I bought an earflap hat so people would take me more seriously as an artist

I have this joke with my friends here. It goes a little something like this: I'm normally pretty scatterbrained -- this everyone knows. So I'd pass off importantish things like directions or train tickets to my roommate Jenn. She's the responsible one, I'd say, I'm just the comic relief. But one day, I kept the tickets. Puttin' on my Big Girl Pants, says I. The friends were impressed. A freeloader no longer, I proceeded to find my way around Vienna, Venice, Florence and Bratislava. I've learned the streetcars and subways here. I'll walk to my friends' houses confidently, without getting lost or harassed. Unless I'm with Americans, I only speak German. The Big Girl Pants are here to stay, right? Well...

Christmas is coming up. Even though I tend toward apathy at best and grinchiness at worst, the lights in the streets and bakery smells have really put me into a festive, lovey sort of mood.

Everyone in my classes won't stop talking about going home.

So now I'm fighting tears because I'm NOT going home and I DON'T have a plan or a clue where I'll be after December 16th. I'm scared, and I don't want my Big Girl Pants because they can't give me a hug. Homesickness, thy name is Erica.

For clarity

I will not be returning for the holidays. I'll see Alaskans in June and Oregonians sometime after that, depending on finances. But this is depressing, so read the entry below.

love.

Abenteuer!

Things I've done for the first time in the past six weeks:

Visited Poland, Germany, Hungary and Italy.
LEFT MY EFFING CAMERA IN THE HOSTEL IN VENICE.
Climbed a small mountain to a secluded Italian town.
Felt completely incompetent in three different languages.
Had a layered shot (two, in fact, with names that'll make you blush).
Been mistaken for a Swede, a Brit and a German successively.
Gone an entire day without speaking English.
Taken 100+ photos in a day. Six hours, really.
Made friends with folks without knowing a word of their language (offering chocolate always helps -- he gave me and my friends each a 10 ruble note. Russian money is rather pretty.)
Started Gravity's Rainbow.
Started Harry Potter (the first) in German.
Finished neither.
Studied less than three hours a week.
Tried countless new types of food and drink.
Stayed up all night waiting for a train.
Stayed up all night partying with two Midwesterners and a dude from New Zealand.
Adjusted to the German/Austrian keyboards, more or less.
Felt at home on a continent I'm not from.
Seen a giraffe in the flesh (!!!)
Gotten lost without panicking.
Purchased pizza by the kilo.
Been alone but not lonely.
Eaten organ meats.
Seen an underground Viennese hip hop show.
Smoked two cigarettes in two weeks. Slippery slope, people. I blame Ness.
Text messaged. Extensively.
Purchased a t-shirt with none other than Pope John Paul II on the front.
Neglected my blog thoroughly.

I could continue, but that would probably take hours. Hopefully my emails and pictures (www.flickr.com/users/ericarothman) find everyone well.

08.30.2005 -- Sam's Last Show

Because of Samuel K, I was inducted into the fascinating and seductive world of college radio. Needless to say, I'd like to have a show at UO, during grad school, and probably for the rest of my life. It's been awesome. Bold face indicates Sam's mom's tracks. She was our guest DJ, and I mean it sincerely when I say it rocked.

Blonde Redhead -- Elephant Woman
Scrabbel -- 1909
Rogue Wave -- Seconds

Nobody -- Wake Up and Smell the Millennium
Seachange -- News From Nowhere
Mclusky -- To Hell With Good Intentions

Sufjan Stevens -- The Man of Steel Has Stolen Our Hearts
Sun Kil Moon -- Lily and Parrots
Chemical Brothers -- The Boxer (request)

LCD Soundsystem -- Daft Punk is Playing at My House
Quasi -- It's Raining (giveaway)
Plastic Bertrand -- Ca Plane Pour Moi
Death From Above 1979 -- Little Girl
The Saints -- Messin' with the Kid

The Cripples -- Down Again
Autolux -- Here Comes Everyone
Pavement -- Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era

Wilco -- Heavy Metal Drummer
Ique -- Hamachi
Shonen Knife -- Catnip Dream

The Shins -- Girl on the Wing
Modest Mouse -- Blame it on the Tetons
Radiohead -- Myxomyiatosis

