02-27-04

Easily impressed

I was excited about the food I brought to work, not only because I am always excited when I bring food to work because it means that I don't have to go pay money for food somewhere else/survive on what is available from the vending machine, but also because last night when I was packing my lunch, I noticed that it looked exactly like an Italian flag! Which is to say that I had green beans, pierogies and spaghetti sauce* arranged in stripes in a rectangular container! And perhaps I am definitely entertained by simple things like discovering that my lunch looks like the flag of a European country.

However, during the twelve block walk to work, the spaghetti sauce moved out of its designated stripe area and by the time I ate it, everything was all mixed together in an unappetizing red mess.

My dinner also included some first class spinach dip that I bought the other day. The spinach dip is notable for the fact that it is incredibly delicious and also for the fact that it is the first thing that I have ever purchased from a deli. I mean, the first thing that I ever had to actually ask the man behind the deli counter for.

It was quite an experience, and for a long time I just stood there and stared at it and thought about how good it looked, but I had no idea how much I should order because I can't picture a pound of spinach dip/swiss cheese/coleslaw in my head**. The deli man was glaring at me, though, so finally I just said, "um, i'd like half a pound of the spinach dip, please." And half a pound of spinach dip turned out to be quite a manageable amount.

I've been eating it on Meijer brand wheat crackers, which aren't very good, but in this case they are merely a conduit between the spinach dip and me, so it doesn't really matter that they taste like salty cardboard.

ps: the no parentheses rule has made me the queen of run-on sentences
pps: i am very boring, have you noticed that? i almost fell asleep while writing this, but i am unsure of whether that is because of my crushing boringness or because i am at work and no one has asked me any questions for the last hour and a half.





*because i like to eat my [americanized] polish food by dipping it in [americanized] italian food.
**which is the reason i had never gotten food from a deli counter before.
np: work

7:25 p.m.

02-27-04

This week was spring break week, which is weird because the weather was actually spring-like.

I like the end of winter because (well, there are many obvious reasons, but the one that i have particularly in mind is), the first time it was ever 45 degrees in November or October, I was probably scrambling around looking for my scarf and mittens. Now I'm like, "Forty degrees! I don't need a coat!"

And actually, I did wear my coat (because it will be cold when I leave here at nine. and also because my hooded sweatshirt (which is currently the only thing i have that will pass for spring outerwear) has weird pink spots on it (which makes me sad because I just bought it not very long ago)) and was rather uncomfortably warm.

ps: my next entry will not have any parentheses in it, i swear.


np: work

1:32 p.m.

02-26-04

And i'm not worried that i'll never touch the stars.

You can attribute this to the fact that today was the opening day of The Passion of the Christ (heretofore always referred to by me as "That Jesus Movie" (another fun fact: I also called today 'Ashton Wednesday' once (and my roommate was going to have an 'A' written on her forehead in celebration, but now I am digressing because what I really wanted to say is))) if you want to, but today I have listened to the song "Dishes" no less than 43 times (please note: this number is an approximation, as I have not been quite obssessive enough to actually keep track of how many times I have listened to it, but i am parenthesizing again).

And you know, every time he gets to the line, "And aren't you happy just to be alive?" I always think, "oh, i SO am."

mmm. unexplained hopefulness.


np: Pulp-Dishes

3:41 a.m.

02-22-04

She will you feed you tomatoes and radio wires

A lot of snow has melted, so now you can see all of the garbage in the median of the highway.

Herr landlord doesn't seem very concerned about out light falling down or the dripping water or anything. The whole situation doesn't really seem terribly safe to me. And I'm not sure if we should use the shower, because it seems to be right above the drippy light fixture. There is a shower in the basement of the house, too, but it is the kind of shower (and the kind of basement) where serial killers take their victims and chop them up into tiny unidentifiable pieces.

I only slept for three and a half hours last night.

Everyone else in the whole world is watching Sex and the City right now. I haven't ever seen even one single episode of the show, but that didn't stop me from engaging in an in-depth conversation about it this afternoon.

