I Feel Like I'd Be Happy If I Could Just Have An Oozing Chocolate Chip Cookie With This Milk

Somebody turned on the sunset.

 

It's nearly summer.  I'm sunburned, the grass is dead but dry enough to sit on, and I'm almost happy.  Messy and unfocused is good.  Dates are good.  Hairbrushes, painkillers and cold showers aren't.  Globalization is a stupid thing to try to write a final paper about.  Winter is a dead thing.  Butter isn't enough.  Spelling is stupid, but it obsesses me.  My phone number is a mystery.  My hair is a tangle.  My shoes are lost and my mind's in the gutter with the rest of me, I like it there.  Rilo Kiley won't leave my skull quiet.  I need to eat something, and my fingers are sticky.  Yeah, we'll all be portions for foxes. 

The Long Drive Back To School

...yielded but one decent photo.  I give you Mt. Katahdin in all it's glory. 

Procrastination

The Way Life Looks Today

I'm sitting in my food studies class right now, in a lecture on blogging techniques.  What fun.  I know how to do hyperlinks, I know how to embed videos.  Thanks anyway, sir, I needed to work on that English essay.
Pictures!  Because I am a lazy blogger today. 

"We Really Don't Understand What Mubarak Was Thinking Of... No One Will Be Able To Control The Anger Of The Egyptian People"

I'm very fond of my solitude of late.  I'm still delighted to be seeing people, and still probably spend far too much time with them, and certainly not enough studying (I found out today that I failed a chemistry test I had felt really confident about.  I don't know what happened).  But I'm equally happy lately to just sit on my bed with a book or my ukulele or my laptop and play by myself.  Everyone's been ill and though we're mostly recovered, the energy's still low.  Lonely is nice, you know? 

So.  Mubarak will not stand down.  He promised.  Well, you fool.  What do you intend to achieve by this?  I've been watching the live English-language stream of the arabic news station here. 

Today as English was ending I got very dizzy, and started feeling very cold, and crying.  I think I was just very stressed, and hadn't eaten much... one of my friends was really sick this week, and I was very worried about her for a while.  I guess the tension just built up.  It was just my teacher at that point, and I was incredibly embarrassed, but she was so kind to me.  She went and fetched the Brit Lit teacher, and they talked to me about the difficulties of teaching Dickens, and how failing chem tests doesn't matter, until the nurse came and brought me back to the dorms.  My teacher lent me her gloves, and he had a KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON mug of tea with him that made me very happy.  Then I had a nice cry with my maytag model, who's been awfully kind to me, and went to bed for an hour.  I think this might have been the first time I've cried since I've been here.  My brother just turned six.  I feel very, very old, and exactly six years ago today, I was crying in a delivery room as he was born.


There's no play rehearsal tonight, and I'm glad I shan't miss it.  I'm off book, but still need a lot of work.  The performance is on the 19th of March. 

So, I joined LookBook.  Here are the pictures I've put up so far...  I've gotten some nice attention, and it's a vrey nice online community - though it's basically the vanity of facebook crystallized in photo form... people saying "Tell me how pretty I am," but very interesting and entertaining.  I've never looked great in photographs, which is why I usually take them instead, so it's a fun editing challenge for me. 

And The Talking Leads To Touching...

Aaahh, it's after lights-out, which means that there's a blanket block on all web sites EVER.  But still internet, for some screwy reason.  SO, I'm just usin' my mail programme to email-post some stuff... let's see if it works this time.

It is so good to be back.  I feel amazing.  Just being back with my friends, doing homework again... even the nasty lights-out policy.  Oh, and the only reason I'm still awake and not comatose from swim team - which was really, really tough today, and my shoulders ache - is that I have no classes - count 'em - tomorrow until after lunch.  Zero.  Despite just having picked up food studies (finally got the O.K. on that... some fool in admin thought I'd have to reschedule my chem class, which I wasn't going to be allowed to do, but it turns out all that changes is math.... though it changes to 8:30.  Shoot me.  Anyway, today was the first day I have written in my new marble-notebook food journal, where I am to record everything I eat if I'm not too ashamed.  It really makes me think about it, too.  Can I really be bothered to get up and find the book?  Do I honestly want to admit that I had milk and cookies for breakfast?  Etc.).  So.  Life is sexy.

