I am a strange, strange person. I'm at work, and I just taped a pen to the radio.

See, this is how desperate I am to hear rock rather than pop, that to improve the reception I taped a pen on as sort of a makeshift supplemental antenna. I was at the end of my rope.

Worked rather well, though.

And also: yet another step towards me becoming a juvenile delinquent after my time:

you know how I've mentioned I can't pee at my job? You don't? Well, I can't.

Well, partially in order to enforce this, the door is locked, so if we left, we wouldn't be able to get back in after our pee unless we want to vault in over the desk. Now how this makes us effective if we have to leave in case of emergency........it hampers it pretty badly. It's pretty dead when I come in, but when my roommate has been working, two separate occaisons she's been unable to help people who needed it.

1) The handicapped door is busted, she saw someone trying to get through. They eventually made it themselves, but she was pretty annoyed she couldn't go out to help him.

2) This is the coup de grace: A bell started going off. She called our supervisor, and he said he'd come down in a couple of hours. Finally, a mail attendant came (after about an hour), and my roommate made the girl stay there to let her back in. She investigated. It was someone who had been stuck in the elevator. For an hour. Because our supervisor wouldn't come down, and she couldn't go and investigate.

Anyhoos: Both of us have found a way around it. My roommate says next time she needs to help someone, she's going to borrow the keys we have in the back that are supposed to be for the RA's that indeed open the door.

Mine is much more juvenile. You know those prong things in the side of the door that are basically what keeps the door from opening when it's blocked? I tape them down.

Not to help people, really. For my own selfish peeing convenience. But I figure I'd get in less trouble than if I took the keys.

Also, we both thought we'd get in trouble if someone saw the door propped open.

Hmm......at the risk of quoting Staind, it's been awhile. Since I blogged. Not as long as some people *looks at Talia menacingly* but oh well. Sides, mebbe her restraint at not putting every damn detail of her life up here like I do is refreshing. I mean, I surf blogs, and the ones with all the excess crap are the most boring. But, while I enjoy having the occasional reader, this things for me, and my sanity. Uhm.......where was I?

Oh, first of all, props to Lorraine, who e-mailed me about that song.

Second of all, work: it's getting better. First of all, I know what the hell I'm doing. Second of all, because I've been taking my laptop in and playing Escape From Monkey Island, the fourth in the highly exalted (by me) Monkey Island series. In my defense: I'm not breaking any rules and I'm helping everyone I should help, i'm just playing monkey island in between. Because let me tell you, it's dead there over break.

I even worked on Christmas. 1) Even though I said I wouldn't, they had me down on the schedule as doing it. I KNEW it be a pain in the ass to get the boss woman to let me off the hook. She did it to my roommate, too, but fortunately my roommate found someone else to work for her that day. 2) We had most of our family time in the morning, but the four hour shift I have was in the evening. 3) Though we usually have a fancy dinner, we didn't this Christmas, so there wasn't really much to stay around for.

I'm going to have to work on New Years Eve, unless I can find someone to take my shift :( I kinda wanted to have dinner with my family, or hook up with some of my high school friends. They're (H.S. Friends) pissing me off anyway, though. Last year, we drew names, and then each bought a gift and got a gift for X-mas. Plus, I saw some of them at various other times during break. Seeing as how I'm not exactly burning it up in the new college friends department, I'd like to hang on to some of the high school ones, but the buggers are incommunicado! We did the drawing by e-mail, I got Laura, and I got her gift, so i want to at least see Laura to give her her gift. Plus, I would think that Jean would at least want to see me, because we used to be pretty tight, but no word from that quarter. And Carrie, who was my 'best' (quotes because we were joined at the hip, but then she got kind of annoying, but we still seemed joined at the hip) friend isn't coming back for break. Wants us to all come down where she is. She KNOWS I don't do interstate driving. That's why I don't just visit her on a weekend sometime. Gah. You'd think, seeing as how I still live in the hometown, and all these people come back to see their parents, they'd kill two birds with one stone and maybe drop by to say hello to me, but alas, no. I've got to try calling them all again. I know I seem needy, but dammit, I AM needy.

Anyhoo, I could at least have dinner with my family, were it not for stupid stupid work.

Oh well, I'm earning money to go to england. I have to keep remembering that.

I finally wrote my essay they wanted me to write to apply to go to England, and took the physical they wanted me to take. Now all I need is my last reccomendation, which should come in soon. Then I'll turn it in, and hopefully get in the program. I want this so badly.

My family and I did go out last night, at least. We finally celebrated my straight A's. It was nice.

Christmas=fun. I may have a lot of arguements with my family, but we always seem to pull it together around the holidays. We talked, hung out, gave presents, got presents. Nice.

Geez....I can NOT find this song. SOMEONE e-mail me (tribble180@hotmail.com) if they know who does this song:

I THINK it's called "hey mister"
parts of it (largely unordered) are: "It's not that she's a tramp....." "It's not what you did, it's not what you didn't" "I hope I never have any daughters"

Pleeeeeeease someone know :P It's driving me nuts.

You know, I think I am a juvenile delinquent late in life. It started with changing "class" on my neighbors door to "ass" and now I've written "No Pee" on the monitor of the computer at work. It was going to say "No Pee breaks make Phoe angry" but I midway through, I thought, "You prolly should'nt put your name on there." And I tried to wipe it off,so it's a bit smudged. And I put it in a sort of hard to spot place. So now the monitor at work says "No pee" and I have to live with that.

Besides, I can always blame Wanda. She TOLD me to deface property at my place of work. Damn her! :P

Man, I'm collecting blogs like nothing! I collect blogs like most people collect sad-looking porcelain dolls and bad habits. Or maybe blogging IS my bad habit. In addition to this one, I've been part of Breaking the Cycle (if you want the links to any of these, look at the side, because I'm too tired to do html) for quite some time. Then, Arsepimples! came to life. Now I'm part of Alternatune and Alternachick.

Alternachick--I'm not sure what I should say. It's supposed to be a cure for girly magazines like 17, YM, Good Housekeeping, (Lol, I'm aware of the irony of putting those 3 together) It's supposed to be for "real women." Or else weird women, like me and my partner in crime on this deal. Anyway, I"m not sure what real women think anyway. Half the time I don't even know what I think. We'll see.

Alternatune--hell yes! For some lame reason I'm always writing reviews of music in my head. Now I have an outlet. Yes, and OUTLET. Muahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Why, you ask, am I too tired to do html tonight, in light of the fact that I normally throw it around like a drunken weasel?

Well, I'm not sure what you mean about the drunken weasel part, but here's the deal: Last night, I had heartburn.. Bad heartburn. Weird heartburn. It kept me up till 4 a.m. I was forced to watch a rerun of Real World.

It was pretty funny though. There was this hick cowboy dude that with a mullet. I'm thinking, "Who did you lose a bet to to have that hairdo?" but the sad thing is he probably thinks the haircut IS cool. You can certainly tell he thinks the cowboy boots, the cowboy hat, and the really busy shirts are.

Ta da

Speaking of having a sad life: Yesterday, I woke up at about 12, and I ate "brunch" and showered/got dressed, and then I laid on my back listening to music for 3 1/2 hours until work, and then I complain about work being the boring part.

But it WAS. It's not like they're going to let me play You Make Me Feel Like a Whore there or anything. There's so nothing to do at work.

Except IM.....which, ironically, i can do for hours at home, but it seems like not many people are ever on when I'm at work. Kin was there the first night, but he was playing a game, and not really talking back. Talia was there last night, which was better. She even passed along some info on my pseudo-ex, which, while not encouraging info, was at least something to mull over. Ah well.

Oh, and when I came back from work, there were lots of people on, which was ironic. I actually was going to watch TV, but Kev wanted to do a roleplaying thing, so I grudgingly came back on. Basically, I was verbally molested by Kev and a half-wit the whole time. Not much RPing going on--when Talia got so many windows she wasn't talking to much, and when this other guy in the room left, I left. I didn't really want to be alone with them. Oh well.

Day 2 of job:

I was more competant, but it was more boring. Possibly because I actually showed up on time this time.

It was like my previous job, working at the old lady store, only without me being alowed to pee. This burns me up. That should be an unalienable right, the right to pee. Although, according to the simpsons.......(hastily paraphrased)

Marge: "You're advising me to get a divorce? Isn't that against our religion?"
Rev. Lovejoy: "Have you ever read this thing? *points to the Bible* Technically, we're not even allowed to go to the bathroom."

But, then again, any institution that bases its rules on the Simpsons is kind of sad. Plus, if it were the simpsons, I'd probably get to have a bottle or something to pee in under the desk, and no one would ever know. Muahahahaha!

Uhm......what else is happening in my life?

A girl in a store laughed at my Forrest Gump impression the other day. Which made me feel better, because my own family was there, and they didn't really find it very funny. It's good to know someone thinks so.

Yea, I have a pretty pathetic life :P

(posted a little late, blogger wasn't working when I originally posted this)

Having a job is better than ever............FOR ME TO POOP ON!

Yea, I watch too much Late Night.

Anyhoo: first day of work yesterday. Worst first day ever. Well, not ever, but it was pretty bad.

1) I showed up an hour late (Thought my shift started an hour later than it really did) I felt SO bad.
2) Someone calls me right off, wanting to know the phone no. for one of the other front desks. I put the poor lady on hold for like ever, and then I finally had to give up and be like "Sorry, I can't find your number."
3) I improperly checked out a vaccuum cleaner. I actually forged the guy's name where he was supposed to sign for it. I think that's illegal.
4) I get no bathroom breaks, and I had to pee. I think that should be illegal.

Ta Da!

Okay....not that anyone e-mails me, but I effed up my e-mail on here, and it's going to be like that until I get around to fixing it, so don't try and use that link :P

Anyhoo, what I really want to blog about is how my mom's depression is making the rest of us miserable. I mean, she has a valid reason for being depressed (but I'm not going to go into it), but she's driving the rest of us stark raving bonkers!

