Of the characters I'm familiar with, definitely Catherine Morland. We're both romantics (of the non-lovey variety). Seriously, if I were taken to Northanger Abbey, I would have jumped to the same conclusion about the General and his wife. And what I wouldn't do for a Henry Tilney!

Je ne sais pas. It sounds so much better than "I don't know". And "c'est vrai".

Note to self: take more baths. The last time (other than tonight) that I had one was during the ice storm in January, and then it was lukewarm at best. 

I took a walk along the edges of our fields today and I feel all buggy. C'est terrible. 

What else is awful is that my little brother is graduating high school Saturday. We're getting old... :(

Something not awful: The Sims 3 is coming out soon! I can't hardly wait!

Seriously, what family of five (or four when one is at his apartment) needs a bag of boneless chicken breasts in bulk? Or a million pound thing of ground beef? And then more meat on top of that when they already have enough to last a while? And, for Christ's sake, no one family would ever need THAT many strawberries. Ever. In like a whole year, we would never need that many. I guess this is why women do the shopping. And on top of my dad's and brother's brainless grocery excursion, they didn't want to bring in the sacks all by themselves! It was like ten sacks (and two boxes of strawberries, but I'm not counting those). My mom and I could have brought that much in by ourselves in one load each. 

And my older brother...He got an apartment because he wanted to get out of the house. Where's he been for the past week? Here, at the house. If I had an apartment, I wouldn't be here, that's for sure. At church Sunday, he wouldn't let his three-year-old daughter have cookies. I mean, what the hell? All kids eat in church; that's how they stay quiet. 

Enough of that. So I was in a wedding last night and the groomsman I walked with is gorgeous. He's half Mexican and half Puerto Rican, which is a really good combination, just fyi. 

I'm going to go attempt to remove my nails now. Here's to hoping. 

I'm going to see Angels & Demons tonight. Exciting. Especially since I've been wanting a movie made out of that book for about five years now. It's better than The da Vinci Code, but, honestly, I can't remember what goes on in it. How awful of me.

I went and got my nails done for the first time yesterday. Not sure I'm liking it. It's nearly impossible to scratch an itch, but I ended up filing them down a lot so they're not as annoying now. The guy who did them (who has to have the most disgusting nails of anyone in that business) slopped on the clear nail polish. It's all bubbly and such and I don't know if I can remove it or not.... And I paid twelve bucks for the guy to put white polish on the ends of my toes. What a waste. I could have done that myself. Well, you live and you learn.

You know how sometimes when you're reading something or talking and you read or say the exact same thing that was in a song or on TV at like the exact same time? I love that, but every once in a while it's a little weird. Like several weeks ago I was reading and "Oh, goody." came up. My niece was watching TV at the time (I think it was Oswald) and he said "Oh, goody." Where the fuck do you ever hear "oh, goody"? And just now I read "Fear for my safety." and those same words played in a song on TV at the same moment. Like I said, sometimes it gets weird.

I realized today that I haven't strived for an A all semester. It's been coming to this since I started college. I was a straight A student in high school (except for geometry [my teacher taught us about her grown children and then tested us on geometry] and physics), and Bs have been disappointing until this semester. I got a 90.5 on an exam and was excited. And an 86.5 on a presentation and was quite pleased. 

I named my (and my mom's and niece's) new beta fish Ranger after Ranger in the Stephanie Plum books. It doesn't really fit because the fish is white and purple and blue, but I just had to do it. 

I no longer have any homework to worry with for the rest of the semester. Which is only one day + one week + three days of exams, but still. It feels good to have all my homework finished ahead of schedule, ¿sabes? I just have to write a six page paper over The God of Small Things. Six pages is a bit daunting for me, but it'll be a sinch. And it's not due until May 6, so I don't have to worry about it for a while yet. I could probably skip all of my classes next week, but I need to go to art and Spanish in order to pass their respective exams. God, I'm glad for this semester to be over. 

I've been exercising lately. Not a lot, or very heart-pumping activities, but still. I need to lose a little bit of fat if I want to fit into my bridesmaid dress and eat at the same time. It's mostly been ab workouts. I also spend a lot of time on my thighs, too. They're fat. If anyone's got a good inner-thigh workout, hit me up. I've really only got one that feels like it's working. 