I think I need to go to sleep.


np: Neutral Milk Hotel-Two-Headed Boy pt. Two

9:10 p.m.

02-22-04

This has been a really great night. Really. It has.

And just now the light in our kitchen fell down and there is water dripping down from the light fixture. So if I never write here again, it probably means that I was killed in a massive housefire.


np: the Dirty Three-Some Things I Just Don't Want to Know

3:55 a.m.

02-22-04

I'll take rotten things in my kitchen for 500, Alex.

A little while ago I thought I'd make some tea, but when I opened the honey cupboard (which is where I keep the honey), I found some rotten sweet potatoes (the honey cupboard is also where I keep the sweet potatoes). I took the bag of sweet potatoes out of the cupboard and they leaked foul-smelling liquid all over the kitchen.

I almost threw up. It was the worst smell ever. I ran upstairs to get away from it (and tell my roommate), but the smell followed me because it WAS ON MY SLIPPERS. My eyes were all watery and my roommate didn't believe that the smell was that bad, so she went downstairs to check it out (and to turn off the stove, because the the teakettle had been boiling for ten minutes or so), and came back and claimed that it wasn't that bad and that she wouldn't mop the floor for me. But I must've looked pathetic ("discolored" was actually the word she used), because later she relented and mopped while I stood on the front porch and breathed in the fresh cold air.

Our kitchen still smells bad. And I washed my slippers with shampoo in the bathroom sink and I don't think they'll ever be the same.

In less smelly news, I took a what book are you quiz. I got Watership Down and the last two lines of the description ("You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.") are pretty much right on.


np: the Dirty Three-Some Summers They Drop Like Flys

3:25 a.m.

02-21-04

Also, I started at the wrong end in the "Life Through the Ages" room and couldn't figure out why all of the land animals were turning into fish.

Today I went to the Exhibit Museum of Natural History. It was kind of a let-down. Most of my pictures turned out blurry because I was self-conscious about using my flash. And also, it was just kind of a boring museum, and I am glad that I didn't give them any money (even though there was a box by the entrance that said the suggested donation for an adult was four dollars).

They did, however, have a rare fossil of a dinosaur taking a nap. As you probably know, most dinosaurs were workaholics, which is why people always find fossils in which they are standing around looking vicious.

After the museum, I went to the Meijer Super Saturday sale to buy some cheese, even though it is a non-grocery week (i'm not buying any food again until everything i have is gone because i'd rather have the money that i normally spend on groceries for other things). Super Saturday is never a let-down (except when I get there really late and everything that I want is already gone).

Now I have a really bad headache. Please send painkillers. I think I'm going to go sleep for a while.


np: Mogwai-Burn Girl Prom Queen

5:32 p.m.

02-19-04

Songs are never quite the answer.

My meetings at work always remind me a lot of high school, in that they feature a whole bunch of people talking in circles while I stare blankly into space and think about other things. Tonight I thought about chemicals and about possibly making a mixed cd with songs about robots on it. I only came up with three songs for it, though, so I gave up on that and wondered if maybe a color theme was better (songs with color words in the title, or songs that prominently feature color words in the lyrics, like the Beatles' "Yes It Is.").

Anyway, I hope nothing important (as in, nothing we haven't already discussed three million times) happened at that meeting. I mean, if I got fired or something and totally missed it, that would be embarrassing.


np: Badly Drawn Boy-You Were Right (live/acoustic) [I very much prefer the acoustic versions that I've heard of this song to the album one. The quieter and simpler version seems more lyrically appropriate. And I like the extended "And I remember doing nothing on the night sinatra/kurt cobain/jeff buckley/jim morrison/george harrison/john lennon/joe strummer/etc. died" section.]

11:09 p.m.

02-18-04

You know I'm gonna love you any old way

I've been in a decidedly pre-hippie hair Beatles mood lately.

