2003-08-30
Sometimes I think I could stay here forever
When I am in Ann Arbor, I feel like a total sloth if I don't leave the house all day. Here it doesn't really seem to matter. I mean, when you have to drive 20 miles to get anywhere, it doesn't seem worth it. I have tv to connect me with the outside world, and a field full of cows that all stare at me in bewilderment when I go outside and yell at them. I have a designated cricket-smashing shoe and a record player. I have an old, out-of-tune piano on which I can beat out hymns*, singing along to the alto line.
And really, if you have cows and melody-less songs, what else do you need?
PS-tomorrow I am going away for the holiday weekend with my parents and some assorted extended family members. We are going to walk across the Mackinac Bridge, which may sound like a lame way to spend your Labor Day, but just look at the fun we had last time we were there (in 1987):
l-r: my aunt Sandy, my cousin Rachel, me
When we come back, it will be a new month and I will not be in school for the first time since I was four.
*I don't believe that I have ever discussed my love of hymns here, and I don't really care to now. But I do love them.
np: the Dixie Cups-Iko Iko
2003-08-28
One good hair day makes me lose sight of everything else
I was just in the bathroom brushing my teeth and admiring my hair, because it looked pretty decent today, and I liked the way the little wispy ends of varying lengths (I haven't gotten a haircut since that time I cut it by myself in the dark) all were curling around my face in a semi-organized (but not too organized) manner.
I managed to tear my eyes off of my hair for a moment, and then I thought, "Wait a minute! This isn't my toothbrush*!"
Sorry mom!
*It is exactly like the toothbrush that I very recently stopped using, so it wasn't like I just picked up whatever was around and started brushing my teeth with it.
np: the Kinks-No Return
2003-08-27
Somebody's grandpa
Today while I was in Grand Haven getting blueberries, I stopped at an undisclosed fast food restaurant to get some lunch. While I was sitting there, an old man came up to me and asked if I'd seen Mars. I told him that I had. He then proceeded to tell me a lot of numbers, distances and years and all that, and I sat there and nodded periodically, and then when he showed no signs of stopping, feigned interest in my straw and cursed myself for forgetting to bring my book inside, because this week is supposed to be my week off from talking to strange old men.
After he finished talking to me, he went outside and climbed into an ancient red van, and I immediately felt guilty. Even though it is not my duty to engage in animated conversations with every crazy old man who talks to me, it wouldn't kill me to at least be nice to them.
np: Now and Again, taped yesterday off of the sci-fi network. I hate that they have four hour blocks of shows, because even though I had never watched this before yesterday, after staring at it for two hours straight, I was sucked in, a process that under normal circumstances would've taken two whole weeks. not fair.
2003-08-27
A list that describes, among other things, why I am better suited to life in the 1300s
First of all, I would like to say that after four years of super-happy-way-way-fast-internet access, this dialup at the parents' house is killing me. See, I'll click on a link, and then I'll go upstairs and cook a meal, and then when I come back, the page that I wanted will still not be there, and suddenly the computer will disconnect from the internet entirely and then when I try to connect again, it will say there is no dialtone and I can get it to dial again, but I still can't get it to open the page I want. This is disheartening for obvious reasons, but also because I had initially thought about just getting a dialup connection in the house I am moving into in Ann Arbor next week. But I honestly cannot live like this. Dear 3 as yet unknown roomates, you are springing for at least DSL, folks. For real.
Following is a long and rambling list of things that I would've added as they occurred to me throughtout the day if I could stand to dial in to the internet more than once a day:
1. My dad was watching Meet the Press the other day and heard that the government is short on linguists in Iraq. He seems very willing to ship me right over there. It is a little alarming.
2. I was outside staring at Mars (which promptly disappeared behind a cloud), and I kept thinking about how cool it was that there was another planet right out there that I could actually pick out from the rest of all that garbage out there (stars? pshaw.). I was trying to remember something interesting about Mars from my astronomy class, so that I could tell my dad and he would feel less bad about all that tuition money that he spent so that I could get a degree in linguistics, and all I could think about were the canals. All that I got out of that class was that people once thought that those nonexistant canals proved there was intelligent life on mars. I am glad that the university insisted that that class was necessary for me to graduate.
3. Actually, I am glad the university allowed me to take that in lieu of an actual math class, for I surely would've failed real math, regardless of the facts that I did very well in high school math (thankyouverymuch) and that semantics was full of all sorts of mathy word goodness (and was taught by the world's greatest living semanticist, who had mad scientist hair, wore horrible clothes and said things like, "I'm from nowhere, but I spent some time in California." i had the biggest crush on him).
