Full of Content

Why, Hello Last of my Childhood Delusions!

2009-04-12T18:17:00.006-04:00

I realized something kind of depressing today as I lay on my bed at home, wondering why it was taking so much effort to do my homework. You see, I still hold on to the belief that one sunny afternoon I will find myself sitting in a library, or in my room at my desk, and suddenly realize that I'm being productive, that I've cast aside the majority of my procrastinating ways and finally learned how to finish things in a timely manner. The truth of the matter is that day will never happen silently or without a tremendous concentrated effort on my part. It's kind of like facing up to the fact that Santa really doesn't exist and that I actually have to get a job if I want to buy superfluous items for my enjoyment. Just being on my best behavior won't cut it anymore. Procrastinating and waiting to the last minute to do papers and study for tests isn't going to cut it anymore. I actually need to put in some effort now if I want more than passing grades. Sadly, it has taken me this long to finally admit this to myself.

So, good bye my academic Santa, it was nice deluding in you while it lasted. Hopefully, the destruction of my ignorance will benefit me in the long run. However right now, I do not care to relish in the long term health of my academic career. I have a 300 page book to read, a 5 page paper due by Wednesday, and new delusions to meet. Why- Hello Reality! My name is Olivia, it's nice to be slapped in the face by you again! I hope one day we can work on your extreme dislike of my work habits and I can look the other way at your uncaring and merciless approach to my happiness!

My Bunker in the Amazon...

2009-02-18T12:37:00.004-05:00

... or how to survive the Earth's imminent doom (read Zombie Apocalypse, Nuclear Holocaust, Global Climate Change, Explosion of Yellowstone, etc)

For some time now, I have been contemplating the imminent doom of the human race. Now, I tend to view myself as a rational, scientific human being. Albeit, one who occasionally gives in to feats of irrational phobias from time to time, but otherwise, I'm generally stable. However, the year 2012 is fast approaching and with it, a slew of apocalyptic hype. The evidence was gathered, the ancient tomes of times past pulled out of their quiet corners, the everyday science of the world gussied up to marvel and incite powerful emotions, and the literature expanded exponentially. The general consensus: the world is going to end in three years. To which I say, well shit.

Now, if we are to put any stock in these allegations, even for an instant, what's one of the first things we do about it? Panic. Yes. And then prepare. Prepare for the inevitable doom of our life on earth. Our realities, our social constructs, our culture and our history. And how do you go about doing such a thing? That's where the bunker in the Amazon rain forest comes into play.

Originally, when it first came down to it, I was just content being pissed off that I wouldn't be able to finish graduate school. Seriously, I go through high school hating it, looking forward to the freedom of college. Then I spend all of this time in my undergrad, working my ass off, listening to professors who butcher the subject I love (granted, there are some really great professors out there), wading through extensive lectures and putting up with it, just so I may one day enter a graduate program and finally get the opportunity to do what I want to do with my life and my education. Obviously, if the world were to end come 2012, these plans would be null.

With this in mind, I began to stew upon some ideas. At the start of this blog post, I thought I'd just explain why I wanted a bunker in the Amazon. However, after three solid paragraphs of flippantly crafted rhetoric, I kind of want to give this more thought and attention, to idle away at my office hours and allow myself the opportunity to indulge in all of my paranoid scenarios along with the chance to explore a sustainable way of living in extreme conditions.

So the post that began as How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse may just turn into If We Can Survive a Zombie Apocalypse, Why Not Live Like This Everyday and Not Have to Worry About It At All? Now, without further ado, I present The Plans, to be richly and comprehensively embellished upon in a later post at a later date - when I don't have two labs, an interview and a meeting, breathing down my neck.

The Plans:
(multiple, yes, and listed in order of how dire of a situation the world's in)

Canada

The Amazon

An island

An underground city in the subway/metro system of a large city

Antarctica

An underwater ecosystem

Outer Space

In the promised later posts, I will, in all of my amateur expertise, name a situation that would require us to initiate The Plans, and then go about explaining what The Plan entails. The point is to be epic, but realistic at the same time - won't that be fun?!

It's been a while...

2009-02-17T14:44:00.003-05:00

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.”
- Mark Twain

It's been a while since the last time I've pontificated a point or an idea on this blog. From then til now life has moved on in its ever stubborn matter, not caring if I say something, do something, feel something. Good old life.

I haven't been exactly relaxed these past few months. I tried to make life better, but who knows what can be called better from worse. Maybe you have to make it worse in order to make it better. Start with destruction so that you may know what it means to create. Maybe life is just one mistake after another, some better than others, some worse. Mistakes are just decisions we make, and in hindsight regret. In their conception, they were just as innocent as any other action. Does that make them any easier to view and look back on? No, it does nothing to help whatsoever. It merely adds more words to their contemplation and gives me something to talk about while skirting other issues.

Now that Spring is approaching again, I feel the need to run away. South, of course. Away from the mud and cold of the winter. In the middle of the night, the windows rolled down, the road stretching out behind me in a fading concrete banner, the stars spelling out the hours and months and seasons, the nearly tangible smell of dark forests and deserted beaches - I would run away if I could. If I didn't have so many connections with this world, so many reasons not to leave, I don't know if I'd ever stay in one place longer than a season.

So if you find yourself talking to me late one night and I randomly ask you to run away with me, keep this in mind. I'm not crazy, I'm just restless. There are some days that stick out in your mind's eye. When all you want to do is escape what's going according to plan because the sound of your own voice and the feel of the same routines makes your skin crawl. It's because sometimes, good enough isn't enough anymore.

The End of Another Year

2008-12-29T01:35:00.005-05:00

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”

- Nietzsche

I love Nietzsche. He gets right to the heart of things and makes you wonder at your ideas and conventions. Do you regret the choices you've made? Would you live the life you have made for yourself and over again? And would that change what you did now? It almost sounds like the 'if you knew you were going to die in X amount of time, what would you do' question, but one that challenges your entire life. You will live out all of your mistakes and all of your glories forever more. All that you do now will be repeated time and again. You can not escape to an afterlife, you can not escape what you run from. On the flip side, you will relive all of your loves, all the perfect moments you had forgotten to appreciate. The next time you relived your life, would you remember to not take those moments of calm, of still and quite happiness, for granted?

What is Nietzsche trying to say? That we're screwed to live out miserable existences? Maybe, he was kind of a debbie downer when it came to the condition of mankind. But maybe he wanted us to accept that we all make mistakes, that we all at one point find ourselves in our loneliest loneliness, but despite all of that, we must not define our lives by our failures, but by our triumphs. In our darkest hour, we must not let that demon convince us that to repeat our lives would be hell, but a chance to happily live life again, even with all its lows. We must remember that to live is to be loved and be hurt, to forgive and to regret, to teach and to be taught, to be sick and to be healed. Life is a give and take. The bad gets mixed up with the good sometimes, but there's never one without the other.

There is no escaping Nietzsche's question, but you have a choice in how you answer. You can gnash your teeth and curse your existence, or you can be thankful to exist.

The Finding of Thanks

2008-11-25T04:00:00.002-05:00

It's Thanksgiving time. Give your thanks to people. Remember to be thankful of life, of the world, of the opportunities provided to you. Every year, my family goes around the table and thinks of something unique and touching that they're thankful for. You must be unique and touching - it's a requirement, enforced by the normal family pressure of who can make someone cry out of touching heartfelt happiness this year. And every year, I find it within myself to flop on the heartfelt touching side of it. Shit, I hate talking about emotions. It makes me very uncomfortable, even around my family. So this year, in preparation for the inevitable, I thought I'd give it a trial run. What am I thankful of?

...

The mind draws a blank, and the old standbys flit through my mind, slowly drawing out my suddenly timid thoughts. Family, friends, food on the table, roof over my head, warm blankets and the crisp smell of fall in the morning. Thick socks on cold nights, Scrabble tournaments, and tea pots. Escape books, mellow music, a good listener, hidden journals, black ink pens that glide across the clean paper in an irresistible manner. Homemade soup, cold cold glasses of milk, fresh bread, food made with love, the smell of breakfast in the morning, the sound of my mom happily singing while she cooks. Football games, stealing shrubbery for table ornaments, sparkling grape juice.

This year I am full of thanks for the things that have managed to change in order to stay with me for nineteen years; the happy memories of past years that have morphed to become tales told with exaggerated gestures and uncontrollable laughter at the recollection of it all, traditions that come and go. And the things that things that haven't changed so much; the smell of turkey, the taste of mashed potatoes and sweet corn, the sound of our old piano, and the simple, almost mafia-esq knowledge that family comes first.

2008-11-02T17:02:00.001-05:00

Holy Expletives and Other Tidbits of a Sorts

2008-10-23T23:30:00.005-04:00

“The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm but because of those who look at it without doing anything.”

