All aboard the awkward train.

Sometimes, when in the company of people I'm not horribly familiar with, I clam up and just listen so I can learn more about the people I'm with, and get a feel for the conversation. Other times, if I feel like I know a couple of the people well enough, I'll start trying to contribute. This often ends badly, particularly if I'm trying to impress someone. I present you with the following exhibits from this afternoon:

This is what happened when I was going to tell Jamie about the glitter on the ceiling of my bedroom back home during high school. The ellipses represent tangents I decided not to include for length's sake.

Me: "Yeah, I redid my room the summer before freshman year of high school...I spent two weeks in the garage staining my loft, so I got very familiar with the music of 96.3 in the summer of 2003, which was okay; lots of Evanescence...and we painted the room blue" [no one was listening at this point]
JM: "Wow. You should tell that story again...except this time include something interesting."
Me: [profoundly embarrassed] "Shut up."

Lesson learned: People I don't know as well will probably not put up with my awkward ramblings. Who knew!

This is an example of me trying to incorporate a reference to a television show that in my circle of friends back home would be highly appreciated:

JG: "She said something like 'These questions might show up somewhere else soon, so you should probably keep them. WINK.' "
Me: "I think if Mary ever winked, it'd look like...[to JM, as no one else is listening at this point] have you ever seen Arrested Development?"
JM: [shakes head]
Me: Oh...well, nevermind. [I was going to say I imagine it would be reminiscent of Lucille Bluth trying to wink]

Lesson learned: Sometimes I need to have an AD filter. I'm better at having a Drop Dead Gorgeous filter since it's lesser-known, but since Arrested Development is the other piece of pop culture I constantly reference, I guess I should probably pop a filter on that as well. Ah, well.

Here's something else, I guess.

Me: "I was telling the altos something, I don't remember [ramble on about what I could have been telling them, at which point no one is listening anymore except for MH and maybe JM and JG] and I told them...have you seen Mean Girls?
MH: "Yes!"
Me: [at the same time the waitress has come to get more drink orders and etc, so it takes me like two minutes to say instead of 4 seconds] "So I told them 'If you do this or wear this (or whatever) YOUCAN'TSINGWITHUS!!"
MH: [laughs]
Me: [shuts up and takes a drink so I can sink back into listening to the conversation]

Just when I think my awkward side is tamed, this happens. I guess it's a similar situation Kelli is in, where I find my niche with my regular friends, but as soon as someone new is in the mix, I'm just like "well oh crap I have to define myself, PLEASE FIND ME INTERESTING AND FUNNY, I BEG YOU."

Oh, and I'm now actually thinking about grad school, which is mildly terrifying. I just wanted to get through undergrad and teach middle school choir and strings. Is that so difficult?

Things I Have Learned in the Past Month [ish]

In no particular order:

- The fact that something is "understandable" won't necessarily make it hurt less.

- When you give a really solid performance, perhaps the defining performance of your career so far, there is bound to be a downer feeling afterward, a lack of energy in the days to come.

- Also, don't beat yourself up if every performance isn't exactly as perfect as the best one you've given. Life will go on, and someone somewhere enjoyed it.

- God puts some beautiful people in your life when you're not looking, in places you wouldn't expect.

- Sometimes it's actually a relief when your D&D character dies...when you haven't put much time into them and you want to move on with another character.

- Shirley Schmidt is perhaps my favorite character on Boston Legal.
- There are few things that a night of Arrested Development and Boston Legal can't cure.

- Don't watch Audition. Just don't do it.
- If you're not careful, history is bound to repeat itself.

- SAI sisters are amazing.

- Matthew Allen? Really not a bad guy. Though he may have at least a man-crush on a certain freshman in our studio.

- Romans is a really freaking sweet book in the Bible.

- Money should not come before friendship.

- Being constantly busy is actually not a good thing.

- Sleep is highly underrated.


I think I'm going to pop in some Boston Legal and eat some lunch. It's going to be a good day.

Add to that list...Schmidt.

It would seem that I haven't updated my blog in over a month, now. I do apologize, for the few of you that read this. I can hardly believe we're already halfway through the first semester here at CMU, and so much has happened. I'd like for everything to slow down, but I'll just have to deal with it.

I'd especially like to slow down this week because mine and Monica's voice recital jury is on Friday, and I have a sore throat. I can still sing, but I fear the condition of my voice this week. At least I know my music backward and forward now!

I've also gotten some semblance of a job: tutoring students in voice pedagogy! I signed up as a theory tutor, but we'll have to wait and see how that goes.

Oh dear, I'm slightly distracted by Boston Legal, as Denny Crane just bust into the courtroom in Revolutionary War apparel. I also just died a little of cute as James Spader hugged Betty White.

It'll take me a little bit to get back into the swing of regularly posting, and getting my creative juices flowing. So to speak. Er.

Denny Crane.

Of Cabbages and Kings

I was going to review Brave New World and Bell Jar, then I realized I only have like 15 minutes and I don't have the books with me for reference. Bah.

