I'm so...cold...

Okay, here's the thing: I am generally a fairly patient and optimistic person. Really. My glasses are all full *of cool, cool delicious milk...mmmm*, my clouds are all shiny, I've got a bluebird on my shoulder *actually, no, because that would be scary, but metaphorically*--all that jazz. HOWEVER, if the rain does not ceases very, very soon, my brain is actually going to explode. Everywhere. Like a mashed potato volcano. Or just...a volcano. And when it explodes, it is going to explode is such a way that each particle of my brain goo will become an unstoppable mini-killing machine, complete with tentacles and googly eyes, and no one will survive. So please, for all of our sake's, someone shut off the rain. Someone just take a gigantic wrench and turn off that tap in the sky. I'm begging you. Everything smells like wet dog because apparently wet college student and wet dog=pretty much the same thing. I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. Hampshire Admissions, I've thought about this long and hard, and I have a proposition for you: let's just move Hampshire to the location displayed below:

Seriously, let's just pack up and go there. Someone can just figure out a way to move all the buildings to Tahiti as their Div III and we'll be golden. No one will even know the difference--we can even bring some sheep and some lesbians so people think it's still in the Valley. It's totally a fool-proof idea. There's no chance on it going utterly, utterly, horribly wrong. None.
If this rain continues until Hampshire Halloween, I am switching my costume from punk Harry Potter to slug person. I will give up on sunlight and live in the earth and avoid salty foods. TAKE THAT, RAIN MAN.

cassidy cassidy cassidy cassidy cassidy

This entry brought to you by the Little Sister's League for Blog Inclusion.


This is Cassidy, who lambasted *I. LOVE. THAT. WORD.* for not including her by name in the last entry, even though I referred to "The Family" like 689 times. Cassidy enjoys soccer, bad jokes, and reversing her eyebrow hair to freak me out. Because it's really creepy. Really, try it. When Cassidy was young, I taught her her first word ("RAT") and generally helped to shape her character. Moral of this story? Never allow me around your children.

The conclusion of this entry brought to you by Katharine's Urgent Need for Scrambled Eggs and A Shower.

sweet cuppin' cakes, i love me some mmmmuffin

Life is never more perfect than when you're eating a freshly baked chocolate chip muffin, especially if you did not have to bake/pay for said muffin yourself. One of the things I love most about my mod is that the other people in it not only cook, but actually enjoy cooking, so often when I wander out of my room at 3 in the afternoon wondering if I'm going to have to have Cheetos and ketchup for breakfast again, there will be a plate of warm pastries for the taking. It's like magic.

You know, you would think that with a 4-day weekend, you would really have time to get things done. You would think. However, I have come to the conclusion that what everyone really needs is a 6-day weekend...which makes it not so much a week "end" as a "week," but whatever. There should only be one day of work, then 6 days of rest. Just like in the Bible! Er...I think.

Basically, I have somehow ended up with more work than I can throw a stick at, if I were inclined to throw sticks. I'd say that really has to qualify as one of humanity's top ten most useless expressions, because, let's face it, you can throw a stick at pretty much anything. It might not help, but you can do it, and probably feel a little better about things. You can even throw intangible sticks at your emotions for fun--except for that bastard ennui. You can't throw a stick at ennui. It won't care. I wonder if I could hand in a stick as one of my response papers, though. I could just be like, "This is how I responded to the text," and then throw the stick at my professor. That's one case where throwing a stick at things might actually be constructive...or restraining order-inducing...

The to-do list, as it stands today: A paper on The Cheese and the Worms *a book that is not nearly as gross as it sounds* and a paper on Nazi book burnings for Dangerous Books; an essay on Maus and an essay on Poison River for my comic book class midterm; an ending for my Lost in the Story story cycle; my Division I portfolio; my Division II applications. Now, it's not like any of this involves, like, high-level neurocalculus or anything, but it's a lot of words. A LOT. And I like words, most of the time, but at some point there are just so many your brain just starts going, "Merrrrrrrrrrrrrgh," and wanting to draw pictures of bunnies for the rest of your academic career. HOWEVER, as all of my pictures of bunnies end up looking more like pictures of fuzzy scissors, I think I'll continue to slog my way through the writing, even though Kim from America's Next Top Model is apparently wandering around Northampton today. I'm giving up lesbian model stalking for my studies, okay? I think that pretty much says how incredibly scholarly I am.

Where did I leave off in updating? Oh! Last last Wednesday...jeez. This is going to get sketchy, guys. Expect a lot of, "And then something else happened, but I don't remember what. THE END." So, on Wednesday, Kel and Kate dragged me out of bed (so many of my stories start out that way) and made me go to the ThirstyMind, where I ate chocolate cake and more or less studied. Then I went to Lost in the Story, which I've officially decided is my favorite class in the universe. I mean, my other classes rock, but Lost in the Story centers completely around making shit up, and if there's anything in this entire world I'm capable of doing, it's making shit up. We're currently in the middle of a story cycle, wherein six people write six separate beginnings to a story, then six people write the middle, then six people write the end...Ours is kind of weird, though, because it's not like you continue one of the stories--you just write a middle based on all six beginnings, but you don't necessarily have to include all of them. It's a little bizarre, and I'm not entirely sure what's going to come of it, but thus far it's been supremely entertaining. Our final project for the class is to write a 20-page short story, and for once I've actually started working on a final two months before it's due. Thus far my story involves giant squid sex, a legless poetess, and a guy named Edgar. I'm not really certain how it's all going to come together, but I assure you it will be fabulous. After class I went over to Kel's to cook pasta for the QCA's Sexy Spaghetti Soiree, and by "cook pasta" I mean "stand around while Kel cooked the pasta and occasionally asked me to hand her things." We made a ginormous pot of pasta, which we then lugged over to the QCA for our family-style coming out dinner--but a good family-style coming out dinner, not like the family-style coming out dinners that end up with someone getting kicked out of the house. We got about fifteen people, which was good considering the weather was still apolocalyptic, all of whom shared there coming out stories after I pointed to them and forced them to. I told mine first, and I would totally relate it here except that I feel it's completely one of those tales that has to be told in person in order to get the full effect, because it's amazingly ridiculous. So if you see me and we're not in a red state, ask me about my coming out story and I'll totally tell you--and even include sound effects and inappropriate hand motions!

Thursday has been deleted by this blog, since I can't remember anything significant happening that day. Friday, though, my parentals and sisters got into town for Friends and Family weekend and saw my amazingly clean room, which was amazingly clean for a grand total of about 2 seconds after they left. I even vacuumed--it was intense. We were hoping for that, like, picture-perfect tourist-heaven leaf-turning New England weather, but instead we got rain. SO. MUCH. RAIN. I stopped taking showers for about a week just because they reminded me entirely too much of rainfall. I HATE RAIN NOW. I used to really like it, because it only showed up occasionally, but it has overstayed its welcome. Also, can we just dwell on the general bizarre-ness of water falling from the sky every couple of days? I mean, I know it makes perfect natural sense, but it's really sort of odd. It's also odd that the days we think of as nice are created by a giant fireball. Weather is trippy, man.