- Albert Einstein

Being productive is exhausting. No one really ever mentions that. Granted it's a releasing kind of exhausting that makes you sleep for a solid 12 hours and wake up refreshed and well rested. But it's exhausting. It takes a lot to not screw up, to balance and juggle and stay on your feet all the while moving forward somehow. You gather this strange momentum of energy around you that just pushes behind, forcing you to do things as efficiently as possible, and if you get it right, then it makes everything easier. But you're just one unlucky bastard should you screw it up. It's slightly terrifying, because if you have this much responsibility, then that means you have people there to see you bomb. And they can't help but watch as you crash and burn. But in the end, when it's done, and you're standing on the other side of the calendar week, or month, or year, there's that feeling of such great accomplishment and well deserved self pride that you didn't die in the process. I wonder if that's what leaders strive for, that feeling of endorphins rushing through your veins when you've crossed the proverbial finish line. I'd like to think they did, but that might be asking too much of some people.

On a less contemplative side, I have a gigantic papier mached globe in my room and I have no idea what to do with it. Berea is this weekend, I have cleats, and fall is in the air! Happiness all around.

When It Rains

2008-10-09T11:50:00.003-04:00

Heart Be Still

2008-10-06T11:21:00.003-04:00

So, I was perusing my favorite knitting blog, when I happened to read that Jared Flood, the author of said blog will be hosting three knitting workshops at Yarns Unlimited in Sewickely, Pennsylvania the weekend of our fall break. A few things that have riled me up into a happy knitting tizzy: 1) I've been and spent a profuse amount of money at Yarns Unlimited, 2) my family's thinking about going to Pennsylvania that weekend, which means 3) if I'm extraordinarily lucky, the easier workshops won't have sold out and I'll be able to spend even more money at a knitting shop and get to meet Jared Flood and ooh and ahh over his knitting genius. I suppose if I can't take a workshop, I could always just hang around and talk to him afterward. That's not too creepy, right?

How does one describe the indescribable?

2008-09-26T01:53:00.007-04:00

"The perception of beauty is a moral test."

-Henry David Thoreau

Searching for Infinity

2008-09-17T16:12:00.004-04:00

Identities float through my brain, the mysteries of the universe almost within my grasp. Those subtle truths so concrete in abstract thought will perhaps one day come to life, taking on personalities of their own, limiting one another's functional domains in order to coexist in mathematical harmony. But until then they offer no respite to my thoughts. Picking up my pencil now, for a moment I find clarity in the idea of infinity. I see a glimpse of its possibilities, of its purpose and meaning, just long enough to calculate my limits. I know there's some hidden beauty in what it does. But before I am able to put word to thought, it evades my grasp entirely and rushes off into the wild brambles of the ethereal world of calculus.

A Curious Happenstance of Life

2008-09-14T11:18:00.003-04:00

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace."

-Buddha

To forgive and forget.
To forget to forgive.
To forgive and never forget.

As emotional, irrational human beings, we tend to get angry or irritated over really stupid things. Why we do this is for some other post. Right now, I'm musing on what we do after the initial emotions have played out, and we're left looking back on the moment. Do we truly forgive and forget the slight, as if it suddenly meant nothing to us? Do we tend to get so caught up in what we think is righteous anger that when it's played out we forget to forgive someone and release both of us from the travesty. Or do we forgive and secretly never forget what has happened to us, keeping it in the back of your mind for years to come? Somehow, all of these seem to ring slightly selfish to me in the grand scheme of life.

You see, I think in reality, we all wish we never had to forgive someone. That the people we know would never irk us, piss us off, or make us so incredibly frustrated that we shut ourselves down when we're together. We wish they could hold incredible understanding, empathy, patience, caring, and maturity in the palm of their hands while they spoke to you and acted around you. We may not wish they were perfect, but we do wish they would try harder toward perfection.

What it comes down to is that we rarely forgive people, sincerely forgive them, for the wrongs that hit closest to the ego and the heart, the things that matter the most to us. And we don't easily forget such things either. Instead, we build them up in the back of our minds, until one day they boil over with repression.

No one's perfect, we all know the cliche, time worn, slightly annoying expression. But we almost use it as an excuse now, used to let people off the hook. Obviously, going around judging people and holding all their flaws against them isn't the way to go, but there are such things as accountability, maturity, and common courtesy that everyone is expected to have. It's another one of those damnable balancing acts that makes living a peaceful life something you strive for for your entire existence, if that's your thing.

In sincerity, I don't know what message I'm trying to leave my readers. I put almost as much energy into trying not to hold grudges and getting pissy with people as I might use if I did hold those grudges and let my singular irritations with the world affect the way I treat people. In the end, it's anyone's guess what we should or should not do with our lives and emotions. It all comes down to trial and error. Hopefully we survive the social and physical tests that go askew, and find that solid and irrefutable truth within such an experience. More like then not, we won't, and we'll go about living comfortably sheltered by our happy ignorance of the shittier side of life.

Algae, Brain Matter, and the French

2008-09-05T01:29:00.001-04:00

"He kept a piece of algae behind his ear to remind him of his roots. A million years ago every place was a little place by the sea, he would say and my mind would go blank and I would swim through the day without a care in the world and it all seemed so familiar that I knew I would go back someday to my own little place by the sea."

- Brian Andreas (perhaps...not entirely certain about that one)

It's one of those nights again. I'm tired but I don't want to go to bed just yet. I want to ponder and let my mind wander without sleep closing in around me. I'd like to just let everything fall from my mind onto this page and let it air out for the night before replacing it neatly back into my brain. Alas, this is not the place to put my thoughts on record for all to see. So I'll let Amelie play out to its end and go to sleep before something too exciting happens.

Staying in Step

2008-09-02T10:24:00.002-04:00

"I know you're wise beyond your years
But do you ever get the fear
That your perfect verse is just a lie
You tell yourself to help you get by?"

- Clark Gable, Postal Service

Standing on the edge of another semester of school and I'm filled with the overwhelming sense of being swept up into a perpetual dance of academia and college life. And, god damn it, I'm determined to not mess up this semester. But as the semester wares on, not tripping over your feet because more difficult with each passing week. Things speed up and get complicated. I get flustered. I forget how to keep that very important balance between obligations and having fun. And then, before I know it, I'm sitting in a corner, frustrated and pissed off, and the world spins madly on around me. It's funny- when you're prepared for that whirlwind of situations it seems to just float around you, gracefully picking you up in all of its worried anxious energy and passing you off to the next waiting challenge. But when you're outside of it all, looking in, all you see is a chaotic mess. I suppose the strategy is to revel in the chaos of life, rather than try to fight it.

So, here's my advice to my readers: when you feel yourself getting overwhelmed this semester, just remember to breath deep calming breathes, accept that life will always contain some form of stress and then take it one step at a time. Find the balance between getting caught up in the moment and planning for the future. Sometimes we can't avoid the rough patches, but think of how lucky you are to actually have the option to avoid it or not. You are all intelligent people. Just don't panic and work yourself into a tizzy.

The Perplexity of Happiness

2008-08-27T17:08:00.005-04:00

"The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the
more I will respect myself."
-Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte

No one thought to mention the perplexity of being happy, the way, unbidden, the mind will float away from time to time and rest lightly from one contented thought to another, making concentration difficult. It can dull our survival senses, blanket our ability to see the hard truth of a situation and ruin our abilitiy to make cold analytical decisions. But for most of us, finding and keeping happiness in our lives is survival. We live our lives for those happy moments, seeking them in companionship and purposeful work. Yet Proust said that happiness only serves to make unhappiness a possibility, and Bronte seemed convinced that living a lonely life was the only way to find self respect. Do we hide behind happiness to avoid confronting our personal faults? Do we perpetuate our despair by seeking the allusive blue bird of happiness? Probably. There is reason in those depressing vitriolic prose. But really, who wants to live their life constantly aware of every pain and sorrow, fault and mistake of the world and themselves? Why beat up on something as genuine and sincere as true contented happiness when so few people find it in life? Why must we pull others down when we are miserable and insecure? We can be a sad species sometimes.

On the Eve of Academic Battle

2008-08-24T23:46:00.005-04:00

So I'm back and really unmotivated to blog. I think I might go on a blogging hiatus. The Galapagos were bad ass, I might post pictures, most likely I'll flickr them. If you'd like to hear me ramble off an awestruck and reverent account of my days island hopping Darwin style, come to dinner this monday night. If that's not a possibility, you could take the time to send me a message via some form of communication. I like letters.

Other than that, school starts tomorrow, in all it's stressful glory - excelling despite the hardships of living on campus, going beyond the call of duty with productive procrastination, and above all, surpassing even my own expectations of general denial about school work. Not to mention awesome nerd classes and nerdy extracurricular activities.

On my ending note, my mom bought me Alice in Wonderland mugs that no one has seen yet, I've spent the majority of my time in Nicole and Annie's room, and I've finished knitting Annie's hat. It's really cool, if Annie's not looking, I can show it to you.

This is going to be a good year.

