A Lonely Place

Math: Making Novels Scary Since Two Hours Ago

2010-03-19T02:36:00.005-04:00

Sometimes I dabble with the occasional cross sums puzzle, or add my dex mod to damage with a ranged weapon, or wrangle with web layout sizing, or scribble out fractions to figure out how to make a small enough cake to fit the volume of the more easily-washed round dish. I don't have the fierce, animal-like survival instinct that kept so many of my fellow writer types from taking math classes in college, though I can avoid a compound interest equation with the best of them.

But even I should have known not to involve the powers of mathematics in figuring out how much of my novel I have left to write. My current deadline, as imposed by my partner, is one week from today, at midnight. By then I am to have to have a either a complete novel, or a total of 99,975 words. Whichever I hit first. Already, my deleted scenes folder holds 5,000 words. It contains such gems as my main character's suffocation-by-whipped-cream suicide attempt; the irrelevent and little-known tale of how unicorns were banned from the paradise of Calgary, as Adam and Eve from Eden; and Thanksgiving Day 1985, in which the reader learns a great deal about the Macy's parade and my main character's cousin, Derelict Uncle Donald's derelict son Derelict Donald Junior, whose name was repeated ad nauseum to boost my NaNoWriMo 2008 word count. Considering the deleted scenes folder, I'd been figuring on the end coming around 105,000 words. Just another few days of writing after the deadline. Until Math came and tempted me to figure out a more accurate estimate, based on the average lengh of my completed scenes.

Before Math, I was content having a bunch of completed scenes, and a bunch of half-completed scenes. Post Math? I'm feeling overwhelmed by a fraction written on the notebook in front of me, a certain 15/65. Finished scenes out of total scenes. I can comfort myself and say that the fraction doesn't reflect how much I have written on the other 50 scenes, or all my plotting work. But if the fraction is stark, its cousin the percentage is the blunt (i.e. tactless) sort of wanker who asks if you've gained weight. The percentage says, in its friendly tone of passive aggression, "Are you aware that 23% of your novel is readable? That 23% is less than one quarter? And that fifteen non-consecutive scenes, totalling 29,000 words, can be shown to the other humans? But since they're meant to be read consecutively, you really only have one scene that works out-of-context, and that's the first one. It's 1.5% of your scene count."

Discouraging, right? But word count-wise (this is before Math, again) 87-91% was all done, just not in neat chunks with beginings and ends. Back to the scenes. Those 15 completed scenes averaged 1,999 words each. For each planned or partially written scene that was under 1,999, I added the difference to my word count projection. So for a scene that came to 1700, I would add 299. For one at 744, I would add 1255. For the scenes over 1,999, I added nothing; most of those are only missing small gaps, or need rearranging. My projection of 105,00 words shot up to 118,327, a number that's best pals with my 1.5% readable scenes. I can see them sitting up in grimy bleachers, heckling me and chucking beer cans at my optimistic 87-91% done.

Losing 10% of my completion status is the novelling equivalent of switching to Daylight Savings Time, but I still have 77% done. And that's over three quarters. But optimism isn't the moral of my story. The moral of my story is that Math is a bastard, because 77% is where I was two months ago.

A Tatooine Halloween Die-o-Rama

2009-09-27T20:24:00.006-04:00

Here's my tastefully not-to-scale depiction of traditional Halloween festivities on Tatooine. While select guests fly awfully close to Tatooine's twin suns on their way to witness Luke Skywalker's execution, others hang around outside Jabba's Palace for refreshments. Grand Admiral Thrawn never misses the bantha-sized Halloween Oreos. :) If it doesn't show up, the message on the side reads:

Mssr. Jabba the hutt

cordially invites you to his

Spooky Halloween Party

and Formal Exectution of

Jedi Luke Skywalker et al.

at the Pit of Carkoon.

Please R. S. V. P.

domestic oceans for jocks

2008-01-22T01:41:00.000-05:00

I just saved a recipe of gravy from being total shit, so I'm feeling sort of domestic and Donna Reed-ish right now. On the other hand, I just used the word "shit" (twice now), plus I made said gravy at 1:00 am. My future is safe.

Tomorrow classes start. Classes like The Meditative Poem, which inspired jokes from people who don't know what a meditative poem is about the fictional RIC LA campus where go the California flower children, and Oceanography, also known as "Oceans for Jocks," a joke that came from Geology being known as "rocks for jocks." I'm not interested in either course.

The reason I'm still awake at almost 2 am when I have a 10 o'clock class is that I am making lunch for the week. See, the plan was to get Thai food with Justin tomorrow, and then make lentil loaf for the rest of the week. I e-mailed Justin last night, and even though I suspected he might not get back to me until later because of his job, I got impatient and started on the loaf just in case. That wasn't meant to be a pun or anything, btw. Justin case, just in case. Har har. Soooo, I've been up when I should have been sleeping already (not that I could have gotten to sleep, nocturnal as I am), making lunch that I won't eat FOR MY MAN. Add another point to the domestic column. And how is that looking?

	Domestic	Nondomestic
Saved gravy	1	0
Used "shit"	1	2
Awake at 1:00 am	1	3
Preparing food for man	2	3
Washing dishes instead of leaving them in a heap	3	3
Awake at 2:00 am	3	4

My better side has won tonight. And it always will.

reframe, re-screw over. depression.

2008-01-19T00:24:00.001-05:00

Last year I got a magnetic poetry board as a Christmas or birthday gift. I wrote one poem, but nothing else:

The sky is livid with rain
A storm carnival of thrills
Puddle in a summer garden
Galoshes flop though fresh soil

I liked it, even though no one else did. Maybe next time I write a poem, I should switch to the emo type and substitute concrete imagery for generic angst and purposely-vague-but-not-really allusions to cutting.

I'm not in Salem, so now I feel like a liar, since I told so many people for so long that I was leaving. It comes up in conversation, and I really thought I was leaving. The short reason: 42 credits to go at Salem, 17 at RIC. I've feel like I've wasted the past five years of my life here. It's a really, really shitty feeling, knowing those are the best years of my life, and they're not coming back.

And then there are the other issues. The job issue, jealousy issues (over everything, my life sucks right now), the graduation issue. Any school or career move I make after I graduate requires references, letters of recommendation.

Society screws you over if you're the introverted type who keeps to the background and just does their work. Everything goes to the obnoxious extroverted types who are always out there and in peoples' faces. But wait--I'm not supposed to think of them that way! Obnoxious people who can't leave well enough alone have to be reframed as "spontaneous."

National Maple Syrup Day

2007-12-17T15:28:00.000-05:00

While it's not likely to inspire a religious frenzy of gift-buying, or even "national" celebration in the true sense of the word, National Maple Syrup Day, celebrated on December 17, is an excuse to pause the other holiday madness, and eat a stack of pancakes. National Maple Syrup day celebrates 100% maple syrup, not maple-flavored syrup, not pancake syrup, and certainly not high fructose corn syrup. It's a day to applaud syrup from trees, shun Aunt Jemima, and spend the extra few dollars to buy pure 100% maple syrup.

December 17 appears to be a random choice for National Maple Syrup Day. Maple producers harvest sugar maple sap in March, which is when the Massachusetts Maple Producers' Association participates in month-long maple festivities. Local farms in other areas of the Northeastern United States and Canada also celebrate in March with syrup-making demonstrations, and of course, plenty of food drenched in syrup. While it seems likely that a syrup producer could have started National Maple Syrup Day, its roots are undocumented, and generally unmentioned. December 17 has no apparent reason for being National Maple Syrup Day, and is only national in the respect that someone, somewhere tacked the word "national" onto an invented holiday to catapult it into the ranks of bizarre holidays such as National Chocolate Covered Anything Day and National Roast Suckling Pig Day, the two special days before and after National Maple Syrup Day.

But the roots don't matter for anyone out to honor their favorite French toast topping. National Maple Syrup Day isn't going to receive a full-on inquisition into its roots as a pagan holiday, or the quaint 19^th century customs that led to our modern celebration of National Maple Syrup Day. Its origins are undocumented, but whoever started it first was clearly someone with a great love of maple syrup. Appreciation of the syrup and complete disregard for calorie counting are the only important traditions of this obscure holiday, which has found a niche on recipe websites internationally. Recipes4us.co.uk recognizes National Maple Syrup Day and dedicates a page to the history of maple syrup and recipes using maple syrup. Mr. Breakfast, of mrbreakfast.com, lists National Maple Syrup Day among the "16 Breakfast Holidays."

Forget the peculiarities of National Maple Syrup Day, forget the madness of the holiday season. This December 17, go to the grocery store and pick up a jug of pure maple syrup with a basket full of syrup-ready foods. Eat pancakes, ice cream, chicken, and salad with maple syrup. Try some new recipes. Remember to replace your tuna sandwich with a tuna-maple sandwich, and your fruitcake with a maple fruitcake.

fake tree

2007-12-08T21:21:00.000-05:00

The fake tree is now in the living room, all dolled up with the increasing amount of ornaments we end up with each year. I sort of hijacked the camera while we were decorating, and my candid photography got us a lot of creepy pictures, pictures of people yawning, chewing, and leaning over stuff with butt cracks a-showing. Next week, I think I'll buy a cheap pine tree air freshener and hide it somewhere, like last year. In half an hour, Jeff and I are probably going to watch the old Grinch special, or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. So far I'm feeling very much in the holiday spirit, but it's still disheartening to not have found a crappy part time job yet. Why is it that none of these places that say they're hiring ever hire me?

I've been working on various web things when I'm supposed to be doing papers--more on that when something exists.

Salem State

2007-12-05T21:12:00.000-05:00

Congratulations! You have been admitted to Salem State College as a transfer, resident student for the 2008 Spring semester in the English major. Additional information will be mailed to you.

Because I sent in my application online this time, I was able to check every few days to see if it had been processed. I probably won't receive the letter until next week, but that's still under a month for processing time.

Things are looking up; Saturday I finished writing my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, and now I've been re-accepted in Salem. This time, I'm going. Too bad my dad is putting a damper on the whole thing, obsessively asking questions that people ask in the "should I apply" stage of the process, not the "I've been accepted" stage. He also acts like he's trying to free me of some kind of overwhelming naivete that, apparently, I possess. Wow, I didn't know that I'm going to have to pay for college after it's over, thank you ever so freakin' much.

NaNoWriMo

2007-12-01T00:30:00.000-05:00

This year I participated in National Novel Writing Month, and tonight I passed the 50,000 word mark, making me a winner.

Take that, Erin! :)

A synopsis of Stars Will Fall Out:
When Jil Doyle skips her homecoming dance, she witnesses a mysterious girl sink into the pond at the park. The next day she finds a strange vial that allows to her travel through the pond and into another world, where she meets Aria, the mysterious girl. Aria has been traveling from her own world to Jil's to go to rock shows and escape her daily life working at a bakery and planning her upcoming wedding. Soon Jil finds herself using the vial to escape like Aria, and both girls are balancing double lives. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Jil and Aria, the creator of the vials has a sinister reason to steal them back, and it might be connected to the stars that have been falling out of the sky. Only Aria's nerdy fiance suspects that her sister Violet might be at the center of it all, but not even he realizes that the innocuous professor of magic might be as well.