Right. So, Friday night we went to dinner at the Teapot in Northampton, which is pretty much exactly like Taipei and Tokyo, where I usually eat Chinese and Japanese food, except that they get angrier at you if you and your friends just order tea and one plate of dumplings. After dropping by the Hampshire Mall to discover that every movie we wanted to see had started exactly, like, 15 minutes before, we went to Haymarket for smoothies. Look, if you ever go to Northampton, there is really only one thing that you are, like, required by law to do, and that is go to Haymarket and have a smoothie. Not only is it in a really cool space, but they have the best smoothies in the universe, bar none--and yes, and that includes the Smoothie Planet of Smoothiedromeda. I had the Swamp Thing, which looks sort of like tar and tastes kind of like perfection. The other thing you should probably do if you're ever in Northampton is go to Faces, the store of many wonders, where I brought the Family immediately afterward and bought the coolest tiki-man mirror you will ever see. Then the Family came over to Kate's mod to meet Kate and Amy, which was pretty much hilarious just because any meeting of people I know is generally hilarious, since everyone I know has very little sense of the concept of "tact" but is ridiculously familiar with the concept of "awkwardness." After the Family went back to their hotel, I hung out with Kate, Harry, Ben, and Amy in Kate's room, a gathering which basically consisted of fighting over Fruit Roll-ups *with tongue tattoos!* and freaking out because the tiki man-mirror is kind of terrifying. The mirror part is where the mouth would be, so when you look into it there are these giant teeth above and below your face, which is disconcerting even when you haven't eaten 15 Fruit Roll-ups. Then Kate and I went over to my mod to watch Saved! Ellen came over at some point to talk about how she and Kel have pretty much the exact same fashion sense *read: emo boi/mountain woman fashion sense* and some time after that I fell asleep. Saturday the Family came to fetch me at some ridiculously early hour like 10 for breakfast at the Route 9 diner, where I have spent many a late and insane night. After brunch we went for ice cream at Flayvors, which has incredible ice cream. Look, if you can smell the cow manure, you know the place has good ice cream. It's that fresh. On Friends and Family weekend, Hampshire always has all kinds of crazy activities at the Farm Center, so we went there to pet the donkey and goats and run away from the roosters, which are terrifying. We drank apple cider that was cidered right before our eyes, saw Jacob Wolf Lefton *BEST. NAME. EVER.* blacksmith it up, and took a wild adventure through the wilderness in search of cows but only found mud, a weird girl we think might be one of those mythical Hampshire students who went off to live in the forest, and a hay ride we had to avoid at short notice several times. We also saw Ellen D., the only other person from my high school to apply to and/or come to Hampshire. She was a year behind me at school, and told me she picked Hampshire based solely on the fact that I liked it so much and she didn't want to deal with applying anywhere else, which I found really amusing. After our wholesome family farm fun, we got in the car and prepared to drive 4 hours to the middle of nowhere, a journey that was made significantly more awesome by the fact that we listened to Mitch Hedberg for most of the trip. If you've never heard Mitch Hedberg, you are not only a loser, but you probably can't understand 23% of what I say. So go listen and enlighten yourself, because he's the best guy...ever. My entire family completely loved him, which should pretty much tell you how un-Tennessean they really are. Oh, as to why we decided to drive 4 hours in the pouring rain to destinations unknown--it was my grandmother's 80th birthday, so my uncle had booked us all rooms at this really cool inn called the Governor's House, so named because it was apparently once a Governor's House. Creative. The inn was in New Hampshire, though, and as far as I'm concerned the whole of New Hampshire can pretty much be categorized under "middle of nowhere." It's full of moose and pretty much nothing else. After driving down roads that had no landmarks except "that big tree" and "that slightly less big tree," we found the place and got prepped for our fancy dinner. And boy, was it fancy. My immediate and extended family, though, has some problems with the concept of fancy, so it pretty much ended up being "loud and inappropriate" and therefore really, really fun. They sat us in our own separate room, which was probably very good thinking on their part. I had some kind of amazing pork tenderloin and mashed potatoes and then, of course, huge amounts of the person-sized chocolate cake they brought out at the end. I had been instructed to talk as little as possible in order to avoid scandalizing my young New Hampshire cousins, but somehow we all ended up making inappropriate comments about St. Francis of Assisi and the wedding next door regardless of my direct influence. The next morning we had brunch, which means bacon and cheese crepes, which means *drooooooool*. I LOVE CREPES. Were it legal, I would completely marry a crepe and have half-crepe babies and fight for the rights of crepes everywhere and then open a crepe restaurant called "Holy Crepe" and then realize how if you type the word "crepe" enough times, it starts to not mean anything anymore. Crepe. Crepe. Crepe. Oh my god I need to stop. ANYWAY, after the eating we went to Atkins Farms, which is full of fresh, wholesome food goodness. We got chicken and cider donuts, then I went back to Hampshire and bid farewell to the family. I then had the QCA meeting, to which only one person showed up because the weather had gone from apocalyptic to suicide-inducing. Again--I HATE RAIN.

But Monday! Sweet, sweet Monday! On Monday the clouds parted and the sunshine reigned! I called my mom just to be like, "See, I swear it's pretty here most of the time! You guys just have awful timing!" Monday morning I was so inspired by the sunlight I cooked a turkey. Yes--a turkey. An entire...turkey. This mystified my modmates and pretty much everyone I know, all of whom were like, "Honey...you don't even have the patience for Eggo waffles. Why are you cooking a turkey?" The answer is simple and stupid. Upon my last grocery trip, I realized you could get way more lunch meat from a whole turkey than those, like, deli meat things. Somehow, I failed to realize that to get that meat, though, I would at some point actually have to cook said turkey. When my mom came up, she gave me instructions, and so I just decided, "Well, it's either cook it or use it for arts and crafts, and the latter just seems wrong somehow, so let's cook it!" So I did, and it worked, which is the really remarkable thing. Now, though, I have like 8 pounds of turkey sitting in a plastic pitcher in the fridge since we didn't have a Tupperware container big enough to hold it. I'm kind of like Martha Stewart. Tuesday I went to work, had class, and probably did something amazing I don't remember. Wednesday I had class and then America's Next Top Model, which a bunch of first-years always get all glammed up and come over to my mod for. It's kind of bizarre, as is Shawn in drag, which he always dresses up in for the duration of the show. Wednesday is my total TV night--there's ANTM, LOST, and Drawn Together, which is the most TV I ever watch in one night ever anymore. Thursday I worked, hung out with Kate and Kel, and went to the Yurt meeting--the Yurt is our on-campus media center, built in the style of a Mongolian yurt because hey, you can do that here. I went to the meeting to get a radio show, and lo and behold! I have one. They're actually allowing me airtime, which is hilarious. My friends were so excited and also like, "How do you even find out about this stuff? You lead like seven different mysterious lives." It's on Internet radio, meaning no FCC standards *YES* and right now it's on-campus only, so if you want to hear it you'll have to come to Hampshire. Wouldn't that be awesome if I got some prospective student to come to Hampshire purely because they wanted to hear my radio show? I think I would get a trophy from Admissions or something. After watching Alias and bugging Kate at Pub Safety, I went with Amy to K2, where most of the people who lived with us on E2 last year live. They were all having some insane hall drama that was threatening to escalate into a gang war, but for all the tension it was a pretty fun night. There's just something about living on a hall that makes people extra-angsty. In the mods, I guess, you have more space, so you want to kill each other less, but on living on a hall is like being trapped in tube where you can only run from one end to the other. Not that I know what that's like or need years of therapy from when my parents made me play "The Tube Game" or anything. After hanging with them we went back to my mod to watch Jerry Maguire and eat sourdough bread with olive oil and pepper, which is an excellent snack that makes you feel like you're being healthy even though you're probably completely not.