Also, kind of a John Lennon with really short hair in a kitchen mood.

pros/cons:

+I discovered a really great new cereal tonight. Well, not a new cereal so much as the last of my Kix mixed together with some Honey Nut Cheerios (I have a lot of real, name-brand cereal right now. Usually I just have off-brands.) They complimented each other very nicely and I forgot to be sad that I was having cereal for dinner.

+Day off from work today. Went to the humane society and petted a cat named Steve, and I kept saying, "How's it going, STEVE! You are shedding a lot, aren't you STEVE! You sure are an exceptionally furry cat, STEVE!" until the cat wandered away from me in disgust.

+Sold more stuff on half.com

+The library got the Evil Dead on dvd and I have it and I'm going to watch it. Quite possibly tonight.

+The library also got The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, which I also have. (I actually have about 15 dvds checked out right now, which kind of makes it look like I have a dvd collection beyond Attack of the Giant Leeches and Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (which was a GIFT, thankyouverymuch). (And which also is very enjoyable: "Don't make me he-bitch man-slap you!")

+My new router came today and now my roommate and I can be on the internet at the same time.

-Yesterday weather.com said that it was going to be 47 degrees on Friday, and I was like, "FORTY SEVEN DEGREES! I am totally going to go to the beach!" But then today it said 44. Not cool, weather dot com. Not cool at all.

-You know how I type certain words in all caps? That's how I really talk.

-Last night I listened to Help (the album) four consecutive times wondering how I managed to miss hearing "Norwegian Wood" every single time. As it turns out, it's because "Norwegian Wood" is actually on Rubber Soul. I didn't think it was on Help (the album) just because I'm an idiot, (although that probably helped), but also because I very vividly remember a "Norwegian Wood" scene in Help (the movie). They were all at a ski lodge and there was a blond girl in a big furry coat and then John Lennon slept in a bathtub.

Possibly either + or -: I like this jacket. And I need a jacket for spring. But I am unsure that I would actually wear it. And I have no way of making any measurements of myself, and I kind of have the feeling that it might be too long. And it would look silly with my orange shoes. And horrible with either of my pink skirts. But ok with a denim skirt (and i can't remember what any other of my spring/summer skirts look like. it has been that long since I've worn them). I don't know.


np: the Beatles-Baby It's You

9:33 p.m.

02-16-04

Also, I'm wearing pink tights today.

Today after we went to lunch, my roommate and I went to Target and they had all kinds of jewelry that was just my type, in that it was bulky and colorful and plastic. It made my heart ache for summer.

Then we went to a fabric store and I looked through one of their pattern catalogs and said, "Oooh! I like this skirt and this skirt and this skirt and oh! Ruffles! I loooove ruffles!" My roommate kept picking out material and it was all so pretty and stripey and polka dotty and plaidy, and they all would've made such lovely skirts. The problem is, though, that I don't know how to sew (and my roommate is annoyingly very skeptical of my ability to learn). I guess I could buy large pieces of fabric and just pin them around my waste.

I could also probably take a class somewhere, but I have the pretty hefty handicap of not owning a sewing machine (or having enough money to buy one - even if I did have the money, I couldn't afford to sink it into something like a sewing machine when, on the off-chance that I actually did learn to sew, I would just totally abandon the whole thing when I was'nt instantly good at it). My mom would probably let me borrow hers, but I'm not sure that I want to learn to sew on a machine that's older than I am. My mom could probably to teach me to sew, too, but I don't think she could do it all in one weekend.

I have the feeling that this is one of those things that I'm going to obsess over for a few days and then forget about. On the way home, though, I almost cried because I will never have a leprechaun-green skirt with off-white polka dots. I'm blaming my period (it's the all-purpose emotional scapegoat!).


np: work

5:31 p.m.

02-16-04

Maybe I am a morning person in denial.