Starting off in Week 1, it took some time getting used to writing 1,667 plus words per day. I was still focusing too much on good writing rather than output, but I did make a couple plot/ character connections that established the rest of the story arc. Luckily, I had some scene ideas written down so I didn't have to spend too much time thinking about what to write. During Week 2, I spend three days too depressed to write, and gave up completely. Giving up like that, I felt strangely empty, and I went back to writing just before the start of Week 3, although I was still depressed

Around Thanksgiving, I had a five-day weekend so I wrote 2000-4000 words on each of those days. After the first week, I also went to all the Write-ins at Barnes and Noble in Bellingham, where I managed to type 1000 words or so per hour. About this time, I concentrated on making my friends "effective agents of guilt and terror" as per the instruction in No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNo.

Two days ago I managed a 7000 word day, and today I wrote another 4500 for the win. A lot of the writing is crap, but plenty is crap that just needs editing. I still need quite a few more scenes, including a climax that involves a Winnebago and a Ancient Druid Spirit, and possibly a wedding. I'll also need to figure out a lot of details about the fantasy world, which I'm writing in a steampunk style, and then name or rename several characters.

After that, it'll just take about five edits or so.

And, Dan: Thanks for the support, and the sparkly bubbling stuff and chocolate just now.

Here's my Nano Profile, which has statistics, and an excerpt.

Wheeeee! I'm a novelist now. :)
X-posted to My Barely Updated Livejournal

2007-11-26T00:31:00.000-05:00

Windows Vista infuriates me.

2007-06-02T21:28:00.000-04:00

"From the directors of The 40 Year-Old Virgin... a comedy about the things that happen.... when you least expect it."

Aren't there people who look over banner ads before they're posted on the internet? THEM, not IT. A comedy about the things that happen when you least expect them. Or, a comedy about the thing that happens when you least expect it. Savvy?

Oi.

Trip update coming soon.

literacy is my love affair

2007-04-27T01:06:00.000-04:00

To be as vague as possible, I have two enormous worries in tandem, one of which is affecting my ability to deal with the other. One can be fixed with some work, but the other flits about and pecks away my brain function, as well as my ability to think through the first one. Apparently, it is a woodpecker. Dan said he would take it for me, but it is intrinsically mine. Woodpeckers, though, they can be shot with a calm and steady hand. Fear is the mind killer and such.

I have four enormous secrets, one of which is the woodpecker. The others are the ace of hearts, the white rabbit, and the mystery juice.

Pathway to green: kill the woodpecker, solve the tandem worry, follow the rabbit, get a job, and hoard the mystery juice.

Isn't it wonderful to forget that Wilford Brimley is briefly on Seinfeld, and then be absolutely delighted to see that Wilford Brimley is on Seinfeld?

Also, I made good gumbo and I didn't even use a recipe.

if you give a mouse a cookie

2007-04-14T01:52:00.000-04:00

Such a relief to finally get a mouse that doesn't cut out every five minutes.
It's like a breath of fresh air, a cool drink drink of water, a new leaf, a clean slate, a long expected party, thank goodness it's Friday, and every other cliche, proverb, or idiom having to do with respite or new beginnings, all rolled into one nice ebony bit of mousely goodness.

Today I blundered my mass media exam, or I misheard when the Very Asian Professor said there was no take-home portion. I finished playing Dreamfall after getting home early, before Jeff even. The game is a disappointment as a game, but a marvel as a story. I'd love to hate it because Ragnar Tournquist obviously sold out in a number ways, but a damn good story earns a load of forgiveness for clumsy Xbox-centric controls, dumbed down gameplay that insults the intelligence of players over ten, and a cliffhanger ending leading up to a sequel which will only be made if Dreamfall sales go high enough. Luckily, the Xbox crowd will buy anything one advertises for them as long as it is purported to have cutting edge graphics. Actually, the graphics for the first game, despite being something like seven years old now, were a lot more accomplished. That is, if one judges graphics on artistic merit and contribution to the story, rather than on how badass a graphics card it takes to run them.

Feanor is dead. He was a beautiful fish, and I miss having him in his tank behind me while I use the computer.

Cannellini parmesan sandwichs are an excellent discovery on my part, I watched The Last Unicorn for the fourth time, and the previous clauses have no relation to each other.

Crossroads again.

sweet diesel

2007-03-27T14:26:00.000-04:00

In Boston, a regular traveler on the orange line complained of a stench at one of the stations, sort of a sulphur smell.

In response a representative of MBTA said on FOX 25:

The only thing I smelled was the scent of sweet and reliable transit service.

Worth an entire entry? Oh yeahhhh....

In other news:
-Got a new Chevy Prizm
-cleansed

memorial to squeaky

2007-03-09T18:19:00.000-05:00

My nice little 2001 Chevy Prizm will totaled, and I have until noon tomorrow to clean the rest of my stuff out. The pic is from last year's New Hampshire trip when Dan and I visited Maria, went to Middle Earth Music Hall, and explored Hanover.

Highlights of my time with Squeaky
(yes, I know how lame that sounds)
August 2005- March 2007:
-Tony the Russian, who we bought the car from. It was like shopping with Boris Badenov
-Visiting the Alternate Universe Tim Guy
-Salem, third trip.
-Mine and Dan's third anniversary/ Valentine's Day in Newport at the Cheeky Monkey
-The New Hampshire trip
-Elroy-watching trips in Boxboro
-Salem, fourth trip
-Mall rats

2007-03-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, car accident. Today, productive English major-ly doings and a discussion with an imaginary dog about symbolism in The Great Gatsby.

So, accident. I was driving on Route 44 when the other car pulled out of the Hess Station (a particularly brilliant move, considering that they could have easily went on the side street, through the red light)

helping Gramps cross the street in his seashell bra

2007-03-05T14:52:00.000-05:00

Blogger finally got me, and I now have to sign in with my gmail account, which is a shame because my original blogger user name was sonicpumpkin. Once again I'm in the Whipple computer lab, only this time after a failed attempt at taking a walk. Too cold for my fingers and whatnot.

Earlier today, Dan and I watched Hercules Versus the Moon Men, another one of those 50 Sci-Fi "Classics". Hercules reminds me of the Brawny Paper Towel guy, only in a leather mini skirt. No, really. It's about as manly as a mini skirt gets, but still, it is a mini skirt. Last night while I worked on a shirt, I watched part of Teenagers from Outer Space, forgetting that the DVD cuts off just as we're about to find out what injustices Thor (the evil alien) will subject Derek (the good alien who abhors communism and wants a family) and Betty to, and whether or not Gramps finally crosses the street.

So after that, I watched Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women in it's entirety, featuring Robot John as Robot John and fossilized idol. The seashell bra wearing prehistoric women of Venus worship various prehistoric things, like Ptera the Pterodactyl and the "God of the Fire Mountain." I can just imagine the thought process there. Hmmm, what sort of religion would prehistoric women have? Well, what sort of prehistoric things exist? Yes. Somehow, the movie manages to have a corny falling in love with the natives type storyline, even though the astronauts/ cosmonauts never actually see, meet, or verify the existence of the natives. In the end, and no I don't care that I'm giving away the end to my non-readership, the astronauts leave with almost no evidence, and none of their provisions, but like a small pox infested blanket inadvertently leave their mark on the prehistoric women in the form of Robot John/ SCIENCE!, a new religion to replace Ptera.

It freakin' weirded my out when I learned that the director, Peter Bogdonovich, also directed The Cat's Meow, which I saw recently.

oh great and wise thesaurus....

2007-03-02T13:17:00.000-05:00

Due to Dan's pestering, I watched Beowulf and Grendel last night. The film makers went the route of bludgeoning the audience with the idea that maybe, just maybe, Grendel's not all bad, it's the Danes. This didn't work too well, because one can't play the relativism card and still show Grendel bowling with skulls. The filmmakers, to further their ineffective attempt at showing Grendel as a sweet, misunderstood troll also included a crazy witch, who doubles as a brazen whore and tries to shock Beowulf/ the audience with her dirty stories. Also, where's the logic in making a Grendel sex scene (as if one were needed) longer than a Beowulf sex scene?

Last night my project group for Tolkien class gave our presentation. People who weren't us (Prof Z and Frondo Story Guy) said we did a good job, which I take to mean that at least I won't fail. My hands were shaking like a drug addicts, due to some combination of nerves and caffeine.

Right now I'm in the Whipple computer lab because my mass media class was canceled, and I had to drive all the way here. I should probably use up some of RIC's paper while I'm here, but I also feel like I should just leave and look for a job at some place where the employers aren't blue hair hating jerks. I'm sick of being a nice person and have made a decision to flick off more campus police and work on a Billy Idol sneer to throw at people when people give me that "look at that blue haired freak/ downfall of society and corrupter of the youth" look.

Kellye, The Anchor's "roving reporter" asked me the question of the week on Monday, and I ended up in the February 27 issue, with a picture that makes me look like my mom.

science fiction fondue

2007-02-24T22:13:00.000-05:00

Cocoon- Ben (Wilford Brimley, of Quaker Oats fame) and his in-group of senior citizens stumble upon a nearby pool in which they start swimming/ trespassing on a regular basis. They quickly realize that the pool has granted them renewed vigor, in a Fountain of Youth fashion, but one day while swimming they are discovered by the owners, aliens from outer space who are trying to rescue some friends who were left on Earth and trapped in cocoons for 10,000 years.

A couple of hours ago, I sat down with Dad and Jeffrey to watch this movie on television, expecting a so-bad-it's-good style 80's flick, some cinematic trash which becomes treasure when ridiculed properly. Surprisingly, there was almost no cheese. Instead, there was a host of characters experiencing a variety of emotions related to the "Fountain of Youth," and some interesting themes like mortality, and universal emotions. Crazy.

To make up for it, I might just go watch Teenagers in Outer Space.

the sun always shines on tv

2007-02-24T19:41:00.000-05:00

Just ate some of what almost has to be called Breakfast Fried Rice.

Am loving the new hair, which Brian likened to anime hair. Am loving that I don't know anyone else who has hair like mine.

Am in a music-swoon, making it hard for me to study Carl Jung's view of THE UNCONSCIOUS and relate it to Beren and Luthien for Thursday's presentation. Am loving the idea of changing my name to a day, like Tuesday not President's Day, or a month, like September not Black History Month.

A White Dwarf is a star, a song, and probably a dwarf as well.

la longue carabine like whoa

2007-01-31T22:51:00.000-05:00

My throat hurts; the flue is broken so a bunch of smoke crept into the family room. Dan didn't want to pick up any ice cream or frozen yogurt or pudding or... anything cold and soothing from Lil Gen. He said, "Too tired," but I think he is mad at me for being mean to him. That's okay, I'm sick of being nice.

It's not often I get sick, but I can never shake a sore throat no matter how I come by it.

