Sensitive to faith not denial, but hey who's on trial?

I am, at this very moment, in Allie Polatin's room in the CRC building on the Northwestern campus in Evanston. Allie is off to class, and I have a few hours before I have to meet Russ, so I figured I'd tabulate a bit of what happened over the weekend. Allie let me sleep on her lounge couch with her pillow and blanket. Despite all of the noise and light, I slept better there than I have in ages. Actually, every night sleep I've had in Chicago has been perfect, though my dreams have been strange and usually involve travel. One of them involved being on a casino/man made island with Anjelica Huston, who tried to make me eat a stick of gum that would make me feel warmer.

I am always suprised at the generiosity and sweetness of my friends when I go 'round for visitin'. Mary and Gavin picked me up from the airport in the middle of a blizzard Wednesday night. They took me back to their house for a spectacular game of Pride and Prejudice. That's right, game. The object is to get your couple to the Merryton church to be married, while answering a series of novel- and etiquette- related questions. Thursday, went to see Gavin's play (he was running lights)--it was a children's theatre production of little red riding hood. I was amused by this outing because a) the children enjoyed it so much b) the song 'little red' reminded me of the name my brother gave my grandfather's penis and c) I had bought a maxim with pictures of Steven Hawkings at a strip club (which later I left at Mary and Gavin's: curses!) which I purused as the stage was getting ready. Afterwards we dropped by Mary's work and had giordano's (so delicious), then went shopping for b-fest. So much food! None of it any good! In fact, for my duration here at NU I have been stuffed with food, despite my valient efforts to resist.

In preparation for b-fest's obligatory "Plan 9 from Outer Space" screening, I forced Mary and Gavin to watch "Ed Wood" with me. What I love about that movie is Tim Burton's portrayl of Wood in a wide-eyed, naive sort of way--as if he were just a reckless, misunderstood dreamer, the very personification of the American dream who just happened to make an art form of the terrible movie. Which is of course not true. Of course ed wood made terrible movies because he was lazy and talentless. But who cares? The movie is transcendent. It also made "Plan 9" infinitely more watchable. I have just ordered "Glen or Glenda" from NetFlix to fufill my desire for all things Ed Wood Jr.

Friday I had lunch with Mary again (she works in the Prudential Building by millenial park). This time we went to a Thai restaurant which, interestingly enough, I had eaten at once before--the night Mark and I went to Millenial park with Jason and his friends for ice skating about a year ago. Chicago without Mark is a strange place. So much of my experience in the city was with him, it's difficult to go their without him and feel completely at ease. We were very much exploring companions--every week we'd go into the city, we'd seek out new museums or retuarants or theaters. To drive by those things, I see us, which is not a feeling I enjoy since i try and consider myself autonomous. I wonder if I will ever be able to enjoy evanston or chicago the same way without him. Which of course makes me wonder how much of our enjoyment was situational and how much was interpersonal. I'm going to New Zealand next month, but i have no idea how it will be, and how much things will change once we leave from the lacurial incubator and out into the world. Time has a way of freezing things as they were, then getting into the cracks and expanding, like ice, breaking up the small hair-like imperfections. Some things have already broken off; will we even be able to fit together anymore? Will we still be complimentary partners? I don't know, and I worry. I worried over Thai noodles, looking at that new Gehry auditorium which was so new and sharp.

But, back to the trip. Friday was B-fest. *cue heavenly choir*. B-fest is a Northwestern festival that shows nothing for 24 hours but b-movies. Truly awful, absymal movies that the audience heckles, a la Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I stumbled onto it last year when Mary South made me go, and I only got to see about half of it, which was really a shame, and I always wanted to come back for the entire thing. The interesting thing about b-fest is that the audience is not populated with NU students, but rather fat, balding, middle-age men that look a shocking deal similar to the guy that runs the comic book store on "the Simpsons". Women were in the minority, and there was a general pervasiveness of unspoken sexism I found humorous rather than affronting (they wouldn't laugh at women's comments, nor would they chant along when women started chants.) I imagine though, that sexism becomes a general sort of defense mechanism for the broken hearted.

Some of the movies were truly terrible. One was "The Swarm" starring Michael Caine and Henry Fonda, about a group of killer bees. Another was "Nuke 'em High", about a highschool next to a nuclear power plant that spills toxic waste, and everyone at the school becomes a mutant, and then these two kids smoke pot that was radioactive and they have sex and then they have a mutant baby which lives in the basement of the school and then kills almost everyone in said school until a giant laser is pointed at it and makes it explode. Then there was "The Apple", a musical filmed in 1980 set in the distant future of 1994 where evil record companies rule the world, hiring glam rock superstars to entertain the masses. One disillusioned ingenue runs away with her former partner to a hippie commune, which ultimately gets taken to a new earth by a christlike figure (Mr. Tops) in a gold cadillac. Let us not forget "Ice Pirates"--which was "Star Wars" mixed with "Pirates of the Carribean" and introduced all of us to small aliens known as 'space herpes'. nThere were also innumerable terrible 1950's black and white scifi horror films to terrible and numerous to mention. Also, a blaxploitation movie: "Black Ceasar", and the topper for the festival "Breakin' 2: electric boogaloo" about break dancers who want to save their community center.

But of course the movies are not important. One goes to b-fest because of the comments and the traditions. While many of the comments vary movie to movie, there are some overarching, agreed-apon moments. Whenever there are random bottles bubbling, or when someone is making a simple process sound for scientific, the audeince shouts "Science!" in a very "eureka!"-ish sort of manner. Then, whenever there is a racist or demeaning comment, a random explosion, violence, or some kind of hostile takeover, one shouts "USA! USA!", which is actually only partly ironic. If ever there is a discrepency in filming, such as one frame there is a necklace, the other no necklace, one shouts "day! night!", etc. The goal though, is to make the most people laugh, either through skits or through comments. I got my biggest laugh during "Black ceasar", when Tommy's trying to get some lovin' from his woman, and she's pulling away. The audience got pretty quiet, so I yelled "come on baby, don't be like dat". After the laughter died down, tommy then raped his woman, and no one had much to say during that. Some things can't be made fun of, you know?

I slept on the floor in my puffy coat (reversible coat/sleeping bag! best investment ever!) during the porn section, but unfortunately also slept through "Death Wish 3" which I hear was amazing. Mary South brought us Buffalo Joes, and Allie sat with us on and off, making excellent bee comments during "The Swarm." Kat Rekkas even managed to show up, which was a treat, as she has gotten even hotter than ever, and who doesn't love the company of beautiful women? I wasn't as exhausted as I thought I'd be, even managing to make it onto the stage for "The Wizard of Speed and Time" and pound my feet with the best of them.

This post is too long. I have a rabbit to buy.

My dad gave my mom an iPod mini for Christmas. It's still in the box. Today my mother went out and bought a $30 boombox to listen to music in her room, because she "doesn't want to use headphones". I'm slightly ashamed to say that this annoyed me to no end. I'm like, "do you realize that this is a $250 product that I would walk over hot coals to have, but will probably never buy for myself?" And my mom's like "take it. I don't like using headphones." So I feel a little bad that she basically told my dad his present sucked to his face, but I'm glad that the iPod is coming back to Chicago with me.

Not having a 'net connection at home for the past six months has kept most of my would-be late night posts off the internet. Now I blog sporadically, in one or two sentences. It's probably better for everyone involved. I always loathe my posts six months later (or less). You, perhaps, loathe them immediately.

Nonetheless. I am in Binghamton, not sleepy yet, but not up to anything important. The internet is here, and I could/should be working for the mag/the other mag/ school, but I'm not quite motivated to do any of that right now.

My brother got the alesis micron. It is freaking fantastic. We wrote a song today called "poker face." It doesn't have any lyrics yet. But we needed a file name when we saved it, and poker face came to mind. It's a kind of good song. The chorus is really really catchy. My brother is talented, and knows his scales. I like playing keyboard.

I took actifed for my cold, so I feel crazed right now. Awake but tired. crazed, crazed.

maybe I will redesign the site a bit?

Mark Robert's redesign looks really slick. Better in safari than mozilla, though. (maybe it just has something to do with what we have our default fonts set to. ... either way-- safari=clean sans-serif font, mozilla=times new roman.)

So yes. Maybe I will do that for a while now. I've been thinking it'd be nice to move the links and such to the right side. I was also reading Tom's weblog, and he had a good post about links. Anyhow, take it easy.

Jones!!! Not fair. :-( *lucky* I suppose you got to see them in concert, as well...*sigh*

I want a picture with him...how is his voice live? Some people say it's amazing, but every time I've heard Keane performing live on tv, his voice sounds like crap.

still. *lucky*

I've had so much sugar in the past two days... :D

AlexiaIscariot: I grew up living in the basement of two freudian psychiatrists, so all of my views of cultural anthropology are shaped by freud, in one way or another
inokserge: (I posted a couple of items in my fevery, sleep-deprived state late last night, that I haven't looked at since and may later regret.)
inokserge: You grew up in a basement?
inokserge: That would be an excellent premise for a horror novel.
inokserge: Under the Super Ego.
inokserge: Monsters from the Id.
inokserge: Repression, Negation, and Slaughter.
inokserge: On the Mechanism of Terror.
AlexiaIscariot: oh my gosh, the wheels are spinning!

