Nice Houses in the Ghetto

I went to a USC party on Friday night at Kate's house. USC parties are so much more civilized than SB parties . . . they also have less alcohol . . . and no one knows how to set up the tap on a keg. Leave it to a UCSB girl to set up both kegs and fix the pumps at several points during the evening. Sigh. USC kids are too good for cheap beer. Kate tells me that they usually just get drunk off of really expensive booze. I want expensive booze! And property that's worth what I pay for it! And good land lords! And houses that aren't falling into the ocean!

But at the same time, I think I'll take my cheap beer and shitty property and just know that every party I go to will always be a totally good one where I don't have to worry about breaking shit or spilling booze on someone's very nice carpet. I heart Isla Vista. I heart it so much.

USC party also managed to convince me that I am far behing the times in getting onto Facebook. As usual, my circle is not on this marvel of internet communication because they are not those kind of ladies. I must expand.

In Solvang, no less . . .

Jen and I drove up to Solvang this afternoon in search of Danishes and other Danish things. Amid our hours of shopping for tasty foods and amazingly good deals on a variety of odd, non-Danish items (hats, great shoes, Victorian blouses, jewelry, Swedish flags), we decided to stop in at the Red Viking for a late lunch.

As we stood in front of the window of the Red Viking, glancing at the menu to see if vegetarianism was acceptable in Danish town, we noticed that the front of the restaurant was filled with bikers. I catch on to this fact as we move toward the door, and, rather loudly pronounce, "Oooh! Bikers!" I expected them to turn and glare and get all Hell's Angels on my ass, but they did no such thing. It was as if they didn't even hear me. In fact, the whole dining room was silent. Then we saw that between bites of food, every single one of the bikers was signing in ASL.

It was by far the strangest thing I have ever seen . . . an entire room of deaf bikers . . . and in Solvang, of all places.

Cassie-Cat picked this item up at a porn shop in San Diego. You can pretend to draw on him using your cursor. We leave him out in the living room so that the Company can enjoy more than just my moshi pillows and grappa. 

Speak to me in a language that I can't quite understand.

Middle English is the fucking sexiest thing I have ever heard in my life. It would be very easy to seduce me by simply reading some Chaucer aloud to me--a Bedtime story, for certain.

Same Effect could be achieved through the recitation of racy passages from any D.H. Lawrence novel, but I would much prefer the Chaucer.

Again! Paul Bettany! Paul Bettany has a knack for playing roles involved with sexy, sexy authors. Naked Gambling Chaucer in A Knight's Tale and a lecherous immaginary English major with a penchant for girls who have a penchant for D.H. Lawrence in A Beautiful Mind. I should have a glossy of him as Chaucer plastered in my English 101 notebook, so I can imagine him reciting Canterbury Tales to me instead of my sweet, grandfatherly professor. This is not a Bad Idea.

I go to immerse myself in difficult and beautiful words.

Nikki's Birthday

On only 4 hours of sleep, I managed to put in one correct contact lense and one of a very old perscription from my emergency pair. (I discovered this later that evening when I noticed one contact was much more colorful than its counterpart.) Having this as a start to my day, the confusion of only being able to see adequately from one eye was amplified when, on the way to a job hunting session, my neurologist called to inform me that he decided to report me to the DMV because of my Medical Condition. I was very, very sad.
I napped later in the afternoon in an attempt to recover my lost sanity, knowing I would need to stock up on energy for Nikki Ferry's Birthday Bash that evening. Being exceptionally tired, I gave in to a double shot of espresso at dinner. This was not enough, and, at the party, I left after two beers to hunt down some more sweet succulent caffeine. Once the espresso shots were in my hand, I walked back to the party with my nose in the cup, breathing in that dark and bitter liquid. I downed it, then downed another beer. Gray and friends later arrived to witness Nikki's lady friends all grinding down on one another and making out on the dance floor. I taught them English drinking songs and the gaiety continued. We did at some point all dance to the Spice Girls.
As the party diminshed, Gray, friends and I went in search of smokables and returned to my place to smoke grape hookah on the sweet-ass patio that everyone and their mother adores.
And I'm afraid that falling out of bed will agrivate my Medical Condition.
Maybe I just like flirting with disaster.

Weekend 1

It's my first weekend back here and things are already crazy like a drunken Isla Vista fox.

Friday: I spent Friday here alone because I moved in early. I have the top bunk and was afraid of aggravating the Medical Condition by falling off and seizing into oblivion.

Saturday: I spent the day working the Move-In and meeting all kinds of people who live in and around my place. I actually moved in a couple friends by pure coincidence.
Slowly, the roommates arrived and our massive new digs began to fill up with stuff. Our living room was overflowing with furniture: 2 chairs, 2 end tables, a coffee table, 2 couches, the Fu, 2 fridges, a TV tray. We decided later in the day to aleviate the room congestion by locating our loveseat on the sweet-ass patio that we adore. So far, it has not been stolen. We hope it stays there forever and ever.
The evening brought bonding time with the new roomie, Cassie-Cat, who is John Waters era Ricki Lake cute and compact, and then the introduction of our crazy friends to Cassie-Cat. I think it went over well. We all shared the first sips of sweet Mela Verde grappa, forayed into the stronger Pesca and Fragolina . . . and then Nikki busted open the Inferno I bought her and it burned like death, but we were oh-so-grateful.

Sunday: Roommates and I went out shopping for Food Containers and other various Life Accessorizores. We utlized Miss Kitty to her full capacity (which is not a whole lot of capacity, I realize). We also spent entirely too much money on beautiful collections of paper that we will abuse over the course of the quarter and stole tasty cookies from the bookstore.
The evening brought more bonding time watching Se7en, using the deadly sins as an icebreaker. Same icebreaker was repeated when Jen's boy toy Max brought many friends to drink with us. Evening went well, with full utilization of our newfound Living Space. Freshmen Ryan had too much and so did my roommate, so Gray and I stayed up until 6 making sure these two were not dying.
I am so tired.

Summer Highlight Reel

1. Hairspray. So amazing. I will be Penny Pingleton, just you wait and see.

2. Teatro ZinZanni. Infreakingcredible! A circus, dinner theatre, bordello, cabaret, dance club and music hall all rolled in to one crazy-expensive show package. I got painted up and grew more and more enamored with the velvet-laden lounge as the evening went on. TZ was probably the most fun I've had with my family in a very long time.

3. Impromptu Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert at the Marin County Fairgrounds on the eve of my European adventure. I am in love with Scotty Morris. One day, I will touch him.

4. Italy. The trip itself cannot be told in one lengthy sitting. The stories I have from there will emerge bit by bit, related in the American Pie "band camp" fashion. ("And this one time, in Europe . . .") Regardless, it was an awesome time. I hiked in the Alps for two weeks. I went drinking with kids from Holland, Algeria, Denmark, Finalnd, Norway, Britain, India, Turkey, and Wisconsin. I actually used my Italian. I perpetuated the stereotype that all Californians surf and have met at least one movie star. I subsisted on pasta and tiramisu for well over a month. I spent a good deal of time shopping in Milan. I wandered Venice alone for a day. I purchased fine writing instruments and coveted a leather-bound 1903 London edition of Shakespeare's Hamlet in a Venetian bookseller's window. I coveted numerous pairs of beautiful shoes in Milan. I went to Switzerland for their national festival. I followed Lord Byron's Italian trail as though I were John Trelani. I fed a marmot.

5. D.H. Lawrence. I ran out of books to read in Italy, so I borrowed a copy of Lawrence's The Woman Who Rode Away from my host family. D.H. is so incredibly sexy. I must have more D.H. Perhaps with more D.H. exposure, Paul Bettany will find me at an English department soiree and take me to one of his "cocktail" parties (a la my favorite quote from A Beautiful Mind).

6. I passed out in a hookah bar on the Haight. I suppose this is really more of a lowlight, but it was an interesting time and certainly important. Eric and this random EMT guy (who was conveniently sitting right next to us) carried me out. They said I had spasms and that my eyes were retreating into my head. Eric's friend Melissa called the paramedics. I spent 3 hours on a Friday night in the ER at Kaiser in San Francisco. I had blood tests, a CAT scan, an EKG that turned up nothing. A follow-up with my physicican lends my amazingly low blood pressure to be the culprit. Nevertheless, I will be spending a lot of first quarter visiting doctors in Ventura. I now have a Medical Condition. Point: me.

For Jay's Personal Satisfaction

Jay text messaged me in the middle of a headache yesterday to demand why there has been no blog of our brunch on Friday. I suppose I should concede to his demands for blogging, but, when checking out his blog, I find no mention of the lunch in question. Why, Jay, have you not written about our lunch? Riddle me that.

But since I'm here, Jay wins. Friday lunch bits:

1. Mel's Diner in Walnut Creek apparently holds much childhood significance for Jay. I just really love diners. I am so, so retro.
2. Eggs abound. I had an omelet. I haven't had one of those fuckers in a long, long time. Don't usually eat eggs. Find them odd and tasteless. But Jay convinced me to have breakfast with him. He's a smooth talker, that one.
3. Brunch discussion circled around how we're not the same people as we were in high school, why things are much better now that we've disassociated ourselves with most of those people, and a good long discussion about clothing. Jay likes to play devil's advocate while clothes shopping. He makes people buy expensive things. See what I mean about the smooth talker bit?
4. I learn of Jay's bizarre text-messaging etiquette. Basically, never call in response to a text message. Also, there are some rules pretaining to what you can and cannot text about. These I do not remember.
5. We wen't to Barnes and Noble and indulged our literary sweet teeth. There was much fondling and coveting of books. And several periodicals by Jay. He insists I subscribe to The Believer. I will do this. As soon as I resubscribe to Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek. Right now I'm living off of Maxim, which is terribly unliterary. (I love hot girls and beautiful pictures of hot girls. Stop sneering.) He purchased me a Moleskine. It's basically THE notebook. Such a hot notebook, in fact, that they've started selling them at Urban Outfitters. (No joke.) The Moleskine lauds itself as the notebook of famous intellectuals from Van Gogh to Hemmingway. They're nice, leather-bound pocket-size little notebooks for quick jotting. They also come in journal-size. This is what I have. The journal-size. It will serve me well in Italy. I already feel much more intellectual just simply owning it and putting my flight schedules in its inside pocket.

