Lord of the G-String

I love Lord of the Rings like I love my retarded children. When the characters are not under the influence of cocaine (see any of Frodo's expressions), killing each other, or making sweet love, they are in search of a giant, flaming vagina.



My favorite parts are the audience clue-ins, like when Faramir taps on the map 1,230,980,982 times to "inform the characters of his wherabouts" or when an orc says "He'll wish he'd never have been born," to no one in particular. But nothing, and I mean NOTHING, can surpass Denathor's death for sheer ignorance of the laws of cinema, physics, and general intelligence. Denathor--or, this man--



catches the firey wrath of Gandalf and lands on his preemptive funeral pyre. After catching fire, Denathor runs the length of the castle and climbs a bunch of stairs before catapulting off the none-too-short phallic edge of a convenient cliff. This takes ten minutes and twenty eight seconds. Well, okay, more like one minute, but it stretches out during my moments of remeniscence.

As the battle storms on, twenty minutes after the death of Denathor, my friend Madeline nudges my arm and says, "What they don't realize is that Denathor's still burning. He's running to the top of Minas Tirith to jump off again".

"Actually, I believe he's still falling," I replied.

This very same Denathor dismissed Pippin from his service, telling him to die in "a manner best suiting you". Sounds like another quiz for Seventeen Magazine! Customize your perfect death in five easy steps! It'll be right next to "Burn that Fat!" and "The Perfect eyeshadow to match YOUR season!"

Oh, and the title of this post? The actual name of a movie of a certain genre (cough cough)I accidentally caught the end of on HBO when I was twelve.

Iceland will save your soul

Does anyone else want to live in the J.Crew Holiday Catalogue?

It was shot in Iceland--more specifically, in Kirkjubaejarklauster--where every roof is red and Mommy and Daddy go a-boating to the nearby glacier in order to procure a Christmas tree. Or that's what it looks like at jcrew.com.

Exhausted blonde Icelandic children of murderous appearence lean against their "mothers", their heads topped with red paper crowns bordered with glitter. And even though they aren't pictured, the beaches of Iceland float above my mind. They are black sand beaches. Products of Volcanic ash. I guess I'd scowl just as much if my country were bankrupt. Oh, wait...

In which I try to say nice things about Sarah Palin

I took a cue from Gawker. Here is my list:

1)









.....

Another one bites the dust

Iceland has declared bankruptcy.

I couldn't believe it either. Maybe America will annex it.

Not like it hasn't happened before.

Adventures!

So I was walking back from class one evening with a friend who shall remain anonymous--okay, it was Jon--and he mentioned his uneasiness at the state of the half-moon as of late.

J: It's tilted.
Me: Yeah?
J: It's TILTED.
Me: I know.
J: It's supposed to be 12 to 6, like the hands of a clock.
Me: No...
J:Global warming. We're totally screwed.
Me: No, Jon, I think it just does that...

And right about then, I heard a rustling to my right. We paused. Black, white, fluffy. Undulating along the line of bushes that borders the library.

Me: Move away, very, very, slowly.
Jon: (silence)

And that is how we didn't get sprayed by a skunk on Sunday night.

Yes, I have class on Sunday.

Tea Tree Australian Chewing Sticks

With one hundred sticks, I figured I wouldn't need to buy another pack for at least a year.

They're a lot cheaper than cigarettes, you know.

Try giving free handouts. My film class is now addicted, and the Australian Tea Tree Chewing Stick is the preferred drug of filmmakers and critics in the Lehigh Valley.

Or, as a friend of mine said, "It tastes like Meth. But I've been wrong before."

Ummmm....right. So what are these sticks, exactly?

A few things they are not:

1. Chopsticks

Yeah. No.

2. Toothpicks

They kind of are, actually. Really.

3. Dietary replacements for starving nations.

4. Large Hadron Particle Collider


No. This is what they are: Tea Tree(oil of melaleuca alternifolia) Australian Chewing Sticks, aka Birchwood impregnated with Tea Tree Oil and other natural extracts.

That is a direct quote from the package. I would never make an analogy between asexual derivatives of flora and products of sexual intercourse, now would I?

Didn't think so.

Anyway, we spent my latest Women Filmmakers class masticating.