4. The other thing I realized while I was staring at Mars is that I was born about 600 years too late. My scientific understanding of the world is decidedly pre-Renaissance. It is really quite sad. I mean, I know how some thing work, but I prefer to believe that things are un-understandable, you know, that things just are, because I know that I'll never ever understand most things. Like, this computer. I have no idea what is going on with it. I have no idea how the letters that I type on the keyboard are transferred to the screen in front of me. I have no idea how music comes off of cds or records, or why flourescent lights are less flattering than other kinds. And really, if I'm going to be so ignorant about the world around me, I might as well return to the days when girls my age had several kids, couldn't read or write and watched as their loved ones got knocked off by the plague. Maybe the reason that I have always found the middle ages so interesting is because I would be right at home there.
5. On the other hand, though, maybe not.
6. Crickets are in my room. Everywhere. I picked up my pajamas off of the floor and one jumped out. I went off to find a shoe with which to smash it, but when I came back, it had very cleverly hopped away (damn these shoeless summer days!). Now, please don't think that I am a bug-killing fiend; the real issue here is that crickets are loud and they keep me awake at night (and also that I am afraid of them because I am a wuss).
7. Tomorrow I am journeying the rest of the way across the state in search of blueberries, because my dad simply cannot bear to eat the ones that they sell here anymore. Actually, it is partly that and partly because I was in desperate need of a project. I am here by myself most of the day while my parents are at work and this just leads to bad things. Case in point: I have been dressed (ie, in clothes that are not pajamas) for an average of 7 hours during both of the last two days. This is not the way I should be living. And so tomorrow I will get in my car and drive to the lake.
np: Pedro the Lion-Big Trucks
2003-08-26
My car is fixed
Today my dad fixed my drippy car! With a coat hanger!
He came into the house while I was cleaning up after dinner and said, "I fixed it!" and I said, "No WAY!" The last time I remember him working on a car ended with that car catching fire.
Then, just to make sure that the car was really fixed, we drove it to go get ice cream. My mom missed out, since she had to leave right after dinner. I suspect that this might have been because she didn't want to clean up. That choir practice story isn't fooling anyone, mom.
Elvis Costello-Waiting for the End of the World
2003-08-24
Going to hell, part 34
Today I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar with my parents. I wasn't entirely sure that I wanted to go, but I enjoy the line "'til this evening is this morning life is fine" in the last supper song, and my dad just sort of assumed that I was and he was paying and all I would've done if I was here by myself all day was fall asleep in front of the tv, so I just climbed into the car when they said they were leaving. On the way to Battle Creek, sitting in the backseat, listening to Weezer on headphones, I felt more like a thirteen year old than I did when I was actually 13 years old.
Sometimes when all of the spotlights were on Jesus, his white robe turned out to be a little revealing. And sure, I knew that he was really just the lead singer of Extreme, but I still got a little thrill of sinful delight when I thought, "Hah! I can see Jesus's underwear!"
You can dress me up, but you can't take me anywhere.
PS - today is my mom and dad's 29th wedding anniversary:
My dad keeps saying, "30 and out," but really, if they were going to get divorced, they should've done it while I was applying for financial aid.
np: Badly Drawn Boy-Once Around the Block
2003-08-23
I kind of wish I was still sleeping, though
I love waking up to total silence and a crisp, clean breeze.
I love knowing that this is the last time that I'll wake up in this room ever.
np: the silentness of a house full of sleeping people
2003-08-23
Boxes
Even though I have lots of packing to do and have to work all morning tomorrow, I opted to take the evening off and went to see 28 Days Later again. Afterward, we took a very successful box-harvesting trip to Meijer. When we rounded the corner to the paper products aisle and saw those Meijer people stocking paper towels and toilet paper, we knew that we had hit the jackpot. I stopped midsentence and gaped in awe and delight.
When I tried to finish my thought, I had no idea what I had been talking about. The boxes were just that exciting.
np: King of the Hill
2003-08-22
Intolerant
Everytime someone comes to the desk and says, "der, I forgot my library card," I want to hit them with a large piece of lumber.
This is in spite of the fact that half of the time they are not even talking to me.
2003-08-22
I am moving out tomorrow
As soon as I woke up, I thought, "I have to remember to take a bag of orange pekoe downstairs with me," because I knew that all of the tea in the kitchen was green or heavily flavored. This mantra remained with me throughout my shower, getting dressed and internetting, but right before I went downstairs to get breakfast I thought, "Oh! and I better take my shirt downstairs to iron it!"
So I forgot my tea. Green and flavored teas seem wrong for breakfast (if only because the kinds that I have proudly proclaim that they are caffeine free), and going all the way back up to my room was out of the question, not necessarily because I am lazy (although I'm not saying that that is not the case), but because in the mornings I am at best pressed for time and at worst, totally, unfixably late.
Green tea seemed like the better of the two options, so I put the teapot on the stove and tried to find a clean glass (not at all an easy task, let me tell you). The tea ordeal turned out to be sort of a non-issue anyway, since I spilled most of it going back upstairs.