The Dandy Warhols -- We Used to Be Friends
The Clash -- Straight to Hell
The Go! Team -- Panther Dash

X -- The World's a Mess/It's in My Kiss
The Thermals -- How We Know
Nobody -- Jose De La Rues

Carbon Leaf -- Life Less Ordinary (request)
Vast Aire -- 9 Lashes
Boom Bap Project -- 1,2,3,4
Bishop Allen -- Broken Heart (giveaway)
New Pornographers -- The Bleeding Heart Show

08.23.2005 Set list +1!

The New Pornographers -- Twin Cinema
Menomena -- Sista Social Theme Song
Jens Lekman -- A Man Walks into a Bar

The Faint -- Take Me to the Hospital
Four Tet -- Smile Around Your Face
Supersystem -- Born into This World

De Novo Dahl -- Jeffrey
The Cripples -- Contraception
The Moon Knights -- It's All For You

Band of Bees -- Horsemen
Doug Martsch -- Woke Up This Morning
Beat Happening -- Teenage Caveman

The Long Winters -- Carparts (giveaway)
Smallspace -- So We Say...
Scrabbel -- 1909
PJ Harvey -- This is Love

Boom Bap Project -- Cut Down Ya Options
Z-Trip -- Take Two Copies
Felt -- Morris Day
13 & God -- Soft Atlas

Kane Hodder -- Jason Dean was a Teenage Liberator
The Saints -- Wild About You
Fugazi -- Give Me the Cure
Tiger Bear Wolf -- You Play Guitar

Jack Johnson -- Sexy Plexi (Request)
The Constantines -- Steal this Sound
Preston School of Industry -- If the Straits of Magellan Should Ever Run Dry
...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead -- Baudelaire

Gomez -- Chicken Out (Request)
Ted Leo + Rx -- The Angel's Share
Bettie Seveert -- Kid's Alright
Kings of Convenience (with Feist) -- The Build Up

Sufjan Stevens -- Chicago
alaska! -- Fury of Trees (giveaway)
Jean Knight -- Mr. Big Stuff (giveaway)
Guitar Wolf -- Can-nana Fever (Jet version)
The Go! Team -- Junior Kickstart

Next Tuesday is Sam's Last Show Featuring DJ Sam's Mom. It's going to be poignantly awesome. Also, Sam's mother rocks.

Actually took some pictures yesterday. That's good. It keeps me from moping about not taking pictures. Funny how that works.

I've been making a habit of getting up no earlier than 8:30 (work's at 9), and it's made me consistently 3 minutes late. Except for Tuesday and Wednesday this week, in which I came to work early because of the radio show and my annual respectively. I won't get into the annual too deeply (of course), but apparently I'm at extremely low risk for virtually every STD. woo hoo to that!

The abroad business is starting to make me antsy. I've done a lot of little errands, but moving my bank account (urgh), buying a train ticket from Frankfurt to Vienna ($$), and finally finishing all my trip-related reading and note-taking (whee!) still loom large.

Also: I sympathize with my parents MORE THAN EVER now. My brother (age 16) has been a sinkhole of negativity, anger, sarcasm (not that that's a shock), and this bizarre brand of hypocritical laziness that allows him to complain about EVERYTHING but fix absolutely nothing. The complaining encompasses things as minute as the encrusted salsa on the rim of the salsa jug. And my existence. That pisses him off. If he's really upset, he gets defensive and starts attacking me for the very things that (I think, anyway) he's guilty of. Of which he is guilty. I've been making an effort to spend more time at home to get some time in with my parents, but the boy is making that extremely difficult. The little smart ass is always planted in front of the computer (necessitating, or at least partially justifying the use of the computer at work, right?) usually with the television on as well. You see, he was there first, so he exerts a sort of ownership over the entire basement movie-watching, hanging-out, email-checking area. And it's a monster inconvenience to his schedule for me to do any of those things. Particularly with Kyle. I'll curtail the rant, but the kid is driving me nuts. It feels like he's going out of his way to make me feel like even more of a visitor -- an interloper, even -- in my house. I've got to say, if I could show 15 year old Erica video of 16 year old Adam, I'd've probably cut my folks a little more slack.

