Put Mars at Your Head

Ok, first: Watch the g.d. debate tonight. All of you.

Next: W is retarded. Dr. Phil is also retarded. Raedy and Jenny said it better though.

Third: I'm founding an I-Hate-Pants Club. Email me for club meeting times, dues, and t-shirt logo info.

Four, this cold pizza is delicious. It's powdered sugar.

Fiver: I moved into a new office today. I about shit my g.d. pants it's so fucking nice. I have a cool officemate, who is the 4th year golden-girl of the department, who is going to rub off on me and make me just as brilliant. I have a big nice desk with a BIG NICE WINDOW that has a BIG NICE VIEW from the 4th floor of sunny, rolling hills California. From the top of the parking garage (which is RIGHT next to my office) I can see to the mountains and everything in between. I about died of happiness. I am going to move all my school-related shit there and actually spend time in my office not hating my life, but being productive. I am so fucking excited.

Fivesixsixsix: I am shifting back into being a real grad student quite nicely. It's fucking awesome not feeling like a freshman anymore, and it's also fucking awesome that both my classes this week were cut ridiculously short by freak events that made my day both times. Monday is going to be the longest day of my life, but I suppose thst is the point, and that's fine.

Seventh heaven: I don't have anything to say, I just wanted to be all, 'i had a kickass day, how were your days?'

8: love you sluts

When A Boy Gets Kicked in the Nuts, It Hurts the Most

That's right, little girl. Kick boys in the nuts. Ok, now I'm sure none of you are this lame, but did anyone happen to see the Real World San Diego's little post-airing special about what they "should" have shown that didn't get used? It was actually fucking hilarious. JD thought so too. That Cameran girl kicked Brah in the nuts about a billion times. It's ridiculous. I've never known a guy to still want to talk to me after I kick him in the nuts. But whatever.

Lots of Nuts talk lately. "Want 2 cds?" JD and I asked each other repeatedly yesterday night. Never gets old.

So I had that class. Only lasted 30 minutes. I love when professors have grants due tomorrow and have other shit to do. Hopefully she'll be so busy all quarter that this will become a regular occurrence. I hiiiiiighly doubt it. It was good to see everyone. It's weird, I know they were probably around all summer too, but I only saw my friends that I hang out with all the time. Everyone else seemed about the same. The guy who didn't get residency in time was there. He's a soldier.

I was starting to get all worried that this year will suck more than necessary, but seeing everyone reminded me that we're all in the same boat and it's nice that I know all these people well enough to think well of them and I know we're all equally reluctant to do anything that requires responsibility or leadership, so I don't feel so inadequate. I'm sure that'll come back in time.

Anyhoo. I got shit to do.
Like buy the Eternal Sunshine dvd. Which came out yesterday.

With My Whole Heart, Until It Burns

I have a class in the morning. I would rather go up to LA for the second day in a row than have this class. Applyhud S'yckologickal methids. With the bane of my existuhunce.
But I am meeting my friends for coffee early in the morning, yay!

so here is a list of things that have made me laugh lately:

*the other night at the gym, jd and I were on ellipticals and we both started doing the robot while we ran. to our respective music we were listening to.

*i broke m'damn favorite sunglasses in the g. d. known universe the other day. So i got new ones. Which are, if you can believe, about TWICE as big as the ones I had previously. They are so so cool. and glam. I will probably post a photo of me wearing them sometime so you can actually see why I laugh when I think about what I look like.

*I finished a book called angels and demons, the "prequel" to the DaVinci code, and the last line of the book, when the two main characters of course are about to FINALLY do it, the g. d. last line of the book is the woman saying coyly, "you've never been to bed with a yoga master, have you?" It both turned my stomach in its stupidity and made me laugh aloud.

*I was just sipping contentedly on some nasty coffee dredges from the bottom of the pot when i noticed a dead little bug floating in my mug.

*i was kind of freaked out about not getting CA residency in time because I was convinced that I would be kicked out of the program. Many of you informed me I was retarded to think that, but there's one guy in my cohort who didn't get it done in time, and now his options are to a. pay it himself (that's $14,000) or b. take a year off. period. so it's a good thing that I got it taken care of.

*law professors are never what you expect them to look like. i met one who works closely on this study and is fucking faaaaaamous at usc, which i hear has a good program, and he looks less like the law and order gang and more like shaggy. not the lame ass rapper, either.

*my downstairs neighbors moved out, and i glimpsed through their open living room windows the other day that their carpet was fucking demolished. I guess that chihuahua really DID have the power to demolish their property. then yesterday i saw the workers recarpeting. for some reason i find that hilarious. i'm glad they're gone, i don't miss them.

*the commercial where the aerobics instructor is going, "and dip it! and pop it! and pop it oh yeah that's good" was just on (it's for IHOP shrimp or somethign) and it always makes me laugh

*this coffee is crunk


There's nothing else "funny" happening. Save your smarmy comments until something funny begins happening. Wait until I have to give a talk or otherwise do something adult. THEN we can all laugh.

Celeste, gotcha postcard, thanxxx. Jenny you need to book that plane ticket. Thaaannnxxx

Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls

Well, it's been a bad few days for everyone. Sorry guys, chin up. (punches you affectionately on shoulder, accidentally bruising you with own brute strength)

I just finished a book called Fast Food Nation. Probably some of you have read it, it's been out for years. I'm just slow on this popular reading boat. If I weren't already a vegetarian, that book would have prompted me to become one. Immediately. I can only say that I hope some of you will go out and pick it up and have a look at the chapter called, "what's in the meat."