Case 1
My mom, who loves my sis's dog more than me almost, got the dog some christmas presents. My dad wraps everything, and he wrote down one of them as being from me. My mom was totally mean to him about it. Why this is SO annoying? 1)He offered to switch it back, but she was still pissed. 2) Many things I get for the family ARE in name only, anyway, so it's not like me getting credit for someone else's cash is anything new. Yes, I'm such a sponge. 3) It's a dog. He can't read. If he could, he wouldn't care. Come on.

Case 2
We were at the apple orchard today, and mom picked up a bag of popcorn. She went outside to have a smoke, so it was just me, my sis and dad at the cash register, when the bag sprung a leak. So they sent me to get another bag. So I did. We get back home. hours later, she's all like "You got the wrong kind." 1) I swear it was practically the same color. It was light yellow, her bag was light yellow, she insisted her original bag was white and this is yellow. When I said they look the same, she's like no they don't. I have to be like, well they looked the same to me, it's not as if I was intentionally getting the wrong type. 2) After she goes on and on about this, I finally mention that my sis and dad saw the popcorn as well, and didn't seem to see the difference. This makes her round on poor dad, "You didn't pay attention."

"I'm sorry for not looking at the label."

"You don't need to look at the label! This is yellow, that was white!"

"I'm sorry."

Etc. etc. The thing about mom is, she doesn't stop even after you say you're sorry. Anyhoo, I finally interupt and am like, "I didn't mean to shift the blame on dad, I meant that if two other people mistook it as well, it had to look similar." 3) Does it even matter? Does white popcorn taste different than yellow popcorn? No. 4) I can't even remember the time, though I'm sure it's years and years ago, that anyone in our family has used "real" popcorn instead of microwave popcorn anyway. No matter what color it is, it's destined to sit in our pantry for at least four or five years, and then getting thrown out.

And there are more, but I will not bore you with them.......

It's sad when your own mother loves someone else's dog more than you. He bites my foot, draws blood:

"aww, he's just a puppy."

I put a towel over his head, because it's funny to watch him get out of it.

"That's cruel! Poor thing!"

And it also reminds me of our old dog. He was quite the yapper. And when mom'd get mad at him for not stopping yapping, she'd call him a little shit. She called me a little shit, too. What an ego booster!

Do you know what's REALLY sad? I misspelled professor in the previous post.

Anyhoo, again with the tests. I'm especially fascinated with the career ones, seeing as how I NEED a career.

I shouldn't have looked to a lame-o test based on what colors I like to decide the rest of my life for me. Even though it was based on 12 years of research.

1. Fishing (Fishing? Fishing? Is that really a "career"? I don't even know how to fish)
2. MECHANICAL DRAFTING (Uhm......no)
3. STATISTICS (This semester I dropped my stats class)
4. MECHANICAL DESIGN TECHNOLOGY (Uhm....no)
5. ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT (Okay, I need to stress I know nothing mathmatical or mechanical, or structural people!)
6. DIESEL ENGINE MECHANICS AND TECHNOLOGY (LOOK AT WHAT I JUST SAID)
7. BUILDING CONSTRUCTION / CONSTRUCTION SCIENCE (Dude, NO. Look @ 5!)
8. Chefs - COOKS AND OTHER KITCHEN WORKERS (What is it with them thinking I should be a chef. Maybe I should try out cooking. If my mom let me make anything other than kraft macaroni, which she only let me start making a couple years ago, even.)
9. Boxing (Me=wimp=why the hell do they think I'd be a boxer?)
10. FOOD AND BEVERAGE SERVICE OCCUPATIONS (No)
11. MOBILE HEAVY EQUIPMENT MECHANICS (For the love of god, nothing involving machinery!)
12. Hunting (I love the animals of the world! Well....no, I do eat them. I'm just not willing to shoot them myself)
13. ASIATIC LANGUAGES (e.g. Chinese Japanese Korean) (Uhm....where does this come from? I'd be good at asiatic languages, but the romance languages are just beyond my grasp?)
14. Power Boat Racing (Dude Where did they find their master list??)
15. CARPENTERS (Jesus was a carpenter. I was afraid of the ban saw in Shop)
16. INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS (At the risk of saying "dude" too much, dude, why does it think I'm all mechanical and "hands on"?)
17. ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN (Uhm....not quite sure what that is)
18. MATHEMATICS (Hell no)
19. Gliding (Hang gliding? Is that really a career? And if it's not hang gliding, what other sort of gliding is there, anyway?)
20. ENGINEERING (NOOOOOO!!! I said NOOOO!!!)
21. ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONIC AND COMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERS (Again, No!)
22. PARKS AND RECREATION (Uhm..I see the park ranger thing from the other test. But I am not going around saving picnic baskets)
23. GEOLOGICAL AND GEOPHYSICAL ENGINEERING (My geology prof said I should do this. Hmmm...)
24. WRITERS AND EDITORS (Like writing, not so good at it. As you can see :P)
25. AEROSPACE ENGINEERS (heh...in the aerospace part of shop, my balsa wood airplane fell apart)
26. ROOFERS (No!! Again, Noooo!)
27. INSPECTORS TESTERS AND GRADERS (Not sure what this is, but not particularly promising, either)
28. COST ESTIMATORS (Estimate the cost of what, exactly?)
29. THEOLOGY (Dear lord! I don't even know what I believe)
30. ENGINEERING - RELATED TECHNOLOGIES other (Look, I am not mechanical or mathmatical. Dude!)
31. CORRECTION OFFICERS (Uhm....no)
32. JEWELERS (I can see myself cutting diamonds with lazers, and wearing that cool eye peice monocle-like thing. The future is mine, bay-bee)
33. MECHANICAL ENGINEERING (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!)
34. BIOCHEMISTRY AND BIOPHYSICS (doubtful)
35. GUARDS (Of what?)
36. ELECTRICAL TECHNOLOGY (Noooooooo!)
37. AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING (Seeing someone stick their hand up a cow's butt last year in my ag class has pretty much gotten rid of any appetite I may've had for ag. Not that I had any appetite for it beforehand....)
38. ENGINEERING RELATED TECHNOLOGIES (NO ENGINEERING, people!)
39. ELECTRICAL AND ELECTRONICS EQUIPMENT REPAIR (no!)
40. Purchasing Agents and Managers (Purchasing and managing what?)

12 years of research down the drain.

Do you know what's sad? I'm e-mailing all the proffessors who like me, hitting them up for recommendations for the england trip (I only need 2--so far, I'm actually e-mailing the english prof I hate and a geology prof that was nice, but boring as all get out, because they took to me for some bizarre reason, going to e-mail more peeps if Old Guy and Boring Guy don't reply) and I realize: I'm a sophmore in college, and I don't know how to spell the word "recommendation". Every time I type the damn word, I have to look at the sheet that says it on it. Tee hee.

This is the best week ever!

Tues: I find out I'm getting straight A's!
Weds: I find out I'm getting to go to Jolly Olde England, wot wot?
Thurs: I complete my Red Dwarf collection, because my mom got me The Last Human and Backwards Hoorah! AND, Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency, which if it's anywhere near as good as The Long Dark Teatime of the soul, It'll rock!
Fri: talking to the advisor about ENGLAND!!!!

Stolen from Finger Lickin' Good


Take the Affliction Test Today!

I am Syphilis. Don't Screw With Me, Or I'll Give You Dementia!

.....when I miss so much that requires attention

I wore my underwear inside out all day yesterday before realizing that it was, indeed, inside out. The sad thing is, this isn't even the first time it's happened. It's like broken arrow:

"I don't know what's scarier: that you've lost some nuclear missiles, or that you've done it enough that there's a name for it."

Only....replace "scarier" with "lamer" and "lost some nuclear missiles" with "worn your underwear inside out all day without realizing it."

I am going to come up with a name for that. How about...... "Sububiretro." Yep. That's it.

Should I be frightened or not? I mean, coming off of the SW one where I'm Palpatine........ :P


Which Evil Criminal are You?

Does that pear below not look rancid? I would not touch that thing with my intestines. No way, buddy.

I have to say what fruit I am too.


Strawberry: 30/100 Pear: 60/100 Banana: 50/100 Tomato: 0/100 Lemon: 20/100

Take the What Fruit Are You? test by webkin and aaronr!

Bill and I used to make up pet names for our private parts. I called mine 'Precious' and he called his 'Willard.' Which Clinton 'Ho Are You?

Couldn't resist.

Our spunky heroine triumphs again!

Yes.............I'm (probably) going to get to go to England this summer!

Yay, my mom said probably I can go!

Yaaaaaaaaay!

I have to laugh. I just took this thing on what my top jobs would be (yea, i shamelessly stole it from finger lickin' good)

# 1 Chef (I don't know how to cook)
# 2 Salesperson (Been there. Done that. Hated it)
# 3 Teacher (I can't stand kids)
# 4 Artist (I can see the titles of my pictures now. Stick Man. Stick Woman. Stick Dog. Stick Man and Stick Woman. Stick Man and Stick Woman Out on a Walk With Their Stick Dog)
# 5 Author (I like writing, but I'm not that great)
# 6 Computer Game Programmer (That could be fun! I'm not so good at math, though)
# 7 Graphic Designer (That could also be fun!)
# 8 Mathemetician (Dammit! I told you I suck at math!)
# 9 Park Ranger (I said on the survey I prefered to work indoors. I hate nature :P)
# 10 Web Designer (I'd like that.....but I'd be crappy at it. You should see what I experimented with before I gave in and used a pre-designed template!)
# 11 Chemist (I got a C in chemistry)
# 12 Doctor (This makes me queeeeeasy)
# 13 Engineer (DAMMIT! Did I not say I sucked at math 2 times already?)
# 14 FBI Agent (I could be the next Scully!)
# 15 Geneticist (I DO like genetics)
# 16 Lawyer (I DO like arguing)
# 17 Movie Star (I'm the worst actor ever. At least, that's what I get from my drama class. But sometimes, I think I'm just not suited to act out Yertle the Turtle with a bunch of junkies)
# 18 Researcher (Geez. You should've seen me in chem lab Soph. year. Neither me nor my lab partner could light matches, so we always had to go around and make other people do it. And all of my biology experiments have been unmitigated disasters)
# 19 Rock Star (I don't know how to play a single musical instrument. I would if I could, though)
# 20 Astronaut (This place aims a little high, doesn't it? Like, the odds of becoming an astronaut are like infintesimal)
# 21 Inventor (If only the clapper hadn't already been invented. That's what I'd invent)
# 22 Police Officer (I've seen too many Lethal Weapon movies to say yes to that)
# 23 Politician (Hell No)
# 24 Professional Sports Player (Have they seen me play a sport? Have they seen how much the ball hits me in the head? In high school, everyone said I should invent my own sport, where the ball is really soft, and you don't go near it. This reminds me of the one time I went to a chinese place and the fortune cookie said I enjoy competative sports. What kind of a fortune is that, anyway?
# 25 Reporter (Whatever)

As I approach the ripe old age of 20, I do believe my mind (what little I had, anyway) is going.