Round 'n' round

Happy Birthday to Kyle.

RIP Robert Moog.

Well.

I just had the pleasure of listening to the group I thought I had forgotten or repressed. That's right, America's answer to the Vienna Choir Boys: Hanson. Not just any song either. But Mmmbop. Damn it, headphones exist for a REASON!

Every song that has ever sucked is on this girl's mp3 player and pours out of a nifty little set of speakers. About 9 yards away from my little island of appraisal reports and bitterness. GRAH!

08.16.2005 Set List

Sufjan Stevens -- Jacksonville
Flaming Lips -- A Spoonful Weighs a Ton (Request)
Feist -- Mushaboom

Iron and Wine -- The Trapeze Swinger
Elliot Smith -- Pretty (Ugly Before)
The Shins -- Saint Simon (Request from SPOKANE, WARSHINGTON)

Josh Homme -- Hanging (AKA Ramble Off)
The Ruby Doe -- Red Letters
Hot Snakes -- Hatchet Job
Mission of Burma -- Dirt

YACHT -- Daydreams with Daffodils (Stepper2 remix)
Pepe Deluxe -- Ask For a Kiss
Nobody - Tori Oshi
Malcolm Kipe -- Mans Vents
Erland Oye -- Rubicon

The Mercury Rev -- Black Forest (Lorelei) (Giveaway)
The Boy Least Likely To -- I See Spiders When I Close My Eyes
Kinski -- Hidden Drugs in the Temple (Part 2)

Autolux -- Blanket
Mudhoney -- Suck You Dry
Clinic -- T.K.
The National -- Secret Meeting

Archie Bell and the Drells -- Tighten Up
Stan Getz & Charlie Byrd -- Desafinado
Walter Wanderley -- Summer Samba
Ella Fitzgerald and Louie Armstrong -- Under a Blanket of Blue
B.B. King -- If You Love Me

Wesafari -- Shooting Stars
The Wrens -- I Married Sonja
Yo La Tengo -- From a Motel 6
General Patton & X-ecutioners -- Duelling Banjo Marching Drill (Request)

Digby -- Left You Behind (Giveaway)
2mex -- Once Again
Vast Aire -- Supafriendz
Wiley -- Wot Do You Call It

Boom Bap Project -- Following Formulas
Elvis Costello -- The Beat
Viva Voce -- Alive with Pleasure

We only have a couple of shows left this summer, and I'll miss having the show. I heard more new music this summer than any time before (even those frightful years when I listened to the radio -- KWHL, usually -- waaay back when.) I developed a taste for hip-hop -- mushrooms may be next. Maybe. Urgh. Maybe not. Anyway, I need to find out if I can get a show at UO, or even UEA.

Yeah. About that. There's been some confusion, or poor PR on my part. Starting September 14th, I'm in Europe (Vienna, then Norwich) until June (maybe later). Just before (10th or so) I spend a couple of days in Boston, to see folks and the coast to which I've never been (north of the Mason-Dixon line.) So email me your home address if you want postcardage. Which will be happening, unlike email, which kinda doesn't.

Shaking the streets

This job has a fair few perks, but one of the more interesting is that I look at a lot of maps of Anchorage. Which is cool. I like maps. I always have. But these high-detail neighborhood maps get tedious after awhile. To keep myself entertained/not gibbering under my desk, I've been compiling a list of funny street names. The subdivision names are great too. Those will come later, though.

Runamuck Road
Woo Blvd -- Mind you, this boulevard is not named for a notable Anchorage citizen of Asian descent. No. This boulevard is named after the noise people emit on snowmachines.
All Star Circle -- This is in my old neighborhood, but it appeared after I moved away in seventh grade. Around the same time I was listening to some Smash Mouth song...
Bunny Shoe Circle
Shepherdia Drive -- Eh? Sheep?
Habicht Ct. -- Bless you, city planner.
Crataegus Avenue -- Do the people who live on this street know what that word means? Does anyone?
Doggie Avenue
Grape Place
Stroganoff Drive
Pequod Circle -- Call me chuckling.
Sea Parrot Drive
Buttermilk Way
Twenty Grand Drive -- Twenty grand of what?
Klinger Circle -- We got a M*A*S*H fan in the house!
Hottentot Mine Road
Eatwood Loop
Das Acres -- SCHNELL!
Grand Larry Drive -- I bet this guy is so pleased with himself.