I told my roommate I'd go out for dinner with her (it is her birthday) because I thought I had to work at 1, but I just checked and I actually work at 5. So, I could go out for lunch (which is preferable to me because it's cheaper), but now she probably won't wake up until after noon. I've been thinking about calling her (because I get a big kick out of calling people who down the hall from me), but she'd probably be mad that I was waking her up so early.

I've been awake forever. The whole spontaneously waking up at 7:15am for no apparent reason might get old someday, but this morning it was all sunny and perfect for sitting and listening to Sufjan Stevens, reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and drinking chamomile tea with honey.

[It would also have been perfect for watching the episode of the Simpsons that I meant to tape last night, if I hadn't accidentally taped a half hour of the Catholic channel instead. And it wasn't even that nun show that I enjoy so much. (I usually watch her muted and try to decide what she is talking about based on facial expressions and hand gestures. And I always get it right. It's sin every single time.)]


np: Ugly Casanova-Smoke Like Ribbons

10:47 a.m.

02-15-04

In which I admit that I am really a 13 year old boy and that I really really like cabbage. A lot.

So, I got to the place that my mom's concert was at and I saw my dad waiting in the parking lot (not waiting for me, but waiting because my mom had to be there two hours early). I pulled into the parking lot and he kind of looked up and then back down at his newspaper. So I drove right up in front of his car and honked, and then he looked up and actually saw me. I got out and said, "You didn't think I was actually going to show up, did you?" And he said, "Not at all!"

Then we were sitting there while the choir was getting situated properly on the risers and my mom looked at us and she got a funny look on her face and then elbowed the person next to her and said, "That's my daughter!" So everyone was surprised and thrilled to see me, obviously.

Other items of interest:

(1) My dad has new glasses! My dad has been wearing thick black-rimmed glasses since waaaaaaaay before it was cool, because he is blind in one eye and those were the only frames that could hold lenses thick enough to make him able to see. However, they stopped making the frames that he's been using for the past 30 years and he now has wire ones (and the lenses sort of bulge out behind them. you can't tell that when he's wearing them, but it looks weird.) and my dad looks different than he has for my whole life.

(2) The director of my mom's choir was also my high school choir director, and I spent most of the time making sure he didn't see me. Once, after the concert was over and my mom was changing her clothes and my dad was helping carry out the risers, he walked by and all of a sudden I really really needed to dig around in my bag for something. Like, to the point that I almost had to stick my whole head inside of it. But after that, my mom came back and she saw him and she said, "Look who came to our concert, Bob!" And then he hugged me (which was one of the reasons I was trying to avoid him), and he asked me what I've been doing (and it sounded like he totally didn't care but knew that he had to say something), and I said, "I graduated from u.m. in april, majored in English and linguistics and now I work at the library in Ann Arbor," really quickly. And do you know what? When you say all of that really fast it almost sounds like I somehow planned things out.

(3) An old woman hugged me. She was like, "Oh, I've heard your parents talk about you," and then where most people would've shaken your hand, she hugged me. She asked me if I went to high school at Lakewood* (I did) and then she asked me when I graduated. She then told me all about some of her grandkids that graduated at nearly the same time as me, and who I sort of knew, but that I wasn't really friends with. She asked me about college, and she also had a grandson who graduated from u.m. at the same time that I did. She asked me if I knew him, and of course I didn't because I graduated with ten thousand other people and only knew about four of them. She also very bafflingly said, "I think you'd get along with him."

(4) My dad kept commenting on how old everyone at the concert was while we were standing around during the intermission. "This is even an older crowd than at an Oak Ridge Boys concert!"

(5) We were invited to sing along during the chorus of the final song, which was "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The woman next to me was all operatic and impressive. I was just loud and then my voice broke and the operatic woman glared at me. I giggled. And stopped singing. I sang along with mr. ted leo in my car on the way home, though, because there were no glarey women there.

(6) [Did you notice how these kind of stopped being 'points of interest' a while ago and just turned into me rambling about garbage?]

