Graced with the pleasure of my company.

List-form items from my Turkey Trot home.

1. 5.5 hour drives up the California coast are kind of fun when you're alone singing at the top of your lungs. You have a lot of time to meditate on life, the landscape, John Steinbeck novels, and everything you are going to make time for during the precious few days you have at home.
2. New car. Grandmother bought a new car without telling Parents, so upon my arrival at home, I am bestowed with her 2003 Toyota Matrix. Miss Kitty is retired. Lola is in service. I no longer worry about the possibility of my car breaking down on long, contemplative drives up and down the California coast.
3. DMV. My Wednesday-morning research time was spent at the DMV transferring the title and registration of Lola from Grandma to me. 2 hours chillin' at the DMV with my mom. Bonding time.
4. Two Thanksgivings. First half of day was spent with my family. Much wine was involved. They treat me like an adult now. Second half of day was spent with Marcus' family. Much wine was involved. Rousing game of charades.
5. My term project in linguistics continually fucked me up the ass. Precious research time was lost to the DMV, so I spent Friday morning at the Berkeley Public Library. Or, I would have had it been open. I spent 3 hours Friday morning trying desperately to find a book on Armenian. I openly wept at Moe's on Telegraph when I found a grammar from 1990. Salvation!
6. Little Shop of Horrors: Saturday matinee with parents and Marcus. Good over all, but I definitely didn't laugh as hard as when Roommates, Nikki Ferry and I saw a Santa Barbara Junior High production of Little Shop last year, because that shit was hilarious. The show is much funnier with a slightly homosexual 12-year-old as The Dentist and a kid inside the Audrey II with tentacle arms singing the role of the plant. Notable creepiness from this production came in the form of the roots of the Audrey II . . . as they were not animatronic like the final incarnation of the Audrey II, but people. Creepy as all fuck.
7. Useless things acquired at home: movie and book journals, a set of 6 double shot glasses with booze labels on them, $30 worth of lip gloss, November's issue of The Believer, and a Little Shop tee
8. Inventory of friends I saw while at home: Eric, Sean, Steffany, Anders, Jake, Greg Montoya, Bryna
9. Stuff found in the backpacks my parents give the Roommates and I for Xmas: plastic wine goblets (2 silver, 2 gold), an abundance of chapstick, silver wire jewelry boxes, brownie mix, potato chips, 12 headphones (3 for each of us, in 3 different styles), a plush snowman, a chocolate star, toe socks in the following colors/styles: blue with monkeys, pink and purple striped with the words "beauty sleep" on them, blue and green striped with the words "twinkle toes" on them, crazy-ass neon stripes; cough drops

I am no back home in Santa Barbara. Finals approach. The linguistics term project continues to fuck me. I do not enjoy it.

Petrarch in New York

My English professor spent a good 20 minutes today discussing his findings in last week's issue of the New Yorker. In addition to an incredible poem he happened upon while reading at the laundrymat, he talked about the Petrarchan implications of this cover:

I was so touched I immediately went out after lecture and bought this issue. The art in and of itself I think is very striking, but what Prof. Helgerson said was even more so. The portrait captures the Petrarchan obsession with the momentary, the fleeting and the gaze of the beloved. Petrarch saw Laura once on April 6, 1327 and wrote countless sonnets to her from that very day, always obsessed with the first moment he met her. It's hard to tell in this portrait if these two New Yorkers will ever meet again, if they were perfect for one another (after all, they've both fatefully looked up from reading the same book at the exact moment that their trains passed each other), or if one of them would maybe spend the rest of his or her life in the city searching for the other, writing sonnets in their perpetual search just as Petrarch did for Laura. And even if they didn't find one another, would this moment be the moment that they would forever look back on, the one that they rhapsodize with their friends about over coffee, sighing into the steam, "What if?"

You will all be trapped in this dense Symbolist tome forever.