I'm taking only three classes this semester, but it's full-time homework, no doubt. Some pseudo-history Tolkien texts (Silmarillion, etc, very dense, though interesting), along with seven novels for my American novel class. Oh, and a sane amount of reading for the comm class. How do other people take five classes? My wpm is way above average, and I still have too much work.

The Last of the Mohicans has geography riddles.

2007-01-17T03:00:00.000-05:00

"I would say that I use lightbulbs far more often than I use Ronald Reagan."

"I got my Horned God at Home Depot."
"I got mine at the local place."
"The Joneses don't have a Horned God."
"My Horned God is bigger than your Horned God."
"My Horned God can make ak gourmet chicken salad in 1, 2, 3..."

eight hits to defeat Dr. Robotnik

2007-01-15T22:40:00.000-05:00

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

There wasn't any proper celebration, but what does one do to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day? Even the internet doesn't have an answer, although a number of college campuses hosted speakers. Dan thought of having a barbecue, which would have worked fine since it's not really winter this January and he doesn't have room for a symposium at his house.

Ideas for next year, or a belated celebration tomorrow:
-barbecue
-black and white cookies
-short of clip of the "I have a dream" speech, unless everyone has seen it enough times that they're bored stiff of it
-listening to two tone, i. e. The Specials with all their checkerboards and racial unity
-listening to other music which shares ideas and themes between cultures, i. e. the British band Adam and Ants, featuring guitarist Marco Pirroni who consciously imitates the guitar of Ennio Morricone, an Italian who composed music for movies set in the Old West
-wait, isn't a potluck better than a barbecue? A potluck where people bring ethnic dishes from their own cultural background, or others. Or just food, because everything comes from somewhere.
-ceremonial doing of logic puzzles and Rubiks cubes
-spoons (a card game), accompanied by some drivel I will invent about the colors on the playing cards, and the shapes, and celebrating differences...

...this is soon to become silly, and I didn't actually mean it to be, so I'll stop there. A few good ideas, ok.

bizarre holiday moment #3

2006-12-26T17:47:00.000-05:00

The hearing Greg say, "Maybe someome emptied some Santas into the water."

bizarre holiday moment #4

2006-12-26T17:46:00.000-05:00

The opening of presents and stockings the day after Christmas, instead of Christmas morning like usual.

bizarre holiday moment #2

2006-12-24T14:17:00.000-05:00

(with the hanging of ponies so as to not create a paradox being bizarre holiday moment #1)

The sitting on the bathroom floor surrounded by exacto knives with "Mele Kalikimaka" playing muffled from another room.

2006-12-23T12:51:00.000-05:00

I have two Pinkie Pie Pony tree ornaments, in seated pose and leaping pose, gifts from Bonnie and Linh respectively. They have to be hung on opposite sides of the tree, lest they spot each other and create a paradox, causing the tree to implode and leave a messy, slightly scorched pile of garland and ornaments on the floor.

2006-12-19T23:08:00.000-05:00

Dear Dan,

Does art get you harder than oriental arithmetic?

fucking lies, lies and propaganda.

2006-12-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

As of something like fifty minutes ago, I am unemployed. It was the whole Barbaratron issue. She, being a subversive liar, arranged a meeting with Arthur to discuss yesterday's disappearance, the one in which I took the break I'm legally entitled to have for working over four hours. They reiterated the past history of my "disappearances," the ones in which I worked and did various jobs that I got paid to do. Arthur kept asking what I did when I disappeared, and I told him the truth. The truth wasn't what he wanted, since it didn't agree with Barbara's view of things. He persisted in asking, again and again, and I started to feel like I actually was lying. Then he told me I could go to work for the next few days, think about where I was on Sunday, and come back to talk to him next week.

Breaking point.

Right there, I put in my two weeks notice, because I told him I wasn't going to go back and confess something I didn't do, and replied, "No one said anything about confessing." Right, because implying a confession should be imminent isn't saying anything. I am here now, in the computer lab when I am normally at work being the victim of all Barbaratron's suspicions, because Arthur told me I could just leave today, because it is exam time and I would probably be better off not worrying about this.

As a parting word, Arthur said something about it not being fair to the hardworking kids who do what he pays them to. Sure. Everyone, seriously everyone, takes at least twenty minute breaks. One final time I protested, mostly because I'm right, and he said, "Fine, you're right I'm wrong," in a a condescending manner.

But hey, he admitted it.

Now I'm torn about going to his superior about this, because this was all Barbaratron inventing things and acting completely inappropriately, but I'm totally fine with moving on to another job.

in my highwire days

2006-12-11T01:30:00.000-05:00

Tonight I went download crazy. I think I've probably got 40 or 50 new songs. Even though it's beyond worthless to complain, I have to rant yet again about mislabelled songs. Someone did the initial upload, so somone had the cd's these songs came from originally. Where do these stupid mistakes come from.

Today's specific complaint: "I Melt With You."
This song is not by The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Dead Kennedys (wow, obviously), General Public, or New Order.

"I Melt With You" is by Modern English, unless we are speaking of whatever shitty modern punk band covered it.

That is all. In the future, stay tuned for such rants as "The Difference Between Less and Fewer", "Why Terry Goodkind is a Mediocre Writer at Best and You Should All Stop Worshipping Him and Read Peter S. Beagle Instead", "Barbaratron is Rotten", "How Joy Division and New Order are Similar and Anyone Who Can't See it Is a Stupid Poser Goth", "Examples of Gluttony in the Bowser House", "The Faucet is There For a Reason: Use It In Public Restrooms", "American Eagle is the Most Schmuckfullest Way to Spend Way Too Much on Boring Clothing", and "The Bulk of Shit Shown on Television Can Bite My Ass."

who killed mr. moonlight?

2006-11-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

Bonnie seems to be stalking my archives because she just responded to an entry that must be nearly two years old by now. Go ahead Bonnie, stalk. Just you have fun when you get to the entry about my colon. :p Ok, so it wasn't graphic, just long and paranoid.

The home computer died for mysterious reasons that Greg is too lazy to figure out. I've lost my web design homework, which is going to be a flaming bitch and a half to catch up on now because each chapter assignment builds on the last, so I'll probably have to do 1-6 in two days. Today at work Martha (a nice cook) asked me if "the evil eye" (Barbara, an often not-nice cook, see previous) was on me. "Probably, seeing far through metal and stone and all that," I answered. It's funny how there are all these evil villain code names for her now. The Evil Eye (I'm thinking of Sauron), Barbaratron with her killing spatula-ray, and some other one.

The Bravery in Boston tomorrow!!!!!!!!
I didn't need that many exclamation points. No one does. The writer within me has just shot the rest of me that typed them.

juice it up, don don donovan

2006-11-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Normally I would be at work at this time, but normally Walter doesn't tell me to go home and think about what I've done. Oh yeah. Today at work I went out to wash tables instead of stocking the cereal. This was at 2:30. I stayed out in the dining room from then until Walter gave me a talking-to around 3:50, and the only time I wasn't working was for 5-10 minutes when I had stomach trouble and went the bathroom downstairs, the warmer one. So after nearly an hour and a half minus 5-10 minutes of making the tables all sparkly and crumb-free Walter confronted me upstairs. And I could so have avoided him, as he called to me in a soft voice and moved slowly because of the wheel chair. But no, I thought maybe I would be asked to come in extra hours for some function, so I went over to talk to the bastard. Barbara, he told me, hadn't been able to find me for the last hour and a half, he said, and where had I been. I said that I had been washing tables both downstairs and up, and it felt like a lame excuse because it's what I said last time Barbara thought I disappeared. Of course, it was true both times, but it felt contrived, having to say it again. But anyways, he didn't believe me, even though he had interrupted me washing tables to give me the talking-to.

I talked to Barbara on my way back to the dishroom to get my my stuff, and she wouldn't listen to a thing either. Take a look at the tables, I told her, would they be clean if I hadn't been out there? I had a stomach ache and went to the bathroom for a few minutes, I started to-- but she walked off and did that "talk to the hand" motion and said she didn't want to hear it. Bastard-ess. Went to the dishroom, bitched to fellow employees. Decided, if I am not fired, to quit at the end of the semester, and possibly start looking for a new job right now, because I need money so I get break free.

Mo still has the French learning cd's he was going to let me borrow.

I can't stand up and I can't sit down

2006-11-15T19:51:00.000-05:00

I do not have $42.

If I wanted to send scores to more than one school, it would be cheaper for me to just take the SATs again. I'm sure after three years at a mediocre college I could do at last a little better than those stupid shits who are still lucky enough to have options.

If one doesn't wish to support the Starbucks corporation, isn't the best method to not buy their products? Even my addiction isn't bad enough to go to Starbucks, unless I have more willpower than I thought. Ha, willpower. Funny thought.

2006-11-15T01:15:00.000-05:00

I put a spoonful of grapenuts into my mouth, and then couldn't chew or swallow for two minutes because Craig Ferguson did such a hilarious bit on infomercials (his mortal enemy) that I honestly would have choked.

on philosophy

2006-11-10T13:18:00.000-05:00

It must suck to be my aesthetics prof. This week class got out before Dan and I even arrived because he had some contagious super-bronchitis. Last week we all got A's on our exams (including those of us who didn't do the exam) because his kid threw all of them into a fire. The week before that he canceled class for no reason Dan and I know of, although we expect it was a spy battle with Mo from Donovan because we're pretty sure Mo is a spy and we spotted the prof. walking with a cane earlier in the week. And before that he had a death in the family, and so canceled class.

Dan and I couldn't figure out who won the spy battle. We know the prof has X-treme Plato-rays that shoot out of his eyes, once he removes the glasses, but Mo works the grill line so has a lot of hot oil at his disposal.

pixelated and pixilated

2006-11-09T23:41:00.000-05:00

My video card is an Nvidia Gefore4 MX 440. For the three and a half years I have owned this computer, I have only known the "nvidia" part of that futuristic-sounding mouthful, because my computer played any game I wanted. The games I play tend to be older, because I base my purchases on what interests me rather than what is six-bladed razor trendy; the only brand new game I have ever purchased is The Sims 2, which came out only a year after my comp, and so ran perfectly well. Actually, it was in that same purchase (to save on shipping, of course) that I purchased for $10 The Longest Journey, which is the best adventure game to come at since at least the mid-90's. In April, it's sequel Dreamfall came out, and my mom gave it to my a few days ago as a six-month late birthday present. It doesn't run. On the famiy computer, for no reason I can discern. On my computer, for lack of an adequate video card. As much as I would love to play this game (despite the horror stories I've heard about the controls), video cards are expensive, and this is the only game I need a new one for. :( If anyone reads this (besides Dan, who knows even less about video cards than I), feel free to conveniently comment with the model number of an inexpensive, minimum "100% DirectX 9.0 compatible 128 mb card with latest drivers."

Today I talked awhile with a girl from my Tolkien class, which was fun because I am antisocial and not usually good at talking to people I don't know well. But it's always easier talking to someone with similar, subculture-type interests, although it all started with talk about some group papers from class. Words also come easier with a bit of caffeine; that was the case with the first truly inspired piece of writing that I've started in an incredibly long time. Oghma?