I am also realizing that my little year-long visit to Scotland when I was a tot is not all rainbows and sunshine as I had previously remembered it to be. Instead, this book pointed out to me that I am not allowed to donate blood (a fact that should be relayed to the Red Cross and Cashtle High School ASAP, since I have given blood before) because I lived in the United Kingdom for more than 6 months in the 1980s. And that makes me especially likely (? vulnerable? I dunno) to be carrying the human strain of mad cow disease. I'm not kidding. And since no one knows the exact incubation period (but research is pointing to its being 20+ years....if you do the math that is putting me at Starting Right Now) and there is no cure, some people are getting worried that it's going to be a plague of bubonic proportions and wipe out a large chunk of the population of the earth. But mostly I am worried because if you have it, you die because your brain liquefies. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for natural selection, and come what may, that'd be the most hilariously ironic way for a vegetarian to go, but still. Yuck.

In other news, I start classes this week. The first one is on Wednesday, And boo, I only have two a week. And boo, I'm going to start being super busy again real soon.

If I make it through this school year I will consider the hard part over.

Hope the rest of you are doing ok. It's definitely raining and pouring. The old man is snoring.

You Make Me Wanna LaLa (In The Kitchen On The Floor). I'll Be Your French Maid (I'll Meet You At The Door).

Yeah, if you know where that came from you can't even try making fun of me for knowing it. It's a good workout song. And by "good" I mean "I bust up laughing when it comes on my iPod."

I'm like an alley cat, drinking milk up I want more. I'm like an alley cat. A sexy little alley cat.

Plus one of my many aliases is "Lala." I considered putting down all of my nicknames when I had to go downtown for a background check last week. That would have been amusing for me. Yes, I also am known as Teresita Marzipan, Lala, Hot Sauce Verber, Zil (very clever, jarrod), Bitchcakes, Dr. Blackbelt, etc.

And then whatever you guys call me on top of that. Heh.
Today I am in the business of rocking people's motherfucking faces off. (doffs imaginary hat to Celeste) you're welcome.

I took a bunch of extremely awesome photos of my apartment, cat, and various random objects. And tried to put them on my fotoblog for you sluts but I think the Ef Bee Eye has cracked down on the host site and it no longer seems to exist. And I don't feel like fucking with it right now.

I have a meeting about some bullshit later this afternoon, in about an hour. And I have to pick up my friend from the airport later this evening. And then I have to do all this work for a meeting for tomorrow. But you know what? I don't give a shit, because I went to LA for the third time this week and I am DONE going multiple times for the remainder of the quarter/my life. My prof may think otherwise, but there is no way in hell I am doing more than bare minimum on this project that I mostly hate and eats up all of my time. Pish posh.

I need to go LaLa before I have to leave for the meeting. Seeya, suckaaaaaas

It's All Over The Place. It's All In One Place. It's Invincible. It's Crying Over There In The Corner. It's You. It's Me. It's So It, It Eats Itself. It Hopes You Find It Infinitely Amusing.

It sounds like a birthday card Mike once wrote me. It's not, but it sounds like the same inspired random- and hilarious-ness that always made me smile and feel fuzzy inside. Thank god for the modern poet, eh?

I happen to very much find it infinitely amusing.

I just woke up from a delicious nap. The phrase "fever dream" has been popping up lately in a variety of surprising places. I must admit I didn't realize it was a common phrase until a couple days ago. Would someone please explain to me what it connotatively means?

But I had a very satisfactory nap. I was in LA today for about 8 hours, which blew. It was one of those days where I get yelled at by the workers who still aren't exactly sure that I have the right to be there (check this official ct. order, BIYATCH) and there's massive confusion and near-hysteria but I spend twenty minutes outside on the most gorgeous day LA has seen in months on the playground with two little boys who have caught a lizard and my whole life could have ended in that twenty minutes and it would have seemed especially worthwhile after all.

It's weird hating and simultaneously feeling rewarded all the time by what I am doing up there.
The miscommunication got ironed out later on, and everyone is suitably impressed that I am only 22 and am getting my PhD. She didnt' mention that the conferrence of the degree is more than a couple years off, but whatever. Shouldn't have ambiguous man-woman day care volunteer cockblocking my cortisol measures anymore.

I really didn't have time for that fabulous nap. Too bad.

My idiot downstairs neighbors appear to have been gradually moving out over the last few days. That's nice. This is evidenced by the couch sitting sort of near the dumpster. I can't tell if they're trying to make it clear that anyone can take it, but they don't want to stick it in the little dumpster alcove because it's nasty in there, or if they dragged it out there in preparation for a truck to come get it, or what. It would be funny to take it and then realize it wasn't for taking.

They've been smoking extra pot to celebrate moving out. JD and I went out on the balcony, right above where they were smoking, and pretended to have a massive contact buzz. I danced on the patio table and JD dangled his massive package over the side of the wall. They applauded, and now we're all friends. Too bad they're moving out now.

That's right, bitches, I sometimes open all the windows and listen to songs that I would lie-to-your-face deny I have on my iTunes if you flat-out called me on it. Too bad.

Last night I booked a plane ticket to Chicago for December 19th. And I talked to m'sis and she and Levi might probably be coming out here for Thanksgiving. Do you KNOW how happy that makes me? really happy. Like, more of that jumping up and down kind of happy.

I guess I should've checked when my winter quarter classes start in January before I booked the plane ticket. Oh well. If I'm off by a week I'm off by a week. They can suck my fat cock.

