kitten

i'm driving up to northern california tomorrow or sunday, and i think i need one of these to keep me safe, don't you?

kitten.

bunnies

i don't know why i'm putting up a link to this, but i find it strangely entertaining:

bunnies.

don't tell me, my blog gets more and more lame. sigh. i'll have to work out something better to be posting on it.

more weirdness

Apparently the fourth Planet of the Apes movie was filmed at UCI. Now you can all see where I go to school! Yes, those shots are right by the English department.

weirdness

so, i'm doing some really lame googlestalking/procrastinating (i.e. googling someone who i think *might* be the girlfriend of someone who i'm only vaguely wondering if is single), and, of course coming up with nothing interesting or definitive, i turn to really *really* lame googlestalking/procrastinating, which is, of course, googling oneself. and this is what i found (other than my amazon.com profile, which also kind of weirds me out that it comes up but i'm probably not going to bother to try to change my privacy settings or whatever):

Web page

which links to this:

My graduation?!

which, i guess, is fine. . . but kind of freaked me out for a moment. especially. . . well, what is all the nonsense language about??

things that make you wonder about yourself

1. When you're hungry and you think, "oh, but chicken nuggets are so much trouble to heat up."

2. When you think, "maybe I could get rid of the refrigerator to make space for another bookshelf."

3. When everyone you know tells you they're going to bed at around 12:30 and disappear from the scene, but you find yourself incapable of sleeping until you have shopped on urbanoutfitters.com until 3 am.

I think I need to make myself a new going to bed rule.

spiders

The manifestion of all my bedtime nightmares.

Birthday

It's my birthday! Yay me. I'm 24.

Lessons learned too late.

I find this so hilarious that even though I'm totally ripping it off someone else's blog entry (emkettering.blogspot.com--Emily, this just makes me laugh and laugh, I don't know why) I had to put up a link to it.

Abstinence Outlet

Apparently I will be bringing virtually nothing to my future husband: Abstinence Rose Pin.
I should probably also get myself one of these mugs. To quote: "God grant me the patience to pass up the men I may want but should not have" (whoops, have totally failed there) "the courage to meet those I may not want but should get to know" (doesn't that strike you as a little bit sinister? Like, doesn't that suggest that the man you 'should' be with is probably kind of . . . unappealing?) "and the wisdom to know the difference."
Finally, there's the STD puzzle. It cracked me up.

Okay, as a disclaimer, I'm not trying to be *against* abstinence here, I really don't want to offend anyone. It's totally about people own choices, and what am I to say one way or another? People should do what they think is right. And really, there's way too much pressure on people to have sex in our society--I definitely feel like that kind of pressure isn't very healthy. But still, what can I say? This is just too much.

a warning to the men of my program from a highly esteemed literary figure

"La Luc's son, a youth of much promise, was designed by his father for the church, and had received from him an excellent education, which, however, it was thought necessary he should finish at an university. That of Geneva was fixed upon by La Luc. His scheme had been to make his son not a scholar only; he was ambitious that he should also be enviable as a man."

Ann Radcliffe, The Romance of the Forest

Return to the Blog

Hi Everyone,

I know I haven't updated my blog in ages. . . I guess I had a moment of paranoia about people reading about my life (that pops up occasionally). But I returned the old formatting so my archives can be found again, and I think I'll start trying to post again more often. . . so stop by! Right now, though, I have to stop procrastinating and use the long weekend to do some work.

anthropologie, and why I shouldn't shop there

First founded in 1992, the brand is designed to follow customers of its parent company, Urban Outfitters, into the next stage of their life.[2] Founder Richard Hayne moved Anthropologie away from the focus of Urban Outfitters, which targeted hip and mode trends. Rather, this new concept was designed to appeal to 30- to 40-something affluent professional women with total family annual income above $200,000. [3] Picturing an ideal audience, the corporation targeted sophisticated women wanting unique, one-of-a-kind designs. This marketing technique is often compared to that of Kate Spade, selling a lifestyle rather than products.[4] Thus, Anthropologie became a pioneer in retail, becoming the first corporation to intentionally avoid advertising.

Actually, this really kind of pisses me off. Do they think twenty-somethings want to dress straight out of Urban Outfitters? Occasionally Anthropologie does skew a little old, I admit, but I also don't think it's dressing 40-somethings. No, instead it's praying on the poor grad students who have taste but don't want to dress a teenager until they're 30! (I do shop at Urban Outfitters but somehow I'm not so into Victorian-Goth at the moment, which is practically all they have in the Valley Fair store right now).

neighbor lady?

Usually I really like Anthropologie's names for things. "camelot boots" or "dancing butterfly sandals" or "azure skies eyelet blouse" or some such nonsense, they always conjure up an image that, more often than not, is better than the item of clothing itself. But someone had an off day recently:

neighbor lady?

I don't want to look like a neighbor lady. A neighbor lady is single, middle aged, childless (or widowed and children have left home), and invites you over around Christmas when you're six and gives you a cookie and a little decoration for your Christmas tree that she sewed herself. I have good memories of neighbor lady, but I have no desire to BE neighbor lady.

Further troublesome points: why is it black? Is neighbor lady in mourning? Why does it look like it belongs to a pregnant woman? How on earth is it "the most popular on the block?" Finally, and perhaps most troublesome of all, why does neighbor lady have pockets for lollipops and bandaids? Surely it's for the children "on the block". . . but why do I have the strange feeling that the items in the pockets are actually. . . for herself?

the new leather. . . and the new sixties (the new eighties?)

I have been told that the reason that my hands start shaking and I have to eat after I make a large purchase at the mall is that I get very excited when I'm shopping. Today I went to the shopping center and I got so excited I had to go home. I'm making a list of the obsessions for my reference as much as anyone's.