The Euphoria of Before

2008-08-05T18:24:00.005-04:00

"“Islands are havens and breeding grounds for the unique and anomalous. They are natural laboratories of extravagant evolutionary experimentation.”

David Quammen

I begin my journey to the Galapagos tomorrow, and as usual, I have yet to square all of my business in the states away, but I'll likely be up most of the night in euphoric excitement so there's always time. Some may think that this is just more of my general brand of procrastination. To me, however, it's part of the ritual of traveling. What's the point in having everything ready to go hours before you're even thinking about going to sleep? I find comfort in the piles of clothes stacked around me on my bed, waiting to be put into a suitcase or designated to a basket. Not having my bag packed before 7 pm just keeps my hands busy and my mind focused, or else I'd probably be a twitching mass of excitement at the prospect of this trip. To be honest, I'm still in shock that I'm going to be touring the freaking Galapagos. I'm going to be on a boat in the south Pacific for ten days and all I'm required to do is immerse myself in a natural wonder and enjoy myself. I think I kind of want to weep with happiness just at the mere thought of it.

Anyways, I just wanted to happily say farewell to everyone for now, as I'll have the decadent luxury of not having nor needing the internet where I'm traveling. The next time I'll talk to most of you will be in person, which is just another barrel of excitement only eclipsed by my imminent departure. Until then, have as much carefree fun in these last weeks of summer vacation as you can.

Born to Gaze into Night Skies

2008-08-03T01:14:00.004-04:00

I feel like taking a walk tonight. Tonight being 1:14 in the A.M. The air's just the right temperature, it's a bit muggy, but not stifling, the sky's clear, and I'm contemplative enough that I can ignore the fact that as a young female walking alone at night, I'm a target for all sorts of trouble. I won't, mainly because there was a recent mugging involving a gun just around the corner, partially because this kind of walking necessitates someone to walk with, and also because I can sit on my small backdoor stoop next to the small tabletop garden and get a somewhat similar experience.

Things I wish to make when I have the time and resources:

Peaches and Cream
Homemade Pizza
Fresh French Bread
Lentil Soup
French Onion Soup
Banana Bread
Hummus
Cornbread Chicken
Sun Tea

"Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love."

-Wally Lamb

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

2008-07-30T00:28:00.004-04:00

Happy Happenings of the Day

EUREKA's back!!!!
I was treated to this while studying:
"Why do people buy expensive exercise equipment and use it as a coat hanger? I don't know." - my Human Sexuality professor, musing on why people do self destructive things.
The knitting season has finally begun. I have already knit with normal needles, frogged that, reknit with circular needles, frogged that one as well, and finally settled on some dpns three sizes too small that make for a nice concise rib hem.
I ate two plums, an apple, and tried out that organic instant macaroni and cheese and wasn't disapointed.
I have a week and one day until I get to spend some quality time on this lil' thin g with my grandma. Not to mention I have the great pleasure of fulfilling a lifelong dream of traveling to the Galapagos. Had I the time, my reading list would have included at least five books on island biogeography, some on Darwin's life, Origins of the Species, and three other books by E.O. Wilson just to fill things out.
And school with all of its promises and opportunities is just around the bend.

Today was a good day.

Rigors of Translating the Indescribable

2008-07-28T01:16:00.007-04:00

I have a love for finding words in different languages that don't have a competent English translation. I found this page tonight that was just a blog of people discussing their favorite ones. Things like this remind me why I loved Spanish once upon a time. I feel like by learning a language intimately, I will somehow know in a moment its personal history of development as thoroughly as I know mine - all of its twists and turns, deep sighs and raucous laughs, I watch it transform into something so fluid and beautiful that it can express the thoughts of Pablo Neruda, Nietzsche, and Tolstoy. Its idioms are its passions, its grammar - its quirks, and its cadence and accents are its temperament. It's the personality of a culture - it's part of everyone's personality. Languages are gregarious and rich and so alive that to never speak them again is death. When words slip from your mouth in the perfect combination, you can almost feel their texture in the roll of your tongue and shape of your lips, like they're more than just symbols for an object, but actual objects themselves, unique to every language. Above all, they are frustratingly complex and so beyond the realm of beauty because they are able to bring forth our abstract thoughts into the world. They are the mediators between emotions and communication.

Languages are a culture's adjectives. Almost. Ergh, that's redundant, isn't it? Either way I love adjectives, maybe that's why I find myself so enamored with languages and writing and describing my thoughts and opinions in general. When I was in Spain, I sorely missed the plethora of adjectives at my easy disposal. I never realized how much I valued them until all I could quickly and cogently come up with were bueno, bonita, guapo, rico, and mal. Has anyone tried looking for the Spanish equivalent for creepy? The closest I came was their word for horrifying. Or, what about trying to translate the flippancy but frustration of the phrase "never mind". Or convey to a sensitive Spanish mother the neutrality of the word fine when you're describing how you liked dinner. There's a finesse to a language that only comes with a native's experience. I suppose this isn't quite so much of a problem for people who are fine with just communicating the essentials, but for me, not being able to describe something to my liking can drive me insane.

A Small List:

Fernweh - the longing to be far away, not to be confused with (German)
Wanderlust - the longing to travel (German)
Appel du vide - "the call of the void", the urge to jump from high places (French)
Hyggelig - instantly satisfying and cozy (Danish)
Toska - "No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom." (Russian)
Mokita - the truth which no one speaks
Gezellig - it refers to an ambiance that is achieved with friends, food, drink, lighting, music, etc. (Dutch)
ديوان (diiwaan) - "can mean 'account books' or 'anthology' or 'oeuvre', but one of the more difficult meanings of the term to translate is 'collective poetic or literary tradition of a people' " (Arabic)

I'm too Lazy to Elaborate

2008-07-26T15:06:00.008-04:00

"The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on."

- Chuck Palahniuk

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become."

- Buddha

"Your smile makes me want to misbehave."

- Post Secret

“If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

-Friedrich Nietzche

Laughter Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

2008-07-22T00:45:00.006-04:00

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
-Mark Twain

What Keeps Me Awake

2008-07-21T04:36:00.000-04:00

"What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?"

- Kahil Gibran

My thoughts on a Feeling of Unrest:

The feeling of unrest creeps up on you, as it did to me tonight as I watched the night’s sky out of the car window. You’re thinking of nothing in particular, the days conversations and events float in and out of your thoughts not settling entirely. So it takes you unawares, until you notice that that feeling in the back of your throat wasn’t there a minute ago. And then it’s no longer limited to your throat, but it spreads, seeps, throughout your body, burrowing into your stomach, blurring your thoughts, suddenly making you shiver in uneasiness. You try to pinpoint its origins, but you never can. All you know is that you want to do something that makes you feel alive again. It makes you want to put on your shoes and go out into the night and run until your legs give way underneath you and your body is burning for oxygen. Or find the nearest person who can lend a sympathetic ear and closed mouth and confide in them confessions you can’t afford to impart on those such words concern. It makes you want to feel alive, feel that you have yet to be totally lost to the world at large, if just for one moment.

The feeling of unrest. It gets under your skin and makes you crazier than a full moon. It makes you reconsider the impossible, perhaps foolish, most likely unreasonable stints and then goes ahead and gives you just enough guts to go through with it. It brings you down to its level and has the audacity to dare you to take just another step down towards unforgiving freedom of care. Yet how can you resist such whispers when, in hushed caressing tones, they promise you the world? All you have to do is be brash and light that fire behind your eyes. All you have to do is forget about falling, about the crash and burn, and focus on how the exhilarating flight catches your breath and makes your heart race. Just do it, do it now before this bright burst of courage dissipates in the morning light. Do it before the drug of reality settles back down upon your mind, momentarily stifling the urge to know what it feels like to jump into the deceptively motionless black water and feel the water roll across your skin. Just do it.

But you don’t. Nine point nine times out of ten, the intoxicating blind courage offered isn’t strong enough to overcome the overwhelming sensibility of most minds. It’s been diluted once too often and you’re unsure if you even want to learn how to restore it. So a bit embarrassed, you keep these wild thoughts to yourself and give yourself a pat on the back because this time you didn’t slip. Just wait though, wait for that strong brash unwonted courage to finally overcome you and watch how it burns so brightly, protecting you in your momentary insanity. Such fire, if given enough fuel and enough time, will consume you entirely. But oh, how those flames do entrance you even as they burn you to the ground.

Contemplations

2008-07-16T12:14:00.005-04:00

"We still think in terms of conquest. We still haven't become mature enough to think of ourselves as only a tiny part of a vast and incredible universe. Man's attitude toward nature is today critically important simply because we have now acquired a fateful power to alter and destroy nature. But man is a part of nature and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself… Now, I truly believe that we in this generation must come to terms with nature, and I think we're challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and our mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves."