Ironing my shirt, though, was arguably more important than the tea situation. During the entire summer, I have done all of my ironing by spreading a towel out on the floor in my room, but now my floorspace is all full of boxes, and I thought that I would use the actual ironing board in the laundry room. The ironing board was out, opened up, and sitting upside down on the table in the laundry room (which also contained a load of someone's laundry). I pulled it off of the table and sat it right side up, only to find that the cover had spots of Sticky Brown Stuff* all over it.
Undiscouraged, I threw the ironing board back onto the table (there was something wrong with it and it wouldn't collapse) and got out the tabletop ironing board that I had seen behind the washing machine. It was dusty, but free of brown goo. I sat it up on the table, and it promptly fell down. I tried to lock the legs somehow, but every time I would think that I had it figured out, the ironing board would fall down again.
I gave up and went back to my room, shoved boxes out of the way, and ironed my shirt on a towel on the floor. And I would've been mad about it, but there was a cool breeze and the Flaming Lips serenaded me on the way to work. They always make everything batter.
*Sticky Brown Stuff� covers pretty much everything in the basement, which is unfortunate since the basement contains the kitchen, the laundry room, and the tv room.
np: work
2003-08-22
Glue
I am packing. Packing makes you realize all kinds of interesting and/or ridiculous things about yourself.
Case in point: I have five (5) kinds of glue.
np: i love the seventies (i only have 2 more days of tv in my room, so i have to watch something. and king of the hill is delayed for some reason, and i have to stay up until it is on, regardless of the fact that i have to work in the morning. priorities.)
2003-08-21
Delay
I need to start waiting about 12 hours between when I first hear about something and when I react to it.
Now, missing a whole week of work doesn't seem so bad. Sure, I won't have any money, but I won't be spending any money while I'm gone either. And there are things that I didn't want to do next week (but I was going to do them anyway, because that's the kind of person I am), but if I am out of town, they become impossible to do.
The only thing that I am a little sad about is that I won't be around when May gets back*. But then again, I haven't seen her for almost a year, so what's another week?
From now on, delayed reaction will be the key to my peace of mind.
*I only have about 4 really close friends, so when one of them is gone for a while, I really feel it.
np: work
2003-08-21
Ten thousand miles
I was sitting here, totally (and unironically*) rocking out to "Millenium" for the four hundredth time tonight** (insofar as anyone can rock out while reading a book), and the song got over and Winamp moved on to the next. It was "Ten Thousand Miles," by Jason Molina and Alasdair Roberts.
There's nothing like a Scottish folk song recorded by two of the most depressing men in indie rock to make your evening crash way down really fast.
*why do i feel the need to point this fact out?
**pathetic, yes, but at least at this rate i'll be sick of it by tomorrow.
np: Jason Molina and Alasdair Roberts-Ten Thousand Miles
2003-08-20
Loser
How do you tactfully explain to someone that you are late picking them up because you had the sudden and uncontrollable urge to listen to Robbie Williams and had to download a bunch of his songs RIGHT AWAY?
Actually, I think that's pretty much exactly what I'll say.
np: Robbie Williams-Millenium
2003-08-20
Homeless again
In keeping with my grand tradition of waiting until the last minute to do everything, today I asked our house president if I could stay a couple of days after my contract ended (it ends on Saturday). I figured it wouldn't be a huge deal, since new contracts don't start until September 1, and I only needed about 2 extra days. I mean, I live in an organization run by hippies, I didn't really expect them to be totally on the ball with who was moving in and when and all that.
Well. No luck, as there is a guy moving into my room on Sunday. Sunday, for those of you keeping track of these things, is a whole week before his contract actually begins. And will he have to pay extra to move in early? Probably not. Did I pay the same amount of rent this month as every other month during the summer, regardless of the fact that there is a whole week when I can't live here? Definitely so. This guy is living on my dollar! I need my dollars! For my own living!
Anyway, my new lease starts September 1, and tomorrow I shall call Herr Landlord* and ask him about moving in early (he said there was some chance of it, when I first signed my lease), but as I am moving into a house owned by a non-hippy (at least, he didn't look like one), I would have to doubt that this is the case.
I also had to write an email to the woman that takes care of the scheduling and ask her if I can get all of next week off, since I am going to go stay with my parents until I have somewhere to live again. Like, all of the next week that starts in three days. I feel really bad about it. I've never been this disorganized before. And for the next three days I have to pack (and I'm working every day too - and sure, it may be my normal schedule of four hour workdays, but it's still working every day, folks!) and see if I can put my stuff in storage here rather than dragging everything across the state for a week.
But, on the other hand, I am glad to be leaving this house. And I get to take a whole week off from work for an actual legitimate reason, not just because I am lazy and don't want to go.