Let's start with the boots:
You know the Chanel boots Anne Hathaway wears in The Devil Wears Prada? Here is my answer to them:
http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=12407&itemType=PRODUCT&iSubCat=817&iMainCat=812

While we're at anthropologie, I give you the new sixties (closely related to the new eighties):
http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=12385&itemType=PRODUCT&iSubCat=1629&iMainCat=17

Let's move to the Gap, where we can find surprisingly good leather, in jackets:
http://www.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=5739&pid=413347
and in bags:
http://www.gap.com/browse/category.do?cid=13776&mlink=15900,610191&clink=610191

J.Crew has some bags that aren't bad, either, check out for example:
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product.jhtml?id=prod78108501&catId=cat106193
or:
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product.jhtml?id=prod78107501&catId=cat106193

This bag, interestingly, bears some similarities to vintage Coach:
http://www.jcrew.com/catalog/product.jhtml?id=prod78103501&catId=cat106193
at least in that front pocket:
coach bag
Coach has some other things I like, but as you can see, we're getting a little bit pricey:
http://www.coach.com/content/product.aspx?product_no=8085&category_id=788

Maybe I'd be better off looking at something more along these lines:
urbanoutfitters bag

It's all relative. And this isn't even counting what I just saw at Express.

Never mind that I need more key things in my life, like a microwave.

Obsessions.

Hey all,

I know I haven't been posting very much lately. Sometimes the whole idea of having a blog starts to irritate me, and then I feel disinclined from posting for awhile. . . if I'm not desperately bored at work, I feel like I might as well spend my time on more quality writing. Plus it's annoying when you post all your interesting stories on a blog, and then you try to have a conversation with an old friend and find that they've heard everything you have to say already.

Even so, I thought I might as well post a little update, just so my blog doesn't get a reputation as one of the never-changing ones. The following are my primary occupations of late:

1. Watching the World Cup (all England games, plus whatever else we fit in) and developing an increasing crush on David Beckham, even when he doesn't play that well.

2. Reading Doctor Zhivago, my new favorite novel.

3. Picking up books at the library for Bender (research assistant work).

4. Learning to read German (auditing a German class, but don't tell anyone because it's not allowed).

Aaand, yup.

mexico

is beautiful.

rather than go on and on about it, which is kind of in bad taste, let me just suggest that if you ever want to go on a gorgeous tropical vacation, get a bunch of friends together and go here:

http://sayulitalife.com/

and stay in this house:

http://www.sayulitalife.com/housepages/miotracasa.htm

and eat these tacos:

http://www.sayulitalife.com/business/fishtaco.htm

it's not even that expensive. you can top it all off by getting married on the beach at sunset (which would be a bit much for me, but was lovely to see for someone else).

that is all.

seen and heard

Heard, over meatballs, at IKEA:

Tiffany: "The cars down there are so tiny!"
Maia: "We're so high up!"
Tiffany: "It's like they're toys!"
Maia: "It's like we're on a plane! And look at the view!"
Tiffany: "What a beautiful day to be at IKEA!"

In our defense, IKEA does have a surprisingly gorgeous view of the hills.

Seen, online, googling "where is the best place to exchange money":

What to Do with Leftover Currency
In most cases, you'll have some foreign currency left over by the time you're ready to return home. Here's what you can do with it:
Spend it on gifts for yourselves, friends, or family at the airport dutyfree shop
Donate it to charity. Find a place to do this at the airport or send it to UNICEF's Change for Good program, which helps children around the world
Convert it back to your local currency at the airport
Exchange it when you get home
Keep it as a souvenir of your trip

I can't deal with how stupid they must think I am. "Oh, goodness me, my trip is over, and I still have money in the currency of the country I'm visiting. Heavens, what on earth shall I do with it! It's completely useless at home! I suppose I'll just throw it in this trash can in the Ladies'. No use toting home all this useless paper in my Chanel handbag!"

I continued to follow some links to hopefully find something more useful, i.e., a measured examination of whether one would get a better exchange rate at a bank or American Express, or at an airport, or somewhere in the town we're going in Mexico, etc. Instead, I came up with this enlightening paragraph:

If you are planning to travel abroad in the near future, you will probably need some local currency. That is where a currency exchange service comes in. Currency exchange is when you trade currency from one country to the equivalent monetary value in the currency of another country. A currency exchange service will take your dollars and give you the equivalent value in Euros for example.

Oh my god! So that's what this whole so-called "currency exchange" shit is about. And look at this:

If the currency you are trading is volatile relative to your local currency, it is possible to lose money in the transaction and the values of the currencies fluctuate

Wow. This is like, so complicated.

I'm sorry. Maybe I underestimate the travel experience of the average person. I've heard there are people out there who never travel at all, not even to another state.


Seen, online:

So, I guess everyone reads this blog already, but I did think this was pretty darn funny:

http://gofugyourself.typepad.com/go_fug_yourself/2006/05/fugga_herzigova.html

Oddly, I feel like it's actually so close to being pretty, if it just. . . well, was actually there. Instead it's just very amusing.

condo

my dad's condo. move in somebody, please, before my parents drive each other crazy.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/apa/161987139.html

bran muffins

so i had this dream about bran muffins last night, and then, when i got to work, THERE THEY WERE in the 250 lounge! for the taking!

am i psychic?

keys

someone left his or her keys in the bathroom. it's so cute how they're obviously IHUM freshman keys. There are three keys, and there uses are are extremely obvious and familiar: there is a bike lock key, a dorm room key, and a post office box key. No car keys, no Stanford building keys, nothing. Oh, for when life was simple.