Even my professor joined in, but not before complaining that it hindered her ability to teach with focus and concentration.

The flavor is...ohhhh Godddd....explosive. In your mouth.

And now I only have fifty left.

Love Song

If anyone knows the German word that is used to describe the anxious feeling you get by looking at open cabinets, let me know.

That's probably not a very semantically correct description, but it's the best I can do.

I have intended for some time now to write about my favorite love songs of the moment, so....

1) "Suzanne", by Judy Collins

This is weird in the same way that my cat liking plastic bags is weird. It's about crazy people "touching your perfect body with their minds". Yeah. Good song.

2) "Warning Sign", by Coldplay

Story of my life. Not really, I just like saying that. But it's what I play after I've suffered a breakup, or some shit like that.

3) "Mrs. Darcy", by whoever wrote the Pride and Prejudice soundtrack (I'm referring to the Focus Features film)

Or really the entire soundtrack. It's all a love song. I like to play it on the way to class, especially if I'm wearing pants tucked into leather riding boots.

4) "Let Me Take You Home Tonight", by Boston

Ok, not really a love song, per say. More like the "...in my pants" game we played when we were young teens. And still play, unabashedly, today.

5) Any of McCain's speeches








...







ummmm except not k I'm done now

Technology and Me

Realatively recently, I discovered the shuffle feature hidden away in my ipod mini. Learning to use it took some smarts, as I was stuck on shuffle for about a week's time, wrenched away from the peaceful-yet-devilishly clever lyrics of "A Very Cellular Song", by The Incredible String Band, and forced into cohabitation with the jubilant white noise of Boston's "Smokin'". Anthony taught me how to turn it on and off. That was very kind of him.

There are many things I don't understand concerning the practical functions of this world.

So this shuffle device, or whatever, has become what I like to call my co-conspirator in Getting Important Things Done. Or that's what I use as justification. Anyway, it saves me from myself, in that I don't need to take twenty minutes trying to match my music to my mood. It also releases me, in effect, from a self-induced ipod samsara* so that I don't spend valuable time singing the next song before it's even begun.

Then again, are my fellow shufflers and I reducing ourselves to being controlled by a machine? I mean, we can't pick our own music. Random properties controlled via machinery picks it for us. What next, automatic career selection? Mate selection?

It frightens me sometimes, thinking about how carelessly we let our autonomy slip free of our high human grasp.

*Samsara: Sanskrit for the ties that bind a soul to the earth, exemplefied by temptations such as finery, lust, and women (yeah, patriarchy still holds sway in Goddess-worshipping societies, too). In this case, I use it to refer to an unusual depth of ipod attachment.

Sedmikrasky

This image is from Vera Chytilova's brilliant 1966 film
Daisies (Sedmikrasky). Watch it, if only for the wonderful line "we're on fire!" and the subsequent banana castrations.

Watch it, and get back to me, and tell me whether I shouldn't be one of those two chicks for Halloween.

So I've been using these wax earplugs while sleeping because my suitemates cause daily avalanches with their vocal volume. I did laundry two days ago, and I found one of them in the dryer, blubbering all over my clothes. It was was just hot wax by that point. I contemplated using it as my personal seal. Anyone want it?

scholarly update

My return to school has encompassed impromptu Super Smash Brawl parties (more on that later), waking up earlier than one, and living with five men.

Trust me. It's not as raunchy as it sounds. Since I've arrived, I've managed to turn my favorite bead-bedecked camisole blue. I use this lemon and poppy seed cleanser each morning, so I feel like I'm slathering myself with a bagel every time I wash my face. I've linked onto other people's wireless systems, both with and without their knowledge (okay, mostly without), and one of the only times I truly feel needed is in my film classes, where I seem to have become resident expert on fetishization, penis envy, and fears related to castration.

There is a happy picture on my door that most usefully reveals my name to all who are ignorant of those blessed words; this picture also features a photograph of a rock formation and a sign adjacent to said formation which informs us that it is a "bottomless pit. 65 feet deep". The background of the photo has been crudely juxtaposed with the word fail.

It took me a while to get that.

