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 :-).