Also: I can't seem to type "end unit;" it's always "end unity." My inner anarchist yearns to break free.

Set list for 08.09:
David, Sam's brother, co-hosted; he's nothing shy of an expert on old-school punk.

Buena Vista Social Club -- Chan Chan (Ibrahim Ferrer, RIP)
Gorillaz -- Demon Dayz
13 and God -- If
Feist -- Let it Die

Aimee Mann -- Goodbye Caroline
Royal City -- My Brother is the Meatman

Siouxie and the Banshees -- Hong Kong Garden
The Lurkers -- Ain't Got a Clue
The Adverts -- New Boys

Joy Division -- Disorder
The Only Ones -- Lovers of Today
The Avengers -- We Are the One
The Stranglers -- No More Heroes

Violent Femmes -- Blister in the Sun (Live) (Giveaway)
Buzzcocks -- Boredom (Request)
The Heartbreakers -- I Wanna Be Loved
Bad Religion -- Billy

Caribou -- Pelican Narrows
Kings of Convenience -- The Weight of My Words
Saint Etienne -- Mountain Rain
TV on the Radio -- Satellite

The Pixies -- Where is My Mind (Request)
The Screamers -- A Better World
Bad Brains -- Pay to Cum

Sleater-Kinney -- What's Mine is Yours
Bikini Kill -- Reject All American
Free Kitten -- What's Fair

The Urinals -- Ack Ack Ack Ack
Talking Heads -- Don't Worry About the Government
The Television Personalites -- Part-Time Punks
Gang on Four -- What We All Face

The Constantines -- Seven AM
The Wrens -- Thirteen Grand
Rogue Wave -- Be Kind + Remind

The Rentals -- Friends of P.
Decemberists -- Everything I Try to Do, Nothing Seems to Turn Out Right (Request)
Lilliput -- Ain't You

X-ray Specs -- I Am a Cliche
The Clash -- Garageland
The Jam -- In the City

The Damned -- New Rose
The Zeroes -- Beat Your Heart Out
Dinosaur Jr. -- Pebbles + Weeds

As I Sit Typing

1. I took the job for the money.
2. The money is good.
3. The job is not hard.
4. So I would make easy money.
5. Easy money is good for spending in Europe.
6. Europe is where I'm going.
BUT
7. It's 12:07 and I'm almost out of work to do.
8. I probably won't make it to 5:00 without going nuts.
9. I want to make it to 5:00 because of the money.
10. Communism has always looked good to me.
11. Now it looks better.
12. I want to be a farmer.
13 (Question). Who will raise goats and sheep with me?

The phone just keeps on ringing and ringing blblblblb blblblblb and Wayne's voice mail picks it up always after 3.5 rings and it's not like I couldn't go get it, but he never told me to in fact he told me not to bother because it'll always be angry clients impatiently sighing about the "status" of their inspections wanting times and dates as if theirs is the only inspection that ever there was. Wayne is Canadian and was an Olympic alpine skier and he lets me have time off if I give him plenty of notice but his phone makes me murderous and it's a little funny that I even have a phone because it doesn't ring blblblblb blblblblb. For some reason I miss Prof. Peppis right now. I bet his phone rings a lot too. Maybe that's why he's so pissed off all the time. Maybe he wants to throw some phones out windows too because that wouldn't solve any problems but the waste would be gloriously destructive as would the subsequent firing in my case. They tried to have a meeting but the phone kept on ringing blblblblb blblblblb. That bringly noise.

This file is a soap opera.

--------------

I'm telling you, the places my mind goes during work. I wish I could read and type at the same time. Then I'd be set.