I tooooootally wanted to say I'm getting all A's this semester. Only the second time ever in my entire schooling!

Anyhoo....I meant to say that like two posts ago. The last post doesn't even deserve to be up here, it's so pointless, but I've got bounties of pointfulness going on in this topic.

Colonel Sanders (My history prof) told us today when we came for the final that if we were happy with our grades, we didn't have to take it. He's a sadistic man, making us all study for nothing. But I don't care. Wheeee! I didn't have to take the final. And he made the top 5 people in the class stand up, which I happened to be. Which surprised the heck out of me. Happily surprised me :)

And when I turned in my english paper, (I was really worried about this class because he has no basis in reality for the grades he gives out) he said "If you don't get an A in this class, no one will."

Yay me!!!! If everything turns out the way I think it will, I'll get straight A's, bay-bee!!!!

Heh....I wouldn't if I hadn't dropped middle finger's class. So it IS a bit of a tainted victory. But it wouldn't be a victory at all if I was still in that damn, annoying, boring, pointless, useless class. So......

that's that.

Eh....Kevin (GM of a site I've been RPing at) is beginning to annoy me. He's the biggest nag ever if I forget to post once, but he'll go for days w/o doing it. And he's the damn GM! Anyhoo, he's being uber moody right now too, which is irritating me.

And he's sort of a wierd guy anyway :P

And I'm a coward. I still haven't told my mom about how i want to go to britain yet.

I'M GOING TO BE AN UBER-BABELFISH!

Now let me explain why this phrase makes me a complete dork:

1) I am uttering this about a D and D char.
2) I am uttering this about a D and D char, yet I said it in the first person
3) Uber is for dorks (IBPW). It's "super" in german, I've heard. Or else who I heard it from just told me that, and it's really a horrible german swear word, that I throw around like nothing
4) I am referencing an internet utility that translates things
5) I know that it got it's name from a sci-fi/humor book: Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
6) I regularly quote HGG. And I quote, "I'm so hip, I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis."

And it's true. I'm just that hip.

I figured I'd out do myself by taking an online personality test about what online personality test I'd be.

I'm The James Bond Villain Personality Test!

I live in a fictional world of spies and blonde women with ridiculous names, and I like to give people plenty of options. Although whether they're villainous is not optional.

Click here to find out which test you are!

Again with the tests. You'll be relieved that though I took a "what star wars character are you?" one once, I didn't put it up here.

Though I meant to, then lost the url :P I was Emperor Palpatine. How kick-ass is that?

I actually did, out of choice, not put my lord of the rings one up. Why? Not really into lord of the rings, though I can almost hear you gasp audibly at that little snippet of info. Anyhoo......

If I were a James Bond villain, I would be Auric Goldfinger. I enjoy golf, gold, and bisecting people with industrial lasers. I am played by Gert Fröbe in Goldfinger. Who would you be? James Bond Villain Personality Test

I know my blog is going to be clogged with these, but I can't resist *shigh*

I am Matched Phrenology Busts. I enlighten Norwegian glass bacteria with richly sponged hardwood thought processes. Four ripe metronomes ridicule my lucky castle of relief. My auspicious mercury rides level coral. What erudite spheres reveal strata? The Utterly Surreal Test

I had some really weird dreams last night. I didn't used to dream all that much (remembering it, anyway) but i think I've become a lighter sleeper or something, so I'm getting them all the time. + whenever I have dreams, they're always weird.

The first one was I was in preschool. And we had show and tell. And this one girl had some bottle of something that made you twice as pretty, no matter what. I heckled her. I said it'd need to make me 3X as pretty to be interesting. I pointed to this one pimple I had on my forehead (which I really do have one there right now). And I was like, "look at this pimple! it makes me look like one of those hindu women!" Not that I have anything against hindu women--they purposely put a red dot up there. When it's a pimple, it's just sad. And then, I said if it removed pimples, it'd destroy the entire economy, because there's so much makeup and things people buy to get rid of pimples. And I SWEAR this was a preschool setting.

Then, I had a dream where I went back to high school to visit, and i saw this one girl who was in my french class, this one guy that was in my drama class, and this one guy that was in Scholastic Bowl with me. And we had lunch and talked, and I told them about the preschool dream, and they laughed.

Aren't those both pretty eerie?

Anyhoo.....I'm so worried right now. Why?

I've wanted to go to Europe REALLY badly for a long time. Especially England. Especially lately, because I have a friend there I want to see so badly. I figure my only chance is to study abroad--I'm not going to have enough money to just go there for a long time. And for awhile, I've sort of talked about it, but figured my chance for that has flown--I've diddled around long enough trying to decide a major, that there are acadmic complications in going to another university for a year or semester.

But today, I saw an advert: 3 weeks during the summer. And, it's almost more of a sight-seeing tour, so it wouldn't be for some major I'm not in. The way it works, it would probably not help me graduate any sooner (though I wish I could), but it really wouldn't be going to waste per say. Anyway, I'd get to see most of england, not just london or something. The downside is I probably wouldn't get to see my friend as much as I would if I were studying during the semester, but I WOULD get to see her some, and I would get to see one of the best countries on the face of this planet. And, I think if I save my ass off until the summer, I'll have just enough to do it on my own money. So this is almost perfect for me.

So why'm I so nervous?

My mom. She's thwarted my every attempt to go anywhere my whole life. I'm so incrediblally scared she'll tell me I can't go that I'm almost ready to wet myself. Okay, that's an exageration...... but I am scared to ask her.

I'm thinking of talking to dad first, so that he can sort of take my side.

Wish me luck.

Moving Day

When I look back on moving day, I can't help but wonder how it would've turned out if we had checked to see if the current occupant had left yet before moving out crap.

Yes, the room was still occupied.

Actually, we weren't as idiotic as this sounds--there wasn't a nametag on the door, though everyone has one. Also, even though we packed before actually going over and knocking, at the last minute we got cautious and knocked before we actually lugged our crap over there.

Still.....

We packed up all our crap, which is a considerable lot. Then, we had the bright idea to go over. We knocked, and no one answered. Then, we were goofing around, because we thought no one was there. Leading to this unfortunate action: I butt-bumped the door. Yes, I'm as ashamed as you are of that fact. And that's about when the current occupant opened said door.

Of course, she wondered why a complete stranger was butt-bumping her door. And rightfully so. I applaud that. Anyhoo, we had to have looked really weird to her, because we were startled as anything that someone had actually answered the door.

For some reason, my roommate paniced. And lied. "We're looking for Andrea," she said.

"Andrea? No one named that lives here. What's her last name?"

"Uh...." here my roommate snaps several times, trying to think up a follow-up to the original lie. She passes the ball to me. "What is Andrea's last name?" she asks.

I have a bout of hysterical laughter and say "Smith." The only thing besides my own last name I could think of. So of course that sounds fake as hell. My roommate later admits she thought of "Samsonite", because of a scene in Dumb and Dumber (I don't think I have to point out the poetic justice of thinking of Dumb and Dumber at that moment). So I guess Smith wasn't too dumb.

We eventually extricated ourselves from this conversation and left.

Moral of the story: Don't pick me as your patsy when you lie. I'm terrible.


Unpacking and re-packing--such a pain in the ass. I'm circumventing that by just living at home during finals, but still. And my poor roommate :(

Mom and I are already on each other's nerves. She's griping at me for being on the computer when I said I didn't have time to go shopping (on account of finals). Which, I AM on for more time now, but I'm done studying for the nonce, and would go shopping if the stores were open. At the time I was only on briefly, except someone called and knocked me off, and my mom talked to her for a heck of a long time, thereby wasting my time, and making it seem that I was on doing more than I was. Also, I accidently left some kool-aid out that I plan to dye my hair with. When my mom found it, I paniced and lied and said it was my roommate's. Now, like, a day later, she's all asking me if my roommie has sugar with her at the dorm to make this stuff with. I stammer out that there are sugar packets at the dorm, even though I know full well it takes a buttload of sugar to make that stuff. Then when my mom points that out, I shrug and say "I don't know, I guess she does, if she bought it." Bleh.....

The moral of the story: I shouldn't lie. I'm terrible

And Grrr @ the mirror in the bathroom. This is driving me nuts:

In an effort to be politically correct, instead of just "merry christmas" it has happy holidays and happy hannukah on there.

But they freakin' spelled hannukah wrong. It's hannukah, not hanakah. Dammit!

I'm not Jewish, but for some reason it still really bugs me.

But figure I'm too anal retentive anyway, seeing as how after they first put it up, I added "Joyous Kwanzaa"

Still....I spelled "kwanzaa" right, dammit!

Grr @ my mom. I mentioned I was moving tomorrow. She made a poop about it.

Ashamed as I am about it, I (with some help) wrote a song about her, called Psycho Mom. But since it's funny, and this is anonymous, here it is:

Psycho mom
Dictates when I go to bed!
Psycho mom
what's going on in that bright red head? (she dyes her hair red, but says it's brown. Next semester I'm going to dye it blue, and if she gets mad I'm going to say it's still blonde)

Psycho Mom
lies to get her way!
Psycho Mom
There'll be hell to pay!

Psycho Mom
yells at me when I cry!
Psych Mom!
Why do I even try?