Another thing I didn't get at first and still don't really understand is the fact that a recent photo I took of a bunch of, um, photos turned out backwards. Is it telling that I noticed this first because my cat's patch appeared on the wrong eye and only later realized that the writing on my French film flyer was backwards too? Lauren tells me that the cause of this inversion is the position of the camera. Yeah, whatever, Lauren.

I think the reason I don't understand that is the same reason that I can't pack suitcases or play tetrus or not just suck at life.

The State of the Union

A delightfully stretchy companion.

WOW that's a long elastic

A jubilant mother is not an uncommon sight in our household. Here she is in her spacious loft studio, excited at my record blogging streak of TWO WHOLE DAYS!

I wanted to write about something interesting, but I've forgotten what it was, so I'll just mention that last night I dreamt about tricking my captors into swimming in an oatmeal ocean as I escaped into a conveniently located forest.

Brilliant, I know.

I wish I was one of those just intrinsically fascinating people; you know, the kind that let it slip that they are Christian scholars of the Yiddish Theater, or experts on the taxonomy of the Falkland Islands.

I think I'll try to learn Yiddish. It would be nice if my brain was hard-wired to understand space-time continuoms, metaphysics, or suitcase packing, but I'll just have to accept my mediocre understanding of such things and focus my energy on....twig dissections.

What is the title of this Boondoggle?*

So I'm lazy. Sorry about that.

In addition to actually imbibing sloth itself, I have this nasty habit of blurting out (if one can blurt in print) the fact. Any attempt to shield from my public my inner nature is thus foiled from the get-go (does anyone else have the desire to take a cue from Petco and recite: "Getgo. Where the Gets go." Or is that just me?), and pretending purity of heart and prolificicity** becomes an instant sham.

I must also enlist my vast storehouse of mental and physical--the existence of the latter unfortunately in heated dispute--capabilities to refrain from beginning every post or line with common phrases such as 'The thing is', 'anyway', etc. because such language cannot possibly coincide with my brave, self-sacrificing mission to convince America that I am as smart as I appear to be.

Perhaps this verbal dodderage that clutters the beginnings of each post is simply my manner of um-ing my way through the bullshit that one must sort through before the final gem of a post.

And now that we're there--

But wait. It's not as if I don't know what to write; contrary to my long held belief that good stories are like classroom acquaintances (they only call you once a year when they're out with croup and they need the Geometry problem sets), I've found that they're actually a lot more like my friend Devin. Namely, they aim to hug at all possible opportunities.

Maybe I'm just frightened. I like that word. It's so quaint. Someone who uses the word 'frightened' can't possibly have much to be afraid of, don't you think? Only people from, like, eighteenth century England used that word. Not like the rest of this post at all.





* Boondoggle n. v. 1. Work of little value done merely to keep or look busy. 2. to do such work.
Post title inspired (who am I kidding, directly stolen from) mother's reading, after which she exclaimed "What is the title of this Boondoggle?"

Neither of us knew the meaning of this word.






**Spellcheck (i.e. my mother) informs me that the word is actually 'proliferation'. And my imbecility comes out again in the form of (a) spelling mishaps and (b) the fact that I informed you of said spelling mishap.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Lt3uDIKmm0

I'm a little hungry

I can't read what I'm typing, so if I misspell, misspeak, or misbehave I think forgiveness is in order. Why this sudden stroke of blindness? I have a MacBook Pro!!!! And the font is so tiny I can't read it and still haven't figured out how to MAKE IT BIGGER than that. Although I'm sure you're reading this just fine. 

But it's okay because I get to be Andy Warhol!

Rampant Mongoose Storms Iceland!

Soon I will add photography and other unheard-of delicacies to this blog. Soon meaning in the next 39870 days. Or when I feel like it.

Like now. Three dolls.

I was cataloging DVDs at work today and came across one called The Big Sheep.

Hmmm. One sheep or many?

And then I realized that it was called The Big Sleep.

And that was my day at work.

The Place Between

"I've been all over the world since you called," my mom gushes into the phone to an old friend.

This is a bit of an overstatement, unless you also believe Montana, our home state, and Oregon, where we've been on vacation, make up the entire world. Disclaimer--we don't live in Montana, and we didn't vacation in Oregon, but I don't want to give away my actual location. I mean, God, you already know where I go to school. I don't want to issue a bona fide stalker invitation.

