to write anything by hand in a notebook without drawing meandering lines.
2. I can't seem to write anything by keyboard in a computer without hitchhiking through the internet.

Here is a third, even more subordinate set of problems:

1. I am rather good at thinking of titles for poems that don't exist.
2. I am rather bad at thinking of titles for poems that do exist.

Here is the most important and most frightening set of problems:

1. Obviously I am not invested body and soul in writing poetry.
2. Obviously I do not experience the world deeply enough to write poetry.

Here is the conclusion:

1. I am going to catch up on "30 Rock" instead.
2. And knit a beanie, because that I can do. Quickly. And without frustration. And with an end in sight.

The Best-Laid Plans of Squirrels and Bears (Are Indeed the Best)

A Scientific Guide to Hibernation or Why I Wish I Were a European Hedgehog

1. Eat everything in sight in order to build up body fat.
2. Sleep for months in a warm place during the howling winter.
3. While slumbering, use up said body fat to keep alive.
4. Emerge in spring, among flowers and sunshine, newly slender.
5. Rinse, wash, and repeat like it's your mode of existence. Oh wait. It is.
   

Water and Salt Balance in Aquatic Environments

"Freshwater mosquito larvae replace the ions lost with urine by actively absorbing Na+ and Cl- from the water with cells in their anal papillae."

Well there's a sentence I never thought I'd have to read. Thank you, Ecology textbook, for that wondrous bit of education.

On a related note, I seem to have a bug bite on my ankle. In January. Should I be worried?

Abdominal Souvenir

In the fitness room tonight, the TV in front of my elliptical was tuned to the E! channel—evidently people enjoy torturing themselves with images of thin and toned celebrities as they work out. During my half hour of profuse sweating, the show about Hefner's ex-girlfriend Kendra was on, but it would seem that married life has tamed her wild side. She was pregnant to the point of popping, but I don't see why following her around with a camera is necessary or even lucrative, because she just sat on the couch with her dog, went to the doctor's for an ultrasound, and attended a Lamaze class.

Until, that is, she and her husband made a plaster cast of her baby belly. Much like my relationship with the bowl in the servery containing heavily salted, crisp-yet-fluffy pita chips, I simply could not turn away. Her husband covered her naked breasts and protruding stomach with wet strips... and when the mold had hardened enough to remove, this hollow replication of Kendra's torso (complete with E-cups, as she pointed out) was the centerpiece of their holiday dinner.

Needless to say, this was just about the oddest scene I have ever exercised to.

At least I was a tad comforted by knowing that my own stomach, at that moment, was far less rotund than a glamor model's.

Raunchy Pop

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Of Mornings

When I am too old to make a living but have enough money saved up in order to live quietly in a cottage, I will begin each morning by sipping tea, nibbling on a perfectly crisp English muffin, and doing the newspaper's crossword with a gentle-giant cat on my gentle-giant lap.

But right now, I have been blow-drying my hair for less than a week and am already bored of doing so, I have learned that Honey Nut Cheerios "Milk 'n Cereal Bars" are not as good as they sound, and I have not learned to tumble out of bed without wanting to remain asleep, where dreams are what I make them.

Winter Television "Events"

January 6: People's Choice Awards

January 17: Golden Globes

January 23: SAG Awards

January 31: Grammy Awards

February 7: Super Bowl XLIV

February 12-18: 2010 Winter Olympics

March 7: Academy Awards 

March 15: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

March 27: Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards 

That seems particularly crowded.

...I can't believe I noticed this density and then spent time preparing the list, particularly since I plan to watch only the Oscars, the Super Bowl half-time show (Pete and Roger!), and maybe some curling.* However, I do find it disgusting that the American public consistently watches celebrities being given awards to add to their ridiculous money and fame. I can understand wanting to recognize talent, but must we do it with such expensive sets, outfits, and goodie bags? If we took all the money that would otherwise go to the promotion and slime-making for the Kids' Choice Awards (because what kid should be staying up to watch TV on a Sunday night anyway?) and put it toward supplying the Haitians with food, water, and medical attention, I would have a lot more faith in my country.

*Am I kidding? Maybe.