On my keychain? One car key, one key to building 250, one key to the English Dept, one key to John Bender's office (okay, I really should give that back), bike lock key, two keys to house in Seattle, one of which doesn't work, two mysterious keys, one of which should open my uncle's house but neither work; and one Stanford Alumni Assoc. key bob thingy. Oh, and my old PO Box key, which, worryingly, still works (I tried it a few months ago). I guess I should clean out my keys, huh.

bored (and being more boring by calling this post 'bored')

I'm really bored. If you hadn't picked up on that by the fact that this is my third post today. I went to the Spring Faire very briefly, but I was disappointed when I realized that 1) neither of bonsai tents had the kind of bonsai I'm looking for; 2) There were no magical lily earrings for sale of the variety described earlier; and 3) most of the other stuff really isn't worth the money. Which means none of it is worth the money.

Today I have also done filing, and eaten a chocolate chip cookie, which seems to be making my stomach swell up to twice it's normal size, which happens whenever I eat anything lately. Do ulcers make your stomach swell up?

To show you how bored I am, I am going to quote you a piece of an ad in the Stanford Daily:

"If it's polentas you crave, you only need to remember one word, Trellis. Trellis is Itllaian [sic] for "unforgettable polenta."
It's a trademark to how stupid I'm becoming that I actually thought "trellis" meant "unforgettable polenta" for a good five minutes until I actually thought about it. Spelling errors aside (which are probably the fault of the Daily and not the strange person who is being quoted), does this make ANY sense? Can you even say "polentas"?

let's go!

apparently, included in your fare when you fly british airways, is 31 in seat pitch (78cm), lumbar support and adjustable headrest!
!

musings

I can't say exactly why I feel discouraged. I think it goes something like this:

Since Jason and KS are getting married, there's all this confusion about when we're all going to move out of Partridge. The current thought is around August, but this creates all sorts of confusion. Dan suggested yesterday that we stick it out through August, since I will be leaving for Irvine in September, and that he might just go to London for the entire month of September and hope that Jason and KS had things sorted by the time he got back.

But Irvine doesn't start till about September 20th. So what am I going to do for like two weeks when Dan is gone, and Partridge doesn't exist any more? Go home and stay with my parents and get very depressed (inevitably I would, I'm sure)?. Go down to LA early, where I know exactly one person? Stay at my uncle's and hang out around Stanford (and get very depressed)? I don't see any good options.

So I turn to my usual conclusion when I feel rather un-needed and slightly friendless (yes, I know you all are my friends! but you're kind of scattered) and basically disinterested in anywhere that I normally live: I decide I should go to Europe. No real reason to be in America--then might as well go somewhere interesting. This isn't a total fantasy either--of course you probably all know that I talk about traveling (funded by my uncle) about three times a year, and basically never end up going, but hypothetically I COULD go.

This summer I'm supposed to teach myself German (I have gotten as far as "ich bin"--fluent already!), so my first thought was that I could go to Germany for a couple of weeks, as a kind of reward. But you know. . . I really want to go to England, or Ireland. (This also always happens to me when I think about traveling--I'll go learn French in Switzerland! Or . . . I could just go to England. Again.) I've wanted to go to Ireland for about my entire life, except for when I really wanted to go to Brazil until I learned that they had giant spiders.

What would be REALLY cool is to just kind of wander around the British Isles for a couple of weeks--aren't there supposed to be all kinds of walking tours? I looked into actual structured walking tours, briefly, but they're all for people who are 45+. Then I realized this was because young people just do it themselves.

And here comes the crux of the problem, which I have been thinking about one way or another since I was about 12 years old. Is it safe for me as a young woman to wander around England or Ireland by myself? I don't really know anyone else who would want to go. (at least I don't think I do). If it's not safe, you know, it really pisses me off. I feel like despite all the men-and-women are equal stuff I've grown up with, in some ways men are able to basically do whatever the hell they want, while women have to sit around and wait for something to happen, either to gather a large clump of women so they can all safely do something together, or for men to come along who will take them out.

Some examples:

1. When I was living in New York a couple of summers ago and my friend Greg was my roommate for awhile, he used to go and hang out in city all day, and do things like go to the pub where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death (am I getting these facts all wrong), and just like, chat with random people in the pub. Can I go talk to random people in a pub? For one, no, because I'm shy, but I feel like even if I wasn't, it would be weird.

2. When Dan is home in Croydon, he can take the train up to London to see his friends, and then walk back at home at like 3 am, drunk, alone. Could I wander around London at 3 am, alone and drunk? No.

3. When I was about twelve, my mom used to tell me I wasn't allowed to walk around the woodsy area near our house, because she had heard of rapists being somewhere around there (or something--it's always hard to tell with my mom how much is realistic and how much is paranoia). I think that was the first time I felt something wasn't fair--as a girl, was I never allowed to have introspective wanders in the woods? Was enjoying nature something I could only enjoy if I had a hypothetical boyfriend who was willing to indulge my mood? Plus, if he were there, how would it be introspective? It would defeat half the purpose.