The best thing about the pre-oscar season is that Hollywood unleases a slew of brilliant movies that they've left in the vaults while we've been suffering all year with "The Fat Albert Movie" and "alexander". While none (or few) of the movies up for best film this year are brilliant, they've all had beautiful moments and very poignant attributes if one doesn't approach them cynically.

Invariably, however, oscars are given out politically, and no one who should win actually wins for what they're supposed to. Look at Paul Newman--they passed him up for "Cool Hand Luke" and felt so guilty about it they tossed him one for "Nobody's Fool". You think Judie Dench should have one Supporting Actress for "Shakespeare in Love"? She was only in the movie 8 minutes! No, she was breathtaking in the superbly underrated "Mrs. Brown" and everybody knew it, so they tossed her a nod anyway and shut her up with a supporting actress oscar the next year.

Let's look at the movies up this year. We start with THE AVIATOR. Ooooh, Scorcese, it must be awesome. This movie will win best picture for political reasons. Scorcese hasn't had a hit in a while, everyone feels bad that no one went to see the gangs of new york, so they figure why not throw him a break. The problem with this movie is that while scorcese was (as he claims) trying to employ an old fashion hollywood feel to the directing, the entire picture came across as, well, old. SOme directors from the 70's like Ridley Scott manage to move into the new century with symbiosis towards technology--their movies have a vibrancy and a freshness. Scorcese uss the same tired cuts to scene, or framing, or narrative force that he did back in the 70's. The film feels dated, and it feels dusty. BRILLIANT MOMENTS: 1) When Howard Hughes is alone in his screening room; he's broken down, and you see one isolated shot of the red wall in front of him with one long line of milk bottles that are filled with urine. 2) The senate subcommitte meeting extolling the virtues of capitalism and entreprenurship. I got "Atlas Shrugged" flashbacks and was ready to go out and build a corperation with my bare hands. Plus the cinematography surrounding the camera lenses twirling--very emotive, good stuff. But two brilliant scenes do not a brilliant movie make.

FINDING NEVERLAND will perhas give Johnny Depp the Oscar that they felt guilty about not giving him for Gilbert Grape and Pirates of the Carribean (a nomination that in my view was a mistake). The movie was delicate and sweet and altogether charming, and sure I cried, why not, it was touching, but it wasn't brilliant. It was a superbly executed fine film, but it had nothing to say to make it epic. But as far as storytelling and execution, flawless. And Johnny Depp's accent was indeed very good. BRILLIANT MOMENTS: 1)The little boy tearing up his play in anger 2)The very last moment, when the curtain rises, and Kate Winslet sees her garden being transformed into a wonderland of acrobats and strange beasts

RAY Looked boring, so I didn't see it. Instead i saw "Hotel Rwanda", a movie so visually and emotionally scarring I was incapacitated for the whole day. There is this one scene, oh my gosh, most brilliant scene of the year, I swear, where Don Cheadle just returned from driving over corpses to get to his hotel. He notices there's blood on his shirt, so he goes to change it. He puts on his tie violently, but his face is calm. then realizes he tied it wrong, sort of laughs, reties it, and as he's trying to die it again, his hands are shaking, and his eyes begin to brim, and then he can't do it, and he rips off his shirt and tie and falls to the floor sobbing, trying his best to stop because a staff member needs to use the break room andhe doesn't want them to see him crying, because he's the manager, he has the responsability...It was one of those scenes that could never be written, a scene so simple and terrifying and brilliant that Don Cheadle should be handed the Oscar, but he won't be, because he's a black actor, and because they already gave out a black Oscar last year, and besides, if they were going to give it out, they'd give it to Jamie Foxx's maudline portrayl of Ray Charles, which is a travesty and an embarassment.

I never bothered to see SIDEWAYS because it had the kind of loose and undignified representation of sex and marriage which makes me role my eyes. But I hear there was full frontal male nudity, so I applaud the (for once) unsexist portrayl of sex in a hollywood movie.

In fact, the only movie that was nominated for an Academy Award this year that U thought was in it's own right brilliant was MILLION DOLLAR BABY. People may disagree with this, but let me tell you why. The subject matter could have easily waivered into the sentimental, the macabre third act twist, especially. But everything is handled with such a sense of reality, such an unabashed look into the real, that it is painful. Everything is subtle and strong, all the acting has dignity, all the people are characters you understand, in every complexity. I saw so much of my mother in the boxer, so much of my extended family in her extended family. The framing of the shots, the trailer park, the fighting--it was so sharp, so pure in its execution. Like one scene, where Frankie asks the preist for advice on euthanisa, and the preist says his peice, then as Frankie cries, the preist gets up and leaves him alone in the church. The sheer symbolism, the delicacy of the shot--flawless. And then when Frankie tells Maggie what her nickname meant, and his eyes show this incredible loss and despair as he keeps his chin in that Clint-Eastwood-locked way. Oh my gosh. I was destroyed. Fabulous fabulous fabulous.

I am leaving for Chicago, and I am freakishly excited about it. This January market is killing me, and I want no more. No more! Vacation!

Took a business trip to NYC. It was fun. I stayed in an amazingly swank hotel, and walked around the city all morning. New York is big.

Now I am in Binghamton, and I have a lot of work to do, unfortunately.

So I got to wait out in the cold for 2 hours last night so Julia could take this picture with Thom from Keane. But Keane was lovely (props to Anne for the hook up) and the Zutons were fun. Also, going out again was nice as well.

hmm.

I've just finished that paper, and given it a good final read-through, and - -

it's not shitty. Hardly the best paper ever written on the topic, but not utter shite.

I am, consequently, pleased. :-)

And will leave for a well-deserved vacation in 6 hours. 6. I have yet to pack, I will have to print and submit the paper (on the main campus) and return a slew of library books (also to the main campus) before I leave...and I really ought to shave my legs before I go. But I'd like a bit of sleep, as well.

Smooth legs + well-packed bag or sleep + potentially forgetting to bring something major, like underwear. If only one day a week were 36 hours instead of 24...

My family's luck: The Ongoing Saga

My parents went to San Diego for the weekend after my father broke down in tears last week on his stress and general feeling of hopeless failure. I was hoping to have the children clean and the house spic-and-span by the time they came home Monday morning. Instead, Jordan wakes up Saturday morning sick. WHen most people get sick, they sleep most of the day and require soup. Jordan is a whiner--she moans about her stomach and every noise and light gives her a headache and she's too hot or too cold and then she starts crying because she just wants a 7-up, etc.

So I tend to Jordan all morning, and as I'm sitting down to lunch, the door swings open and I hear this scream--one of those piercing screams that makes the blood run cold, and in stumbles my brother, holding a bloody hand in front of him. I look at him and see more blood pouring out of his face than I have ever actually seen on a human being who was alive. The left side of his face above his eye was torn open about half an inch wide and a fourth of an inch deep, and there was a gash under his eye that was about an inch wide but slightly less severe, as well as several lacerations all up and down his face. He had been playing dodge ball and had run full speed into a tree. The hole in his forehead was full of bark, and there was dirt in the cut.

The interesting twist on this story is of course that my family does not have health insurance, so taking him to the hospital was out of the question as it would set us back 1,000$ for a routine stiches operation. So I got to pull out the old first aid knowledge I had picked up from my dad over the years. I stripped off his clothes and put him in a bath tub, then had to climb in with him and pick out all the wood with a pair of tweezers as he bled into the tub and cried that he was scared he was going to die. In order to make him calm I had to be incredibly light-hearted and jovial, so I made him tell me about his favorite parts of Troy (my family bought a CleanFlicks version for him). Then, after all the wounds were picks, I had to wash them out, then clean them with alcohol while he tried not to scream, then cut and wrap gauze, which I had to change every half hour as it sopped up all the blood. Then we called mom and dad and had the following conversation:
Me: Hey mom
Mom: Hey what
Me: So zach ran into a tree and now is having trouble remembering things so I suspect head trauma. There are also lacerations on his face and a hole in his head. Should I be worried about a concussion?
Mom: [pause] Let me put you through to your father
Luckily the wound was more superficial than serious due to the organic nature of Zach's target. WHile he was having a little trouble remembering words, he was rather lucid and wasn't nauseated or sleepy, so I suspected the risk of head trauma was minimal. Still, between him and Jordan, I was a bit frazzled. Then Julia went out to a formal and had her $300 digital camera stolen, just going to show my theory that every perfect day (for her anyway) has to have something to spoil it. My parents are never going to let me babysit again.