Sorry.

Let Go, Let Go, Just Get In, Oh It's So Amazing

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASHLEIGH!

I am calling you later, but I am also waiting for JD to get home from work to do it because he wants to wish you a happy birthday too. So it'll be later but don't even try to act like I wasn't going to call. Did you get your freaking package yet? If not I am seriously going to yell at the people who told me to get the 4-day fed ex thing.

Fuck, man.

My awesome sunglasses broke. The ones that I went without for six months and everyone likes. One of the arms snapped off and JD tried to super glue it back on, but instead of doing it right he got super glue all over the hinge so they will never fold again and won't even stick on. He totally ruined my favorite sunglasses. Let this be a lesson to us all: Never let someone with the surname "Short" near your sunglasses. Now I have to go spend eighteen months trying to find another pair that doesn't make my face look retarded. Which is going to take eighteen months because I have a retarded face shape.

So i got my hair cut. Nothing serious. My crazy stylist and I chatted about how we are both Portugese (yes, sis, she gave me the portugese sheik cut that she's so famous for). Creepily, she remembered me from when I was there in March and talked to me about psychology. Which to her means Carl Jung and Astrology, but whatever. She's the sweetest lady ever. and I think she was under the impression that I have curly hair, because when I went in there it was all wavy from me not having blowdried it, and when she was drying it after she cut it she kept saying, "i bet it almost never looks like this!" and shit. I don't know what she was implying.

Then after that I had this overwhelming urge to get a pedicure and wax all of my body hair off. I'm becoming more and more high-maintenance. If by high-maintenance I mean "occasionally freaked out by how incredibly girly all my friends here are to the point of desperately wanting to fit in." You guys would laugh at the proportion of total time spent around each other that we spend going, "I like your shoes!" "your hair is so cute!" "I love your hair that color!" "Ooh, cute toes!" "I love that bag" etc.

It's a little bit hilarious. But, as I learned from an early age, as my mother would tug a brush through my involuntarily-long hair in the mornings, "it takes a little hurting to be pretty," and that's true only insofar as it applies to waxing.

But in reality, I paint my own toenails just fine, and I don't have that weird guilty, "no, you dont' have to do that, I'll do it" feeling I always get when anyone is doing something for me that I'm perfectly capable of doing for myself. I can't relax at stuff like that, which I think is supposed to be the point, so it eats itself. The most high-maintenance undertaking I would ever consider? Laser hair removal on my armpits. I swear to god, if I had money to burn I would get my armpits permanently defuzzed and live happily ever after. The rest I can handle myself.

And last night I went to see Rent with some of my friends. And it was cool. Two of them K and E, we'll call them, came over early, brought me flowers and a bottle of wine, which makes me feel too grownup to handle, and we all quickly drank 2 bottles of wine. And then K revealed that she had a bad headache so she had taken some muscle relaxants before coming over. Before drinking a bunch of wine. Then we go to the center and meet B, and K drags her boyf E to the bar before the show starts. Hmmm. B and JD and I were slightly concerned about her health, but if I haven't mentioned it before, she is an extremely nervous hypochondriac. Rent was fucking awesome, JD managed to get us tickets in row F, for chrissakes, and everyone was as delightfully fantastic as I have always imagined they would be. And best (to me) of all, they sounded exactly fucking like the soundtrack I have, so I was clapping my hands with glee. And Celeste, I didn't cry when Angel died, but my friend B cried when Mimi almost dies at the end, and we all fucking loved it and I am so glad I got to see it. yay. I thought of Raedy and how sad she was not to have been there with us the whole time

hee hee hee

I think I have to go to LA tomorrow. But I almost don't mind since this is the last week of me having to go more than once. So bring it onnnn, bitches.

I have to go feed my other friend's cat. Or else she'll die, and then I'll be in real trouble.

lala

There's Beauty In The Breakdown

I just finished off that damn paper. Just emailed it to my professor, just hit apple-S for the last time, just closed Word for the first time in two weeks, just made an appointment to get my nasty split ends cut off this afternoon, just jumped up and down squealing in the living room for having this stupid paper finished.

Sweet God it's nice to have that out of the way. Forty three pages of badly-designed, seven-year-old worthless data set study all behind me. Until, of course, I get the edits back and then I have to fix all my bullshit. But that's fine.

It's weird to think that this could be my first publication. I'm not entirely sure I want my name on this study at all, and I keep being told that, "this probably won't get into a top journal" and if that's not a discouraging little ploy I dunno what is.

But fuck it. I can salvage anything. God, I'm flying on a cloud of relief right now. But I have learned a couple things about myself this week:

1. I can indeed be productive when I space it out over the course of a few days or weeks. No, Mr. Bracher, I don't have to leave everything I write until the last second and then churn out something crunk. I can actually see the beauty in writing slop and then revising it, rather than getting sick of looking at the slop and turning it in as I would typically do. I think I'm getting better at this writing bullshit.

2. I am a brilliant auture. Too bad all my cleverness will necessarily be edited out by less idyllic, hardened-to-stylized-writing professors, jaded from one too many journal rejections or negative peer reviews. Hahaha. Oh, to be this young and naive.

anyway. So today, I have MUCHOS GRANDE plans to get m'hair cut (nothing drastic), clean my apartment until then (drastic), mail something to Jenny if she would get her head out her ass and give me an address, figure out what I am going to feed my friends tomorrow night when they come over here before we all go see (squeal!) Rent at the center. Rent, which I adore but have still never seen. Yeah I know. So we're all going tomorrow night, and it's going to be fabulous. But I invited people over for drinks or dinner or something beforehand, and I don't knwo what I am going to do about that.