So, that's what I'm proud of. Although, I just scarfed down a personal pan cheese pizza faster than you can say, "scarf down a personal pan pizza." And there's a baby Twix and several Tootsie Roll Frooties waiting for me. I'll double up for penance today or tomorrow. Actually, does it sort of get cancelled out if I ate half of a chicken and Lite Ranch wheat wrap and some steamed vegetables for lunch?

A God-of-Small-Things-God-of-Loss-shaped hole in the Universe.

I've got a sick headache something awful. I feel like I could upchuck this tomato soup any minute. Probably I should have made some real food, but I didn't feel like it. The headache is from crying while watching Buffy season five, where Joyce dies, because
A) It's sad
and
B) I couldn't help but think of my mom.
I would be completely lost without her. I mean, I don't know what I'll do when I move out even. She takes care of everything in my life.

I had to read a book for one of my classes called "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy. (Which is where the title to this post comes from, and which makes more sense if you've read the book.) It's pretty amazing. Definitely not an airplane read - it's heavy in just about every way you could imagine. There's so much going on in it, and the timeline is reminiscent of Faulkner, and you don't really have a chance to get too attached to any one character, but they all end up meaning something to you. With the exception of one, my opinions changed about all the characters. Some, by the end of the book I thought, "How on earth could you do that? And to him?" Or not necessarily "him"", but he's one of them. And one character I didn't like until the end of the book. Not that I didn't understand her, I just didn't like the things she did.
Anyway, I recommend this book. It made me not want to read anything for a bit, which, to me, means I've read something special.

Actually, on the whole, I'd recommend everything the professor of that class has assigned us, poems, to short stories, to novels. He's a real worldly guy. He's been around the world a couple of times or maybe more. He's seen the sights, he's had delights on every foreign shore. Enough singing. But really, he has had his fair share of travels and he's a great professor. I hope he sticks around for a while so I might have the chance to have him again.
He's one of the few professors who I've especially enjoyed having. One of the others is leaving after this semester. I probably wouldn't have been able to have her again, but still.

Tonight is the last night of Life on Mars (US). I hate how the shows that are actually good get cancelled. I guess it's not really a show you could follow unless you watched the first few episodes. I'm still not sure if I want Sam to return to the present or stay in 1973. I mean, he'll lose something either way.
I guess I'm satisfied with the ending. Definitely not what I expected. Surely not what anyone expected. I'll take it, anyway.

I haven't seen my roommate in three weeks. I wonder if I just repel people. The same thing happened with my last roommate, too. I mean, I don't smell bad, I'm hygienic, I clean regularly, I don't make a big fuss over things. Not that I especially mind her absence - I quite enjoy solitude - it's just, really?


Directed to: The God of Loss the God of Small Things Velutha with a brown leaf on his black back (that makes the monsoons come on time).


(I feel rather blasphemous about capitalizing "god" when I'm not actually talking about God, but that's how Roy wrote it.)

I've been in the same routine since the middle of January. It's kind of getting me down. Not like depressed, just bored. I don't have any friends at college any more, and I've mostly just been talking in my classes, and not a whole lot at that. In fact, I speak more Spanish these days than English. Sad, no? I've even taken to calling my mom in hopes that she'll start a real conversation. But I just got a roommate yesterday so now I have someone to talk to. She seems nice enough.

Aside from my month and a half long silent solitude, I've been trying to stay away from the Internet. I mean, yeah, I still get on (obviously), just not as much. It's a rather unproductive activity, to sit in front of a computer all the time. I'm not much on TV either, I just have my few shows, but the TV usually stays on, and I've been watching BTVS season four and trying to read some books. Since I have been taking up these entertainments, I've felt kind of bad for not doing anything really useful, and now I'm ahead on my homework, which is good, but I feel like I need to keep at it and spend all my afternoons with my nose in a book or my fingers glued to the keyboard. *shrug* I'm not really that dedicated, though.