Happy, Jay?

Sad News

Ed is gone.

He passed away Monday afternoon. He was on a morphine drip, and we believe the drug depressed his system to the point where, seeing as it was already depressed, his cancer-ridden lungs simply ceased breathing.

My grandmother pretends she's strong, but I know she misses him terribly. She says that she just wants to be alone and not be bothered by anybody anymore, but I doubt that's true, either. When her first husband died, she stayed alone for fourteen years, only coming out of her seclusion when my mother gave birth to me. She said those same words then, when Richard fell on his shot gun, but obviously Ed brought her out of it. She's spent the past 12 years of her life with Ed. Everyone knows her as Mrs. Broglio now. I doubt she can become a recluse now that everyone in Crockett knows her as the widow of the most prominent man in town. I know she'll be taken care of.

We've been spending the week turning things over to Ed's kids. Eddie released the wine cellar to my father, seeing as none of Ed's kids have ever helped us make Broglio Cellars wine. I venture that I've been in that cellar crushing grapes and bottling wine more than they ever have, even. I've grown up with it. So at least that part of Ed is still a part of my family.

This summer is proving to be an interesting period of adjustment in an increasing number of ways.

Home

Today's the day. Come one o'clock this afternoon, I'll be on my way back home. Goodbye tiny dorm bed. Goodbye roommates. Goodbye Carillo Dining Commons. Goodbye cleaning lady who always wants to clean the bathroom when I want to take a shower. Goodbye classes. Goodbye friends. Goodbye Starbucks addiction. Goodbye to Jove at Jamba Juice who lives up to her name in smoothie preparation. Goodbye empty mailbox. Goodbye smelly-ass lagoon. Goodbye room. Goodbye free, high speed internet.

Forgive further sporadic posting. I have three weeks ahead of selling my possessions on eBay and then 5 weeks in Italy. Upon my return, expect me to be much more cultured than you.

Love to everyone, and pineapple, too.

11:11

When I woke up this morning, my internal radio was playing Rufus Wainwright, and rightly so. "I woke up this morning at 11:11." Exactly 11:11. But, naturally, as I had an 8 am final this morning, 11:11 was the second time I woke up.

This is totally disgusting. The building didn't have hot water yesterday, so I literally haven't showered in two days. But if there's one thing I've learned in college, its that smelly people in lecture halls are usually not girls. We must have some inherent anti-odor bits to our skin that just make girls less smelly people. Either that or those body splashes from Bath and Body Works really are the strongest scents known to man. (Love them I do, but I will always cough when applying them.) Regardless of whether or not I actually am ruthlessly filthy, I sure fucking feel it. I have oily hair and oily skin. Never again am I doing this to myself. One day was bad enough, but two days is much too far. I need to take a fucking shower.

This is why I could never go backpacking. Anymore than one day without a shower severely lowers my will to live. Really, all I've done today is take a final and sleep. Yesterday, I just read and studied, and barely moved. All day. I am fast on my way to developing bedsores.

Thank gods I have a multitude of things to clean when I get home. And then a multitude of things to attempt to sell on eBay or at Crossroads or Buffalo Exchange. I need reasons to move.

Final #1

One down, 3 to go.

I finished my Italian final not too many minutes ago and am currently feeling the mix of dread and relief that one feels during finals. One down, sure. We can all celebrate that. It's the three to go bit that isn't so exciting.

On my walk back from Buchanan hall, I started thinking about the birds that have been trying to nest outside my residence hall. They have chosen to perch two little nests on opposite corners of where the exposed stucco meets the roof. These birds build their nests out of mud. And not once, but twice, the cleaning staff here at the Mad House have taken a high pressure hose to these nests. Both times, the birds have returned to rebuild. Even a high pressure hose cannot completely remove all of the mud from the stucco. There is always some outline left of what was there before. So the birds just follow the same pattern. They trace the outline in mud and rebuild. Over and over again. It's amazing, really, the resilience of these birds. They are commencement speech material for certain.

Jen's Birthday Pictures

Title describes the below photos. Dani sent them to me. I think this was before David, Michael and I started singing showtunes . . . but I can't be sure. These photos are a precursor to the events described in my "piss"drunk entry. Enjoy.

What the hell? 

Jen and Dani being gangsta'. 

Nikki Ferry and I are being dramatic. 

David and Michael . . . being nuts. 

I have no idea what the hell is happening in this picture. 

Noteworthy.

Tonight the roommates and I attended our friends' production of The Importance of Being Earnest. An altogether good show . . . except for a select few audience members.

The girl sitting behind us with the horse laugh was the least of our worries. She has only her genetic makeup to blame for that, which is admittedly most unfortunate.

A more important problem was the trio sitting in front of us. The trouble with them began even before the show, as the girl in front of me turned to ask Jen to stop kicking the back of her chair, when Jen was, in reality, tapping the floor behind the girl in front of her. This girl in front of me proceeded to suck on a lollie for the duration of the show and loudly unwrap something, after which she returned to the performance with rapt attention. Her friends, on the other hand, were evidently so bored with the show that they proceeded to play hangman on their programs, talk continually until about the last 15 minutes of the play, and attempt to balance their accessories on the chairbacks in front of them. I deemed this noteworthy.

I took out my notepad and jotted down the following: "If you were bored with the show, you should have left."

I handed it to them promptly as I left. Without a word. Just a folded slip of paper and a quick turn to leave.

I figure that if actors get notes from a director after a show when they've done something wrong, why shouldn't the audience also get them? These audience memebers obviously have no appreciation for live theatre, as they were not only disrespectful to the audience members around them, but to the actors as well. So they needed a note to help them remember to correct this behavior in the future.

I will become like Dorothy Parker with these notes. All shall fear my scathing pen and conveniently placed notepad.

Dada Kicks You in the Ass and You Like It.

That's the current title of my art history paper. It's a direct quote, actually. One screamed by my professor as she ran down the aisles of Campbell Hall banging a drum and wearing a paper chef's hat.

That information is in the footnote.

The Dada paper is the last paper of my last quarter of my first year at college. I'd say the quality of my work deteriorated, but that's not really so. Art is much more difficult to write about than writing. I expect a B. And I'd be very happy with that.

It's somewhat gratifying, actually. Knowing that now the only person I'm impressing with A's is myself. The world is much less stressful without the constant thought that you're not going to get into college.

The only problem with writing about Dada is that, after a long enough period of time, you stop making sense. I think I've reached that point.

8 Points on the Past Week

This update has been a long time coming.

It's been a busy week between 3 papers (one of which I still have yet to begin), Nikki Ferry Live, classes, Magic Mountain, Throughly Modern Millie, the Dungeon, La Vie en Rose, and shopping on Melrose.

1. 3 Papers: a one pager in classics, a 4 pager for my darkness class, and a 5 pager for art history. The one pager in classics I wrote quickly and without concern. I hate the instructor. I usually fall asleep in the class. And who, in all seriousness, assigns a 1 page essay to college students? With disdain, I am taking the class Pass/Not Pass. The darkness paper I wrote about Sondheim's score for Sweeney Todd and how the compositions in minors, rearrangement of traditional vocal roles and dissonant harmonies underscored the dark themes of the play. The art history paper I have decided will be on Hannah Hoch's Dada Ernst. I have to explain why this work is meaningful, what skills Hoch has sacrificed to make it, why she gains by it, the significance of the work, the effects it produces, and how it achieves said effects. Other than setting up this nice 6 paragraph structure, I have no idea where to begin.

2. Nikki Ferry Live: After clsses on Tuesday, we (the roommates and Richie and I) piled into Nikki's VW Beetle and drove to Los Angeles to see her do 3 minutes of stand-up at the laugh factory. We chilled on Melrose before the show and Heather got a hole put in her nose. Nikki was performing with about 13 other comics, half of whom were first timers like herself. She was definitely funnier than 2/3 of them and about 1/3 of the veterans. She is snugly in the middle and will definitely get better with practice. Later that night, we had after-show dinner at Denny's in Northridge. The waiter never brought our check. So we left. We drove back to Santa Barbara feeling morally corrupt, well, some of us anyway. Ultimately, we justify our actions by saying that a good wait staff would never allow a table to sit for 30 minutes after everyone had finished their meals without bringing a check. And we never got refills on our water.

3. Classes: Yes, I go to them.

4. Magic Mountain: Friday we all ditched class to go to Magic Mountain, thereby negating my previous statement. It was good times, save for the fact that I wasn't there long because Marcus and I had to leave for a show that evening and my friends spent 2 hours of my time with them waiting in line for 1 roller coaster while Marcus, Dani and I ate (because I am anemic) and went on 3 rides. We then spent the rest of out time at the park waiting in line with everyone for a coaster we didn't even get to go on. Suck.

5. Thoroughly Modern Mille: How in God's name did this beat Urinetown??? Inspid show. I can't fault the production value or the talent of the actors and dancers, but this show is really ridiculous. It doesn't mean anything at all. And it has a very bizarre subplot about white slavery, the only good part of which is that it provides medium sized roles to two Asian male actors . . . however they must perform the entire time in Mandarin. And sing in Mandarin. Which is rather degrading because it doesn't treat them as talented actors but rather charactures of their race. Suck.

6. The Dungeon: Oh, I love goth clubs! Two rooms of goth on goth dancing. (Which is at times a very bizarre version of modern dance and at other times in the style of european discotechques.) A sushi bar. A normal bar. 2 small stages where either patrons (or employees, I'm not certain) perform floggings, homoerotica, bondage and period bondage. I watched two very attractive, scantily clad women caress and lick one another for a long while and left when a couple were performing some 18th century French Revolutionary bondage. I put Marcus in a collar and leash and was complimented by a couple of nice looking goth girls for my impressive control. I will be going back with Eric someday. We shall have a field day.