- Rachel Carson

My thoughts on self control:

Self control is a continuous and tumultuous battle between desires and propriety. I want is challenged by I should, I must, I need, I'm obliged to, and I have to. Even outnumbered as it is, desires rule our everyday actions. They bubble up inside of us, filling us with a brand of possible euphoria of the idea of just giving in. They whisper in our ears our hearts desires, only to laugh at us as we fall short of all our own expectations. The less savory desires are held in check, for the most part, by our own set of morals and codes of conduct, influenced by society, by friends, by family. (Though, for the smaller, seemingly inconsequential desires, we're all shit out of luck for some saving grace, if you ask me.) These checks in behavior speak of time tried wisdoms, rationality, responsibility, and other respectable ideas that fall on the heartfelt but deaf ears of the young. Rarely are the two in harmony.

Yet in order to succeed in life, we must have self control. We must be able to sit patiently and wait for the right time to say something. We must try our hardest to be mature and keep our promises. We must learn to exercise restraint when all we feel like doing is nothing, but must do so much more than that. What we call self control is the main propler in the upkeep of society.

But do we really have as much self control as we would like to pretend? No, and those of us who boast of being 'in control' of their lives are completely delusional. Aside from the chance happenings of the universe, we are still dictated by our desires. Obtaining self control is a desire in itself. We desire to know that we can control ourselves and what we do with our bodies and minds and sometimes our hearts. Because then all those things we can't control in our lives become just a little more bearable. We clutch at whatever control we have with a death grip. But in reality, all we can hope to do is slow the inevitable change. So we play along with the rest of humanity, adhere to social scripts, follow the prescribed antidote to matters of the heart, and say polite inconsequential indifferent words to appease people whenever they feel as if their own imaginary control is being challenged by others. By doing this, we fool ourselves into thinking that we have put off some socially unacceptable scene or we have delayed some unwanted event just a little longer. (I wonder though, that in thinking it, in mentally indulging in it as it were, are we giving in to our desires to some extent? It may not be full out breaking down, but isn't fantasizing about something just a more acceptable way of giving in?)

Am I saying we should all give in to our desires or we should live a life without desires? No, that is impossible and very unrealistic. But we must live in this imaginary world full of self delusions, we must make the best of it, and we must constantly search for that balance between acknowledging what we can not control and attempting to control what we can not. We must accept this and get on with our lives, much to our constant dismay. We can't forget that we're powerless in the long run to the will of whatever we believe in, but still we must strive to put significance into what we do. A life devoid of significance is no life at all.

Eagles and Loons Make for an Interesting Combination

2008-07-14T20:34:00.005-04:00

I'm sitting outside the parking lot of a coffee shop that closed at 5 PM. As far as we know, this is the only place around here to get internet for my classes. This does not even begin the story of my online adventures in Eagle River. Sadly enough, this is the least of my stresses. It's been cloudy ever since we arrived, on the cold side, and more than a teaspoon full of stress. Though today, it was sunny, and we got the jet skis and boat. Yet the I did not sufficiently prepare myself for staying cooped up in a house with four very 'active' children who had to be watched so they didn't eat more toothpaste (my brother Andy ate half a small tube within the first 20 minutes) or pound on the big screen plasma television while watching cartoons (again, Andy). Andy, who can be the sweetest little boy in the entire world, basically leads the hellions in parade throughout the cabin. He nearly got crushed between the boat and the dock in his attempts to jump ship. With children fueled by sugary soda and less than ideal snicky snacks, my day revolves around waring the small ones out so that by ten I can have some semblance of peace in the house.

But it's not all bad. It's not too cloudy at night, and the sky is beyond gorgeous. I sit out on the dock and willingly freeze my ass off for it, but it's worth it. And we got the boat and the jet skis today, so I can escape there as well. The jet skis offer a wonderful diversion - it's hard to do anything but laugh manically as you're going 70 over the water. And I get to hang out with my padre, which is fun. Oh, and I'm helping my little brother Bobby learn how to read. (He's got this gigantic Dick and Jane book. The first thing I said to him when we sat down to read was 'Remember these names, you'll make fun of them when you get older.' ) The cabin's gigantic, the beds are comfortable, I have books, and unlike the majority of our party, I'm allowed to go on the dock without a life preserver. Life is good.

So in all, this is pretty much another normal vacation. Screaming children, potential for untimely accidents, limited access to the internet, and an all around lessons in patience and the art of dodging social interactions by hiding in a boat with a book.

Running in the Rain

2008-07-08T22:23:00.002-04:00

My Thoughts on Rain.

There's something medicinally grounding about the sound of rain. It eases through the stress and the constant fluttering of thoughts and reminds you that life goes on. That it pushes valiantly on when you're wrapped up in yourself and can't take a moment to realize the insignificance of the majority of your problems. Our lives, our moods, our mistakes, our loves and hates, - on an individual basis, they have no impact on life. That sounds slightly depressing, but it seems to put our endeavors into perspective for a moment. Listening quietly to the rain, it makes me feel peaceful, it makes me feel apart of something. I wish I could more eloquently express myself.

Quit Toying with my Emotions, God Damn You

2008-07-07T21:46:00.004-04:00

So, I got this email from housing telling me that they recieved my scholarship information (.... what scholarship would this be?) and have placed me back in Threlkeld hall with our good friend Julianne and subsequently with everyone else. I'm not quite sure if this will last, considering the only scholarship I have has absolutely nothing to do with housing, or anything really. It's actually a scholarship for people without any scholarships. That was one of the requirements. However piqued my curiosity, I plan to not look any further into the matter in the hopes that they'll forget about it until it's too late. Wish me luck.

It Rained This Morning

2008-07-05T20:11:00.008-04:00

(Not John Mayer, or 'Leslie Anne Levine', but it's Billy Joel, so you can't really compete with that. This song always, always, always reminds me of the people I know who went to Catholic school.)

Well, hello all. I just woke up from a five hour nap, induced by a restless two hours of sleep last night before waking up at 8:30 and throwing myself into three hours of attacking a wall of vines and bush honeysuckle with gardening shears. I sometimes forget how disorienting such naps can make you. I kept thinking it was Sunday. I don't really know what's going to happen tonight when I should be sleeping. I'll probably be staring at my AIM list willing someone to get on so I can talk my way into exhaustion.

Fourth of July was a bust, as it normally is. For some reason our country's Independence Day never seems to strike a note of patriotic pride in my heart. In fact, I do believe it does the opposite. I get kind of cynical of every stranger dressed in red white and blue, waving little American flags that will be forgotten by the end of the week. I look at the majority of them and think that this is just an excuse for you to grill out, get drunk, and blow up things. Way to celebrate our independence.

In other news:

I have less than week until I jet up to Swissconsin. I have this weird hope that I'll be able to relax for a bit. Though if I logically and realistically think about it, the chances of me finding relaxation in the midst of a very active family and two online courses is slim to none. This is the last time I'm taking summer courses. I'll say it, I should have just stayed home this summer, gotten a job in Bardstown, and maybe taken one online course. But oh well, I've learned. There's no point belaboring the point.

So I tried to record 'Leslie Anne Levine' by the Decemberists onto my computer and upload it onto to Youtube, but the sound quality kept popping. I'm not having any luck with my music selections this week.

I finally got around to taking some candid pictures of my bruises. I'm so proud of them.

(There's really no artistic or elegant way to take pictures of shin bruises.)

Now, tomorrow, I plan on making a quick run to the half priced book store and stocking up on some cheap vacation reads. Then, I can give myself a break between my readings in Human Sexuality and Woman in Black Literature courses. Should be a fun couple of weeks.

I must brag for a minute. My sister, the master gardener that she is, already has red tomatoes in our back stoop garden. They're heirloom tomatoes, which means you can actually use the seeds when you're done eating the tomato to make more tomato plants! I love such lovely cycles.

(I repainted my toes out of boredom then decided to place them by the lavender and oregano for a photo shoot.)

A Storm is Coming

2008-07-02T17:49:00.006-04:00

The Terminator.

There's perhaps no rival to such a movie. It's got action, it's got grizzled scarred and unshowered soul mates, it's got possible futures, it's got heartache, it's got nuclear wars, it's got hearts being ripped out of bodies and people saying stuff like "in the few hours we had together we loved a lifetime's worth" and "the final battle would not be fought in the future. It would be fought here, in our present. Tonight..." . You just can't beat that. It is epic beyond measure. But by the end of it, you're breathlessly awaiting to know what the hell happens next. Sarah Connors, pregnant and alone but determined, drives off into the mountains to go underground and raise her son; the future savior of the world. Will she live up to her legend? How will she rally support for a future that has yet to happen? Who will believe her? Who will they send next?!

God, I love it!

Updates later on the second movie. I have all three. And I intend to watch them all tonight.

Update: 9:27

Just got done watching the second Terminator. It was Sweet. I thought I'd seen it before, but after the fifteen minutes I was in completely new territory. Just coming up for air before I watch the last one. Whoo hoo. Not having scholarly obligations is great.

