HOLY FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, BATMAN. One of the reasons I wanted to buy Adam's ipod is for picture storage reasons (I could do that with the old-school LCD screen jobbies, too.) But now...well, let's just say as long as I'm window shopping, I may as well go for the gusto.

Maybe it's all of the bleak reading I've been doing for class (The Waste Land isn't exactly an upper) -- I'm blue. Could be the weather changing from those picturesque fall days to grey and rain. Could be could be. I'm bored as hell, but I still fall behind in my work. How does that happen? It pisses the hell out of me because if there's one thing I hate, it's apathy, especially in myself. But I want to hibernate through the term, the election, Christmas, my job, and the convoluted footpaths people lay out for themselves and each other. I feel like I could wash my dishes forever and slide down the drain when I'm done. My dad, french-fluent, taught me the word "ennui" when I started seeing someone for Depression. I had to deflate that D in a big way -- all of our problems are so much more when we're 16. Gee whiz, what a wise nearly two decades I have!

Christ. Look at that. Too. Much. Joyce. But it's what I look forward to. It's what actually tires me out. Sometimes I have to fight Ulysses or TS Eliot. The more I fantastize, the more appealling academia looks to me. Ph.D?



Even if you didn't really read anything up there, click the linky. Our president, the sniggering frat boy. Unbelievable.

My weekends have been flying away from me lately. The last one was dedicated to Mom and her Visit. The one previous was largely worked and pizza-ed away. I'm not really sure where this one has gone. It's not even the conventional "lost weekend," though I can tell you which I prefer as easily as I can tell you that I like not puking.

I saw a dead raccoon today. It was very clearly hit by a car last night. Being the one to call the sanitation department has never been fun. I once saw a dog get hit by a range rover. It was a big poodle (standard? are those the big ones?), running fullshaggy tilt at me. But there was a busy street -- northern lights at latouche -- between he and I. After he went down, I ran straight into the road and wrapped it in my coat. The driver looped around eventually. She was someone I knew, which made it so much worse. Her son later told me that the dog was okay; I didn't believe him then, although I think I do now.

Not to be depressing or anything. Strange mood. To radically change the subject, I'm discovering Rilo Kiley. Erica likey. I've been downloading from amazon's free downloads like a fiend. I can't really bring myself to download more than a song or two illegally. If the artist is still working, I won't do it. More often than not, I won't anyway. That's reasonable guilt, right?

I can't fucking wait until the election is over. I've filled out my ballot -- it waits for stamps and signatures. Politics needs to leave me alone for about five months. In Oregon, Prop. 36 translates to Gay Marriage Ban, and it's pretty hotly contested. If it passes, marriage is restricted to a man and a woman, but if it's defeated, nothing changes. But the Yes-on-36 people are fighting as if NOT defining marriage means that men can marry other men, their cars, heifers of all breed, and any sort of thing they find on the floor. Likewise for the ladies. For a piece of thinly-veiled bigotry, they're awfully vehement. I'm glad people have stopped asking me about it; between prop. 36 (which, I might add, I can't vote for ANYWAY because I'm registered Alaskan) and the presidential business and Tony v. Lisa (Tony's up, I hear) I'm about ready to join the legions of the apathetic and turn on, tune in, and tweak out. Political burnout, thy name is Erica.

If anyone tried to call this weekend, when the phone wasn't broken (IHATEQWESTTHEYAREVILESCUMSUCKINGBASTARDS), Marie was attached to it. I'd say "sorry 'bout that" if it were actually my doing.

Ulysses Update: Mid-way through chapter five.
NaNoWriMo: Some minimal outlining and a reasonably good idea.
Mother situation: The visit went well. As usual, I freaked out over nothing. But to my credit, the freaking out was pretty low-key. She left today, mid-afternoon. We had a really nice breakfast, followed by a walk around campus. (Unfortunately, I was in my new Birkenstocks, which leads me to my current footpain...nonetheless, I loves the Birks. Mom bought 'em for me while she was down here -- Kyle put it best, "Your mom just wants to spoil her little girl." Granted that buying me shoes and a couple meals is pretty damn awesome, the visit was a lot more meaningful for both of us. I mean, I think it put a lot of parental issues into perspective for me. She's my mother, but that in no way renders me less of an adult. I define that. She, on the other side of the coin, saw first-hand that I am not doing a wholly terrible job of defining this adulthood. Hell, I payed the electric bill in front of her. Mmm...time to end the parental thesis parenthesis.) She mentioned trying to get my dad to come visit. I doubt it will happen, but it's looking like a sure thing that Adam is coming to Eugene! It's going to rock.
Whether or not I buy Adam's iPod: Still up in the air.