7. La Vie en Rose: Marcus' new apartment. It's a really nice place. I am afraid of the gas oven. I'm not used to cooking with gas . . . and I find it mildly distubing that an apartment containing two Jews has a gas oven. As I said the place is really nice, far superior to anything you'll see in IV. It's clean, spacious and has a weird little balcony thing. I also find it comical that what I thought was grass in the courtyard from pictures online is actually weird 60's astroturf stuff. It's very funny looking.

8. Melrose: Fantastic vintage stores. Aardvark's is excellent. I will be returning and poking about. Bought a very Charlotte York style dress. It's cute and green. Rather summery. Don't know when I'll wear it, but I'm sure it will serve me well in Italy.

Heh heh . . . Horn.

Yesterday, Jen, Kevin, Dani and I ventured out into the mountains of Santa Barbara in search of the Heart of the Forest Renaissance Faire being held at Live Oaks Camp. My, what a most beauteous day to be out among the oaks! It was just warm enough to not need sweaters, but not as hot as it usually gets at RenFaire (which is so hot that those of us in garb who do not continually have a full cup, mug, or tankard will probably pass out). Live Oaks is shady and beautiful, and only about half as dirty as other faires I've been to, which I would venture is largely due to the high concentration of fallen leaves lining the dirt pathways. Heart of the Forest is a significantly smaller faire than I'm used to, but it's something I'm going to have to get used to as there will be no more NorCal Pleasure Faire. Heart of the Forest comes to Novato sometime this summer. If Novato is anywhere as shady as Live Oaks, I'll be there for certain.

Becauase its a smaller faire in size of location, that means its a smaller faire in terms of present merchants. Lots of different merchants, though fewer of them, a smaller trader's market, smaller jousting area, no fencing tournaments, fewer games, and a smaller variety of foods. (No beansteaks. Oh well. I'll live, now that I know how damned good the pitas are at faire!) But even though this was a smaller, quieter faire, it was still just as much fun. And had just as many performance stages as any other.

The four of us took in a good number of performances that day (more than most times I go to faire, where my friends at home are bastards and don't want to watch any shows). We saw a 2-man Pyramus & Thisbe, which required a volunteer from the audience, so, naturally, Jen and I made Kevin do it. Because its fun to embarass people. Pyramus & Thisbe was followed by 12 min. Hamlet--which was hilarious, as it was also performed with only two people. We also took in Taming of the Shrew (reduced to about half an hour), and two dance performances--country and Celtic. Some of the Celtic dancers were really amazing. They've obviously been doing it for years and years, probably since they were wee mites, because their calves are so finely muscled and their backs held so straight.

We made a few purchases of finery--mostly from Fellowship Foundry. I said this year was the year I was finally going to get a tankard so I wouldn't have to carry around the giant 2 liter bottles of Aquafina they sell at faire. I purchased a hammer-topped cup with a kitten for the handle, leaning her head in to drink. I'm going to take it everywhere. I'll start bringing it into the dining commons and snubbing their shitty glasses. The girl at Fellowship even custom set the cat's eyes for me (red) and put different eyes in the mouse that sits opposite the cat, looking terrified (green). I will be the only one with a cup like this one. Jen bought one of Fellowship's fairy necklaces and purchased a Leaf of Lothlorien necklace for Heather. She also got a couple of glass leaf pendants from another vendor, who educated us about peircing in the Renaissance. Dani bought a little wire box on a necklace from him. She's planning on putting herbs in it so that it will be like a sachet. I also purchased a drinking horn.

And when we went to Natalie's pirate and wench party that night, the horn was the hit of the evening. Jen and Dani borrowed my corsets and bodices to dress for the occasion (in fact, everything Jen was wearing was mine: corset, skirt, belt, boots, necklace, jacket--all mine), but I just stayed in my faire garb. Burgandy bodice, black skirt, big white chemise with celtic knotwork down the sleeves, burgandy muffin cap and my belt full of fun accessories: my dragon pouch, 4 feather ticklers, the lambswool handcuffs, my lambskin whip, the dragon tankard strap, my brand new kitten cup, and, of course, the drinking horn. I took all my drinks from the horn (3 rum and cokes, 2 strawberry vodkas) and showed people how to drink from the horn. I had many a conversation about RenFaire and my garb. From now on, I bring the drinking horn to every party I go to. And next time I go to faire, I am getting one for Nikki Ferry. Because Nikki loves the horn.

Kind of a Drag

In the depths of sleep deprivation, I attended the Sociology 1 drag show put on by the drag queens of the 801 Cabaret in Key West, Florida. I had been excited about this show for weeks, and seeing the queens, Miss Sushi, Miss Kylie Jean Louise, and Miss Gugi Gomez parade out onstage in a variety of interesting vinyls, boas, furs, laces, and silks, I was instantly awake again. They were absolutely stellar. Each had a particular style of song she liked to perform and a particular style of dress to go along with it. Gugi capitalized on her Latin roots, wearing outrageous cominations of dominatrix couture with the styles popular on Latin American teenage girls. She wore bondage gear, gypsy skirts, and a denim jumpsuit complete with denim hat for her J. Lo number. She chose music that would allow her to come into the audience and give kisses, lap dances, an simulated blowjobs to as many people as possible. Kylie was like a Vegas showgirl. She showed off as much of her fantastic legs as humanly possible, generally exposing just a little bit of her ass in the process. She did lighter pop numbers that were generally uptempo . . . and she even stripped naked in one to remind everyone that drag culture is all about questioning assigned gender roles and sexual identity. My favorite of the three was Miss Sushi. She was tall and thin and by far the most graceful of the three queens. She wore a 50's rockabilly style short wig for most of the show, and eventually went onstage in just her natural hair, which was about the same length, but not nearly as perfectly curled. Sushi chose numbers that vacillated between fast and slow, mostly based on dancefloor and lounge favorites from the 40's and 50's. She wore a long sheer gown with asian fans hanging from it for one number, a glittering white gown with an ostrich feather coat for another, and a Japanese wedding kimono (cut short in front to expose her long legs) for her final number as a nod to her Japanese-American heritige. All of her numbers allowed her to move gracefully and dance exceptionally well. She even showed off her acrobatics in "Take Me or Leave Me," which she performed with Gugi. Sushi played Maureen's part in a cute, short vinyl skirt (nobody wears vinyl better than Miss Sushi) and a tied up oxford button down shirt. She did a couple of cartwheels and jumped into the arms of Gugi, who played Maureen's lover Joanne as a true "control freak:" a dominatrix. These ladies were fucking fabulous. And I want to go to drag shows all the time. I was so happy to see how into the performances the audience was--especially the group of (presumably straight) guys right in the front, who were the first to tuck dollars into Kylie's ass (and later to place one right between her dick and her balls), the first to ask Gugi for lap dances, and the first to want to touch Miss Sushi's graceful thighs. Sushi later said in an interview that straight men respond well to drag culture because it's all about femininity. They wish straight women would be as outrageous and glamorous as drag queens are--and as sexually overt. I think that if this were true, more straight men would like musicals. (Which would be awesome. Seriously.)

On another note related to gay culture, Jen and I visited Dani's room today. She lated told us that her roommate thought we were lovers, Jen and I. When I asked Dani to inquire about her roommate's evidence for this theory, she sited that we "could finish each other's sentences" and that we "were talking about cute girls and hot girls all the time." Wow. It was then that I realized that she must have obviously thought me the "bulldyke" in the relationship, you know, considering I was wearing pants and I have short hair. So I've decided that, while this girl has impeccable taste in literature (I inspected her bookshelves after she left because I had spotted Beloved from half the room away), she is obviously too superficial to comprehend anything she reads. If she honestly thought that just because Jen and I are willing to admit that Brody Dalle of the Distillers and Gwen Stefani of No Doubt are infinitely hotter than we are--and infinitely more attractive than anyone we've ever met in our lives--then we must logically be lesbians. And because we are good enough friends to have inside jokes and know what one other is thinking then we logically must be a couple. Because that makes complete sense.

Note the biting irony.

2 Stories:

1. Last night, Kevin calls as I am desperately trying to remember how to do logarithmic equations. He says he's coming by for a little bit. He shows up only 2 minutes later, and walks through the door announcing, "Happy Mother's Day, Mama Stevi!" For a minute, I am frozen in half fear. Can't really explain why. He hands me a gift--cleverly wrapped in several Albertson's plastic bags. "Are you impressed with my wrapping, Mama?" "Yes, Kevy. I am very impressed." Inside all the plastic is a cope of P.D. Eastman's children's classic Are You My Mother? It is so fucking sweet that I am on the verge of tears. This is the nicest bit of odd sentiment ever. He even wrote my name on the "this book belongs to" page as "my mama Stevi." I think now I will have to open that fried chicken and gumbo restaurant, just for Kevy . . .

2. I was sitting in the UCen this morning, slurping my Jamba and reading the Nexus, when I was approached by J.J. (See the bongo drum story from November 2003.) He tapped my leg with his cane and asked me if I was reading a newspaper. Knowing how talkative this guy can be, I just said yeah as disinterestedly as possible. He manuvered his way around the table that sits among the couch horseshoes to sit on the couch next to mine. Alarmed that he failed to notice the girl sleeping on that couch (even in his blindness, if he could tell I was reading a newspaper, I would venture he could hear the sleeping girl breathing), I alerted him to her presence, so he found his way to the other end of my couch. And he began talking to me. I feel like a terrible person to say that I wasn't really listening or even interested in listening, but I figured it couldn't do any harm to him if I did a half-assed job of it. He was telling me all about cutting and splicing in various radio ads, video games and telephone lines. It would have been a really interesting conversation if I had wanted to have it. Which makes me feel like a total asshole. He's a nice guy. He's lonely. He likes people, and I'm sure he desperately wishes he could see them, but most people won't give him the time of day. (Literally. I've seen him ask people and they will refuse to tell him for fear he'll come talk to them.) I'm less of an asshole than those people, but still an asshole.

Sex & the City

So, given my obsession with Sex and the City, I've always wondered which girl I'm more like. Knowing fully that I was a composite of the 4 of them, I found an all-knowing internet quiz at iVillage to do all the percentages for me. (Sex and the City quiz here.)