*I am calling him this because he is an actual German. Perhaps later I will call him this because he is exhibiting Nazi-like tendencies as my landlord, but I have only just barely met him at this point, so right now it is just because he is German.
np: Outkast-Hey Ya
2003-08-20
Good times
I don't know, I kind of enjoy that overwhelmed feeling you get when you find out that you have three days to do something that you thought you had a least a week for. Yippppeeee!
np: work
2003-08-20
Pictures
I've decided on a career change (some would argue that you need to have a career before you have a career change, but I find that to be just a technicality).
So now, instead of Kimberly M. Linguist (it's true that you have to change your last name to your profession, right?), I will be Kimberly M. Photographer of Ugly Purple Flowers:
Or Kimberly M. Photographer of trees.
I like trees.
np: King of the Hill
2003-08-19
Shake it like a polaroid picture
Last night I went to the store and bought the previously mentioned cheap rum and about five frozen dinners.
This is honestly not the way I saw my life heading.
np: outkast-hey ya
2003-08-19
It was all that you could do
Oh, five dollar rum.
You sat there on the shelf being all alluring and rummy and cheap.
And, oh cheap rum, this girl drank a lot of you, and yet all you made her want to do is sit here in the dark and listen to "Kicked it in the Sun" at an inappropriately loud volume (because, as unimportant as they are, other people live here too, cheap rum).
Over and over and over again.
You made me talk.
No.
You made me listen.
np: Built to Spill-Kicked it in the Sun
2003-08-18
Social commentary
Have I ever told you about how much I love the turn signals in my car?
I love them so much. If I could marry any of my car's parts, it would definitely be a turn signal, although right now I'm not exactly sure if I would pick the left one or the right one. Perhaps we would go Mormon and all three of us would live together in glorious matrimony.
Everyone should give their turn signals as much lovin' as I do.
np: Elvis Costello-No Action
2003-08-18
Can't tell the night from the day
I sometimes worry about being too self-absorbed, but I don't really have anyone else to be absorbed with.
And even if I did, I'm not sure that that's the way to go either.
np: the Velvet Underground-Oh! Sweet Nuthin'
2003-08-17
A list
1. Today as my mom delivered the remainder of the blueberry pie to the picnic table where we were eating, she proclaimed, "I brought the pie and the pie won." It was possibly the hardest I have laughed at the dinner table since that big penguin fiasco.
2. I have mixed feelings about bands I like licensing their music for commercials, but today my dad was wandering around the house singing a Polyphonic Spree song. It made my day a little more surreal, and for that I am grateful.
3. You may or may not have noticed from recent entries that I am sick and tired of the coasts getting all the glory, and have since designed a t-shirt addressing this issue. That is the kind of person I am becoming. Nothing to do. Designing t-shirts.
Actually, the t-shirt will just be a solid color with the word "Midwest" written across the chest. Because, although I have nothing to do, I also have no artistic talent. Also, I left my t-shirt transfers in Ann Arbor, and I don't have a working printer there. So, unless I steal my parents printer (no one will be home tomorrow when I leave, so that is an option) or find a way to print them in a university lab without the staff making fun of me, I won't be able make my shirt for a good long while.
slightly later: I just remembered that there is a printer in the house! It is attached to a mac, though. We shall see.
np: Enon-Get the Letter Out
2003-08-16
Fuzzy
1. I am at my parents' house.
2. They have an air conditioner.
3. Now that I am somewhere that has an air conditioner, it is no longer hot.
4. The library was not open again today, so I missed out on five more hours of work (9 hours=half of my work week) and I could've left for the weekend yesterday if I had known.
But:
1. My mom made pizza.
2. When my mom makes pizza, she puts hamburger, mushrooms and onions on half (for my dad and my brother), smoked sausage, mushrooms and onions on a quarter (for her), and just smoked sausage and mushrooms on a quarter (for me)*.
3. My mom made a blueberry pie.
4. I watched The Blob.
5. happy happy happy
*When my brother is not here, she still makes half of the pizza hamburger for my dad. I don't know what she does when I'm not here because I'm not here.
np: crickets
2003-08-16
We can laugh about it now
Yesterday, after we were able to watch tv again, we really enjoyed the blackout coverage on CNN. They would spend 2 minutes or so with their Cleveland correspondent, and then they would go back for 10 minutes about New York City. And then they would have 2 minutes in Saline, Michigan (wait, Saline? Saline? Why Saline?), and then they would go back for more stories about New York.
All of the New York City reporting was about how New Yorkers were great, and they were pulling through this with remarkable strength of will and bravery. The stories about folks further inland were all about how they were going to the store to buy lots of ice to make sure that that deer they just shot wasn't going to spoil*.
Also, during interviews with important New Yorkers, they had a split screen showing all of the ways that things had returned to normal. So, while Pataki was talking about how it was still important to conserve as much energy as possible, the other side of the television was filled with footage of a fully-lighted Times Square. Some things just can't be sacrificed.