Hot damn. This is why Jon Stewart rocks so hard.

Done gone signed up for NaNoWriMo. Better dust off that creativity thing.

Other than that, life remains normal. The Mill Alley kitty is officially the most awesome Eugene cat. She's always around when I need pet therapy. Oh yeah, my mother arrives tomorrow. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Maybe I need her to visit in order to prove to both of us that I am, in fact, doing just fine with this on my own thing. Maybe I'm just neurotic. Better take notes on this --neurosis is great in novels. Roth, anyone?

Yoga may be having a strange effect on me. Lately, especially on Mondays and Wednesdays (post-yoga), I'm very, very okay with myself. Sometimes, like when I did that stand on one leg then stand up using only the abs thing, I'm even kind of impressed with myself. Or when the German test goes unforseeably well, despite the GTF's best efforts. This thought came to me when I was out for a stroll in Eugene's duskiness, and it was revelatory.

It didn't last. I came back to finish off a paper, which made me cranky, and more reading, which made me insecure about my comprehension of the material. Tenuous now.

I see at least one cat everytime I go for a walk. Eugene is not a large town.

My mother is coming to visit this weekend. I got her a ticket to see Michael Moore -- I'm doing set-up and take-down!! I'm starting to get a little bit ansty about the mom thing (Michael Moore not so much); my Real Life is something that has detached from her idealized Erica, and for some bizarre reason I feel the need to protect her from...me. And my collegiate scruffiness?

Ah, the joys of living, but not voting, in a swing state. Partisan fire-spitting, hostile college groups, and we can't forget the endless, ENDLESS canvassers looking to "get out the vote." (Incidentally, I hate that phrase for grammatical and content-related reasons. Get it out where? Just one?) I get asked several times daily on and off campus if I'm registered to vote, if I'm registered at my current address, if I want Bush out of office, if I want a job (canvassing.) All of these pitches aren't just getting old -- they're staler than green and blue cinnamon buns. I'm dead sick of being approached while I'm walking to class because I'm either talking to someone or I'm thinking. Even if it's just, "Goodness, it looks like rain!" I passionately dislike being taken out of my reverie. Repeatedly. It came to a bit of a fever pitch yesterday, when a group of trustafarians* that had been lingering around Starbucks' outdoor tables with clipboards asked me as I passed if I wanted Bush out of office. Resorting to one of my pre-fabricated, get-the-fuck-out-of-my-face responses, I said, "Sorry, not today." The lead stoner monkey said to my back, in a tone of voice designed to show his buddies how apathetic and callous I was, "If not today then when?" This was met with a small murmur of assent. So I turned around and walked back at him, shouting about the fact that I can't change my voter registration without losing my dividend (Alaska oil money share) and that I was sick of being approached by all kinds of people who think they have the right to harass anyone on the street by nature of holding a clipboard. I would have gone on about how I'm just as much a valid liberal as he, and that he should stop wasting his time on people that don't want to talk to him, but Kyle sort of dragged me away. After a cooling off period (which involved petting a local cat for a good ten minutes), I felt quite satisfied with myself.

I watched part of the presidential debate tonight. It was shockingly boring. As expected, Kerry was well-spoken and Bush was a bumbling incompetent. Big news. We left early and hung out in Marc's dorm for a little bit. Then we came back to the apartment and made cookies. I've been feeling sick off and on for the past few days. It's like my cold can't quite decide what to do with itself.

It's that time of rainy season: I'm really starting to miss a lot of people. Mostly Anchoragers, or displaced ones. Maybe I should write more letters.

*Trust-a-far-i-an: noun. One who emulates or embraces the stoner/Bob Marley worship/Rastafarian lifestyle, but is fully funded by parents.

Happy Birthday Bailey Christ! I hope you got your mail...

The party went pretty well. People mixed reasonably well and no one seemed inordinately bored. Talk of comic books, politics, and dorm horror stories abounded. When things started to slow down around 11, Kyle and I busted out the Katie game, which was greeted with hilarity. I burnt the tips of three fingers (well, two and a thumb) on a pot lid and was in considerable pain for a couple hours, but other than that, there wasn't a hitch. The spaghetti sauce was one of my better sauce endeavors -- fully loaded with farmer's market veggies and a little bit of red wine.

The next day my fingers felt better, but I had a headcold to beat all. I went to the health center today, but apparently it's viral. The doctor must have been feeling generous, or perhaps I was looking especially hangdog, as he wrote me a note for some codeine-laced Tylenol to ease my monstrous throat demon.

German class has been kicking my ass lately. Ich muss schwerer arbeiten!