(7) There was also an organ player at the concert, and he introduced a song by saying that he's lived in the area for his whole life, and he really thinks he knows what people around there want to hear. I thought, "What do people in rural Michigan like to listen to? ohmygosh, I bet it is something by Guns 'n' Roses!" You cannot even imagine my disappointment when he began to play "The Phantom of the Opera."

(8) We went to eat at a restaurant that served boiled cabbage. There are not many restaurants that have boiled cabbage, nor are there many people who will look at a menu and say, "BOILED CABBAGE! THEY HAVE BOILED CABBAGE? I LOVE BOILED CABBAGE!" But it was one of those restaurants and I am one of those people. It was a match made in heaven.

the end.





*not near a lake or the woods, but actually in the middle of a corn field!


np: the Black Heart Procession-It's a Crime I Never Told You About the Diamonds in Your Eyes

8:44 p.m.

02-15-04

Sunday

My roommate is coming back today. And I squandered my last night of solitude by falling asleep early, which led to the problem of waking up early. Do you know what there is to do at 7:45 on a Sunday morning? Nothing! Nothing at all! I went and pulled a whole bunch hair out of the shower drain just because it was the most entertaining thing going on.

Then I got an email from my dad asking me if I wanted to go see my mom's choir performance this afternoon. My first response was, "Absolutely not!" but then at the end he said they'd take me out for dinner afterwards. And now I am torn, because on one hand, I get a free meal*, but on the other hand, I have to drive an hour (at least) to get it. Maybe they'll buy me some gas for my car too.





*the free meal thing wouldn't be quite as alluring if I'd had anything resembling actual food yesterday. i ate half a sandwich (it was awful. i made the exact same sandwich on thursday and it was delicious. i have no idea what went wrong), a couple of bowls of cereal and some chips and salsa.

no, actually, even if i'd eaten a seven course meal yesterday, i'd probably still think, "ohmygosh, FREE FOOD! let's go!"


np: Sufjan Stevens-The Upper Peninsula

10:01 a.m.

02-14-04

And if we're better looking then victory is ours.

My favorite holidays are the ones where life just barrels on as if they aren't even there. On your Christmases and your Thanksgivings, stores close, the mail stops, you don't have to go to school, and the whole garden supplies area of Meijer is transformed into a place where you can buy strings of lights in every color of the rainbow and thousands of ugly cheap-looking ornaments just in case your tree wasn't quite tacky enough*.

But on your Valentines Days, Saint Patrick's Days and fourths of July, everything is pretty much the same as it always is. This morning as soon as the library door was unlocked, 50 people stampeded into the building. If that isn't a sure sign of normalcy, then I don't know what is.

ps: any day that I have "The Love War" (downloadable from this page) stuck in my head all day (without even listening to it) and that is followed by a half-price candy buying spree the next day is all right in my book.

pps: required Valentine's Day reading: The Dot and the Line, by Norton Juster.


np: work

12:06 p.m.

02-13-04

"I'm not sure. . .but I think that it's cold."

This morning while I was in the post office (I've already sold two of my linguistics books!), two girls behind me in line were discussing where Saskatchewan is. Not where it is located in Canada, but where in the world it is. They are in college (they talked about their classes a little too), and it was disheartening, to say the least.

Then I went out for lunch and some people left their very small baby unattended while going to get food from a buffet (that was as far away as you could get from their table while still being inside the restaurant). Also disheartening.

Now, I have the house to myself for the weekend (not disheartening)! For other people this might be a big party opportunity, but for me this just means I can stay in my pajamas from now until Sunday. At least, I could if I didn't have to work tomorrow. Oh well.

Also: sometimes Charlie Brown's Valentine's Day problems hit just a little too close to home.


np: Super Furry Animals-Y Teimlad

7:39 p.m.

02-12-04

It has corn in it too. But I already had that.

Last night I went to the grocery store and bought:

1 red pepper
1 bulb of garlic
1 white onion
2 tomatillos
2 limes
11 tomatoes and
a whole lot of cilantro

Then this morning before work I made
























salsa!