Kind of on that line: The other day on Perez, he posted something about how much time the average American spends watching TV in a week or year, and he was like, "That's FIVE hours a day!!! How can anyone spend five hours watching TV every day? Spending five hours on the Internet is better!" WTF, mate? It's so not. Sometimes he's crazy. 

Lastly, does anyone else admire Michelle Obama as much as me? She's seems like a really great woman. I'd love to meet her.

For one of my classes we had an extra credit option to write an extension on Joyce Carol Oates's story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?". I strongly suggest you read the story. It gets better every time. And you should probably read it if you plan on reading my continuation - there are a lot of references to what she wrote.
There's a lot of speculation about the story, about Arnold being Bob Dylan, the devil, a dream. Pretty much whatever you can think of. I went with him being like Bob Dylan, and I intended to make it a dream, but changed my mind, so if there's anything that looks like it's hinting at a dream, it was.
The last two paragraphs Oates wrote are in italics.

 

     She put out her hand against the screen. She watched herself push the door slowly open as if she were back somewhere in the other doorway, watching this body and this head of long hair moving out into the sunlight where Arnold Friend waited.
     "My sweet little blue-eyed girl," he said, in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.

     She left the other doorway behind and was back in herself as she walked with him to his gold convertible. Ellie was hopping into the backseat on the driver’s side. Arnold led Connie to the passenger seat using her as a crutch. The gravel was digging into her bare feet so she looked down in hopes of finding flat-looking rocks and saw that his feet did not really pick up, they just sort of slid. Across that side of the jalopy was painted IT”S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE. She made a noise that could have been a laugh. The song that had been popular the year before was playing in Ellie’s radio and she knew what was coming for her.

     “You okay? Get in, we gotta go,” Arnold said. He looked over the town again and gave her a little shove. She wondered what her family would think when they found out she was not at home, then she wondered what it would matter to her when she was dead.

     She put her hand on the door and thought about what would happen if she ran. Arnold Friend could barely stand on his own, let alone run. Maybe that was what Ellie was for. Was there a gun? She figured there would be – it would be stupid for them to do this without one.

     “Hey. Get in, sweetheart. You ain’t worried, are you? You’ll love me. Promise. I’m your lover.” She believed he could have been singing and she obeyed. She was already out of the house, anyway.

     Ellie Oscar turned the volume on his radio up when Arnold started the car and went down the drive. He turned it even louder when they hit the road. The music was behind Connie, reaching her ears in the odd way that happens when the fade in a car stereo gets screwed up. She had a hard time hearing the music over the wind, but she could tell when Bobby King was talking.

     Arnold was talking, too. She looked at him and was struck by the senseless thought that he was not as creepy sitting down. He was saying something about how he would love her and be inside her and how she would love him, but she tried not to pay attention. He grabbed her knee where it both hurt and tickled and asked, “What do you think about that? Hey, you listening?”

     Connie made a jerky nod with her head and forced a smile. She managed to find her voice, whether it was the one she used around her house or out of it, she could not tell. “So, where are we going?”

     “It’s a secret, honey.”

     “Who am I going to tell? Ellie?”

     “Nah, forget Ellie. He’s a dope.” He looked at her and squeezed her knee again and gave a little smile. His sunglasses were on and his make-up was melting in the heat. She didn’t like either and wished they did not hide his face. She tried to listen to whatever song was playing on the radio but Bobby King came back on and Arnold Friend started talking about how great he was. Connie thought for the second time about how he sounded like the man on the radio.

     Arnold eventually stopped driving. They were a long way down a dirt road between a field and a wood. He told Ellie to get out and keep watch. She watched as Ellie walked away. He strutted in time with the music that was becoming faint but she could still make out the song, and Arnold was singing along flawlessly. Connie stared at him while he was singing and tapping his fingers to the music. She thought he had nice hands and she liked the way his mouth shaped each word. When his fingers and mouth ceased moving towards the end of the song he took off his sunglasses, wiped the sweat and make-up from his face with his arms, and looked at her. She liked the blue of his eyes.

     She was scared and excited and her breath was coming out in gusts. He put one of his perfect hands on her face and kissed her. She was going to love him and she would not have to pretend.