At the beginning of the week I decided to start writing everything in cursive. I've just noticed a lot of cursive lately in Monica's writing and in a lot of signatures. As I've been experimenting with it, I've discovered new ways of making my handwriting distinctive, and I've actually enjoyed picking up a pen and just writing lately for the fun of it. I guess it's just a small part of myself I want to improve. I've started using the "Disney D" as my cursive capital D, and experimenting with how I write letters like i and t. It also makes me really think about what I'm writing, like what comprises the words and sentences. It'll be interesting to see where this goes.

Bach. I don't even know where to start with the man. He wrote some fabulous music, and was utterly brilliant, but somewhere along the way he must have been, I don't know, given a venereal disease by a singer because he just seems to have hated them. I imagine if I had to sing the Esurientes implevit bonis from his Magnificat for him, Bach would cackle with glee to see me fall over dead from asphyxiation when he didn't let me take a breath during that second sixteenth-note run. The man wrote beautiful music, it's just all written instrumentally. It would be infinitely easier to play than to sing. And that is all I will say about that.

NOTE: To those of you who saw the CMU choir concert last fall, you should come up again this October to hear us sing another Whitacre piece. We're doing Water Night.

This post was going to be longer, but I have to go to ACDA, so nevermind! This weekend I'll write about having to conduct to Katy Perry and Ke$ha in class this week.

To In[Plath]ity and Beyond!

I sat in Java City on Friday morning, reading the last five pages of Infinite Jest. As I read the final sentence, I leaned back in my chair and heaved a tremendous sigh, like a stale breath that had been kept inside of me since September 13, 2009. I looked at the page, then looked up at the coffee shop before me. My first words upon finishing Jest were:

"What the hell?"

The rest of the day I was simultaneously proud of myself and uncomfortable. I couldn't get it out of my head that I didn't understand the ending, I felt no sense of completion, and I just felt like David Foster Wallace was laughing at me from beyond the grave.

A few hours later, I returned to the apartment and immediately went online to see if I could find some sense of closure. I found a few sites, and finally ended up at a website that I will not link here (you'll find it if you need it, I will not be a spoiler enabler!). It brought together details from the written beginning and end of the book, which happen to all be the chronological ending. Some bits I'd pieced together myself, but as far as who had been sending the tapes of the samizdat, I was floored. Once that was revealed, everything from the chronological end seemed to make sense! I leaned back and heaved a sigh of relief. My roommates asked me what was up, and I replied mistily:

"I just got the ending of Infinite Jest."

My brain is at rest.

I started Plath's The Bell Jar last night, and almost couldn't put it down. If I'd really, really wanted to, it probably would have been finished in the wee hours of the morning. However, we're having a party tonight, and I was getting up at 8 to go to Midland with Josh, so that was out of the question. I did get about 100 pages in, though. At one point I texted Sarah and said "I just reached page 20. This was a major feat in Jest." Basically, I've decided that any book after this will be considerably easier to get through (I was going to make an "infinitely easier" pun, but...well I suppose I just did), regardless of its average level of difficulty.

I plan on finishing Bell Jar by Monday evening, seeing as I'll be busy tonight and tomorrow. So far it's really intense. Plath's voice is so distinct and real; I can understand why the author of the foreword said so many writers and readers hear her voice as a contemporary one.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

More like Finite

Reading Infinite Jest lately has been strange lately, because at this point I am on page 951, and have just finished note 381. I have 30 pages of reading left, and only seven notes. To reiterate: thirty pages out of 981. The chunk of book I have left to read is at this point far skinnier than the Notes and Errata section.

I have had a love-hate relationship with this book since the beginning. I loved the idea of the challenge of reading it, and the fact that there seems to be this very exclusive group of people in the world who have read it; I hated that it seemed so dry and verbose at times and the fact that some notes are five, seven, even eighteen pages long. I love the characters and I feel a real connection to ones I felt alienated from at the start, but I still wish there could be more about the samizdat, The Entertainment, the titular film Infinite Jest. In the beginning, I kept having to think back to the foreword, wherein Dave Eggers reminds the reader that everything in this book is there for a reason: the seemingly random anachronistic chapters (particularly at the beginning), the obnoxiously descriptive tennis matches, the tangents upon tangents from AA meetings, the seven-page invented filmography of James Orin Incandenza, the endless two-page sentences, even the sections written entirely in the dialect of a character.

Many were the times I would gush about some hilarious nugget I had just read, while in the same conversation complain about how rough it can be to get through. I remember one specific incident wherein I was attempting to get to page 800, and I was on page 795. Out of nowhere comes this entirely separate section comprised of merely a footnote number. Out popped a four-page footnote. I told Sarah the next day, "David Foster Wallace is laughing me to scorn."

It took me 500 pages to realize that what I am reading is, in fact, a comedy. I always eyed the blurbs and reviews warily, seeing the words "uproarious," "screwball," and "hilarity." 500 pages in, I realized that most of the phrases I was underlining were things I found funny, along with major plot points. "Huh," I grunted to myself, "I guess this is actually a comedy. Whaddaya know." From that point on I regarded it as such.