This is all related to various feelings that have been floating around in my consciousness lately, I think partly because there are currently about 10 young Canadian men staying in my house at the moment, and that can't help but make me feel a little out of place. But let's take a look at the Bachelor/Bachelorette parties (there were essentially two of each of these, because there was the Bachelorette party/boys night out and the Bachelor party/girls night out, since everybody in the collective group is divided up into couples, more or less, and none of us know what to do with ourselves without the other half of the group around). Obviously I wasn't AT the Bachelor party, so I don't know exactly what went on, but there must have been at least 12 of them or so, and they went to some strip clubs in SF, there were some lapdances and such. The usual Bachelor party stuff. On the "boys night" they went out to some pubs and got absolutely trashed. For Bachelorette party, we had a bit to drink, played some games, went out to a club (but the club was actually kind of boring (don't tell that to anyone who arranged it)), and on the "girls night," we went to Nola's and had dinner and a couple drinks. On the whole, the girls nights were very tame. Too tame, if you ask me, though I guess it reflected the tastes of the brides. I guess I was frustrated by the vague feeling that when the boys went out they really had fun being boys, and while I had a nice time having a martini with KS at the Empire Tap Room before going to Nola's, I don't really feel like the girls had a really good time being cohesively girly. Actually I think on some level I'm not making sense, and that 1) I wasn't with the boys so I don't know how much fun they had, and 2) this may have less to do with gender differences than with the girls I know right now. It's true that in a lot of ways the groups of girls I end up hanging out with, especially recently, tend to be a little more tame and modest than I would ultimately prefer. Certainly I'm not a wild person, by any means, but I think that's kind of the point--at a Bachelorette party, you're supposed to take the opportunity to be a little wild while you can, even if it's not a fundamental facet of your personality. Maybe they've just gotten all their wildness out already, because they're older than me.

On another note, I think the idealized female is basically supposed to sit around romantically and look pretty until a man shows up and infuses her life with meaning (because that of course is traditionally the story that is told). I don't consider myself particularly a feminist--I don't MIND sitting around and looking pretty, exactly. At least I don't mind the idea of it. In fact I rather like the idea of being some kind of idealized beautiful female person. But in practice? It's really boring. What are you supposed to think about when you're sitting around looking pretty? And why should you waste your life sitting around and looking pretty when you're missing out on all these cool things the guys are doing? I know this is a very old idea, and I'm not blaming anyone for it, particularly, I'm just kind of frustrated. And bored. And tired of sitting around. This is probably all partly related to me feeling generally bored of my life, and starting to understand how all those women in the late nineteenth century or so would have all these nervous problems or hysteria or whatnot. Not having anything to put my mind to eventually will make me absolutely CRAZY. I keep thinking about that Charlotte Perkins Gilman story (is that the right author?) "The Yellow Wallpaper."

So about wandering around England--should I just say fuck it, and GO, safe or not? (Keeping in mind that this is a two-hour old idea, and might wear off over the next 24 hours--I always have to give ideas at least a week to figure out if they're good or just stupid). But still. I don't want to get mugged and raped in the English countryside, fair or not. (I also don't want to get robbed at gunpoint, which apparently happened ON STANFORD CAMPUS a couple days ago). I will ponder.

Hmm.

sandals

i've come to the conclusion that flip flops exacerbate my foot problem. and so i've been investigating alternatives. this might mean *the horror* "comfortable shoes."

pain. as i look at sandals on anthropologie, all i see is pain, in its various forms: blisters, as all those straps rub against bare skin. twisted ankles. aching feet. pain, pain, all sandals look like PAIN, not like HAPPY SUMMER, which is what sandals should look like.

Is this the only option?

http://store.nordstrom.com/product/product_brandboutique.asp?styleid=2885516&boutique=sandal_shop_women&category
=2376778~2372808~2372949~2372955&NextStyleID=
2885520&PrevStyleID=2897994

please world, spare me from the specter of my fourteen year old self! please restore the possibility of sexy feet!

more wedding outfit mania

okay. I fixed the blog so it doesn't look so weird. as an update on the whole wedding-outfit-drama, which I KNOW has you all on the edge of your seats, I spent a good two hours online today looking for the perfect earrings. The perfect earrings would, hypothetically, fulfill the following criteria:
1) include both silver and gold
2) be lightweight
3) cost less than $30
4) arrive by friday
5) include the motif of the LILY in some way

Surprisingly, I actually found good candidates:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4962746117&category=86077

http://www.razorthinmargins.com/0/910111.html

Unfortuately, shopping online at this point is all kind of a waste of time anyway, because to get things friday I'd almost certainly have to do overnight shipping, which costs, oh, about a zillion dollars.

I have yet another idea about this outfit, which is that it would be nice to have some yellow ribbon for my hair, or maybe yellow cord, in a kind of headband with two strings, except pinned down. But I might not be able to deal with finding it.

Random weirdness: apparently health insurance has specifications like: "must be 64 3/4 years or younger." Apparently when I counted those "7 3/4" when I was seven, it really meant something.

why does my blog looked fucked up? it's pissing me off.

mania

1. Clothes
I'm becoming seriously obsessed with my outfit for the wedding. Unfortunately the different components have disappeared from the Banana Republic website, so I can't link to them, but if you recall, the main item is the yellow dress. And then I bought this delicate silver and gold necklace to go with it, which I also can't find a picture for, but it has a thin gold vermeil circle at the center that is etched in a funny mazelike pattern, and the gold chain has tiny silver beads along it. God, I'm horrible at describing clothes. I don't usually approve of mixed-metals, but in this case it was quite pretty. Then I got these shoes: (link closed in attempt to fix blog weirdness) to go with it, except in dark brown, which look much better in person than they do in this picture. I thought I could wear my small gold hoops and my silver tiffany bracelet, and it would all be fine.

Except then today I got up and decided to wear dangly earrings, which I haven't done in months. And then I remembered why dangly earrings are like, the best things ever. So now I have to rethink the whole outfit in terms of dangly earrings. There are a number of good prospects on the anthropologie website, but seriously, $170? They have to be kidding.

I'm also worried about the color of my toenail polish. And eyeshadow. I think I should go with more of a gold tone, rather than green, for the eyeshadow. . . unless browns would be better? Maybe browns with gold. I haven't even started to discuss my previous visions for this outfit, which first was yellow and green, and then yellow and brown with my Steve Madden peep-toe wedges. Those had to be vetoed because I realized my feet would be full of blisters before I'd even gotten to the ceremony. And I also haven't brought up the purse, which ideally would be soft brown Italian leather, except that my purse-vision would also cost $200+, so I"m setting for this crazy brown thing covered with enormous beaded lilies that I found in a little store in downtown Edmonds, which is kind of hideous but I also kind of adore. But that makes me rethink the whole outfit, which I had constructed along the lines of clean brown-and-gold elegance, and I'm now wondering if the jewelry needs to be a little larger and beaded, instead of only metals.