"don't drink, don't smoke, goody two-shoes"

2006-11-02T02:29:00.000-05:00

I have decided to substitute a good lie for a whole shitload of resonable truths.

The lie: I'm straight edge!

The truth: I'm sick of explaining why I don't smoke or drink, especially drink. Parties, gatherings, conversations, whatever, I always say the same thing: I hate the taste of most alcohol. Oh, but I haven't gotten used to it yet, I haven't yet partied hard enough to know the wonders of the fermented. Yes, about that, I'm not into the whole losing control/ fucking up my liver business either. Okay? No, not okay? You're going to try to convince to anyways, because the reason I don't drink is just because I don't know any better. No, I'm not a senior in college. I haven't seen enough drunk people to decide I'm not interested in being them. My heaviest drinking was two hard lemonades one night; obviously I'm too naive to know better than to have so little of a weak drink. Does the sarcasm bleed through your screen? My choice not to smoke is usually unquestioned. People have asked me if I smoke, I've said no, and that was it. My friends who do smoke are even considerate enough to move if they notice their smoke is getting in my face, because I am allergic to tobacco smoke. But not drinking is downright socially unacceptable, and unfathomable.

If I said my father/mother/uncle/grandmother/sister were an alcohic and had a tragic story to throw around, this would be fine with people. I would be such the triumphant individual for refusing the substance which had brought my family to ruin. Straight edge is punk, it's AFI, it's hip, it's a livestyle; or so the perception runs. It is the easier of the two lies, as I don't do drugs (we'll let the caffeine slide), drink, smoke, or watch much television. I consume little meat, lots of fiber, and cups and cups of water. I listen to some punk music (ok, so mostly post-punk), though it's the old stuff, not the particular straight edge punk, but I also don't hang out with anyone who would know the difference.

And of course, the way to begin any successful lie is by explaining it in a public forum. I'm sick of writing boring entries. Maybe try somethin' interesting next time?

2006-10-16T22:47:00.000-04:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
9
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

Not bad. Cause you know, if I were a Katy Smith or an Ashley Brown, there would probably be five more of me right here in the computer lab.

music boxes

2006-10-14T20:03:00.000-04:00

After a Job Lot Adventure, Jeffrey and I brought some Honey Dew over to Gram's. As we were sitting there, she said she was surprised we hadn't asked about the black box sitting next to her. "What black box? The vintage Barbie case?" I wasn't in view of the black box, apparently.

"You mean the tape recorder?" Jeff asked.

"Yes, that. I thought you two would ask me what it was," said Gram.

Let's put things in perspective here: I was born in 1985, and I believe my earliest memory is from 1987, when I was stung near my eye by a bee and blinded for a few minutes. So, with my 19-year memory, I recall the 1990's clearly. I remember that irritating song by Ace of Base, Windows 3.1, Seinfeld, Bill Clinton being elected twice, and the shift from cassette tapes to compact discs. I remember being given an MP3 player by my uncle in 2001, and being asked by just about everyone I knew what it was. The things have been popular for only a short amount of time. And yet, a good deal of people over 40 seem to think that no one of my generation, the high school and college-aged, came into consciousness more than five years ago and can remember any technology older than the cutting edge.

All we do is e-mail, instant message, listen to mp3s, and talk on our cellphones. We've heard rumors that once, such things required wires running along poles to function, but that's just one of those myths like the flat earth.

2006-10-12T01:54:00.000-04:00

What I hate about MLA format: I always feel as if I am doing it wrong, no matter how many times I do it, or how simple it is, even though I have never been told that I haven't done it right.

slide the mug

2006-10-08T11:34:00.000-04:00

Greg is okay, totally perfectly fine physically, although he was in an accident yesterday. That information always goes the other way around: you say "someone was in an accident" and the other person immediately assumes the worst, gets freaked, and asks, panicked, "is he okay?" I know this very well by now, as this is the third accident in a month and a half.

Late August: Greg, truck going too fast, tree
Mid September: Dad's car parked, other car backing up, CVS parking lot
Early October: Greg, Dad's car changing lanes, car side swiping from other lane

Poor Greg. He feels like crap over this.

Yesterday Dan and I went to King Richard's Faire. He didn't think to invite other people in advance, so we went alone. My allergies bothered me some, but mostly in the jousting area. Stupid Tavist. We had a pillow fight to the death which I lost five times. Dan sucked hilariously at the game where you pound a block with a hammer and a thing goes up to hit a bell. Miraculously, we used up all the food tickets. The winning combination: Turkey leg, bag o' the King's Nuts, peasant bread, and fudge. Ding Ding Ding Ding!

one person's Caesar

2006-10-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

Ever download an entire song and then realize you only like one line? And I knew, going into the download, that I don't like Rod Stewart, but I thought here would be an exception.

So, to make up for it, furious downloading! Bowie makes up for Rod, with his terrible husky voice and the disco-ness that I hadn't even known was in that song. The aesthetics journal for class is still being ignored. Why did I write that in the passive tense? Maybe I'll right an entry about the lack of aesthetics present in the Rod Stewart song.

Dan is going to King Richard's Faire on Saturday. If it doesn't depress me, I'll go with him. Nate is my fleecey therapist.

Last week's story. This link does not exist now, but by the time someone sees my blog it should.

leif erickson says, "Bollocks."

2006-09-16T18:10:00.000-04:00

The parents are complaining about how, so they read, the United States now has the twelfth highest percentage of people who go to college. Those other countries are kicking our ass!

So many Americans have such a freakin' complex about things like this. We're America: if we're not number one in all things, then the natural order of the world has gone awry. You know what I think? Number twelve out of two hundred-something is nothing to be ashamed of.

2006-09-16T01:44:00.000-04:00

Is there any point in transferring to a more expensive school for its writing program if I can't force myself to write? A professional writes on demand, forget mood or inspiration. I know this. Nothing I learn can do me any good as a professional if I can't force myself to write.

So, a story.

mint waxed

2006-09-12T16:29:00.000-04:00

Better dental health is now a priority of mine, at least until I forget how painful and bloody the flossing and teeth scraping part of today's dentist visit was.

The new dentist always says things like "See you next time kiddo" and "Open big." The dentist doesn't look much more than a few years older than me; only by logic do I know he is, because it takes a long time to earn a doctorate.

Time to contexualize some aesthetics.

I stole soup, but didn't narrate.

2006-09-11T23:26:00.000-04:00

I should find out if my blogger can be updated via my PDA, like my live or dead journals can be. I should find out, because I narrate things to myself a lot.

Like:
Walking up to girls decorating crumpled newspaper with gold glitter and spray paint, you become excited. It's art! It's vandalism! It's crazy inexplicable! You tap a few buttons, turn down the bouncing, synthesized music you are listening to, because here is a competitor for your attention. "What is it?," you ask, "It looks fun." The blonde one tells you that it's a decorative pirate's treasure chest for a school event where, she explains in full-on spiel mode, there will be comedians and prizes like hundreds of dollars and the opportunity to go to Montreal. It doesn't get much better than that, she adds, and you're still not sure why a pirate chest is relevant, except maybe for the prizes, but then those RIC Programming types give away a lot of prizes, and they never needed a chest before.

And yes, sometimes this does happen in 2nd person. Sometimes 1st or 3rd, but never 1.5, which is what I decided a story I wrote awhile back is. In my head, I narrate the things that happen to me, slightly after they have happened. I think of sentence structure, strategic pauses, finalize the whole narrative and think it through again, then almost immediately forget it as I find something else to narrate.

Like:
Kris danced and twirled, like a snowflake flying through the wind, only on morning sun, whatever that was. Through a Horace Mann hallway with the same ubiquitous maroon carpet as every other hallway, she flailed a bit, assured herself the hallway was still empty, and snuck into an empty used classroom. A whiteboard! She would write something about a man from Nantucket, how once there was one, but leave it with an ellipses for someone else to finish. Yes. No marker. She dragged a chair back out to the hallway with her and stood on it, trying to see over the edge of a ceiling-less closet type alcove. Janitors' Closets I and II, she called them, them put back the chair and kicked a trashcan. This would help release her boyfriend from his class, which was running late by too many minutes, because the professor would look up and say, "What the devil was that!" and with her head raised would notice the time and release her boyfriend.

2006-09-01T02:45:00.000-04:00

I love being a blue-haired freak, the downfall of society and corrupter of the young.

stupid online political poll

2006-09-01T01:19:00.000-04:00

Do you agree with President Bush when he likens the struggle against Islamic fundamentalism with the fight against Nazis and communists? * 309018 responses
Yes. Bin Laden and others are the Hitlers and Stalins of our times.
44%
Maybe. But I'm going to need some more convincing one way or the other.
4.1%
No. This is just dishonest, warmongering designed to scare voters about national security in time for this fall's elections.
52%
Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

Are the yes and no answers really opposites? Bin Laden, Hitler, and Stalin are/ were very bad men, in some of the same very bad ways. But comparing the terrorists to them still is a scare tactic.

nerd/geek/dork test

2006-08-17T00:57:00.000-04:00

Outcast Genius
65 % Nerd, 73% Geek, 60% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius.

Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject).

Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius.

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

Love & Sexuality

America/Politics

Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness
You scored higher than 99% on geekosity
You scored higher than 99% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

a happy replacement for my planned entry

2006-08-13T03:26:00.000-04:00

Control, the Ian Curtis movie, will be coming out next year and all the people who matter (widow, former bandmates, etc.) have given their approval. New Order will be composing the soundtrack, performing as Joy Division for the first time since they truly were Joy Division. As of now, the official site has nothing of use on it, but its existence makes me happy.

I haven't been this excited about an upcoming movie since I found out that The Lord of the Rings would be filmed. If the movie makes it into theaters in the USA, I will go see it on opening night. I will be first in line, with Dan in second smuggling microwaved popcorn in his trench coat, wearing the Joy Division shirt I will have purchased just for the occasion, even if it only plays in select theaters that I will have difficulty finding.

More info:
http://www.neworderonline.com/News/News.aspx?NewsID=1260
http://www.neworderonline.com/News/News.aspx?NewsID=1258

2006-08-04T05:22:00.000-04:00

Dear Craig,

People know that sharks are dangerous, but not all know that boy scouts are also dangerous. In groups of five or more, they grow collective tentacles which can squeeze even the mighty bull shark on its way into someone's toilet.

Your concerned viewer,
Kris

dissed like a veggie

2006-07-22T19:40:00.000-04:00

"Hey, Jeff, want to try one of the black bean burgers I just made?" I asked.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO." He stomped his foot.

"They're full of stuff you like."

And then he went off on his rant about how a burger must have meat, a black bean burger is a substitute for meaty hamburgers and therefore evil, vegetarians eat substitutes for meat and are therefore evil, and you can't get full on veggie food. Actually, it was a substitute for a hot dog, since that's what the rest of the family was having. I bit my tongue so I wouldn't mention that maybe full isn't such a good thing (he's overweight).

Earlier my grandmother told me that you can't get enough protein if you don't eat meat. All over, people who have done far less research than I have are telling me why vegetarianism is unhealthy, why it is bad, and why no one should ever be a vegetarian.