Um, so we have been traveling a bit. Home and all else kind of blended together; driving sleepily down the highways I would lay claim to towns. "Chesterton," I'd think, "We have one of those, too," before realizing that it was my own. And that I'm in my piece of the world after all.

When I think about it, I realize that I have a certain fondness for journey films anchored in the distance between. Cold Mountain, Seven Years in Tibet, Far and Away, even A Little Princess. And I remember being twelve and coming home from Cape Cod and blinking with the exhaustion of home sickness, eyes trailing lines on a map. And then you get home and settled in and it is only a matter of minutes before you look at your couches, your sunny walls, and sigh to leave again.

Herbalhead games

Yeah, so I haven't been lazy or anything with blog upkeep these past few weeks. I don't answer to anyone but... my mom.

I have been keeping plenty busy. For example, this evening I spent several seconds puzzling over my Herbal Essences drama clean refreshing shampoo conditioner answer. Here's the thing: apparently in a (decidedly lame) effort to cross-promote the brand's conditioner, Clairol has taken to printing random useless factoids ("Herbalhead games") on its shampoo and conditioner bottles in the form of question and answer. Thus on my current bottle I find the alluring "On average, who do you talk to more than anyone else? Find out on Drama Clean Conditioner", flanked by the even more captivating and mysterious "Conditioner answer: pants".

Wouldn't the answer differ from person to person? I talk to my cat more than anyone else, but I doubt this fact will be recognized as universal*. And though I'm mildly intrigued as to what could provoke the egregiousness of 'pants' I'm not going to drive to the A&P to find out. At least not tonight.

*disclaimer: I made that up. I only talk to my cat occasionally.

awkward

I have almost nothing to say. It is difficult to comment on my life because the most interesting parts of it, ie my internship and volunteer positions, are off-limits for web discussion and other canoodling.

Just know that when speaking with a filmmaker today I got his name wrong three times and in an attempt to thank him, say goodbye, and assure him that I enjoyed his film I spewed out a steaming conglomeration of non-sequitor, amounting to something like "blarye!"

Yeah. I know.

At least I know how much change I should give back when tickets are seven dollars and they hand me a twenty!

I can count! That's right! And I don't care if I figured it out on my fingers, it still counts.

er.

Waaaaaahhhhhh!!!! 2 (or I don't want to go home yet)

Two and a half days.

That is the dregs that remain of my freshman year of college.

WTFFF??? Where did it all go?

And this is the third time I've been sick this semester (the first was during midterms, the second came about randomly weeks later, and now it's finals week and guess what?)

Seriously, though. I only started blogging in October, and it feels like I've been doing it forever, so why does the rest of the year seem so short?

Please forgive my clumsy diction. I'm just so astounded that friends, classes, food, heartbreak, and joy could dissolve into such a fine point of light.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

Enough Said.

No title. Just Read.

So what makes a brothel a brothel?

My sleepless nights are fraught with such semantic dilemmas.

I reason that a brothel could be defined as a building where women are paid to have sex with men.

Or perhaps it's like pornography: I can't define it, but I know it when I see it.



Or perhaps it's none of the above.

According to Pennsylvania law, a brothel must

a) house more than four women

and

b) contain a kitchen.


This is apparently why sorority houses on my campus don't have kitchens and are required to keep records of all male guests.

So that's what makes a brothel a brothel. A kitchen.

See, if I were the police, I wouldn't be worrying so much about kitchens. I'd be checking out the houses with six straight men and two straight women, all unrelated. Kitchen optional.

But since this is not considered a brothel, and because it's allowed in the college dormitory system, I am happy to announce that this is exactly who I'll be living with next year.

Heh. heh.

P.S. We're all straight, but don't worry--we have strictly platonic relationships.

Passover Weekend

Good news: I have pictures. Or rather, my mom has pictures. They have not yet made their way through the anti-primordial world of cyberspace to my inbox to this page. This is because my mom took the pictures with her camera, which is at home, and hopefully connected to the Internet at this very moment in anticipation of the hard, cold, tumble-of-a-journey.*

So they're coming. Ye must be patient.

In other news, I am a bad Jew.