2. Books.
Book that I should be reading as I am halfway through: Kingdom of Fear, by Hunter S. Thompson.
Book that I am actually reading: The Undomestic Goddess, by Sophie Kinsella.
Additional Books that I have read while I should have been reading the first book: The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.
Previous book that I should have been reading but have now finally finished: The Beautiful and Damned, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Intervening books that I read instead: Meet the Austins and The Moon by Night, by Madeleine L'Engle, and Bachelor Boys, by Kate Saunders.
And finally, book that I REALLY should be reading, started about six months ago and will probably have to be started again from the beginning: Middlemarch, by George Eliot.

I'm not really much of a serious literature person, am I. And I finally have to admit it--those books by Dan Brown are pretty darn good.


3. Blog.
I think I've adjusted the comments option so that those of you who don't have blogger accounts can still post. Give it a shot, somebody, so I can see if it works.


4. Mother's Day.
THIS SUNDAY! What to do, what to do!!!

caterpillars 2

Dan, this morning, on eating dinner at the Treehouse last week:

"You know those green, yellow, and red caterpillars? They really blend into salsa."

In further explanation: "They look just like another piece of guacamole."

the danglies

Corinne used to use "the dangly ones" to refer to the males, but in this case, I don't mean humans of any sort, but rather, the dangly caterpillar trees that have taken over campus. For the most part I have successfully avoided them--I know they're there, I know that they dangle from those slightly gray-green fuzzy trees, and I know that you have to give them a wide berth if you don't want a new caterpillar friend. But my question is, why do they dangle? Why have I never seen them before? And why are there SO MANY of them?

Today, however, I nearly ran into a treeful of them--it was a narrow escape. Apparently a trip to Tressidder can be a hazardous journey--not only did I almost get caterpillared, but I had another encounter with the complit grad student who is apparently stalking me, (who I originally met just last friday at the shopping center and managed to rather awkwardly decline to give my phone number) and who continues to be embarrassingly unfunny. And I ran into one of the TFs who I seem to run into on a regular basis (though he's cool so that's not really a hazard). Still. It's much easier to hop over to Cubberley, if I can just remember to have some cash.

On a different subject, I'm on the apparently never-ending hunt for at least 1, hopefully 2, acceptable swimsuits. After ordering two from J. Crew and finding them on the whole unacceptable, I'm starting to realize why I seem to find it so difficult (well, aside from the fact that J. Crew sells out of EVERYTHING swimwear related about two weeks into February). I think it's because I have no idea what to look for in a swimsuit, seeing that I have historically disliked swimming and therefore have bought exactly two swimsuits since I was in sixth grade, one around sophomore year of HS and one around sophomore year of college. Let's compare that to something that I can practically buy without trying on: dresses. With some exceptions, I know whether a dress is going to look good or bad on me without even trying it on. That makes sense when I realize that I probably have at least 10 dresses in my closet, and I've probably tried on at least 50 over the past eight years (if not many more), as opposed to about four swimsuits. Anyway, still trying to figure out the right way to go on this one. The J. Crew bikinis made my boobs look saggy, and I'm pretty sure that I don't have saggy boobs.

I saw the movie Brick on Sunday night (apparently the only time one can find parking in Palo Alto) and really liked it. I'm currently trying to decide whether the main actor, http://imdb.com/name/nm0330687/, is cute. At first I was afraid he was going to be like, 18, and therefore too young to be cute,but as it turns out, he's actually older than me, which seems to be the usual story. Anyway, it turns out he's the same kid from 10 Things I Hate About You--what do you know!

Actually, going back to the clothes and the trip to the shopping center on Friday. . . so I was looking for a dress to wear to Jason and KS's wedding. I was going to wear the butterfly dress of Oxford and Senior Formal, but I put it on, and then I tried on my blue dress of HS and Stanford graduations (yes, I wore the same dress for both), and I decided that they were dresses for very skinny Nina Stargirl, not Nina Stargirl who sits in her office all day and eats cinnamon rolls. It's not that they didn't fit at all, it's just. . . well, okay, it was an excuse to buy a new dress, and this dress: http://www.bananarepublic.com/browse/product.do?cid=5023&pid=389452 looked promising. So I went to Banana Republic and tried it on in a size 6, and it was literally falling off. They didn't have a 4 in stock, so the girl gave me a size 2. And what do you know, the size 2 fits. Perfectly.

I'm not trying to make a point that I'm skinny. I'm trying to make the point that this is RIDICULOUS. In high school, when I weighed about 10 pounds less than I do now, I would wear a 4 or 6 from Banana Republic. Aside from that, I'm simply not the person that should be wearing a size 2. Size 2 should be for anorexics and tiny Asian girls, not just perfectly ordinary fairly thin people. No wonder Banana now advertises "now available in size double zero!" on the clothes on its website. Double zero? A size like that has no excuse for existence. Even XXXL has more reason to exist than double zero. Apparently now you're not really thin unless you've doubly negated your waistline.