Semester school kids will leave soon. Troubling, this. It means not only do I have to say goodbye ONCE AGAIN but also that I have almost a month of Anchorage time after the bulk of my buddies leave. Ridiculous. Also, schools in the 'rage are starting earlier this year, which means less time with the parents and brother. RIDICULOUS.

In positive news, Sam's brother David will be co-hosting the show with me tomorrow. I'm psyched. Lot of old school punk. Hip Hip Hooragent Orange!

Dad and I are going to start a porter when he gets back from his tennis trip. Those kids and their tennis. The amber turned out okay, but I think it needs to age a little more. If anyone in town wants to try some, come on over.

I need a haircut. Preferably not the same one I've been getting for a couple of years. Something with a modicum or three of sex appeal might be nice.

WWFS?

I've been having massive natural disaster dreams again. Everyone loses everything and missing persons rosters and scrounging for M&Ms (which were all teal and charcoal grey) -- the works. As my brother would mis-diagnose, Freudian for sure.

Attempting to cover for my bloggity neglect with set lists is not going to work for too long, methinks. So my fooling around time at work will now be redirected toward recording my more interesting bits of internal monologue.

Meantime, feedback on the musicses is appreciated. Suggestions too. Yesterday's show was solo, sans Sam, and shockingly not a massive screw-up. I panicked (LOVE that K in there - I panicked and picnicked and trafficked, oh my!) a little when the studio monitor stopped playing. Music was going out, but I couldn't hear it. The mini-control freak within freaked the hell out. I also got a call from a woman with a voice not unlike mine -- low -- who wanted some Elvis Costello and told me to quit smoking. She assumed I was 35+, I think. She seemed shocked to hear 20. Not the first time I've been told I have an "old soul," but hopefully the last. I'm not really sure what that means or if its desirable.

08.02 Set list

Cat Power - Say
Beulah - You're Only King Once
The PIxies - River Euphrates

Interpol - Obstacle 1
Beat Happening - In Between
The New Pornographers - Miss Teen Wordpower
Cowboy Junkies - Small Swift Birds (Request)

Sleater-Kinney - Night Light
The Crabs - Anything and Everything
Mt. Eerie - Waterfalls
Yo La Tengo - Big Day Coming (Demo)

Boy George and Culture Club - Karma Chameleon (Giveaway)
Neutral Milk Hotel - You've Passed
The Gossip - Fire/Sign
The Ebb and Flow - Firefly

Stephen Malkmus - Post-Paint Boy
Stereolab - Escape Pod
13 & God - Ghostwork
Gym Class Heroes - Band Aids

Daedalus - Night & Sleep
Beck - Devil's Haircut
Decemberists - Song for Myla Goldberg (Request)
Lucero - My Best Girl (Request)

Mark Mothersbaugh - Scrapping and Yelling
The 5,6,7,8s - Woo Hoo
The Coachwhips - Letter 2 London
They Might Be Giants - Experimental Film
Oingo Boingo - Weird Science

Tom Waits - Alice
The Shins - Kissless the Lipless
The Smiths - This Charming Man

Iron and Wine - Lion's Mane
Flaming Lips - Spiderbite Song
The Dandy Warhols - The Dandy Warhols Like Almost Everybody
Elvis Costello - Less than Zero

Sigur Ros - Staralfur
Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Minmae - Smiling with Teeth

American Analog Set - The Postman
Prefuse73 - Expressing Views is Obviously Wrong
Nine Black Alps - Llana Song

Cake - Short Skirt/Long Jacket
Death from Above 1979 - You're A Woman, I'm a Machine
Franz Ferdinand - The Dark of the Matinee
MC Solaar - Obsolete

Seven Second Delay -- 07.26.2005

Bad Religion - I Wanna Conquer the World
Sleater-Kinney - I Wanna Be Yr Joey Ramone
The Clash - Spanish Bombs

The Breeders - Invisible Man
Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
Old 97s - Moonlight
A.C. Newman - Most of Us Prizefighters

The Wallflowers - Shy of the Moon
Counting Crows - Rain King
Weezer - Say It Ain't So (Request)