*ok, so this wasn't actually what they said. it's just that the reporters seemed less impressed that midwesterners were coping with the black out too. i mean, we're used to living in only semi-civilized places.
np: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci-Tsunami
2003-08-16
Everyone is tired of hearing about this by now, I'm sure
So, all the lights flickered and died and I got out of work an hour early and went Jessica's house to see if she was up for some looting (because, honestly, wasn't that the first thing that crossed everyone's mind?). She wasn't home, but I found her on the sidewalk (this isn't a big town), for she too got out of work early. We then went to my house to get my camera and take pictures of the [nonexistent] chaos.
The whole walk there, everyone kept talking about how this couldn't possibly be caused by anything but terrorists, and I kept insisting that it wasn't terrorism at all. I was basing this on nothing but the fact that 89X was still playing crappy nu-metal. And come on: can we possibly be calm and reasonable about these things?
I got my camera and wandered around town for a few hours. The [nonexistent] chaos consisted mainly of traffic jams (fyi: cars in this type of situation do not appreciate it when pedestrians stop in the middle of the street to take pictures of them) and a long line of people waiting to get into the diag liquor store, where a man with a flashlight was dispensing vodka, potato chips and cigarettes.
Time passed. We were bored. We were hungry (there was no food in either of our houses). Four hours into the blackout, we were already discussing relatively quick and painless ways to commit suicide. We sat on the fire escape landing and drank beer and played with sparklers and watched the neighbors move through their houses with flashlights. Later, we watched a movie and listened to some music on my laptop (we waited a long time to do this so that we wouldn't exhaust our entertainment possibilities right away), and when the battery finally died, a little piece of my soul died with it. We sat there in the dark, and I claimed that we were 'more Amish than the Amish, because at least they have lights,' and then went to sleep. I dreamed about the internet.
In the morning, we went to Jessica's house and found that power had been restored there (it didn't come back on in my part of town until sometime after 5). We celebrated with pizza and tv*.
And you know, a mere 1.5 hours after we started watching tv, we were bored with it.
And now electricity has ceased to be something to celebrate and I am just upset about missing out on four hours of work this morning**.
*This was quite a while after the power came back on, as I had insisted that we go back to my house to get my laptop, and then we were stranded there due to a thunderstorm.
**When you only work 18 hours a week, every four hours counts.
np: Super Furry Animals-Blue Fruit
2003-08-14
At least I got a little bit of 'The Golden Girls' in before I had to leave
The thing about suddenly having to work on a Thursday afternoon after spending the whole summer working mainly only weekday mornings and evenings is that you are very acutely aware of all of the daytime tv that you are missing.
However, that little pang of sadness I just felt as I realized that I was missing Montel has reminded me that it will be a good thing to move into a house where I do not have television in my bedroom. When other people can see and ridicule whatever I am watching, I tend to make more selective television choices.
np: work
2003-08-13
Hope
Every time I see my parents, I hope that they will take me aside and tell me that, due to my supergenius tendencies as a toddler, they put me in school at a very young age. Because I could be a pretty together 17 year old right now, but for 22 I just seem like a mess of a person who really isn't ready to tackle adulthood.
np: The Thrills-Santa Cruz (you're not that far)
2003-08-13
My skirt has a ruffle
Today I wore an olive green skirt, a cream colored shirt, and dark brown sandals.
All day I had the odd feeling tht somone had screwed with my tint and brightness settings, as my day-to-day wardrobe is not usually so muted.
np: Arab Strap-The Shy Retirer
2003-08-13
Car problems anew
My car has a new and exciting problem: water gushes out from behind the glove compartment every time I drive around a corner. I am guessing that this is somehow related to the rain that poured down relentlessly yesterday, but I am perplexed because this has never happened before when it has rained.
So far I have thought about this problem and have kneeled down on the street with the passenger side door open and looked to see where this water could be coming from. My next step is to open the hood and look puzzled. After that, though, my knowledge of automotive repair is pretty much exhausted.
np: Roseanne (yes, again)
2003-08-13
Dude! Sweet! Dude!
Ashton Kutcher was on Jay Leno tonight, and since he has been the longest running gag in my life*, I watched it. The whole interview was, "Iowa this," "Iowa that," "In Iowa, blah blah blah," and suddenly it hit me: In Hollywood, Ashton Kutcher is the voice of the midwest.
Something must immediately be done to remedy this.
*Why? I don't know. I do know, however, that "Dude Where's My Car" is a classic of doofus film, right up there with the better Adam Sandler movies and everything Rob Schneider has ever done.
np: Arab Strap-The Shy Retirer
2003-08-12
Nope
So, my stepcousin who I don't know didn't make it into the top 15 candidates for Miss Teen USA. Now I will have to find some other way to be famous by association.
I am surprised by how disappointed I am.