I'm at the point now, with only thirty pages to go, that I hadn't really thought about almost a year ago on September 13th, my official starting date; much less did I think I would accomplish this much when I finally reached page 500 on August 1st. This was always my ongoing project, something I could always fall back on. My paperback, back in April, still looked untarnished, almost new; now it looks thoroughly loved, all dog-eared and somewhat worn. I've been at the point for about a week now where I no longer need to keep two bookmarks; I only use my bookmark now, making sure to keep a pencil handy. I'm on the last page of notes.

On the one hand, I'm going to miss this book, and I will be sad that it's over. However, finishing this book means that this chapter of my life will be over, but I can always revisit if I so choose. It also means I can move on to other books I have been meaning to read, but always put off because of this one.

It's been a fairly hilly journey with David Foster Wallace, but I think in the end I will always be glad I accepted his challenge and took a year of my life to read his masterpiece.

A Childhood of Terror

It has been almost a month since my last update, and for that I do apologize. There has been a lot going on, and when I finally wanted to update this blog, my computer decided that it was going to be a filthy strumpet and get all sorts of viruses that destroyed everything. It is currently out being fixed, and I should get it back in a few weeks, though maybe not up and in proper working order for another week after that. So, there it is. It's computer labs and the generosity of my fellow people for me.

I'm currently in the Music Resource Center after my first day of fall classes, having just rerouted the delivery of my new phone to the UPS delivery place tomorrow. Yes, new phone from the insurance company, because my screen has a crack in it. All of my technology seems to just detest me lately.

But that is not what I am here to tell you. I am here to tell you about the wonderful relationship I have with my dear older sister, Linden Lea. Linden has always been a wonderful older sister, setting a wonderful example of how to do well in school, do well in music, interact with friends, and of course interact with our parents (the last of which I of course entirely ignored, to my parents' chagrin). Wonderful.

Most of my friends know that she and I have a relationship that is at once loving, understanding, and riddled with silly inside jokes that only we understand. What most of them don't realize is that she was also a very typical older sister, who enjoyed terrorizing her young, naive wittle sister Kiki.

My first real memory of Din taking delight in scaring me was playing cards. This is the first instance because it is also the silliest. We would play Crazy 8's quite a bit when I was little, as it was a simple, Uno-like game I understood easily, without too many rules. I have a very distinct memory of Linden and myself sitting at the red card table in our basement, playing Crazy 8's, and Linden all of a sudden holding her cards up to her face so that I could only see her eyes, which were narrowed to evil slits. For some reason this scared the ever living crap out of me, and I believe I first started whining, then probably bawling because I thought for some reason that something terrible would happen.
This happened every time we played cards for probably a year. Honestly it's probably one of those things where she was like "Hey, look at this, isn't it weird that she's scared of this? I know right?" And it was just kind of funny. I mean it's not something I'm still scared of to this day, and it's actually pretty funny and cute looking back. I mean, I was probably 5 or 6 at the time.

Some years later, when I was probably 10 or so, we were moving around some of my parents' posters from Royal Shakespeare Company plays they'd been to in the '70s and '80s. There were some Much Ado About Nothing posters, which consisted of a poster for the show, and two black & white prints of Beatrice and Benedick in scenes. I think Derek Jacobi was in that show, was the big deal. They also have a framed picture from that show in our basement. It used to sit by our television, if anyone can specifically remember that.

Well, there was also a poster from the RSC's production of a certain play connected with Scotland with a character named Macbeth. This poster was illustrated by Ralph Steadman. Go on, google him. I'll wait.

Ready? Okay. Linden told me to come over to the shelving in the basement, where the posters were being kept. "Kirsten!" She called, "Come look!" At which point she flipped forward the Much Ado poster to reveal this monstrosity:

This is much more terrifying when 2'x3' and in higher definition.

I dimly recall shrieking and then, in a shocking turn of events, crying. This time, Linden was taken aback and apologized for scaring me, and we talked about how stupid that poster is, because it's not even of a character in the play, I mean really.

End result? Kind of a funny story, but I'm still uneasy around that poster.


This last one is not really Linden's fault, but more the fault of my overactive imagination and clearly overactive sense of worry. Right.

All of our Christmas supplies and decorations are kept in this closet under the basement stairs, in the laundry room. Every year we open it and every year it looks smaller and smaller. There is a bare light bulb that you turn on by pulling a taut string after you open the door, and the words MRS. DYL are illuminated in dripping white paint on the board right in front of your face. It's really kind of creepy.

One year I finally asked Linden who this MRS. DYL person was. Her reply began innocently enough: "She's the first lady who lived in this house."
"Really?"
"Yeah." Short pause. "This is the room she was murdered in."

At this point I believe I made a face similar to D: or maybe O.O and proceeded to wonder about how she could have been murdered, who could have painted her name in the closet, why they did so, if she was buried under the house, if she would haunt my dreams or maybe just every Christmas from this point onward...you know, the usual things a worrywart worries about.