Me, in a nutshell:

You scored 30% Miranda
You chose many of the same answers that Earth Sign-like Miranda, the cynical but pragmatic lawyer, might have chosen. Just like Miranda's had a tough time deciding whether to give in to the affections of Steve the Bartender, you don't give your heart up to just anyone. Miranda shies away from a relationship with Steve because he's 'just' a bartender, not something more conventionally ambitious or stable. Those with powerful Earth Sign qualities -- characteristics associated with Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn -- are cautious in love and seek stability and status over nearly anything else. Earth Signs provide a steady, realistic attitude and they can bring order out of chaos. A little-known Earth Sign fact: Incredibly sensual, you seethe beneath that smart, expensive business suit of yours, yearning for intimacy but hesitant to give up your material needs, your career ambitions or your responsibilities for a passionate moment that might not turn out the way you'd hope.


You scored 30% Carrie
Your answers peg you as a Carrie-type, much influenced by the Air Sign qualities associated with Gemini, Libra and Aquarius. Like confident Carrie, a sex columnist, you're curious and perceptive, always seeking answers and never satisfied with the superficial. An Air Sign influence can lead to indecision and an avoidance of tough issues, like with Carrie and her on-again, off-again attachment to Mr. Big. Forward-thinking, incredibly intelligent and witty, you just exude quirky charm. You'd be utterly bored by someone who's just a pretty face or hot body -- though you don't mind looking and flirting! You're more turned on by an equally smart and funny mate, someone who challenges your mind and makes you laugh. You love to talk, so you need a good listener who's open to playful and eccentric ideas about love and lovemaking.


You scored 30% Charlotte
A romantic at heart, you chose the answers that demure Charlotte may have chosen. Strongly influenced by the intuitive, profound and sometimes naïve Water Signs -- Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces -- you're like a mother, a mystery and a poet all in one. Though on the surface you may seem innocent and all about seeking the good in people, beneath the surface, you hide secret yearnings for intimacy, for attachment and ideal love. You're seeking a knight in shining armor, a soul mate, someone who will complete you and tether you to the earth when you get carried away with your fantasies. You're super-sensitive, soaking up the moods of others; you emote freely, crying at commercials and sappy movies. You also provide a shoulder to cry on and open arms for hugs. Be careful that you're not so wide-eyed and trusting that you get taken in by some cunning wolf in sheep's clothing.


You scored 10% Samantha
You identify with Samantha's bold and liberated Fire Sign qualities, characteristics associated with the Signs of Aries, Leo and Sagittarius. You're strong, audacious and larger than life -- and you take what you want! Sometimes you can even be thoughtless and selfish, as you get so caught up in craving immediate gratification and excitement that you overlook someone's feelings. Your personal style likely reflects your desires: sleek, low-cut, revealing just a bit more than might be considered acceptable. Watch that you're not coming on too strong, though. You could scare potential suitors off with all your drama. If you seek so much attention, the more basic qualities of the Fire Signs could be burned right out of the picture. Show less skin or cleavage and more of your creativity, your vibrant leadership skills and courageous generosity!

Tony Awards!

Tony Award nominations came out today. I get the sinking feeling that Wicked and Boy from Oz will steal all of the musical categories away from Avenue Q. As amazing as Nikki Ferry tells me that Hugh Jackman is as Peter Allen in Boy from Oz, I would love to see super-cute, super-talented puppeteer John Tartaglia win out over him from his roles as Rod and Princeton in Avenue Q.

Granted, I haven't seen the green glitz of Stephen Schwartz's Wicked, nor have I seen the Hugh Jackman vehicle. I don't doubt the talent of Jackman. He hosted last year's Tony's and broke into "New York, New York" from On the Town, so I know he has an incredible voice. I do doubt Wicked. I like Schwartz--when he's writing Disney scores. I do not like Godspell. And I can only find one good song in Children of Eden. But I have to advocate Avenue Q simply because it is only of the boldest, most innovative shows I've seen in a long time.

The performers in Avenue Q are former Hensen puppeteers. They created the show around the concept that puppeteers should be recognized for the work that they do. Essentially, they're actors, too--not just people capable of doing some really amazing voice work. Sitting 4th row in the Golden Theatre on 41st Steet last August to witness the awesome skill of puppeteers like John Tartalia, fellow nominee Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Rick Lyon and Jennifer Bernhardt was amazing. Each puppeteer handled two puppets a peice--more if you're Bernhardt--and, because these actors are no longer hiding behind their puppets, but acting with them, it was amazing to see the way each performer morphed his or her body and facial expressions to suit the needs of the characters they had stuck on their hands. I'm also amazed when people can sing in voices other than their own. So even hearing John Tartaglia sing as the naive Princeton and then the "closeted homo-whatever" Rod (whose voice, I think, is produced in that little gap between the back of your nasal cavity and your throat) was equally impressive.

To dispell the fact that this is merely a puppet show, Avenue Q has three non-puppet characters, all of whom interact with the puppets a la Sesame Street. One of whom is Gary Coleman. Yes, that Gary Coleman--but played by a woman. But this is not a kids show. At all. It's sort of an adult spin on the educational Hensen creations we all grew up on. It deals with life after college, and begs the questions that are pertinent to our every day lives: what is our purpose? why doesn't college really perpare us for the real world? why is rent so damned high? why are people mean? why do we love? who defines political correctness? and so on. Each song on the show is a light hearted attempt to answer these questions. Princeton, fresh out of college, begins the shows action by singing,
"What do you do with a BA in English?
What is my life going to be?
Four years of college
and pleanty of knowledge
have earned me this useless degree.
I can pay the bills yet,
'cause I have no skills yet."
It also features such numbers as "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," "Shaudenfreude," "It Sucks to Be Me," and "If You Were Gay." The show is witty, hilarious and ultimately one of the happiest things I've ever seen. It is aware of its genre and uses it well (from little animated signboards on the side that can morph the word "purpose" in "propose" and help the audience spell "shaudenfreude" to the nature of the set and puppets themselves). It's amazing. Really. And I haven't laughed so hard at the theatre since Urinetown.

Ride On, Jesus, Ride

I've just returned from church with Heather and Jen and Dani. I don't think I'll be going again.

As amazing as it was to hear the stories that this priest told (beginning with an Irish joke, foraying into Fellini's La Strada, relating a tale about a CEO and Mother Theresa, mentioning "Love Makes the World Go 'Round" from Carnival, braiding it all together with Dante's Commedia Divina and finally ending with his own charitable works in Mexico), as soon as the emphasis on words was over, I completely lost interest. I was then further put off as I was forced into holding people's hands during the "Our Father." After which point, I resorted to inattentive sifting through my hymnal, and was curiously suprised when I happened upon a song called "Ride On, Jesus, Ride."

The title disturbs me, but the liner notes said it was a traditional African spiritual. I'm not sure how that justifies the title in my head, but it somehow seem less odd.

If one good thing has come of tonight's run in with organized religionl, it is the knowledge that I will most certainly not be getting married in a church.

"Piss" Drunk.

Jen's Birthday: night filled with drunken revelry and songs late into the evening. People like to hear me sing when I'm drunk. I guess it sounds better or something. The really interesting story from last night, however, really happened this morning at about 5:25.

Jen and I wake up to light and the sound of urination. I peek one eye open and see some guy standing at the edge of Jen's bed. I do not process the sounds at all, but I assume he's just talking to Jen. My concern is why she invited someone over after our party, or if he had been here the whole time and I just never noticed. Then I realize he's peeing. He finishes, and walks to the middle of the room to put his pants on over his boxers. Jen evidently realizes who he is. She says, "Hank? What are you doing here?' He doesn't respond. "Hank, do you need us to take you downstairs?" He mumbles that he's fine and goes over to turn off the light by the door before he leaves. Thinking this is still too weird for words, I flip on my reading light. Just to make sure that he's gone and that I am not dreaming this. Hank walks over from the door, turns off my reading light, and leaves. I hear him trying doors down the hallway, looking for his room or the stairs or what have you. He obviously has no idea where he is.

So Jen and I sit in the room, desperately trying to process what the hell just happened. "Did he just piss on my chair?" Jen asks. "I think so." We inspect the damage. Chair, wet. Floor surrounding chair, large puddle. Splatter on the desk and certain nearby objects. Oh God. We take the chair outside. It is living in the hall forever. We decide to go downstairs to tell Merileigh, our RA. So we venture downward and wake her up at about 5:35. We tell her the story of what happened and she is almost more bewildered than we were. Jesus is awake, too, for some reason, so he volunteers to go and find Hank. We all search every bathroom and lounge looking for Hank, and we can't find him anywhere. Merileigh inspects the damage in our room. "Wow. How weird," she says. She tells us to put in a work request and she'll have Hank pay for the clean-up of the chair and floor. So I submit the work request, and everyone else goes back downstairs in search of Hank.

We find him at 6 am in his bed. Asleep. With no recollection of what happened. Merileigh explains his adventures this morning to him and we all go to sleep again.

At 11:30 this morning, Hank comes up to wake us again. He apologizes profusely, offers to pay for the damage, and is just as amazed at his actions as we were. Especially how he got to the 3rd floor in the first place. Forgiveness. No hard feelings.

In retrospect, Hank, this is a fucking awesome story. It's a little scary to wake up with someone you've barely spoken to in your room. It's weird when you wake up and they're peeing on your chair. But it's funny when they intentionally turn off all the lights before they leave.

Impending Doom

So. Hot. Going. To. Die. Seriously.

Chill Time

Today has been such a reconnecting with old friends day. Talked to Roni for a good long time this afternoon on AIM, had dinner with Jenrikay. It feels good. I'm so glad college erases the meanness of high school. It's been a chill day. I've been contemplating my Dicken's Faire garb and decided to pair a pagoda bodice with a parlor skirt, and make the bodice all beautiful and eastern and paisley print. Then we shall see about the skirt. So much excitement! Grandma and I have a project!

Knowing full well that her husband could be dead by the time summer rolls around, I asked Grandma if she would teach me how to sew on a machine this summer so I could make my Dicken's Faire dress. She said she'd be happy to teach me, and I'm sure she knows that it would take her mind off of Ed if he does indeed die before the summer rolls around. So it's our project. It'll be just like when I was young and played in her sewing room while she made me dresses. Sort of a tradition of needlework that skips generations: she the seamstress, my mother the surgeon, and me . . . what exactly to I string together?