When I first tried it, it didn't seem very great. But that might just be because 9:30 in the morning is no time for salsa, because I tried it again just before I left and it was the BEST SALSA EVER!

It might be a little onion-heavy though, because when I walked into the library all the plants wilted and three frail-looking elderly people collapsed. And I don't think my hands will ever not smell like cilantro ever again. But that is a price I am willing to pay for the BEST SALSA EVER.

Now I am going to withdraw books and think of a name for my salsa.



ps: i need to find a job that i have to go to more regularly because half the time i'm not really sure what day it is.


np: work

1:05 p.m.

02-11-04

Reward: 10 MILLION DOLLARS!

When I was leaving work, I saw a woman who looked just like my mom. If my mom was a goth.

It is disconcerting to see a counterculture version of your mother at the library.

Also, I think I lost my otter bookmark, and I looked through the bookmarks at the circulation desk while the person was going to look for the 10 million things I have on hold, but they didn't have any more [they did have a whole bunch with really horrible/excellent jokes on them, like "What kind of berry makes you smarter?" "a liberry!" and "What was the smartest kind of dinosaur?" "Thesaurus Rex!"]. Do you know what this means? I am through with books. Forever!


np: Blur-Good Song

6:47 p.m.

02-10-04

I was really sad about this, but since I decided that I am going to make cookies when I am done here, I have felt a good deal happier.

I just listed a whole bunch of books on half.com. They were mostly old linguistics textbooks that I kept because I sort of believed that I would someday study linguistics again, but that doesn't look very likely at this point.

So, farewell, English With an Accent. I read every single page of you, even the chapter that we didn't have to read. Anthropological Linguistics, I didn't read even one page of you (it was your fault for being so boring), but I am sure that I carried you to class dutifully and bluffed my way through many questions about your content.

And to the big three (An Invitation to Old English & Anglo-Saxon England, A Handbook of Middle English, and A Book of Middle English), I have to say that even though you represent a whole year of me blearily making my way to 8:30 classes, you were always my favorites. Every English major in the world should have to study you*, because you were English literature before there even was English literature. Or a literate population. People had to work so hard just to stay alive, but they still wrote poetry. I can't help but be amazed by that.





*My old and middle English classes (which were linguistics classes as well as English clases, a fact that made them a big hit among double majors like me) each had about 20 people in them. All of the other English classes I took had at least 50.


np: Iron and Wine-Southern Anthem

7:20 p.m.

02-10-04

and every one was an henery (henery!)

I got an email from my grandma yesterday, and since I am a bad person, I immediately thought, "well, now I'm going to have to write something BACK to her." (Once I got an email from a cousin of mine that was something like, "I h8 skool! it is soooooo boring lol." excepted that it included more cryptic internet abbreviations that i don't understand (either that or really really bad spelling), and I ended up just not writing back to her. But I can't just not write back to my grandma.) And you'd think that I'd be happier about getting email specifically to me, since just the other day I was sitting around being sad about only ever getting spam (it's getting to the point that I actually read some of it just because that is all there is - and some of it is really great! like that thing you get get that delivers a shock every time you or your bedmate snores!), but no, I am just disappointed that I have to find something that I can write to my grandma about.

I am happy, though, that my grandma is using the mailstation that her sons got her for Christmas. When we left South Carolina she didn't seem terribly fond of it.

Also, a mumbly man just stood at my desk and told me that kids my age spend too much time on indoor education and that we all think that the city is all there is and that he learned more in the army than I did in college. He also said that his high school was probably better than mine because his only had white people in it and that the earth is as big as it is so that the races can be kept separated. Then he said something about how there weren't mountains on other planets, and if we don't take care of the wildlife God will destroy the earth in 10-15 years.