I never asked Linden about it until several years later, when I reminded her that she said that and she said she was kidding, and she didn't think I'd taken it seriously. Even though I'd stopped really believing it was the case, it has always made me wary of opening that closet door after a year has gone by.

I think the scary stories and attempts to give me jolts were either conscious or unconscious acts of revenge for all the times my clumsy self accidentally hurt her: I slammed a car door on her hand, I dropped a bowling ball on her toe, and I accidentally wounded my sister countless times by doing stupid things. I love my sister though, and I love that we have these stories to share.

Nigh Prophetic.

I got a call from Jon on Friday, asking if his Zune was in my living room. As I had just scoured the room for Kelli's Visa gift card (which I still haven't found, to much dismay), I could say with much certainty that the mp3 player simply was not there, and that he should check his car.

I got a text from him later, asking if it was perhaps in the sleeping bag we had out on Tuesday night. I said I would look and let him know. I didn't, because it had pretty much been completely unzipped when I took it downstairs Wednesday, and it hadn't been there then. I felt kinda bad the rest of the night, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

That night, one of my dreams involved Kelsey and me standing in my living room, looking at the sleeping bag crumpled on the floor.
"You should check the sleeping bag," she suggested.
"Fine," I ceded, "Even though it's not gonna be there. This is stupid."

I picked up the sleeping bag and the Zune fell into my hand. "Well," I said, "There it is. I guess I should call Jon."

Today when I was at work, I cursed myself for not checking the sleeping bag before I went in. When I got home this afternoon, I went downstairs to find the sleeping bag. I figured I should check it just to make sure.
I picked it up, unzipped it all the way, and guess what?



It wasn't there.



I sighed and trudged upstairs, heading back to the living room. I recalled Jon spending a lot of time in the red chair, so I lifted up the seat cushion and TA-DA, Zune!

But I had you going there for a minute, didn't I?

Stream of Consciousness

About a year ago, I found this written on a folded up sheet of paper in with all my high school things. I have no idea what the context was; all I can assume is that I just started writing words down that I thought of in some sort of stream-of-consciousness fashion. Take a look:


School has many authorities that manipulate the system while highstepping students' playgrounds, which contains ancient stones from Antarctica, which have many secret chambers that help hobbits die, but non intentionally, because preposterous antelopes leapt into the galaxy, causing pandemonium and supply and destruction of the Yankees, who did not know that intimidating mountain lions and butterflies lurked eerily nearby, waiting to pounce upon red wheelbarrows full of rainwater beside the white chickens of many much doom and supply supplication, suggesting that bamboo isn't fit for human consumption because of a magical saying that goes like this:

"Exotic resources filled the red DOOM bountifully, exaltingly, and numbingly with peanut butter scones, which saved a young panda's life, which caused humans to DIE from bamboo consumption, aka 'Bambooitis';"

therefore bamboo was genetically altered and burning eternally in the flames of the hobbits of the abyss.

Life After "Jest"

I've decided I need to be more well-read. I'm compiling a list of books to read when I'm done with Infinite Jest in September--because I WILL FINISH IT by September 13, darn it.

This is what I have so far in the vein of classics (EDIT: though not in this order):

Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, because it's been far, far too long
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
1984 - George Orwell (so I can compare the two)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera
Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer
Something by Gogol
Something by Dostoevsky
House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski (a project I started twice and never finished)

Other books:
A Song of Love and Death - Peter Conrad
Mozart's Sister - Nancy Moser
Under the Dome - Stephen King

That's my list as it stands right now, and I am fully aware that there are others I want or need to read, but I'm kind of distracted by the organ music emanating from my neighbors' house. It's a strange combination of sprightly and unsettling.

EDIT: I've decided to follow Sarah's example and write up an actual written list of books I want to read. It will be easier for me to keep track of, and I do so love actually crossing things off of lists. Also, my list is continually growing, but I think this is a good place to start. Sarah threw The Bell Jar at me today and I think that will be my first read after Jest. Also Animal Farm and The Giver are in there, since I haven't read them in ten years and I feel I'd understand them better now.

QUESTION: So far I have two requests to do buddy reading. Monica and I are going to read Everything is Illuminated together up at school, and Sarah and I want to read 1984 and Brave New World together and discuss them. Anyone else want to pair up for a specific book? After Bell Jar I plan on doing the buddy books first, so let me know!

Dreams.

It's funny how some people forget how to dream. I'm not talking about like life goals or hopes or desires, but actual dreams. Like, from a REM cycle.

I rarely tell my parents what my dreams are made of, in large part because 1) it's rarely something they'd find interesting, and 2) they don't get that it's okay for dreams to be weird. I don't know if "weird" is right, because usually when I tell them a strange dream, my parents shake their heads and laugh at me, asking me if I'm on crack. It might be thoughtless of me to say this, but I doubt crack addicts remember their dreams. If they do, I'll bet they're horrifying.