But also today I am going to Disneyland. Fuck yes, here I come. Havent' been in a couple weeks, certainly not since I started hating my life writing this up.

So that's exciting. Actually, everything today is exciting, and I am excited about it. Yeah.


I am going to have myself a massive party by eating ice cream and watching Passions until JD gets home. Fuck, I feel so incredibly happy.

I'm not dead
I feel happy

Wow, sometimes I wish Jarrod and I would have stayed in touch.

Ashleigh, I swear to god, if you open your present today we are NOT friends anymore. And you can kiss the prospect of any MORE birthday presents from me goodbye. DO NOT OPEN. YOU CAN ONLY OPEN IT WHILE YOU"RE ON THE PHONE WITH ME ON YOUR BIRTHDAY.

Speak Wanglish, Motherfucker!

*I am in the midst of cranking out a discussion section. I just, to be really specific, cranked out 1250 words in an hour. And they're all precious, precious gems of wonderment. All worthy of publication in a top cogynitf devlopppmentuh gernal. I think, if this grad school thing doesn't pan out, that I could get a job as a secretary. 1250 words/hour, I'll advertise. But probably more than that if I don't have to be thinking hard about each word as it leaves my fingertips. So yeah, I needed a little break so I'm all up in this blog shit.

*I promised my self no caffeine after 5pm on nights before I have to go to LA. That's weird, considering it's 5:04pm and I'm sipping delicious (thank you, coffeemate creamer!) coffee with no signs of cutting myself off anytime soon. Fuck you, LA, I can take your bitch ass on any day.

*Our power was out all morning. So, I saw no point in getting up and beginning work on this discussion section, considering I would probably run out of battery right when I started cranking out gemological society-worthy material for it. So I slept in.

*Doubling the coolness of that last sentence is the fact that JD got up (miraculously, with no alarm clock--the power was out, remember?) in time to go to work at 6am, got dressed, went all the way there, then turned around and came back to a groggy, confused Me squinting at him through the awful 6am light, announced he wasn't going to work because he had a headache, climbed back into bed, and we both slept until, like, noon o'clock.

*that part ruled. At first I was alarmed about the whole skipping out on work thing, but he explained that he doesn't give a fuck, and then I also realized that I don't give a fuck either.

*So now Boy Meets World is on, and I love it, and I can actually see the light at the end of this paper and I am peeing myself with hapeeenis because of that.

*I keep getting phone calls from police officers/observing police officers in my complex informing me that people's apartments are now getting broken into on a regular basis here. As best I can tell, it's mostly the bottom floor ones, and mostly people leaving their back doors unlocked, but I am becoming Super Vigilant about securing our abode even when I venture over to the mailbox these days. We have too much cool shit that's easily transportable. I would about die if someone felt it necessary to rob us again.

*And that leads me to my next bit. Karma. I totally believe in karma. Like, it seems to have little-to-no real incubation period anymore, if I do something shitty I am immediatley smacked in the face by karma. Sometimes, though, it takes a lilttle longer. And not that I think anyone deserves to suffer, but those of us who are loathe to see things that we've done to others that merit a karmic backlash are probably the ones who are going to get smacked in the face the hardest. Not to get too vague here or anything. Right.

*Ashleigh, Celeste: Your birthday presents/care packages are in the mail. Ashpee, your goddamn birthday present cost me $20 to ship in time for yer birthday, so DO NOT OPEN IT until Sunday and YOU BETTER LIKE IT. Celeste, your box-o-crap should arrive next Tuesday. Or so sayeth my boys in the copy shop.

*Jenny: I would have LOVED to mail YOUR care package, but your LAME ASS FACE hasn't emailed me an address. Though you had plenty of time to type a sarcastic comment about how you weren't giving me your address in my comments section, you haven't found time to email it to me. You, and that, suck.

*BACK TO WORK, SLAVE!

aye, poppy

Is This Darkness In You Too?

Today I finally breathed a giant sigh of relief because most of my bullshit paperwork is turned in. I am an official resident of California for all intents and purposes, I have signed my name to (and perhaps signed any freedom of choice away in doing so) to a document that provides me with government funding, and today I have procured the final piece of paper that I need to send to my bank so they can give me a loan to pay off the other loan.

But it's all almost finished. And after this week, this miserable week, I should be done with one of my projects, leaving me, however briefly, with only two things going on. Of course, no one is ever really done for good wth anything in academia, and I know as soon as I turn it in I will get it back with a big red slash through it and "Trite" written across the top. Oh wait, for a minute there I thought I was back at UE. Whew, obviously not.

I had the nicest dream this morning. It was involved, too. I woke up from it several times and delighted in the fact that I went back to it. Something to do with travelling. Not for fun, for getting away from something bad. But there were lots of nice people there. I had it until I talked to JD on the phone this morning and it slipped away as soon as he asked about it. Damn. anyway, I woke up feeling delighted.

I am thinking seriously about buying my ticket home over Xmas in the next few days or weeks. I will run that by the more instrumental ones of you before I do that, but it already feels like it won't be long at all. Weird. and once the quarter starts, it's only 10 weeks. And quarters fly by. Especially fall quarter.