     The song was still playing from Ellie’s radio. Go to him now, he calls you, you can't refuse. When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose. Arnold Friend’s whisper lilted in her ear, “How does it feel, how does it feel, how does it feel, how does it feel,” ignoring the rest of the song and her sighed answer. 

This made my day:

And the staff? Will it be made out of non-Asian wood?


Well, if you know anything of the controversy surrounding the rumored cast of "The Last Airbender" this makes more sense.



The subject title is from Pinocchio, by the way. I sounded like a complete goof when I read that thread.

Easy.
Hogwarts Hogwarts Hoggy Warty Hogwarts...

"Please share my umbrella."

It's not so much a question, but all the same. And it would have to be in those words, and preferably said by a man because this is the request that would win over my heart more than anything.

 I've gotten five paper cuts over the past week. Five. Two of them are right next to each other on top of a cuticle, two are on my knuckles, and one is in the bend of a pinky.  How is it that I can go weeks or months without getting a paper cut, and then, out of nowhere, it's like I've been working in a paper factory? 

Anyway, How Clean Is Your House?: US! I'd love to meet those ladies. 

Oh, and fyi, you can download books on podcasts on iTunes for free! Lit2Go is a good source if you're looking for books you read in school.

Step 1: Put your music player on shuffle.
Step 2: Post the first line (unless the first line reveals the song title) from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing.
Step 3: Strike through the songs when someone guesses both artist and song title correctly.

1) I was born in a factory, far away from the milky teat
2) Close your eyes, and I'll be swimming
3) So here's the truth, you were right all along
4) (a bunch of ohs) You only hold me up like this 'cause you don't know who I really am
5) Just think of this and me as just a few of the many things
6) This may never start, we could fall apart
7) So glad to see you well, overcome them
8) (Ohs) No sleep, no sleep until I'm done with finding the answer
9) Sucker love is heaven sent
10) There's no consolation prize, there's no prize for a consolation
11) You're not in this alone, let me break this awkward silence
12) I'm giving up the ghost of love
13) Will someone please call the surgeon
14) Eerie whispers trapped beneath my pillow
15) Follow me, come on you know me, yeah, into the blue
16) Now we're broken on the floor (she just wants me to share her)
17) I want to believe in myself once again, so I dream of a man whose hopes never end
18) I haven't been quite the same, so sure the story of my life would never change.
19) I was so high I did not recognize the fire burning
20) Where can a sick man go when he can't choke down the medicine.

How can a day suck? Let me count the ways....

1) So, I woke up this morning before my alarm went off with a crick in my neck. I rolled over hoping it would go away and that I could get at least twenty more minutes of sleep. Yet as soon as I situated myself, my alarm went off. Of all the luck (which I never have).

2) My dorm is fucking freezing. I mean, seriously, the heat is set to seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. It should not be cold.

3) A website I help with is working on getting a photo gallery, and today I was going through what felt like thousands of pictures for it, saving them and uploading them to Photobucket. Right, so, thousands of pictures later, I realized that I'm not even seeing half of what they should be. Damn. It. To. Hell. Hours wasted.

4) So, I wanted to study abroad next summer in England. I wanted to take a class over Harry Potter, how awesome would that be. As that's a class that fills up fast, I decided to send in my application over a month ago. Right, great. A few weeks ago ( a couple weeks after I had turned in the application) some woman emailed me saying that she needed my most recent grades for the app. so I sent her what the PIN system has. Right, great, a couple weeks isn't that big of a deal. Two more weeks later the woman emailed me again saying that I didn't send my grades right, and that I should copy and paste the whole page on PIN with my grades and email it to her. Right. A month. Fuck you, woman. Be a little quicker with your damn emails. And today she emailed me again saying that what she really needed was my GPA, which should be with my grades on PIN. Right. It's not there, woman. She also said that I should just get a transcript (which is like impossible here) and mail it to her. Right. Fuck it. Fuck CCSA. Now I'm not going to study abroad. Well, at least that saves me about $6,000, plus spending money.

5) Why, oh why, must my hand (and only the right hand) get dry? I've never had dry skin before October, and now my poor right hand could be featured in one of those lotion commercials that use alligators to compare to dry skin.

It's amazing.

www.youtube.com/watch

Nope. My money's on reincarnation.