[something like this]

No, the only time I tell my dreams to my parents is if they're still haunting me years later, or if I'm trying to remember them because they were really cool.

Which brings me to my next point: we all easily remember the worst dreams we've ever had, and we often remember several of them, comparing whose subconscious is the most unsettling; but anytime I've ever had an especially cool dream, I have to work my butt off to remember it. Generally writing it down helps me, but only if I do it quickly before everything fades. Sometimes, if a dream is exceptionally cool, I'll remember it for a long time just by telling people about it.
Exhibit A: The Din Stalker. One night back in early high school, I had a dream that my sister Linden and I were at home alone, watching television. We heard a tapping at the window, and when we looked up all the blinds were gone from the windows, and this shadowy, creepy guy leered at us. We instinctively knew he was going after Linden, and we ran around to hide behind our big, heavy front door...which was gone. Every glass in our house that looked outside was now uncovered, providing dozens of ways for the Din Stalker to peer in. We hid all over the house, in every room, only to have that creeper looking in on us and waving menacingly. We finally ended up in my basement, eventually in the walk-in closet. I woke up just as the stalker was breaking the door down with an axe.End Result of Exhibit A: I prefer to keep the blinds closed when I'm at home, especially when I'm alone.

Exhibit B: Ioan Gruffudd. Around the same time as the Din Stalker Dream, I had a dream that I was walking around Churchill, knowing that Ioan Gruffudd was there. I don't remember exactly what happened, but we kissed and he said stuff and I don't even have real memories of it. I just have to tell myself what happened. Why can't I fully remember dreams as awesome as that?

End Result of Exhibit B: Frustration. [I feel like Ioan is disappointed in me.]

Exhibit C: Forced Marriage. Probably senior year of high school, I had a dream that I was on my way to a church (Faith Lutheran, to be exact, probably because of my experiences there with Livonia Youth Choir) with my parents, dressed in all black. I didn't know why we were going, but it seemed ominous. We pulled up and I got out of the car in front of the church, where my old stand partner from Ward Church was waiting in a tux. Apparently we were going to be married. Now, I have nothing against the guy, but I have never been in any way attracted to him. I started crying and trying to get away, but they just dragged me into the church and I was forced to marry him.

End Result of Exhibit C: I always feel uncomfortable even talking to him on facebook, because whenever I think of him I think of that dream and get creeped out. He is in no way a creepy guy, but that's what happened.

Exhibit D: Series of Awesome Tally Hall Dreams. About 2 years ago, I had this awesome dream about Tally Hall performing in South Africa in the same place as the CMU Choir, and I got to help them set up, and Zubin started making out with me. The only reason I even remember this dream [which I'm not telling in great detail because it's long and complex] is because I told Liz and Monica and we discussed it at great length. A year ago I had a series of dreams one night involving Tally Hall, and they were completely. Awesome. I believe I wrote them all down and I know I told Kelsey and Liz, but apparently that wasn't enough because I only remember that after one concert I got to hang out with them, and then aliens attacked and Kelsey and Andrew and I were abducted and Kelsey and I defeated the aliens.

End Result of Exhibit D: Feeling like a fangirl, and knowing that I will never, ever post my dreams on the "Tally Hall Dreams" page of the Hidden in the Sand blogs.

Exhibit E: Zombie Mental Hospital. This one I remember in great detail because it was both scary and awesome, and I felt like a total badass when I woke up. Josh Graham and I ended up at this abandoned mental hospital and its grounds overrun by zombies. We holed up and found other survivors, and the zombies started to bust in at the sound of the music from the outside speakers (reminding me of Left 4 Dead). I was about to go all Samwise on them with a cast iron skillet when I woke up. It was a great dream.

End Result of Exhibit E: I feel that I will be ready for the zombie apocalypse, and worse, I think I could survive.

Heck, sometimes I even remember weird or awesome dreams my friends have had, particularly if they involve me, but sometimes that's not even required.

Exhibit A: Butterball Chicken. Kelli had a dream, probably in early high school or late middle school, that she and I were at the mall, and I killed someone with a butterball chicken. I'm not sure exactly how this was accomplished, or even if it was cooked, but these are the possibilities I can think of:
-bludgeoning someone to death
-stabbing someone with a leg
-tearing off the skin and strangliing someone with it

End Result of Exhibit A: Once again I feel quite wrongly like some kind of MacGyver who can kill anyone with anything, even a butterball chicken.
EDIT: After reading this Cracked article, I feel I could actually do this.

Exhibit B: Zombies with Josh 2: Electric Boogaloo. This time it was Josh Graham who had the dream where we were stuck together in the zombie apocalypse, but I got separated from him in a crowd and was ripped to pieces. He looked over, freaked out, and got away as quickly as possible. I would have been offended, but it was really the only logical choice.

End Result of Exhibit B: I am resigned to my probable fate should the zombie apocalypse ever occur. But that doesn't mean I won't go out with a bang.

[You're welcome.]