Friday I...oh right! Was dragged out of bed by Kate and Kel. Right, of course. We went errand-running all day and ate at Cafe Fireside, where someone had decided the special of the day needed to be "combine three of Katharine's favorite foods into a pasta dish" so they had chicken, shrimp, and broccoli alfredo. OMG SO GOOD. That+dark chocolate mousse=the perfect meal. Then we came back to my mod to watch Space Cases, which I loved as a child and just found for download *Firefly fans--it has Jewel Staite as the ship's engineering genius--she's been playing the same character for, like, 10 years.* We also watched Amy's home movies, where she mostly yells about food and falls down a lot, so it's pretty much the same as her life today. Kate and Kel then went off to study, while Amy and I watched Inspiration Today for like 2 hours. It was terrifying yet addictive. We watched some guy named Alvin Slaughter *just pause to take in that name* lead praise worship and then some creepy bishop guy tell us to give him all our money because Jesus said we should. It totally reminded me of my Genesis Weekend experience, which I told Amy about, where one of my friends from school invited me to a "sleepover with her friends" that turned out to be a "Genesis Weekend sleepover" which means "the sleepover in which we try to save your soul." We weren't allowed to listen to anything but Christian music or talk about anything un-Christian, which meant it was not only really boring, but I had nothing to listen to/talk about. There was also this creepy group leader woman who wanted me to fill out a survey with my name, address, and a list of people I hung out with who I thought were going to hell, to which I responded, "OH GOD OH GOD," and locked myself in another room. I stayed in there listening to my Gorillaz CD until this girl came in and told me she didn't think that was Christian music, but I told her "Clint Eastwood" was actually one of Jesus' nicknames, so it counted. The next morning they took me to their mega-church, where me and all the other heathen kids tricked into coming basically tried to act invisible while the preacher guy denounced everything from women to Democrats to people who drive Volkswagens. It was really, really funny/frightening. If you're ever wondering why I'm not so much a fan of Tennessee, a lot of it can probably be traced back to that story. That and NASCAR.

This morning I cooked scrambled eggs and have since spent the rest of the day listening to Miles Davis, Cowboy Bebop, and the Triplets of Belleville soundtrack, because they are somehow the most conducive to studying. And, speaking of studying, mayhaps I should wrap up this entry and do a little of that. After all, contrary to popular belief, I am actually a student here and not just some wandering homeless person who hangs out in people's mods and eats their muffins. I swear...

Someone gives Bush a hammer--hilarity ensues

I'm no expert in building--unless, of course, it involves LEGOs or popsicle sticks, of which I am the undisputed master--but doesn't the way he's holding that hammer seem like he's unsure what it's for? Or where he is? Or what the hell he's doing? These photo ops are really getting out of hand--a tool belt and hardhat, people? I mean, really--as if Bush has every built anything but an evil empire in his life. I've been put in prison for some of things I've accidentally done with power tools and I think even I'm more competent with a hammer than that guy. Apparently he just spent most of the time chatting, signing autographs, and posing for pictures in the style of, "I have an IQ of 35 and there's a rabid wildebeest running toward me from just off-camera"--or at least that's what I'm gathering from his expression in the above pic. He also made sure to tell everybody that even though it's really, really hard, being the President, he's holding up okay and damn it, he's a survivor. If he can get through Hurricane Katrina, then by the stars and stripes, everyone can. The best part is this picture is from FOX news, who posted it because apparently it's supposed to be inspiring and spirit-lifting, as opposed to irrefutable proof that Bush has the mental facilities of a mentally sub par prairie dog.

I also like the strategy for glossing over the whole horribly, horribly slow response to Katrina: *actual quote* "If I didn't respond well enough, I'm going to learn the lessons." See, we know your city's destroyed, we know thousands of people are dead, we know that some strengthening of the levees probably could have prevented a good deal of this, but the important thing is that Bush learned a lesson, and now he knows not to do it again. Don't you care about the president's education? Stop being selfish and let him hold the hammer, New Orleans. Jeez. You know, guys, just like he keeps telling us, Bush's job is really hard. I mean, he has to keep playing dress-up and getting his picture taken all day. It's just like my job--when I was five. Those were some trying times, my friends--I sympathize with the guy, I really do.

On to my day, which also, incidentally, involved a toolbelt and a hard hat, though in an entirely different context--unless Habitat for Humanity has added free construction worker-themed strippers to their services, in which case it's exactly the same context. I got up at 8:15 *ewwwww* to go eat breakfast at the Bridge and poster for the Sexy Spaghetti Soiree with Kel. She then walked me over to Eric Carle, where I worked until I had to go over to UMass for Noam Chomsky. Now, Noam Chomsky is awesome--like, linguistic superhero awesome--but he's not exactly what you would call a dynamic speaker. It was basically like being in one of those lecture classes where you're not entirely sure the professor actually knows anyone's there and might just be reading out loud to himself, which I haven't actually had to suffer through since high school. He also managed to ruin my childhood--a couple of years ago we found this tape of me telling this story of this boy who turns into a magic pebble and thought it was the best story ever and that I was some amazing child prodigy, but Noam Chomsky revealed that there was a story exactly like it, about Sylvester the donkey, already in print, and that my entire life has been a lie. Don't ask me why Noam Chomsky was talking about Sylvester the donkey--I have no idea--but it was a horrible moment. Though, I have to say, a story about a guy turning into a rock sounds way smarter coming from a five-year-old than an actual adult author. I kind of can't believe anyone wrote that book. I wanted to see Chomsky's other talk, the one actually at Hampshire, which was supposed to be more politically oriented, but I had comic book class and even Noam Chomsky can't keep me from the best class in the entire universe. I got dinner at Fatzo's and also bought a white chocolate mocha at Starbucks for the sole purpose of staying awake during comic book class, what with the having gotten up at 8:15 and not usually being conscious for more than about 8 hours at a time. I'm glad I planned ahead, because the class was awesome--we had a guest speaker named Michael Kasper who does artists books and revealed that apparently Amherst College, despite being Current Preppy, Elitist Headquarters of the Universe, is actually in possession of one of the biggest collections of alternative media ever because of this special fund they got from one of their dead hippie ex-students. So that was weird. He passed out and talked about a bunch of artists books, which he described as the "kissing cousins" of comic books. Really, though, couldn't he have just said that they were cousins? Why do they have to be kissing cousins? When did it become necessary for two things to start making out in order to be related? After comic book class, Sarah and I discussed the accessories necessary for being the coolest person in the world, which include: snowshoes; an umbrella/cane with a pocketknife/pen in it; gloves that exude fingerpaint; goggles that actually attach to your eyeballs and let you switch between infrared, x-ray, and night vision just by blinking; a helmet that beams TV to said goggles; and finally, a full-body camoflague suit. Admit it, if you had all that, there's no way you could not be the coolest person in the world. Wow, that sentence was awkward. For some reason, outlining those requirements seemed really important at the time, but now I have no idea why. Now, though, what will make me the coolest person in the world is to stop smelling vaguely like kitty litter, so I'm going to go take a shower.