Time for a Change

This is a little late in coming, but I suppose I might as well "publicize" (put on a blog that hardly anyone knows about) my "resolutions" (goals I will rarely if ever attain) for the new "year" (semester, really, because we all know that summer messes everything up).

So, without further ado but with many split infinitives, the list for 2010 (effective on the 18th):

1. To not stay up past 2am
   
2. To not sleep past 11am
3. To stop vegging out, particularly on desert items
4. To stop eating those deceptively delicious fried vegetable sticks altogether
5. To continue not drinking soda (negated by my increasing intake of sugared coffee anyway)
   
6. To work out at least three hours a week
   
7. (Corollary to #3 and #5: To see actual results on this lump of flesh I inhabit)
8. To learn to knit cables, particularly on fingerless gloves
   
9. To read at least a poem a day
   
10. To write poems that are worthy of submission to the wide, if dwindling, world of publishing
11. To live deliberately
    
12. To enjoy myself

The ever pessimistic crystal ball says... only #8 will find fruition. We shall see.

Hair Today

I got a rather significant haircut today—perhaps too much in advance of spring, but a good reminder that I have decided to be a happier person this semester—and was not twinged with remorse about it until my mom pointed out that I could no longer hide behind a curtain of dirty blonde.

A Positive

Today I gave blood for the third time and despite the knowledge that my pint of plasma and platelets could save three lives, I don't think I'll ever get used to the idea that a part of me might soon be coursing through someone else's veins. Maybe "I" will be part of a truck driver from Nebraska or a six-year-old in Georgia, even if only until my red blood cells die and are replaced. That's a beautiful and terrifying thing.

As I walked into the room, "Don't Fear the Reaper" was playing on the radio—creepy or reassuring coincidence? (At least I didn't develop a fever for more cowbell as I watched my life force flow into a plastic bag.)

(Strange Confession of the Day: I don't mind having needles stuck in me. Sometimes it even makes me giggle.)

"I'll Be Back"

I watched "The Terminator" for the first time last night, and besides thinking "What a terribly written movie" (true) and "Sarah Connor's terror will give me nightmares" (also true), I couldn't help but wonder how the selection to send someone back to 1984 went down...

INT. HUMANS' CAVE IN 2029 - NIGHT

JOHN CONNOR stands on a trash heap, his feet planted firmly in the pile of CPU's and dead rats. The meager population of Homo sapiens surround him, listening intently to their nominal leader. All are dirty, exhausted, and emaciated. Many look worried, but some look ready to undertake his direction.

JOHN CONNOR

(Gazing at the assembled with the intensity of Caesar) My people!

HIS PEOPLE

(Mustering the strength of their collective voices) All hail!

JOHN CONNOR

The time has come...

SOME SMART-ASS

(Sniggering to his buddy) The walrus said...

JOHN CONNOR

Shut up. The time has come for us to make a stand. No longer must we be subjugated by machines! (Clapping from the crowd) No longer will we live underground like vermin! (Cheers and fist pumps) No longer shall we walk this world in fear of termination! (A chorus of "Amen") I have a plan for us, my people, that will lead us out of darkness and into our promised sun!

HIS PEOPLE

What is it, John Connor? Tell us, John Connor!

JOHN CONNOR

Fear not, my comrades, for I will tell you when the time is ripe. For the moment, know only this: if we are to reclaim our rightful throne, we must ensure our existence. My existence. (Pauses, looking as deep into the eyes of the assembled as the feeble light of cave fires will allow) Now. Which one of you brave men will travel back in time to impregnate my mom?

HIS PEOPLE

What the fuck?

About the Author

Here's my problem: for the past five years or so, I seem to have been (is that a split infinitive or merely the strange construction of the present perfect progressive?) making my higher education choices based on what I want my biographical blurb to look like in my first book. Obviously there are multiple things wrong with this way of thinking (not the least of which is "If you plan to deserve a biographical blurb, you had better start compiling the preceding pages"), but recently I have fretted less about the educational information ("She graduated from This College in This Year with a degree in This and This"*) and more about the place of habitation that will end the paragraph ("She lives in This Place with her Loving Husband, Two or Three Children, and a Cat Who Used to Be a Vivacious Kitten But Is Now a Yawning Lump").