Exhibit C: Suicide Party. A friend of mine recently had a dream that another friend of ours was having the usual crowd over to his house...for a suicide party. From what I gathered, he was going to commit suicide and he was just...having a party! And we were all acting like everything was normal, but I think the dreamer was kinda freaking out, which is how that all normally works.

End Result of Exhibit C: I am actually very shook up about this and more wary of my friends' emotions.

I had a dream the other night that was incredibly weird in its specificity, involving Kelli, myself, a murderer, other Daria characters, and members of our family. When I related it to my mother, she shook her head and said I was crazy. I'm sorry, if you're not having crazy dreams, then you're the weird one, not me.

I'm only gonna break, break your, break, break your heart.

While I was toiling in burrito heaven today, I was listening to Q95.5 before I had the chance to change the radio to the oldies station. Because they play the same 8 songs on repeat without even changing the order, the DJ kept going on and on about how unbearably long the title of the new Usher song is: "DJ Got Us Falling In Love Again." At a rating of 10.7 (10 syllables and 7 words, my own scale), he rated this particular title as "long as hell."

Really? Do all of the titles for everything only have to be 4 words or less? I understand that most songs can be boiled down to that, but really, that song would be referred to as that title even if it weren't official. It's the most memorable part of the song. I'm kind of glad most songs don't work that way though, otherwise Imogen Heap's Hide and Seek would be known as "Mmm What You Say," Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" would be called "Born And Raised In SOUTH DETROIT," and Regina Spektor's "Dance Anthem of the 80's" would be known as "Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeleeeeleleeelelee eep," But I digress.

I guess songs like "(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You" by Elvis Presley would probably give that DJ a minor headache, only to be cured by songs with names like Crash Test Dummies' "Mmm Mmm Mmm" and "No!" by They Might Be Giants.

It's at this point that I'm reminded of Stephen Fry's podgram about language, and how we should use words for the joy of using and listening to them, just like music. Yes, we use music to express emotion in the same way we use words, but ultimately music is utilized in order to get some enjoyment or pleasure out of it. I would go on about this, but I moved tangentially, there.

With song titles like "There's A Good Reason These Tables Are Numbered Honey, You Just Haven't Thought Of It Yet" and "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me,'" Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco would probably give this DJ an aneurysm. It's no wonder the only Panic song I regularly hear on the radio is "I Write Sins Not Tragedies."

Album names can be ridiculously long, and one that would probably send this DJ into a fit of epilepsy is Fiona Apple's When the Pawn....

I didn't really have a direction for this to go, I just felt like complaining about the stupid DJ on Q95.5's Mojo in the Morning. Kelli will be posting a much more eloquent and entertaining blog about songs that have very silly beginnings soon, so head on over there!

Whaddaya know.

It would appear that I am now 21. How about that.

belated BYBS: Family

I know it seems all kinds of cheese to have two Blog Your Blessings Sundays in a row be about friend and family, but if you actually know Kelli and me, and you know anything about the situation at hand, you'll understand why I am saying right now that I freaking love my family. You don't even know.

I mean, I loved them before. "It's just whatcha do." I love the fact that Oma has a sense of humor even at 80; that Uncle Kevin is in the FBI and used to climb everything possible [and impossible] even as an infant; that Lydia is smarter than like 8 whips put together, and knows a total of four languages; and then of course there's Linden, Kelli, and my parents, whom I couldn't possibly live without.

But this weekend and in the weeks leading up to it, everyone in our family really stepped up to the plate and showed the world that we stick together, and we stick up for each other. It has been nothing but an encouragement talking to the family about the situation (or The Scoop, as Kelli and I dubbed it), and I know it has been at least doubly encouraging for Kelli.

If we learned anything this weekend it's that most people never change, either because they don't want to, or because your perception of them has. Also that Uncle Kevin is so awesome he makes Chuck Norris wet himself just by looking at him wrong.

If this seems cryptic and un-revealing, it's because I don't want to gush about our family drama in a permanent place on the internet. So nod your head, agree that family can be pretty awesome [especially if you have been hearing anything about ours] and go on your merry way.

Lolloping lolloping lolloping

While sorting through toys, games, and books in our basement tonight, Linden and I stumbled upon our parents' Poldark books. We knew they had read them and a few years ago they re-read them, so we asked mum how they were. She gushed about them, and we knew our father would just do the same.

"Oh they're very dramatic and romantic," was the phrase that made my decision for me.

"You know what? I'm going to read these this summer. Yes. That is what I am going to do." So I found the first book in the lot and glanced at the first page of the prologue.

I first noticed the word "lolloping" and decided I was going to enjoy this. Then I noticed the first dialogue:

"Well, Joshua."
"Well, Charles."
"This is a bad business."
"Bad indeed."

Then I decided I was going to enjoy this quite a lot. [Not to be confused with "Quite, alot."]

I'm a little daunted by the prospect of reading an entire saga in addition to Infinite Jest this summer, but it'll be a little easier because it makes for good bedtime reading!

Also, "lolloping" is a very silly word, and deserves to be used far more often.

