Tuesday, June 24, 2008

happy anniversary to me

i'm a few weeks late but this is me wishing myself a happy one-year anniversary! it's now been over a year since i moved back home to seattle. and this is the part of my anniversary blog where i spout out all the cliché truths:
time has flown by!
i can't believe it's been a year already!
i can't believe it's only been a year already!
a stitch in time saves NINE! [i dunno what that one means either.]


naw but for realz though, it's been an incredible year. i miss my nashville friends a WHOLE lot but i have also been incredibly blessed to have made some of the best friends of my lifetime. i am so fortunate to have found an amazing church. i'm a lucky, lucky gal and being the nerd that i am, i LOVE being back in school. i blame that last bit for my inconsistent blogging. the good news is, i'm taking creative writing classes this quarter and next quarter so i'm going to have plenty of material cut and paste into my blog for your consumption. after all, isn't that what blogging is for? getting supplemental validation that i may or may not be getting from my teachers???

umm.
yeah.

Monday, June 9, 2008

true story

this afternoon i turned in my final paper for my cultural studies class with mere minutes to spare before the deadline. being the studious young gal that i am, i started this paper at about 10am this morning and by 2:45pm, had churned out seven pages of earth-shattering, ideology-destabalizing, smarter-person-making academic gold [GOLD i tell you! muahahahahahahaha!!!!]. i handed it over to my instructor at about 2:55pm and apologized preemptively for the aneurysm she would surely suffer once she read my paper and her brain exploded from all the complex genius therein. she wiped the single tear from her eye and thanked me profusely for lending my vast intellect to her insignificant little english class for an entire quarter. i told her to quit bowing, back-handed her for her insolence, and sashayed out of her office with a tip of my hat and an exaggerated wink for good measure.

in other news, i've spent the last few hours pretending like i was going to start work on the take-home final for my ethnic studies class due on wednesday. instead, i've been farting around on the internet, sucking down yet another mug of delicious happy juice [i believe the common folk call it "coffee"], listing to the this american life podcast [i totally have a crush on ira glass], playing about a dozen games of cellphone solitaire [several dozen, if i'm honest] and ultimately writing this very blog. i've recently been questioning the significance of this very blog as i haven't been inundated with praise or thanksgiving in comment form as of late. i was expecting at LEAST a "LOLZ! ur so funney!" or seven in response to my last blog but alas, no such luck. it looks like i'll have to continue settling for the validation i get from the academic world.

now if you'll excuse me, i'm off to pretend like i'm gonna start working on my next epic intellectual masterpiece [i.e. play some more solitaire, check perez for the millionth time and maybe check youtube for FOTC clips or something].

Monday, June 2, 2008

dead beat blogger

i know i am, it's true.

to the kind people who have checked back on this blog every so often, i apologize for not rewarding your efforts with one of my literary [cyber-ary?] gemz. truth be told, i've had every intention of blogging several times on several different topics but an incredible amount of my brain energy gets sucked up by school these days. the remaining brain energy gets sucked up by online social networking sites and celebrity blogs every time i sit in front of a computer. by the time i think to blog, my synapses are firing at the rate of a nerf bow and arrow [and not the kind with the convenient ammo storage attached, i'm talkin OLD skool nerf. mmhmm. you know what i'm talkin bout].

nevertheless, earlier this evening i decided that i wanted to blog but wasn't in front of a computer at the time so i told myself, i said "jDawg [i call myself jDawg sometimes], youz GOSTA blizzeryblogg, yo!" [when i call myself jDawg, i also like to speak in the kind of pseudo-Ebonics employed by caucasian actors in racially insensitive comedies]

so despite the fact that it's nearly 2am and despite the fact that i've got class in the morning and despite the fact that i'm risking writing brainless drivel as much of my meager brain energy has been sucked by the aforementioned social networking sites and celebrity blogs, i am indeed blogging. and what am i blogging about? astrology.

now i know as a Bible-believing Christian, i'm not supposed to believe in horoscopes and i'm supposed to sprinkle holy water on zodiac books and stuff. and though by no means do i subscribe unequivocally to astrology, i must admit that i've found elements to be true or at least applicable to my life. for example, i'm a cancer which is a water sign and water signs are characteristically sensitive to the cycles of the moon. on several occasions i've discovered that my bouts of crazy seem to come right around time time the moon is full. and sure, that could be a complete cop out but ya know what? i don't really mind. milli-vanilli got to blame the rain and win a grammy [nevermind that it got taken away], i'd like to take comfort in blaming the moon and thank the bathroom mirror for my imaginary grammys, all 7 of them [*sniff* do you smell a full moon?]. so rather than facing the distinct possibility that i am, in fact, coockoo-bananas from the inside-out i'd really appreciate it if you would kindly spare me obvious logical counterargument pleaseandthankyou.