Speaking of sexy... I have the Quieter Poster Boys!  I ordered them a while after I got the tip from my maytag model (bottom photo, he's looking fine), and we've shared them.  They are beautiful.  I'll post pictures of them on my walls tomorrow - it's dark now and my roommate, whom, I have concluded, is a mad evil genius scientist, is either sleeping or planning the world's end under her blankets.  And I wouldn't want to disturb either of those things.  

I have also just been introduced to Rilo Kiley, and they are amazing (I guess I'll embed that later, but for now just click, please).  The minute I found them*, I realized that a load of my friends from the National Spelling Bee had been going on about them for ages too... the things I don't notice are always the most important.

I should probably throw you a picture... Sunday was my first night back and everyone was in the gym... I went a little nuts and black-and-white-grainy-low-exposure on you, and I'm sorry.  But here:

What d'you reckon?  Keepers?

More on DC when I finish the video... maybe tomorrow on all my goddamn free time!  Although I should probably work on my lines for the play, instead.  Or, um, a big research paper, or... math?  

Okay, time to call it good.  I'm getting eight hours tonight.  Good night, my darlings!  

Oh, and how about that State of the Union address!?  Starting this year, no American will be forbidden from serving the country they love because of who they love.  Fantastic.

*Okay, the minute my friend down the hall came into my room during structured study with a list of songs for me to look up.  Thanks, Emma!

We Are Stardust; Billion Year Old Carbon

So.  Library of Congress.  Pretty damn sexy.  I'm gathering material for another video, but so far all I've got are some artless pictures of the capitol, and a few subway shots.  The D.C. stations have curved ceilings, and it really feels as if you're walking inside a big tube... I've been imagining myself in the veins of a whale, but I'm just a geek.  Anyway, to keep the wolves at bay:

 

(Okay, also of the LOC's Jefferson Building.  And my Christmas tights)

 

I've been transcribing lots and lots of interviews with master violin makers, many of whom have impossibly thick German accents.  As a non-violin playing, part time classical music-listener, I'm learning a lot, but it sometimes gets a little dry.  Far more exciting for me is the two-disc "primer" of international jazz that the Library's jazz curator (they have a curator of jazz.  A full time specialist curator of jazz.  This man... I will meet him next week.  He unearthed all these John Coltrane/Thelonious Monk recordings nobody knew existed.  And these discs, especially the Brazilian stuff... he has amazing taste).  But this weekend should be fun.  Tomorrow I'm planning to meet up with a couple friends from Turkey!  Americans who were on that programme with me.  One lives a little outside D.C, and another's at college in New York but in town for the weekend... so glad I picked up on his facebook feed.  And on Sunday, my godfather's taking me to Thomas Jefferson's old house, Monticello.  By all accounts it's an architectural marvel with beautiful grounds, and of course the history is fascinating, so I'm very glad about that.

So, I know I'm throwing lots of videos at you lately, but I guess it's just how I'm relaxing these days.  You get my leftovers, but I think today's is pretty damn fantastic.  

 

You're My Best Friend, But Then You Died, When I was 23 And You Were 25

Proper update coming soon, but my cousin and I were browsing the backlogs of the BBC's predictions for the Next Big Things on the British music scene.  Some of them were right on - Adele, anyone? - and some we'd never even heard of but spent hours looking up because we are geeks.  These guys have me on my knees.  Their videos, their whole look is so vulnerable-'50s-drive in-drive by-skinny-gorgeous, the singer looks like Chet Baker, and their sound is really cool.  I give you The Drums.



The dancing in this one is just adorable.  So effectively awkward.  And what a a great stylist... look at the singer's paperbagged trousers!  And the saddle shoes behind him!

And this one... the grainy video style had me at 'hello'.  I want to be a critic, dammit!



SO, I'm nearly done packing to go back to the States on Sunday.  D.C., baby, here I come.  I'm dragging my feet over the lines I have to memorize for The Importance Of Being Ernest, but whatever, I'll do them on the plane.  Last night I went back to the neighbourhood I used to live in and saw a friend and his family.  The evening really couldn't have lasted long enough... they just don't make boys like that in America.  In a few minutes I'll go to synagogue with my family, then Friday night dinner at my grandmother's.  Tomorrow is Oxford, and then it's goodbye, England, maybe for a whole year.  But, on to merrier things, if only slightly: while we're looking at gorgeous skinny boys, click HERE for Bret Lloyd's The Quieter Poster Boys, a gorgeous bit of photography.  The tip came from my maytag model. 