"Susie! Stop lolloping down the hallway! You're going to fall and break your coccyx!"
"The deer went lolloping through the forest, singing about how happy they were to be alive."
"A semi came lolloping down the freeway, splattering any singing deer who lolloped into its way."
"The models came lolloping down the runway."

Okay, maybe that last one doesn't quite work. I've been watching too much America's Next Top Tahhruhh's BFF.

Math Addiction

I started using math early. Heck, I don't even remember a time when I didn't know 2+2. I figured hey, if the teacher shows it to me it must be okay, right? I mean, if it gets me good grades, I guess I'll keep using it.

By the time I finished middle school, I'd moved onto harder stuff: Algebra. I'd always heard kids on TV talking about Algebra, but I didn't think it would happen to me.

High school was when my math issues started to spiral out of control. 9th grade hit, and I was on the accelerated track: accelerated geometry, algebra 2, finally accelerated pre-calc. I reached a point where my parents couldn't help me, and "calc" was a dirty, four-letter word in our household. I couldn't even go to my friends for help. All my teachers told me was that I needed it for real life, so I couldn't stop taking it. I was past all hope, as far as I knew.

Senior year, it hit me: I don't have to live this way. I took Humanities and my math problems were over. I've been clean for three years now, not counting when a prof tried to get me to use the "real world" stuff in college.

~~
That, dear readers, is what happens when you put me in a kitchen for seven hours with the oldies station playing the same meth addiction and recovery PSA's every fifteen minutes.

Suck. On. That.

I hate going to the doctor's office. Actually, I loathe going to the dentist, so I guess it could be worse. I used to hate going because I went to a pediatrician until I was 19 or so. I haven't been to the doctor at home in a couple of years; last winter I went to a few docs up at school and the otolaryngologist (ear/nose/throat doctor) for my tonsils. Between me turning 21, not being sure if what I had is allergies or a cold, and my mom wanting to get me checked out since I'm more genetically prone to be bi-polar or depressed, we decided it was time to get me to a "real" doctor.

I also hated going to the doctor because of the whole part where they weigh you. That was the main reason why I was terrified of going to the doctor this time, largely because I'd checked myself on our home scale and it was some impossible number that I knew couldn't be right because I can fit into last year's clothes but oh no what if it's right the doctor is going to freak out at me and tell me I need to change my lifestyle which I do and I should get on that right now and ASLDKGJADFGKLJSDFGLKJ was how that thought process went.So I go in, and the nurse says "Alright, now I'm going to weigh you," to which I reply, "Wonderful." I get on the scale, ready to cry, when all of a sudden she goes all the way to the end of the one section and I'm sure she'll have to continue on up the scale

...but she pulls the little mini weight back about halfway to what I can safely say is my lowest weight of 2009 (sometime in the fall), the year I eventually lost about 15 pounds.

I think to myself, if I lost 15 pounds and I basically kept off that weight, then that means I can lose another 15 this summer. Losing about 20 would put me back at my ending high school weight, which would make me feel FANTASTIC. I went through the rest of my day with a bit more spring in my step, knowing that our home scale is a good 25 pounds off.[above: my general attitude for the rest of Friday]

Saturday, on the other hand, was a weird day. I started off feeling exhausted but optimistic, thinking I would be just content to stay at home and do a lot of reading in Infinite Jest. My mother said, "Go to the drugstore first and get your prescription." So off I went on my merry way, only to find out that the doctor didn't call in my prescription to any CVS on Friday, and I would have to wait until Monday to get it. Already feeling a bit overwhelmed by not being able to sleep the night before and overthinking myself into kind of an existential crisis, I started crying on the way home from the drugstore, and didn't stop until about two-and-a-half hours later.
That was when Kelsey came over and we watched the first four episodes ever of Star Trek on dvd, and we talked a little and I started feeling better in general. Campy sci-fi makes everything better. Jon showed up for the last episode and stayed after Kelsey left, and later helped me through an existential crisis, but that's not important right now.

What is important is that the fourth episode of season 1 of Star Trek is called "The Naked Time," and is absolutely ridiculous. An alien virus starts infecting the crew, spreading via perspiration, and removes the crew's inhibitions. One would think that this implies lots and lots of trysts, given the title (there was some discrepancy over whether it was "The Naked Time" or "The Naked Time!"). What it means, however, is that everyone's facade is stripped away, revealing their desires and secret feelings. As far as we know, the virus only made one man suicidal, and he killed himself with a butter knife. It makes most of them act very silly, like Sulu ("who longs to be a swashbuckler out of your 18th Century) some of them relentlessly irritating, (like this fellow who hijacked Scotty's position and kept singing "Kathleen" over the intercom)or in Spock's case, incredibly, heartwrenchingly emotional. [below: a very poor rendering of Kelsey dying a little over Spock]Remember that part where I can't draw? I'm sorry, Kelsey.