Generally bad idea:

Deciding to do library research for your term project with absolutely no call numbers. I effectively spent an hour wandering around the stacks of the 6th floor language library with no result. I did see a whole lot of cool stuff (like these 19th century French dictionaries with marbled paper covers, our impressive selection of Russian literature in its original language, phonologies of Ancient Egyptian, enough literary journals to keep me out of sunlight for the rest of my life . . .). Unfortinately, none of said cool stuff was even remotely what I needed.

My eye started twitching.

Photo Drop + Weekend Bits

Recorded evidence of Isla Vista Halloween 2004 can be found, in part, here: http://photos.yahoo.com/fireyelectra

In other news, I went to see Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle on Friday night. (Naturally, I was stoned.) Excellent film! Funny and Neil Patrick Harris filled. Ran into a friend from Carondelet while there. She was visiting for the weekend, and greatly intoxicated. She amused me greatly. (I heart you, Stephanie.)

Saturday saw Nikki ultilizing her stolen BBQ's to do some meat-roasting. Her girlfriend got the brilliant idea to douse the coals in lighter fluid while they were burning. We are so smart. Later that night, party at Vic's house. She had wine-in-a-box in her fridge. It was horrible, but I drank it anyway. Vic's little sister is hot, and I had made plans to hit on her until everyone shot the idea down when subject was broached at Nikki's BBQ. Nice times.

Parents also came to visit for the weekend and brought the dog. Roommates love the Parents and the Dog. All was well. Dog was good. Parents were chaming and kind. Much shopping was done. The Mom made some purchases, which is a highly unusual move on her part. I made some purchases, including new boots, two new hats, and a new tweed blazer. Parents bought us snack food. Parents also adopted Cassie as their "new daughter" and took us all out to Friday dinner at E-Bar and Sunday brunch at Sambo's. Good times were had by all, and my parents have been deemed officially cool by all of the Roommates.

Some good weekend quotes:
"My hair smelled so good he wanted to have sex with me right then." --Melissa, at Nikki's BBQ

Stevi: Hey Nikki, should I hit on Vic's sister?
(Awkward silence from the entire room.)
Heather: Uhh . . . I'm gonna go with no.
Nikki: If she says no, I say definitely.

"Hey, we're gonna play a little game. It's called Diary of Anne Frank. It's where you be really, realy quiet and if you make any noise, the Nazis will come and kill you." --Me, to my dog

Belize echoes my sentiments.

"I hate America. I hate this country. Nothing but ideas and stories and people dying. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high, no one could reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing sounds less like freedom to me."

--Tony Kushner, Angels in America

Three nights in a yellow spandex track suit.

A list-form version of Halloween Weekend, Isla Vista 2004.

• Number of complete Deadly Viper Assasination Squads on Del Playa: None, because no one in their right mind wants to be Vernita Green.
• Number of mostly complete Deadly Viper Assasination Squads on Del Playa: One, and that award goes to my friends and I for having not only Beatrix Kiddo and Elle Driver, but also O-Ren Ishii.
• Number of other girls dressed as The Bride: 2 or 3, depending on who you ask. I saw two, and I was much cooler than they were because I was not only wearing yellow spandex, but wearing it with an Uma Thurman-esque attitude. (The 3rd Bride that wasn't me I heard about on Monday, and apparently she rivaled my coolness.)
• Number of other Elle Drivers: 4.
• Number of Slutty Nurses who couldn't distinguish Elle Drivers such as Jen from their band of Naughtiness: infinite.
• Number of other O-Ren Ishiis: None.