And also, I've been listening to It's My Life by Bon Jovi and My Life by Billy Joel. Yes, when I rebel, I do it to Billy Joel. Anyhoo, to My Life I adlib. Wanna read it? Too bad. My comments are in parrenthesis.

I don't need you to worry for me cos I'm alright (Really, I am)
I don't want you to tell me it's time to come home (I can visit Lisa's house any time I want! (This is my sis, my mom made a big stink of me staying there awhile ago instead of coming home, because she was mad at me))
I don't care what you say anymore this is my life (I'm living in McCormick now, dammit! (that's actually the rec hall, but I'm not stupid enough to put where I live out on the internet))
go ahead with your own life, leave me alone (if you HAD a life)

Don't get me wrong, i still belong (Please don't disown me, I still like dad)
you can speak your mind, but not on my time (Here I plug my ears and go "la la la la")

Yep, I'm a childish, jerk of a daughter. But oh well.

I'm pretty weird. Just now I was listening to Christian rock (I don't consider myself Christian, though my parents consider me so), and now I'm listening to Offspring. Talk about a shift that will blow your mind.

Yay, I'm moving away from this hell hole tomorrow. Sure, it will be to another hell hole, because I'll still be in the ass crack that is I S freakin' U, but it'll at least be a quiet hell hole, God willing.

It's pretty amusing (to me, at least), up on the dry erase board we keep up on the door (on the inside, us anti-socialites, us) we have our farewells. My roomie put up a hand, waving goodbye, saying "good riddance."

I remarked to her that my most likely farewell would be the one finger salute, rather than a wave. So she made me draw that up there, on my side. Then, since she had "good riddance" so I had to think of a similar verbal farewell. And since she had good riddance, I had to choose something stronger, just so it'd match the one finger salute. So....I thought for awhile, and ended up with, "Before I leave, I'm peeing on your door, bastards!"

Because if I thought I could get away with it, I would, that's how bitter I am.

Back when we were neighbors, I asked the Warden why he never left this valley, why he didn't get away from the prison and me and the ignorant young guards and the bells across the lake and all the rest of it. He had years of leave time he had never used.

He said, "I would only meet more people."

"You don't like any kind of people?" I said. We were talking in a sort of joshing mode, so I could ask him that.

"I wish I had been born a bird instead," he said. "I wish we had all been born birds instead."

~Hocus Pocus
Kurt Vonnegut

If I were a work of art, I would be Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. I am extremely popular and widely known. Although unassuming and unpretentious, my enigmatic smile has charmed millions. I am a mystery, able to be appreciated from afar, but ultimately unknowable and thus intriguing. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

What I find amusing, is that the stuff I just pasted up there has: Copy and paste this HTML code to add this vital information to your web site above it. Pointless fun on a wednesday afternoon: yes. Vital information: no

Ooh, and I think I should've picked bright colors instead of earthy ones. Mona Lisa is a bit TOO earthy for me. If I change it to bright colors, I get the Salvador Dali one with the melting clocks. Whoo!

And...uhm...with black and white, I still get the melting clocks. I'm not exactly sure how that works......

(Photo courtesy of my homegirl)

On a happy note: I am moving! Yaaaaay! This friday, in fact! Whoo!

mmmm, pumpkin pie and greasy potato slab for breakfast. What could be better?

I wonder if pumpkin pie counts as a vegetable. I'm really being healthy! I actually got the urge for pumpkin pie this morning, because my mom made a sham out of thanksgiving by having pumpkin cheesecake instead this year, so I needed some pure pumpkin pie today.

Greasy Potato Slab(TM) is the school's hash browns.

Hmm...all I had to blog about yesterday is 1) I think my poor music teacher is being screwed. She doesn't have tenure yet, and all of these people in my class evaluated her badly. Which is pretty sad, considereing she's one of the few half-decent teachers I've had at I S Freaking U

2) History. He's beginning to annoy me, just showing videos all the time. He's far more interesting than them. Especially since the videos have these soap-opera like reenactments of meetings between people, complete with that background music. One of the ones yesterday was actually half interesting....it showed all of these propaganda movies Japan brainwashed its people with. The first couple were funny--they just depicted us and britain as stupid and cowardly or whatever. And said how good they were compared to us. But some of the others were scary--they depicted Roosevelt as the devil incarnate, and showed burning flags with "we'll get the infidels" Well, they didn't say infidels, but something like that. At the time, Japan felt that they were hugely superior to us. Oh, and the leader of China at the time, Chiang Kai-Chek--they gave him a special shout out at the end of the flag burning routine. "We're comeing for you!" Creepy.

And, when I was little, I never really got what the huge deal was about pearl harbor..... But they showed it yesterday, and it made me really sad. Sept. 11 has really opened my eyes, I guess. And all the propaganda reminded me of how Laden's trying to convince the rest of the world that we are infidels.

Dammit! My roommate (ficklest woman in the USA) HAS decided to move to the other room.

Buuuut, now the site isn't working properly.

Damn you, I S Freaking U!

That's what I shall call my univerisity from now on. ISU, F-U!

Dude! I'm sooooo excited! I've been linked to for the first time!

Second time, actually--the first time was by one of my dearest friends in the world. Buuuut, since she's one of my dearest friends in the world, I often consider it as a pity link. Or a reciprical(sp?) because I have her up there.

Anyhoo, my first non-pity referral is up at Maybe God is Always Angry, down at the left with his other links. I'm stoked! Especially since it is a pretty funny blog. You know what that means--I'm going to ride that dude's coat tails to success! Hell yea! Whoo!

Tee hee... and my best bug says she's going to ride on my coat tails after I've gained succes by riding on his coat tails.

After that, I don't know. Mebbe we can become rich media moguls. Damn straight! Hell Yea!

Wait....I'm not exactly sure what "mogul" means..... Whoo! :P

Got another english paper back. A-. I'm beyond wondering now.

Good news: He has jury duty when we have finals, so now our final is a take home essay rather than one we have to write on the spot. GOD BLESS THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM!

Poopy news: there's only one room I can move to, and its on an honors floor, which my roommate isn't in and can't go there. So...either I don't move, or I end up with a new roommate, which I don't want. Bleeeeeeeeeh. So far, right now, I'm not moving.

*the roommate's door is probably going to have ass written on it many times in the future* Because they ARE asses.

Christmas break is almost upon us! :D

I've just realized I have quite a violent streak in me. For example, here's part of an ongoing story I'm writing:

Sod started hitting on Phoebe as well. His original plan was to hit on Belinda, but he was (barely) smart enough to realize it'd get a shoe upside his head. Or somewhere even more unpleasant. "I'd like some fries with that shake!" he remarked, though Phoebe was obviously sitting and not walking, or really moving much at all.

Chris: Aaaaaaahrg! What is this? Pick on the maimed guy day? *he held up a mangled hand* I'm maimed. It's bad karma to abuse me!

Martha Stewart looked it up in her stylish planner, "Actually, it IS national "pick on the maimed guy" day." She threw the planner at Chris's head. This knocked Chris unconcious, leaving Belinda without any recourse but to start blugeoning Martha with the shoe, because once she got on a shoe-blugeoning spree, it was difficult to stop.

Martha brought out some delightfully decorative nunchucks and started beating on Belinda.

"Ow!" Belinda yelped, as she was hit by a pine cone-bedecked nunchuck, "Someone help me!"

(if you want, you can read the rest of the story--though that part isn't up yet--at Arse Pimples)

I've got my main character attacking a maimed guy (a tiger did it, who also ate his friend entirely) and then Martha Stewart attacking her with nunchuks. I think that points to a disturbed mind.....

Speaking of disturbed minds, my mom was on my case today to help my dad put up some Christmas decorations outside, but I had to write these 3 papers. It turns out, I would've had time to after all, but I like to give myself extra, in case I get writer's block or something. Anyhoo, I went out to dad afterwards to ask him if he still needed my help, and he told me he didn't even need any in the first place. Grr..... Also, what he was puttin gup are these hideous fake spiraly trees made of lights, so when you light it up, it looks sort of like a tree, though everyone knows it's just like a conical spiral of green lights. Or whatever color. I think we have two white ones and two blue ones, or something like that. Anyhoo, if she thought dad needed some help, why didn't she do it? She was the one who thought he needed help so bad, and didn't have anything better to do. Plus, she was the one who made us get those stupid trees in the first place.

And I don't think it was so dad and I could get some quality time in or anything, either. I'm cool with my dad, we spend way more time together than I spend with her anyway, and most of that time is mucho pleasant, unlike my time with her.

God I hop she never finds this webpage. I'd be dead :P

One good thing my mom's done lately?

She's getting me my british books for christmas! She went to a used book store with connections all over. Red Dwarf is coming from Canada and I'm getting a used copy of Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency from New Jersey.

Now why they're more safe from anthrax than the UK.............?

Bah, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Phoe!

Duuuude, I don't know why, but the Dave Matthews dream reminded me of something else:

Yesterday, my old english guy was telling us that when he lived out in Colorado, he lived right across from Ricky Schroeder.

It's a small world.

Guess who had the weirdest dream ever last night?

Yep. It was me.

It started out that I was in this college drama class. And my teacher was Dave Matthews. On top of that, Dave Matthews was my uncle. Oh, and Dave Matthews was a real jerk to me in this dream. And I was really bad at acting, which that part is real. Anyhow, we were trying to do stand up comedy (why, in a drama class, I don't know) we each had several turns. Finally, I had a turn where I was totally unprepared and was actually eating when I got called to the stage. So I was trying to chew and swallow and begin and stuff, and this guy (he's actually this annoying kid from my high school) with a pen halfway up his nose is like, "You're disgusting! You're eating on the stage!"

And I managed to smoke him, going, "Dude. I'm eating, and you have a pen up your nose, and you think I'm the weird one?" And then he said something else, and I said another witty retort, and then the bell rang. So, I actually performed well that once. Then Dave Matthews announced a quiz at 8:00 p.m. on saturday.