Funny that I'm not actually a vegetarian.

2006-07-22T02:21:00.000-04:00

Dane Cook is irritatingly mediocre.

Felmar

2006-06-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

I worked out the first outline of my creation story novella almost six years ago. Only now have I realized there's an essential flaw in it. Observe:

Bible:
Adam and Eve are not supposed to eat the fruit. They eat the fruit. Bad things happen to humanity.

Greek mythology:
Pandora is too curious for her own good and can't help but look into the box. Bad things happen to humanity.

The Book of Felmar:
The first people are told they must never look into the microwave while it is on. They do anyways. Bad things happen to Ursula, who is not part of humanity, after the creator sits down with the first people and gets to the bottom of things, completely ignoring what they did.

To fix the problem, this is now the part of the story when "Shit happens" bumper stickers are created. After all, it's a parody. Must see what Dan thinks.

2006-06-22T21:05:00.000-04:00

Apparently my Dad's voice is a form of white noise.

music rant

2006-06-06T16:36:00.000-04:00

People who upload music onto Limewire and other file sharing programs should get the names of bands right. The Chameleons UK are not Chameleons, or The Chameleons. The Chameleons UK. Other bands have Chameleon in the name, and it's just annoying to have 100+ search results because I have to search for "Chameleons," just to make sure I get everything, when in fact there are less than ten songs by The Chameleons UK.

This music comes from somewhere. Someone has to make that initial upload onto their computer. I've never taken the time to upload something that I didn't know the name of.

"Adam Ant" is not the same thing as "Adam and the Adams." One is a solo artist, the other is a band which the solo artist was formerly frontman of. Different music, ya? Do people even listen to this stuff? It doesn't take a whole lot of Antknowledge to tell that "Kings of the Wild Frontier" is by the band, not just Adam.

Also:
The Doors
The Clash
The Cure
The Smiths
The Church

Where in the process do all these names get mixed up?

the non-piercing commemoration of my birthday

2006-05-08T23:40:00.000-04:00

If I had found my camera this morning, here's what I would have taken pictures of on my 21st birthday:

*The beautiful flowers and spring leaves I see every year, because I was born on an awesome day. Dan said they're all there just for my birthday.
*My presents, before unwrapping. From Dan, Gilmore Girls, Season 3. From Dan's mom/ family, a beading kit for making ancient civilization-type objects and a sappy but nice card.
*Dan trudging off to his exam
*The empty Palmieri's parking lot. Disappointment! Closed on Mondays!
*Waiting for in front of Gaige for Dan to get out of his exam
*Alkaline Trio guy. Just because he intrigues me, and I people-watched him while I was waiting
*Dan and I finally having our picnick of Subway sandwiches on the lawn. Stupid tuna fish.
*Me dancing on the nice little hills of grass, weaing my cute (as Dan called it) birthday outfit, which was striped and fun, though not pirate-y.
*The lilacs
*The Cumberland farms, and my winning scratchcard, which a random man chipped in $1 for when he hear me say it was my birthday. I won $10!
*Stupid Job Lot t-shirts, such as: a fat alligator golfer, Aaron Carter, the Osbournes, and the ones I bought, "Bus Demolition Derby '89" and "Double Dragon," which was also a television show from when I was a kid. A really lame television show.
*Dan with his strap-on weights, looking like a kid who put his pads on the wrong spots before roller blading
*The formerly dark and long hallway in lincoln mall.
*The quickie squirt gun fight outside the mall bathrooms
*The loverly fountain and my poor coin-flipping technique
*Dan waving a lollipop in front of my face while my ears were being pierced.
*My ears being pierced, Dan's second present to me.
*My ride on the kiddie jeep in the mall. Oh, we were just yards from that Radio Shack. Woe, the bolts.
*Squirt gun fight: the front-yard, Jeffrey-included sequel
*Cake, ice cream, and the opening of my only presents, two bags of Honey Dew Cinnamon Hazelnut coffee.

After all those pictures I would have taken, we watched 24, and then Dan took my car home because his car squirted boiling coolant (disfunctionally ironic?) all over the driveway. Now I have to finish my Powerpoint presentation, which makes me sad, because I wanted to go to bed while it is still my birthday. My birthday that Dan made into a great day.

twenty-one on the horizon

2006-05-07T01:23:00.000-04:00

My family threw me a small birthday celebration today. After a 45 minute wait that was supposed to be 15, we had Chinese food. During the wait, I wandered out to the back of the plaza and looked up at the flower trees that used to be visible through the coffee shop window. That brought back memories. Then I walked over the the edge of the pond. I think the last time I was there was the day Dan and I spent five hours in or around the coffee shop. So many memories there.

I miss being a kid and having time slow down during the days and hours before my birthday party. I miss having those birthday parties. But, it's not so bad to just have some good food and desert, and sit with family for awhile. My grandma gave me a check and a book, but from my family I got a wrinkled envelope that had been in my mom's pocket. In it was a piece of graph paper with a floor plan of my room. One of the things I asked for was incentive to clean my room, because I've been saying for two years that would like to clean it. I might have liked the idea better in theory. On the floor plan were marked areas, with point values assigned. I get my real presents after I clean a marked area with a point value in it.

I'm in a sappy mood right now, warm and sort of nice, thinking of sentimental things. Today I had a few nice, sweet moments. Little moments that I probably won't ever tell anyone about, but just treasure whenever I think of them. My 21st birthday is perhaps more special than I thought. It's been a good day.

Now, will Dan plan anything fun for my night in Boston? Eh... he's never been that great with making plans. Maybe I shouldn't expect much.

2006-04-23T00:23:00.000-04:00

Zalon Draconis signed off at 12:04:19 AM.
hobbitsubculture: noooo
Previous message was not received by Zalon Draconis because of error: User Zalon Draconis is not available.
hobbitsubculture: noooo don't go yet!
hobbitsubculture: i JUST figured out why Wispride cheese is called Wispride!
hobbitsubculture: because it's from Wisconsin!

Uh, yeah.

2006-04-20T15:03:00.000-04:00

Spent the day sort of drifting around...

Spent the day sitting under various trees, writing various things. I skipped work, but was actually very productive, in a sort of way that doesn't actually get me any money.

The deadline for my novella is June 30. Or something. Doesn't really matter, as the contest is quarterly. I've been doing all the writing in my decorated comp. notebook with the flower on it. The notebook always gets lots of compliments, so I'm very proud of the notebook. I expect good things will come of it.

Dan and I went to the Thai star last night, and were fatties. Fried rice cravings, how like us.

2006-04-10T05:14:00.000-04:00

Sleep is so much more important. This is completely against my better judgement. But with the number of extensions we've had... well there's really no excuse, is there?

"writing" an essay

2006-04-10T04:37:00.000-04:00

Dear Jacques Derrida,

Just now I was singing a song about you. It went to the tune of "Joy to the World," and it was all about how much I hate to read anything you've written, or even worse, to think about anything you've written. Supposedly you introduced binary along with logocentrism in "Of Grammatology," but I'm not finding the quote I need. You did this on purpose, you metric-using fiend! Surely the differance pun was much more clever and interesting in your native French? You look like Harpo Marx, but you are postmodern, which I hate to say. It is a shame you died last spring semester, the last time I took this horrid course. If I had known sooner you hadn't died ages ago, I would have sought you out and given you a severe poke on the shoulder.

Thanks to you, this is the most typing I've done all evening. Morning.

Wishing that all your writings would fall on top of a vast mountain of burning muffin stumps,
Kristin Lee

2006-03-26T20:34:00.000-05:00

Again and again I tell them, but still no one seems to understand that I am three credits behind, not an entire semester. I went into my third year as a junior with sixty credits, not as some sort of residual sophomore. Those missing three credits are from the philosophy course I dropped last semester because it wasn't going to help my GPA. I will likely be at RIC four and a half years not because I am behind, but because RIC administration is so inept. How many times do I have to explain to people that I took summer classes AND started out college a few credits ahead?

Today I typed at 83 WPM. I'm impressed. :)

a dear friend in trouble

2006-03-26T19:40:00.000-05:00

Starlix Wind: how's that 12-step program going?
hobbitsubculture: you mean with the gnomes?
Starlix Wind: yeah
hobbitsubculture: all they do is sit around!
hobbitsubculture: they just sit on dan's table and they don't move...
Starlix Wind: wow
Starlix Wind: they're in denial, maybe?
hobbitsubculture: well, ian doesn't drink, but he's not helping either.

Oh, Jack, if only you knew you people worried. Won't you just admit you have a problem? Please take that first step, for all of us.

straight off the starship Ronald Reagan

2006-03-23T23:37:00.000-05:00

Angel on one shoulder, devil on the other. Or, colon-spirit on one shoulder, anticolon-spirit on the other.

Colon-spirit: I wanted to thank you for eating all those Grapenuts. I mean, three bowls, like whoa!
Me: Hey, no problem, anytime.
Anticolon-spirit: *poof* What do you listen to that square for? Look at him!
Me: Did you just call him a square? Who says that anymore?
Colon-spirit: I am not a square!
Anticolon: Ignore him. Say, here's a riddle: What lies in a ceramic dish, tastes comforting, and isn't Grape Nuts, which you've already had three bowls of?
Me: Uh...
Anticolon-spirit: It's homemade macaroni and cheese. Let's give it a go just for the hell of it.
Me: Okay. Uh...
Colon-spirit: Hey, uh, I zoned out a bit there... what's this? You've half finished a cup of macaroni and cheese? But you don't even like macaroni and cheese that much! You like Grapenuts.
Me: Uh....

2006-03-22T17:00:00.000-05:00

I figure things might change if I whored myself for attention.

Bring out the fishnets!
Hoist the Jolly Roger!

A-soy, matey!

2006-03-22T16:43:00.000-05:00

On the way up an echoing flight of stairs, I left Dan a pestering message on his phone, only to end up bothering him in the classroom itself, and finding out that he left my CD in the car. The whole thing wasted about fifteen minutes of time, and I am no longer in a productive mood.

Oddly enough, the productive mood was inspired by literary theory. Two major writing assignments due next week? Why not combine them? Two assignments, one subject, less the thinking. Yes, incorporate double consciousness into the cooking/ feminism essay for creative nonfiction, thus having two essays about double consciousness, one personal, one critical.

I hate people who use the word "postmodern."

Going back to being a veggie one step at a time. Dan and I were discussing how we improve each other's eating habits, and we eat better when we're together.

post 101

2006-03-21T00:20:00.000-05:00

Just so the world knows...

I am officially a Bullshitter First Class. Unless Olmsted seriously screwed up something with Webct, my midterm exam grade is an A. This is a class Dan and I have skipped more times than we have been, a class which I ceased doing the reading for after week 2 or 3. Almost everything I wrote about in my exam were aspects of relgious philosophy which I learned about less than two hours prior by skimming weeks of material.

Oh, and the speed reading practice probably didn't hurt either.

a pint of madness

2006-03-14T23:01:00.000-05:00

Adam Ant has been in movies. This, I knew. Now I know which movies.