I do quite like the dress, though. It's not too yellow for a wedding, is it?

weekend

just a note to anyone whom it might matter--i'm coming home to seattle for the weekend, thursday through monday. the question is, does anyone from home read my blog to care?

an interesting discovery for people who buy a lot of clothes:

http://www.smartmoney.com/dealoftheday/index.cfm?story=20060421

I'll see if it works with my latest purchase from j.crew. . .

a bit stumped

There are a number of things on my mind today, starting with the fact that campus is a little crazy, being overrun with profros and George Bush on the same day. I was sent to go pick up SLE evaluations, and what with the registrar being over by Encina while they do construction at Old Union, my usual route is straight by Hoover Tower, which was just beginning to be swarming with security. I read in the Daily they're having snipers at the top of Hoover tower? Goodness. What's really crazy is when you realize that no matter where Bush goes it must be crazy swarming with security. And now there's a bunch of shouting protesters walking by outside. Protests embarrass me. Oddly, I have approximately the same feeling about protests that I have about gyms, athletic events, and giving birth--I don't like to express pain, effort, or extreme emotion in front of other people. (The exceptions, I suppose, are sex and tears, but even both of them I do fairly quietly).

Second on my mind is a problem of money. Not my usual lack thereof--though that is always a concern--but this time, it's that I actually HAVE some money--my uncle gave me a late graduation present--and it seems like it might be sensible to invest it. My dad says I should put it in the same mutual funds that he has. But I realized that I don't feel comfortable sticking my money in any old mutual funds, 1) because I don't know ANYTHING about economics, the economy, or basically, anything useful; and 2) because I don't want to be accidentally supporting oil companies or something like that. But I'm at a complete loss, because I've realized that I don't know how to learn anything if I don't take a class on it. And I also realized that I'm skeptical of anything learned in a class that doesn't have exceptional credentials, like being part of a major university. I don't want to pick up any old book on investing, just as I don't want to pick up any old book on how to write a novel (another current dilemma of mine), because, after all, how do I know that they really know anything?

Maybe I'll write more later. Right now, it's back to processing those good old evaluations. . . and trying to stave off the major boredom OF MY LIFE.

oxford

i have a sudden, irrefutable NEED to go to oxford. i have FORGOTTEN WHAT IS IN SPECIAL CHIPS AT AHMED'S. i need help. plane tickets. now.

pebbles and motorways

Sometimes Dan picks up on my moods frighteningly well. I bought the Saint Etienne album Tiger Bay (thank you, you know who you are, for introducing me to Saint Etienne, I now absolutely adore their music), and I had developed a particular fondness for "Like a Motorway" over the last day or so, which probably reflects my generally dismal mood. (Who could be that cheery when having a compulsion to listen to a song that goes "she saiid her life/ was like a motorway/ dull, gray, and long" ?) But anyway, I drove him to work this morning because he has class, and he picks up my Tiger Bay cd, says, "I bet you like Like a Motorway, don't you. I bet it's your favorite song." Of course I glared at him, and he played it.

I just looked up the lyrics, and I'm disappointed because I found out that one line of it goes, "he said her skin smelled just like petals," and I had honestly thought she said "PEBBLES." I really liked the idea of her skin smelling like pebbles. I guess now that I think of it it sounds kind of unlikely.

http://www.wholesomewear.com/

these people have some issues, if you ask me. one piece suits i can understand, but this is ridiculous.

grad school

Will be attending UC Irvine! Yay southern California! Marie, I haven't been keeping you updated, but it looks like I'm finally going to get to visit you in LA after all!

I feel like deciding to attend grad school is almost like deciding to get married--once you finalize the decision with you close friends and family, you have to go through this long process of announcing it to the world, which is like telling all your disappointed suitors that however delightful they may be, they just haven't got what it takes (or, not infrequently, haven't got the money. . .). I feel like I should send out annoucements.

Anyway, in the end it was a fairly easy decision. Applying to grad school has been a rather miserable experience, but it seems like it has turned out for the best. Though I still feel a little funny about the fact I am planning to attend a school that I only applied to because I became obsessed with the O.C. over winter break. Sure, that isn't why I'm going to GO to Irvine, but I seriously wasn't going to apply to another school in CA other than Berkeley until I saw about my millionth episode and decided that California was the place to be.

I also know that I'm going to get tired of telling people that I'm NOT going to Irvine to study Derrida. For God's sake. Some professor or fellow was in my office last week and I told him I was probably going to Irvine, and he was like, oh, you can't get much better than that, isn't Derrida there? And I said, "I think he's dead." I think I rather shocked the TF with my blaze carelessness, but honestly, in my mind, Derrida is a historical figure, not a REAL person. Saying, "isn't he dead?" is rather like saying, "isn't TS Eliot dead?" or something like that.

T.S. Eliot is also dead, right?

*post that girls will understand and guys will either laugh at or find irritating*

I'm kind of thinking, as we all think on a regular basis, that I'm getting fat. This shouldn't be mistaken with me thinking that I AM fat, because I do not have body dysmorphic etc, and I am on the whole a thin person, but you know. Eat enough french fries and there HAS to be a difference, right?

I haven't been thinking about this that much really, but I paused for a moment today to think about what I ate yesterday:

1 yogurt drink (regular not "lite")
1 spinach/potato frittatta with salad from Bytes
1 cinnamon roll from Moonbeans
2.5 chocolates sitting around IHUM from random student
1 bag of potato chips
2 small glasses of "raspberry cordial"
1 side salad from Plutos (which is essentially a meal)
1/2 plate of garlic fries from Plutos
4 sour patch kids

I can't decide where that falls on the spectrum of overeating. I mean, a cinnamon roll AND a bag of potato chips as afternoon snack is definitely excessive, ESPECIALLY because I wasn't hungry after lunch. On the other hand, at least I consumed a lot of vegetables (spinach, salad, etc).

anyway, the rest of this post was going to be about how I want to design my own line of 1) lingerie, 2) shoes, and 3) notebooks/planners, but for some reason I'm feeling uninspired.

1. I am very annoyed by the way that it seems impossible to delete voicemail messages without listening to them. Why do they assume I want to listen to every extremely long message a random person leaves on my voicemail?