Update: 11:32

Hmm. Terminator 3 is done and I'm not sure what to think. It was definitely the least active of the three. Definitely was a transitional piece. It served its purpose I suppose, it was good enough. Nothing beats the first movie though. That thing is a work of art, hah.

So I googled Terminator 4, and there's a bunch of interesting names floating around with it. Christian Bales, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anton Yelchin (who plays a young Kyle Reese, and looks the part if you ask me), this really cute guy Sam Worthington, who is rumored to be the new main character for the next movies. Yeah that's right, movies plural. I love franchises.

Other than that, here's a great picture of Arnold, wearing a male stripper's sunglasses.

Well Shit.

2008-07-01T15:22:00.004-04:00

I woke up this morning to find that because of my less then stellar academic performance last semester, I will no longer be rooming in Threlkeld next semester. Yeah. Instead, I have my own room in Unitas.

Upsides: I don't have a roommate anymore. I get to rearrange my room however I like, I get to listen to music without my headphones in. I can dance unabashedly to said unplugged music. I can get a work out in by taking the stairs.

Downsides: I'm going to be living on the 11th floor of Unitas. I'm not even quite sure where the hell that is. The laundry room is in the basement. The kitchen is on the 9th floor, and I hear you can't get wireless access above a certain floor. Oh, not to mention everyone else is in Threlkeld.

So, I'm going to apply for housing in Threlkeld for Spring semester and see where that takes me. This is inconvenient, to say the least.

In Attempts to Tell You Almost Everything on my Mind

2008-06-30T22:07:00.010-04:00

"Nature is famously, fabulously, wantonly complex... it blindly cobbles together myriad random experiments over thousands of generations, resulting in wonderfully inelegant organisms..."

- Biometrics; Design by Nature, National Geographic

*Note on the absence of music tonight* So I have this thing where I get songs stuck in my head, and I've found that one way to get them out is to post them on this blarg of mine. I have a slight obsession with getting the version I like. This creates problems because while youtube is a great resource for halfway pirating music, it's far from perfect. I couldn't find the right version of 3 x 5 by John Mayer. This song is perhaps my favorite of Mayer. The version I have somewhere buried in my old music collection is a live track before he got god awful cocky with his performances. So no music tonight, go turn on some Sufjan Stevens or something.

So, I was reading National Geographic today, and I came upon this article about New Jersey Bird Blitz, and it had a picture of a heron they said was nocturnal, which immediately reminded me of those herons Luke, Michael, and I nearly ran into in Florida. Those things were massive. I'm pretty sure if we pissed them off enough, they could have speared us with their beaks. Or clawed our eyes out. Or both for that matter. Also in the same issue, there was an article on biomimetics. Engineers are coming up with this novel idea to look to nature for ideas for improving technology. Way to stay ahead of the curve, sort of.

Other than my national geographic binge, I read a News Week and a Rolling Stone. I'm not normally a magazine person, I prefer my books thanks, but today I just felt the need to deviate from the norm and kind of lose myself in something unrelated to my life, yet still feel apart of this world. I think that makes sense. Anyway, it worked, because I didn't do anything school related even though my take home exam is due on Wednesday. Oh well, there's always tomorrow. Though, after tomorrow, it's due, so I'm kind of running out of tomorrows.

I have this beautiful Moleskin journal that I bought in February, and I've been slowly filling it up with entries. The black ink intricately loops around on the smooth cream colored pages, spilling out everything I don't say aloud and belaboring every secret of mine five times over because there's no one to stop me. I find it highly medicinal to write in it. I have a few other journals that I've kept from years past and its always a lesson in humility to go back and read them. Especially my seventh grade journal. I like to think I've grown up a lot since seventh grade, but I've come to the sad conclusion that I've just become better at not publicly making a fool out of myself. I think that that's how most of us are, privately; our awkward seventh grade selves, hidden by a false sense of maturity. It would definitely explain some people I know. And also raise the question of when do we actually grow up? When does the pretending to be mature and the actual transformation into a mature adult happen? I remember reading a book that discussed the loss of a right of passage, The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert. (Great book, by the way, everyone should read it.) Gilbert was talking about how since we've streamlined our existence beyond what's needed and taken our connection of nature away in the process, we don't have a distinguished idea of what separates the men from the boys, and so youths turn to the most obvious ideals of our culture; materialism and wealth among many others. But doesn't that make you wonder what kind of people we strive to be if our rights of passages into adulthood are superficial acts based on material wealth?

I know there isn't just one right of passage into adulthood, but doesn't it make you wonder? When will we truly call ourselves adults? When we finally get to sit with the parents at Thanksgiving instead of at the kids table? Better yet, will we ever truly know that defining moment? Will our parents throw it at us when we're in over are heads "you're an adult now, good luck", and we must except it because they're our parents and would know of such things. But then we're left with that negative connotation stuck in our heads. More often than not I would think adulthood is sprung on us, leaving us stunned to have suddenly arrived at the last stage of our lives and slightly miffed as to how it happened in the first place.

For those of you who are still with me after this giant block of text, I spoke with the padre about that briefly alluded to camping trip in Swissconsin. Nicole doesn't think we'd survive. (There was also mention of restarting civilization and setting traps to promote gene flow, if that gives anyone an idea of what conversation we were having.) Theoretically, if we went, it would probably be over fall break (11-14 of October). As a reference point, it's about a 7 hour drive from Louisville to my dad's house, not including Chicago traffic. My dad said to plan in advance, and I realize this is four months in advance, so I don't expect real planning to start until after school starts and everyone gets an idea of the degree of hellishness this semester has in store for everyone.

If you Have Amnesia, or Were Otherwise Absent from my Weekend...

2008-06-29T21:19:00.004-04:00

(That's for Kyle, my sneaky blog stalker- I mean friendly blog reading friend...)

I have the biggest bruises on my shins from capture the flag. I just noticed them after changing into shorts when I got back home. They easily surpass normal bruises and might as well be called battle wounds. The first layer of skin on the area of impact is peeling, and little bruises are bordering the other. I'm so proud of them all.

Speaking of northern Kentucky, I have pictures!! Not as many as usual, and I didn't manage to get everyone, but they were taken, and taken happily. I know many who read this were actually with me when I went up there, but for those who couldn't make it, or those who just have a weird fascination with my life, I'll recap.

Recap of the 24 hour visit up in northern Kentucky:

-Obviously we played capture the flag, where I acquired my kick ass bruises mentioned above. They are only overshadowed by this one bruise I got when I ran into a car door during a freak monsoon/torrential downpour. That one was massive. Oh, and that black eye Allie gave me...

-Before CTF, we had a semi cook out at Angela's. Annie brought half of her fridge over and we made truffles, and arrived an hour later than we were supposed too. But we brought lots of food, so that made up for it. The coleslaw leaked on my pants. Bummer. I got to meet Becky, who's very smart and funny. Unfortunately, she was too tired to come play capture the flag and watch a movie.

(The first picture of the visit, with Annie being sneaky sometime before, during, or after making the truffles and macaroni for the cook out.)

-So we got to the Lonneman estate, and bent on making smores, we dug a fire pit in the yard and roasted them to golden perfection... lies, all lies. Clemens doesn't have a fire pit, so I raided his food closet and made due with chocolate graham crackers, a dash or so of cinnamon, left over truffles, an oven, a doggedly begging dog, some carbonated pseudo fruit punch, questioning of my oven smore making ability and perhaps a touch of surprise chili powder? They turned out relatively well, in my opinion.

-Which brings me onto Piñata Survival Island, aka the most ridiculous piece of entertainment I have yet to encounter. It was one of those horrible movies that because they're so horrible you must share with everyone you know and laugh the entire time you're watching it because it's so ridiculous. An angry piñata, stereotypical Greeks (not the race of people), and well, that's pretty much it. Oh and really great dialog... yeah.

-Then we played capture the flag, hurray!! I accidentally slide tackled Karen/a bench in order to heroically save my whole team, who somehow managed to get caught, subsequently leaving me alone with the flag in the woods. That's how I managed to get those bruises. During our very long game, I seriously sat in the woods the entire time, until the last ten minutes, where I managed to get beat up by branches and benches. I thought it was fun.

-Then in the morning, there were delicious cinnamon buns that Annie's mom made, followed by group festivities in Altiora. (I hope I spelled that correctly.) Where everyone came and went and we rearranged the comfy chairs in order to better serve our large group.

("Hey guys, look studious." "How do we do that?" "I don't know, just make a funny face...")

(I was helping Annie practice reading out some verses from the Bible, with appropriate stresses on the bold words. GET. UP. QUICKLY!)

(Angela doesn't like getting her picture taken, or pillows thrown at her.)

(Karen pre-work. She drew us a Pengel.)