I suppose that is semantically twisted, because I'm only half-Jewish, on my father's side. And in Jewish law, the mother must be Jewish for the child to be Jewish.

But that's beside the point. I've been eating egg matzo for passover for the last few days, and I've been enjoying it. So this morning, I have nothing better to do than to read the side of the box, which informs me:

Egg Matzos may be eaten only by the infirmed, aged, or children according to Shulchan Aruch.

Ooops. I can't talk my way out of this one.

And who's Shulchan Aruch?

Rehearsal for Murder

My stomach is all wiggly. Rehearsal for Murder debuts at 10:00 tonight.

I will try to post pictures of the show for all you who couldn't make it.

Sorry that this is a boring post.

Okay, I'll make that sentence more interesting: I am most distressed that my individual words have caved into themselves in lieu of fornicating and giving birth to most delightful sentences.

Enough for now.

A look at the inner workings of my Hypothalamus

First, find my key. There's only so many places this bitch could be.

That wasn't supposed to rhyme, but I suppose I can't complain. I love music and movies so much that I think I'll make this entire post stream of consciousness. Won't that be a delight for you all to read?

I thought so.

If one's mind was spotless, truly spotless, how could one learn? Would not one continue making the same mistakes, cracking the same ice, jumping the fire? I thought as much, and apparently so does Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which I watched for the first time ten minutes ago. When I was about seven, I would lay in bed for hours wondering if I had really always been myself in my environment or if I had been kidnapped and my memory erased. Each second was an untrusted sentinel. I did not depend on my memory, but I never thought to write down my thoughts for proof.

This is all making sense in my head. Sorry you have to suffer through it. Or are you in my head, too? Hmmmm? You're all in my head, aren't you?

My fingers feel like they have been pricked at the tips with super-sharp toothpicks. I'm learning how to play the Ukulele again, and my calluses are still developing. Last night I dreamed that I forced people under glass partitions on couches and propelled them into an alternate universe. It was cathartic, until a golden snake the size of Route 22 rose from a pit of incense and bit me on the index finger of my left hand with its fangs burnished gold as well.

According to my mother, this is auspicious. According to me, it's kinda fucking weird. But I prefer to agree with her on this one, if only because my mind does not appreciate the prospect of being categorized as hyper unusual during REM stages.

I shook Barack Obama's hand last Monday, and thanked him for supporting arts education. He looked me straight in the eye and said, "you're welcome".

It can only go downhill from there.

I should be working right now

My eyes are tired. And this is only my forty second post.

Did you know the Swedish word for "End" is "Slut"?

I am Famous

I have devised a plot such that whenever people think of Heath Ledger or Bill Clinton my shining face comes right to mind.

Such that:
+

=

Wow. Formatting that was more arduous than standing in line for three hours and waiting for Bill Clinton to show up.

Anyway, I am always the first to know about anything that concerns Bill and Heath. When Heath died (and though I didn't know him, I was sad because I felt like I was getting old, you know? Because I actually am familiar with his work, not like when my parents are like, "Ramana Panaluke died today, how sad, such a valued member of the Purple Eggs." Or whatever. It makes me feel old, you get the point.) I was the first to spread the news. "Did you hear that Jen cheated on Max?" the girls in the industrial bathroom would flit. "Did you hear that Heath Ledger DIED?!?!?" I'd reply, thinking that I would become the official source of gossip.

"Who's Heath Ledger?"

Ummmmm.....what?

If you don't know who he is, look him up. I'm not that much of an anti-pop culture nerd not to have heard of this dude. And some of his films were excellent.

There went my gossip dreams. But I like to imagine that my face, flushed yet apporpriately solemn as the occasion demanded, is (to them) inexplicably tied with the birth of Heath in their impoverished minds. I am Heath Ledger.

More on Bill later. I'm going to watch my friends play video games and comment on how artificial and pseudo-hipster they all are.

Not Being in Mexico

So, along the lines of The Best Cruise I Never Took I give you The Best Film I Never Saw: No Country for Old Men.

Or, as my dad mistakenly termed it, No Room for Old Men. Which captures the literal meaning, of course, but really skimps on the poetics. Unless it's a eccentric allusion to the birth of Jesus.

Also known as No Country for Cold Men.