Makeover-Makeover . . .

We just did a Mary Kay party as a favor to a friend of a friend. I am now obsessed with green eyeshadow and the prospect of owning a lipstick called "raisinberry." So, naturally, I spent money on makeup. Le sigh. I'm going to need a much bigger train case for all of my beauty products. I'm considering this a humanitarian effort because my spending money on makeup means that, eventually, Miss Sheila will get a car. My vanity brings good to other people. All is well with the world.

Yadda Yadda Yadda

This is the elaborate construction of characters if our lives were like Seinfeld . . .

Regulars:
Jen= Jerry
Jen is Jerry because she is the most balanced out of the four of us, but is randomly overcritical. Also, the world revolves around her.
Heather= Elaine
Heather is Elaine because she has never had a successful relationship with a guy, and everyone she meets think that, for some reason, she hates them. She's a pusher who hates The English Patient.
Stevi= George Costanza
Stevi is George for soooo many reasons. She is inappropriately possessive of "her seat" in Campbell Hall (J8), and sometimes irrational about inconsequential things, like finding the proper comeback.
Nikki Ferry=Kramer
Nikki is Kramer because she stumbles occasionally, is the funniest of our foursome, and works at Bargain Network . . . which is almost like Kramerica.

Recurring Characters:
Richie=Newman
Richie is Newman because he and Kramer and the schemers of the group. Also, sometimes Richie wishes Nikki would just drop dead.
Raffi= Babu
Arguably the most "ethnic" of our group, we are in continual fear that the current government will deport him because he looks like a "terrorist." Also, like Babu, Raffi has aspirations in the business world. We really hope he doesn't get deported.
Chris= Putty
Chris completely matches the randomness of Putty. Is he is all that is man? All signs point to yes.
Kevin= Banya
Banya and Jerry have a love/hate relationship, just like Jen and Kevin. Banya, like Kev, is very indecisive about his set and continually annoys Jerry by asking him for advice.
Dani= Susan
Dani just looks like Susan. And Stevi is probably cheap enough to buy Dani the most toxic of stationary glues.

Guest Stars:
David= George's Mom
Ted= George's Dad
Dan= Soup Nazi
Derek= J. Peterman
Greg= Joe DaVola
Britney= Man Hands
Segway Girl= Bubble Boy
Naked Jessica= The Girl Who Doesn't Wear a Bra
Cara= The Girl Who Got Gonnerhea from a Tractor
Gina= The Sidler
Marisa= Alternate George (From when Elaine goes into that weird alternate universe.)
Frankie= Darren (Kramer's personal secretary at Kramerica, who Kramer tries to guide. Just as Nikki has taken Frankie under her wing at Bargain Network.)
Nick Lafferty= Barry Prophet (The guy that the foursome think is on coke because he's allergic to Kramer's sweater.)
Nikki's Mom= Babs Kramer (Because if Nikki is Kramer, than her mommy should be, um, her mommy.)
Scott Ferry= Bob Sacamano (The guy Kramer always talks about but viewer's never see. Just like Nikki's brother.)
Irish Guy from Heather's "Psych Class"= Captain Nemo (Because Elaine once gave him a fake number, just as Heather gave the Irish guy a fake major.)
Phil the Movie Guy= Celia (Who Jerry only dates to play with her toys.)
Crazy Jesus Guy= Christy (Who always wears the same dress, just as he always wears the same clothes.)

I Don't Do Camp.

A little bit of background to put this post in context: I was supposed to go to Italy last summer as part of the Lion's Club Intl. Youth Exchange Program. And then people in China got SARS. And people in Europe got scared because they do not have a large wet thing separating them from China. So, the majority of European YE programs were cancelled for the summer. Rather than just telling the Chinese kids, "No, I'm sorry, but you cannot attend this years Youth Exchange because you pose a serious health threat to all others in attendance" (because that's discrimination), they decided to cancel the whole kit and caboodle. Fair, sure, but as a result I had to slave away at Hollywood Video for 5 weeks longer than I should have.

So, background out of the way, I am going on the Youth Exchange program to Italy for certain this year. Now, what I've always been a little aprehensive about concerning this trip is the fact that I have to spend a week at camp. I've never been to camp in America, let alone a foriegn country. If I can't handle stupid camp kids here, how the hell am I supposed to deal with stupid camp kids in Europe. But today, all my fears were quelled. Quelled with an email from Lion Alfredo, owner of a small, lovely hotel in the Alps who runs the so-called "camp" program in Italy. I am staying for a full week in the comfort of the Apli & Golf Hotel in Bormio, which is evidently somewhere in the Alps, near Lago di Como. Go to the website link, look at the pictures and be jealous of the glories of the Italian Alps and my quaint little hotel.

The only downside to this lovely hotel/camp thing, is the prospect of hiking. Apparently, we will be hiking. A lot. Lots and lots of hiking. In the Alps. In the summer. This I am not looking forward to. I am looking forward to the promise of a "thermal centre" (which I understand to be a kind of sauna-like thing) and visits to breweries and wineries. I am also looking forward to impressing the natives with my superior knowledge of their language, thereby making the other Americans look silly.

Swirly Blood Sadness

I am very sad today because I couldn't donate blood. My iron count was 1% below where it needs to be to donate. So, I'm back across the threshold of anemia--when I wasn't in December--and oh so sad because that means I didn't get to see all the swirly blood leaving my body. And I love swirly blood.

But I don't love anemia. I am apparently always in this state of flux. I sit continually on the borderline of health and anemia, so it flucctuates far too often. I may never get to see the swirly blood unless I start having labwork done whenever I feel like a rush of swirly blood happiness.

The only plus side of anemia is that its a really great exuse to have people wait on you all the time. So everyone else should donate blood because I cannot. You must all know the joys of watching the swirly blood. Consider it a sacrifice towards my well-being. (Plus, blood banks really need the life juice of the young. Give them your life juice. For me.)

Shameless Self Promotion

So I've been nominated for Vice President, Secretary and Director of WETT. And I can only run for two positions. And I decided that I would actually be a really kickass secretary. My case is argued thusly:
1. I fucking love office supplies. A secretary would definitely need to love office supplies. And I sure do.
2. I maintain my blog adequately and have learned to change templates and all that, so I think I can probably power the WETT website off of Blogger for easy update access.
3. I have an eye for design: I venture that I can make a rockin' sweetass program and flyers because I like pretty things. Pretty things like the girl on my blog.
So, seriously, vote me for WETT secretary. Because I will kick so much ass.

Oooooooh . . . pretties . . .

After growing steadily jealous of everyone else I know having interesting, original-looking blogs, I have chosen to join the club. I am not a fan of the hard-to-read, super-skinny little font boxes, but I absolutely love the graphic on this far too much to give it up just yet. She's so pretty. Now that I have joined your ranks, you creative blog-skin lovers, I will probably change this kind of often. Kind of.

Penny Lane

I am so glad that I was able to do the scene for Marcus. It was probably one of the best theatrical experiences of my life. It was the most professional work I've ever done for anything, and that's probably because there were so few of us there. Just me, Camden, Marcus, Dana and a camera.

Meeting my William Miller made me feel immediately comfortable as Penny Lane. Camden is the most genial person. He's very amicable and exceptionally well-spoken, and yet so utterly quirky. All that aside, he's a very good actor and takes his work seriously. Being cute and flirtatious is for rehearsal time and between takes. (I took off my jacket to reveal my backless, strapless shirt at one point during our line running sessions, at which he said, "Oh, good. Now I won't have to act.") There is none of that with him while in character. Being so likeable makes him, of course, very easy to work with. So I think our rapport played well onscreen, despite having no rehearsals and having never met before.

Marcus found the most amazing location for the scene to be shot. The script dictates that it's backstage at an outdoor concert somewhere in Boston. We filmed in the bowels of the LMU distribution center because the winding corridors and massive loading dock area really look like the loading areas of a stadium venue. We played a few lines off the ladder at the loading dock, which I think was the point where I really started getting into it. I just hope that my ladder work turns out as well on film as I felt it did.

In addition to filming, Marcus took me to see Hurlyburly at the MET theatre (overall good production, but I'll probably forget it in favor of the film), we had lunch with Kate and Nolan, and I spent too much money on makeup. (My excuse is that I needed two particular items for the film, and the rest was impulse buy.)

Requiem for a Dead Cat

Sadly, Patches Devourer of Souls fell into the shadows sometime on Friday night. It was pretty sad watching the cat in those last hours. He theoretically should have died six years ago (he's 19), but he was never allowed to run out of the house and die on his own as cats often do. So he spent his last few hours wallowing in pain, slowly dragging himself off his dingy kitty bed to die under the heater because Fernando wouldn't take him to the vet to have him put down. I walked by the cat several times thinking he had gone quietly under, only to see him lift his matted head and cry out a cry that seemed to say, "Please step on my neck and end my misery!" Finally, when I walked to the bathroom to get my pills, I noticed that the cat's limp, skeletal body had been replaced by a cat-angel candle holder with a lit votive in it and two Tibetan idols. Patches Devourer of Souls, who lived far longer than any cat should, probably having spent the last six years in the equivilant of cat purgatory, devours souls no longer. For his little kitty soul is free.

"What kind of beer?" --Penny Lane (Kate Hudson), Almost Famous

I'm all out of ideas for my current art history paper-writing endeavor. The good news is, however, that it's due Thursday morning at 9 and I am already on my 4th page out of the 4-5 page requirement. So I break from this to discuss Almost Famous.

Marcus's cinematography/editing project is to film a scene from a pre-existing film in his own way. So he chose Almost Famous, Penny and William's confrontation scene. ("You're too sweet for rock'n'roll." "Sweet? Where do you get off?") I'd made the decision to visit him this weekend, and he told me a few days ago that he was probably going to film the scene while I'm down there. Then he forayed into his explanatory mode, which to me always sounds slightly apologetic if the explanation involves me in any way at all. He told me that he isn't asking me to be Penny Lane because he already used me for a project and he doesn't want the class to think he isn't using actors. And he said all this as though he expected me to be upset that I wouldn't get to be Penny, as though it were a betrayal of the metaphor we always use about me being to him what this "Penny Lane" was to Cameron Crowe. And then yesterday, he called me and asked me to be Penny. The people he wanted couldn't do it. Time conflicts and whatnot.