PS-you know how the other night on the simpsons they went to the library and there were a bunch of homeless people sleeping on a the table. that is exactly like my job! however, while the simpsons portrayal of the public library was stunningly accurate, their version of the life of henry viii was a little off. just, y'know, fyi.

pps-as far as i can tell, the stories about sacagawea and mozart were quite factual. but then, i am basing this on what i can remember from fourth grade history and amadeus. and all i can remember from amadeus is the fact that i ate some very tasty and expensive cheese while watching it.


np: work

2:07 p.m.

02-08-04

This is only temporary

So, jumping on the old news bandwagon, what exactly was the deal with the whole Janet Jackson thing? I mean, today there was a whole page in the newspaper filled with letters that all said (pretty much) "WON'T ANYONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!" And since I didn't see the incident in question, I am writing this with no authority whatsoever, but I somehow don't think that the boob thing could be any more offensive than any number of music videos (not to mention the music itself - bad music=way more offensive than nudity (and do bear in mind that I am a total prude who thinks we should all wear four layers of clothing at all times so that unfortunate accidents like this don't happen)) or half of the garbage kids can easily see on network tv. Anyway, I am at my parents' house, so it was a Grand Rapids newspaper and Grand Rapids is a pretty conservative place. Thus (oh, look at me using that work like it's actually in my normal vocabulary!), the letters were all from religious types whose kids go out and get wasted and/or pregnant every weekend, and they had to find someone to blame for this. Because it couldn't be THEIR fault. No way.

What with all the letters and the stuff about the Grammys, the entertainment section of the newspaper has never before filled me with such anger.

Also, there are problems all over. My grandpa has parkinson's disease and has started having hallucinations. And the home that my brother lives in is shutting down (a married couple own a whole bunch of different homes for people who are mentally handicapped, but they just got a divorce. my brother was living in the one that was run by the wife, but she wants to take a couple of months off to get over the divorce, and she said she would like my brother to come back afterwards, but it's pretty much impossible to find a place for someone like my brother to live for two or three months. besides, lately he has come home smelling like cigarettes (even though the place is supposed to be non-smoking), and my parents aren't sure that they want him to live there at all. the husband has said that he would be happy to have my brother in one of his other homes, but it is kind of far away (approx. 40 miles) from my parents' house.)

And you know what? I think that if I hadn't come home this weekend, I probably wouldn't know any of this. Nobody tells me anything (which is at least part of the reason that I spend most of my life wrapped inside of my little self-involved cocoon).


np: Brendan Benson-Me Just Purely

11:56 p.m.

02-05-04

i am glowing radioactive

Highlights from last night's SFA show (which was better than the one in Louisville in September):

Also, I noticed that there is kind of a solidarity among short people at shows. If a short person stands in front of you, most of the time that person will turn around and ask you if you can see all right, even if that person is even shorter than you are. Conversely, tall people will knock you over, trample you and flick cigarette ash in your hair, because your five foot three inch frame doesn't even register in their universe.


np: Gorky's Zygotic Mynci-Y Ffordd Oren

6:58 p.m.

02-04-04

"Hooray! I'll live another day! Another day of. . . pathetic, forgotten misery."

Here is the thing: I have figured out what is wrong with the computers (i think), but in order to fix it we would need a new router (because apparently what we have is not a router at all, although it was given to us with the assurance that it was one). And so after I found the cheapest (and probably crappiest) router I could find online, I went and told my roommate and she said, "$25? That's a lot! I don't want to pay for that!" (well, it IS $12.50 a person.). Because she would rather just be paying $10,000 (because that is what our high speed connection costs! it really is!) for something that only one of us can use*.

So, I told her that I would just pay for the whole thing , despite the fact that after my lease runs out in seven months, I will be living alone for the rest of my life. I've done the roommate thing, and I'm obviously bad at it (unless it is in a hippie-run housing organization), so I whole-heartedly embrace my future life of solitude.