If Vegas is happening it's now going to be the weekend of the 10th of December. Ashleigh will be here, and that is the only weekend she will be here, so that is when it is. If you want to come you're more than welcome. I'm not begging any of you anymore, I'm tired of having people be like, "oh yeah, that sounds AWESOME" a year beforehand but not want to do any kind of follow-through when it's impending. And that's not just me whining. I tried to get this bitch off the ground LAST year too, and no one was having it then either. Fuck you guys, I'll go by myself.

And with that attitude, no one will want to come hang out with me anyway.

I need to finish a manuscript tonight. Here is what I have so far (this should make Raedy laugh): The method, and the results section. That is all. I also have a shitty draft of the intro to clean up and redo. Oh, and that pesky little discussion section needs to be written. I fuck myself.

JD attempted to pay me a compliment yesterday by telling me that my face has looked prettier than usual for the last week or so. Does anyone else think that's a strange way of wording something like that? Being a girl, I immediately said something dismissive like, "oh, so it looked ugly all the weeks before this one?!" and ruined it. But then, my suspicions were confirmed (my suspicions that he was secretly trying to insult me) when I found shards of broken glass all over my side of the bed yesterday. And by "found" I of course mean that I "found" them by going to pick something up from the bed, sliding my fingers underneath this thing, and pulling them sharply back with this weird utterance of surprise, only to find my cuticles sliced open, gushing blood (I'm not kidding, I bled through several tissues and a washcloth) onto the sheets (symbolic of something, I'm sure), and little glass splinters snarling up at me from my left hand. And we all know that when I go to bed at night, I jump naked and spread-eagle onto the bedsheets vagina-first, so this was clearly a ploy by my boyfriend to sabotage my vagina.

I was a little freaked out by it, let me assure you.

But now I can stop lying and say that it was an honest accident on his part, that he broke a lightbulb this weekend while we were painting and subsequently sleeping in the living room, and I thought he cleaned it up but he didn't. Rather, he picked up the giant chunks but left all the little bits and forgot about them. Sigh.

So we painted, and we painted a LOT. Like, we just meant to do the bedroom but then I started whining and we got more paint for the hallway and bathroom sink areas. And holy jesus, sometimes I shock myself with what a great eye for color I really have. If this lame grad school thing doesn't work out I'll be an interior designer. But the bedroom is a goooooorgeous deep red color, and I confirmed that it is merlot by pouring a glass of merlot and holding it up to the light in that room. Fucking dark, though. But I kind of wanted the bedroom to be a dark little cave where nothing but sleeping and fucking goes on. Gives it character. hahahahahaha.

So the gray paint we got for the hall and bathroom areas is bluish tinted, and looks like a deliberate segue on our parts from living room to bedroom. It's beautiful. And I love it. I didn't think I could like this apartment much more than I already do, but the paint accomplished that. I really intend to take pictures and post them sometime soon.

Are the leaves changing there? There are dead leaves on the ground here and JD pointed out to me that it's mid-Spetember but it won't ever even start to feel like fall, and the only indication of the season changing will be the shorter days ina few months. I'm jealous of people who live in Bloomington right now. God, I miss fall.

So I really have to get back to this fucking manuscript. I keep telling mysefl that once it's done I'll have something to put on my vita, and maybe that's all the motivation I need.

Still no word on my $1300 I'm supposed to be getting for working on this court study. But my grant kicks in on Oct. 1st for sure, so I will actually be able to pay rent! Hoo-ray!

Sisface. Leave your mailing address in my goddamn comments section.

Lovels!

PS thanks guys for leaving thoughtful comments. i get really sad when no one leaves me comments, especially since i can tell who reads this when and I know when you don't do it. Sad face. I'll try to leave you more comments too.

Hesh Want Sex

It's late. Yep.

JD and I just

A. painted the bedroom a startling burgundy color. It's technically called "merlot" but that's a little pretentious sounding, now isn't it?

B. realized we will have to buy another gallon of the paint to finish the bedroom/touch up the spotty patches tomorrow, along with some gray paint for the hallway

C. spent two hours trying to convince these two baby raccoons who were stuck in our dumpster to climb into a box so we could haul them out. I am not kidding, we tried for TWO HOURS. The dumpster was nearly empty, and those little tards climbed in on the lattice work on the outside of the dumpster holder but got stuck in the damn thing, and JD heard them scratching around when he went to get dinner earlier. So we decided it was our responsibility to get them out, or they would be dumped into the garbage truck and squished. So because we didn't want to actually get IN with them (not because of the dumpster-ness, because raccoons are wild animals and it's not safe, ok?) we whacked them with our broom to convince them to climb into a box from our apartment, then i tried to pick up the box and gently lower them to safety. But they freaked out mid-pick up and one jumped out and over the side of the dumpster, probably landing on his face, and then ran off, and the other ended up back in the bottom of the dumpster, now terrified of me and the broom and the box. It all finally ended with JD climbing into the dumpster and forcing the raccoon into the box. And letting the raccoon crawl back down the lattice work with dignity intact. Man, those critters don't like humans

D. it's late. just wanted to bitch about raccoons. Love you guys.

Our Family Is Fucking Psychotic

Hmmm, this update is mostly for my sister.

So remember how we have a new cousin, out of nowhere? Well, I was talking to our cool California cuz just now and we dished some more family gossip. And nothing fucking shocks me anymore, let me tell you. But anyway, we got to talking about The Cancer. And Jenny, did you know that mom's dad died of colon cancer when he was THIRTY FIVE years old? Because I didn't know that. And since dad was 46 and had been fighting it for 8 years, he was diagnosed when he was 38? And Kathy was younger than Mark or dad when she died, and therefore we have it on both sides and the deck is really stacked against us? Well, of course you knew that, but what you couldn't know is that Evan and I have decided to have....


