that sure puts the oyster on the berrybottoms

Sometimes my friends are vampires. Sometimes I have to stake them with my broken cane. No need to thank me--it's just what I do. Maybe a little too often--but it's all for the good of humankind.

So here's the thing: I really do go to school. Really. I know there are a lot of stories floating around about how I'm actually just an cleverly disguised ex-con living off the goodwill of the unsuspecting Hampshire community (sitcom, anyone?), and I'm sure the above picture doesn't help that image, but I honestly do academic things. A lot, actually, especially since it's suddenly April and I have about .3 seconds left to finish up all my work. That is why I spent Saturday night sitting in my living room instead of doing the things I would usually do on a Saturday night, like...sitting in my living room. Well, there would be a lot more chanting and Play-Doh involved, typically, so for me that was really buckling down. To prove that I do these incredibly erudite things, and for a gratuitous opportunity to use the word "erudite," here's a list of my classes, including what I would have titled them if Hampshire had acquiesced to my humble request to become Empress of the college:

Love and Death a.k.a. Let's Talk About Sex. And Also Dead Bodies. But Not in a Creepy Way...
Myth and Myth Theory a.k.a. Every Story Ever Told is Actually Just a Retelling of Every Other Story Ever Told. Also, Freud is an Idiot.
The Practice of Literary Journalism a.k.a. Shut Up For Once, Spoiled College Kid, and Listen to People With More Interesting Lives Than Yours
Creative Writing Independent Study a.k.a. Ben and Katharine's Totally Offensive Gross-Out Make-Out Fest

All of these involve intense final projects that I have been diligently working on since the first day of the semester (read: daydreaming about how I'm going to write a research paper that will change the landscape of human experience and then watching VH1 since the first day of the semester. On a related note, anyone remember when VH1 just used to be the old people's MTV? One day they were all boring and "adult contemporary," and the next some crazy girl was taking a dump on Flava Flav's stairs. A metaphor for human existence? That could make a revelatory research paper...) The most time-consuming, but simultaneously awesomest, one is the Literary Journalism project, which involves me going into Noho several times a week to talk with Anita, an old German woman with a shopping cart who hangs out in Haymarket and has exactly the kind of wardrobe I want to acquire by the time I'm 90 years old: silk blouses, furry multicolored coats, and blindingly shiny jewelry. She's also kind of a playa: yesterday, she had this rose from this guy and had apparently gone out with two completely different guys on a date to Friendly's earlier that day. Basically, she's sort of my role model. And we're going dancing at a club next Friday, which may prove to be the highlight of my entire life on this planet. When I'm not jamming out with people literally 4 times my age, I'm going to have to do work pretty much nonstop. Luckily, I got most of my weekend awesome fun time in on Friday, when Kate's mom came to visit from Delaware. We've officially adopted her as the mod mom: she periodically sends us homemade brownies, cookies, and various Delaware specialties. I didn't really know Delaware had any specialties, but apparently they actually have a vibrant, complex culture, centering mostly around Wawas. So she came up to Hampshire and made us dinner, then hung out and actually endured our ridiculousness without being like, "Um...you people need to get away from my daughter or I'm calling the cops. Now." We also peer-pressured her into drinking a beer--she had brought Kate a bunch of Delawarean beer but she doesn't really drink. She wasn't going to, until, of course, we chanted. Have you ever been able to honestly say to someone, "I peer-pressured your mom last night?" Because you should pretty much make that the goal of your life.

After our deliciously nutritous meal of nicobolis and Rice Krispie treats, Kate and I went into Noho to see Rasputina play at the Iron Horse. I've given an account of a Rasputina show before in this blog, so I don't think I need to give you the second-by-second rundown, but suffice it to say it was magical. How could it not be, with Melora covering "I Like Big Butts" on the cello? Rasputina pretty much embodies 8th grade for me, so it's always kind of a trippy flashback to see them live--it brings me back to my brief Goth period, where I wore a spiked collar and about a tube of lipstick a day. It was good times. I didn't really get too Gothed out for this show, but I did bring along Sir Hornacious David Clomps-A-Lot, the unicorn hobby horse Kate and Ellen picked up for me at a hardware store one day. Why was there a moving, neighing unicorn head on a stick for sale at a hardware store? That's pretty obvious, I should think. Sir Clomps-A-Lot, with his cotton candy-colored mane and mouth that creepily opens and closes when you press his ear, is kind of the love of my life. And since my cane had literally broken in half the night before (forming the amazing stake I'm stabbing Amy with in the picture above) I brought Sir Clomps-A-Lot to the concert as my ambulatory support. I can now check off "Ride a Unicorn Through the Streets of Noho" off my "1,000 McAwesome Things to Do Before You Die" list. Now I just have to figure out to make that clone army so I can win a corn dog-eating contest in every state capital all at once...oh, these impossible dreams that keep me going...