-Before I left to go home with Liz and Galina, we, which included Angela, Liz, Galina, Kyle, and me, had Dewey's Pizza, where Kyle was a doll and bought lunch for us. We also got to visit the Purple People Bridge, which in my head I kept calling it the Giant Purple People Eater bridge. Then we visited Annie at Bath and Body Works and harassed her until she made us leave... hahah, more lies. We did get to listen to Again and Again, while perusing the scents and chatting with Annie.

(Giant Purple People Eater Bridge)

(Trying to look contemplative as we look at the river...)

-I slept the whole way home and haven't really left my bed since I got back.

So the recap was a bit longer than necessary, but I like commentary. All in all, we came out relatively scotch free of serious accidents, a little tired, but otherwise happy for the most part.

Rainy Saturday Afternoon

2008-06-28T10:13:00.006-04:00

"Staying home alone on a Friday, flat on the floor looking back on old love, or lack there of..." I swear, nothing beats jaded love song lyrics by John Mayer on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

I went to the farmer's market this morning. I'm trying to get into a healthy schedule of waking up at a decent hour, eating better, getting outdoors more, and what not. You know, do all those things I ever wanted to do but didn't because I was sleeping. So I was looking for food to buy and let me tell you what, the farmer's market is really expensive. However, since it only comes around once a week, the produce is better than any store bought crap, and I rarely get the opportunity to go, I treated myself to a fantastic omelet, the majority of a pint of blueberries, and then some grass fed ground beef for one of Emily's recipes. It started misting slightly as I ate my vegetable, cheese, and catfish omelet on the curb. I think there were beets in it as well. It was fantastic. What they do is get a bunch of the sellers to pitch in some of their produce or fish and they make and sell the omelets and split the cost between everybody that participated. I would have had some chai tea with it, but I was running low on money at that point. Orange juice would have been great too. Moral of this story; good food costs money, all the more reason to grow your own and not have to worry about that.

So it's up to Northern Kentucky in a few hours. I'm hoping to get a nap in on the way up in order to be up to some capture the flag where I'm sure I'll offer no particular help in the game, but try valiantly anyway. I think I'm very good at finding people, just not good at running and catching them. Hopefully I'll have real pictures to post when I get back. It's been a while since I've whipped out my camera.

I Less Than Three Biology

2008-06-25T22:33:00.006-04:00

(Oh Fiona, you're awesome.)

SO! The other day Kaycee and I hung out. And when I say 'hung out' I mean I got up at 6:45 and met her at Heine Brothers and then we volunteered our expertise at ruthlessly attacking invasive plant species with clippers and hand saws (they trusted me with a hand saw, I felt so powerful!) from 8 til 12. And I must say, it was thoroughly enjoyable. We're hanging out again tomorrow, bright and early.

(Tree Hugger!)

My sister cooked a chicken in the crock pot all day today and charged me with extracting it tonight. I picked it up with two wooden spoons and it broke in half because it was so tender. I ate a couple of pieces, it was very scrumptious. Now I'm waiting until my fingers regain feeling before I siphon off the broth for future storage.

Speaking of food, I'm reading Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan and am swearing off commercial beef forever. From a purely sanitary point of view, it's utterly disgusting what that meet goes through to get to my fridge. So no beef, which is easier than no meat entirely. I figure this time, I should slowly work my up to the big 'no meat' of vegetarianism. But, I will say this right now, if I should happen upon meat at the farmer's market that meets Pollan's requirements for morally okay meat, I will not hesitate to buy, eat, and enjoy it. Just thought I'd say that now, before outcries concerning horrible reputation for the pretentious V resurface. I'm trying guys, really.

Speaking of 'you guys', I'm going to Northern Kentucky this weekend! (I write this with a big grin on my face accompanied with excited and totally incoherent chirps, I guess you would call them. You know what I'm talking about.) Where there will be smores made in an oven because Clemens can't provide a fire, and capture the flag in the woods, and sleepovers at Annie's, and Altiora's comfy couches and caffeinated beverages, and happy happy happy times. Three happys, that means something. After this weekend, my travels will kick into gear finally. I'll be off to Swissconsin to spend some time up at a beautiful lake with a gaggle of small children and a really nice and generous extended step family. And then after that I go to the Galapagos with my kick ass grandma, and then five days later its school again and I'll have my Urban Waters Seminar to look forward to. (Speaking of which, when we go down to the Everglades, we might get to camp on things called Chickees, which are basically wooden docks/islands in the Everglades you sleep on because there's no other dry land around. It's like a dream I didn't realize I had until I saw these things. Yes, it's that epic.) Summer's going to be gone before it starts, the curse of all vacations I suppose.

Oh and question, wouldn't less than 3 look like this >3? Shouldn't it be greater than three <3> = alligator mouths) Does this make sense to anyone else?

When it comes to making food, I find the term 'success' to be very relative...

2008-06-23T20:33:00.004-04:00

(I wish I could dance.)

Out of hungry desperation today, I tried to make my own homemade version of pita and hummus. My time in the kitchen proved to be very humbling and educational. I started up with botching the hummus (magic bullets are not the way to go when smashing chick peas) and was persevering in my search for a pita recipe that did not call for yeast. Finally I found one. However, it turns out yeastless pitas taste a whole hell of a lot like tortillas. So now I'm stuck with 10 slightly doughy tortillas masquerading as pita in my fridge and a serving of really lumpy hummus to boot. So while my stomach may be full of food, I must contend with the fact that my improvisational exotic culinary expertise falls short of acceptable. Meh. However, I have gleaned some good lessons from this experience.

Lessons gleaned from portilla (tortilla meets pita) and lumpy hummus extravaganza:

When the majority of the websites tell you that you can't make pita without yeast, believe them.
Don't let yourself get distracted by Louisville Light Pollution maps while making time sensitive foods.
Use a rolling pin, not a mug.
When dealing with untried recipes its better to split it in half so you don't end up with a dozen mutant pitas demanding their immediate consumption.
A small Magic Bullet obviously won't do the job sufficiently if you insist of sticking an entire can of chick peas into it.
Knock off cherry ice tea tastes startling like cherry koolaid and thus does not go accordingly with lumpy hummus and portillas.

Yesterday, I should tell you, was a very good day in the kitchen. Em and I made this fantastic Refrigerator Vegetable Soup. I call it that because we basically emptied the entire fridge of our wilting vegetable stock, and then half a bag of frozen peas for good measure. And then Em whipped up some great Baking Soda Biscuits while I made our family's traditional Peachy Peach Jello. I have to say, it was the best soup I've had in a really really long time. It consisted of white rice, 1 1/2 onions chopped up , half a bag of baby carrots chopped, a sizable amount of celery and their leaves, for flavoring, frozen peas (added at the end or else they get mushy), and then a base of chicken broth, fresh thyme and rosemary, salt and pepper, onion salt, and of course, butter. With the BSBs, (which weren't the most flavorful biscuits which was okay because when you dunked them in the broth it was perhaps the best mixture of tastes possible) and the prospect of Peachy Peach Jello afterwards, I must say last night's dinner was superb. The only thing that could have made it better was a cup of cold milk to go along with it, but we're almost all out, sadly enough.

Oh, the cat is gone. I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but my mom went to Pennsylvania for the week and left the infamous Kitty Boy with us at the apartment, where he terrorized my sister and I for the better part of our nights. I lost a bit of my middle finger because of the beast. No matter how entertaining he may be or cute he may look when he's sleeping, I'm glad I no longer have to look at his litter box, put up with him waking me up in the early hours of the morning, or fear for the safety of my hands when I reach to pet him during one of his 'games' (aka running up and down the stairs and underneath Em's bed with a crazy look in his eyes, or stalking me while I'm not paying attention, only to jump in my face and scare the crap out of me).

How Many Movies Can I Watch? A lot.

2008-06-21T13:58:00.007-04:00

So, for today, I was torn between three songs that always remind me of the summer. The first is "A Sweet Summer's Night" by Jens Lekman, then there's "In the Summertime" by Mungo Jerry, and lastly "Black Water" by the Doobie Brothers. For purely visual effects, I'm going with my friend Mungo. I know you'll understand once you watch it.

(Told you so)

I had the crappiest sleep last night. I went to bed early (by midnight, which for me is very early) thinking I'd get a nice full ten hours of sleep because it's the weekend and we don't do anything on the weekend. I was sadly, sadly mistaken. I was woken up at least 5 different times during the course of the morning. I was so pissed off. Not only did this travesty start at 7, but my patchy sleep was harried by stupid half remembered fragmented dreams that made me anxious.

So when I finally did wake up for good, I decided I wanted to go rip off a commercial bookstore for some throw away book whose plot is predictable, whose lead heroine ends getting the guy she wants, where good wins against evil in the end, and yada yada yada. And I would settle in a big comfy arm chair, and read the entire book in one go, without having to pay for it. I suppose I could go to the library and do the same thing, but that's completely different. Libraries want you to do that. There isn't that satisfying feeling of cheating the system. And they don't always have the books that I want to read. Nor do they have comfy chairs, usually its just questionable chairs and questionable people sleeping in them. Alas, I am too lazy to take the bus all the way out by Oxmoor and I wouldn't have enough time to finish the whole thing anyway because it's nearly 3 in the afternoon and I'm not that good at engulfing entire books in one go.