Colonoscopy Party!!! And yes, sis, you're invited!!!!

We internet pinky swore that we are going to start screening ourselves in the next few years. In fact, we pinky swore that we would start in 2007. I'll be 25, that's pushing the upper age limit on beginning this fabulous foray into butt discomfort land, so you and he will both be prime candidates for invasive camera procedures. We decided that we will all get together, drink that nasty swill 24 hours prior, stay up all night talking shit about our fucked up family, and then go get the test the next day. And then we will all three go out drinking and will be so anesthetized and inebriated that it will be a super good time.

Anyway, we are totally serious. And you're invited to join our little club. And anyone reading this is also invited, and I encourage ANY of you with a family history of colon cancer to start screening for it AT MINIMUM ten years before anyone you are related to was diagnosed. It's really easy to beat if you catch it early. But no one in our family caught it early. And it's the only reason my mom is still alive while all of her siblings, husband, father, etc. are not.

EARLY DETECTION IS THE KEY!!!

Yay, colonoscopy party!!
Lemme know if you roll like this

ps I am trying to get him here for thanksgiving. why don't you use that nice free plane ticket to get yer butt out here and hang with me and yer cuz

Oh God, Please Don't Tell Me This Has Been In Vain

I need to correct my latest post. Those LA County Fair commercials, which are so hilarious, were not done justice by my foggy, exhaustion-addled memory yesterday. I have seen them both several more times and can now better remember why they were so freaking funny in the first place. Bear with me, I am retyping them for your enjoyment here:

Commercial #1. Teenage girls shopping in boutique with their mom. Girl #1 is wearing a crocheted poncho-type shirt (you know, those ugly ass things that Jessica Simpson is always wearing)

Girl #1: Oooh, this shirt is cute!
Mom: It is!
Girl #1 (to salesperson): What's this made of?
Salesperson: Wool
Girl #1: Like from a cow?
Salesperson: Yeah
Girl #2: Is that where cashmere comes from too?
Salesperson: Yes
Girl #1: Is that the girl cow or the boy cow?
Salesperson: the boy cow.
Mom: That's the one with....? (mimes antlers)
Salesperson: Yeah, tusks
Mom: Right, the one with tusks

I left out the whole boy cow having tusks bit. Which is, besides the girl wearing a shirt that's not made of wool in the first place, the funniest part.

Next commercial: Kindergarten class sitting on the floor while teacher reads them a story/holds up pictures:

Teacher: This is a cowwwww. Who can tell me what comes from cows?
Kid #1: Lattes!
Kid #2: Non fat half caff cappuccino
Kid #3: Iced caramel macchiato!
Teacher: Now this is a picture of a sheeeeeeeep. Who can tell me what comes from sheeeeeeep?
Kid #4: Sweaters? (beat) Gucci sweaters?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH

Ok, sorry I left out the funny parts. like I said, I was goddamn tired. Not so tired now, I slept for about 13 hours last night.

Also, I was almost roped into going to LA again this morning, but I cleverly and accidentally got out of it, only to realize last night that I had this thing in my bag still from yesterday morning that's a magic pass that allows us access to all parts of the building we technically shouldn't be allowed to prance through, and without it no one can get anything done. And I forgot to replace it yesterday. So even though B had self-sacrificingly volunteered to go (only because she was staying up at her parent's house last night and they live just north of the ct. house) she didn't have to go either because I am a retard and we were both very happy about that.

Today is shaping up to be a very productive writing day. Or at least, it has to be. Oh, and I went to my meeting yesterday, scrambled to get there on time because I was doing last minute calculations of things, and sit down and she blinks at me a few times and then says that she's working on a manuscript this week and can't think of much else, so why don't we reschedule. I was back out of there in about 30 seconds. That stupid meeting was the only thing keeping me conscious yesterday morning. Wow, that was lame. Actually, yesterday was just kind of useless overall.

Not today! I am going to write and possibly get a haircut and go work out. And drink a whole pot of coffee but not want to kill myself while I'm doing it. I'm going to start mailing birthday presents and care packages and whatnot today or tomorrow, so be on the lookout for that shit too.

Sorry so Boring!! teehee

Can It Be That Every Thing Goes Round By Chance

Ok, so, I am in a fog of exhaustion. It is 10:30, we were back from LA at 9:30, I was up at 5 and didn't sleep until after 3:30. And that's the second day in a row. I did, however, come home from LA yesterday around noon and pass out for five hours, but today I have no such luxury because I have a meeting at 1pm, and though that sounds like I have time to sleep, I am wholly unprepared for the meeting and am cramming to get everything done in time. And my eyes are crossing and I'm likely to throw up I've swallowed so much coffee today. I think I almost got sick at the courthouse. There's something about the combination of not sleeping and overdoing the caffeine that always makes me want to die. And I should mention that all this week, all last week, we have managed to procur exactly zero children to particpate in our experiment.

I hate being this tired. I hate that the insomnia seems to be coming back.

I'm doing my best not to even glance over at the couch or the bed or any other flat soft surface because I'll be helpless to the gravitational pull.

I drove this morning, and B and I listened to David Cross and we laughed the whole way up there. I like that she's into cool stuff.