What, exactly, will "This Place" be? The city is too crowded, the country is too sparse, so it will have to be suburbia, that meeting point of culture and landscape forever tinged (and rightly so) with the odor of materialism and artificiality. How specific? New England is too general, a town is too specific, so it will have to be a state, providing the hope of tracking me down but without enough clues to do so. Why? So my work is given a sliver of context, a peek into the composer's life? But shouldn't that be evident in the work itself?

Maybe I should simply ask the editor for permission to cut it, standing simply as "She lives."

*However, this still continues (is that redundant?) to be a pressing matter, which may suggest that I am plagued by enough neuroses to be a poet after all.

Sister to Sister

Peering at their letters kept behind glass at the special exhibit at the Morgan, I couldn't help but marvel at the Austen sisters' precise penmanship. So straight, so lacking in errors! To conserve paper, they even often continued their thoughts by turning a finished page and writing horizontally across their own words. And what devotion there was between them, recorded and tangible forever in a way that I doubt emails and text messages will be.

What struck me most, though, was this sentence from the letter Cassandra wrote to her niece Fanny about Jane's death, for it sounds so much like what I feel for my own beloved confidante:

"I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend as never can have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow; I had not a thought concealed from her, and it is as if I had lost a part of myself."

Captcha and Release

I just had to type "doorstep City" in order to stick a link on Facebook. That sounds like the title of a poem I should write.

Though I will never prefer reading on a screen to thumbing through the care-worn pages of a book, I do love the searchability of online texts... and the ease with which I can peruse New York magazine's "Strictly Personals" from the '80s thanks to Google Books. ("Breathes There A Man—of worthy vintage who's willing to be a friend first and see where that leads?" "If you're amply shaped, let's talk." "One of New York's most eligible bachelors is tired of running and ready to be caught. Can you cure what ails me?") So the fact that I am helping digitize newspapers and novels by decoding images and typing letters makes me think I am contributing to the preservation and dissemination of knowledge even while I'm posting lolcats on my friends' pages.

Here's to you, reCAPTCHA. I'll gladly do your work for free.

(SWF seeks similarly nerdy and bibliophilic M, 18 to 23. Bad puns, writing skills, and Monty Python knowledge a plus.)

What a Tease

One of the Starbucks "Pick of the Week" iTunes song redemption cards that my aunt gave me... had no download code. Now I will never know what "Se Fue" by the frighteningly angular-faced Bebe sounds like. What a shame.

Also, Dan Brown still can't write for shit... so I removed the jacket cover when I took my brother's (Christmas present) copy of The Lost Symbol to Panera today. Still, I will concede a high-five for his mad research skillz.

Also also, Panera's macaroni and cheese is definitely not worth five bucks.

Things I Don't Understand About "Party in the USA"

1. Have you ever seen Miley Cyrus wear a cardigan?
   
2. If Miley is, as she claims, in a taxi cab, can she really be "movin' her hips like yeah"? The last time I checked, doing so requires a standing position.
3. I'm pretty sure you've been working in LA for long enough to know that it is indeed not Nashville, Ms. Cyrus.
   
4. Since when is a Hollywood club representative of the entirety of America?
   
5. If "USA" is really defined by Jay-Z and Britney instead of Springsteen and Aretha... I think I'll move to Europe.

Funny as Grammar

One of my history books describes a British soldier in India as "agile as a verb."

Does this mean someone can be... steadfast as a noun? eloquent as an adjective? guiding as a preposition?

Some Less-Than-Profound Things

I watched "Memento" last night. MIND = BLOWN.

I realized that I spend about a day each week (usually Sunday—this very post is, in fact, procrastination) in a computer lab just writing essays. This is not a fruitful way to spend my life, especially when the essay topics don't whip me up into a frenzy of academic awe. And, because I hate starting papers, I dither around doing nothing even remotely productive until an idea comes to me... then I agonize over word choices. So what takes a less diligent but more alive person maybe three hours ends up taking me ten.