Finally, No Tree for Old Men.

Okay. I'll shut up on the doppelgangers now. Promise.

My dad pointed out that the film had gotten only the best reviews from the nation's top critics. Which are, of course, men, but that's obviously beside the point.

Then I found out that No Country for Old Men is a visual representation of a Cormac McCarthy novel. Since most of All the Pretty Horses was comprised of a baffilingly post-modernist lack of quotation marks, untranslated Spanish, and landscape descriptions that each contained the phrase "And the grass, and the trees, and the horses...", I wasn't expecting much.

I watched the trailer.

I watched the trailer and read one of the [male] reviews, which describe it as "bleak, scary, and violent." I have come to terms with the fact that I can only face one of those three ghouls at a time, so I decided not to go. I did appreciate the author's description of Javier Bardem, something along the lines of a Beatle gone wrong.

My fanatically intelligent film professor says that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly really got snubbed. I totally agree.

A childish post to satisfy my childish whims

First of all, I'm not going to Mexico. More on that later. Second of all, I'm going to make my MTA debut (that's Muhlenberg Theatre Association) as Monica Welles in Rehearsal for Murder. I'm the lovely leading lady who gets bumped off, hopefully not within the first five minutes.

But I'm not going to Mexico. If you don't know what I'm talking about, don't ask (except you, Maddie, I'll tell you soon). But it's really ok, because now I get to write a David Sedaris-style story called "The Best Cruise I Never Went On" or something like that. Except without the awkward placement of the preposition. Sorry.

Now I'm going to go to bed! Or maybe write more for my essay on The Seventh Seal. Oh, Bergman. Honestly, if you invite a bunch of people to your house during a wicked thunderstorm and everyone's completely unwired and freaked out, do you really think it's a good idea to read them excerpts from The Book of Revelation?!?! Honestly, Ingmar. And the Lamb opened the Seventh Seal, and there was silence in heaven for the space of about half an hour.

And then someone farted. Only not. Oh, I need to go to bed.

Bleach? Blechh...

We are excited to announce that Blogger is now available in three more languages: Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian!!!!

Okay, it didn't really have that many exclamation points. But it's just so exciting.

My hands went swimming today.

I washed some towels, and since I lack the comfort and assistance of a measuring cup, I opened the bleach bottle and just let it slosh. It spiraled into the washer like vomit.

If vomit was clear and smelled like chlorine.

I just wrote "vomint". Heh.

Yeah, about that...

So much to post, so little time.

I mean it. I'm sorry, but I have to concentrate on Tech week for this play I'm in.

Yeah...but I promise I'll have LOTS to say when this is all over (and I really mean that, too, I'm keeping a list.*)

But for now, buh bye.

*Yeah, I just admitted, once again, that I am a total nerd.

Blood Will be Spilt II

I realized a little while ago that a pit doesn't always have to be bottomless. Does that mean that my stomach has a pit? I don't believe so. To me, a pit is something that's between 15 feet and 15,000 feet deep. And though my ability to consume entire pizzas in one sitting may lead others to believe that my small frame belies one whopper of a pit, I think my stomach is a little shorter than 15 feet. Although, maybe with the intestines...

Anyway. People use 'pit' in lots of strange ways. The pit of my stomach. The bottomless pit. Brad Pitt. The pit of a fruit.

That's about it.

Um.

So, who wants to know what classes I'm taking this semester?!?!

1. Film 388: Major Filmmakers: Antonioni and Bergman
2. Theater 262: Costume Design I
3. Music 902: Voice lessons
4. Physical Education 050: Principles of Fitness and Wellness
5. Math 104: Statistical Methods
6. First Year Seminar 250: Wearing the Uniform

Wow...I ranked them without even noticing. My favorite is one, and my least favorite...well, you get the idea. Anyway, they're great. And there's not much more I can say in case my professors are on the prowl.

However...

I must say that my Antonioni and Bergman class is quite possibly the most dynamic, heart-racingly thrilling class I've taken. This is probably due to the fact that it's an elective, so everyone who's taking it wants to...take it. We saw The Seventh Seal last week (a chick flick about furry little LA water park animals...only not...) and L'avventura (which is, like, fashion conscious and more like The Rules of the Game than anything I've seen before).