So Saturday night I was a working girl, and Saturday day I was a working girl, but in a completely different way. That's right, I'm Katharine Hott McAwesome: hooker by day, scholar by night. My modmate Ben is the creator of Hampshire's top TV show, Cop/Detectives, which involves a lot of blood, hilarity, and now, hookers. Ben banged on my door at 11 am, which is pretty much the middle of the night in terms of my Saturday sleep schedule, and yelled at me to get up and dress like a whore. So I threw on fishnets, combat boots, a hot pink miniskirt, and a bathing suit top. It was the trashiest thing I've worn since I literally wore that trashbag full of trash. So I spent most of the day in compromising positions of camera--it wasn't that different from any other Saturday, except there were a lot more kids around. That's right, Camp Kingsmont--the camp that Hampshire hosts over the summer--was having registration/orientation in the building we were filming in, which bumped my outfit up from awkward to possibly criminal. We also had a big knife and a bunch of fake guns, which probably means there are going to be a lot less campers at Kingsmount this year than expected. The kids didn't seem to mind so much, though--they mostly just stared at us and one of them said, "Mommy, look! It's the police!" I'm really hoping that kid is now permanently confused as to the distinction between cops and hookers. That's going to make for some fun times.

That pretty much covers the last couple of days--throw in some random mod visitors, Adult Swim, and some more hookers, and you've basically got it. But there is a crucial piece of news I need to fill you in on: I'm famous. Really, really famous. Well, not yet. But it's starting. This is all a set-up for my anticipated award-winning memoir "How to Be Hott McAwesome Without Even Trying." (Answer: you can't. You have to be born me. And unless you've mastered the clone technology I need, you're screwed. But if you have, get in touch, ASAP). So here's why I'm famous: I'm in the Boston Globe. Actually, you're also sort of in the Globe, as a reader of a college blog. But you're not as much in it as I am, so I win. Of course, the one quote the writer used from weeks and weeks (read: 15 minutes) of talking to me is the one that makes Hampshire sound kind of like a holding cell for sociopaths: "If the stuff on my blog makes you uncomfortable, it should make you think a little about what you will be encountering at Hampshire." What I really mean is: Hampshire's a place where you've got to make your own way. It's not as easy as finding a clique and sticking to it, and you're going to meet up with a lot of people who challenge you. Not to a duel to the death--well, not often--but just people who make you think. The best description of Hampshire was in a comment on our Livejournal community--I can't remember who it was from, except that they were a former student. So here's what they said:

"We're an eclectic bunch at this school, and intolerance of ANY weird lifestyle tends to get looked down on more than anything else. There are New York pseudo and real literati, Providence electroclash hardcore kids, former meth-smoking punk rockers, militant vegans, serious organizers for democratic education programs, heavy drinkers, kids who will snort cocaine off your butt, genuinely nice people, bookworm playwrights who keep quoting shakespere, people who smoke pot five times a day, people who would rather not touch any substance, outdoors enthusiasts who built a rope course for fun in eleventh grade, seriously unstable individuals, straightedgers with tight pants, trannies, genderqueers, heterosexual white males from small towns in Montana, horseriding enthusiasts who are trying to get a novel published, dmt smokers, children of famous producers who own over 4,000 dvd's, good musicians, bad musicians, kids who have had spontaneous religious experiences and don't want or need drugs, kids who took acid every three days in seventh grade, future librarians, wealthy and incredibly generous people with a lake house in connecticut, latent schizophrenics, kids who understand multivariable calculus coming in but whose interests have bent more towards cognitive neuroscience, sluts, borges scholars, virgins, nudists, people who have never seen a naked human being except themselves since they were very young, painters, book artists with this secret store of twenty hand-made artists books they haven't showed more than four or five people, noise artists, people who play four hours of video games a day, serious young people who work waitress jobs 20 hours a week and take like 24 credit hours, drug dealers who make less money per hour than they would at a legitimate job, incredibly excited people, incredibly generous kind hearts who truly love everybody, actors, successful 3-d animators with 50k/yr jobs right out of college, kids from like Baltimore who are like totally tripping on cough syrup from the bookstore and corner you on a misty evening and Tell You How It Really Is while you're having a cigarette in the gazebo, etc. I guess the best advice I can give kids who are new to a college environment is to experiment, but to know when to say that whatever's going on is just Not Your Cup Of Tea."

Basically, I don't mean you shouldn't come here if any of this makes you uncomfortable. A lot of it should probably make you uncomfortable, unless you've really got the tolerance level of a sado-masochist. I'm just saying: you're going to encounter a lot of new, crazy things. You're not going to like all of them. But if you've got some idea of who you are and can maintain that even in the flood of all this, without closing yourself off entirely, then Hampshire will be awesome for you. Wow, this is probably the most Admissions literature-like I've ever gotten in this blog. Although...I'm pretty sure Admissions doesn't have anything to say about sado-masochists. Well, not a lot to say, anyway.