the other concrete indisputable evidence i have to further solidify my confidence in the stars is the weekly horoscope provided by my favorite local publication, the stranger. there's a section in the back of the paper right above the "i saw u" section [ by the bye, it's totally a life goal of mine to be spotted and published in this section one day, even if it's by a creepy dude with zero social skills and a wicked case of yellow-fever. what can i say? i love validation.] where was i? oh yes. right above the "i saw you" section is the "freewill astrologer" written by a this dude rob brezsny who i'm pretty positive could either be my best friend or one of the aforementioned creepy dudes with zero social skills and a wicked case of yellow fever. either way, he seems to have a handle on my particular brand of neurosis and the proof is in the pudding. i give you this week's cancer horoscope:

"Dear Rob: My mother tells me I'm fat but feeds me pork rinds. My strongest supporter is a person I want to wrap up like a mummy, put in a canoe, and push out into the middle of the lake. My exuberant imagination has taken me hostage, violating its own principles. I'm so completely ambivalent and indecisive about everything that even my addictive nature can't figure out what to be addicted to. I'd embrace my contradictions if i could, but I can't because they've got me surrounded like a pink-haired, crossdressing SWAT team frothed up on Red Bull. Can you point me in the direction of the exit from this circus-like hell? - Crazy Crab." Dear Crazy: I detect a lot of wit and style in your meditations. Maybe that's the purpose of the limbo you're temporarily lost in: It's an opportunity to build your skill at being lively and feisty and smart no matter what your circumstances are.

gah. i read it and i felt like Rob had read the inside of my brain on a tuesday or something. granted, i feel obligated to submit the following disclaimers, which i suppose aren't necessarily disclaimers since they're coming AFTER you've already read that horoscope... um, so i submit to you the following proclaimers [not to be confused with the scottish dudes that sing that "500 miles" song]:
-- my mother doesn't feed me pork rinds although she sometimes tells me i would be more attractive if i lost 20 pounds -- but she says this with love. well-meaning, sorta-misguided, culturally-mistranslated, i-don't-have-body-dismorphic-disorder-by-the-grace-of-God love.
-- i don't actually want to mummify my strongest supporter. my supporters are all quite fantastic and i'm sure that the strongest of them could easily beat me up real bad or at the very least outrun me as i'm not quite in peak physical shape. plus i'm not really a big fan of running in the first place so i'm certainly not vindictive enough to go through all the trouble of exerting such significant physical energy for the purposes of mummifying somebody who thinks i'm awesome.
-- my addictive personality has DEFINITELY picked something to be addicted to: cell-phone solitaire. i thought i might be able to curb my appetite for that delicious techno-card game what with post-Lent and all but it seems those teeny little cards have captured my heart and my attention indefinitely. i may need to consult some kind of 12-step program soon. do they have cell-phone solitaire rehab? hmm...

other than that, this Rob kid sorta has me pegged i think. at times i get so freaking overwhelmed by the myriad of possible life choices in front of me, i fail to actually choose one and instead invent unlikely scenarios complete with gilmore-girls-esque dialogue and law-and-order:SVU-esque turns of plot [minus all the unpleasant sexual crime and murder and shizz]. i get so caught up in trying to hyper analyze possible outcomes that i am paralyzed and incapable of actually seeing an outcome come to fruition in real life. Rob's horoscope may not have provided me with predictions of the best day this week for love [thank you, Cosmo for supplementing Rob's neglect] nor with any winning lotto numbers [thank you, pan-Asian "Chinese" restaurants for the same] but he did give me this: some good ol' fashioned understanding. when you're as neurotic as i am, all that thinking can be isolating and you can sometimes fool yourself into believing that you're somehow tragically unique and beyond the reaches of anyone's true understanding. so color me crazy and call me delusional but no matter how shallow and weird it makes me, i take comfort in knowing that even the most obscure and wacky crevices of my brain are not completely mysterious to all of humandom. i welcome any and all evidence of understanding, even if in the form of horoscope found adjacent to an advertisement for transsexual escorts [pre-op].