Well, I went home, and my parents were away, so they had me stay with my uncle and aunt. (yep. Dave matthews) And he was supposed to drive me to the quiz. But he was a real jerk about it. And, my cousins were 1) this girl who had lived next door to me when I was little and 2) this girl who i knew in high school. And we slept really late, and Dave Matthews woke me up rudely. And then my cousins were making fun of me for not likeing hard rock, and i was trying to prove to them I did because I like Incubus and A Perfect Circle. (this is especially funny because the girl from high school LOVED N'Suck) And A Perfect Circle came on the radio and we listened to them for awhile. And then, there was something or other we wanted to go and look for, so we were doing that.

Then, the lady who is going to be my boss at the desk called me up on my cell phone (which I don't have one in real life). But, instead of her normal spanish accent, she had a german accent. And I all didn't believe it was my boss, because she was all german sounding. Then she put me on hold for a really long time, but it wasn't too bad because they were playing Incubus. Then she came back with like proof it was her or something, then wanted me to come over and do something. and I said I couldn't, because I was staying with my uncle and aunt, and I sure as heck knew Dave Matthews wouldn't drive me there. The End.

I have weird dreams. But they're amusing, at least.

Dear Blog,

Gnaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarg!!!!!!!

That is directed at my e-vil neighbors.

Only, if it were intelligible, it'd be a string of expletives to make a sailor blush.

I hate these people. We have a noise agreement with them, where all they have to do is keep their music at a decent level after 8:00 at night.

But they can't even do that.

*was kept up by them last night, woke up by them early this morning*

Angrily yours,

Me

Last night, I discovered that I have an anti-perfect streak or something. Why? I was watching Pleasantville last night (two kids from the 90's get sucked into a 50's sitcom, where everything's perfect and black and white, but thanks to their interference things begin to get colored and imperfect, but the overall message is sort of they're better off unperfect. Perfect's boring) And I'd forgotten how much I love that movie. I mean, I like things that are somewhat clever, sort of in the genre of humor + drama, but I especially like this movie.

Then I got to thinking of how much I love this book called Villains by Necessity (by Eve Forward), it's my favorite ever. It's about this world where the epic struggle between good and evil has occured--and good has won. Only, because of this imbalance, the world is quickly heading toward destruction. Several villians have to get together to bring evil back to the world and save everything. I never really analysed it before, until I was talking to another friend the other day, and she had brought up another issue in the book, that people aren't just black and white, good or evil, that there's so many dimensions (that reminds me of Pleasantville too). She wanted to know what it was about, and I thought hmm... it's partly about how the good people are forcing good on people who aren't, whether they want to or not (which is something her and I talk about a certain amount) and that got me into analyzing other parts of the book too.

Then, I remembered how much I liked Gattica, where even if you're genetically engineered to be perfect, and you're part of an elite class, your life can suck (Jude Law's character, who's the perfect man--genetics-wise, who has tried to commit suicide a couple times)

And how much I loved Brave New World--another one involving genetics, but other things as well, such as conditioning. It's the perfect world, but then you realize there's no art, no emotion, and everyone gets high and watches porno movies just to deal with their lives.

So....that's my inane self/book/movie evaluation for today :P

Argh....I'm bad at being a delinquent.

I skipped history today, and I'm all like worrying about it and stuff.

Heh, the funny thing is I skipped because it was raining, I couldn't find my deoderant (still can't, I must be rather sweaty :P), and I wanted to sleep later.

Well, that's not the funny thing....the funny thing was that my roommate also wanted to sleep later. So we both skipped and napped together.

As the old saying goes, "the roommates that skip together, stay together."

heh, also, it's not the first time we've had a group nap. We're a bit odd.

Last night I had a discussion with my roommate, and she raised an interesting hypothesis: Living in our dorm is like living in a crazy house.

Evidence to back this hypothesis:

1. They put the nuts two to a room, (unless they're violent) at least in every movie I've ever seen
2. We get all sorts of weird screams and stuff coming through the the walls and the window, thanks to all the drunkies
3. It's very institutional (white, etc.)

Evidence to refute this hypothesis:

1. Nuthouse rooms are far more spacious than our room.
2. They don't give us any drugs.

He's a shy skateboarding astronaut with nothing left to lose. She's a provocative belly-dancing barmaid married to the Mob. They fight crime!

He's an oversexed day-dreaming Green Beret who hides his scarred face behind a mask. She's a warm-hearted French-Canadian widow with the power to bend men's minds. They fight crime!

He's an obese pirate stage actor with a robot buddy named Sparky. She's a high-kicking cat-loving archaeologist living homeless in New York's sewers. They fight crime!


I could read these all day.

Speaking of toast, I was used as a toaster rack when I was a small child going to private school.

(Only I never went to private school)

You do not know true terror until you wake up in the middle of the night with "Beat it" in your head.

Which I was doing circa 4 a.m. last night.

And it was the Chipmunks version.

Heh, I tried to get it out, trying to get Incubus's latest in there instead, at least.

But IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII wish you were here kept turning into

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII just wanna fly. Which I didn't want in there much more than the chipmunk "beat it."

eerie

Oh, and I also had a revelation the other day, similar to this:

Portions of my brain are dedicated to storing -- and periodically retrieving with no warning -- the theme song from The Flintstones. A really good section, too. I've occasionally forgotten my own phone number, my social security number, my proper place in civilized society. But not for one picosecond have I been able to forget that I will, with the Flintstones, have a yabba-dabba-doo time, whatever that is. I can't help but think that this brainspace would have been better used memorizing the rare earth metals section of the Periodic Table (Atomic Numbers 58-71 and 90-103) or the names of all of Charlie's Angels (Kelly, Sabrina, Jill, Kris, Tiffany, and Julie).

Portions of my brain constantly store and retrieve quotes from The Simpsons, Romeo and Juliet, and Red Dwarf.

Like, people are getting sick of me being like, "That reminds me of this one Simpsons, when...." (My personal favorites are "But stupid babies need the MOST care!" and "Remember Alf, Bart? Well now he's back. In Pog form!")

And.....as for RD and RJ, I keep that to myself. People'd be concerned if all the sudden out of nowhere I was like, "Oh happy dagger!" or "Civil blood makes civil hands unclean." That last quote would probably make a good title for a FOX special about police brutality. I can just hear the announcer, "When civil blood makes civil hands unclean!" Uhm... I guess that's a lot funnier in my head, where you can actually hear the announcer's voice :P

As for RD, no one ever knows about it, and they are kind of wierd. The ones that tend to come into my brain without warning are:

"He was in for a battle royale with a samurai toaster! Talkie Toaster (Patent applied for) $9.99 (plus tax)"

"Cow's milk? We ran out of that yonks ago! That's dog's milk!"

"It'll get itself knackered out eating me to death, then you can strike!"

And my favorite.....

"I hope you raked the sand back afterwards. That'd be a hell of a lie to get into. You're one off the par, and your ball gets stuck in Lister's buttock crevasse. You'd need more than a niblick to get out of that!

Are you saying my bum's big?

Big?? It's like two badly parked volkswagens!"

One of my most favoritest pics on the net:

Yay for my thanksgiving break, it actually went quite well. No major arguements with my mom, no other debacles. Only being bit on the foot by my sis's new puppy. But I can deal with that :P

Heh, speaking of bad thanksgivings..... last year, bay-bee:

Our sink backed up when we were trying to clean up after dinner.

The kitchen sink shares a junction with our washer.

We had a load in our washer.

Wash=full of stuff you don't want your wash full of

We call a plumber

He's an incompetant dumbass of a plumber

My mom says so in front of the poor man.

Ta da.....that was my production of "Thanksgiving Last Year." I'm hoping to adapt it into a fast-paced musical starring Julie Andrews.

Oh, and I have to say, about being stood up for Harry Potter, I missed the SW Ep 2 trailer, because I was loyal and WAITED for my friends. Waaaah :P

Tee hee....I just noticed I phrased "Gah, my baby toe hurts" in the form of a question.

Thank you, Jeopardy.

Has anyone else noticed how freaky Alex looks w/o a moustache?

Gah, my baby toe hurts?

Do you know why?

IT WAS RIPPED OFF BY A SAVAGE BEAST.

Okay, okay, it wasn't ripped off, it was bitten. And the savage beast is my sister's puppy, Teddy.

But don't let his cuteness fool you (she said, without showing a picture of the dog)

He drew blood! And bit me two other places and broke the skin, there. Apparently the humping is being replaced by harder biting. Grrrr.....

I swear, it bled for quite awhile.

Oh, and he bit the non gimpy foot! So now I have NO good foot, they're both gimpy. What have I done to deserve this? :P

Now that I'm a little more well-rested, I'll try to explain the nature of my hangover. My friend Jon and I started a four square club here at Bard. Four square, for those of you who grew up in disadvantaged caves, literally feeding from the waste of those around you, is an "elementary school game." I played it every day of recess for six years, and now that I'm playing it again, after having taken a ten year break, I realize that there is no game on this earth that I enjoy more.


To start a club at Bard, or at least a funded club, you have to make a presentation to a budget committee. Our club, the BFAMCIFSL (Bard's First Annual Mens' Coed Intramural Four Square League), requested $250 fo a game that costs roughly four dollars to play. So, accordingly, we went into the meeting wearing four square t-shirts, we gave all of the committee members pens that read "I (heart) giving money to four square," we made overheads illustrating the design of the court, personal business cards of our club, complete with our corporate logo (which may or may not be the default corporate logo on the business card template in microsoft publisher), and last but not least, a 3' by 5' board, complete with both a pie chart and a bar graph, illustrating what various things are "sport" was superior to. They only gave us $50 (they couldn't figure out what we needed the money for).


A lot has happened since then, but to make a long story short, we've played something like six games now, we play on a weekly basis. We've moved to our indoor court for the winter. Basically, (there really is no good way to explain any of this, it really has to be experienced) 25-50 people stand in line, often "inebriated" or "intoxicated," and play four square. It's really ridiculous, and it's a lot of fun. People come in costumes, people play music, we have fun. Games start at 10 PM, and never stop before 2 AM. It's intense, it's ridiculous, and it's just incredibly fun.


And the next day is always a hangover.

Duude, I have to start playing four square again some day.

Oh and grrr....I have to put a (bad) word in for my folk's new computer chair.