(So it's not a hunky picture of Christian Bales. I have to say though, Ledger makes a kick ass creepy Joker... I like his socks)

I watched Batman Begins the other day. I love superheroes. Especially when they make them rich ninjas with a troubled past and enough guilt to become a vigilante and save Gotham from itself. Brilliant. Don't get me wrong, Spiderman's still my favorite, (Who doesn't love a genetically modified geek with superhuman powers?) but Batman just has more personality right now. I blame it on Christian Bales. Ugh, but Katie Holme's character still annoys the shit out of me. She can't make up her mind, so she gives lame, on the fence excuses as to why she can't be with Bruce. If she had her head about her, she would figure he has a short time to live, being a ninja vigilante living a dangerous life and what not, so she might as well be happy with him while she can. Idiot girl, can't see what's right in front of her. After watching that, I watched half of 3:10 to Yuma before I gave in and went to bed. I'm like to finish that today over a bowl of spaghetti, the only thing we have left to eat in this house. That and popcorn. And like five boxes of yellow cake mix from Allie's peach cake experiment.

Oh, and then last night, I figured I'd watch something to unwind from the week, and ended up being pleasantly surprised by my choice of The Forbidden Kingdom. It wasn't as terrible as I really and truly expected it to be. The fight scenes were really good, and the plot line was interesting enough. However, because I didn't go through the, uh, proper channels for watching it, I was without subtitles for the parts where they spoke Chinese. That was a slight wrinkle in my night. Then I started craving Chinese takeout, which was a bummer. I settled for my own poor student version of it in the end - fish and left over rice, yummy.

EDIT: 3:10 to Yuma makes me cry every friggin' time.

"I still don't know what love means"

2008-06-18T22:43:00.006-04:00

There are some performers that sound amazing recorded and still manage to blow your mind away when you see them live. Ray LaMontagne is one of them. The title quote is from his song Jolene, another great one of his. He has a beard too, heh.

This is going to just be a smallish update because I've promised myself an early night and at least a full ten hours of sleep. I would like to let everyone know that I finished Bones and I am done. Not just with the most recent season (whose ending, I believe, was good. It made sense, no matter how twisty it was), but with tv for the rest of the month, if not the whole summer. I have overindulged and am admitting I have a problem with addictive television shows. Now I go into self imposed rehab and end up becoming highly engrossed in some other form of entertainment. Probably a book, mostly because it's portable and doesn't require downloading time.

(Seriously though, when are they going to hook up? They've kissed, gone on a date, bonded over a child, Bones even went to his funeral. It's long past time.)

Closing notes, I'm very excited for season 4 of Bones, but even more excited about next weekend and capture the flag and the possibility of smores. Not to mention hanging out with those I happily call my friends.

(Don't read too much into the fact that I chose to display a picture of a smore instead of my friends.)

A Few of my Favorite Things

2008-06-17T21:38:00.014-04:00

(I love this song. I really do.)

My dad lives in Wisconsin with my stepmom Michele and my two half brothers Bobby and Andy. I see him perhaps once every couple of months; Christmas, one of my sister's birthday's, a week or two during the summer, and a couple other miscellaneous visits throughout the rest of the months. I never really gave this a thought until I was talking to Annie and mentioned him and we started discussing the whole situation. I don't think we went really in depth, but it was enough. It has been on my mind since and invariably I started to wonder what it means to have normal parents. And I came to this conclusion. I have no idea whatsoever what it means to have normal parents. And neither does anyone else for that matter. I only have what I grew up with, and that is a father who lived a human life, full of mistakes and moments of personal perfection, and loves me in his own way. I wish I didn't take him for granted so much.

Onto lighter topics, I love the smell of fresh basil. Emmy's growing some behind our apartment on the small stoop we claim ownership to. I was sitting on the steps tonight, watching the fireflies come out (I missed them last summer when I was in Spain) and the smell of basil slipped over. For one brief moment it was summer like it should be; steady without the stress of school, slow from the heat, with an underlying scent of something spicy, like the promise of possibility. Nothing beats the smell of fresh basil on a hot summer night. Maybe funnel cakes from the fair, but really, funnel cakes pretty much rock my socks. Oh, and shaken lemonade too, with the funnel cakes. But that's specific to night time fairs with ferris wheels and pretty lights, rodeos/county fairs with animals on display for 4H, and baseball games, which then include brats with mustard and grilled peppers and onions. And the lemonade can't be watery, it must have lots of sugar, and be slightly warm, I'm very particular. Okay, how about this, nothing on its own singularly beats the smell of basil on a hot summer night. And the smell of storms and rain does not count because the consumption of rain water is highly inadvisable and the smell of basil strictly adheres to my love of food. If you haven't figured this out by now, I love good food almost as much as I love reading good books. It comes in second. Third is good music, fourth is good movies/television. First is a tie between good books and good company.

So I visited the art library today and fell in love. There are these desks next to the windows that overlook the fountain and each of them are assigned to grad students. They even have name tags on them. Aside from the pretty view and the alluring name tags, they have a shelf of books above them. The grad student can check out books to put on the shelf, I suppose so they don't have to carry around the books and can work on their master's with one less worry. Anyway, they are perhaps the most - I don't know what word to use for them. I want to say quaint, but it's not quaint per say. It's beyond that, it's an inanimate piece of someone's life that tells a story of that person. There was one chock full of books about Buddhist art. They were just so pretty, in a weird OCD yet artsy way. Maybe it's just my bibliophile nature getting the better of me. Regardless, I adore them and felt the need to share the adoration.

I love Bones. Look below for case in point.

(Clark Kent, meet Wonder Woman)

Sonata for the Moonlight

2008-06-16T23:42:00.009-04:00

(I can't help but pronounce his name Beeth - hoven, not Bay-toven)

It’s a marvelous night for a moon dance, or so says the great Van Morrison. The moon is near full and as I surfaced for air tonight for a spot of tea at Starbucks, I saw it and instinctively broke out in song, as I’m wont to do whenever I spot the moon. I’m next to positive Van was singing about a more promiscuous sort of dancing, but still, it’s a nice enough song. Have you ever listened to other songs about the moon or even songs that mention moons? I find most of them extraordinarily sad. Either that or they’re about sex, hah. Depression and loneliness or passion and whimsy, pick your poison oh modern day bards. I like the moon, and the stars. They’re so ethereal yet very familiar at the same time. Back on campus when I’d be coming back from the library at night, there was this certain tree that, before it got leaves again, you could look up through the branches to the stars, and it was like looking at the sky through lacework. It was beautiful in a sharp lonely way that stars and the night have. I think we spend too much time looking down at the concrete that we sometimes forget about everything above us- the trees, the clouds, the stars, the moon. I think we forget a lot of things in our attempts to live. (But again, I don’t feel like cynically ranting about the human race. I do that every weekday in my Social Problems class.) I wish I knew more constellations, as if I could make friends with them. Or at least learn their stories, though I suppose that’s what making friends means to me, learning people’s stories.

(I love Greek and Roman mythology and their obsession with the world.)

In other news, I have changed my career goals in life. I’m going to quite college, find a mystic mentor and make my way in life by reading palms and interpreting dreams in a traveling gypsy caravan. (The future me.)How does that sound? Good right? It’s either that, or I’ll travel to an alternate universe and live there. But if I adhere to Pullman’s theory on living in an alternate universe then I wouldn’t live so long. Then again, I could have a daemon, which would kick ass. Maybe I’d even save the universe by giving in to temptation and ruining my innocence. If that doesn’t work, maybe I could move across the Wall and discover that my father, the Abhorsen, was in mortal danger, as was the rest of the Old Kingdom, and I’d be called to save them and fall in love with a bastard prince who was locked away in the river of death to preserve and protect his royal bloodline. Then I could learn Charter Magic and live in the house in the river. Though if I were to choose between Nix’s books, I’d pick Lirael because she created Dog and worked in that kick ass library. What other fantasy would I slip into? I don’t think I want to live in Martin’s books. Everyone dies when you least expect it and rape and dismemberment are highly prevalent in every chapter. I don’t know about Rowling either. The Potterverse is too untouchable in my mind. Not to mention too much like the real world. Anyway, everyone is happily coupled off in the end, so there's nothing for me to do but get in the way. I kind of like the idea of creating my own world and wandering off there one night on my own. That would be nice.

(I really do wish I could read palms.)

Well girls and boys, that is it for my midnight post. I'm going to finish up season 2 of my beloved Bones and eat something scrumptious. I'm craving... something buttery and salty. Maybe popcorn? Or eggs and toast.... or lentil soup with sour cream... or maybe cottage cheese and tomatoes?