I walk like a penguin and love like a stallion.

You know how sometimes you think, "Wow, even if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes tried, they just could not get any creepier?" Well, as usual, you are utterly and completely wrong and worthless. *I love making you agree with things just to vehemently denounce them seconds later--it's so empowering!* The Holmes-o-sexuals totally just got weirder. Apparently, Scientology has this thing called silent birth, which, just like their intergalactic alien ruler Xenu, is exactly what it sounds like. You can't talk, play music, or scream during birth, and newborns cannot be poked or prodded for medical tests or be spoken to for the first seven days of their lives. The idea is that the baby goes through so much trauma in, y'know, being born, that it shouldn't have to experience any sort of sensory experience that could further harm it. Okay. Let's discuss. An infant's job, basically, is to wiggle down the biological equivalent of a water slide. Granted, if said water slide belongs to Katie Holmes, I could understand how the infant could be horribly tramautized, but I really don't think it's the infant we need to be concerned about. I'm almost certain I've never given birth, but from what I've heard, it's the sort of experience that requires a lot of screaming. A LOT. And maybe some light Trent Reznor. Also, I suspect the no medical test thing is just something Tom Cruise threw in there to ensure there won't be a paternity test, because this child was clearly conceived with L. Ron Hubbard's frozen sperm. I should know, because I'm a doctor in the field of L. Ron Hubbard's frozen sperm. It's my Div III.

So, last week, starting with the Day of Thurs: I worked all day and then went to the QCA, where we were watching Fire, this Indian lesbian film that was, just like my existence and DVD collection, banned in India. It was basically an excuse to get Indian food delivered, but it was actually pretty good, though the QCA is always disorientingly warm and the film was kind of weird and we all ended up feeling like we might have all just take an Indian food-induced trip together. After Fire Kel and I went to go visit Kate at Pub Safety, where she works as a switchboard operator, which is apparently the equivalent of working as a rock. We were there for an hour and she got exactly one call and spent the rest of her time contemplating on whether to get ants or termites tattooed on her shoulder. If I were to get a tattoo, I somehow doubt the choice would be between ants and termites, mostly because if I had ants tattooed on my shoulder I'd wake up every morning and go, "OH SHIT!" and scrape off my skin with my Bowie knife before realizing it was a tattoo, which would get annoying after awhile. My choices would be between like, getting "AWESOME" tattooed across my forehead or having Bob Saget's face, life-size, on my back, which is way not as weird as bugs on your shoulder.

Friday we decided to go into Amherst for dinner, and for some reason decided to split a quesadilla as an "appetizer" at Bueno Y Sano then go to Fatzo's for our "main course" of foot-long hot dogs and fries. It was some high society shit, for sure. Everything is Illuminated finally came to the Academy of Music, and I decided I had to go see it immediately, so Kel dropped me off in Noho and I killed time in Haymarket with a sweet, sweet Swamp Thing smoothie until the movie. The Academy of Music is officially one of the coolest movie theaters ever--even USA Today says so, and if USA Today says it, it must be true, because their little graphs make everything seem so official. It's this old-time theatre that was converted into a cinema, but they basically just added a screen and left all the interior decoration and chairs and whatnot intact, so they still have private boxes and balconies and a Member's Lounge and library and all that jazz. Plus tickets and popcorn are both very cheap, which is sweet. I've been waiting for Everything is Illuminated pretty much forever, and it was so crazily good. Depressing, at times, but awesome. However, I'm totally baffled as to how people are attracted to Elijah Wood, because to me, he looks like a weird mix between a twelve-year-old boy and a ferret. Plus, ever since Sin City and Lord of the Rings, he's kind of scared the shit out of me. That guy is one crazy hobbit. After the movie I found out that Amy and Kel had decided our "dessert" course would be at the Route 9 diner, which is open 24 hours and which I frequently seem to show up to at 3 am in fishnets and inappropriate make-up. We played "Stacey's Mom" and Patsy Cline on the jukebox, which I'm certain made us popular with the regulars. Our waitress was kind of cracked out, and when I asked for my banana split without nuts, she just stared at me silently for about three minutes, so I asked, "Are the nuts...like...already in it?" even though I could not fathom any way in which that would be possible. On the way home, we listened to Amy's mix CD and discussed how Amy, Kate, and Kel all have various geeky and shameful things that they're into, like Xena and Buffy and Rasputina, but I'm the one whose into every single one of those geeky and shameful things. I'm like the glue of geeky shame. It's beautiful.

On Saturday, it rained. And rained. And--oh, oh, wait for it, wait for it--RAINED some more. It did not let up ONCE--and that's not just doing my usual minor exagerations, like when I say there were 3,000 supermodels at my house last night and really there were only negative two. I waited for it to stop all damn day so I could go do laundry--I know, I know, this sounds like a lie, but it's the truth--and it did. NOT. STOP. Not even, for like, .3 seconds. Kel and I were pretty convinced it's the Great Flood, and she was freaking about because a guy named Noah just moved out of her mod and she thought it was a sign. I went over to Ellen's mod to watch A League of Their Own *shut up, I'm cool* and walking home was terrifying--I just kept singing Madonna and holding my umbrella really tightly in the hope that would somehow repel the rain. My umbrella actually flipped inside out several times, which I'm not sure I was totally aware it could do. When I got back, I was like, "I have so much laundry. My room smells like cabbage. And this rain will never stop. Something's got to give." So I decided to do my laundry in the midst of the rainstorm, which had just added high winds to its reportoire, at 1:30 am. I also decided to launder the dirty, wet shirt I was currently wearing, but I'm not going to tell you how I accomplished that, because I think it's probably illegal in several counties. On Sunday Kel, Sosin, and I spent pretty much all day at the Thirsty Mind, which is this coffee/wine bar near Mt. Holyoke that seems to be one of the only places on Earth I can successfully get a substantial amount of work done. It must be something about its precise positioning in the cosmos--or possibly its Mango Madness smoothies. Whatever it is, it's awesome, so we've taken to going there as much as possible, what with our workloads suddenly and inexplicably expanding to the size of a giant squid. I also called my parents and Mary, my sister, who just took the new and freaky SATs, which include an essay. Now, Mary can write, and not just like, her name and the word "cat" or anything. Most of the time, excepting her constant abuse of the word "incredulous," she's pretty eloquent, but apparently the SAT essay completely defeated her. The question was something pointless and ridiculous, like, "Is success earned through hard work, luck, or sexual favors? Use examples." Apparently, Mary's essay was eight lines long and used Dolly Parton as her primary example. Dolly...Parton. Otherwise known as Tits McGhee, or the founder of Dollywood and Dolly's Splash Country, Knoxville's major amusement parks. Also, the conclusion of the essay was somewhere along the lines of, "Scientists have to work hard to do stuff. So sucess is earned. Byeeee." Sadly, what with Tennessee's education system, it'll probably be in like, the top 15% of essays out there, sheerly on the basis of being recognizable as English. The best part of this whole story is she was telling her friend Katie about it, and Katie was like, "Oh, no, there's no way your essay could be worse than mine. I wrote about Dolly Parton," which I think pretty much proves that all of us Knoxvillians learned about life, we learned from Dollywood.