1) to get the arms under the desk I have to put it down really low (all the way, lower than is comfortable)
2) Trying to move the thing an inch, I practically strain myself, the roller makes it so hard. Bleh.
3) The old one was great, and it didn't need to be replaced. But my Mom lusts after the one I have at school (where it's the proper size for the desk there + I have tile floor + the one provided by the school is incredibly painful) and my sister's that she has at her house (which I hate that one too). Waaaah!

*sigh* I wish my blog could be like his

Uhm.....only, without the porn joke jag he's been on lately :P


Not that I don't make jokes about porn. But mine are funny. And involve buccaneers!

Sexing Fruit Flies

It's funny how a certain song can take you back in time......

Last night I was listening to the radio, and I heard Sean Mullins's Rockabye, which swoooooooooosh, suddenly I was thinking about Junior year of high school. (thats when it was popular)

I started thinking about how great Junior year was.

Yes, this is candy coating nostalgia, I know things weren't quite the rose colored haze that my memory makes them out to be, but still, sophmore and junior year were damn good times for me, sometimes I even think that I (sadly) peaked there.

The song particularly reminds me of driving home from school--because that's when I had the radio on. But it reminds me that it was always dark out, because I was driving home late. Why? Scholastic Bowl--the one time in my life that I've ever had passion about anything, that I've ever put work into, and not lost interest in, is Scholastic bowl--kept me at school late. Yes, I know I'm a dork..... (Scholastic Bowl is sort of a competative trivia game) I also remember coming home late after "sexing fruit flies."

Heh, I know "sexing fruit flies" sounds dirty, but it's basically looking at them under a microscope to tell whether they are male or female. I'm not exactly sure why we had to mark down how many we had of each, but we did. (the whole thing was part of a genetics experiment in biology). They didn't give us enough time in class to do it, and out of our group of four, only two of us could come after class, and most other groups went before class, so usually the deserted lab would have just me and my best friend Karen. Weird as it sounds, I think I've had some of the deepest conversations in my life while sexing fruit flies.

Sophmore year and junior year were when my friendships were the strongest. Me and my small group of close knit friends talked all the time, I felt more accepted than I ever have in my life. I got the internet, Junior year. I found a community of people that I loved.

But now scholastic bowl's over. Karen and I started to grow apart even before we graduated, I'm not "mature" enough for her. My other friends hardly e-mail me at all, not e-mailing me even when I notify them I am going through a wrenching arguement with my mother. And my online community...........dead. People gradually drift away online too, I guess. But when people drift away, it hurts. It's worse than not having them in the first place.

Hmm......mucho depressing :P
Oh well

When it rains, it pours, eh?

anyhoo, I just came back from class, and this guy like tried to run me over at the crosswalk, and I'm like thinking "sure, run over the GIMP why don't you? It's not my fault I'm slow. I've a gimpy foot!" All of you out there who drive a white pickup and run over gimps such as myself, you're going to get it! My friend wanda's going to kick your ass. Just figured I'd warn ya ;)

and d'oh, my mom's being annoying about anthrax again. I asked for something for christmas that can only be obtained on the UK Amazon.com (more acurrately amazon.co.uk) and she's all like "that's dangerious because of anthrax"

Anthrax is NOT coming from the good folks at Amazon.co.uk. It's not even coming from outside of this country.

Its good she doesn't know that I'm expecting a british package soon :P

Aaaaand, that as part of the desk job, I have to sort some mail and packages. If she finds out.,....well, it just slipped my mind, I guess :P

Whoaaaaa..... I've not blogged in ages. At least it feels that way. Mebbe cos I'm a compulsive blogger. Anyhoo, I guess I might as well just start listing out random junk I've been meaning to blog about.

1. I have a gimpy foot. Not a gimpy leg, because it's fine except for being attached to a gimpy foot. Which, I think is a misnomer, because it's gimpy leg, not gimpy foot, but all the same, I have a gimpy foot. I don't even know how I got it. I just know that walking to class is painful as all get out

2. Saw the harry potter movie. Thought I was going to see it with my roommate and her sis, but I got stood up sort of. The only thing more embarassing than going to a childrens movie with two people who are wearing all sorts of merchandise related to the movie is going to a childrens movie and pacing around twenty minutes in front of the theater staff before realizing that you've been stood up by two people wearing all sorts of harry potter merchandise, and then finally going in.

3. I have a sneeze powered roller chair now. I like sneeze while I'm in it, and the force moves me back two feet. Mebbe I should see a proffessional about my explosive sneezings

4. I went to the wind symphony on saturday. This is for music class. Sadly, I am not cultured. I spent all my time checking out the guys in front doing percussion. They were all pretty good looking, actually, except this one guy that looks eerily similar to Prince. Oh, and I also wrote sarcastic things in the notes I was taking like...."This song reminds me of the opening theme to Planet of the Apes." "Flashing lights---glad I'm not epileptic." The intermission was considerably less pleasant, even. I ended up sitting behind my 6th grade teacher, and I was all trying to avoid being seen, because I didn't like her. Aand, I was avoiding eye contact with her daughter who went to school with me (K-12, now she's in the same college but we hardly see each other) who I find exceeeeeeeedingly unpleasant. And, in addition, this guy came up and started feeling up the girl next to me, I can only assume he was her boyfriend, but I didn't really care, I just wanted him to stop, it was pretty freaky.

5. Speaking of freaky guys, I was at Chatters last night, and I was trying to open my Yoo Hoo, but my Yoo Hoo had part of the wrapper partially over the cap, so after a few tries, I was picking at the wrapper, and this guy came up and started trying to open it, and I tried to tell him it was the wrapper, but he just kept trying to open it. And all of his friends started laughing at him because he couldn't open it, but eventually he got it open, and left. Eerie.

6. Speaking of freaky incidents, the other day, I was in the bathroom, taking my contacts out, and these girls started talking about their urinary tract infections and ghonorea. (Yea, I know I spelled that wrong) I swear the phrase "it burns when I pee" was said several times, among other things. I do not need to know this.

7. Speaking of gross bathroom incidents, the other day I was on the toilet and in the stall next to me, there was this girl puking, and it was pretty gross. But then, later, I was in the bathroom, and she was puking in ANOTHER toilet. This irritates me. COMMIT TO ONE STALL, DON'T GROSS UP THE OTHER ONES. And I had no way of knowing if she'd puked in other stalls. Gross.

8. Speaking of things that happen to me in the bathroom, there are notices up in the stalls about the Weezer concert that's coming to our area soon. One of the stalls has this huge one that I find unnerving. It's getting very disconcerting peeing in front of Rivers Cuomo (Weez's lead singer) all the time. And he's got this funny look on his face, like he's really interested in my peeing. Actually, this is the stall one I stuck with during the puke incident, because the one I usually use was one of the ones defiled.

9. Speaking of the Weezer concert, I'm kind of sad. I don't want to pay to go, because I don't like the band they're touring with, and I only like a few Weezer songs, but the opening band is Jimmy Eat World, and they SOOOO rock, I love them.

10. I got my job at the front desk. ONly less hours than I want. Funnily enough, my roommate is getting the extra hours (not on purpose) but I predicted this would happen, because she told the lady that she needed at least 30 hours. I didn't issue any ultimatums. Hell, it was like pulling eyeteeth to get the woman to give me as many as I wanted in the first place. Now we're going to have a meeting about it, but I don't care. I just want to pick up some extra cash during break, it won't kill me to give up 4 hours. Do it already, just don't make me go to a meeting about it.

Okay, I think that's about it

Oh, and soon is my thanksgiving break! Yay! Happy dead turkey day!

Awww......I attempted to dye blue streaks into my hair, and it turned out really badly :(

I was so excited about it, I've been meaning to do it for ages, but I messed it up. Mebbe I'll use real dye instead of kool aid next time

Whoosh, I have a blog to blog from monday no less. I've been busy lately. Well, busy for me, I'm rather lazy. Plus I've done a lot of writing lately (schoolwork, RPG @ my friend Kevin's site--Kevin's quite the nagger :P). So I don't always feel like doing it....... But this blog is fighting to get out!

My english teacher is flippin' psycho! Tho this time his psychoness helped me, I got an A- on the last paper.

But that's after the B- on the last paper, which was less marked up when he gave it back to me, with less problems than this one. What IS his deal? And this is also the second time he's read a paper of mine out loud to the class--but he says he only reads the best of them, and both times I've had an A-.....does he just not give out full fleged A's? And at the end of the paper, he wrote "good paper, as always" THEN WHY DID YOU FLIPPING GIVE ME A B- ON MY LAST ONE IF IT WAS SO GOOD, YOU SENILE FREAK??? And also, he wrote "good point" by something he only says a million times a day in class. I guess parroting back what he says is more important than originality.

Oh well. I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. If his psychoness is working in my favor for once, I might as well go with it.

Well....I just came back from my interview.

My interview for the job at my residence hall's front desk over winter break.

I hate interviews, although this is by no means the worst. (I think the worst was when I accidently made Wal-Mart think I was a druggie)

Anyhoo...I hate how they're always like, "why do you want this job?" I mean, if it were a real job, that might make sense, but with a minimum wage part time job, it's obviously not your dream to work there or anything, you know. I mean, what do they want you to say, "I want it so bad, I can taste it! Looking up phone numbers for people and sorting packages is my forte!"? Come ooooon! If I were to tell the truth, I'd say, "I'm looking to whore myself out for minimum wage, and this seems convenient."

I forget what I actually said. Some bland thing about how I like autonomy. (because this job you pretty much work alone) That always makes you look like you have an attitude or are going to do weird things while the manager's away. Bleh.

I always hate how they always ask you to tell something about you, also. Why? What does it have to do with the job? It's not like I quiz them on what they do on their free time. I never know what to say, either. Usually I go with music, because I'm obsessed with it. Only then, they ask what type, and I say rock, and they assume hard rock, then they assume people who like hard rock are druggies, which is partly why I think Wal-mart thinks I'm a druggie.

And also, I learned you can't even leave the desk to go to the bathroom. Gah. I HAVE IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME. Are they trying to torture me?