Today we managed the TJ Maxx adventure without any door mishaps. I got what is quite possibly the world's niftiest makeup bag, along with:
*a baggy lime green tank top (trendy-style like whoa)
*a black shirt with fun hearts. Dan seems to like it a lot.
*an super ultra badass red tank top with a SKULL! Hoist the jolly roger!
*the purse gram needed
*a hat sparkly hat for gram. She's always going on about how she wants to be a "cool grandma."

Today the new dentist overdosed me on novocaine. Not in a Renton's-in-the-carpet sort of way, but in a way that left the right side of my face numb for three hours. Now the spot where my filling is hurts when I drink water.

What will the neighbors think? They'll think:
We don't, that's what they'll think.

I've been trying to sort through my bookmarks (no easy task), so I might use this blog, this weblog, for actually logging websites, writing a bit about them. This entry might have been written last night about a website, but I got caught up in an anti-metric fever when I looked through some sites.

the flight of the albert ross

2006-03-13T23:17:00.000-05:00

Ziggy licked peanut butter off my belly, and I haven't washed it yet.

Thought I'd open up with a shocker. For those of my non-audience who don't know, Ziggy is Sara'a dog, I was somehow coerced into having him lick peanut butter off my belly, since Dan wouldn't allow it on himself. Earlier, Sara semi-assaulted me, but it was all in good fun. A nice visit, altogether. Sara is my only old friend who hasn't changed/ blown me off in recent months, so it was nice to see her (& her parents) again.

Earlier, Dan and I tried going to TJ Maxx, but when I got out of the car and went to shut it, it didn't latch. It just bounced off the frame of the car. So, we belted the door to the frame of the car through the back window, and drove to Print It Plus so Dan's dad could fix it. While I was in the shop letting Dan's parents know we were there with the car, the man at the Guatemalan bakery next door fixed it. Friendly guy. We'll have to check out his bakery sometime.

this strike'll be bigger than jimmo!

2006-03-12T00:21:00.000-05:00

Earlier tonight I went to my brothers' Boy Scout ham and bean supper where I was chastised by my grandmother for wearing a low-cut top, which was a symptom of times we live in and also an effect of the Oscar awards. I won a paper aeroplane kit which I didn't remember putting a ticket in for. Later on I spent 74 minutes watching a Western with the family. The ending was surprisingly unpredictable, although if I hadn't tuned out the silly little song at the beginning, I think it might have given me a clue as to the fate of the stupid prospector. Jimmo!

Yesterday at work Arthur, one of the managers, stormed into the dishroom and told all of us to gather 'round. He told myself and another girl to go home because there were too many people working, but then a minute later told us to go out and wash tables, without seeming to realize that he'd just told us to go home. This was a very characteristic thing for him to do; the other week he sent me upstairs to wash tables and explained to me that I must wash the tables with soap and water in a bucket, and I must push in the chairs as well, but not at the booths, since the booths don't have chairs. He didn't say that last bit with any trace of humor.

Thursday was disappointing because my group for the writing project was going to meet and get coffee instead of meeting in the classroom, but we didn't get coffee. What with the usual Thursday coffee, I had been expecting to be in coffee shops for six hours. Dan said I would be a beatnik, and I declared that there would be a yearly celebration of the six hours in coffee shops. Instead the group met in school for 30 minutes, and Dan and I ate at Newport Creamery, having a meal and a shake to give us the status of "fatties."

Earlier in the week I realized truly that I am actually going to die someday. The realization hit me so hard that it sort of put a damper on the rest of the week, and for the past few days it would pop into my thoughts every so often and ruin my mood. I think it's sort of receding to the occasional pop-up of "holy crap... I'll be old someday," but I get afraid that I might not be able to keep morbid thoughts out of my head... I want to enjoy my vacation. *sigh*

soda! shield the fatties!

2006-03-07T00:25:00.000-05:00

Why do people have this view that you need money to eat a healthy diet? The produce aisle is the cheapest place in the supermarket.

From an article demonizing soda:
People who consume lots of fresh-squeezed juice, vegetables and fruits are fundamentally not the same as those who subsist on colas and bologna sandwiches, he contends.

"There is a difference: The first group is rich," Drewnowski said. He thinks government subsidies of fruits and vegetables would be better public policy than taxing a cheap source of calories.

A five pound bag of apples is about three dollars. How many bags of potato chips does it take to make even one pound? Maybe the blame lies with Stop and Shop. Sometimes they charge a bit high on veggies, possibly because people already seem to believe that veggies are more expensive, but they're still not that much.

I also think that article was a load of shit in the first place. Why are people spending so much time and money researching this? Soda is really, really bad for you, and people know this. No one needs to be told.

And why are people blaming marketing for this? It's the parents' fault. Kids do not make money, therefore they cannot buy things they see on television unless their parents give them money. Censor the airwaves, by gum, lest someone decide to actually parent their children!

2006-02-27T13:43:00.000-05:00

The other night I dreamt that I had multiple faces fighting to be the one that would show up on my head, and they all had stuffy noses.

Sickness blows.

a life of crime and young'uns

2006-02-24T00:41:00.001-05:00

Just watched a little blurb on the news called "Black Market Motherhood." Apparently, many women who can't afford fertility drugs are getting them illegally.

Perhaps that wouldn't be such an issue if women didn't wait till the threshold of menopause to have kids?

All the many dollars people spend on fertility treatments might be saved if people would plan their lives better. I truly think people don't do this enough, and they really need to. I'm not saying "Down with spontanaeity!" or "Find yourself a man and settle ASAP!" but having kids is probably the biggest choice someone can make in life. There's a certain timeframe when procreation must be done. I've bitched before about how no one is actually grown up until they have the so-called "real job" and are at least ten years after they physically finished growing up. More and more people are not marrying and having kids until they are into their thirties. Forty-somethings pretend they're twenty-something, and what with all the drugs and procedures available, sometimes get away with it. Reality check: if one is thirty, one is not twenty, no matter how many gallons of hair dye are used. If one is forty, one is not thirty. Age can be faked on the outside, but that's it.

Of course, there isn't anything wrong with marrying and having kids a bit late. My parents did it. The thing is, you should know about the timeframe. My grandmother had kids when she was in her forties, so my mom probably knew she could wait a bit. Whether or not someone thinks she would like to have some offspring, she should know about her family history with menopause and infertility. You never know when you might change your mind, so I think it's a good idea to have that knowledge just in case. And if you know for certain that you want kids, maybe you should just DEFY THE ALL-KNOWING FEMINIST DOCTRINES and settle down, ASAP.

Myself, I know that my mother had Jeffrey when she was forty, and both of my grandmothers had a child in their forties, but I also have this weird polycystic ovary syndrome. So, I will keep all that in the back of my mind, because though I am twenty now I will not forever be twenty, and I will not be stuck in a situation which sees me at age forty, having spent the last decade or so or my life becoming a famous novelist with no other identity and only just deciding something I should have thought about at a time it was biologically meant to be thought about.

2006-02-22T00:04:00.000-05:00

Is my back injury really so much better, or am I just distracted by the upset stomach? Or both?

She mis-sniffed the milk. I think it was bad.

Moments replay with such ease through music. Oh-- how I cannot stand the thought of you! Fall 2002.

objects

2006-02-19T17:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, and I thought it was funny that the new Spyware destroyer, Ad-Aware SE, lists "Objects Recognized, Objects Igored, and New Critical Objects." Hehe. Maybe you have to have suffered through a literary theory class to get that?

Books I've purchased recently:
-The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien Yeah, I already have a few copies... but the covers were really pretty.
-The Everything Learning Latin Book by Richard E. Prior (not the comedian)
-Fiction Writer's Brainstormer by James V. Smith Jr.
-Ovid- Selected Poems
-The Provinces of the Roman Empire by Theodore Mommsen
-Exercise Your Mind by B. Alexis Castorri and Jane Heller
-Get a Grip on Philosophy by Neil Turnbull

Number of Shoelaces I've purchased recently:
-Eighteen. That's nine pairs.

Number of record stores I've called about anything by The Vapors:
-Ten. No Vapors!

relief

2006-02-19T17:19:00.000-05:00

The computer needed some serious attention; I had been running Spybot every day, but it was almost totally ineffectual. So many windows were popping up that the computer would just lock up and cease all functioning. Ctr+Alt+Del wasn't working at all.

So, I spent a hour or so with the computer in safe mode, going through the hard drive myself and deleting everything suspicious.

The pop-ups, which were mostly from IE, have stopped. This is partly because some program or another added a ton of sites I would never go to onto my "Pop-Up Allowed" list. I'm still having trouble with sites loading at random while I'm in Firefox though. Like, I'll be reading an article and BAM some retail-discount-penis enlargement-drug rehabilitaion-coupon site will pop up. I've got another Spyware program now, and I'm hoping that will get rid of anything I missed when I went through myself.

law enforcement, skipping work, coffeecoffeecoffee

2006-02-17T13:23:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling rather pixilated after the whole being pulled over and being issued an $85 speeding ticket, my first ever.

The Merriam Webster word of the day e-mails are the bijoux of my inbox, brightening my day as they expand my vocabulary.

So, apparently they can charge $85 for going five miles over the speed limit. Not that the cop pulled me over for going five miles over the limit; I was going twelve miles over the limit; he pulled me over, actually, for doing forty-two in a thirty zone, zipping down the hill in neutral to save gas, but only charged me with thirty-five. Thank you, Mr. Cop, for a one hundred dollar discount.

I've been thinking of all the things I could have bought with that $85:
*A Super Nintendo with a whole myriad (not from Word of the Day) of games.
*A new outfit, probably complete with blazer and shoes.
*Forty-two cups of iced coffee
*Twenty pounds of ground coffee
*The Lord of the Rings, leather-bound with gold on the edges
*Another trip to Newport and the Cheeky Monkey
*Three entire seasons of Gilmore Girls on DVD, minus shipping

one ring to rule them all

2006-02-14T23:55:00.000-05:00

Two out of ten were all.

I'll never forget the one-car night promenade over the bridge, with all the orbs of bright lights lining the sky, suspended and draping like pearl necklaces, leading me as a princess back to my homeland.

Or the gaze of a duchess sitting next to evidence of her three martinis and looking down from her portrait at a dirty table and a ruined moment. My fault, his fault.

ah, education

2006-02-07T14:29:00.000-05:00

Here I am in snazzy new Alger Hall learning about Microsoft Office, by Crumm. I've been sitting in this class learning all sorts of useless (i.e., already known to me and indeed embedded quite thoroughly in my brain) knowledge. Anyone wanna know all the wonderful things that can be done just by venturing into Microsoft Word's Tools menu? The one useful (i.e., not useful, but just fun interesting) thing I have learned is how to make the default Word screen into white text on a blue background. Not just changing the text to white, and the background to blue, because that would print with white text on a blue background, but old school white on blue.

Yes, like this.

2006-02-01T02:14:00.000-05:00

The Sonnet
Deliberate Gentle Love Dreamer (DGLDf)

Romantic, hopeful, and composed. You are the Sonnet. Get it? Composed?