When I get lost on Wikipedia, I really get lost. Hyperlinking and trivia will be the death of me yet. There is so much interesting stuff to know about the world... but most of the time I just want to read about it rather than have to analyze it for a grade on my transcript.

I heard Mika's "We Are Golden" for the first time on Friday and it just made me sad that the fun parts of teenagerdom are all too fleeting and all too few.

Remember when I wanted to be Harriet the Spy? (Yes, I do.) Remember when I knew a guy like Sport? (No, I don't.)

In other words: I need to stop taking myself (and my schoolwork) so seriously. I'll never get back the weeks I've already lost to self-consciousness and over-achieving.

"Working on My Night Cheese"

I can't decide whether I'd want to be or marry Tina Fey.

(And how perfect is her last name?! Jealous.)

Why I'm Sometimes Silent in Class

It's not that I don't care about the book—it's that I care too much. That it feels blasphemous to discuss it before I've finished reading it. That some books shouldn't be subjected the inane questions and answers of barely-awake teenagers. That to try to analyze this particular novel would be relegating it to a homework list when it belongs to something so much better.

The Perfect Man?

Heart and personality of Marshall Eriksen, brain and looks of Ted Mosby, humor and, uh, vitality of Barney Stinson.

I think yes.

Verbose Volumes

This semester, I go from 821-page David Copperfield in Class #1 to 560-page Midnight's Children Class #2 to 682-page Jane Eyre in Class #2... and then 560-page Midnight's Children in Class #1. I must also trudge through most chapters of a 656-page history book.

If I make it through, I think I might deserve a medal.

Self vs. Others vs. Self

Funny how all my classes this semester have me examining other people's identities, when the one I need to be focusing on at the moment is my own.

More Like "Wept-ember"!*

The crisp beauty of September is always ruined by the swamp of work. Couldn't you once let us enjoy the fading days of summer so well complemented by the coloring of the leaves, o gods of higher education?

*This is a terrible title. I don't apologize.

Highways and Byways

Thank God for interstate rest stops and 99-cent Arizona iced tea cans.

Misheard Lyrics

For the longest time, I thought Santana's version of "Black Magic Woman" used the lyrics "Blacken my diploma."

True story.

How I Spent (Thirty Minutes of) My Summer

Talking about dual-flush toilets.

(Which are actually one of the most ingenious ideas I've ever heard. I can't believe I've never thought of the concept before.)

I've Got a New Drug

Speed Scrabble is the crack cocaine of word games.
This is irrefutable.

(Apparently it's the poor man's Bananagrams. This gal's only got room for one fruit-based lark in her repertoire, and that's Apples to Apples.)

The Seven Stages of Man Could Well Be Shortened to Six

I'm certainly not of the "live fast, die young" variety, but I don't think I want to be the owner of the Costco cart filled with extra-large Depends, either.

Stop! Sexy Time!

In my hometown there is a stop sign that has been grafitied to read "Try for a baby."

I wonder how many children were conceived this year after their parents came to a halt at an intersection.

I Sing My Heart Out to the Infinite Sea

Microsoft Word's thesaurus just returned "cry" and "noise" as synonyms for "song."

Is Bill Gates secretly a philistine?

Here Comes the Bride, A Decade in Advance

Would it be terribly gauche of me to wear Converses to my own wedding?
I did in my dream last night, but I can't remember if that drew any strange stares as I walked toward the man I have yet to meet.

We did, however, flop down on a bed in disbelieving childish giggles before returning to the reception to eat tiered lemon cake.

(A flower garden in May or an elegent library* in September.)


*Perhaps a flash-back to our first date?

...I have got to stop reading these things.

A Question

"How did you grow, as a person?"

What the hell else would I be growing as?! A garden? A piglet? A slime mold?
Stupid interview preparation suggestions.

You Know You're Living In a Special Part of the Country When...

...instead of presumably illegal immigrants, the guys helping lay a new sidewalk are Amish.

Top Five Musician-Inspired Names That I Might Bestow Upon My Future Children...