My Top 3 Most Creative Costumes:

1. Scantron. The guy who made this costume actually enlarged a Scantron form (the small green one, with 50 questions on each side) and wore it. He ran around Del Playa interrogating all revelers as to which type of writing instuments they were: #2 pencils or ballpoint pens. He refused to associate with ballpoint pens.
2. Storke Tower. The guy who wore this replica of the lovely phallic monument in the middle of our campus was so attentive to detail that he even included a blinking red fog-warning light at the top (which Storke Tower has to keep the airplanes from crashing into it . . . should they stray 2 miles off course and land on campus instead of at the airport). I was at a dance party with this guy on Sunday night, and was frankly quite amazed at the amound of mobility he had given himself in his boxy tower prison. He was able to see out of the medieval-style arrow slots that Storke Tower has at the very top of its bell-sounding structure.
3. An iPod. The most amazing thing about the iPod was that it was actually playing music.

Honorable Mentions:

• Tetris blocks that stopped every few blocks to assemble themselves in interesting formations before disappearing into the crowd on DP.
• Ron Burgandy from Anchorman, because I only saw one of him and this guy looked exactly like Will Ferrell.
• My friend Frankie as Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction because, unlike all other Mia Wallaces I saw (3), Frankie not only had a nosebleed from her overdose, but also a huge syringe sticking out of her chest. Naturally, we took a picture together.
• Jersey Dan as Leftovers, because he was wearing only Saran Wrap and little brown shorts.
• Victoria's Secret Angels, because the skimpy underwear they were wearing was indeed from the Victoria's Secret Angels collection.
• Red Sox. Yes, two guys were literally dressed as giant red socks.
• Oakland A's pitcher Mark Mulder!!!! (I all kinds of hugged this guy and thanked him for recognizing an A-1 picther from an A-1 pitching staff . . . I considered asking why he didn't dress as former UCSB-undergrad A's pitcher Barry Zito, but didn't because I think the hug and Oaktown pride freaked him out enough.)

Costumes I Saw Way Too Many Of:

• Napolean Dynamite. The only good Napolean was my friend Eric Sheslow, because he looks just like him and talked just like him. And everyone knew he was the best Napolean of them all.
• Slutty Nurse/Cop/Firefighter/Construction Worker/Etc. Basically, any girl who dressed as an indecent version of someone in a service position.
• Slutty versions of anything else normal and/or mythical.
• Johnny "Wildman" Damon of the Boston Red Sox. I saw 3 or 4 of them, and that is far too many of Mr. Damon in his current state. I actually went up to one of them and told him he was much cuter when he played for the Oakland A's. The guy dressed as Johnny Damon evidently didn't know that Damon once played for Oakland and blinked at me a little bit before saying, "Boston's cute too . . ." in a very confused tone.
• Alex and Droogs from A Clockwork Orange. I liked them all and complimented them, but lets just saw that none of them looked as cool as I did at work on Saturday when I dressed as Alex.
• Edward Scissorhands, after Peg Boggs dresses him in normal people clothes. I was completely impressed with how everyone made their own scissorhands, but was more impressed with Derek's friend Mike's version of Edward in his original bondage suit, because the bondage suit with scissorhands takes a whole lot more effort than trousers-shirt-suspenders Edward. Every Edward was in character, though, so they get extra points for that--even if not for the costume.
• Crazy 88's, but its okay, because I killed them all on Saturday and then there were only about 5 left for me to kill on Sunday night. One group of 88's I met on Saturday night actually had a video camera, and we filmed a version of that famous bloody brawl. It was fun. Scene with said group ends with me screaming, "Leave the limbs you've lost, because they belong to me now" and walking away with my friends.

Favorite Things Yelled at Me from the Balconies and Streets of Del Playa Drive:

• "Beatrix Kiddo!"
• "Uma!"
• "Watch out, boys, here comes The Bride."
• "Check it out, it's the girls from Kill Bill!"
• "Kill Bill! I fucking love that movie!"

Least Favorite Things Yelled at Me from the Balconies and Streets of Del Playa Drive:

• "Hey, baby, you wanna slice me up?"
• "Is Bill dead?"