Ooooh well.

Hmmm....a "you told me so" is in order, Wanda. You were right, my comp wasn't working because there was a CD it couldn't read in there. (Which is weird because it's always worked with that CD in before, and it is now, but it wouldn't right then...)

Grrrrraaaaaaaaah! Bloody effing hell! My laptop (i'm on the family computer at home typing this, in case you find this statement ironic) will not turn on. Not good. The twat's less than a year old! And I have a headache.

From sitting on the ottoman.

I had an interesting night yesterday. I went to "Wanton Soup for the Soul," (for extra credit in my East Aisian History course). I thought it was about issues confronting Aisia today, but basically the theme is "Some people discriminate against Asian people." Which is pretty boring, at least to me.

Plus, I'm surprised there's too much discrimination against Aisian people anyway. There isn't the age old struggle produced by slavery that black people have to deal with, they don't have to deal with the fact that there is a mass movement from their country to our country right now, like the latinos do, and they look practically the same as white people anyway. Their eyes look a little different, and they have dark hair. Oooh, how scary.

Anyway, they were saying how segregation happens naturally, and how they were surprised white people never come to APAC (our Aisian student organization) meetings. It was an open forum in which the audience took part, so this one guy next to me was trying to explain that white people don't exactly feel welcome to come to those sorts of things. The APAC people were trying to be like, "well, what more can we do? All clubs at ISU are welcome to anyone, and it's not as if we can put "white people welcome!" on our posters." (This sounds sort of attitude-y, but they really meant well, they were trying to see how they could raise awareness)

The poor guy was having trouble explaining, so I jumped in, though I wish now I hadn't. I was like, "Well, I've never really seen the APAC posters up (which I hadn't), but I've seen many black student organization posters up. And when I think about maybe going, I picture it, and there's all these black people, and I'm the only whitey, and it'll be like what's she doing here? One of these things is not like the other one. And, how much do I know about issues pertaining to the African American today? There's not much I could contribute. And, I've never been discriminated against, so it'd be like "you don't know what we go through!""

I felt this was a good point, the guy I was clarifying for was like yea, that's what I meant. But like everyone after that who wanted to refer to that point directed what they were saying to me. So I looked like some uptight white girl who was afraid to hang out with minorities. And people were like, "Minorities don't have a choice to be minorities, why shoudln't you go somewhere where you're a minority?" I'm thinking so....no one should have a choice? And there were several other points brought up, like that there are white people in the NAACP etc. etc., I was getting tired of this. I don't go to APAC because I'm slothful and introverted, not cause I'm racist. I don't go to any student organization. And I still stand by it. It would be weird to go to a meeting to discuss African American issues when you're not an African American.

Oh well. At least I didn't make the biggest faux pas of the night. One guy accidently referred to APAC as OPEC, and we all had a good laugh.

I was studying for my Chinese history test today at the library (avoidtion of neighbors--yes, I stole the word avoidtion from The Simpsons)

I stopped at Bone (our student center) on the way back to have a little pizza for dinner. In the room I ate, there's a little ticker, that has ISU news, and other news sometimes. Slowly, painfully, this message was unraveled onto the ticker: "Bush warns nation that Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization might now be in possesion of nuclear weapons"

I about choked on my pizza. This is just lovely, confirming my stupid paranoia of earlier. I'm still pretty down.

I was thinking about random inane things related to it as I walked home. Like, "I wonder if the post apocolyptic Sci-fi that was so popular during the cold war will start up again" etc.

Then, I know this was corny, but I looked up, and saw the birds flocking as they always do in the fall, on their way south. Black birds, as always, but they would've been black anyway, the dusk held just enough light to form elegant silhouettes of them against the pale blue sky. And I thought, "How beautiful." And I wondered how come there's so much beauty and so much horror both in the same world, as no doubt a million jillion bazillion people have thought before I ever came up with it, but I thought of it anyway. And then I thought of something my dad says, whenever he sees the countless numbers of birds wheeling randomly through the sky, "I wonder how they manage not to hit each other, even though there are so many of them and the flock is so chaotic." And I wished that humans could get along as well as those "lesser" creatures, up there in the sky.

And the flock thinned out, as some of them landed on the now leafless trees, also silhoutted against the sky, but some of them followed me all the way home.

And I wished I was a bird. Birds don't worry about nuclear war, or the apocolypse, or where their souls are going to go. They just fly.

Okay, I had some funny dreams last night:

My first one was I was in a band and we were touring with pearl jam. We wanted extra tickets, so our friends and families could come and see us, but pearl jam was all being a jerk about it.

The second one, I was telling my sister about the pearl jam one, and she kept sticking up for pearl jam. I guess in this dream, pearl jam represents my Mom. :P

Heh....I don't even LIKE Pearl Jam.

Bleh.....I'm depressed.

Well, I started out depressed. Thanks to idiots who want to use religion as an excuse to hate. And others who want to use patriotism as an excuse to hate.

Then, I got into some of my Kurt Vonnegut Jr. books. KV's books, while really good, are not the type of thing to read if you're depressed and want to get un-depressed. They make you more depressed. At least they make me that way.

Then, I got irritated at dinner tonight. I got in an arguement with my mom at Monical's Pizza, and everyone at the table basically was trying to get me to shut up. If they'd just shut up about me shutting up, there wouldn't have been quite as big of a deal (it was originally about my sister decreeing that no matter how painful they are, I have to get these certain shoes for her wedding. I love her, but pain is pain, so I argued.....especially since I doubt the whole ceremony hinges on the shoes I wear). My mom, of course, was the leader in this. She has a deathly fear of people seeing us fighting in public, which is annoying, because she'll draw them out forever as long as they're private. She said I was loud, and that it was so embarrassing. No one was looking at us. No one cares. We could've had a fist fight right there, and the people would've gone on eating. Anyhow, I kept saying no one was looking, and they kept telling me to be quiet, and mom was going to leave, because I'm so horrible for taking offense when people say I have to wear painful shoes and shut up about it, but dad wouldn't let her out of the booth.

*sigh*

And you know what the one thing that really gets me about my mom? Well....I can't say that. Lots of things really get me about my mom. But, what's especially getting to me right now is that she acts like I'm a dumbass. She acted like I was a dumbass that had no idea what I was doing in the room situation, and she acts like I'm a dumbass now. Well, actually earlier today. But it really gets me that she does that....and she gives me instructions for things that already have written instructions, like I'm too stupid to understand them. Long explanations, like I'm a half wit.

Ugh, that last part wasn't very well written or explained. Just trust me, the woman thinks I'm a dumbass.

Grrr....

I have been pretty cool about the anthrax thing so far (not getting freaked out, etc) except that yesterday I got some mail from the National Geographic Society. As it's name suggests, it's based in Washington D.C., where all the anthrax has been spreading from.

I wasn't too worried. If most mail that went thru DC was contaminated, we'd have an even worse problem with it right now.

I did, however, make a smart ass comment to my mom about how it was a bit creepy that I got something from D.C.

She went nuts! I was going to throw it away anyway, but she wouldn't even let me go to my room to throw it away, she made me throw it away in front of her in the kitchen. Apparently, she was afraid I'd secretly open it up in my room and spread anthrax throughout the house and infect our family.

Dammit! I TOLD her I was throwing it away! Why can't she ever believe me about anything?

And even if I DID open it, it wouldn't even matter. The airborne anthrax is NOT coming from the National Geographic Society, for heaven's sake. So if it did have anthrax, it'd have come from rubbing up against one of the other envelopes with the contact anthrax, in which case mom and I would already be infected with anthrax from touching the envelope already.

Like I needed an excuse to get MORE paranoid.

I've become a basket case. I don't know exactly why, but last night I was thinking about September 11. I was thinking, what if the terrorists had had nuclear weapons? I mean, someone who did what they did do wouldn't hesitate to use nukes. I live not that far from Chicago. I just keep thinking of it being wiped off the face of the earth, just overnight. Or LA, or New York, or Washington. Gone.

Just like it's weird to have the WTC gone. I was watching some old, cheesy Tom Cruise movie today, set in New York, and there was a tiny, brief shot of the WTC against the New York skyline--something that a few months ago, I wouldn't have even noticed, but it brought tears to my eyes.

And the anthrax, too. Someone wants to break our nation down, bring us to our knees.

And it scares the hell out of me.

Why couldn't I have just been born in Canada?

I remember running through the wet grass
falling a step behind
both of us never tired
desperately wanting

Better Than Ezra

ooh, forgot to blog about my halloween. They had this thing where kids trick or treat in the dorm. But there weren't very many. Due to the terrorists, or the fact they didn't organize it till last minute. We got like 10 or 15 kids, tops.

It was sad.

But then again, more candy for me.

Heh, you know you've had too much candy if your spit is day glo pink, even after multiple brushings and spittings.

which it was yesterday.

Whew, finally done with that paper. Such a relief! The Shane part is pretty bad, it's really choppy (but his grades have no bearing on how good the paper flows) but I'm pretty proud of my intro and the part about The Big Country.

I'm proud of how my words sound. I don't use difficult, technical language, but I do have a good vocabulary, and it shows in most papers I have to write. I'm even a half decent writer, except the way senile-man does it, we have to do it practically opposite of how we've been taught in every other class before that. He's probably even screwing me up for the next english class that comes along. Or worse,...since I don't think I have too many more, since I'm running out of gen ed, the exam we have to pass to graduate. Bleh.

Oh well.

Procrastination, thy name is Phoe

I've been trying to write my english paper for hours now. And it's only a stinking little 2 page deal, without sources. I should be able to flipping do this while blindfolded (albeit with spelling errors).

It's just that I'm so anxious. We've only had a few grades, so every grade counts, and he gave my last paper a crappy grade for no real reason and the topics are even crappier than usual.

Anyhoo, I waited till the last possible day to do it.

Then, I waited till the afternoon.

Then, when I was going to start to do it, I decided to listen to Cake, and to see what was on this video I taped over a month ago and didn't know what was on it.

Then I put on Matchbox 20.

Then I ate dinner.