But at least I don't have to watch any more of this vapid program. There was a montage of all of the things that Miss Teen USA does for us. Important stuff like modeling. Oh, and USO tours (is it just me, or is sending a 17-year old girl to entertain the troops a little, um, weird?). And there was a little section that showed her cashiering in a grocery store. She was wearing her Miss Teen USA sash. It reminded me of Mayor Quimby.
np: the miss teen usa pageant
2003-08-12
Wasting my afternoon
Super Collapse is the new Tetris, but without the real world applicability*.
*Don't try to tell me that Tetris doesn't have an application in the real world until after you have been paid to bag someone else's groceries.
np: Enon-High Society
2003-08-12
Box elder
Before I took my shower, I noticed a box elder bug laying on his back on the bathroom floor, his legs pathetically waving about in the air. Feeling good-hearted, I flipped him over, expecting him to happily scurry away, but he just sat there as if he had died.
After my shower was over, he was on his back again, legs a-flailing.
I am through being kind to box elder bugs.
ps: I feel obliged to tell you that I am now copying and pasting things from here into a livejournal. It is the same stuff, but green and somewhere else. But remember, diaryland, you will always be first.
np: Low-La La La Song
2003-08-11
'Scute
I went to see "Legally Blonde 2" tonight. Was it a waste of two hours? Probably. Would I have wasted those two hours anyway (in ways that did not involve Luke Wilson)? Definitely. So....I mean....shrug.
np: the Decemberists-Clementine
2003-08-11
Perhaps I need to reinstate the no pop before noon policy
Nothing says good health quite like a bagel and root beer for breakfast.
np: the Beta Band-Needles in My Eyes
2003-08-11
It is ok. It is.
I am experiencing intense feelings of regret with regards to that lease I signed a few days ago. It is okay, though. I expected this. I think that I will feel better after I get some ice cream (which I can't do until Thursday, since I made this insane pact with myself to not spend money on food until then*).
*It is an experiment to see if I can survive on the tiny amount of groceries that I bought last Thursday.
np: the Beta Band-Dry the Rain
2003-08-10
Yum
[Neufchatel cheese] + [chopped up baby carrots] + [fresh dill] = [the best thing you can spread on an overbaked spinach bagel (or on a not overbaked bagel, if you are lucky enough to be able to afford such a thing)]
np: nothing
2003-08-10
Burning down the house
I don't know where you were at 2:30 this morning, but I was very soundly asleep (I won't say just how long I'd been asleep, as then everyone would know just how very lame I am becoming. I swear that sometime in the next seven days, I will arrive home late and smelling of cigarettes and booze). At 2:30, though, I woke up. The fire alarm was going off.
Now, when I say fire alarm, I don't mean a teensy little smoke detector. I mean, one of those loud things that houses like this are supposed to have connected to the fire department so that nobody has to fumble around with their cell phones to call 911. It is not the most pleasant thing to be woken up by.
Awake as I was, though, I didn't get out of bed because it never once occurred to me that the house might actually be on fire. In the other co-op I lived in, the fire alarm went off pretty much all the time. Things like candles, stir-frys, and phantom smoke that could not be detected by human noses set it off, and people would run from all corners of the house to deactivate it. And it was loud: once, I was a block away from the house and I heard that familiar whine echoing down the street. For a long time, we just left it disconnected, although I don't know if this was because everyone was tired of it going off all the time or because the only person who knew how to reconnect it was out of town. We were lucky that ours was the only co-op in the system that wasn't connected to the fire department.
Anyway, I laid in bed this morning and listened to the alarm going off and reminisced about a happier time in my life in the co-ops, when the fire alarm meant you were about to eat a delicious meal, not that you were about to die of smoke inhalation. Since the alarm showed no signs of stopping, I finally got up and pulled on a skirt and a shirt over my pajamas and was just about to go and see if someone had left the oven on, when I heard giggling outside somewhere and the alarm suddenly stopped. Then started again. Then stopped. This went on for a little while longer, and finally it stopped altogether. There was more giggling. I removed my extra layer of clothing and got back in bed. For a long time I couldn't get back to sleep and I kept thinking that I could hear the sirens of approaching fire engines, and about how I, as probably the only sober person in the house, would have to explain to them that there was no fire, someone had just left a tray full of pizza rolls in the oven or something.
np: the Decemberists-Cocoon
2003-08-08
As if I needed something else to worry about
My new shampoo smells kind of like bananas. During my whole walk to work, I was afraid that monkeys were going to swoop down from the trees and attack.
np: work
2003-08-07
I took some pictures
Firstly, can I get an "Awwwwwwww?"
(I have the key for all the cat cages, but I like the bars in the picture, regardless of the fact that it makes it possible to see just how crookedly I was holding the camera.)
Nextly, the cushions off of our porch couch* were stolen:
This didn't really bother me that much because I don't use the porch couch all that much. I was a little disturbed, though, by all of the things that the porch couch cushions were hiding:
Other people just find loose change in their couches.
*A porch couch is required by law for any house containing one or more college student.
np: nothing
2003-08-07
Ouch
Sooooo.