But here's my reservation: no one in their right mind would ever cast me as Penny Lane. I do not have the right look. At all. I'm not appropriate for the era, and I don't know how to do this character in any way other than Kate Hudson's portrayal. I'm too dark for that kind of rock'n'roll. I'm so much more believable as Toni Colette's role in Velvet Goldmine. I need to be a character from a different movie about rock in the 70's. One that isn't so reliant on that hippie look. I don't think this is going to turn out very well for my part.

"I know all about your valhalla of decadence." --Elaine (Frances McDormand), Almost Famous

This weekend is a spring visiting weekend for prospective UCSB students. There are parents and high school seniors everywhere. Fucking everywhere. It's scary. Last night, as my roommates and our friends set out a drinkin' prior to a really rockin' 80's themed party, we found one of these prospective freshmen among us. He was visiting a friend of our friend, who joined us in our revelry. I'm sure his impression of our college experience here is . . . stellar. Here's some of my advice to him after about 8 shots of Southern Comfort:

"Listen, Taryn, I don't want you to think that this is all we do, okay? We don't always live in this valhalla of drunken decadence. I mean, come on, look at me. I'm ridiculously drunk and I can still say the word 'valhalla.' That's amazing, right? I mean, I'm an English major, a drunken English major and I can still say 'valhalla.' So, I mean, that's pretty good right? I've said 'valhalla,' um, a few times now and I am, what, 8 shots deep? So, yeah. My vocabulary is pretty unaffected if I can still say 'valhalla' while drunk."

Paper Should Cost So Much Less Than This

College textbook pricing defies logic.

Exhibit A: Dinosaurs: The Textbook
1. This book is used.
2. This book is 1/2 inch thick.
3. This book is paperback.

And yet it costs . . . $72 dollars.

I will be getting, oh, about $15 bucks for it at the end of the quarter when I sell it back. Or less.

Does this make sense at all?

Dorm Sweet Dorm

I have returned to the comfort of my dorm room after my week-long adventure with my parents. Good Jesus, am I ever glad to be back in my dorm room!

Like everyone, I do miss my parents. But I only miss them enough to want to see them for a few days. I don't miss them enough to spend every waking moment with them for a week, and therein lies the problem with my Spring Break. My mother irks me to no end. She's fine for a little while, and then slowly but suddenly, I start to twitch with irritation every time she opens her mouth. I do this not because she's painfully stupid. She's a nurse, an educated lady. I do this because she ruins perfectly good silences with innane commentary about whatever is outside the window. I don't understand why people feel the need to fill every singly silence with such irritating noise. We are not a family of talkers, Mom. We never have been. We don't relate to one another. This is not helping! Don't get me wrong, the woman isn't all this bad. I'm sure the reason I find her so annoying is simply because she's my mother. She had knee surgery a couple of years ago, and suddenly during this trip her good knee began to flare up (probably as a result of having to favor it for so long). So I took care of her and iced her down and everything for the first few days, like the good daughter that I've always presented myself to be around them. And then, as soon as we had left the San Diego part of our trip behind and began our much too lengthy drive to Arizona, I was no longer forgiving of her gimpiness. Rather, she was irritating AND malfunctioning.

My father and I spent a good 5 days wandering around San Diego while my mother was at her AORN conference and not unknowingly making me insane. San Diego was not as sunny as we had expected, so it felt very much like being in the Bay Area in springtime. Only, not as foggy. We went to the most amazing Wild Animal Park and the less amazing San Diego Zoo (which I cannot believe is so "world famous" in comparison to the Wild Animal Park, considering the sheer size and quality of the enclosures for the Zoo animals--so much smaller than expected). My father, sailor that he is, took me to every single Naval base in the San Diego area--and there are at least 4 of them. He drove me around the SD Naval Base, showed me places his ships were docked and where he had stayed and etc when he was stationed there. We drove to the North Island base on Coronado and all through the island. He bought me things. Because Daddy loves me best. (And the base is dirt cheap for all kinds of things. Where else in the world are you going to find Converse All Stars for 20 bucks a pair?) We drove around downtown SD looking for my father's old house, and finding a baptist church with the following sign on the marquee:

"Under same management for over 2000 years."

Our adventures also led us to SeaWorld one evening when the park was closed to everyone but AORN conference goers. Fun times were had by all as we rented my mother a wheelchair and I pushed her around the park at high speeds. It was essentially 4 hours of hopping from one show to another, with a free meal somewhere in between. But SeaWorld also contained the most awesome event of the entire vacation: I fed a dolphin. And got to pet him, too. This is me getting one step closer to being able to actually swim with one.

The drive from SD to Arizona was long and warm and a lot of me trying to read while my mother pointed out how dry everything is. ("Yes, Mom. It's a desert.") I got a sunburn from the UV rays penetrating the window. I was not happy. We got into Arizona very late that night, and got to stay in the swankiest cheap hotel ever. I highly recommend the Wellesley Inn & Suites. The best hotel you can get for $80 bucks a night (and thats for 3 people). I spent the subsequent two afternoons at baseball parks for A's Spring Training. My team lost both games. (Adam says I must have brought them bad luck.) I had to spend about 3 hours each afternoon in the hot sun. Barry Zito was not pitching (which is why we really lost). And I didn't get any autographs. Bah. If I'm going to spend 3 hours at a ballpark in the sun, not get autographs, and not get to see Zito pitch, then I may as well do it at my own ballpark! No more driving to Arizona for me! Besides, games are much more fun at our park in Oakland anyway. Ten times as exciting. (And garlic fries.)

I tried to convince my parents to drive all the way from Phoenix to Santa Barbara last night, but they gave up around Malibu Canyon and forced me to stay in a janky little inn where I had to sleep on the floor with no extra blankets or pillows because they didn't have any at the front desk. This is what I get for asking to stop and have food. Which is funny, because I thought my punishment for wanting to eat was having to eat in this creepy little middle of the desert cafe. It was the kind of place that, if my life were a movie, would have been run entirely by the dead. Or, if my life were a different movie, dead cowboys. So, needless to say I am glad to be back in SB with my roommates, because here I have a bed and sheets and blankets and pillows. And as far as I know, I have not yet been served food by a dead person.

I Have Head Explodey!

. . . and not in the good way.

Just took the hardest final ever. Art history is evil. Can no longer form coherent sentences. So much writing. 10 short answer analysis sections. 2 real essays. Took entire 3 hours. Couldn't find TA. Waited groggy outside Campbell Hall for her to give me back paper. Going to die now.

"I never went to bed with anybody for a role--that's true. I never got any roles, either." --Carla, Kennedy's Children by Robert Patrick

Booked my flight home today! Yay!

I probably shouldn't be this excited about going home just to wake up early and drive to DVC to judge the State Forensics Tournament--something I myself never got to go to in high school, despite all my whoreing and husband killing and transsexualism. Mind you, I was not actually a whore, transsexual or husband killer, but all Dramatic Interp kids take on a little bit of the people they play. If not because you love your character, then because you've spent a good year working on becoming them and understanding them and being them on Saturday mornings at 8 AM in front of a room full of strangers who are also playing at being someone. While I loved Carla and was Carla, I can't deny that there are parts of me that are Agnes and Sarah and Hedwig. I can't deny that there are parts of my abandoned characters in me, either. I am a little bit Betty and a little bit Amneris and (apparently) more than a little bit Joan of Arc.

But judging at State is exciting. Being at State is exciting. Being around exceptionally talented kids is horribly exciting. Being able to see said horribly talented kids doing their interps, their extemps, their expos, their debates, their oratories--that's exciting. And being with my old coach and my teammates is exciting.

And now that I'm thinking back on it and how much I really did love it, I wish I hadn't gotten so overwhelmed. I wish I hadn't given up. I wish I'd not given up on Hedwig just because my audience didn't understand her. Hell, no one understood Carla, but I made people love her because I did. And I should have treated all the characters I played that way. But instead, I just gave up. There were so many factors outside of it though. I wasn't even myself, then. And if I wasn't me, how can I be expected to be someone else when I've got nothing to work with?

Seaweed and Brine

Today is too beautiful for words. Spent a good three hours reading in the sun on the beach. It was absolutely marvelous. Heather and I are planning a picnic for Thursday afternoon. We will make sandwiches in the dining commons, and smuggle them out in our carefully concealed tupperware so that we may take them to the beach later for snacking. And we'll go swimming! And it will be marvelous!

Good gods, I smell so much like salt. But it's good salt. Salt and Coppertone.

I Am Not a Stranger to the Rain

I'm on the 3rd page of my art history paper (due Thursday) and I think it's a good time to stop writing important things and tell my rainy day story from last week, seeing as today is, again, a rainy day.

Santa Barbara has this new thing weatherwise. It's quite extraordinary. It's called rain. And it will only begin to do this at 9:40 am when I leave my English class and have to walk a good long ways to the HSSB. Santa Barbara, being a quaint seaside city, much like Venice, is not equipped to deal with massive amounts of rain, much like Venice. Last Wednesday at precisely 9:40 am as I left English, it began to rain. Big, scary, heavy rain. And it didn't stop. And it got much, much worse as the day went on. I was okay while I was in class, and even fine while walking back from Italian. The real terrors came at about 3:30 in the afternoon as I decided to brave the weather and get coffee before my Electra class. Little did I know what was about to unfold . . .

(note: I am switching to present tense for Dave Eggers style realism.)