Sonnets want Love and have high ideals about it. They're conscientious people, caring & careful. You yourself have deep convictions, and you devote a lot of thought to romance and what it should be. This will frighten away most potential mates, but that's okay, because you're very choosy with your affections anyway. You'd absolutely refuse to date someone dumber than you, for instance.

Your exact opposite:
Genghis Khunt

Random Brutal Sex Master

Lovers who share your idealized perspective, or who are at least willing to totally throw themselves into a relationship, will be very, very happy with you. And you with them. You're already selfless and compassionate, and with the right partner, there's no doubt you can be sensual, even adventurously so.

You probably have lots of female friends, and they have a special soft spot for you. Babies do, too, at the tippy-top of their baby skulls.

ALWAYS AVOID: The 5-Night Stand, The False Messiah, The Hornivore, The Last Man on Earth

CONSIDER: The Loverboy

Link: The 32-Type Dating Test by OkCupid - Free Online Dating.
My profile name: hobbitsubcultur

So, mostly I put this here instead of my livejournal because I liked the little "composed" pun at the beginning. :)

insert title here (lazy title cop-out)

2006-01-31T16:26:00.000-05:00

I am sitting in the Whipple computer lab next to Dan, and I'm not getting anything done. This may or may not be because I am sitting next to Dan. In my notebook, I've started to write a nice essay about my betta fish: Glorfindel, Eowyn, Lorelai, Valanice, and Feanor. It's really a nice, descriptive sort of essay, and I'm trying to figure out some way to construe my experiences with the fish as a learning experience. The essay I have to write for creative nonfiction has to be about learning something, but I think that the something is supposed to be a skill. Is taking care of incredibly low-maintenance fish a skill?

Dan is stupid; he gave me a kiss because I just typed, "Dan is looking at bear teeth. Only losers look at bear teeth."

Last night I bought twenty dollars worth of books at Barnes and Noble. Dan just leaned over to look at what I was typing because he thought it might be about him. Stoopid self-centered Dan. I now have a new set of The Lord of the Rings, a small book of selections from Ovid, and a freakin' huge book about Roman provinces. If I can get ahold of them, I'm thinking of buying two books in Esperanto: Bestofarmo and La Kunularo de la Ringo, known in English as Animal Farm and The Lord of the Rings. I don't think I have TOO many copies of The Lord of the Rings yet.

the path of knowledge

2006-01-29T12:05:00.000-05:00

I'm on stupidly easy Windows XP task number 17 out of 53. So far I've suffered the tutorials on how to use the mouse pointer, scroll by clicking the arrow, scroll by dragging the scroll bar, click, right click, double click, click the start menu, log off windows, log back into windows, switch users, turn off the computer, view a screen tip, open the control panel, select text, and insert a letter into *gasp* the very middle of a word. It's taken me 25 minutes to watch a video, practice, and then "apply" each of these stupidly easy Windows XP tasks. Sadly, I have to do them because the professor can tell if I don't.

At the rate this program goes, someone who isn't already familiar with all this stuff would probably take a few years to become An Ultra-super Window-opening, Right-clicking Wiz. Someday when I am old and someone asks if there is anything I regret, I will answer with an air of sadness that I regret the SAM 2003 Microsoft Office Training. I will lament the time spend needlessly right-clicking and scrolling, for my life could have had so much more meaning if only I had used the time to pick fuzzies off my robe or read my thesaurus cover to cover.

a noble undertaking

2006-01-24T22:50:00.000-05:00

"Ponebam, ponebas, ponebat, ponebamus, ponebatis, ponebant." I sat on the couch conjugating in the imperfect tense the latin verb "to place." American Idol was on because Greg and I both hated the show, but had never actually seen it. Mom came in and instead of asking me why I had just spent nearly an hour watching a television show I didn't like, asked me why I was wasting my time learning Latin when the semester had just started and I surely had more important things to do.

Whoa.

She found the worth of Latin questionable, but said nothing about American Idol?

Why would you waste time learning a dead language? You have better things to do. Latin is useless. But not Why would you waste time watching a show you hate? Why would you watch a show with singers belting out songs you don't like, a show which likely has made it this far due only to the arse in the black tee and his snarky, repetitive observations?

When I learn Latin, I will have the power to invent new words. This is all the reason I need.

of necessary evils

2006-01-06T11:27:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I forget what an emotional person I am, and how prone I am (used to be?) to changing moods. My flaws have become an irritation rather than the cause of mental anguish. I can now shrug off others' bad opinions of me, or stray comments that at one point would have sent me crying. I've even learned when to say "screw you," if not to someone's face, then at least in acknowledgement that their opinion doesn't matter. Thank you, Dan, for that. Hardened, but not desensitized, I can choose when something should matter to me, and when it shouldn't. Any tears I have can be saved for real sadness instead of pathetic whining, though I still worry too much. In general, I've grown happier.

Earlier this week, I knew very well that this wouldn't be a good morning. Waking early is not a Kristin-compatible activity, particularly not when said waking early is done in order to go to the gynecologist.

Tired and a bit jittery, I spent the car ride to Attleboro in nervous anticipation of what promised to be a fairly uncomfortable appointment. Doctors' offices are something I could do without. The silence, the sterility, the instruments... all combine to form an experience I absolutely loathe. I've learned to live with the routine dentist and eye doctor appointments, but this hate of doctors' offices compounded with my fear of this particular office, and I ended up so nervous that I could barely sleep last night.

As it turned out, my fear was disproportionate to the actual experience. Yet after it was over there was something about it, something not entirely palpable, that left me feeling like I needed to cry. I held it in during the hour drive home, rubbing my eyes and complaining of dryness, but in my room, just now, I've broken down.

Was it the enviroment or the instruments? Being told I need to exercise more? Being nervous and tired? The bloodwork and the ultrasound I have scheduled for next week? The impersonal manner of talking about very personal subjects?

What it was, I don't know. But I now remember all the mood swings I used to have, and all the crying I used to do over... what?

Today is January 2nd, the first day of the new year!

2006-01-02T13:36:00.000-05:00

Why bother making a list of New Year's resolutions that I won't be likely to keep anyways? Or resolving to lose weight, which is America's most failed resolution. I make one resolution, and that is to stop biting my nails.

I've never liked New Years anyways. So, the calendars change. Does that really call for a gaudy, slowly descending ball and a feast the next day? New Years can be celebrated at any time of the year. June 24th could be my new year, or October 12th. Doesn't matter really, but I figure I might as well stick with January, as it is Janus's month.

Apparently simply saying "yes" to something is now a binding promise, and I am a bad person for breaking a promise. Yes is an answer, a promise is a definite answer. I don't break promises, because I don't make promises I can't keep. Would I have promised to help out at a certain time? Of course not. When time is a factor, I can't promise anything.

2005-12-17T15:42:00.000-05:00

I've been saying it for two days, but this time I really have to write.

I told Dan to be mad at me if I'm not done the Country Pumpkins revision by six o'clock, and the Fantastic Quest revision by ten.

Homemade chai latte, mmmmm.

of broken coffee vessels

2005-12-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

Funny, how anger can be delayed and then come out hours after the fact, while eating a bowl of Coco Puffs.

With no one around, no one to kick or scream at, there were only so many ways to express my anger. One was by throwing my Donovan cap down upon the table in a rageful manner, another was to eat my Coco Puffs as violently as possible, flirting with the possibilty of Coco Milk spills. Risky.

I was (and still am) mad about the mug. My wonderful, exceedingly high-quality, Job Lot bought, Christmas light travel mug. It only cost me $2.50, but that doesn't mean I'm not mad that someone in my family broke it and won't own up. They have no respect for other people's stuff, and I believe that in almost any other household, someone would have apologized to me by now.

Instead, when I asked my dad about the broken mug, I was told "no one broke your mug." Gee, then why is it broken? Why has the handle come off, taking a chunk of the mug with it? Why was it in perfect condition, waiting to go in the dishwasher, when I went to bed, and missing its handle when I got up?

Sure, no one broke my mug.

Awake, oh my

2005-12-14T07:53:00.000-05:00

So here I am sitting at the Student Union Cafe before eight o'clock in the morning... This is a bizarre experience for me, what with mornings being such unfamiliar territory.

Morning is just like I remembered, so cold, bright, and tiresome. I can barely even imagine the other end of the day, I'm so far away from it. Outside, the sun is shining from the wrong direction. I would take a walk, see how the campus looks in the strange light, but that would involve freezing my face off.

Dan said he doesn't want my face to freeze off. He said it's cute, and he likes it, and to stop apologizing for being late. Oh, and he said my homemade White Chocolate Latte was awesome.

I've lost about six pounds or so in the past few weeks, so I don't feel too bad that I am now going to Donovan for a possibly artery-hazardous breakfast.

Cheers!

booze it up

2005-12-08T01:09:00.000-05:00

Lately it's been one of those times when, if I do update, I don't finish writing any entries and they just sit there in draft form. So, I figured, now that I can type not-quite-super fast, maybe I'll just time myself and freewrite for a few minutes on whatever I'm thinking, or whatever's been going on.

Emeril is one of the funniest shows I've ever seen. It's not funny in the way he means it to be funny, certainly not the jokes his audience actually laughs at, but it's funny because he is so blatantly drunk. He lurches, he forgets words, he had pseudo-sexual interludes with his blender. Most of all, he gestures Italianly, and the gestures never match whatever it is he's actually saying. He also makes threats about oozing fig filling, which doesn't end up oozing. BAM! Kick it up a notch! What are those called--jimmies?-- sounds like they had a bad childhood! BAM!

I have to have my one-on-one tutorial with my creative writing prof. tomorrow, and I'm not looking forward to it.

Salem, part three

2005-11-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was the long-anticipated Salem trip. Three or four people couldn't go, so it was just Dan and I, and Mike. We didn't leave RI until slightly past 11, but we still had plenty of time in Salem to do everything we wanted. Mapquest failed us utterly, but thanks to my Dad's prior corrections to the Mapquest directions and generously placed, tourist-luring Salem signs in Peabody, we got there alright. I'm proud to say that I didn't freak out, even when for a few minutes we had little idea of where we were.

We went to the same places we end up at every year: Front Street Coffee, the comic shop, the army barracks, Lotus Gifts, the cheap book store, and the varied witch shops. As I expected, Salem's atmosphere improves greatly without the Halloween chaos. The old New England architecture, the cobblestones, and all the lovely little spots thrown about everywhere-- it's all much more suited to an austere November day than to garish festivities. It was nice to just enjoy the town without witches, witch trials, roasted nuts, and Nathanial Hawthorne thrown in our faces.

The more witch/ pagan shops I see, the more boring they get. Some are better than others, but in general they all sell they same stuff, and they all have the same vibe. Gee, here's another store with the same frequently circulated pentacles, fantasy role-playing weaponry, and new age crystal-astrology-numerology-pseudo-spiritual hoodoo. I did actually mean to buy incense, but instead all I bought was a rather shoddily painted bell, blue with gold moons and stars. Likely the owner painted it themself. Of course I could have pulled off the same shoddy craftsmanship, but doing it myself would only have filtered various self-esteem issues into it, whereas having someone else paint it turns it to a totally different creature. Cute, even.

