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.