BYBS: Friends

While clicking the "next blog" button, I found someone whose blog included a lot of posts with "BYBS" in the title. Curious, I checked them out and found that it stood for "Blog Your Blessings Sunday." You can check out the original prompt here. I decided today is as good a day as any to start this, so here I am, blogging about one of my blessings: friends.

I thank God for my friends. Seriously, without them I would have been lost a long time ago. My friends have stuck with me through every snit and fit I've pitched, every time of uncertainty, and yesterday I was reminded that even if I feel alone, they are always there to support me. I am so blessed to have them all in my life, and I really do mean that.

So that's my Sunday post for the day, I guess. Short and sweet. I've included the list of BYBS-ers on one of the sidebars, so enjoy. Maybe I'll post something later tonight, or I'll just save my combination doctor's office/Star Trek post for Monday. But goodness knows I'll have plenty to post about this week, what with D&D starting tomorrow and Linden coming in town on Tuesday.

Oh, and this tornado that's supposedly going to rip through Livonia right now. Ah well, off to work.

Poor Yorick

I couldn't sleep last night, so I eventually popped a Unisom and was knocked right out. This marks the first time I have ever used a sleeping aid, and hopefully it won't become a habit.

I'm not going to post about what I was thinking, because it was a bunch of depressing stuff that was brought on in large part by a) overthinking everything as is my tendency, and 2) the Communists in the funhouse. As tempting as it was to write something on the internet for everyone to see when I only mean it for a few people, I decided I'd pass.
Today will be a day of rest, working on a blanket with my mother, and hopefully some reading. What am I reading, you ask? Well my main goal is to finish David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest by September 13, as I started reading it on the same date in 2009 after picking it up in Chicago. It's been a goal of mine for a few years to read it, and I finally decided to just go for it. I'm glad I didn't do any research on the subject of reading it beforehand, as I probably would have gotten scared or been like, "Whoa this is too much, I'll just take the Wikipedia summary."

I started reading it on the train back from Chicago, and after reading the foreword by Dave Eggers, I was determined to finish it in a year. I took a break from it for most of spring semester because it was just too draining to get back into while I was worrying about all the other things going on in the music program, but as of the China trip I am back with a vengeance. I even checked out a bit of the Infinite Summer blog from last year (which I'm glad I didn't do; I would have been way too intimidated). According to the how-to page, I have already done 8/11 things right! As far as 9-11 go, I'll probably pick up this reader's guide if they have it at Barnes & Noble or Borders. I will probably check out the online resources, but I might wait to read the rather lengthy study by Greg Carlisle until after I finish reading it. It'll be a good way to asses my understanding, I think.Above: My progress as of April. I am now on page 417.

I was going to write about yesterday's visit to the doctor's office, but this came out instead. Whatever.

Abominations.

Wednesday I heard what sounded like a hybrid dog-monkey yapping in or around my backyard.
I was too scared to look out the window, too afraid of the unending possibilities of carnage I might see.

It was probably a stupid yappy lapdog, but this is what I envisioned:
In case you missed it, that's a "scary monkey mouth," "doggy paws," "obligatory bloodshot eye," "monkey hand-feet," and a "prehensile tail for flinging poo."

My internet search for "monkey dog hybrid" revealed that there is in fact a breed of dog called the Affenpinscher that is nicknamed the "monkey dog." I found this site where they show a picture of the dog, saying that its completely furry face and framed features make it look kinda like a monkey. Other sites say its playful attitude contributes to that, but yet another site I found says that this is not a good dog for children. Gee, who wouldn't want to place a baby monkey-dog in the presence of their children, I mused.

Then I started thinking about other unlikely animal hybrids, namely cats. What could be weird to mix with a cat, I thought? I don't know, how about an elephant? Apparently I was not the first person to think this would be ridiculous, and I stumbled upon this list and more importantly, its comment section where someone joked that they're trying to create a cat-elephant hybrid named a catephant, in order to take "massive poos in [his] neighbour's garden." Charming. This all in the midst of a somewhat confusing and silly argument about taxonomy and wolves/dogs. Seriously though, that list is pretty cool.
What did I come up with?

I also thought about what would happen if machines were hybridized with animals. Not like some sort of cyborg rooster or what have you, but like a bird microwave: [From the back, because seriously, you don't want to see that thing's hind end.] Imagine everything you hate about birds, then imagine them amplified: Being awakened at 5 AM every summer morning by a chorus of birds screaming for each others' attention? You now awaken to the quiet hum of a microwave, followed abruptly by a heinous unearthly beeping at a high E-flat (did I tell you I used to sing the same pitch as the microwave when I was little? No? Well Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime). Annoying bird poo on your windshield? That is now deadly flaming poo showers raining down from the skies. The only saving grace there is the series of deafeningly friendly warning beeps from above.

I quite enjoyed the idea of Tim Curry-Bees. They would lull you into a false sense of security and enjoyment by doing a sing-along of "Sweet Transvestite," then while you're busy doing the Time Warp, they attack from all sides, driving you into anaphylactic shock regardless of whether or not you have a "bee allergy." Everyone is allergic to Frank-n-Bees.

Everyone.