Today I had no classes due to Anti-Columbus Day, so I did work and made a broccoli and cheese omelet without setting anyone on fire, which is apparently key to the whole cooking thing. Kel also made me a pasta dinner and ice cream sundae because she's amazing and competent, and we were going to watch Arrested Development but could not because Fox bumped it in favor of baseball--and not just baseball, but the YANKEES. This is clear, clear evidence of an evil force at work in my life. Not only are my Sox dead, the Yankees killed my Monday night. CURSE YOU YANKEES--CURSE YOU. So instead of watching Arrested Development with Kate and Amy on speakerphone, we made posters for the QCA's Coming Out Dinner on Wednesday, which I had the fabulous idea of billing as a "Sexy Spaghetti Soiree." I have to get up early to poster tomorrow, so one might think I would get to sleep early tonight, but one would be wrong. For some reason, I've had the urge to watch Boondock Saints and Velvet Goldmine on a loop lately, so I'm currently watching clips of those between writing papers, which is really a bad idea, since last year I actually spent an entire paper written at 5 am referring to a critic named Rhys-Jones as Rhys-Meyers based entirely on Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' rock god hotness.

Apparently this winter is going to be even worse than the last, which was hellish, leading me to decide that I am officially okay with cannibalism. If we should get caught in a blizzard and I run out of chocolate pudding and other assorted foodstuffs, I will not hesitate to feast upon my modmates, and, to be totally democractic, I will simply change our chore wheel into a cannibalism wheel. Speaking of cannibalism, which I feel I do way too much lately--in t.a.T.u's new video, they totally shoot a guy in the head. *Hold on, the cannibalism part is coming, calm down.* It's ridiculous. I feel like if I had a pop band of any sort, my only goal would be to be as ridiculous as possible. I'd be like, "We're all pansexual cannibalistic *see?* Lithuanian bank accountants. OR ARE WE? ROCK OUT!" t.a.T.u's videos are, I've decided, exactly like what the O.C. should be/would be if it were cooler and more gay. Like, Marissa shot a guy in the O.C. season finale *which I totally do not know because I acted it out with my sisters five times or anything* but she wasn't gay or Russian by that point, so it was lame. t.a.T.u. videos are like super-short teen melodramas with no comic relief geeky Jewish guy--oh man, a comic relief geeky Jewish guy would totally make their video better, especially if all he did was come in after they shot the guy and make some smart ass comment and then go listen to some the Killers *Get it? Get it? The Killers? Man, I could totally be a comic relief geeky Jewish guy.* The other thing about t.a.T.u. is that you really feel like they could probably kill you/have you killed. I'm sensing some definite Russian mob connections there, and it's kind of hot. Oh, speaking of the O.C., if you have not yet seen The Bu, you need to. Like, pretty much immediately. But don't watch it at work, because it's got plenty of cursing and also you will not be acting as a productive member of society. But I guess if you're reading this blog that idea's pretty much shot anyway.

I'm creeped out by how all my weird interests end up being connected. For example: I went to go see Everything is Illuminated. This connects to Hampshire by way of the writer and director (Liev Schreiber) and to DeVotchKa, who I discovered because they did the music for the Everything is Illuminated trailer. Yesterday, I found out that DeVotchKa is not only coming to Noho in November, but they're touring with the Dresden Dolls, my second-favorite band of all time. Last year, I discovered that the Dresden Dolls are one of the all-time favorite bands of my all-time favorite author, Neil Gaiman, who is also into the Gorillaz, one of my other all-time favorite bands. Tina Weymouth does occasional bass and back-up vocals for the Gorillaz, and Tina Weymouth is the former bassist for the Talking Heads, my first-favorite band of all time. Plus, Tina Weymouth's kid is now a first-year at Hampshire, and a Hampshire grad did the animation for my favorite film in the universe, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. JESUS. What happened to the days when a girl could have an interest that was genuinely obscure? I'll decide that my new favorite band is like, those guys in Amherst who play "Easy Like Sunday Morning" on the synethesizer, and next week they'll be touring with David Byrne and doing the music for Joss Whedon's new film. This is not helping my street cred.

Okay, I have to go to work, class, and Noam Chomsky tomorrow, as well as write about 7,000 papers, so I'll catch you guys on the flip side. Stay cool and don't take any radioactive nickels, for reasons that should really be readily apparent.

i was a teenage blog queen, part 3

PART UÇ: Because Turkish is the only language I can confidently count to three in.

Is Salon.com's new look freaking anyone else out? It's not that I don't like it, it's just that Salon is my homepage so every time I open a new window I'm like, "UNFAMILIAR! MUST DESTROY!" and my computer's not handling that too well. I guess I have to learn to adjust to change with more dignity and less electronic violence.