Low - Silver Rider
X - Hungry Wolf
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - Ballad of the Sin Eater

Hellacopters - By the Grace of God (Giveaway)
The Notwist - Pilot (Concole Remix)
Lali Puna - Grin and Bear
Nobody - Wake Up and Smell the Millenium
Caribou - Hello Hammerheads

Beulah - My Side of the City
Wilco - War on War
The Ebb and Flow - See You Around the Fjords

Vast Aire - Viewtiful Flow
Blue Scholars - Freewheelin'
MIA - Bucky Done Gun

Royal City - Under a Hollow Tree
Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
Get Him Eat Him - Pardon My French

Built to Spill - Big Dipper
Rogue Wave - Endless Shovel
Pavement - Conduit for Sale!
Kinski - Semaphore

Paula Abdul - The Way That You Love Me (Giveaway)
Ben Kweller - Falling
The Mountain Goats - Palmcorder Yanja

Murder by Death - Killbot 2000
RATATAT - Seventeen Years
Tiger Bear Wolf - Input, Output

New Pornographers - The Bleeding Heart Show


Bailey, Rain King was for you, if you're still out there.

Set list for my first radio show, errata

The Doves -- Black and White Cities
Neutral Milk Hotel -- Song Against Sex
Devin Davis -- Cannons At The Courthouse

Rancid -- The Brothels
All -- Original Me
The Hives -- B is for Brutus

The New Pornographers -- All for Swinging You Around
Caribou -- Bees
Boom Bip -- The Do's and the Don'ts (Featuring Gruff Rhys)

Pavement -- Cut Your Hair!
Belle and Sebastian -- Don't Leave the Light On, Baby
The Decemberists -- Sporting Life (Request)
Madness -- Our House

Prince -- Raspberry Beret (contest prize, Prince Greatest Hits vol. 2)
Gang of Four -- Not Great Men
Love as Laughter -- Canal Street
The Rentals -- Waiting

The Unicorns -- Jellybones
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists -- Biomusicology
The Cripples -- Contraception
The Go! Team -- The Power is On (request)

Boom Bap Project -- Following Formulas
Bukue One -- Let Me In
Gorillaz -- November Has Come
13 and God -- Men of State

Iron and Wine -- Bird Stealing Bread
Rogue Wave -- Postage Stamp World
Sun Kil Moon -- Carry Me, Ohio

Mogwai -- You Don't Know Jesus
Viva Voce -- Alive with Pleasure
Menomena -- The Late Great Libido

Azure Ray -- Raining in Athens (Request)
Maria Taylor -- Birmingham 1982
Mommy and Daddy -- Confection
Death Cab for Cutie -- Title and Registration (Request)
Blonde Redhead -- Equus

See also: Kaz link at left. He's my co-host, for the non-Alaskans among ye.

Since returning to Anchorage, I've:

-started a boring job at a real estate appraisal firm.
-made more money at said job than any other job ever.
-hiked Arctic Valley with my family.
-biked a bit, but not as much as I'd like.
-gone to Lake Tahoe to visit Rothmans (Rothmen?) and hike, sunburn, feast, etc.
-gotten extremely excited about Austria and England next year.
-become frustrated at myself for not doing the artsy projects I told myself I'd finally start.
-written very little.
-taken few pictures.
-brewed a batch of amber ale with my folks.
-seen a few movies, read a few books.
-missed Portland. Eugene too, to a lesser degree.
-run into a ton of people I don't want to see, and a fair few I do.
-GOTTEN A RADIO SHOW!

and so on.

Right. The show is on 88.1 FM Anchorage. Tuesdays, 4-7 pm AKST. Out of staters can stream it at krua.uaa.alaska.edu. Alaska is but one wee hour earlier than Pacific time. Laura, Meg...you know what to do.

Also, if you want to record it, my baby brudder found a neat little program called wiretap pro that more or less allows you to record audio streams. I think. He's gone, so I'm just dinking around with it, hoping it's recording radio and not my obscenities in the trying-to-figure-out-the-gizmo process.