I've done a nice bit of shopping while here, too.  I'll show you everything soon, but other than the shoes there's been a dress, some respectable trousers because I realized I'm going to be working in the Library of Congress and can't really show up in stained corduroys OR miniminiskirts, and some rather exciting leggings (think me: think polka dots).  And HAHA!  It all fits in my bag because I've distributed all of my granola!  Yes!

(It's LinkSlut Friday)

SO SORRY SO SORRY SO SORRY

But today, oh, guess what?  Let's see:

Article A: British Library exhibit on the evolution of the English language, from the Saxons and Vikings up to Muhamad Ali's and the Queen's speeches, through profanity, propaganda, accents and acronyms, traversing spelling variations, language derivations... for a spelling nerd like me it was basically heaven.  

 

Then B: lunch at St Pancras Station, a glorious place I couldn't get any decent pictures of.  

Then my aunt and I picked up my cousin and grandmother and dropped them off to go handbag-shopping.  We headed to D: Magnus, perhaps the only shop in the world with (fun, pretty) shoes my size, where I picked out two very exciting specimens with which I am deliriously happy:

However, as we were pulling up in front of the shop, something completely horrid, C, happened.  We were almost parked as a guy on a motorbike came down the road and braked.  Then, I don't know, it happened very fast but I suppose he tried to accelerate and he slipped on a patch of oil.  The front wheel slid out form underneath him and the bike fell on top of him.  He'd been about ten feet in front of us the whole time, but it looked and felt for all the world as though we'd hit him.  We and some other people got out of our cars and helped him to the pavement, picked up his bike etc.  He'd hurt his knee quite badly.  Very long and stressy and shaken story short, the police and an ambulance arrived and took him away, and a very nice police officer sat in my aunt's car for a bit and worked out what had happened.  The saddest bit was that it was this man's birthday.  And he'll be layed up for a couple weeks at least.  Awful.

Well, we got over that after a bit, and I was dropped off at a café to meet up with exhibit E: my mother's old boyfriend from, oh, before they went to university, I suppose.  He's an awfully nice guy, the sort who, according to all reports, has been wearing the converse and skinny jeans I saw him in today for about 35 years.  That look.  He's also a rather well-established journalist, who wrote this book, which is referenced in my chemistry textbook, as well as Just My Type, his most recent publication, about fonts.  My dad got it for Christmas and I read a couple chapters before catching my plane.  I definitely recommend it.

So, my day ended with exhibit F: three episodes of The West Wing.  Good times.  Must go to sleep as my cousin and I have a day of photography about the city planned for tomorrow.  Wish me luck and more shots like this, my favourite of the trip so far:  

Pop Culture Is Democratic Until It's Fascist

I decided to be honest.  I decided not to lie about how I live. 

I also had to sort of improvise when it came to showing you just how messy my room is (I've been home almost a week and still haven't finished unpacking) because I didn't have anyone to take the pictures of me in it.  I ended up doing a lot of estimated pre-focusing and using the timer on my camera, which I positioned precariously upon shelves, music stands and a ukulele case and, finally, shamefully, I took pictures of myself in the mirror.  I hope you don't mind.  Anyway, this was a very spur-of-the-moment shoot prompted by an unexpected gift from a neighbour: the ridiculous shoes you see below.  Well, they were just too darling.  I had to put on something monstrously incongruous and confusing and... and sit alone in my room blogging about it.  I do miss school.

There are many terrible, tragic things about my life, but one of the worst is that my feet are US size 11/12.  Since I was very, very little I could never have the shoes I wanted, from the tiny little leather sandals with leather flowers on the straps to the shiny wedges I crave now, and everywhere in between including trainers, flip flops and snow boots.  I very often end up wearing mens' shoes in the latter three categories, and there is absolutely nothing in the world that could very few things depress me more.  So, when these... I just can't absorb how silly they are... things appeared in my life today, I decided something celebratory had to be done. 

 

Can I just be cocky for a minute and say that I really like the way the edge of the mirror distorts this picture a bit?  Especially the detail at the top of the door.