The other night, JD and I went out to dinner with my friend/soon to be fellow grad student Rachel and her boyf Chris. They ended up moving into our complex, and when we stopped by their place before we went to eat so they could take the dog (a bassset hound puppy, yeah totally cute) out really fast, we noticed that they not only liked our complex and our floorplan, but also the exaaaaact layout ofour living room, such that they went to Ikea and bought the same tv stand and bookshelves, and have arranged their two couches and tv and bookshelves the exact same way as we have. It was kind of freaky.

My plants didn't die this week after all. Whew, huh?
Hang on I have to pee/possibly throw up
**********

I have a gift for making delicious hardboiled eggs. I'm eating hardboiled eggs because there is literally nothing else to eat.

There are these commercials out here that I want to tell you guys about. They are for the LA County Fair. One has these teenage girls shopping in a boutique with their mom. Here's the dialogue:

Girl #1: Ooooh, I LOVE this shirt!
Mom: It's cute on you!
Girl #1 (to salesperson): What's this made of?
Salesperson: Wool
Girl #1: Like from a cow?
Salesperson: Yeah
Girl #2: Is that where cashmere comes from too?
Mom: Yes

Then the announcer says something about how if anyplace needs a county fair, it's LA

there's another one I jsut saw, with a kindergarten class. The teacher is holding a picture of a cow, and here's how it goes:

Teacher: This is a cowwwww. Can anyone tell me what comes from cows?
Kid #1: Non-fat lattes!
Kid #2: Half-caff blended mocha no whipped cream
Kid #3: iced car-a-mel macc-hi-ato?

Then the announcer does the same bit. I only share these because the timing of the delivery in them is hilarious. They're really quick. And the girl who goes, "Iced caramel macchiato" is the cutest little Japanese girl, and her innunciation is precious. Fucking LA. What the fuck, LA.

Anyway. I'm like an otter. A Sexy little otter. I meant to say, "I'm like a shark" and I have to keep typing or I'll pass out and sleep through the meeting and get thrown out of school.

It's nice to see avril lavigne has sold completely out and now wears enough makeup to conceal the fact that she's a hideous troll underneath it. For awhile there, I thought her career would sputter out of her sheer ugliness. Great.

Also, I just watched the ladies on The View talk politics for about ten seconds. I think that's when I remembered that I was feeling nauseous. Certain people shouldn't be allowed a public forum for their idiot thoughts.
God I am so unbelievably tired. Every part of my body is aching with tiredness. I had some kind of rant I am half formulating in my head for sometime soon about people going all "college" on themselves, but that's not ready yet. Certainly not ready today. I wish I could do my work ("I Cannn do mah waaark") but I'm too retahded (you ahh) to figure out what my instructions to myslef are talking about. I am sooo taking a hardcore nap after this fucking meeting. I am soooo not going to LA tomorrow. Unless I am instructed to. In which case, I will sob myself to sleep tonight. After I wake up from my nap, I will sob myself right back to sleep. I would kill someone with my bare hands for permission to give in to this weight right now. Fuck.

You are a Siren. More adventurous than all with a
voice like no other you sit on warm rocks and
sing to the moon and sea. Yet sometimes
shipwrecks find you and raving men want you.
You are a bottle of talent and power. What the
unknown is you seek to find, and a lover. You
have the moon and stars as freinds. There are a
very few of you, what a rare find. Will you
rate my quiz, I think your voice in just
beautiful?


What kind of mermaid are you? (Gorgeous Pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

When I See You Baby, I Want You To Take Off My Clothes

I had no desire to watch the new season of The Real World until I saw the promo for it about a million times and that insipid little song about wanting to take off clothes, combined with the entire "cast" standing in the kitchen doing overtly sexual things and all making the same pain/hotness face in reaction, has made me want to either buy that song, if I knew what it was, or watch the show, which I will probably not do

Anyway. Do you guys know the one of which I speak? I can do a really good impression of the person singing, just ask Jadles. Other good impressions I do? Christopher Walken, Cartman singing "O Holy Night," Quinn from SeaLab, Hesh from SeaLab, Elektra from Daredevil, Paris Hilton's camera face, Natalie Portman in Garden State, Amy Poehler (sp?) from SNL.

That's about it, but that's a pretty impressive list, right? I know, right? I love you in that shirt. Right?

It is hot as dog balls today. My plants are dying thusly.
I woke up when JD went to work at 9:30, was freezing, demanded he bring me some more clothes to wear, fell back asleep, woke up sweating in a pool of my own sweat two hours later only to thrust open the window and get met with furnace-like blast of hot air. I would LOVE to go the fuck to the beach today, but it's hot AND Labor Day weekend, so I know they are crawling with lameasses and packed.

My hair turned out awesome. I eradicated those weird blonde highlights and they're now red. Red. And it's all dark. Like, dark. But it's faaaabulous. I'll post pictures of my hair, my cat, my house, my life, etc sometime soon. When I get around to taking them.

Yesterday we went shopping for Ashleigh's birthday present and picked up some extra things. Teehee. I got some pants, which I needed, because I have been wearing the same pair of ill-fitting dress pants to court almost every single time we go, and I'm tired of that. They are advertised as the best fitting pants in the world, and motherfucker if they're not goddamn serious when they say that. I couldn't be more excited about new dress pants. We got JD some clothes that fit. Pictures of that later on too, you will all think he lost fifty pounds.

The cat is sleeping inside a shopping bag. WTF, cat.

I am too stubborn to turn on the AC. Dick. Laaaaaters.