(tehehe)

I may need to get a new life

2008-06-16T01:20:00.008-04:00

(Note the lack of shoes on David Boreanaz, hah)

At approximately 44 minutes per episode, and a at a total of 34 episodes, I have watched nearly 25 hours of television this weekend. That is to say, I have spent a full 24 hour day in front of my computer, watching and becoming intensely involved with a fictional made up story, strife with drama and mind teasers and FBI agents and forensic anthropologists and the underlying but distinctly tangible taste of sexual tension that after all these hours has yet to be fully realized. I have done nothing but watch this TV show all weekend.

Holy.

Shit.

I have no life.

Rewind a few days back when I wasn't sure what I was going to do this weekend. I came to the conclusion that instead of watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which has its many perks, what with vampires and martial arts, I would switched over to the more recent and grown up television series Bones, featuring the actor who played Angel in Buffy. This was my compromise. Or perhaps a big error in judgment? If you haven't watched Bones, it's pretty great. Great enough for me to watch a season and a half of it just this weekend. (as a side note, I think I may have accidentally ruined the big twist in season three for myself. shit.) Anyways, that is what I did this weekend.

Oooh! and I saw The Happening, by M. Night Shyamalan. The critics really do not like him. I could rant and rave and tell you its because they're all conformists and narrow minded idiots who'd rather not think when it came to their movies, but that's for another post when I'm more cogent and fiery with my speech. I'll say this, if you like his other films, you'll like this one. If you didn't like his other films, then you're not going to like it. (Though I must say, I wasn't a great fan of Zooey Deschanel in it. I kept expecting her to make me laugh instead of sympathize.)

"Buffy Addict, Science Nerd, Bookworm, I'd like you to meet another part of your personality - Old Cat Lady"

2008-06-13T18:06:00.013-04:00

I just finished watching The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It was sad. I'm not entirely sure how I felt about it after that. I've been meaning to watch it for a while but one thing or another got in the way and then I had to wait for it to come out on DVD. The same thing is happening to The Fall, with Lee Pace. But I have Netflix, so I should be set when the day comes. Mr. Pace is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. He's also in Pushing Daisies, which I fervently hope is coming back in the fall.

It rained today, a very beautiful warm summer rain. Walking through campus was a treat. The trees only let through a mist and everything was drenched a darker hue than normal. And it smelled like heaven to me, like rain and trees and clean air. I love the rain. I wish we had a porch so I could properly enjoy it. Then I would make myself some chai tea in a blue tea pot and sit on some big expansive wicker chairs that have comfy pillows and maybe read a book.

Nothing like a bit of Pride and Prejudice to go with a rainy day.

Speaking of books, I'm still in withdrawal from George Martin's incomplete and less-than-likely-to-be-completed-in-the-near-future series. I haven't read for fun since I the last book. In attempts to rekindle my appetite, I'm slowly easing back into the world of books with some Michael Pollan and lots of Buffy.

Which leads me to a Buffy Update. I know, everyone's super excited to hear about this newfound addiction of mine. So, in the middle of season two, Angel and Buffy finally have a moments peace to be happy, and BANG, Angel loses his soul. Again. And becomes the asshole vampire of the year, breaking Buffy's heart on her birthday, the bastard. Not so lucky Buffy. Then yada yada, she get's super depressed and we get to hate Angel for a while, which gives all the other nasty regulars a chance to show some humanity. Then dawns the last episode of the season. I'll make it brief. Buffy STABS Angel with a sword, who just got his soul returned to him, because it's the only way to make sure a vortex of doom doesn't suck all of life into hell. So Angel is last seen falling into said vortex, while Buffy's balling her eyes out, and then she runs away! She runs away. What the hell Buffy? First off, why'd you take so damn long to realize the creepy stone demon statue behind you needed to be stabbed in the heart again? But no, you were too busy kissing Angel, and didn't notice until too late what was happening and then you had to send him into a vortex of doom. It's just ludicrous. And secondly, you run away?! Yeah, so you killed your vampire boyfriend, but you know what, shit like that happens when you mess around with vampires. And you don't just run away because of it.

Now that I've made a scene that no one understood at all, I think I may take a brake from Buffy for a little while. Either that, or watch the last five seasons this weekend and get it done and over with... I can't honestly say which will happen. Probably a sad limping bastardization of the two.

Other than my Buffy craze, I've been bumming around for the better half of the week without my wallet. I haven't worked on my knittage in awhile, I kind of got burnt out last Thursday at the Knit Nook's weekly Stitch and Bitch. It's sitting on the coffee table by my feet right now, looking pathetic and trying to guilt me into putting in another movie so I'll pick up the needles and knit a row or two. Ooooh, maybe I'll have a Pride and Prejudice Miniseries Knitting Party for one this weekend! I'll stay in my pajamas and live vicariously through Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, while knitting on my couch... and drinking tea... with my cat... oh my god, I'm turning into an old cat lady. And soon, I'll be reading stuff like this...

Haha, look at this. I wonder why I never googled 'old cat lady' before.

Another Drolly Exciting Day

2008-06-11T22:52:00.005-04:00

Amelie is the quintessential cute foreign film. The foreign film to introduce you to all other foreign films. It's weirdly cute and sweetly quirky, it's French, Audrey Tautou is in it, and it has this amazing soundtrack in it. It's a good movie. One of these days we'll have to watch it together if you've never seen it.

These are my mom's beautiful flowers that she's been dutifully taking care of. They line the porch and make the patio smell very nice.

We took Kitty Boy to the apartment tonight, after celebrating the Madre's belated birthday. The ride home was a traumatic experience for the both of us. Let's just say my skirt is now soaking in the sink with a copious amount of soap and warm water.

This is Kitty Boy squawking at a bird. He was making this creepy meow warbling noise that we were unable to capture on film. He's so weird.

So I had my Social Problems test today. I probably should have studied more for it, but hey, isn't that the story of my academic career so far? Yeah, I know, I don't have anyone but myself to blame. But I don't have homework for tomorrow, so I think I might actually go to bed on time tonight.

Now I'm off to finish hand washing my skirt and hoping it doesn't smell of cat and tuna.

Audrey Hepburn, a Burro, and a Missing Wallet

2008-06-10T19:48:00.006-04:00

This has been stuck in my head for three days straight now. Unfortunately for all those around me, I can't hit the high notes properly. It's sad. Anyways, I thought I'd share this obsession with my reading audience.

Oh, I lost my wallet today somewhere in between getting on the bus this morning and getting back on it after class. Way to go, eh? I'm pretty sure no one actually filched it directly from my bag, but there's the overwhelming possibility that it fell out of my bag and someone did not feel it necessary to turn it in. If this is the case, I must congratulate them on finding two dollars, some odd change, and my ID - quite a bag of treasures!

On a lighter note, I found this picture of Audrey Hepburn whilst searching the web. I like her hair. And the fact that she's sitting with a donkey, or maybe a burro?

Now I should really attempt to study for my Social Problems test tomorrow, and not be distracted by a certain late nineties fantasy show involving charming vampires and witty banter. Oh how I adore witty banter.

What I do on the Weekend

2008-06-09T18:26:00.005-04:00

This is my silly stupid cute cat, Kitty Boy, who knows absolutely no shame. We got him neutered a while ago, and he's getting fat. This is pre-neuter , since then he's become weirder and fatter. He's adorable though.
This is the blanket I'm working on. Please note and take awe of the gorgeous cables and lace panels. I'll let you know they're awesome. I love cables.

Oh! and this is my sock. On double pointed needles. Three of them. Yes, you should be in awe. I am.
This is my porch. Actually my mom's porch. It's really pretty and when you put the umbrella up, it's all shady and summer like. There's also comfy couches that you can't see. I'm sitting on them while taking the picture.

That's what I did this weekend; nothing. But it was good. I'm halfway through season 1 of Buffy. She just found out Angel's a vampire. But he has a soul, so it's okay to kiss him. Lucky Buffy.

Smells Like Content

2008-06-08T19:24:00.002-04:00

I was talking to one of my good friends today and we started sharing music videos via youtube like we are wont to do from time to time and I remembered this little jewel. I love The Books in a weird mesmerizing way. Mogwai meets Postal Service, meets something all of their own, yes? I thought it would be a nice introduction into my blog. (Nod towards Allie, Luke, and the guy from Brooklyn Tweed for leading me down this path of blog obsession.)

So it's summer, whoo hoo. It's been summer for more than a month now and I'm getting the feel that I'm done with this silliness. Here's a secret for all of those who dream of summer; make sure you make plans or else you'll slowly lose your mind to things like watching the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, teaching yourself how to use double pointed needles so you can knit socks, obsessively reading knitting blogs, and avoiding getting a job at all costs by taking out loans and going to summer school. But I'm just being difficult. I really love summer and all of its mind traps. It would be better if I had more money and access to northern Kentucky, but you can't get everything you want. For now, I'll have to be content with what I have, which is more than enough to be content with.