2. Is there some way to make a list of blogs on blogger to check regularly? Or do you just have to remember to keep them in your recent links up on your browser? (or in favorites but I never look at my favorites).

3. Some things I am excited about, have recently learned to appreciate, or are inherently fabulous:
martinis
hot sauce
alma street
v for vendetta
not bothering to set my alarm in the morning because i am apathetic
california
burritos from real burrito places on el camino or in redwood city
my new sat student, jackie
my journal
madeleine l'engle
rich uncles
british television from the eighties
angels
roommates's fiance's who are notaries
generous people
people who read my blog
money

Okay, I guess "money" is kind of lame. But I'm so excited that I have a tiny bit of money now, and what I'm REALLY excited about is that with the money, I am going to buy a NEW CD PLAYER for my car and then there will be MUSIC!! And I'm also probably going to go to Mexico :-).

when did i go wrong?

discussion with my advisor re: uc irvine:
me: "irvine is kind of strange."
advisor: "maia, i haven't told you this before. . . but you're strange."

my monday morning:
get up, go to work, walk out of work to call my advisor, walk into the slavic department to use the bathroom, have altercation with administrator over whether i'm permitted to use bathroom, walk out in disgust, kick wall, break foot.

well, jason doesn't think my foot is broken, he thinks my ankle is sprained. but i don't understand that if i have a sprained ankle, why my foot is the thing that hurts. maybe i have a sprained foot? and i can't even figure out where to go to the doctor. i'm not sure whether my greatest fear is being incapacitated for weeks, or never being able to wear heels again.

don't kick walls in sparkly shoes that didn't even fit in the first place. it's stupid.

my new favorite word

pixilated
\PIK-suh-lay-tud\ adjective
1 : somewhat unbalanced mentally; also : bemused
*2 : whimsical

Did you know? "Pixilated" is an American coinage that dates back to about the mid-19th century. A pixilated person behaves as if under the spell of pixies or enchanted by them. The word has been used to describe people who are confused (as though they have seen a pixie) or intoxicated (to the point that they are seeing pixies); it can also be used for people who are like playfully mischievous pixies themselves. Today, "pixilated" usually means "somewhat unbalanced mentally," "bemused," or "whimsical."

for ihum lovers

i don't mean people that are lovers during ihum, but rather, people who want a mug that says "I Heart IHUM," that is, "Heart" the symbol, not the word.

If you want an "I Heart IHUM" mug, just let me know.

You know you want one.

A Day for Links

A Website to Be Avoided and Yet Impossible to Avoid Upon Finding:
http://community.livejournal.com/who_got_in/2823.html

A Response to My Earlier Post:
http://lapicide.blogspot.com

The Most Disturbing Shoes Ever:
http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=7832&itemType=PRODUCT&iSubCat=1163&iMainCat=840

Shoes I Want Want But Would Probably Never Wear and Therefore Not Worth the Money and Also Upon Closer Examination They are Not as Cute as I Thought They Were:
http://www.anthropologie.com/jump.jsp?itemID=7240&itemType=PRODUCT&iSubCat=1165&iMainCat=840

catering chaos

The catering just came for the people reading fellows applications this afternoon, and it was a disturbingly piddly amount of food, considering that it cost $100. If there are eight people, that means it cost about, what, $11 or $12 per person for each one to have a tiny sandwich, a drink, and a cookie. I don't understand where I went wrong--I ordered breakfast from Whole Foods last week and it was HUGE, and nobody ate it. What's the deal here? Clearly I don't have the magic touch of catering.

I actually had a dream about the lunch I'm planning for Wednesday, which was that I accidentally ordered catering from three places and had forgotten to cancel two of them, and so instead of spending about $500 on food I'd spent about $2000, and I was all freaking out until I realized that I hadn't ordered from Andronico's, Whole Foods, and a thai restaurant, but just Whole Foods and the thai restaurant, and the thai food was only for 10 people, not 40, and therefore not so excessive. But now I'm worried that the actual food I ordered from Whole Foods won't be enough.

This is all making me worried that the food on Wednesday won't be enough.

I feel very confused. There are suddenly, magically, four large boxes sitting in my office. Where did they come from? And why didn't I see them arrive?

Strange.

I'm not usually a serious quote-poster (I have a special paranoia of quotes and being trite), but I saw this in one of my best friend's little sister's aim profile (which I don't think she knows I read. . . well, whatever). I rather liked it. . . though I'm a smidgen worried about the "madness" in line 13. . . (and maybe I just need to go to bed).

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me-
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me, and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid.
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances;
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire-
It is a boat longing for the sea
And yet afraid.
-Edgar Lee Masters

on various things

on swimsuits:
victoria's secret has a bikini called "poisson d'amour." now, is my french confused, or does this mean "fish of love"? does this mean if you wear this swimsuit you become a mermaid or something? maybe this is just another sign that shopping for swimsuits on the victoria's secret website is a bad idea, just as shopping for clothes there is a bad idea, since you can hardly even find the clothes amongst the models. but where else to look after j. crew?

on being rejected from your backup school:
at least my advisor just laughed at them and said it showed how even more obviously inept their department is.

on not having heard from *very prestigious univeristy* that has rumored to already have made its decisions:
should i go do a voodoo dance or something? or did they lose my application?

on j.crew shoes being made by the same manufacturers as gucci and prada:
a very snottily gay j.crew salesperson in seattle told me this. does this actually make them better shoes? i mean, they still aren't gucci shoes, no matter who sews them together. and isn't the fact that they're j.crew shoes good enough to begin with?

on amazon trying to sell me books about nelson mandela:
just because i buy things for ihum does not, unfortunately, mean i'm socially conscious.