 

If you know me at all, you know that celebrating means cake and loud, clashing clothes.  I already had a cake in the oven, so it was on with the leggings, and I sort of went from there.  (hey, see the mess on my bed?  Somebody, please, tell me that you live that way too.  Oh, and do you like my penguin pillowcase?)  Here's the breakdown:

'Tis The Day Before The Math Final

And all through the dorms, people are lazing about in pajamas and alternating between study and hanging and feeling wonderful because they're inside in pajamas and it's snowing and they have fairy lights in their rooms.  At least, I am.  No classes AT ALL today, so I didn't get up until 8:30 when I got hungry and went and stole some milk from the cafeteria.  I'm half-packed, studying and actually feeling okay about most of this test.  I took the chem test yesterday.  It was all multiple choice, only an hour, and I think I passed.  I brought my laptop in my backpack and, as we were all about to start the test, reached in and opened it and started playing Single Ladies.  Everyone got it and laughed and it was all good fun... do you get it, too?  Remember I told you about that time?  And after the test, the teacher let us make liquid nitrogen ice cream (damn...that's my old url).  So much fun.... it actually boils when you pour it into the cream, and there's so much vapour.  The night before, I'd made myself roasted mushrooms and potatoes and creamed spinach.  And that day I wore neon pink and black striped thigh highs, so I felt pretty good.  Pictures coming soon.  Oh, and today I have another shoot with my Maytag model - this time for a Lookbook contest where you style people to look like characters from a TV show.  Needless to say, my tights are hot currency. 

Well, I'm going to spend the next 3 hours (swim team after that....it's a pain but I sleep well) eating, taking pictures, studying, and finishing Siddhartha.  Why, God, WHY must the math final be at 8:30 am?  And be three hours long?  Why?  But I will survive....  my mother wants me to play that at her funeral. 

I am so excited to get home.  I can't wait to see my friends and spend time with them while they're not at school, and cook and watch films and then go to England, and then D.C!!!  Aaah!  And I just found out I'm going to Colorado for a few days this summer... more on that later, but I've never been that far west and I really want to see the mountains.

Flashdance.... 

The Important Thing About Midterms, Really, Is To Feel Fabulous

Blue Train

Last night I was tired.  And sick and headachy.  I was resolved to come back from structured study (7-9 pm, Sunday through Thursday) and singlemindedly, unswervingly, invincibly finish my work and go to bed.  As I was on my way to my room to execute this magnificent display of efficiency, someone asked me to play ultimate frisbee.  My feeble, math-drenched little mind thought "Ultimate Frisbee = Fun" and tacked on "Me Sleeping Better From Utter Exhaustion • Guys With No Shirts On = Good" and made my mouth say "Sure, just let me get changed."  After that I spent the remaining hour before lights-out crying in the shower because I felt physically inferior and failing completely to do math homework that was due at ten this morning.  These two things should have been a clue that something was wrong.

 Today I got up.  I ate breakfast.  I sat outside the chemistry classroom and did chemistry homework in the absence of the necessary chemistry teacher.  I came back to the dorm.  I talked to the nurse.  I went back to bed.

Three hours later, I'm up and still feeling sick.  My teeth ache at their roots, and that's how I can always tell I'm not well.  I've been getting chills on and off for a week, and just decided it would help my midterms more if I finally shook them off than if I went to class and learned things.  In the hours I slept (incredibly soundly, considering the brightness of the snow outside, the lack of curtains, my roommate and my phone), I dreamed that my parents had come to take me away from school, that I wasn't packed, was trying to find my neon pink converse - which seem to have disappeared in reality, too - in a mountain of shampoo bottles, had a secret impromptu sleepover with some of my girlfriends here... in a teacher's attic... and slept staring at a ceiling painted with fishes and ropes and seaweed.  Perhaps I need to go back home to the beach.  It also started snowing again while I slept.  I adore the snow here - it's O.C.D and just can't stop.  Look:

I took these out of my window and from one of the lounges on my wing (love, love, love my stalker lens).  Let's compare them to this, which is how the school looked the first week.  That was August:

Just a little scary.

I've also sworn off facebook until after the math final, which is December 17th.  This means that, idiotically, I'll probably be blogging quite a lot.  Now I've got two hours until English, which I probably won't go to, but I should hand in a draft of my final essay.  I'm pretty much done with Huck Finn.  It was nice while it lasted, but now I've broken up with that book and I don't want to write a paper about why.  Or about how religion is satirized in the first twenty pages or so.  Never mind.  Oh, gosh, I'm hungry. 

But, hey, in case this whatever-the-hell-it-really-is bug or the final exams do kill me and you have
nothing       to      read, let me direct you over HERE, to the new, far superior and less egocentric blog of a dear friend of mine from the Scripps National Spelling Bee.  Enjoy it and marvel at the fact that there are people out there like that, who are actually willing to share their "awesomeness" with you and me through this silly little screen and keyboard.