Then I tried to start anew. I ended up threatening to eat the assignment sheet (a weird twist on "my dog ate my homework")

Then I threatened to pee on the sheet, and put it in front of my neighbors' door.

Then I threatened to eat the assignment sheet, poop it out, set it on fire on my proffessor's front stoop.

Then I crumpled the sheet to make it look like I was actually going to stuff itin my mouth.

Then I made a few rants.

Then I made a paper airplane out of my assignment sheet

Then I made a paper box for my roommate out of a random sheet of paper.

Then I made her a piano.

Then I made her a star.

I asked my roommate to do my paper even though she has no knowlege pertaining to the subject I have to write it on.

Then I layed around on my bed for awhile moping.

Then my roommate said if I was going to put it off I might as well have fun, so we listened to Offspring for awhile, and then New Found Glory's cover of "My Heart Will Go On."

Then my roommate went back to her work.

Then I decided to procrastinate further by blogging how I procrastinate. Heh, my sheet's been airplane shaped for at least two hours now. At LEAST.

Ugh...I locked myself out of my room today. Bleeeeeeeeh... I'm always doing crap like that :(

I'm a loser.

:P if only in the literal translation that I'm a person who loses things.

English class was interesting today. Oh, well, it was boring as usual, but there were a couple of interesting things that happened.

1) This totally made me have a flashback to what I posted earlier today: the teacher was talking about this indian guy in the westerns, and at one point he was like, "He can't be all bad, he likes children"

I don't really like children......am I evil somehow?
so that made me feel annoyed

2) The other thing was funny. Someone asked him if many trick or treaters came to his house, and he was like, "Well....I get a lot of Buzz Lightyears....and uh....what's the other one?"

Some student was like "Woody"


And he was like, "Oh yes, I get a lot of Woodies!"
I hurt myself trying to suppress my laughter. It was so hilarious, because he's like a million years old, and he had no idea why we were laughing. He didn't even ask us why every single preson was laughing or suppressing laughter and not succeeding very well. He just went on with what he was saying. So it was sort of sad...but I laughed SO hard :P

Why does everyone, heck society automatically presume that all women want to and will have children at some time in their life?
What is the deal with that?
Is that supposed to be our sole purpose or something?

Why can't people understand that not all women get broody... that not all of us want children, or even like them particularly?
Is that so wrong?

I do not want to have children. Whenever any of my family (or anyone really) hears this they all say "Ooh, you like them really." or "Just you wait 'till your older, you'll have loads of kids." or various other pearls of bullshit.


I do not want children. I have never wanted children in the slightest degree. I seriously doubt that I will ever have children.


Get over it.

Damn straight!

Well....what can I say?

Oh, I got my flu shot today. (It's not cos of the anthrax scare, my mom always used to make me get one, and for awhile now she's not made me but I've done it anyway) I was muchly proud of me--I'm terrified of needles but I acted grown up about it for once. Yay...although I don't think it helped that last year I ended up with a pediatric nurse who manhandled me, which does nothing to lessen anxiety. Plus there was no line. Waiting's the hardest part.

Hmm.....isn't that from a song or something?

Oh, and here's a rant from yesterday:

I was in my english class, being the only one speaking up as always, and my stupid english teacher kept saying that Lous L'Amour is better selling than the bible--which I don't doubt--but the bible is one book. L'Amour wrote 80 or 90 books. If there were 80 bibles, (not just different translations), the bible would kick L'Amour's ass. No contest. I mean, the bible's been around forever practically. Hell, if Stephen King or John Grisham wrote 80 books they could probably do even better than L'Amour--especially if they had as many years since L'Amour's books came out to accumulate sales. I would have let this slide, but he kept saying it over and over, and it was bugging me. Plus, I like to take all the crap in my life out on my English teacher, because he doesn't seem to mind overly much, and it's good therapy. Plus, it means at least SOMEONE is saying something in that damned class. Anyhoo, I'm pretty used to a couple of people on the other side of the class giggle or snicker at me when I start arguing with him, because they think I'm some weird psycho dork bitch that's funny or something. I don't really mind this overly much, because screw them! I'm the only one who gives a half a damn about that class! At least I'm contributing, making discussion, so it's the slightest bit less dry! Anyhoo, yesterday one of the snickerers ended up next to me. And when I made the bible arguement, she giggled. And she was sitting right next to me for heaven's sake! I'd like to bitch out whoever the hell taught her manners! I gave her the evil eye, though, and she was quiet after that.

Heh, I doubt she'll ever sit next to me after that. And I'm glad!

News: I have 3 new links up!

Sinfest--funny comic strip, go there!
Comment board--my joint comment board with
Finger Lickin' Good--an interesting blog by a dear friend

Music is one of the most important things in my life right now.

It's my prozac. It's my shelter from the storm. It's the one thing that keeps me from spiraling into a whirling maelstrom of madness! Heh....okay, that last one isn't really true. But the first two are.

For some reason, this makes music a part of my identity. A part that I largely deny. Around people who listen to pop, I act more into pop. Around people who are into hard core, I act more like that. Around my Christian friends, I severely downplay the fact that most of what i listen to has curse words, or other unsavory types of things in it. Most people I know haven't even heard of half the bands I like.

Like....it's so sad. I was making a tape for my friend Wanda a few weeks ago--I get the impression that Wanda listens to slightly different things than I, and I was going nuts trying to put what I thought she'd like. Harder songs. Or more "funky" songs :P Awhile ago I visited my sister's house, and I was listening to the radio and a few CD's--and I was worried that it was too hard, that she'd think I was some social miscreant because she listens to softer stuff than I do.

Anyhoo, I'm going to define for myself what I like to listen to.

1) Hooks
A "hook" is the "catchy" part of the song, the part where you can get it in your head, or sing along, or hum along easily. For me, a song has to have a good hook. It might not be the strongest in the world, but it has to be there. I can't stand music that's disjointed, or you have no idea where it's going. It's why I don't like jazz, and it's why I don't like really really heavy songs that just have screaming and random guitar riffs.

But it can't be too hooky either. Songs that you know exactly where they're going the minute you hear them are boring. Songs that have strong hooks can be really repetative and can get on my nerves. Plus, songs with a strong hook are rigid, it's hard to fit the formula without your lyrics suffering. Songs that have a weaker hook can be more creative with their lyrics. Speaking of lyrics.....

2) Meaningful Lyrics
My favorite songs have a deep, personal meaning. They might describe where I was in my life when I first heard the song, or where I am now, or where I seem to always be. They might not even have anything to do with me, but a small verse or something will really mean something to me. I like music that makes me feel something, that makes me sadder, or happier, or funny songs that make me laugh. I'm alright with music I can't understand the lyrics, and lyrics that are kind of dumb sometimes, as long as the other elements are right, but I can't stand lyrics that are REALLY dumb, or obnoxious, or go against my beliefs. I prefer music to mean something, and not just be about some break up and how the guy wants the woman back or thinks she's hot or something. I want songs to MEAN something, even if they aren't about me. Such as Fred Jones, on the new Ben Folds CD--it's about this guy getting canned after working there 20 years. I'm only 20. I'm not going into forced retirement. But it means something.

3) Pop v. Rock
I like some pop, I like some rock, I really like pop rock. Music can't be too poppy--I get bored with it easily. Like, my Sister Hazel CD--I still like it, but I never listen to it. I lost interest. If music is too hard, I lose interest just the same. Many times, if music is too poppy or hard, I'm not even interested in the first place. Straight down the middle, that's me. Maybe that's why I like poppy punk bands such as Blink 182 and New Found Glory--They have the good guitar, the good beat, but they're not that hard.

4) Instruments
Which reminds me..... It HAS to have a guitar or piano. No manufactured crap with no instruments like *cough* N'Suck *cough*

5) Beat
A good beat can sometimes make up for sucky other elements. Like.....I finally confess, I have a small soft spot for those 80's europop dance tunes, like by C and C music factory, or that song they bump heads to in A Night at the Roxbury. Hell no, I've never bought any, but I don't usually change the station when the come on.

Again, with punk....I hear anything punky on the radio, and I immediately want to go out and buy it, even if it sucks. That beat and guitar riff thing instantly gets my foot tapping, and makes me happy. Pop punk rock is definately the most upbeat music I listen to.

6) Uniqueness
Although I will go out and buy a million carbon copy blink 182 wannabes, or generic rock bands, I DO prefer my my music to stand out in some way. I think that's why Everclear and Ben Folds Five are two of my absolute favorites. Art Alexakis--the lead singer of Everclear--has the most unique voice I've ever heard. I could be locked in a jail for 20 years in solitary confinement, and they could play a song with him on it--not even everclear music, it could be lounge style or hip hop or anything-and I'd recognize Art. Their actual instrument melodys are also pretty distinctive. Ben Folds rocks (along with many other reasons) because he uses piano. There isn't that much piano used in modern rock or pop today, unless it's some sappy love ballad--which Ben Folds/Ben Folds Five does not write sappy love ballads.

It also makes me happy to see some diversity in pop today. The fact that Nelly Furtado, Macy Gray, and Michelle Branch, Five For Fighting, people with actual talent *gasp* and a slightly different flavor for their music are on air makes me slightly less disapointed in pop radio today. Now, if only they wouldn't overplay them.

7) A Little Bit Country, a Little Bit Rock an' Roll
I don't like actual country too much, but I have a huge thing for bands with a country edge. Such as the Gin Blossoms and The Refreshments, straight out of Tempe, AZ, where apparently the music scene does that a good deal. I'm also into Old 97's--classified as an "alt-country" band. Old 97's are country-y, but they have so many other influences. Punk, the beatles, rock, pop--pretty diverse. And you can actually hear them in the music.

8) Fast v. Slow
I like fast a bit better, but slow can be nice. Depends on my mood

9) Anger
I like angry music I can sing along with when I'M angry. I use Everclear and Incubus for this purpose, mainly.

10) Long Notes
I like long notes that I can sing along with when I'm upset. There's something viscerally comforting at a primal level about taking in a lungful of air and then pushing it all out in one, soaring, long note. Yet another reason I love incubus, they seem to do it a lot.


There's probably more. But I can't think of it :P