I think really that my favorite thing about Halloween here is the celebrity that comes with having a good costume, when, for a weekend, you actually become associated with the movie character you're dressing as. Sheslow was Napolean Dynamite, and everyone recognized this fact with phrases similar to what was yelled at me. Likewise, you get congratulated for having good taste by all the same people. It's this intense roll playing game that lasts for days, and it is incredibly fun.

You also never know who you'll run into on Halloween in IV. I ran into Dan Shad from DLS in the Pita Pit at 3 am on Sunday/Monday. Also ran into the freshmen girl I have a crush on and complimented her on her lame bumblebee outfit (because now I know she isn't as hardcore as she wants everyone to think). Also ran into Jenrikay, who I haven't seen this year at all. Ran into Captain Max and the boys from FT. Saw Grayson in passing. Spent most of my evenings relatively buzzed--at least enough to keep warm--and had an amazing time with my friends.

For your consideration: a group of about 12 drunk Isla Vistans in a living room on Halloween, all sining Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the tops of their little bitty lungs. So much fun. It was an amazing moment of spontaneous bonding--and that shit needs to happen all the time.

Tequila tastes like vomit. Vanilla vodka in fruit juice tastes like candy. And next year, I will be Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy.

I'll give you the shirt off my back.

At the costume shop, we are strongly encouraged to dress up for work. By dress up, I mean in pseudo-costume, usually a mix of your own stuff and stuff at the store.
Yesterday, I came in wearing my white Dickie's capri's with crazy black zipper pockets, my Converse All-Stars (appropriately ratty), a studded belt, and my essential black v-neck. I then became an 80's rocker with the addition of a pink and black wig from work and an amazing black and white leather driver's cap.
Today, I came in my aqua 50's waitress dress (that I acquired in Europe for 6 Euros), my ripped Rocky Horror fishnets, a little black cardigan, and my ever-so-ratty Converse. I added a tacky pink apron with little flowers, a white neckerchief, and these terribly guady gold cat-eye glasses with little gold flowers around the corner of each eye. 3 girls said they wanted to look like me for Halloween. And to the last one, I literally rented the dress off my back. My boss said that if I was willing to rent my dress, she would go half with me on the rental price. So for five minutes I wore one of the kimonos in shop (with the gold glasses and the neckerchief) while the customer tried on my dress. So my waitress dress (with the name "Chrystle" embroidered over the left breast) was rented out today for $24. I'm cleaning it, and bringing it with me to work on Thursday. This dress has already paid for itself twice over--and I've only worn the thing once!

Possible work-costume ideas for the Halloween weekend:
Thursday/Friday: Pink Ladies
Saturday: Alex from A Clockwork Orange (just so the white zipper Dickies can make another appearance)
Sunday: The Bride (providing the bastards at Miramax actually get my costume to me by Friday!)

Throats should not be cultured.

Diesease is both a blessing and a curse.

I woke up this morning and the sore throat I've had since Tuesday had culminated in a particularly awful way. I couldn't swallow. I could barely talk. It was pretty bad. I haven't been in class today. I missed English this morning to go to Student Health and get various throat cultures done. The good news is I don't have Strep. The bad news is my throat still hurts rather unbearably.

More bad news: I can't go to work today, which means less money. Nomada cut my shift into half tomorrow, which also means less money.

More good news: No work today means I have more time to sit wrapped in blankets in front of my computer to write my English paper. I have also been given Vicoden for the pain. Thank fucking gods.

So, while daily living activites like drinking, eating and breathing are a task, I have marvelous painkillers!

All of this works out in the end. Somehow.

Straight to your thighs.

For those with no cafe etiquette, let it be known that they shall get What is Coming to Them.

Some girl today, who was behind me in the pay line at Nicoletti's, went up and nabbed my Double White Mocha, when, clearly, it was mine. Had she waited the two drinks later for her own fucking drink she would have gotten her precious Double White Non-Fat Mocha. Non-fucking-Fat. Non-motherfucking-Fat. Girl Who Stole My Drink obviously doesn't drink coffee enough to know that baristas will always call out the entire order so as to avoid drink stealing by ignorant bitches like herself.