I smell garlic bread. Probably because someone in my hall has made some, and is having it as part of a tasty dinner. *sigh*

Anyone read anything by NaomiKlein?

I don't necessarily disagree with her, but she writes in such an inflammatory manner...preach, preach, preach...everything capitalist & corporate & government is evil...and if you don't agree with me, then you are evil, too! Kinda makes me want to smack her. At the very least, it makes me less likely to take her arguments seriously. EricSchlosser does a much better job...making similar points without lecturing or judging the reader.

Is Klein the MichaelMoore of political economy? You don't necessarily disagree (or agree)...you just want them to slow down, get rid of the wailing violins, and present FACT without a lecture or a spin.

Unfortunately, the module notes for the seminar on globalization are riddled with Klein. Apparently, my professor is a fan of wailing violins and spin. I will quote her once, and refrain from disparaging her work in the rest of my essay. But I can't use her work to defend mine. Not when I could the works of legitimate political economists like Krugman.

Part of a Continuing Series of VH1 Related Observations: "I Love the 90's Part Deux": Edition

-I remember when Olestra came out. I never trust most warning labels on medicines, etc, because as a physicians daughter I know that they're just lip service to litigators, so I wasn't worried about the Olestra warning label "May cause internal bleeding, diarhea, stomach cramps, nauseau, and anal leakage". Margaret and I went out and bought a pack of "wow!" chips and were mowing them down with salsa, making fun of the label. All went well for about twenty minutes when all of a sudden I was gripped by the worst series of stomach cramps imagineable. Margaret made a bolt for the toilet, and we were sick for the rest of the day, strange since our family has some of the strongest immune systems ever. I am not suprised the product didn't make it

-I did like "Romeo + Juliet" despite Leonardo DiCaprio's hideous acting.

-Hal Sparks and Michael Ian Black are like god's gift to comedy, aren't they? And those Modern Humorist Guys aren't too bad either.

-I remember being more upset about the OJ Simpson Trial than anything else. Interestingly enough, what I remember most clearly is the circumstances in which I heard it. There was a protocol in turning our trays to the lunch lady where we had to put silverware on one side, the cub on another, and the plates stacked with trash on top. For no particular reason, Becky and I decided we would take it upon our selves to arrange people's trays for them. I would stand by the door leading to the dish return area and stop students, rearranging the trash on their trays. There were several embarassing situations that occured during my occupation as a tray tender, one of which was the very fact that I was such a pathetic weirdo that I would rearrange trash instead of going out and talking in the quad like a normal junior high student. Then, in an incident which qualifies as one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, some toilet paper I was using to stop a sudden menses onslaught dropped out as I was walking over to fix someone's ice cream mess. I looked down in horror, and in a moment of panic decided to pretend it wasn't mine. As I edged towards the exit, I heard someone say, "Gross! What is that?!" as I bolted to the door. But after that, the OJ trial was the enxt most embarassing tray time incident. When his verdict came out, I was so angry I kept talking loudly about the injustice and the ignorance, and I kept banging everyone's plates together, splattering potatoes and milk everywhere. WHile I was mad, most of the theatrics were done for attention, so when a teacher came over and told me to calm down in front of everyone, I felt like the idiot I was.

-My mother is the only one I know of thus far who saw part of the Tommy/Pam Anderson sex tape. Anyone else want to fess up?

-I hated "Singled Out" and I hate Jenny McCarthy and her stupid "I'm one of the guys" act which basically consisted of flatulance and burping, as if that's all it takes.

-If I see this Cortisol commercial one more time, I will go postal and murder every man woman and child on this street

-You know that MArv Albert thing happened at the Hilton at DFW right? I passed by it on my way to the airport this morning.

--I really liked that Meredith Brooks song like crazy. I was expecting her to be like another Fiona Apple, and then I see her interviews and I hear her other songs and then realized she was one of those Lilith Fair hippies like the Indigo Girls and i was totally crushed

--when "Con AIr" came out I had such a huge Nicholas Cage fixation. As I look back on it, the crush was quite ridiculous, but at the time, that wife beater and stubble was all I needed

--I was a fan of Sugar Ray's "Fly" because it was like a Sublime rip-off, and seriously who didn't love "40 oz to freedom"? Mark McGrath was hot enough, and "RPM" was a really sexy song, but maybe that's just cause I get off on sex-in-car songs. But then he just started sucking so hard. He did these McG videos that were glittery and lazy in the bad, Creed sort of way. Then, he did Rock n' Roll Jeopardy and proved he was back on top again by his insane ability to know every aspect of music. But what did he do with his coolness reserrection? He f-in became a fag by appearing in Backstag Sluts 2 and then becamse a slut himself on "Extra". What a waste

I can listen to people talk about stuff all day. But I think I'll be less enthusiastic if they do an "I love the 70's" sequal

I love that I've gotten to the point in school where a significant portion of any general essay can be lifted from essays previously written. I'm giving myself 6 hours to reach 3,000 words...then I'm going to bed.

This is one of the few ways to wear my hair down without looking like volume has taken over. It's quite rock n roll when straight

This is my hair flipped out Farrah Fawcett style.

This is me with my hair in it's natural shape. The ringlets are ridiculous and I look like the duke from Restoration.

so.very.tired. but finally done with exams. :-)

I don't use my original screenname anymore...good thing, apparently. As much as I like younger men (and I really do!), high school is a bit young even for me.

I think I've gone and replaced with my candy addiction with a pesto addition. But - - if I don't have a plate of pasta right after I wake up every morning, I don't have the energy even to shower.

My friend Sam has challenged me legitimately (ie. not just randomly inserting it in a sentence) to include the word "hippopotamous" in my ComparativeCulture&Communications final essay on globalization&culture. If I do it, he'll buy me a pint. I'm game.

He says a big group in Law at Sheffield last year used to make lists of random words to try and legitimately include in each essay, to help them along while they were writing...make a little contest out of it. It's a good idea. Maybe we'll have a go at it next semester...we have five more essays and projects to battle through, may as well make them as amusing as possible.

I used the word "polygamy" in one of my essays on today's marketing exam...I'd been talking about segmenting markets via the "life-cycle" scale, and made reference to groups unaccounted for, such as those having had multiple marriages. You're under such a time constraint on these exams that, after realizing what that implied, I only had time to include in parentheses after the statement "(I don't mean polygamy!)".

still.so.tired. But I've just taken a huge nap...and it's only 9pm. hmm. Time for tv, I guess...

It's funny we grow into new people. Years ago, I couldn't stand my great aunt j--she was my paternal grandmother's sister, never married, and had a habit of saying things like the infamous "what's wrong with your face" incident of my 13th Christmas. (Incidentally, her follow up comment was, "I had a cousin once with terrible acne, just like yours. You should do something about it." To which I burst into tears). But as of moving back to Dallas, I'm becoming rather delighted with the old (mid 70's) lady, and despite my relatives’ insistence that she is a cantankerous, man-hating snob, I have began really enjoying her company. She invites me to concerts and ballets--we were even going to see Laurie Anderson (eeek!) together--and while her enjoyment of these events only stems from the fact that educated people should enjoy concerts and ballets, it is nice to have a relative from the aristocratic side of the family to squire me about town.

You see, like many American families, my family is divided into the aristocratic, genteel half and the white trash, hick side Just listen to the name difference: The Langsdales vs. The Joneses. It isn't rocket science to figure out where the blue blood is, nor is it a stretch to imagine the circumstances to which these disparate branches were joined (but here's a hint--desperation).

But after having graduated from college and proving myself adept at conversation and a general overview of art history, J has accepted me (and my mother, interestingly enough) as one of her own. Such a confidence has provided a wealth of stories and vignettes, such as the cousin which got strangled by her own car door, or the cousin that got hit by a semi changing a tie, or the other cousin who got decapitated when his jack slipped while he was under the car.

My Great Aunt J, it turns out, was a real renaissance women for her time. She smoked and drank and wore Dior dresses and had her own job, apartment, portraits. That's when you know you're money baby--forget the Bentley--it's all about the portrait.

I Go to see J in the hospital as she is recovering from shoulder surgery. She has an eerie ability to demand actions and attention with military like precision. One of the first things she says to me as I'm unpacking her clothes is, "Mary, just put it in the closet now" as I was messing around with hangers. Then she would say matter-of-factly in conversation observations like "X is really heavy" or "the nurse is quite unclean." But rather than be hurt by her bluntness as I was as a teenager, I found myself absolutely delighted by her brusqueness. I so often verge on being too flowery or obscure in my attacks or observations, that it's wonderful for me to take my cues from someone as straightforward as J. My 20 minute visit ended up being an hour, and I had a better conversation with her than I've had face-to-face in ages.

By the way, my writing style has gotten a bit lazy and sloppy--I am cognizant of this, but most of my posting has to be done on the sly, or in between market rallies, so I'm often not top notch. I apologize for my occasional unintelligible or clichéd turns of grammar and phrase.