Take My Hand, And We'll Make it I Swear

Went to Disneyland last night. As happens every Friday night we end up going, there is a lame ass band on this "club buzz" stage having a dance party at 10pm. We are, inevitably, there. Every time. And we sit off to the side (there is a stage for dancing, but since it's Orange County the youth turn it into a really tame mosh pit/dressing like No Doubt fest and it's not our scene) and I shout lyrics to whatever they're playing. The last few times it's been this band called the Basix who played the same set of sort of entertaining music, including a "rousing" rendition of Jimmy Eat World's "the Middle." Which I shout along to at the top of my lungs. So last night it was the same band with a different singer, and they were "the 80's machine" or something like that. And I shouted along to the songs they were playing with mild-ed down lyrics to songs like Livin' On A Prayer, You Gotta Fight For Your Right (To Party), Walk This Way, Tainted Love, You Shook Me All Night Long, Pour Some Sugar On Me, etc. Not the most all-ages set, but it was hilaaaaaarious.

I'm dyeing my hair as we speak. Yeah, I know. I have three-inch roots. It's sad that I have roots in the first place. This might kill off my weird unfortunate highlights. We'll see. I thought I was picking a slightly more brown than normal red, but now that it's all over my scalp it looks like the exact same feria red I always pick, probably always thinking, "hmmm, I'll try something different this time"

I had a dream this morning. Yeah, sis, I know what you mean about the nightmares-sapping-your-will-to-live thing. And honestly, I have had fucked up dreams since I was like 13. And they've always been creepily vivid. But I definitely started dreaming them more when I was 19-20 ish. And really, how would we ever compare dreams when they're so intangible in the first place. So qualitatively different. But I feel your discomfort.

Anyway, my dream involved me and Janel on a marching band field. And we were 5 years removed from the marching band scene, but Mr. Deen (sic) was insistent that Janel and I return and march a show that we had learned, like, our sophomore year or something. And there was this 16-count dance "break" that Janel and I are front and center for, and neither of us has a fucking clue what the dance is, though we have vague recollections of it involving arm-flailing. So we run through it, both of us laughing hysterically, a few times, while Mr. Deen shouts and steam comes out of his ears, and Krista Hollder (sic) glares at us from the row behind us, and then I remember the dance and I quickly remind Janel and then we totally nail it the next time through, to the delight of the drumline over to our right. I remember being double pissed because it had been a routine I had to learn when I was in and out of the hospital, so I barely knew it in the first place. Weird, huh?

Even weirder: I can remember the whole 16 counts NOW and I could totally perform it for you. Other girls in color guard: Do you remember (and if you do, lemme know what it was from) a dance that was something with arm waving that went 1-2-3 and -4-5-6-7 and -8 twice through? There were corners involved, you did it once to corner two and once to corner one, and there was some freaky hand pushing hip motion thing on the and count. Yeah definitely we should all get together and see if we can work it out.

Anyway. Hair processing.

Once In A Blue Moon, You Can Change A Woman

So once again I was supposed to go to LA but didn't have to. We went yesterday and the data collecting prospects for this week were incredibly bleak because attorneys go on vacation for months at a time and entire courtrooms stop functioning. Which is actually fine by me, because I about died having to get up that early.

We were back in Irvine by 9:30am yesterday. And I had to go by the bank and here in the banks they have these weird people whose job it is to chat with you and be friendly while you're waiting for an open teller. So this woman is making conversation with me about how it's "first thing in the morning" and I'm clearly "getting a head start on things." She is, btw, only talking to me in the first place because I am still wearing my fancy court outfit. And I freak her out by telling her all about how I had to get up at 5 and drive up to LA and back already this morning and blah and blah and it was just weird.

So then I ate all the tater tots I could find and fell asleep for like three delicious hours. And then I woke up with a splitting headache and couldn't get anything productive done all day (I sat and poked at the keys and stuff but my brain wasn't in writing mode) and it was lame.

That means today I have to get everything done. I am tired of always doing this to myself. Anyway.

I got an email from my mom this morning called, "You Have Another Cousin." and I click it open and am assuming that another random Chandler relative had another random Chandler baby (honestly, I don't know who the crap I am related to out in Chandler, probably the whole town. Probably JD's family) and mom felt I should at least be informed. But things are never quite that straightforward and drama-free in my family. Oh ho ho.

So this other cousin is a long-lost cousin, not a newborn. She's 34 and she's the daughter my aunt (my mom's sister who died 12 or so years ago) was literally forced to give up for adoption when she had her at age 16. My mom slips this little, "I'm sure I told you girls about this before" bit into the email, in reference to the forced baby snatching, which to my knowledge she never told us....that's her favorite thing to do with the most sordid details of her life, which is really funny after it sinks in but unnerrving when she says it. But anyway her sister was in love with this boy and it's his baby but neither set of parents approved so they shipped the boy off to medical school and took the baby and that was that.

Mom and her mom tried to find this girl once my aunt died, supposedly to tell her that she has crappy cancer genes to look out for, but the adoption people don't let you search that way, the girl would have to find them.

And apparently she did just that yesterday. How fucked up is that. So my mom has been talking to her all yesterday and I can only imagine what a fucking headtrip that is for her. She lives in Minnesota. She's the spitting image of my aunt.

My family is so fucking strange.

Also, I understand more with each of these, "Oh I know I told you about this before" lies why my mom doesn't always adore her own mom. Also why my aunt was crazy and tried to kill my mom with scissors. Come on guys, I totally told you about that before.