Let us just say that as I sit here with her Double White Non-fucking-Fat Mocha, I have the satisfaction of knowing that coffee karma is already biting her in her fat ass. (While said ass was not overly fat, I can only assume that she thinks it is, otherwise why muck up such a marvelous drink with non-fat milk?) My coffee may be slightly shittier than the one I ordered, but at least her misdeeds are keeping my ass as virtually non-existent as it has always been, and her drink-stealing ass will only continue to expand until she leans some fucking etiquette.

This is Karma. And it is Good.

Produce is money, and I don't have a job.

The fabled Department job is not happening. Susan has chosen--inevitably--some senior with a lot more time on his/her hands than myself. I was forced to look off campus, as my only on-campus option was stolen from me.

Luckily, after job hunting with Heather yesterday, I received a call only an hour ago from Victorian Vogue, the wicked-cool costume shop downtown. I have a job for at least three weeks! This is awesome because a) I have always fancied myself working in a costume shop and b) I seriously need some cash.

Other applications submitted: Borders, Hollywood Video
Other applications to be submitted: Barnes & Noble, Metropolitan Theatres
Applications unavailable to me: Ruby's Diner, which I will take as a sign that I am only meant to admire their candy-striped uniforms and never to wear one myself.

Checking for color and clarity.

Last night, we all went to see a special advanced screening of Alexander Payne's newest film, Sideways, with Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church. The film was totally amazing, shot locally in the Santa Ynez Valley, was worked on by many UCSB grads (including Lacey Rae nee' Palowitz, whom I went to high school with, as a two-line waitress). Because the film takes place in Santa Barbara's wine country and features wine as a metaphor for life and grapes as a metaphor for people, we all decided to spend our evening in drinking very cheap wine.

We tossed in a couple of dollars a piece in the hopes of getting an abundance of Trader Joe's Two-Buck Chuck and sent Jen and her homies from LA to acquire it. They returned with 5 bottles of Albertson's finest cheap wines: a Gallo white Merlot, 2 bottles of some unidentifiable Zinfandel (not quite red, not quite white), a bottle of Gallo White Zinfandel, and a bottle of Sutter Home Pinot Noir. So, following Paul Giamatti's wine-tasting rules from Sideways, we started with the Merlot. ("If anyone orders a Merlot, I am leaving.") We checked it for bouquet, color and clarity (which was difficult in our 4-for-a-dollar IKEA tumblers) and drank up. We moved on to the unidentifiable Zinfandel, which was strangely carbonated and raspberry-flavored. Then the Gallo White Zin, which was decent and probably the most wine like beverage of the 3. Finally, we finished off our evening with the bottle of Pinot Noir, Paul Giamatti's personal favorite in Sideways, the ultimate metaphor for his character . . . and that shit was probably the most disappointing Pinot I've ever had in my life.

After 5 bottles of wine, plus some beer and vodka supplied by Nikki, we all were terribly amused with the various 80's mixes that Heather had cued up for the remainder of the evening. At one point, Heather and Melissa were performing an entire Queen album (with help from Richie and myself on "Bohemian Rhapsody"). I did "Tainted Love." Heather belted "Total Eclipse of the Heart." Our tendencies toward drunken singing are vindication against our upstairs neighbors, who, we think, are either harboring large animals in their room or are practicing to go on Trading Spaces, but only between the hours of 11 pm and 11 am.

All in all a lovely evening. I fear for the photographic evidence.

I knew when I got my skateboard back that this relationship was probably over.

Grayson is very bad with answering and returning phone calls in a timely manner. Should I take this as a sign?

Alyssa Milano also loves A's pitcher "Curvalicious" Barry Zito! (And so should you.) 

Alyssa Milano loves the Oakland A's!  

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.