I think I would be less of a mess if i did not stay up until 2am every night this week talking on IM. The main culprit has been Serge, who has become a vastly entertaining bundle of stories, observations, and bad puns. He recommended a documentary to me called "Genghis Blues" about a blind American blues guitarist who travels to Tuva for a competition in Mongolian throat singing, a strange type of vocal manipulation which isolates harmonic frequencies. While the documentary was poorly put together and lacked some overall tension or arc, the sheer bizarreness of the story as well as the strange, isolated character of Paul (the blind singer), I was glad to have watched it.

Another recent culprit in my late night schedule has been Steven Rozenski, the darling little boy I knew briefly from Junior year who ran off to Japan and now has internet access and has been living an enviable life of badminton, Japanese sex, and sushi. I think I freaked him out a little bit by sending him a letter this summer letting him know that I fancied him a bit and I was nervous around him because i didn't want to fall for another non-member, and I think he misinterpreted that as me wanting to start a relationship or something, which wasn't what I was getting at--I was just telling him why I was nervous around him. I was always worried about falling for Steven because he was precisely my type and also a bit of a heartbreaker, so it was sort of like falling for the bad boy. On my part the whole letter was emotional commit after a strange summer, as by and large I never actually wanted anything but playful flirtation. Still, I think he freaked out a bit, because he stopped writing to me shortly after I sent the letter. Which was a shame, because he was always a marvelous letter writer.

Julia complained last night that I was becoming a real "trimspa monster" as she said, though her grievances stretched much further back than my trimspa sabbatical. Her major problem with me is that I have become "Like, this dominating force in the house" and that I always tell her what to do and I don't treat her as an equal and that I'm bossy and really cold and mean. I suppose the main problem is that I don't treat her as an equal because she insists on acting like a spoiled child. She won't help around the house, she bullies the kids, and then has this sense of entitlement when it comes to money and privileges. I can't take that seriously. I recognize the stress she's under at school, but her attitude is what is making it hard for me to take her as an adult--extreme self righteousness and a general Me First attitude over minuscule issues. Selfishness in the randian sense of virtue requires something more adult to actually be a virtue--it takes a real superiority of mind, as Jane Austin pointed out, to keep one's pride in self under regulation. I am too stressed to have to put up with selfishness without the regulation. And that is my fault for not being more forgiving and humane, but of all the times in our family’s history to start acting mean and self-righteous!

And I have become rather cold and mechanical lately, that's true. I think that part of how to deal with stress of this magnitude is compartmentalization. I have a huge amount of rage and anger I'm dealing with, but it has to be dealt with in a calm and healthy way, so I internalize it and become hyper rational. While society always teaches it's best to "talk these things out", all that seems to produce are lectures on the nature of patience or more anger and frustration as I have to face these problems head on without having found the solution. I see no problem in short term emotional distance. It's sort of like being a soldier, but without the cool artillery.

I was watching "Run Lola Run" with my parents last night, and I believe I have figured out the true meaning of that movie: I believe it is a German propaganda movie for punctuality. Think about it: She arrives too late, she dies. She arrives barely on time, he dies. But when she arrives comfortably on time, Manni lives, she lives, and they are 100,000 marks richer. All this is is a thinly disguised way of the Germans to continue the tradition of punctuality. I would not be surprised if this movie did very well in Switzerland.

In other news, I have lost 6 pounds on trimspa. Though I think that has more to do with giving up coke and exercising then the diet pills, but oh well. Anna Nicole Smith was right! I'm sure of it!

File this in the: words are eternal category.

A few YEARS ago Anne and I made fun of a friend of mine from high school who posted very obvious and childish soft core photos of herself and her roommate. WHile I assumed that everyone had moved on from this incident, apparently I will be haunted by it forever--not only in the way that Madame P ignores me/berates me every time we get together, but also by the little disclaimer she put at the bottom of her page which reads:

NEW! Hey check out what these Mormon girls said about our pics!
http://www.capitalistmafia.blogspot.com/2003_02_01_capitalistmafia_archive.html

IM them here: AlexiaIscariot and MormonIcePrincess
Please tell them that the dark haired, tan, totally not asian girl is, well, NOT ASIAN, and is, in fact, MEXICAN. And yes, thanks for noticing our small breasts! :) I like them too!!! Yay for perky breastests that will never sag! Gracias.

Well, for whatever reason, I have had 2 people IM me in the last couple of days thinking I was one of the girls from the website. One of them asked for a picture of me as "proof" that I wasn't a 'dancing girl" (name of the website) and when I sent them he gets all discouraged, saying " a girl like you would never want a guy as unattractive as me. Chicks never like me because they only want super hot guys." To which I responded, "Look, maybe you're having trouble meeting girls because you're looking for the kind of girls that display nudie pictures of themselves on the internet. You're trying to get the kind of girls who are only asking to be valued based on appearance. These kind of girls will only value guys based on appearances, and if you're not perfect, don't act all suprsied when they don't want you. Instead, try finding girls who are looking for something deeper." and the guy was all "oh my gosh, I never thought about that before" and then, after a pause, "so you want to get coffee?"

Here's the second conversation I was fortunate enough to recieve while I was downstairs showing my parents "Run Lola Run":
thestrategyfreak: hi
thestrategyfreak: you're weird
thestrategyfreak: Are you an actress or something
thestrategyfreak: I was looking for pictures of Mount Olympus when I found your site
thestrategyfreak: It's like the Brothel or something
thestrategyfreak: yeah
thestrategyfreak: are you all freaked out
thestrategyfreak: or something
thestrategyfreak: lol
thestrategyfreak: >:)
thestrategyfreak: anyway...
thestrategyfreak: s
thestrategyfreak: o
thestrategyfreak: if you didn't want 2 chat why did you put your IM on your site
thestrategyfreak: ?
thestrategyfreak: I looked at the source code for your page
thestrategyfreak: I had a sneaking suspicion that that button would display a popup that said "you weirdo"
thestrategyfreak: or something like that
thestrategyfreak: Ha
thestrategyfreak: HA
thestrategyfreak: I was right
thestrategyfreak: I looked at the source
thestrategyfreak: how old are you anyway
thestrategyfreak: I'm in high school
thestrategyfreak: and I'm just going to keep on talking
thestrategyfreak: because I have homework
thestrategyfreak: and an english midterm tomorrow
thestrategyfreak: and health
thestrategyfreak: actually
thestrategyfreak: this is getting kind of boring
thestrategyfreak: and I bet you're going to block me
thestrategyfreak: please don't
thestrategyfreak: I like making internet freinds
thestrategyfreak: lol
thestrategyfreak: yeah...
thestrategyfreak: so
AlexiaIscariot: um
Previous message was not received by thestrategyfreak because of error: User thestrategyfreak is not available.

Kill me now.

if you do not have the Mirah song "La Familia" you need to get on iTunes and download it right now!! oh my god she is the cutest person in the entire world. that is all. sorry for the gushing.

Though we had planned on going to the single's ward SUnday morning, Brooke and I returned from our clubbing night and got sucked into the remake of "The House On Haunted Hill", which I had seen but forgotten how lame it was and I stayed up until 3 remembering. Instead of church we made it back to Dallas early, stopping in a Czech town for lunch at a whistlestop cafe. I had fried jalepanos which werent Czech but were very texas and almost burned my tongue off. Then went and got Apple tarts at the local czech bakery. Weird experience. Finished "Bollywood Boy", meaning that since I gave up TV for new years I have averaged 2.5 books a week. But with the new season of "Alias" and "I love the 90's: part deux" starting, I don't know if I can keep that resolution.

We left around 1am, but rather than going to the hotel, I made Brooke go to La Cucharacha, a goth/heavy metal split level club.The lower level was a bar, so I climbed the stairs to what was at one time a pool hall. The table had been pushed against the wal, and in its place was a death metal band rocking out to a crowd standing 6 inches from their face. In front of me was a guy in a wheel chair who kept whipping his dreads in my eyes. I made my way out to the back porch (all austin clubs have outside bar areas) and had my bag get caught on a chair, and I saw some guy reaching over to it, then unhook it for me, just proving that metal/goth kids really are the sweetest of people. But before i had a chance to love on the goth boys too much, I met some hot-but totally retarded--boys outside. I wasn't up to my usual level of gothiness, but I looked pretty hot. Apparently, not metal enough, though. Brooke thought these gorgeous model types in tight black pants and converses were really beautiful, and she wanted to know where they had their haird done, so we went up and asked to them, but because we didn't look the part, they acted really aloof and bored, so I stood to the side hoping to end the conversation as soon as possible, but Brooke cornered one of them and talked to him about New York, so I had to wait a bit.

The club is called Emo's. I didn't make that up

Saturday night at Emo's was "fresh young fellows" indie rock--cute melodious and full of kinks hooks. Sadly, the audience was less attractive. These are the prices we pay. I did dance a little bit.