So, I was on Friday, yeah? I might stop at Friday because asking me to remember that many days back is like asking a hippo to cook crème brulee. They can do it, but not without a lot of highly motivational electric shocks. Believe me, I know. So Friday--Kate was sick with something we all were really afraid was mono, but which seems to have just been a 72-hour death plague. So we took it easy during the day and went into Amherst for Mexican food, which we always get from this cheap yet pretty good place called Bueno Y Sano. Kate wanted to see if she could try to keep any food down, so I'm not really sure why her first instinct was Mexican. I mean, most people go with dry toast. Anyway, she didn't vomit on me, for which I was grateful, as usual, and we went to CVS to stock up on black and glow-in-the-dark nail polish because, you see, we were going to a show that night. A show of epically amazing proportions, which I have been waiting for since 8th grade: Rasputina. Oh, yes, the Rasputina concert was Friday night at Pearl St., and man, it was actually ridiculously awesome. Like I said, I've wanted to see Rasputina since I first discovered black nail polish and angst, and I didn't actually know they were still alive until Kate was like, "Um...Katharine...I would feel ashamed to ask pretty much anyone else in the world this, but...would you go to the Rasputina show with me?" I was like, "Kate, I've been waiting for someone to ask me that my entire life, and I've just been too ashamed to say so." Rasputina, for those of you who never went through a teenage goth phase, is a cello-based rock band that sings about death, Transylvanian concubines, and robotic mechanical snowmen *see? Told you there was a robotic mechanical snowman in this part.* So we got all gothed-up: actually, I don't know what the hell Kate's clothing was supposed to represent--she had on, like, clamdigger jeans, a torn Joan Jett shirt, and black Chucks, but she also had glow-in-the-dark nail polish and pseudo-mono-induced paleness, so I guess that's somewhat fitting in the whole child or darkness image. I finally had a reason to wear my skull barrettes and not feel like a jackass, so I donned those and my awesome porcelain doll dress with combat boots. We also spent an hour doing make-up in Kate's room, which was weird since Kate never wears make-up and I couldn't look at her too long without freaking out. We got to Pearl St. around 8:40 and walked in to the weirdest mix of people I've ever seen at a show...ever. There were weirdly energetic Goth kids in the corner, a sixty-year-old man sitting on the floor in the middle of the crowd, creepy drunk guys with out-of-control hair and leather jackets, and lots of people who looked like they weren't entirely sure what they had gotten themselves into. The opening band was called Tarantula A.D., and apparently, the depth of their angst was so great that they couldn't express it through lyrics, but only by moaning while rocking out on the cello and gong. My favorite song was definitely "Who Took Berlin?" which went on for like 20 minutes and ended with an inexplicable recording of bird noises, because....birds...apparently...took Berlin. Throughout this, Kate and I were like, "Oh god...we've made a huge mistake." However, Tarantula A.D. eventually took their fake British accents and left the stage, at which point Rasputina showed up and everything was wonderful. They set up to the opening theme to "Snow White" and they were wearing these ridiculous, like, hippie-gothic-fairy princess costumes, except the drummer guy, who just had these giant bells threaded into his beard. Kate quickly pointed out that Zoe, the second cellist, looked pretty much exactly like what Sydney Bristow would look like if she went undercover as a dreadlocked musician, which I completely agree with. She was so. Incredibly. Hot. I couldn't stop staring at her, because it was seriously, like, if Jennifer Garner lost 15 pounds and played the cello like a madman. Anyway, Melora, the lead singer, was like, "Hey everyone! Can all of you see?" We were like, "*mutter mutter* No *mutter*" and she was like, "Okay, then I'm going to have to ask all of you to sit down." We thought she was kidding, but then she was like, "Really, it isn't fair to pay for a show and not see anything." So, suddenly, we all just sat down on the floor, which, while awkward, actually made the whole thing way more enjoyable than standing for an hour and a half. I totally felt like it was story time, and she was going to be like, "Okay, children, once upon a time..." Which is sort of what she did, only...weirder. She had this amazing, high-pitched, fast voice that I can't even attempt to describe and before ever song she would say these weird little things that made no sense, like, "Jesus juice made Bush's head explode, but I love snowmen and away we go!" And we were all like, "I...okay." It worked, somehow. They played some stuff from How We Quit the Forest, lots of random stuff, and, in what might have actually been the best moment of my life, a cover of Heart's "Barracuda." On the cello. My god. It was beautiful. Anyway, then they got to the end, and Melora was like, "Look, instead of pushing through the crowd and going into our dressing room and pretending we aren't coming back for an encore, we're just going to do the encore now. Okay? Cool." Basically, they were the coolest ever. It didn't really resemble any show I've been to in my entire life, and Kate and i both came out being like, "Huh. We totally thought this experience was going to be way more shameful. Sweet." After coming back home to be mocked by Amy and Andrew for our evening activities, we ended up watching Quills at Kate and Kel's mod until 4 in the morning, which is really an uplifting, family film, if "uplifting, family film" means "makes the baby Jesus and Buddha cry." I also conducted a survey among by friends and random passerbys in honor of Serenity. The poll was as follows: Who would win in an ultimate battle of strength and wits? The choices were:
1. Cowboys
2. Pirates
3. Astronauts
4. Sex workers
5. Dinosaurs

In a shocking upheaval, the sex workers soundly kicked everyone else's asses, with 38.1% of the vote. Now, look, I don't deny that a sex worker could probably beat a cowboy, and maybe even a pirate, but a dinosaur? Dinosaurs are immune to human sexual wiles! They will eat you regardless of your flexibility and poise! Also, I got 42 people to vote in this poll, and only about 1/3 of them were visibly intoxicated. Yeah, I don't know how I managed to get people to seriously consider this question either. Maybe it's one of those cosmic mysteries people secretly wonder about but never want to bring up in conversation because they're afraid of the truth. Or maybe I'm just on crack.

The final part in this trilogy of belated productivity is drawing to a close, my friends. I gave you your robotic abominable snowman, though I admit he was not named Freddy. Freddy is not a snowman, but this weird third or possibly fourth year who lived on Kate's hall last year. He refuses to tell people his name--somehow people just figured it out--and he has, like, 16 titles he's allowed to call people, like "kid" or "girl" or "madam." He refuses to call anyone by their actual name, and he has a creepy tendency to lurk and show up unexpectedly, asking for Popsicles. Some people, you figure, just couldn't really be anywhere but Hampshire. Namely, me and Freddy. Now I have to go to contemplate tonight's LOST episode and all possible meanings of the phrase "Don't try to teach your grandma to suck eggs," which someone said to me today and which has since left me wondering if everything I know about life is wrong.

EDIT: Um, also? If anyone can explain the purpose of this blog to me, I'll give you a prize.

i was a teenage blog queen, part 2

PART DEUX: In which our heroine faces danger, true love, and the complexities of something called "The Hampshire Mall."

Anyone keeping track of my schedule by way of the Katharine calendar they've painted with the blood of virgins on their wall probably realizes I just had class, thus explaining my updating delay for those of you who have been forced to gnaw off your own arm waiting for the middle piece of this incredible trilogy. Before anything else can be said, though, I think we all need to deal with this. Katie Holmes is pregnant. PREGNANT. By who or what, we may never know. I'm willing to pretty much place a $600,000 bet is wasn't Tom Cruise, though, since I'm pretty sure he would steal some unwitting infant and shove it into Katie Holmes then pull it back out again instead of having to have sex with her. Also, I'm no publicist--at least, not for anyone that's aware of it--but aren't you supposed to wait until people start speculating about your pregnancy to confirm it? Isn't screaming, "LOOK AT THE POTENCY OF TOM CRUISE'S SPERM!" a little suspicious and not in the whole spirit of the media? I mean, we don't even get the fun of guessing if you're just eating too many Ring-Dings or carrying a copy of Dianetics under your dress at all times. I fear desperately for the future of the child--not only are Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes its alleged parents, but they're loudly and frighteningly opposed to psychiatric help, and if Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are your parents, you're going to need a hell of a lot of psychiatric help. This cannot end well--unless, of course, they get their own reality show. Then it'll just be entertaining.