Anyway, tonight is not the time for ill-humor, for tomorrow is a very special day filled with sunshine, flowers, and songs about Albert Einstein's parents. And on this, the eve (tech. very early morning) of the fifth Super Furry Animals show of my life (should be the sixth, but the person who was to have been my ride to the first one disappeared from the face of the planet three days before the show and resurfaced 1.5 years later in my "Shakespeare and his contemporaries" class, where we never spoke a single word to each other), I give you two lists which, at most, one person will actually be interested in (and I am counting myself as that one person):



Total miles traveled to see sfa (assuming that I make it to and from Detroit tomorrow today):
clarksville to pontiac: 128 miles
ann arbor to detroit: 42 miles
ann arbor to cleveland: 174 miles
ann arbor to louisville: 345 miles
ann arbor to detroit: 42 miles
total: 731 miles
grand total (including return trips): 1462 miles



My top 10 SFA songs ever (i usually manage to restrict my urges to make top ten lists, but this time I did not, and it kept me busy at work for almost an hour):

  1. Ice Hockey Hair (still my favorite. 'now that you're here, tell me you're an unbeliever')
  2. Slow Life ('i see fractures/i see fragments')
  3. The Door to This House Remains Open (made me realize that i didn't hate electronic music)
  4. Something 4 the Weekend (the first one I ever heard. I am happy that I had such discriminating taste when I was fifteen years old)
  5. Mountain People ('they don't care about you and me, obviously')
  6. Y Teimlad (it's a cover, but oh well)
  7. Gwreiddiau Dwfn ("It's about being rooted to a sad piece of land. I'm not making it sound very glamorous. It's a song about being doomed to live somewhere and that's all you have and that's what you're stuck with." -Gruff Rhys, from www.mwng.co.uk.)
  8. Run! Christian, Run! ('still dreaming of that perfect home by the sun')
  9. Hometown Unicorn ('take me back before i break down')
  10. Sidewalk Serfer Girl ('i'd do anything to catch you falling')

and also, Foxy Music gets an honorable mention because it includes my favorite lyric in music ever (well, this week, anyway), which is the line "Now, I know that's wrong in the first place, but it's not the point of the song."



I am gushing, I realize. But there will come a time when a concert can't make me this happy, so I might as well get my gushing done while I am young and, you know, not dead.

*Whenever I tell her that I am going to unhook her computer so that I can use mine she asks, "Why? What are you going to do?" (1) Saying, "Well, I'm going to go update my super top secret internet diary" seems kind of self-defeating. (2) What I'm doing is really none of her business.


np: The Robot Ate Me-The Genocide Ball (download here)

1:06 a.m.

02-02-04

I am feeling listy. How about you?

1. I have been taking a longer route to work because I meet fewer people along the way. I am sure that this says many postive things about me and my life.

2. I am at work, and someone before me withdrew a whole cart of books and only stamped some of them (when withdrawing books, you first withdraw them from the catalog and then stamp the books with the withdrawn stamp so that you can tell they are withdrawn without actually looking in the catalog), and the ones they stamped were sort of scattered haphazardly throughout the whole cart. So I had to go through every single book and stamp the ones that hadn't already been stamped. [An hour ago I was really angry about this. Actually, far more angry than really makes sense. Now that I've been done a while and I can actually barely remember being mad about it, which is how my life works with a lot of things.]

3. A man asked me for books about Will Rogers, and then said, "I think that it's spelled without a 'd.'" I sat here thinking, "Willd Rogers? Widl Rogers? What?" until I realized that he was actually talking about the last name.

4. When I was little, our next-door (read: only) neighbors went on a vacation to Florida. They brought me back a necklace from the Kennedy Space Center. I found it during the weekend, and am quite pleased about that, because I am the only person I know that has a necklace with a space shuttle on it.

5. I went to Meijer 3 times last week because Kix were on sale, and every time I went they were all out of Kix. I managed to resist saying "Kix just keep getting harder to find," in real life, but I refuse to show that same restraint here.

6. I watched Witness last night, which is the best movie that stars Harrison Ford as a cop hiding out in Amish country ever made. Here are just a few of its finer moments:


np: work

2:17 p.m.

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