Brooke and I had dinner with Barbara at a Mongolian grill before heading over to the Paramount to see two Elvis movies: Viva Las Vegas and Jailhouse Rock. I have never seen either, but both were so cheap and campy I had the time of my like, MST3K style, and couldn't believe I had gone my life without seeing them. Afterwards, Brooke wanted to head back over to Emo's (no cover! free bands!), so we picked our way through the drunks and made our way over to have our wrists restamped.

Afterwards we did a bit of shopping down the very lame drag next to UT. or maybe it was Rice. I don't know and frankly I don't care. I do know that Brooke and I ran into one of the screamo bands who turned out to be from Dallas and turned out to know the Sensitivity Boosters, a band that my sisters friends are in. I saw one of the most beautiful boys I have ever seen Urban Outfitters, he was folding shirts and I nearly walked into him and I stopped in my tracks and we stared at each other for a full minute, then he smiled and I smiled back and then I hid in another part of the store. But if i had actually lived in Austin, I totally would have asked him out. On the way home we saw a man wearing a gold thong in the middle of the sidewalk. Made me miss the city

I dug this guy since I am obsessed with texture in paintings, which to be is the most important aspect of modern painting after the advent of photography made realism obsolete. If I had a few thousand, I would have bought some of these paintings. They were quite lovely. Afterwards I talked to the owner of the colony and had a little bit of an embarrassing tete-a-tete.. He happened to mention that Mark Seliger was coming to Austin for a show. I gasp and freak out, and the owner says, "You know Mark Seliger?" and without thinking the first thing I say is "Of course! Who hasn't?" to which the man replied, "Well, me, for one. I had no idea who he was before he announced his show." So that was annoying. Afterwards, I walked to a few small galleries and saw some lovely wax and magazine scrap paintings.

We then make our way over to Austin's "art district" which is of course smaller and gayer than expected, and by gay I mean completely ungay since everyone there was tragically heterosexual, but rather gay as in the ironic use of the word 'happy and fun' since the art distric was drab and full of hicks. We went to an artist colony which was fill of little studios, most of which held safe and uninspired art, except for one guy who used huge canvases and thick paint interspersed with rivers of ore-like paint

Here's Brooke, Elvis, and Barbara. Brooke is holding an Elvis face mask Chuy's gave us. I refused to speak to anyone except through the mask for a good twenty minutes, which served to annoy everyone

Chuy's turned out to be rather colorful and eclectic. We sat at the bar and I tiredly flirted with the dumb waiter while Barbara got tips on the hot spots in Austin from the Elvis impersonater sitting next to us. Brooke and I split the Elvis dinner platter--beef tacos, cheese, chicken, and beef enchiladas--the works, and all for $7,99!

The next day was Elvis's 70th birthday, so Barbara, hearing that the Chuy's in the area were having elvis impersonators and a special Elvis-themed dinner platter. We were planning on going to Chuy's after going to a "hot springs" which turned out to be a 72 degree mineral springs, so basically freezing. Then we tried going to the hotel's hot tub which was about 82 degrees, then tried the sauna, which wasn't working. So by the time I get to Chuy's I'm cold and unhappy

Austin turned out to be a haven for the white trash--6th street was nothing but bars and tattoo parlors, filled with white trash looking college students and crispy looking forty somethings. We ate at an atrocious mexican restaurant called the Iron Cactus after walking back and forth for an hour and being unable to find any place decent. The tacquitos were really strange and soggy--taquitos! How can you miss. Brooke and I headed out afterwards--the first time I had been out properly since I went to Neo's back in June. We went to a rock n'roll bar called Neo's--a sprawling three room compound comprising of an inside (traditional) venue, an outdoor picnic area, which spilled into an outside music venue, with bleachers and a second stage. This photograph was taken outside. The girl in the middle looks a lot like my old roomate Vicki. Everyone was very cute and most of the guys were quite hot--and that is not simply because I have been in the field so long. Unfortunately, all the music was screamo, so everyone was really aggressive and slightly pretentious. Lots of chicks in high heels and leg warmers, ridiculous if you're going to be standing up all night. Being out with my cousin is a very interesting experience--she's boy crazy and thinks about them all the time, so she goes out and scopes and tries approaching them, but then her shyness wins over and she talks to them about very mundane, unsexy things. Not that I wow over anyone--I am a very lazy flirt and passivley undress men with ocular fingers.

The first thing we did was search for the art galleries. The first one we discovered was the arthouse, a small little gallery which had an installation called "Lounge". the premise was different artists were asked to draw an idea of creating a lounge area for three thousand dollars. One of the artists suggested placing 3,000 $1 bills in one square foot and not stop anyone who chose to take them. Sadly, this did not win out as an option, though the option of suspended chairs and tables was rather comfortable as well. After that, we walked over to the modern art museum, which was hosting a Goldsworthy retrospective. I sat down and watched a lovely 30 minute documentary on his natural sculptures. My favorite are always the leaves or the ice--such patience!

So my trip to Austin. It happened about a week ago, but I just got around to editing my photos. The trip to Austin happened after the worst week of trading of my life, so I needed to run away. My aunt Barbara and her daughter Brooke were headed there, so I hitched a ride, never having been there before. Down there, I read the first half of "Bollywood Boy", a fantastic non-fiction book that follows the rise of Hrithik Roshan, who I am now obsessed with. Serge was kind enough to buy me "...Pyaar Hai," his breakthrough movie. This was the view from my hotel room. I think the lines are virtuous

a short time waster borrowed from the ever-hip Jenn F.

1. What color is your toothbrush?
white and blue.

2. Boy elephant or girl elephant?
boy elephant.

3. Do you use dryer sheets?
yes. bounce smells really good.

4. What's your favorite dinosaur?
pterodactyl.

5. Do you sing karaoke?
no, but I might.

6. What's your favorite sea animal?
to eat or to look at? oh never mind, "whale" is the answer to both.

7. Dark, milk, or white chocolate?
hershey's hugs are awesome. white chocolate and milk chocolate.

8. What about vanilla?
vanilla is good. I like the smell of vanilla extract

9. When you have a spare paperclip do you bend it out of shape?
Often. Especially when my work computer was one of the candy-colored iMacs. those are only restartable with a paperclip.

10. Did you hear the one about the gorilla and the masking tape?
sounds kinky.

11. What kind of computer do you use?
At work I have a beautiful brand new iMac with a 1.6 GHz G5 processor and 512 mb of ram that make it run really, really fast. It also looks like a piece of art. My personal computer is a sluggish iBook (pre G3) that I got for cheap and hasn't given me any problems.

12. Do you have a mouse with a scroll button?
no. my mouse is one step up from a hockey puck. one button only.

13. Write a 9-word sentence about yourself:
I should be working right now, but I'm not.

I've just booked (and paid for) a week in the cutest cottage in the center of Edinburgh's New Town...right along the Queen Street Gardens...which is great, because I got quite a good deal for it...but: I worry that Cat might have gone and booked a different place last night.

There were supposed to be three of us staying together, but someone lost her source of income, and has decided to "crash on floors" instead of stay somewhere nice...so Cat & I talked last night and agreed to search yesterday and today & make inquiries & then talk again tomorrow night and make a decision & book Thursday - - because we both get extremely anxious when things aren't planned out years in advance - - UNLESS someone found a great deal, in which case, they should just book & pay. Which I did...but I had to book it & pay this afternoon. But what if she did the same thing?!? That would not be cool. I don't want to spend a week in a cottage ALONE! ...and pay for two bedrooms for myself.

I am probably being irrational...but I'm under a lot of stress right now, and have had my period for a week and a half as of today...so rational hasn't been in the cards for a while. I wish she didn't sleep til 2 every day and would get up and check her email.

I'm hoping that by staying in the middle of New Town, I won't have the urge to go out to shitty places in the Old Town...I'd have to negotiate The Mound in heels to get to anywhere shitty, whereas all of the nice places are a block or a few away from the front door, no mounds. We both have people to avoid anyway, and they'll all be over in the Old Town. Plus, McDonalds and all of the Pizza Hut restaurants are in the New Town...as is all of the shopping.

My will to live was so strong last week...but after that third exam, it just - - - died. I'm trying so hard to refocus myself, but I just can't. I am so burnt out by school. Business school is pure, unadulterated EVIL! I don't even have to pass my last two exams to pass the modules...all I need is a 40% on each...but the mere thought of studying and then sitting them is prohibitively exhausting. It's not marketing that's bad, either...it's fucking accounting. At least I'll be free of it forever as of 3:30 tomorrow...less than 24 more hours of accounting...why am I whining? I should be preparing to celebrate...and then get out my marketing texts.

it's just erased my post. oh well. to bed.