Yeah, so...watch them. But I'd def recommend The Seventh Seal, especially if you're a Woody Allen fan. Then you must watch the latter's Love and Death.

More on classes later...I have to apply for summer internships.

Oh, but first...I titled this blog because I didn't remember writing a Blood Will be Spilt part I, but the little thingy that fills in your words for you when you type did.

I hope you know what I'm talking about.

Quote of the day:

Jarred (my director): So, as you can see, this script still has a lot of kinks I need to work out.

Me: Yeah, it's pretty kinky.

Protein drinks are delicious

Okay, so I'm getting that funky feeling in the pit of my stomach that usually means I should start my homework. It doesn't help either that I'm using cliches (ie "the pit of my stomach", which doesn't actually make sense unless the stomach is 1. a fruit or 2. bottomless.) I also know that I'm getting nervous because I'm fraying the ends of my hair with the ends of my frighteningly sharp fingernails (and, yes, I realize that the use of such a banal word as "ends" should be used only once in any professional document. Heh).

And as much as I really want to stop writing right now, and possibly as much as you want me to stop writing right now, I really must continue or give in to that mountain of poisonous lasagna that some call homework.

Oh, yeah, I'd like to thank Anthony for his delightfully serious guest blog. THE REST OF YOU SHOULD ALL BE ASHAMED!!! Especially you,
Kim, as I have reason to believe you have not read my blog in weeks. And if that is indeed the case, that last sentence was pointless, but, you know...
PEOPLE! GUEST BLOG! Maybe if you guys write enough shit I won't have to try to be funny ever again.

Um.

So I can have a more diverse selection of writings for people's browsing pleasure. Especially in this voluptuous digital age.

Yes, voluptuous. Thought it was a stupid adjective last time, too, didn't you?

Here's a list of things on my desk (I'm really getting desperate, can you tell?):

1. Shampoo (Did you know shampoo comes from the Hindi fasdfpoje;loikhjfoijuramampanaluke? Not really, but it comes from the Hindi something or other.
2. Conditioner!!! (one bottle, from the English 'to condition'.)
3. A book called Brooklyn.
4. A notebook for class
5. twelve folders, of different colors and featuring different kittens.
6. A protein drink (in a glass, not just in lake form on my desk)
7. A box of contact stuff
8. A hairbrush
9. A cellphone (turned off, so I can isolate myself in the hopes of getting stuff done. Pretty unlikely, seeing as I spent the last two hours taking a nap and am likely to spend the next two...collecting tea strainers.
10. a hair dryer
11. a picture of Monet.
12. A picture of my eldest cat. (try to guess where I already mentioned this!)
13. post-its, upside down.
14. Toothpaste
15. ipod charger
16. Ricola wrapper, empty (like my heart)
17. Shampoo bottle #2, full (like my stomach)
18. printer
19. Bulletin board
20. Tissue box devoid of tissues, now used as temporary housing for dirty dishes.
21. Lavender pillow.

I saw The Little Mermaid with Anthony and Lauren last night. I haven't seen it since I was about 8, but I still think it strange that I managed to forget the scene where Ursula like, turns into a giant bobo doll and makes the waves move with her giant trident.

Heh. More on that later.

P.S. spell check tried to make me change bobo to boob. Wouldn't be the wrong choice, really, considering the context.

P.P.S. Please comment with a list of whatever's on YOUR desk.

Because Katie Wanted Me To Write A Blog Post...

So, here I am, sitting in Katie's room, exposing her to the wonderful world of improv that is Whose Line is it Anyway?, when she asks me to write a guest entry on her blog. "Write about anything," she says candidly, "as long as I can check it when you're finished." So I suppose that I won't be talking about such delightful topics as naked ladies and regicide.

No, the topic of today's post is an observation of culture - or lack thereof. Some will remember a few months back, when Newsweek magazine did a cover article on Amazon.com. More specifically, the subject was Amazon’s newest device that was about to be unleashed unto world – the Kindle, the company’s version of the eBook. In bold, red letters on the front of the magazine, ominous words stared back at me, challenging the very foundations of the reality I knew: Reinventing the Book.