It is really fucking wet outside! There are people wearing garbage bags like capes in an attempt to keep their backpacks dry. I scurried about with my hood up, gloves on, and my Eugene O'Neill stuffed nicely inside my coat to keep him dry. (In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have cared so much about a dead playwright's book. I could have just bought another one.) I choose my steps very carefully when going down one of the many flights of hillside stairs at UCSB because they are covered in mud that has slid off the hillsides. I choose my steps even more carefully as I walk along the lagoon path, which is flooded in certain areas with a mixture of landmud from the shoddy areas of the faculty club green and lagoon water. It is raining exceptionally hard. The front of my person is literally drenched. This is really uncomfortable. I make it all the way to the UCen unharmed. And then, right outside the fucking door, of all places, I fall flat on my ass. And hard, too. So, now I am wet pretty much everywhere. And my ass hurts.

I pick myself up, brush myself off (as though it would help), and head into the UCen to nab some coffee from Nicoletti's. I was hoping sympathy coffee from Brian the Barista, but no such luck. I pay for my coffee, and sit down on one of the nice, warm, dry UCen chairs for a bit and watch the rain through the picture window. After a good ten minutes, I brave the rain again. I think it literally must be worse now, rainwise. Definitely heavier and even more unrelenting. I trek to the HSSB through several large puddles that have accumulated outside of the Art Museum. Large, unseen puddles are proof that SB was not equipped to handle deluge. The water has soaked entirely through my All-Stars. And my socks. The next hour will be very, very uncomfortable. I have wet pants and wet feet. I am not a happy camper.

I climb the water-logged steps of the HSSB and squeak my way down the hallway to class. Everyone who has made it there before me is also soaked. Aditi still has water on her face that she has neglected to brush off. We moan about how miserable it is. And how miserable we are. This is the most uncomfortable hour of our lives.

Once the hour is up, I brave the rain again. It's still wet, but less so now. I make it down to flights of HSSB stairs before my foot lands in a puddle and a fall--again--on the landing. Ass is even more wet. Left side of body is now in a lot of wet, cold, uncomfortable, rainy pain. I whimper to myself as I very fucking carefully descend. I feel a bit like Myrrah, that I'm dissolving into tears, but it's really more like tears are dissolving me. I whimper all the way home.

And halfway there. I decide Raffi's place is a lot closer than mine. So I pop up at his door for sympathy and shelter and warmth. Kitties don't like this much water! I am soaking. My hair is soaking and I had a fucking hood on. Rafe blow dries me--hair to feet. With his hairdryer. It is both kind and humiliating, but, hey, I fell fucking twice in the rain. This is the highlight of my day.

Mmmmmm . . . . Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Most of my day I've spent sleeping. I do not entirely know why. I'm sure somehow this is my body's very odd way of attempting to make up for the missed sleep I got this weekend. My body knows full well that said sleep can not actually be made up. So, with that in mind, I think maybe my body is trying to fuck me over. Well, I've got news for you body . . . I'm not gonna take it! I'll sleep when I want to and wake up when I want to and you can't make me do or say anything! My mind is much more powerful than you and you ought to know it, you frail, weak peice of flesh!

If I Were a Grand Slam . . . (sung to the tune of "If I Were a Rich Man," just in case that didn't immediately pop into your head like it should have)

Spent the past two weeks doing so much work regarding last Friday's V-Day Extravaganza and this weekend's upcoming production of The Vagina Monologues that I hardly had time to sleep or breathe or any other such vital function. And then this weekend happened. And despite rehearsal from forever until the end of time on Sunday night . . . I suddenly had only time to sleep and breathe.

I don't think I'd ever been so bored in my life. Last night, I literally spent a half hour staring at objects in my roommate's possession. I was awake then, and I couldn't actually bring myself to sleep. (Funny how "after you get what you want you don't want it," isn't it? Who knew Irving Berlin songs could be so prophetic.) I could call this relaxing, I suppose. But relaxing is a term I generally reserve for reading in a hot bath or sitting in a spa or visiting the masseuse I don't actually have. Relaxing is not resorting to asking your roommates such questions as: "If you were a menu item at Denny's, what would you be?"

And just FYI, Jen is Cheesesticks, Heather is French Toast and I am a Milkshake. Raffi, when later asked this question, supplied me with the Denny's menu item in the title.

Sloth Isn't That Much of a Sin . . . Is It?

Kate said that her only desire once she got to college was to sleep. Judging by the state of my room and the moment, I think it just might be true.

Last night, I was up talking with Kevin and Jen until 2:30 am. At which point, they left and I went to sleep. I have no idea what happened until about 9 am, when Jen's alarm went off and I roll over to find the two of them curled up in opposite corners of the futon . . . which Kevin had somehow taken down in the middle of the morning without rousting me. I went back to sleep until noon.

Right now, Kevin is sprawled out on my bed--aka "the couch"--napping under the glow of a halogen lamp. Jennifer has crawled up to her roost for ten minutes of mid-midterm studying naptime. And those sleepy motherfuckers are making me tired as hell. I yawn just knowing that they are here! Here and tired!

Kevin's sloth-like nature must be rubbing off on me. He has decreased my desire to do any sort of work merely by being in the same room. I want him to see Sevenfor the sloth-murder, but at the same time I admire his dedication to laziness and wish he were a sort of superhero. If he were indeed a superhero, he would be the patron and savior of college students everywhere.

Who do you have to fuck to get a cup of tea and some chocolate biscuits around here?

Being that I have two papers rapidly approaching, I naturally have no inclination to write anything. (Not even here, really, which explains the brief hiatus.)

I've got one paper on the treatment of women in the poetry of Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift and another on . . . well, I haven't chosen yet, but it's for art history and it will inevitably involve a Renaissance altarpeice of some variety. But, as I have no school on Fridays this quarter, I like to pretend that Thursday is my Friday and thusly, I prefer not to do a whole lot of work on Thursday. Friday I may spend the day slaving away at my computer and writing a hefty load of bollux.

For now, I adjourn to being mildly British and enjoying my cup of chai tea. Someone must find me biscuits.

Sideshow Stevi

I've made a decision: no matter what other wonderful, fantastic things I do in my life (being an English teacher, winning a Pulitzer, and getting an Academy Nom for Original Screenplay . . . or Adapted, I don't care) I am going to become an expert on Carnival Sideshows.

And I am totally serious.

I have a fascination with Carnie folk. The way the live their rootless lives as American gypsies, the wandering minstrels of their era. The social acceptance of treating those with unique genetic anomilies as exhibits. The endurance of the freakshow tradition. The seemingly contradictory view that the freakshow allows an outlet for such genetic anomolies to "make a living just by being themselves." The silmultaneous rise of the burlesque show as both art and entertainment. It's all fascinating.

Almost as fascinating as genuine sideshow performers is the way a "gaff" is pulled off. Half the time, customers would never know if they were seeing the genuine article or a falsification. Siamese twins were "constructed" by carnival management because the condition is exceptionally rare, and having grown twins was even more of an anomily due to the low survival rates of such conjoined siblings during the heyday of the carnival era. Hermaphrodites were constructed using prosthetics. Parasitic twins (a half-formed twin attached somewhere on the abdomen to the host twin, essentially a failed attempted at the development of conjoined twins; parasitic twins have no brains or hearts but subsist on the bloodflow of the host twin, like an extra limb) were attached with simple paste and children's dolls. People added extra limbs the same way. (People born with so-called "extra limbs" are actually a subclassification of individuals born with parasitic twins, called dypigus, meaning that the lower half of the body is reduplicated. It's like having a parasitic twin, but having one that can actually function in a near-normal way.) Then there are the fake lycans. The fake bearded ladies. The faux mentalists. And so on.

The world of the carnival sideshow is so inherently intriguging because of the blurred lines between fiction and reality. It's a social world of the past. A form of entertainment that is no longer PC. By modern standards, it must be some violation of civil rights and liberties, though most carnival showfolk joined-up willingly. I like its inherent contradictions, its mysteries, its story.

The only thing that even comes close to being a carnival sideshow in our society, is probably reality TV.

I Guess the Renaissance Really is Over.

The Northern California Renaissance Pleasure Faire has been closed permanantly. It's over. No more two hour drives from my house to Hollister. I feel like I've been kicked square in the chest. I spend four years collecting a great costume, each year promising myself some silly new accessory so that the outfit is never really complete and I always have a good excuse to spend a great deal of my hard earned money. ("But Mom, this year I promised myself a set of leather handcuffs and a new cat o' nine. That's why I spent 100 dollars at the faire!") This year I was finally going to get a tankard to put in the tankard strap I bought 4 years ago. I guess I'm not getting it from that faire.

I guess its a little silly to be this upset that the NorCal faire is gone. It's not like its the only one. (AND THANK GOD!) The Heart of the Forest Faire, I hear, is very lovely, and in the location that NorCal Faire used to be in the late 80's and early 90's. But NorCal faire was the big faire, and it was my faire. And it has all kinds of stupid sentimental value behind it. And for a few years, it was only 30 minutes from my house! I could always go to Faire then. But like I said, its not the only faire. I found out that Heart of the Forest Faire happens here in Santa Barbara, as well. And during Spring quarter, too! But there goes all the familiarity that I miss about NorCal Faire. There's always SoCal Faire, but that is a two hour drive I'd be making without my friends . . . or my crappy little un-Renaissance white Prizm.

Sigh.

I shouldn't be this crushed. But I am.

Pool Sharks.

I am very bad at pool. Actually, we are all pretty bad at pool--Jen, Heather and I, I mean. In a bout of Saturday Night Boredom, we decided to drag Raffi along to play some pool in DeAnza. It was a fairly even match, considering the teams (me with Raffi, and my roommates against us). Even if only because we are all so terrifically bad at the game. Jen and I rarely sink any shots. I am known to scratch on breaks. Heather and Raffi are of much better skill . . . except for the scratches . . . or sinking shots for the other team. Our games last forever because none of us possess the simple abilities to execute the shots that we can clearly, through clever observations of physics and geometry, see. Let's just say that I really shouldn't have titled this entry "Pool Sharks" as none of us seem to live up to the name.