...So That They'll Have Good Answers to the Inevitable "Are You Named After Anyone?" Question

Sons

1. Dylan (as in Bob)
2. Graham (as in Nash)
3. Jude (as in "Hey")
   
4. Arlo (as in Guthrie)
5. Garfunkel (as in Art) ...except not really.
   

Daughters

1. Melissa (as in the Allman Brothers song)
2. Natalie (as in Merchant)
3. Laurel (as in the famous canyon)
4. Judy Blue Eyes (as in "Suite")
   
5. Magnolia (as in "Sugar") ...except not really.
   

Words, Words, Words

Fact: The bigger the book in front of you but the smaller the text, the more scholarly you feel.

I've got a 1910-page Shakespeare concordance. You can just hand me my doctorate now.


And in this concordance, printed in 1937, I espied a typographical error: "...ay, there's the rnb..."
An upside-down "u"! (Though I suppose technically it's really just an "n.")

...shut up. I think it's funny.

Spring Has Sprung (I Open My Lungs)

I might have the motivation to buckle down and research if I could only forget that at this very moment, crocuses are pushing their way out of soil sleep.

Not a Barefoot Contessa

Okay, really?
Are you really going to change the television above our respective elliptical machines to the Food Network, of all channels?
Yes, you are?
Are you a sadomasochist? I feel like I'm running up Mount Everest in hundred-degree weather in a vain attempt to shave fat off my protruding stomach, and you're going to make me watch chocolate truffles being made?
This is too much.

You've driven me to buy a smoothie downstairs—and just before she finished the tiramisu!

Psychology Doesn't Balance

You'd think that having simultaneous superiority and inferiority complexes would result in a well-adjusted and happy person.

This is, frustratingly, not the case.

That Punk Punxsutawney

Killing a groundhog isn't met with capital punishment... right?

Add a Little Irony

As I was trying to type "success" in a text message but forgot the second "c," the ezi-spell function spit out "puberty" instead.

There's No One New to Know

I have come to the conclusion that Facebook has rendered me socially inept—not because it has skewed my sense of "friendship" or driven me to compartmentalize my interests and activities, but because my endless attentiveness to profiles* ensures that I already know the answers to the basic questions one normally asks when getting to know another person.

Social networking doesn't translate well to real life when you feel compelled to "meet" someone before you meet them.

*euphemism, "stalking"




On another note, I had forgotten how much I like cheesy rice cakes.

Shut Up Shut Up Shut UP

You know when you're in a crowd and stop focusing on words and everything just becomes endless fucking noise, all these people spewing inconsequential chatter, blathering idiots and moronic mouths, and you press your fingertips to the holes in your ears and make them open and close like valves until you want to scream to high heaven that all this talking doesn't amount to fucking anything?

Well, that may very well be the opening scene of my adolescent angst movie.

If it ever gets made.
But let's not be bitter and pessimistic.

Light Me Up

Things to Do While High: A Purely Hypothetical List

1. Sync "The Wizard of Oz" and Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon."
   
2. Read Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.
3. Re-create the Woodstock setlist with a stereo system in a field.
   
4. Cloud-gaze.
   
5. Rock down to Electric Avenue.
   

What Enzymes Have Made Me Realize

When it comes to boys, I suffer from the effects of competitive inhibition.

What I need is an allosteric regulator to help induce a conformational change.

Too bad that infatuation usually follows the first law of thermodynamics.

A Complaint

The great irony of a teenage girl's life: no one will love you until you love yourself, but loving yourself is difficult until someone loves you.

Corollary: teenage girls are doomed to years of therapy.

Men Are From Mars

According to four upperclassmen (emphasis on the final syllable) I overheard today before dinner, the ideal wife is one who visits the toilet at the opposite time of day than her (apparently regularly scheduled) husband, and that the ideal Saturday night is spent getting high and visiting all the drive-through fast food joints in town.

Now, I'm not trying to pass judgment, but... really?

One Poor Girl

Buddy Holly loved her, called her "pretty pretty pretty pretty," but four years later The Regents tried her and knew she wouldn't do. And as if that weren't enough, The Beach Boys did the same, preferring Barbara Ann once again.

Peggy Sue must have needed a therapist.

Be It Resolved

I don't think I want to lead a life of quiet desperation anymore.

It just doesn't produce stories worthy of telling to wide-eyed future grandchilden.