Where were we? Oh, right, Monday. So Monday before class I finally had time to finish Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, which I, due to my inherent amazingness, have a first edition, signed copy of. Weirdly, there were just a bunch of them at the bookstore in Noho, not for an increased price or anything, so I immediately snatched one up with glee. I completely recommend it, even if--actually, especially if--you didn't like American Gods, because it's really nothing like it. It's a lot lighter than a lot of Gaiman stuff, which is cool to see him do once and awhile. I mean, there's still plenty of death and weirdness, but it's more for comic effect than anything else. So--finished that and went to Dangerous Books, where we talked about The Name of the Rose, A.K.A. "This book I wrote to show you how much I know and how much of a loser you are." It's an Eco novel where he randomly launches into Latin just to be like, "Yo, bitches, I'm gonna go all intellegenter on your asses. Perite, molesti!" Yeah, Umberto Eco's kind of a gangsta. The villain in it is named after Jorges Luis Borges, though, who's pretty much my favorite guy ever, since he writes the sort of stories I feel I, being more Argentinean and blind, might write. Dangerous Books is usually followed by Tai Chi, but I was feeling like something had decided to nest in my insides, so I decided to just go home and wait for Arrested Development, which has just gotten progressively weirder and more amazing. Apparently, in their alternate universe O.C., there's a part of town called "Wee Britain" where all the British live, and it has one "American" restaurant where they just serve donuts and giant piles of ice cream. We laughed heartily at those silly British and their foolish perceptions of Americans as we raped and pillaged my chocolate mousse cake. Then we went to study at the Thirstymind near Mt. Holyoke, which is one of the places where you can study and simultaneously feel really cool and wonderfully pretentious. Sunday--oh, right, Sunday was grocery day/day of my immense and exciting ascension into adulthood. A pressing question: you can just get a Stop n' Shop card while you're in the store, if you have your ID on you, so I'm totally confused as to why people just don't get the card--I mean, you're already spending time buying groceries, so why not take, like, five minutes to get the coupon card? So many people don't have them. I think it's because everyone in the grocery store is kind of manic--maybe it's the lack of windows. I was just kind of chilling, and like, strolling the aisles, but all these people would zoom past and then cut directly in front of me to grab the Windex or whatever and glare at me like I was about to lunge for it. Then when I was checking out there was this one woman who just kept switching lines when she perceived that the line next to her was shorter than the one she was in, which backfired horribly, since she never actually got to the front of anyone's line. Grocery shoppers need to chill and realize they are in, like, the land of infinite food. If you are in a location where you could feasibly buy 15 pounds of raw meat and still have money left over for a Kit Kat bar, you really shouldn't complain. Because of my Stop n' Shop card, I bought a ridiculous amount of Cheerios, turkey, and pudding *pauses, considers* My god...I hope I never get so desperate that I end up somehow combining those things. After Stop N' Shop we went to Trader Joe's, which is like Fancy! Stop n' Shop, with frozen bananas and Fruit Leather. We also had an extensive discussion of Boy Meets World, which may rank as one of my 7 top favorite shows. I told Kel and Kate I'm actually coming home early from October break just because ABC Family is rerunning two episodes I really want to see, and they just sort of stared at me in disbelief. On a slightly more legitimate note, Noam Chomsky is actually speaking at Hampshire that night, so it's not totally unreasonable, since Noam Chomsky=the man. In a good and non-imperialist way, I mean. Sunday night was the Queer Community Alliance meeting--I'm totally a QCA signer, which means at some point this year I get a sweet sweatshirt and the ability to pretend I hold some semblance of authority. We bought popsicles and talked about having another underwear party this year--last year we held it in the middle of November in the QCA, and it smelled like sex for weeks afterwards. We're looking for an airier space this time. The QCA also managed to get Netflix, so we're getting all these cool international queer films, though the one we watched Sunday was pretty horrible. It was called--translated from the Spanish--"I'm sorry, duckie, but Lucas loved me!" and it was the sort of film you kind of want to claw your own eyes out while watching. So we turned it off and put in Hedwig and the Angry Inch instead, because you can never ever go wrong with transgender German rock stars. Unless you're me and you've just managed to overturn a busload of them using only a wheelbarrow and a drunken monkey, but that's a story for another day.

Saturday I awoke around 2 and went to the mall with Eric. Last year, Hampshire Mall was sort of like Oak Ridge mall: dead and empty and filled with old people and fabric stores. This year, it seems to be somewhat more happening, with lots more high school kids loitering in the parking lot trying to look as cool as one possibly can while loitering in a parking lot. We went to JoAnn's so Erik could get miscellaneous fabric for his room and I could come to terms with the fact that some people actually make their own clothes and draperies. I also went hunting for things for my Halloween costume, but found naught--oh man, have I mentioned yet what I'm going to be for Halloween? Because it's totally hot. Alice and I decided to form a Hogwarts contingent, so I'm going to be a punked-out, andro Harry while she does Ginny and Kate's Hermione. This also means I have an excuse to go to the Harry and the Potters show at Mt. Holyoke *but really, who needs an excuse?* so I can get a "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock" t-shirt and some advice on how to be the coolest Harry ever. We also got smoothies at the mall, because somewhere along the way I have developed a serious addiction to fruit smoothies. I used to hate them, because, you know, marginally healthy, but now I would totally pick a Haymarket smoothie over a chocolate milkshake. My friends, I think this is called growing up. And it's tasty.

After the mall, we hung out in Erik's mod being hipster-ish and watching the Scissor Sisters DVD, which is one of the coolest-made DVDs ever. I eventually tracked down Amy and Andrew and we got on the bus to go see Serenity, which I have been waiting for my entire life. True, I had already seen two sneak previews of it, but this felt legit, like the Geek Nation was finally getting some sunlight for once. I dressed up as Inara, a space prostitute, the first time we went, but I didn't dress up this time because it wasn't opening night and Amy pretty firmly told me she would beat me with a soldering iron if I showed up in costume. Speaking of, what the hell is a soldering iron? I think Amy's perception of it might be of something a lot more hefty than it actually is. Anyway, we met Kate at the ridiculously busy Hampshire Mall theater and saw the most amazing film in the world. The place was packed and everyone was really into it, cheering and applauding and apparently shouting comments at the screen that made no sense unless you had watched not only every episode but the special features on the Firefly DVD. On the way out, I even heard some guy go, "That was like ten ninjas!" which I'm pretty sure is the best rating you can give anything ever. There's not a bus that goes directly from the Mall to Hampshire, so we ended up in Northampton and, due to my complete and utter inability to read bus schedules, ended up waiting about an hour for a bus. Everyone knows I can't read bus schedules, and yet, somehow, every time, I end up in charge of reading them. I feel my friends are just masochists, deep down. We wanted to play four-square to pass the time, so I kept asking strangers if they had any balls, which was particularly awkward since we were at the Smith bus station. Eventually I got home and I seem to remember Jeff or Erik being around and some Diablo II being played before I went unconscious, but I might just be crazy.