Right now, I have the worst PMS of all time. I feel fine, physically. But I am overwhelmed with a sense of impending doom, self-loathing, teeth-grinding frustration. And I know it has absolutely nothing to do with anything real. It's 100 percent hormonal. But really, I could put my head through a wall right now. Or crawl into a hole. I am absolutely crazed.

I haven't blogged more than one or two sentences for a couple of weeks now. A co-worker gave me a wireless card for my laptop yesterday, so now I can post nights and weekends. So maybe I'll blog more frequently? Actually probably not. I'll just hate myself for it later.

I have taken to wearing huge numbers of braclets. From over the wrist bone clear up my forearm are bangles and leather cuffs, guitar strings and beaded ropes, thick painted Hindi bones. I used to hate wearing jewlery on consecutive days--the skin resisted and pulled back, teeth bared. Around september I started with a brown and white american indiancuff IB gave me for my birthday. I liked it because it was string and glass and floated on the hairs of my arms. Then came some old silver beaded strings I inherited from mom's throwaway pile. Little by little braclets have slipped their way down my hands. It has become a battle skin--the more animosity and struggle, the more I gird my arms--my own private armory, talc instead of gun, nails of protein not iron. In an interesting historical twist, Napoleon lost waterloo for want of a handful of nails.

I am running out of space.

At first I thought of moving to necklaces. I have tried three or four, but they are impossible to sleep in--they catch in my hair, and I can't help but feel as though I am being strangled. I am too absent minded to remember to brush my hair in the morning, much less apply accessories. No no--the process of steeling oneself is organic more than anything--the metal must become part of the body, to travel with my moods and movements rather than being applied than re-applied. One reaches for the constant whenever possible.

Last weekend I ran away to Austin and went to many art galleries and museums. I was fortunate enough to catch and exhibition by Andy Goldsworthy, one of my favorite sculptures despite his hippy mentality. Went to a club named Emo's with my cousin and learned that being sequestered for the past 6 months has infused me with a hitherto unknown lazy sensuality, as I no longer care whether or not my glances are returned or discovered, whether I fit expectations of attractiveness or sexuality. As a result of having nothing to lose, the experience of going to a club with delightfully coiffed and distressed black haired pixies was pleasent. I must tell you about it with pictures when I have more energy.

My boss's abusive ex-husband died, and while everyone is now doing their best to say what a lovely man he was, I have no wish to reverse my previous opinions simply because he died. He was an awful, violent man, who manipulated and hurt his children and ex-wife. Despite all that, I hope he is given peace and mercy in the afterlife. In true small town tradition (which lets be honest, most church communities are) the death was not without controversy. Dead man (let's call him S) was found dead by his son and his son (20) demands an autopsy because he thinks it's a sucide and soon we are all on the phone chatty-chattering (as the Hindi women would say) about it, and then of course the coroner's report gets back that his aorta had exploded out of his heart and although he was asleep woke up in time to feel the rupture and the tearing as his chest cavity filled with blood and my dad told me in confidence that aortic ruptures are one of the most painful deaths imaginable and I couldn't help but think of the irony of a wife beater who lied to the court about his wife's "child abuse" would have his own heart explode under the stress of "loving too much" as he claimed. And his mother (let's call her D) has swooped in from Salt Lake City and is threatening to put a restraining order against S's ex-wife so she can't have custody of the kids because D's worried the children might learn several secrets D has tried to keep hidden. IN ADDITIOn (and this is a truly Texas phenomenon) the funeral was postponed because S's daughter had a soccer game she didn't want to reschedule. Luckily, they moved the funeral to late afternoon so the daughter could watch her father being buried AND play in the soccer match. I am going to the viewing not for any particular love of S, nor solely for my own morbid curiosity of the deceased (there is, truthfully, some of that), but rather because I think there is nothing more hurtful than when people ignore the final passage of someone's life. He was an awful person, yes, but every human being has inherent dignity by means of their capacity for reason and achievment. S did not live to his capacity, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be mindful of the importance of this moment, both in terms of myself and in terms of S's family, with whom I am intimately acquainted.

I have bought my ticket to New Zealand, March 1-27.
I am going to Chicago, January 26-February 1.
I am worried that my first month of real trading has been slow. While I am progressing on schedule, I am still worried that it will take me ages to save enough money to move out. I worry too much--I am too much like my father.

Russell Riggins flew in for an interview with American Airlines and took a late flight home so he had a few hours to spend with me which were passed predominantly curled up on my parents bed watching "Anchorman" and then eating at a Texas Steakhouse. He's a sweet boy, and I wish him luck with his new job. Mom says being around Russ makes her feel weird, as he is so normal. AH, if only she knew.

I bought Trimspa as it was on sale at Costco and I want to look like a (skinny) drug addict like my hero Anna Nicole Smith, who as you all know credits Trimspa with her 80lb weight loss. All it has done thus far is cause me to become ravishingly hungry all of the time and given me chronic insomnia. I have lost weight though, so go figure.

yes.

Konick's weblog is really good. He's had some funny stories lately. (and, yes, she was hitting on you.)

blech.

The Falafel Trio (linked left) is like the CM two years ago, except based in upstate NY. I went to high school with Mo. She is an awesome, funny girl who was really nice to me and made me mixtapes during my melodramatically depressed teenage years. You should read it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I understand, I properly understand!! dead-weight loss resultant from taxes on goods in elastic markets. and why I was having trouble making sense of it earlier. I'm putting it in a question tomorrow whether or not it applies, becauseI finally understand it, so even if it doesn't apply, I'll at least have gotten an economic principle correct somewhere on the exam.

I am more nervous for this one than for any of the others. My track record in economics exams is abysmal.

I'm glad exams start tomorrow. I think waiting for them to come is worse than actually sitting them. Waiting goes on and on and on...but sitting them never takes more than two hours. And then it's over. Like surgery.

Wish me luck, anyone who gives a shit.

Jones, I thoroughly enjoyed your last post and laud you for your efforts. Also, I would like to express my sincerest sympathies to your "slumming" acquaintance......giving up on beautiful skinny androngynous males while still so young. I'm holding out for an elf/Finn until at least 30. By that time, I ought to have settled myself *somewhere* in the world, and, if still accompanied only by a fleet of musical instruments, clothing and academic qualifications, will consider giving up and slumming...consider...but I'll probably quickly decide against it, and instead devote the rest of my life to the pursuit and love of money, which will support me in old age better than the vast majority of men, androngynous or not.

And Mary - you'll have to email me your email address, since I assume it's changed. But I have some *amazing* pictures of Valo which I imagine you'll enjoy immensely. I do. !!!! Thank goodness for the internet...

My left eyelid has been twitching around like a Mexican jumping bean for two days. The Walgreen's on DrydenRoad in ArlingtonHeights used to sell Mexican jumping beans in little plastic boxes, displayed on a little cardboard stand next to the checkout counter. I thought they were cool when I was little, but after asking my mom what made them jump, and learning that they jump because they have nasty little worms inside them, I didn't want one anymore.

I hope there isn't a nasty little worm in my eye.

Probably not. Probably just a massive amount of repressed stress, desperate to be released. It won't be, because I refuse actively to stress over these exams...I'll get used to the twitchy eyelid after another day or two.

I did spontaneously burst into tears last night...well, not entirely spontaneously...something set me off. But such a stupid, little thing. Tears were not warranted. But I cried my mascara down my face. I've made a serious miscalculation. oh well. Maybelline Waterproof (ie. tear-resistant) GreatLash Mascara doesn't run, but I was wearing washable. I'm not prepared to apply acetone or turpentine to my eyes in order to remove a make-up, but if you just rub water or a standard eye make-up remover over waterproof mascara, you have mascara residue floating around your eyes and face for days.

I need my Rotary hosts to get back to me. I want to go and stay with them over the weekend...try and get them to force me to study, since I don't have any parental types here to get on my case about this. Most of my friends and acquaintances here are as unprepared as I am, if significantly more worried about their outcomes.

I've been trying to figure out who Tina Tomorrow is for several months, ever since the infamous "put on shout" incident where I wrote about the failed potential of some of my high school comrads. She wrote something like "be careful what you say" and posted the (now since removed) essay. What's pathetic is even after I removed that essay people still talk about it and disinvite me from things, thus proving they have really become as fragile and pathetic as I imagined them to be. A little example of what I mean: I went out with one of the girls I wrote about for dinner (please ignore the misplaced modifiers in that sentence), and was exclaiming my love of the new new-wave and the rise of beautiful skinny androgynous boys, and said girl, who used to love beautiful androgynous boys, sighs and flips her dead hair and says "I am so over that. I like men." Which of course has the undercurrent of "my aren't you sad" when really what she meant to say was "I've settled with a scary thick-looking hulk and now want to make this slab of man flesh into an ideal so it doesn't look like I'm slumming." One of these days I will stop being passive when people insult me, but by and large their own exposure of frailty is enough.