I also bought The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide, all the Hitchhiker novels in one volume. I didn't want to buy it before because of the price, but at the used book place it was only $16. At a gift shop, I got Jeffrey a stuffed Edgar Allen Poe with detachable raven for Christmas (he's been getting into Poe lately). Later on at the army barracks store I bought myself a plain black ammo bag, which I'll be decorating, and then a pony/ Christmas ornament with lucky coin at the Asian gift store.

On the ride home, after dropping Mike off, Dan and I saw a shooting star. It was right over Petersen farms on route 44. This was the first one Dan's ever seen, but I actually saw another one just about a month ago, on Halloween. It didn't give me the same magical, thoroughly awed feeling as the first one, yet I think it's a good sign.

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." -Douglas Adams

we're singing for England. En-ga-land.

2005-11-11T01:34:00.000-05:00

This is to everyone (mainly people who probably don't even know my blog exists) who argues that British English is more correct than American English.

In elementary school, I asked a teacher why a certain book spelled "color" and "favorite" as "colour" and "favorite." I was a good speller, top in my class, and I knew the words ended -or. Something was amiss. My teacher told me that in America we spell those words -or, while in Canada and England, they are spelled -our. This is accepted by most Americans, or at least those who aren't overly, annoyingly Anglophilic.

"But English belongs to the British! It was their language first."

Four hundred years of evolution on both sides of the Atlantic make that a stupid claim. Saying that American english isn't the original english is true but of little consequence, because the current British english is also not the original english. And what? It's not your language? You haven't spoken it most of your life? A language belongs to the people who use it. No one has copyrights, not even the most rigid sticklers.

Plus, the "I think it's cooler/ more elite/ British-y-er" American users of it (at least the ones I've seen) apparently don't know the difference between Canadian and British. If you're going to do Brit english, do it right. Simply using -our and -er only makes it a bastardized Canadian english. In some cases, Brits have different puncuation. Comma outside the end quote. Tyre, not tire. Manoeuvres, not maneuvers. Spell your words in whatever way is aesthetically or sensibly pleasing to you, but don't say you're doing it because it's British if you're not going all the way. I spell colour with a U because it's British. Ah, then why doesn't "frolick" have a k? Ummm, I spell frolic without a K because it's American or I forgot because that's what I'm used to or I just totally had no freakin' idea. While there shouldn't be enough people doing this to warrant a rant, there somehow are.

Myself, I am a fan of the Canadian English, but apparently Canada isn't hip enough for some people. Eh.

2005-11-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hernando DeSoto...

Now there was a guy who knew how to discover a river.

"But," you say, "what could possibly be more important that college?"

2005-10-24T06:21:00.000-04:00

Q. "What could be more important than homework? You're a fulltime student." -Dad

A. Only about five things or so that I can name right off the top of my head.

Health There's little point in bothering with anything else if you are unhealthy. To put it in a morbid sort of way, keeping your health is keeping yourself as far from death as possible, because there isn't much that matters if you're dead.

Happiness As I don't know My Divine Purpose, if such a thing exists, I might as well just enjoy life. In fact, for lack of a better purpose, I take happiness and enjoyment as my purpose. Of course, health is mandatory to this.

Dan We aid each other in our attainment of health and happiness, and will always do so. I love Dan very much, and he ranks right up with health and happiness.

Nature I'm a pagan for a reason. All of our nourishment comes from nature (see health), plus I can usually comfort myself just by going outdoors (see happiness). Fresh air heals everything, and inspires as well.

Friends and family This doesn't really need to be explained. Good times happen among good company, and there are always ties to the people you come from.

Money In today's world, money is needed to attain health and happiness, at least for those of us who don't wish to live off the land. Money can't buy happiness? Try waxing philosophical when you have not a single pair of clean socks. College is only a vehicle for making more money.

Learning This is done every day, in every situation, and can be done as easily at a library as at a thousands-of-dollars-per-year institution. It goes beyond school, and sometimes is only barely achieved at school.

College comes after all these things (and maybe more which I have not thought of), especially since all these are permanent, necessary things, while college is only a phase in my life. So, it goes against my wishes that I will be driving in to school this morning on zero sleep. This will make me unhappy, and will certainly be a strain on my health, but I do it for money (I have work later) and learning (if such a thing happens at school).

Poor trade-off, but what the hell else am I supposed to do?

taxidermy of an ethicist

2005-10-17T23:27:00.000-04:00

Anyone who bothers to look at this entry will get to read something interesting I learned in Contemporary Ethical Theory today.

Jeremy Bentham, the Utilitarian philosopher, left very specific instructions at his death. A large portion of his wealth was to be left to the university he taught at, on the condition that his stuffed body be in attendance at all the board meetings. The body now has a wax head, but to this day it is still wheeled out for important meetings. It used to be on display to the public, but now, if anyone visits London and wishes to see it, an appointment can be made.

I have to wonder if Bentham's own theories played any role in this. He was of the mind that the most moral way to live life is to strive for the maximum amount of pleasure or happiness for yourself and everyone around you. In a nutshell, his Principle of Utility is that the best action to take is the one that brings the most pleasure to everyone affected by the decision. He even had a system for rating pleasures to decide what the best course of action is, but I wonder if he really thought that the most pleasurable course of action was to have his stuffed body hanging around for centuries.

2005-10-12T22:55:00.000-04:00

Two more funny spam e-mail names to add to the list:

Schallert Frisby
Danko Boone

I had something to write, but I forgot. That happens when you don't sleep.

I kind of sort think I might have passed my philosophy exam.

a rant about bad drivers of the weekend

2005-10-10T16:38:00.000-04:00

Is it really so difficult to be a safe driver? Today I was driving on 6 East, getting off at the Killingly Street exit, when some assbag decided to tail me so closely that I was actually afraid to slow down at the off ramp. I was slowing down from 60 miles per hour, and yet this douche was probably less than five feet from the back of my car. There was very little traffic, so this bastard in a white sports car had absolutely no excuse.

Say a cat had dashed across the off ramp at that point. I would have instinctively hit the brakes, and at that speed, I would be putting not just my car, but my own life, in jeopardy because some arse can't drive. Forget that following distance is one of the major lessons taught in driver's ed; shouldn't it just be common sense to not put yourself and others around you at risk any more than you have to?

Now that I'm commuting, my encounters with people who don't know how to drive are more frequent. Just on Friday, I stopped at the dollar store at Lincoln Mall on my way home. Driving down Route 7, I merged to the left lane since the right one split off onto another road going to Woonsocket or North Smithfield. Immediately after I merged left, a white van came to almost a complete stop right in front of me, and I had to go back to the right lane to make sure I wouldn't hit him. Since he was practically stopped, I sped up and signalled that I was going to pass him, since I again had to get out of the right lane. Even though I had pulled ahead of him enough to make the pass, he started to speed up! At this point, my choices were: hit the signpost situated at the fork in the road, or speed up more to pass the turd.

Somehow, I'm the one who ended up getting honked at. ARGH!

with enthusiasm for my recent authorship...

2005-10-10T00:34:00.000-04:00

In definition form, the events of my brothers' birthday party. Greg turned 18, Jeff turned 13.

A Candroid is a robot which is made of joints, strong magnets, clips, and a can head for storing small objects. Such robots are sometimes found posed with a winning scratchcard in one clip and a wad of money in the other.

A muppet man of indeterminate nationality is a small inch-high figurine which does not belong in the Homie Dog Pound machine, but should be accepted into one's life gracefully, and without regret that it might have been Clown Pitty instead. Also known as Wo Fat Sanchez.

A headache is a sense of dizziness and confusion felt in the brain when one is transporting one's chatty aunt and grandmother in a subcompact car and is on the receiving end of both their conversations.

A Coffee Chocolate Cheesecake is a prize-winning dessert served with a strong coffee sauce. Sometimes used as a boyfriend-replacement.

a great moment

2005-10-10T00:15:00.000-04:00

All who read this may view my glory, my greatest accomplishment.

Go to Merriam-Webster Online's Open Dictionary. Search for the word "spork." Note who submitted it.

Yes, I have authored a dictionary definition of the word "spork." This sure beats graduating high school!

obsessive compulsive disorder

2005-10-08T20:43:00.000-04:00

I'm sick of how cavalier people are with the term "obsessive compulsive." A person who is organized may be just that; organized. Also, being either obsessive or compulsive does not mean that someone has a serious illness. Dan tells me that with pretty much any psychological disorder, it isn't considered a disorder unless it impedes with the person's daily life. I don't know much about psychology, but I do know that obsessive compulsive disorder is a serious thing for many people. My dad was just talking about his Uncle Dick. Uncle Dick is someone who really suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. I've only met him twice because he hasn't left his house for years. His disorder started out with the well-known handwashing issue, but now he is so afraid of germs that he can't leave the house, and when relatives tried to get him to take medication, he couldn't because he was actually terrified to do so. He will only eat foods that have been packaged a certain way. The two times I met him were at the funeral of my Nona, his mother, and the funeral of my Aunt Ida, his elder sister. Think of that. He's been in that house my entire life, possibly longer, and the only occasions he found the strength to emerge for were the funerals of people he loved.

It's amazing how many people think they have serious psychological disorders. Every time some stupid shit says, "Yeah, I'm obsessive compulsive," I want to bludgeon them with some psychology textbook.

Wow, that sounded like Dan.

"stars will fall down... luck will surrender"

2005-10-05T01:45:00.000-04:00

Working at Donovan today was way more fun than it had any right to be. Barry ruined everything and along with the other Kristen, we created soap bubble children by combining the power of sanitizer with the suds of soap in the womb of Peter Pan Dandy.
I hope never to type such a sentence as the previous again, but shooting soap bubbles up at the ceiling is ridiculously funny, as is looking for shapes in soap bubble patterns on the sinktop.

At one point, I was talking to Kristen (note: she's an EN Kristin, though not evil for it) and we have both found that we've met more people working at Donovan than anywhere else at college. I'm on my third year at RIC now, and it's only this year I've really adopted something of a social life, albeit an oftentimes Donovan-centric social life. In the past few months or so, I've tripled my livejournal friends list.

It's only October, but I know this school year will be an awesome one. I knew it even before it started; there are signs every time I have a good year. This time, it might have been the master list of things I needed to do to improve my life. It might have been my prayer to help me follow the list. It might have been the few pounds I lost last year giving me an extra bit of confidence to add some scintillating bit of excitement that wasn't there before. It might have been Dan's love and encouragement. It might have been the car and the independence it has brought.

Folks (all two of you), I would say at this moment that life is good. Despite lost bets and binders, and the irritations of, literally, mice and men. I've never read that book.

This morning I was woken up by my Dad yelling to the rest of the family, "Be quiet! Whisper, or you'll wake up Kristin!"

I'm thinking of making this blog public, at least to those listed as friends on my livejournal. Having a secret blog has lost its novelty.