Truly, this has to be the greatest insight into contemporary Western life as we know it. And what a cruel, despicable observation it is! Think of it. We live in a society where the most basic, tangible foundation of knowledge, the written page, is under siege for “improvement.” How does one improve the perfect invention ever to grace the face of this earth? Its design is flawless; it requires no handbook to operate; it’s extremely easy to store; it’s the original ultraportable device; not to mention that it has made possible for the common man to access knowledge, the greatest treasure in all of history.

But now, we are told that this timeless object is in dire need of revamping. The insidious tentacles of the technological age have reached the last bastion of a long-forgotten way of life. We go to the supermarket, get some lettuce, tomatoes and other vegetables, go home and make ourselves a nice salad in the middle of December. But think of a time not too long ago – not a few hundred years past – when our ancestors had to harvest their own crops, keep their own livestock, survive by the plow and hammer. Now, the computers and airplanes, the light bulb and the motorcar, and a slew of other shiny metal contraptions are things that we consider to be normal necessities. In our lust for comfort, we have sacrificed what it truly means to be a part of this world.

The rape of the book by the digital age is the crowning achievement, in my mind, of our time. It is the final conquest that needed to be made, the final convenience, for the rabble of society to fully forget what they have lost. Now we can sit in our Starbucks, sipping on our grande peppermint cappuccinos with skim milk, listening to our iPods, watching Hondas and Toyotas speed past, and read Vanity Fair from our eBooks.

It’s disgusting. This fetish with the latest, newest, most cutting-edge materialistic trends is undeniably the root of many of society’s ills. The mantra is, “Whoever has the most toys, wins.” Our fascination with the question, “What shall I do today to buy more shit?” needs to be overcome by the infinitely more important question of, “What shall I do today to help my fellow man?”

Ayn Rand, in her magnum opus Atlas Shrugged, observed that the world was in need of selfishness to overcome the orgy of self-sacrifice. Now, I believe, the opposite is true.

Goddess help us.

-Anthony

The short post

According to blogspot, Hindi translitaration was one of "the fun things we've done since 2007".

And how can you contest that?

In that light, watching Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal was one of the fun things I've done since 2007.

Nancy Drew and the Crooked Couch, Part I

I logged on to blogspot, like I do every day, hoping to be struck by inspiration. I let my mind take on the role of a net, searching for sights and sounds, but finding only scattered newspapers and the sounds of smacking, which inform me none too gently that it is lunchtime in this part of the world. I search for hours (OK, more like 1.46 seconds) and find nothing that inspires...um, inspiration.

Then I saw the couch.

Had it always been this gray? My first thought echoed through my mind and hinted at a path of luminescent hilarity. I leaned closer and began peering. Yes, it was distinctly gray. Though originally as colorful as the English garden on which it was modeled, it now bears more of a resemblance to a bulging eye bag. My peering continued. The decaying flap of skin that was once the skirt of the chair is certainly a veritable shade of dust that even the shag-carpeted 70s would have considered passe. I peered at the couch and it peered back at me. We had a bona fide peering contest. Then I brushed my hand against its quivering, wrinkled surface and came away with a strip of cat fur that sat vertically in my hand like an anorexic Brownstone. I rolled it vigorously between my fingertips, wondering what would become of me. What would become of us all?

End of Part I (ie I'm frickin hungry and don't want to finish this crap right now)

Meh.

Srsly, there isn't much happening here. Almost makes me want to go back to school, even back to that industrial plant posing as a dorm bathroom. My life (which I just misspelled as "lice"--is there a word for a written Freudian slip? Just kidding.) is now equal to the sum of the following:

1. Dried fruit: apples, pineapples, and mangoes (the latter of which I had to take back to the store because they contained sulfur dioxide or some shit like that)
2. Silent Cinema book (thanks, Anthony!)
3. Datebook (which is surprisingly full considering I feel like nothing is going on in my life)
4. Wednesday, January 9th!!! (of which only a select few Muhlenbergers know the significance)
5. Flaky ears (apparently the shampoo at the hair salon gave me something akin to a chemical burn)
6. Lack of sleep (from pillow friction against said flaky ears)
7. Chocolate-covered blueberries (they speak for themselves)
8. Maddie (once in person, once in my dreams)
9. Hipster
10. Love Actually