So anyway Tina Tomorrow is some anonymous Hockaday girl from either my grade or the grade above mine who has set up an anonymous weblog because she thinks she's too cool for it, so I imagine she was on vibrato at some point. Probably my underling

Melvin Pena, Tina Tomorrow. Any idea of who those folks are? They link us.

why am I hanging myself out to dry now when everything is easier than it's been in months?

and you great great great granddaughter is pretty fine

I don't think I've bathed in two days. Not a problem, really, since I'm only leaving my room once every few days anyway until the end of this month. But...I know I didn't sleep last night...and then I slept from about 3pm to midnight today...and now I'm up for tomorrow, or today, I guess. Maybe I'll bathe tomorrow. Somehow doesn't seem pressing at the moment. I don't care if I'm oily & smell; that's what astringent & deodorant are for.

The longer I let my sleep-schedule stay wonky...and the longer I go without eating normal meals or foods, the stranger my dreams get. I've just dreamt that I was hanging out with Valo (the lead singer of a Finnish love-metal band that's really popular in most of Europe)...in a romantic way, I think, but it occurred to me that Mark was around, and since Valo is Mark's favorite singer and idol and all and that since Valo & I were friends or dating or something, that I should bring him round to visit Mark, since Mark would really like that. So my dream self had just thought that, and I went to play with Valo's hair, and I noticed that his hair was really badly thinning, and then Mark walks in the door...and was all "what's going on". And I said that I'd meant to bring Valo round to visit him as a surprise...and felt weird that I was there behind his back, I guess, probably about to hook-up with his idol and not bothering to call and have him come round to meet him. And then I think they went off to hang-out together. And left me alone. And then I went shopping and there were some good sales...flashbacks of walking through parts of Arlington Heights, but the people were all wrong, out of time and place and some I simply didn't know. And then I was in the Arlington Heights Mormon church building, but then the dream got too convoluded and strange for me to remember clearly.

I'm going to the store today to buy fruits and vegetables. I want my dreams to go back to strictly memories of high school and candy.

Last night, I finally got to have a good long chat (albeit on msn) with my confidant from last year. I feel so much better now...took several tonnes of accummulated emotional confusion (thanks November) and dumped them into her. *awesome* All of my roommates from last year will be back in Edinburgh for graduation...I'm so excited. A few of us are going to rent a nice holiday apartment somewhere around the city center...and it will be so fun...and clean...I think we've all spent significant stretches of time hostelling, and have decided that this vacation, it's better to pay out the ass for quality and comfort and hot water than :-) I've got exactly a week between Rotary engagement to fly up there, have fun, and then fly back. All I have to do is make it through one more paper and five exams. That's not so bad.

There's only one hostel in the whole of Europe that is hotel quality as hostel prices: Pink Palace on Corfu. Easily worth three times what you pay to stay. I'm convinced I've also stayed at the worst hostel in Europe: Young & Happy in the Latin Quarter of Paris. A shithole which would have been overpriced even had it been decent. I admit that it was conveniently located, but the standard of accommodation was appalling. I imagine Young & Happy is a reflection of what it used to be like to live in European tenement slums. The Marken Guesthouse in Bergen, Norway is also a pretty decent placeto stay...as is one of the hostels in Stockholm, but I've forgotten it's name...it's right up the road from the main train station. The hostel on a boat in Stockholm is cool, too, but covered in spiders, and therefore terrifying. And I did like the place I stayed in Helsinki.

Why am I typing about this? I'm so off in the head right now. My friends here are convinced that I need to be medicated...not for depression or mental illness or anything, but to "CALM DOWN"...stop being so frenetic all the time. I think they think I have ADD. I'm not too bad into sugar right now, so it isn't that. I'm just in a heightened state of alert - all the time...not unlike the US, except that I'm not curtailing the freedoms of those around me to assuage myself. I'm just talking, typing, thinking etc. twice as fast as normal, and zipping around like a maniac, and keeping a very unorthodox sleeping/eating schedule.

But, I do want to go back to the North. Scotland...and Norway and Sweden and Finland. There's far too much winter sun and heat in England for my taste. Makes you feel like you ought to be outside frolicking...but how can you frolick when you live in a stretch of land sat between the two worst areas of a major city, and bordered by a major highway and one of the busiest roundabouts in England? There is a little stretch of sodded land that jets out into the business school lake, but the birds play there, so it's surely covered in puddled of shit. Plus, I'm afraid of swans, and the swans are always swimming around that area. They're so big and they look so EVIL!!! I think it's the black feathery unibrow they have...all white and graceful seeming, and then that sinister black brow...anything with a heavy black unibrow is evil, and not to be confronted. Look at Bert from SesameStreet!! Poor Ernie just wanted to have a good time, and Bert was always up his ass about how he did everything wrong and was so irresponsible...or just up his ass? There was all that silly talk a few years ago...

My mom told me swans are foul-tempered, too. If even she says they're evil, then they are!!

5:09am...and I've got so much energy I need ot do something, it's too early and nothing will be on tv and it's too early to run errands...I could bathe now? Or watch the extended LOTR3. hmmmm...I got it for Christmas, so now I have all three - hooray - except that I don't have time to sit down and watch them all straight through:

but I WILL have nothing to do but have fun in Edinburgh...and there were a lot of other LOTR-lovers hanging around last year. A plan is hatched! A really lame, sad sort of plan, but still. We'll sit down and watch all three in a row when we're hungover some day, and then go out again that night.

I'm gonna go order my graduation gowns now.

There is no excuse for how socially unpresentable I am.

I cut my hair today with unexpected results. I went to get some serious layers put in the front because I'm getting quickly bored with the long-hair-thing. When blow dried and straightened, I look quite rock star, but after rinsing out all that grotesque product from my hair, my hair has corscrewed like some sort of Restoration duchess. I'm not saying it looks bad, it just looks sweet and cute and very soft. Not exactly the look I was going for, but neither was bland and outdated, so it's the best I can do with what I have.

The market is acting like a spoiled child, and so at the risk of being several hundred dollars more down, I decided to survey it again.

How Stereotypical You Are...
Created by uraverageteen and taken 27536 times on bzoink!
The Generic Teenager Stereotype
Do you drink [alcohol]?	No
Do you party a lot? How often?	No. Once a month
Do you use drugs for recreational purposes?	No
How often do you use the word like in an average hour?	7
Do you skip classes? How often?	I did. Once every two weeks.
Do you have casual sex? Protected?	No. No.
Do you steal?	No.
Do you wear inappropriate clothing?	Yes.
Do you drool over celebrities?	Badly worded question, but yes, I pine
Do you watch a lot of TV?	De temps en temps
Do you ever watch the News?	financial
Do you even care about world issues?	in a philosophical way, sure
Do you read books often?	yes
Are you failing a lot of your classes?	no
Do you spend most of your time with your friends?	no
Do you smoke cigarettes?	no
Do you hang out a lot in malls, or at Seven Elevens?	no
Do you often find yourself with a crush on someone?	not really
Do you cuss a lot?	no
Are you desperate to fit in?	no
Are you intelligent?	yes
The Goth Stereotype
Black lipstick?	no
Black eyeliner?	yes
Black eyeshadow?	no
Black trenchcoat?	no
Black boots?	yes
Black fishnets?	yes
Black nail polish?	yes
Cigarettes?	no
Heavy metal music?	no
Marilyn Manson?	yes
Kittie?	yes
Cradle of Filth?	no
Constant frown and perpetual angst?	no
Do you like to be seen as	no
Are you an intellectual?	yes
An atheist?	no
Horrible home life?	no
Hopelessly depressed?	no
Suffering with suicidal idealations?	no
Self-mutilation?	in the past
The Punk Stereotype
Plaid?	yes
Big black boots?	yes
Mohawk?	no
Excessive piercings? [Especially facial]	no
Loud, confident and opinionated?	yes
Wild hair colors?	no
NOFX?	yes
Rancid?	yes
Well versed on political scandals and outrages?	not really
A	is A
The Jock Sterotype
What's your IQ?	the internet said 180, but somehow i doubt it
Do you watch a lot of sports?	no
Play a lot of sports?	no
Talk a lot about sports?	no
Do you do anything, really, but think about sports?	no
Are you arrogant?	yes
Are you a male or female whore?	no
Are you homophobic?	oh absolutely. nothing here but steers n' queers
Do you tease other people a lot because you want to seem confident?	no
But really you're a quivering mass of insecurity?	no
Boobs = yes?	i won't dignify this with an answer
Parties = yes?	shrug
Dropping out of high school and flipping burgers = yes?	no
The Girl Stereotype
Do you spend a lot of time on your appearence?	no
Have you ever been on a diet?	sure
How much did you lose?	15 pounds
Was it not so much a diet as it was an eating disorder?	no
Make yourself throw up?	no
Make-up?	no
Low-cut tops?	when occasion calls
How big are your boobies? [Cup size]	36D. a guy must have done this survey
Do you flip your hair when you talk, even if you don't realize it?	if i didn't realize it, how could I know?
Giggle a lot?	no
What's the deal with boys?	they're very simple and oedipal?
Thongs?	no
Pretty bras?	I wouldn't say pretty
YM, Teen, Cosmo, et al?	no
Who's the weaker sex?	women
Are you a feminist?	yes
Do you think Brad Pitt is hot?	yes
How often do you shave your legs?	whenever. not really a priority
How about your armpits?	same
Are you emotional?	no
Especially when on your period?	no
This Or That [Oh, that old coconut.]
Originality or Acceptance?	originality
Independence or Companionship?	independence
Stability or Freedom?	stability
Personal or Interpersonal?	personal
Introvert or Extrovert?	introvert
Popularity or Isolation?	isolation. popularity is a drag
Unique or Loved?	loved
Understood or Individual?	individual
You or Them?	I
Create a Survey | Search Surveys | Go to bzoink!