I just signed a lease and now I am $1100 poorer than I was half an hour ago. At least when I spent all that money on a computer and a camera, I had some fun things to play with. I guess, though, that once winter gets here, I'll be happy to have a roof over my head.
np: Super Furry Animals-Juxtaposed With U (acoustic)
2003-08-07
More Canada, because I finally opened my bag of chips
I was sitting here eating my ketchup-flavored potato chips acquired last week in Windsor, and all of a sudden I was really excited to live so close to an international border*, and I wondered why it had never occurred to me to be excited about this before. Once I find my passport or birth certificate (therefore ensuring that I will be able to return to my country of origin with a minimum of hassle), I will go and buy potato chips there whenever the thought enters my mind.
*well, sure, it is just Canada, but if our little road trip taught us anything, it is that Canada is another country. (i pride myself in my ability to make little to no sense.)
np: the Polyphonic Spree-Light and Day
2003-08-07
It's not really that much of a sacrifice when you already have more money than some countries
I was listening to NPR this morning, and there was a man on The Diane Rehm Show who was talking about Arnold Shwarzenegger running for governor of California and why he would want to do such a thing. He said something like, "He would have to take a break from making movies. Why would someone who makes $25 million a picture want to make that kind of a sacrifice?"
Because Ahnuld is hard up for cash, and if he doesn't get that extra $25 million, his kids will have to go to a state college or something.
np: NPR
2003-08-07
Fame, etc.
I usually end up having the wrong reaction to things:
1. The other day I was watching a movie and I got very nostalgic for high school. The movie? Carrie.
2. I am reading Dry, by Augusten Burroughs, and my first response was disappointment that I have no reason to go into rehab.
Oh, and have I mentioned that my stepcousin is Miss Teen Florida? I have only ever seen her twice. When I was telling someone about it, I couldn't even remember what her name was. You can vote for 'Miss Photogenic' at NBC.com, and you should go vote for her because I want her to win so I can sell made-up stories about her to the tabloids. Long ago, it became obvious that my 15 minutes of fame were only going to be obtained by leeching off of someone else. This could be my big chance.
np: Mogwai-Stop Coming to My House
2003-08-06
At Work
Tonight at work a man put a pencil back into the basket even though I had seen him put it in his mouth only moments before.
Also, a girl came in wearing nothing but a bikini and a towel.
I am supposed to be somewhere else right now.
np: Badly Drawn Boy-Once Around the Block (acoustic)
2003-08-06
Homeless animals and me
Back from Cat Cuddling 101 at the Humane Society. Volunteers at the Humane Society are largely little old women who unintentionally say hilarious things.
Old lady #1: (telling the volunteer coordinator her name) Carol.
Old lady #2: My sister-in-law's first name is Carol.
Old lady #1: Well. How about that?
It might not seem funny now, but it was. Trust me. I tried so hard not to laugh.
I also have almost secured a place to live at the end of the month. I need to go back tomorrow with my checkbook. The man said I have to get my parents to cosign the lease, though. I am a little annoyed that a person who has barely even met me told me that he doesn't think I will pay my rent on time. Oh well. I guess I wouldn't trust a person who only has a 20 hour a week job either.
np: Meic Stevens-Y Brawd Houdini
2003-08-06
Rut
There are days when the urge to just grab a passport and go is overwhelming.
Don't plan.
Don't tell.
Leave.
I have money I could use, but I need to use that money to pay back student loans and to go to grad school and pay rent and buy vegetables. That money is for 'the future.'
But the future is a huge, silent object, waiting out there in the dark. It never gives me any encouragement or reward for making sensible decisions. It just sits out there and waits for me to get to it. And just when I think that I'm there, I realize that everything is exactly the same as it always has been.
I just kind of have to wonder what the point is.
np: Mogwai-Kids Will Be Skeletons
2003-08-05
Wasting my day
All day long I've been sitting here watching things like Roseanne and M*A*S*H, thinking about how I need to call that man and tell him that I want to rent his room. I decided that I would take it about four days ago when my parents said that my grandma probably had a bed that I can borrow, and I probably should actually do the paperwork and stuff, before the last affordable room in town is yanked from my grasp.
I can't do it, though. For one thing, it wasn't that great of a house. It was okay, but it wasn't palatial and beautiful and screaming, "RENT ME! REENNNNT MEEEEEEE!" Also, if I needed to go pick up the application right now, I couldn't go anyway because all of my clothes suitable for wearing outside of the house are in the dryer. And I have these weird red spots underneath my eyes that look like I got a very localized sunburn.
So, rather than solving my housing problems, I will continue to sit here and wonder if Roseanne and Dan's relationship will survive now that she knows that he had sex with some girl named Phyllis while he was in high school. I'm guessing that it will.
np: Roseanne
2003-08-05
Things that I want
I've spent the last couple of days lusting over the Apple iPod. It all started because I ripped all of my various Super Furry Animals-related cds and have been letting all of the songs shuffle through Winamp for the past couple of days. I thought, "I wish I could do this with all of my cds."