Okay, so I lied about there being a robotic abominable snowman named Freddy is this post, but there's one in the next post, I swear. This one is being cut off due to my desperate need for Phish Food and That 70s Show. Never let it be said that I don't have priorities.

i was a teenage blog queen, part 1

Okay, I have decided that since this past week has been chaos and I have failed you all as a blogging mentor, I will make not one...*NOOOOO!*...not two...*NOOOOO!*...not three...*NOOO--oh wait. Yes, three.* THREE posts in ONE day. Basically that will consist of me breaking this post up into three random pieces, but it makes me feel productive, so I don't really care how inane my reasoning is. Oh, and while in deep and solitary contemplation of this entry, I realized I ought to detail my daily schedule so you can track my every movement and better learn the secrets of my divine being. So:

Monday
2:30-5:20: Dangerous Books--A class about books that can kill. And by "books" they actually mean "jagged pieces of flying metal," so at least it's never boring.
6:00-7:30: Tai Chi--In which I am actually required to move with something sort of like grace. Thus far, I am the star pupil, if "star pupil" means "has not yet broken every one of her limbs."
8:00: Arrested Development--IS. THE. BEST. SHOW. ON. TELEVISION. We watch it at my mod, usually with great quantities of ice cream, though this week we feasted upon the three-layer French chocolate mousse cake I got from Trader Joe's--mmmm. In an only marginally related but incredibly important question, do they have moose in France?

Tuesday
11:00-4:00: Work at the Eric Carle Museum--Because I am a picture book art pimp.
6:00-9:00: International Graphic Novel--A.K.A. Comic Book Class. A.K.A. I love my life.

Wednesday:
2:30-5:20: Lost in the Story--A fiction writing class, which I rock, because people can't get on me for things like "truth" and "perjury."
9:00: Lost--Whoa, I never realized what a "lost" day Wednesday is. Lost is watched in Kitty's mod with great quantities of angst, gasping, and confusion. I have no idea what the hell is going on in the show and every time an episode finishes I'm left with the burning desire to commit mass homicide, but I still watch faithfully.

Thursday
11:00-4:00: Work
8:00: Alias--Is soooooo bad now. Like, "we don't think anyone's watching so we're going to have an episode where Marshall takes some guy's eye out with a spork" bad. I keep watching, though, on the off-off-off-chance that someone will come up with a way to salvage it, which is super more unlikely now that Jennifer Garner has been impregnated by the Affleck. *Is it weird that every time I hear "Affleck" I also hear a little duck somewhere going "AFFFF-LECK?"*

There is nothing in the world quite as good as grilled cheese and tomato soup on a day of this temperature. Except maybe a Jacuzzi filled with hot chocolate. Okay, yeah, that's definitely better. However, since they do not sell Jacuzzis filled with hot chocolate at the Bridge *which, Hampshire admissions, if you're reading, they TOTALLY should*, I had to settle for cheesy/soupy goodness. This is actually my first trip to the Bridge this week, as on Sunday I carried out a mysterious and dangerous task known as grocery shopping. Not voluntarily, mind you--Kate came to my door at 1:30 and pretty literally dragged me from my bed, but I still feel pride. I even got a Stop n' Shop card while I was there, so I saved $25, which I immediately called and told my mom about. Because I'm...cool. I bought actual food, too, like corn and broccolli and mousse cake. AND the other day, I cooked a chicken! Well, not so much "a" chicken as a frozen chicken breast, but coming from the girl who once seriously effed up a box of Kraft's Easy Mac, that's quite an accomplishment. I even used spices! Well...pepper. I'm not about to go too crazy with this whole "cooking" thing--after all, I have a reputation to uphold. A reputation as a semi-illiterate bag lady, but a reputation nonetheless.

In updating, I'm going to go backward, because I'm innovative, edgy, and unpredictable. Also I have the memory span of a retarded squirrel. So: yesterday I went to work, where I entered 80 membership surveys into a spreadsheet. This is not nearly as monotonous as it sounds when they put you in the room with the lollipops, Hershey bars, and chocolate biscotti. After work I went to the Dakin Living Room because the International Studies office was having a presentation on Jan Term trips and free pizza, and if you've formed some sort of theory that free food controls about 88.9% of my major life decisions, you are correct. I really want to go on the trip to Ireland, since it's my ancestral homeland--or the only one I can claim with any certainty, anyway, since my grandfather on my Dad's side goes from telling us that we're descended from African kings to saying he's almost positive we're the last scions of Christ. Plus, Irish accents are pretty much the hottest things on Earth. The trip is to the west of Ireland--Galway, specifically--and it's studying land and literature, which means it's basically set up so the science kids can go off and talk to sheep while the writer kids roll around on the moors and get in touch with the essence of the sheep. It'll be sweet. After the meeting, I went to comic book class, where we talked about Mexican comic books, most of which are apparently pretty bad. We also talked about Rius, who came up with that whole "for beginners" book format, though his were all like "Trotsky for Beginners" and "The Murder of Capitalist Pigs for Beginners." Ironically, when you do a Google search for "Marx for Beginners," the first thing that comes up, before even Amazon.com, is a link to the Wal-Mart page where you can buy it at their low, low exploitative prices. I'm sure Rius would be proud.

I have comic book class with Jeff and Sarah, so going home is always interesting. Last week Jeff introduced me to amazing new concept I'm committed to refer to as much as possible. He explained to us that he is--wait for it--a "sexual ninja." Just pause to take in the awesomeness and all the possibilities of that for a moment. "See," he explained, "people don't know when I'm into them, because I'm stealthy about it and silent. And I make really cool movements." At which point he started to spasm, which is apparently what you should do around people if you don't want them to know that you like them. Also if you want them to move slowly away and never speak to you again. I think I should write one of those, like, "He's Just Not That Into You" books called "Getting in Touch With Your Sexual Ninja" and form some kind of Lifetime-watching army of untapped power. Shortly after the "sexual ninja" demonstration, other-Sarah and Jeff composed an a capella piece in the style of Kel's super-awesome band "Ralph Hextor and the Manfreds," which was basically a musical rendering of Hextor's convocation speech with occasional high-pitched "MAN-FRED!"s thrown in. For non-Hampshirers: Ralph Hextor is our new president. Manfred is his partner, and anyone named Manfred should be worked into conversation as many times as humanly possible.

This week on the way home, Jeff decided he wanted to make new friends. These three fresh-faced young first years got on the bus and sat across from us, looking oddly exuberant because they had gotten a pizza. I think it was very special for them. Jeff, being Jeff, decided to make awkward and creepy conversation with them.

Jeff: Hey guys, nice pizza.
Boy 1: Thanks! If I had more, I would share. But I don't, so I...won't.
*Awkward silence*
Jeff: Soooo...are you guys Hampshire students?
Kids: Yeah.
Jeff: Oh, good. Well, I guess you couldn't really be Mount Holyoke students--except you (gestures to the girl). *Thoughtful pause* And you, I guess (to Boy 1). You're pretty like a girl.
*Awkward silence*
Jeff: Soooo...want to see how I can make a vagina with my hands?

Contrary to popular belief, people will not give you their pizza if you tell them that they are "pretty like a girl" and offer to show them your non-existent genitalia. A lesson hard learned, my friends.

Okay, I think this is as good a place as any to randomly truncate this entry. In Part 2: More ninjas! Spaceships! A robotic abominable snowman named Freddy! YOU CAN'T MISS THIS.