on ihum applicants having recs from jacques derrida:
craaazy. i didn't quite realize he was actually a person. i mean, he's not now, because he's dead, but you know. wait, it isn't a violation of confidentiality if i don't say who it was, right?

on my new yellow sweater from j.crew:
sooo soft.

on love-o-grams:
ridiculous.

they don't work

a lot of my possessions, that is. and things in my life. you'll see what I mean in a minute. it's amazing how in just a few short months without your parents buying everything for you, it all starts to go to pieces.

things that don't work/need to be replaced:

my car cd player.
status: doesn't exist, as was stolen in january.

my ipod.
status: won't turn on.

my tiffany teardrop necklace.
status: chain broken by blundering roommate.

my laptop.
status: freezes, fails to connect to the internet, and is generally fucked up. "a" key popped off and won't go back on.

my glasses.
status: prescription 4+ years old. cracking around edges.

my futon/bed.
status: it has been pointed out to me that my futon is not in fact a bed, so much as a large pillow, which now has a huge Maia-dent in it, perhaps even bigger than the famed Bender dent.

my favorite pink sweater stolen from ex-girlfriend.
status: enormous hole in elbow.

all of my flats and kitten heels.
status: broken and repaired with superglue; stretched out and too big; battered and too small; too small to begin with but i was stubborn as they were on sale. i think that accounts for all of them.

favorite blue suede bag from oxford.
status: so dirty that my friends that don't even care about fashion comment on it.

my haircut.
status: grown out. bangs doing freakish weird things.

favorite corduroy (sp?) skirt from urban outfitters.
status: bleach spots from cleaning roommates running amok.

my parking permit.
status: expired c-permit.

my cell phone.
status: top bar of screen doesn't work; battered. fully admit that this is my own fault for losing temper and throwing cell phone. (more than once).

my digestive tract.
status: perpetually nauseated. plus i keep getting the hiccups.


so there you have it. now, i would like to point out that despite my complaints, i do realize i live a luxurious lifestyle compared to like the majority of the world and all of history etc. but it would still be nice to have my stuff work.

luckily, since it seeems like the whole someone-stopping-me-on-the-street-to-tell-me-that-i-look-like-a-wonderful-person-and-therefore-they-are-going-to-give-me-a-million-dollars thing isn't working out, i do have a new job in addition to my job at ihum, as an sat tutor! yay new job! yay extra money! boo seven hour trainings after work! but whatever. i'm quite excited. also i plan to go home to seattle for the weekend (first alert for any of you few people left in seattle who might read my blog and want to see me). . . and maybe (maybe) I can get something out of my parents. like a new pair of shoes.

:-)

babies, but not born yet

Jason's on ob-gyn for the next month or so, and if you've talked to me in the last 24 hours you know that I am now living in a state of absolute horror and disgust at the idea of having a baby. He didn't even tell us that much--all he had to do was talk about how loudly the women scream and I just wanted to go into the bathroom and throw up. No, I'm not pregnant. But I am extremely appalled and offended at 1) Life; 2) Modern medicine; 3) My entire physical existence. Why?
1) Why are people built in such a generally crappy way? It seems like women's bodies are incredibly stupidly and inconveniently designed. It's enough to make me want to dispose of mine right now, except that there are all sorts of stupid personal identity issues with that.
2) Why, if we can do crazy things like transplant people's hearts, can't childbirth be painless, and people be easily restored to their former proper state?

Other fears about having children:
1) What if your child is the spawn of the devil and sucks away your lifeblood? (I told this to Nick and he asked if I'd sleep with the devil and I said probably not. But isn't half the point that you wouldn't know it was the devil at the time, or that you'd be unable to prevent it from happening?).
2) What if it's not a child at all, but some horrible beast-like thing growing inside you?
3) What if it turns out that you were sharing your body with a future mass-murderer?

What this all tells me is that if I ever DO want to have children, I should probably stop studying the Gothic.

work

So you're bored at work, like me.

Things not to do when you're bored at work:
1) Eat. If you eat when you're bored at work you'll never stop eating. Aside from the obvious side effect of getting fat, this also removes all the joy from eating when you're home and actually can eat good food, not just the pastries leftover from morning meetings that are kind of gross anyway.
2) Go on craigslist and read personals. Especially when you're not even looking to date someone. Actually, no, I take that back--don't look at craigslist personals, period. Or the "best of craigslist" page. Because while it can be funny, and personals can be entertaining in their absurdity, it is ultimately depressing to read about the lives of disgruntled unhappy bored people who want sex.
4) Think about how bored you are. This only exacerbates the problem.
5) Think about life. Thinking about life always goes in a bad direction when you're sitting in an office, as opposed to sitting on, say, a beach of a tropical island.

Things to do when you're bored at work:
1) Open a bunch of files on your desk to make it look like you're doing important work while actually you're posting on your blog.
2) Do sudoku puzzles.
3) Read the newspaper.
4) Do your taxes online.
5) Read a great work of literature that you usually wouldn't have the patience for.
6) Email your friends at work in other cities far away and make pretend dinner plans.

And some things that can be good or bad, depending:
1) Shopping online. Can be fun but ultimately problematic if you a) have no money and/or b) buy stuff anyway.
2) Looking for other jobs on craigslist. Can be neccessary, but if not neccessary, ultimately depressing, and can lead to looking at other things on craigslist.
3) Drinking coffee. Better than eating because I don't believe one can get fat off a diet of coffee, tea, soup, gatorade, and champagne (a diet plan I will explain at a later time). But can be problematic because it gets you all hyped up to do. . . nothing. And it can also spoil vanilla lattes because then they remind you of work.
4) Update your facebook profile. While an update is good now and then, I wouldn't want people to realize how much time I actually do spend on the facebook.



lalala