Five minutes later, I saw an iPod ad that said they hold up to 7500 songs.
I spent most of yesterday afternoon trying to justify buying one, despite the fact that it costs the equivalent of two months of summer co-op rent. I kept telling myself that it would greatly improve my quality of life. I told myself that it would be safer in the car because I'd never have to change cds. I told myself that it would be like the radio, but with good songs*.
I have tried and tried to justify it, but I really can't. It makes me very sad.
On the bright side, though, the $500 iPod (no, I would never be happy with one of the cheaper ones - only 2500 songs? no way.) has made the $35 record-cover notebook that I want seem quite affordable. Consumerism rules.
*My radio life:
I gave up on regular radio during high school, because I got sick of hearing the same 10 boring songs over and over. There was, briefly, a radio station out of Kalamazoo that actually played interesting things, but one weekend I went to Chicago and when I came back it had turned into a country/western station.
I used to listen to the university station, but stopped because they never seem to play actual songs anymore, just random noises. Seriously, every time I turned it on, I was greeted by the sound of a thunderstorm or jungle noises. That was ok, though, because I still had NPR.
Now, though, NPR has turned on me. Do you remember when we used to be friends, National Public Radio? Sure, I never donated any money to you, but you stood by me during all of those hours that I spent shelving boring books in the science library. Please go back to how you were then, and stop the pretentious musical interpretations of short stories.
I still like WDET, but it doesn't come in very well during the day.
np: Super Furry Animals-Ymaelodi A'r Ymylon
2003-08-04
The great outdoors
Today while I was in the arb, I saw a butterfly sitting on a big pile of poop.
np: Super Furry Animals-The Roman Road
2003-08-03
I am a wuss
I wanted to go see the Walkmen in Detroit tonight, but no one will go with me and my teenage runaway haircut. I've been trying to talk myself into going alone, but I really don't think that'll happen.
np: Snow Patrol-Making Enemies
2003-08-03
Stop me, before I cut again
Last night, I inexplicably decided that it would be a good idea to cut my own hair in a poorly-lighted room, armed only with a pair of dull scissors and overwhelming boredom.
I went to bed believing that it might (maybe) look better (possibly) in the morning (perhaps) after it had been washed and dried.
It didn't.
This morning, after my hair had been washed and dried, I inexplicably decided that I could fix it.
When I go in for my SOS-cut, I hope I get that woman who doesn't speak English very well, because then I won't have to explain what I was thinking.
np: the Shins-One By One All Day
2003-08-02
Yesterday with the parents
My parents came and took me out for lunch yesterday, and then we went to the Humane Society where my dad wanted to take all of the cats (and most of the dogs) home and let them roam free around Clarksville, and I explained to him that the reason they were probably in there was because they were roaming free around Ann Arbor, so taking them and setting them all free again would be counterproductive. He then suggested that we take a few up to my grandparents' house, reckoning that since they already had so many animals, they certainly wouldn't notice a few more. My mom petted and talked to all the cats even though she claims not to like them*.
When I told my parents that I was volunteering there, I thought that maybe they would be somewhat disappointed that I wasn't going to volunteer somewhere where I would work with, you know, people. Even I sometimes feel like I should be more interested in helping my own species**. On the way home, though, my dad said something like, "That was sad. Dogs and cats need to be around people," and I felt better.
*This is despite some rather overwhelming proof that she does, in fact, like cats: When I was in high school and Stewart was just a kitten, I got home one day to find him curled up, asleep, on a blanket inside the house (he was mainly a garage dweller, since my dad is mildly allergic to cats). I found this odd, since the only people at home were my mom and the little boy that she was babysitting for, and why would my mom, who didn't like cats, let him into the house? The little boy cleared this up, though, when he shouted, "KIMMY! WE TOOK YOUR KITTY TO THE DOCTOR!" When asked why she took Stewart to the vet, my mom replied, "He just seemed. . . .sad."
**I have a brother who is severely mentally retarded (most girls just say that about their brothers, but mine really really is!), and I've gone on a couple of field trips with his school, and every time I go I always think, "I should be more into this. I should want to be more involved with special education, because I could help people like my brother," and I always thought that I would someday be more interested in it. But I'm not. And I feel guilty about it.
np: the Reindeer Section-Will You Please Be There For Me
2003-08-01
Again?
But now, after yesterday's day of excitement in two countries, I'm back to the whole "get out of bed, do the same thing I did yesterday (although it is two days ago, now), go to bed" thing. At least, though, I was woken up by some totally unneccessary weedwhacking being done outside of my window.
If anyone wants to pay for me to go on a vacation, I am not too proud to accept handouts.
np: Mogwai-I Know You Are But What Am I
Navigation
Credits