But Jen is determined that if we play a game or two of pool a day, or at least as often as we can, that we can improve. And this is true. Today's three game series with Kevin as a fourth showed much improvement over last night (until in the 3rd game, when Kevin and I spent 20 minutes trying to sink the 8 ball and failing miserably . . . then I think we just stoppd caring). Now, if I said that my team (last night, Stevi-Raffi, today, Stevi-Kevin) lost every single game we played, you'd have to assume that Jen and Heather are actually pretty good at pool. But this assumption would be wholly incorrect. They are no better than us, really. They just never get an oppurtunity to go for the 8 ball and, therefore, never get the oppurtunity to scratch on the 8 ball. They win simply because we fail. Not because they're (dare I say it?) good at pool.
I think this bit of dialogue between Raffi and me last night in the pool room is so good that it needs to be shared:

(after scratching on the 8 ball to lose our second game that night)

Me: I am very bad at this. I should just give up and kill myself now.

Raffi: Ahh. Don't do that. After all, it is only pool.

Me: You're right. Let's go get ice cream.

Raffi: Wow. Crisis averted. You almost killed yourself. Thank God I stepped in.

Me: Eh, I'm pretty easy to distract.

That last bit, that's probably why I'm not very good at pool.

Le cough. Le hack. Le sigh.

I was practially glowing last quarter because the move from the Bay to Santa Barbara had proven quite fruitful for my health. For once in my life, I wasn't ill every other week. In fact, I could breathe easily, sleep well, etc. In general, an improvement over the last four years of my life. But I go home for break, and pick up a slight cold. Annoying, yes, but a vast improvement over that one week in high school where I swear I had the bubonic plague . . . and all other subsequent high school illnesses, for that matter. And I got over it quickly, which was even more of a miracle because my normal immune system must have some sort of deficiency. But despite all that good fortune, I return to campus and I am smacked in the face with a cold. Admittedly, this one is far superior to most colds Ive had. The sore throat has passed and now I am left with a stuffy nose . . . that would seem to contain more mucus than I thought humanly possible. Nevertheless, it doesn't make me happy. I long for last quarter, where I lived happily and disease free!

I did fulfill my long-ago promise to Jake to see a doctor before the end of the year, though. I did it right on the wire: December 31st. However, I did it. Apparently, there really isn't anything wrong with me. Not anemic. Not diabetic. Not iron deficient. I'm just little. And frail. (All the rage with the gents during the French revolution, so I'm told. Doesn't everyone love a waif?) My uterus is, however, tilted slightly to the left. I don't know what that means. It's apparently not a bad thing. It's just a quaint abnormailty.

They also did some blood tests during my visit to the doctor's office. Let me tell you, having blood drawn is possibly the coolest thing in existence. It may have been some of the most medically related fun I've ever had in my life. I couldn't stop laughing. It was great! Blood is all swirly and there's just so much of it! And they can fill tubes with blood instantaneously! My god, why is blood so fucking cool?! Why did no one tell me blood was this cool? I would have dontated blood all the time in high school had I known! Oh, had I only known. College blood drives, here I come!

And we're back.

Back in Santa Barbara. Back in my dorm. Back in class. Back . . . here.

But here is a pretty good place for me, usually. I'm more sane here than I've ever been before. And that's saying a lot, I think.

Only here can I listen to No Doubt's "Simple Kind of Life" with my roommate singing along (in her perfect, perfect Gwen-like pitch) and not be in tears. I promised myself in the wee hours of New Year's Day (after several episodes of "Sex & the City") that these kinds of things would no longer bother me. It's four days into the new year and I'm succeeding. We shall see how long this lasts.

Regardless, I love being back here in my dark little room with Jen and Heather--Jen singing along to whatever CD she has on, Heather on the phone with someone. It feels right. It also feels right to be walking around here and rearranging things to accomodate our Christmas gifts and all the other extra stuff we returned with.

It even feels right to be wandering through the bookstore and realize that I got the most obscure of all English 10 professors. Everyone else has a good four books on their reading list, and most include at least one Toni Morrison novel (Sidenote: Marcus bought me her new book, the aptly titled Love, for our anniversary.) . . . my professor chose two books, both of which I have never heard of in my life. In the best case, this class turns out to be absolutely fascinating and the books are both some of the most interesting things I've never heard of. In the worst case, it blows because the novels chosen are reminiscent of Melville's Billy Budd, voted worst book every by students in Mrs. Pasternak's 2nd period AP English Lit class in 2003. Tomorrow morning shall tell.

We'll see if I can wake up at 7:40 of my own volition.

Heather and I are horrible human beings. The last of our fish has died.

Well, to be totally technical, we had to kill it. It sounds horrible, but let's set a couple things straight: a) it would have died anyway over the break and b) it was Selina's idea.

The fish had several options facing it, all of which included its eminent demise:
1. We leave it in the tank for three weeks, during which it dies of starvation because the only food tablets available last for a maximum of two weeks.
2. We put it in a cup and take it home with one of us. This sounds like a good idea at first, but when you think about it the fish would die on the long rides to our varius destinations. There is no way in hell Jen was going to be able to take a fish in a cup on the Greyhound down to LA. I probably could have taken it home to Crockett . . . if I were driving the five hours straight and not spending the duration of my week in Santa Monica with Marcus. (This would also involve putting a fish on a bus.) Finally, Heather lives a whole 9 hour drive from school. And I'm sure the fish would feeze to death before she reached Tahoe.
3. We flush the little fucker. The force kills him immediately.
4. Selina suggests we set him free in the lagoon . . . and let the saltwater cause it to die of shock within 30 seconds.

We went with option number four. And we set him free in the lagoon . . . he tried to swim back to us, and thrashed about violently in the shallows of the lagoon as the salt entered his gills. It was horrifying. We're fucking murderers. What kind of vegetarians are we?

I think this is it for us and dorm room pets, though. So its good news for all other living creatures we encounter.

I love the Holidays!!!!!

Yuletide is the bestest season . . . EVER!!!

The roommates and I are having Christmas tonight. I'm so excited. Plus, Heather and I get to have our birthdays tonight, too. (Heather was born two days after Christmas and I was born nine days after Christmas.) I'm such an egocentric whore. I love all Holidays that involve centering at least some sort of attention on myself. Be it by the use of food or gifts, I care not. So long as its all about me.

You know, and the spirit of giving and all that rot.

I kid. I'm a sucker for buying people presents, too. I like to spend money on people almost as much as spending money on myself. But, again, I can't discuss the supercool things I got for people because those snoopy bastards are probably reading this. However, I can say that Raffi and I have impeccable taste.

I left Raffi his gift in his room on Saturday night, so it would be waiting for him when he got back from his evil math final. I got him Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies, because I'm sure that at least part of the spirit of Christmas involves the macabre deaths of unsuspecting children. Unbeknownst to me, he had gotten me the same book. It's all crazy-like! But, upon opening his gift, he returned the copy he got for me and traded it in for Amphigorey, Too. Now I have them all. But that's crazy. It's like we share a brain. A brain that delights in macabre demises, apparently.

I took a final this morning at 8 am. During which I wrote an essay about setting a production of Tartuffe in a Catholic High School (because the closest thing to 17th century French class structure is high school) and another essay about how the Olympics are a capitalist marketing tool that sells merchandise degrading the culture of the host countries/cities, with specific reference to the 2002 winter games in Salt Lake wherein pins featuring bicycling LDS missionaries and green jello made a mockery of American religions.

My brain does funny things when it has to think and hasn't really gotten a good rest.

Lalalalala . . . I was born at the wrong time of the year! Japanese restaurants are never open on my birthday and there are no theatrical productions running in the city that are of note. My mom and I were trying to plan what to do on my birthday. We were going to go to Teatro Zinzanni . . . until we realized that it would be $125 per person ($500 for a CARNIVAL????) plus another $40 that night in gratuity for the wait staff. Fuck that. I'll just put on my own show!

God, I'm tired.

So it's dead week, and there is literally nothing to do. One can only spend so much time studying, after all. Brooks on the 2nd floor is quoted as saying this about weekends in Santa Barbara: "It's so boring here. The only things to do are drink, study or spend money." It's sad, but true. I don't drink, because my idea of a good time with alcohol is getting together with a bunch of intellectual friends, getting drunk and trying to play word games or charades . . . and that kind of shit just doesn't go down in Santa Barbara. But it should. I don't really want to study just yet. I have a final Saturday in theatre . . . which I don't think will be very hard at all. However, I have to get up before 8 am to take it. That doesn't make me happy. After that, my next final is on Monday. At noon. And it's linguistics. So I'll get my study on a little later in the weekend. This leaves me with one choice: spend money.

I went downtown today to finalize my Christmas shopping. Or at least to bring it closer to its inevitable end. I bought a lot of books for people. I am not at liberty to say what books or for whom, because the intended recipients read this weblog and I don't want those snooping bastards to find out and ruin the suprise. Let it be said, however, that Barnes & Noble and Borders booksellers are just a little bit richer today because of me.

I'm also noticing that because drinking, studying, and spending money are the only things to do on weekends around here . . . and because I usually do the latter . . . my favorite stores on State Street are getting a little old due to biweekly visitation. New Deal is my favorite place for Swingwear, but the prices are tailored to the budget of some movie star's neice who just happens to have a very big place in the Santa Barbara hills. Plus, I know for a fact I can find those dresses at half the price if I look hard enough on the Macy's and JC Penny's clearance racks. (I just did that very thing over Thanksgiving break.) Midnite Sun is the closest thing to Goth-coture that you'll find on State . . . but it's also a smidge pricey . . . and I've only seen one skirt in there that I cannot live without. I mostly just buy their raunchy underwear. The girl's stuff continually changes. The guy's stuff doesn't. This is why it's hard to find cool shirts for Marcus there. In fact, thats a problem with a lot of the boutiques on State: 75% female oriented, 25% male oriented. Marcus likes clothing. He just doesn't have nice clothing. And it's my mission to find him some sort of style. State Street boutiques are not helping me here. Scavenge is alright, but they should lower their prices a bit, seeing as they don't do any business post-Halloween . . . and I really just want a pair of extra-cheap boots from them. And maybe a Dickie's jacket. So I'm forced to go shopping in Reference, because there is no Forever 21 on State and the stores are practically sisters, which has very little black most of the year. But it's winter right now. Black is in. But if I want any of it, I'm apparently going to have to be preppy-goth . . . or start building up my professional teacher's wardrobe.