"effective protection"...above & beyond what I need to know for this course...so why am I online reading articles about it? Guilt, perhaps, at having just squandered away a committmentless week that should have been directed toward preparing for exams & writing essays? But I get wretched jetlag going to Europe, and usually need around two weeks to start to get back to normal, and things were so busy and frantic back at home.

I've spent most of the last week sleeping. And my dreams were good, so I reckon it time well spent. Last night, I spent one dream eating a very tasty cheesecake with SethGreen. Most of them involve me being back home and spending time with my family and people I knew when I was younger...and eating, sweets mostly.

I'm going to have to apply for an extension this semester. extensions...again. extensions suck, because they mean that, when everyone else is done and happy, you're still working. at least I didn't have to have surgery for one this year. I guess that's the positive? And that if I can haggle my way to an extension for this semester's major paper, then I will be able properly to study for the first gauntlet of exams, and still have a chance at passing the major paper with a B or something...and balance out my impending fail in OB. One's chance of passing a module is greatly diminished when one's gets a 43% as half one's grade. He said it was well-written but hopelessly off-topic (hence the mark)...so, I can write, just not always about the right thing. And when I look at the 43% from that angle, I'm not so bothered. If I'd responded to the prompt we were given, I would've gotten a lovely mark.

Besides, in 24 days, I'll officially have my LL.M. As it's already difficult to give a fuck, I don't imagine I'll have an easy time forcing myself to put in the work for a pass next semester, either. I'm keen on doing the dissertation this time around, because I know exactly what I want to do, and it'll be cool and interesting. But it sucks that we have to endure (and pass) twelve nasty little modules in order to get to the decent part of the programme.

My bed here (though shoddy) is so amazingly comfortable that it seems a waste not to use it as much as possible.

I did interrupt my sleep to go out for NewYear. Had a lot of fun...went to a nice bar called TheQuiltedLlama with one of the other American girls. Got extremely pissed. The next day I was so ill I couldn't get up out of bed...and was initially a bit confused by it, because I hadn't thought I'd been too bad...and then I counted, and found an extra double tucked away in the last half hour, bringing my four hour total to five doubles. So, I'd binged (and mixed liquors...and had RedBull, which I'd sworn never to have again) and didn't drink water when I got home, and deserved to be sick the next day. Pretty much a repeat of St.Patrick'sDay, except that this time, I didn't bring an Irish Patrick home with me. (Disclaimer: it was someone I already knew, and we didn't do anything but kiss...because I'm still not that kind of girl. I'd probably have a much easier time "finding someone" if I were, but I'm not. That's why I have guitars.)

There was a guy at the bar who looked just like LennyKravitz. His friend looked even stranger, but they were fun to talk to. His friend looked like a Hispanic ConantheBarbarian...and was wearing a long-sleeve black t-shirt, the front of which looked as if it had been pushed through a shredder.

As part of my bid to convince the airline to let me bring a guitar in a big, rectangular hardshell case into the cabin, I decided to break with tradition and actually look decent for a flight. I'd been told by some professionals (back in June, when the problem was getting a saxophone onto a plane) that one has a better chance of being taken seriously as a musician with an expensive instrument by airline staff if one is dressed nicely. That follows. So: usually, I don't sleep the night before, I wear no makeup, a woolly cap, and a sweatshirt & sneakers on transatlantic flights. This year, I took some care.

And had no problems, unless you count rather chatty security men at O'hare and British airport and rail workers eager to help me carry my bags around. Thank goodness for that, too...I had two suiters, the guitar and a backpack, and couldn't possibly have moved about with all of that at once. Chivarly isn't dead, it's just become more selective. I'll wear my sweatshirt, sneakers & cap for my next bit of travel, and have a million bags, and no one will take any notice of me.

I watched three movies in a row on TV last night (between sleeps): TheBoneCollector, ThisIsSpinalTap and 12AngryMen. They were all good. Why I then dreamt about SethGreen and cheesecake is beyond me.

One of the main roads in Edinburgh actually extends in a more or less (this is Scotland) straight line past the city center and out to the mountains to the south of the city. I walked down this road every day last year on my way to work, and always meant to take a bus to the end of it one day...and climb up one of the little mountains to see the view of the city from the south (I've only seen it from the mountains to the east and from the Mound in the center of the city where I lived last year). There are some houses and such scattered around parts of the mountains, and I wonder if there aren't any flats for rent out there to the south...or a room vacant in one of the homes. I think it would be a nice place to live for a year or two. And the city & suburbs are so small and compact that I'd still only be 30 minutes via bus from the city center.

I mean to go out there when I'm back in the city for graduation. I don't think I will (and it'll be barren is damp this time of the year)...but I will do that eventually. One of the girls here wants to spend a week in Edinburgh sometime with me, so maybe once it's green again...in April or May...or June.

I'm not sure I want to go to Egypt enough to plan the trip and get a visa and a job and pay for it. Maybe I don't. It might just prove exhausting. And the cruise with my family is free, and guaranteed not to be exhausting. I'd be happier about Egypt if it were just to spend time on the RedSea and at my friend's family's beach house, but how could I justify paying all of the money for the flights and the visa and taking that time just to sit on Egyptian beaches?!? If I just want to be at the beach, I can go to Tenerife or Majorca for cheap. If I go to Egypt, I'll have to go to Cairo and Alexandria and see the museums and go down the Nile and go through the Valley of the Kings and see the pyramids and such. And that all sounds exhausting...and uncomfortably hot. Besides, I'm wanting to go back to Finland and Norway right now. hmm.

Hum. The responsible American in my programme just called asking about our essay that's due tomorrow. She's already finished it...but is worried and rewriting and such. If I've bothered to write anything before 8pm (there's something I wanna watch on tv), I'll be proud of myself. I'm a little worried, because I want to pass, but not particularly worried. I've been feeling very fatalistic these days, and using it as an excuse not to do much of anything.

I have to make a choice about this essay before I can write anymore on it that I've got: should I use two easy arguments in my critical analysis and aim for the B-/C+ line and a decent bedtime, or stretch my mind and use a more difficult argument...more points if I get the difficult argument right...but what would I do with more points? They aren't edible, so I can't make a snack out of them. I can't transfer them from module to module, so they can't help my OB grade. And points aren't directly related to intelligence, so more points don't necessarily prove anything.

I'm having a snack.

Well, last year's new years was way awesomer than this year's new years. new years'. whatever. Instead of a drunken bacchenalian reverie where i slept in a cot, i spent this year watching conan's dancing central time zone and then eating pancakes at IHOP with bonnie and alan, margaret and my cousin brooke. Not that I don't love those people, but it was a bit anticlimactic. I was disinvited from the only party thrown this year because for whatever reason my general circle from high school has decided that I am a drag, or mean, or perhaps bossy, though I've never cared enough to ask why they dislike me other than rhetorically.

Today has been one of the worst days ever, which is a real shame because I called mark last night and had an excellent two hour conversation so the week was starting out well. Then I get up to find my father had traded my account into a $200 defecit thinking the market was going to shoot up above 1222.00. When that failed to materialize I watched before my eyes as my father counter-trended the market all the way down to a $1000 dollar hole. Much of this was my fault for not seeing he was getting emotional and taking over the reins, but what's done is done and now theat sweet little profit of $800 which I had labored so hard over the last month to build has become erradicated. Now I just feel angry--angry I didn't step in and do something, angry at my dad for not knowing better, and angry that I can't yell at my dad because he feels badly.

Anyway, this means i'm going to have to move to mutlicontracts ahead of schedule in order to make up this huge loss. It's a real confidence destroyer, and now is not the time in my life when I need that.

Margaret finally moved back to BYU, leaving in my room a mess of scattered CD's and dried-out quasadillas. I miss having her around, though, despite the fact she spent more time on the phone with her boyfriend then talking with me. We dyed her hair dark brown before she drove back so she could look more like ashlee simpson.

Is it wrong that I love theron for signing up for LDS mingle?

Happy new year, everyone.