Folk + fest = urgh

I have to run a kiddie face painting booth at the Willamette Valley Folk Fest on account of this job of mine. It could be worse. Hours-wise, I'm getting off easy, which is nice considering I'm stipended and every hour they squeeze out of me lowers my hourly wage. Though the whole children aspect of it is unpleasant, it ought to go well. I can't really stand kids, by and large. The exceptions, my cousins and Julia most notably, are of course the most precocious and amazing kids ever, but the rest...meh. Thing is, kids really like me and I just don't get that. When I'm grumpy, they like me more. Quite the phenomenon.

Let's see. Over the past couple of weeks, I had a rap session with two of my GTFs, made minimal progress on Areli's birthday present (let alone the May birthdays), had a looong conversation with my beloved aunt, did masses of laundry, wished alternately that I were in Anchorage and that I never had to go back, found a job for the summer (in AK), and got a bunch of stuff done for the studying abroad business. Not to mention Mom's day. Not to mention endless boring classes that seem awfully pointless now. The weather here is manic and I'm starting to feel the same.

well then.

As if church and state weren't close enough already, now they're conjoined twins. A baptist church in North Carolina excommunicated the Democrats from its flock.

On the other hand, look up the Burka Band.

My beer turned out pretty well. Not earth-shattering, but a smooth, summery brew that goes nicely with all this damn rain.

Oregon rain

Cats and dogs? hell, this is rhinoceri and hippopotami. I don't care how disdainful my Texan roomie gets, these downpours are violent baptisms for the Willamette Valley. But it's inevitably as short-lived as it is ardent. It'll be over in an hour, if that. The rain is frenetic, but I can already hear it slacking off a little. There's got to be some kind of parable in here. Perhaps compared to the week-long Anchorage drizzle-fests. More on that as it develops.

PLC has a feral gerbil farm dwelling under the ivy. I saw about half a dozen rattish things munching and scuttling today on a Roma-run from the library.

I'm a ridiculous procrastinator. It's getting terminal. All of my study abroad paperwork remains neglected, my passport is still v1.0 (starring Erica, the 13 year old monstrosity!) and on and on. The temptation to list it is great, but I'd bore you and freak myself out.

Kyle and I are now addicted to The L-Word. No one saw it coming.

Raccoons, dairy artisans, a BK song, and GTF woes

But not in that order.

I am eating cheese that I purchased from the guy who made it. An honest-to-God cheese artisan. It's delicious, if expensive, and another peek for Erica into the world of agriculture. Cheese comes from jug-eared, lanky guys in rural Oregon, not the grocery store. It's chipotle cheddar. This guy has a blue cheese that's backordered until 2006 -- it won best blue in 2003 in the UK. My Wallace side came out in full force at this guy's booth.

Also: I could probably eat Dijon mustard with a spoon. Love it.

Studying at the library last night, a raccoon looked at me through the window (cutely) and disappeared. I was in the quiet room, so I couldn't squeal with delight. But I wiggled a bit in my chair and grinned like crazy.

My grandfather sent me a very heartfelt write-out of his family's history in Hungary/Transylvania. I shouldn't have read it at work. With his inimitable good humor and thoughtfulness, he outlined the family tree and how Rothmans, Mannheims, Bolgars, and others survived (or didn't) the Holocaust. We still email in German, at least partially. "Wir haben, "schrieb ich "eine mutige Familie." Suddenly, studying German has taken on a lot more significance.

Before I read that today, I visited my GTF for this survey course that I care about less and less every minute. She gave me a lame grade on a pretty good paper with some cryptic and pointless commentary on the sides and back about "political context" (not in the prompt) and arguing "more vigorously" to justify leaving out a particular line of this sonnet. It was an unsatisfying visit. She stood by her nonsense. To her credit, there are two points that I needed to draw out. I'm almost glad I went because of that. Now I know how nitpicky she'll be. But she seemed to think that it was the grade that bothered me. What bothered me (other than the fact that her point scale was ridiculous -- taking "a few off" of a 15 point paper and a 30 or 50 point paper makes a difference to the ratio, despite her allegations that I can make it up. If the whole class is 115 points, that's way slim) was that she didn't respond to her invalid criticisms. I think I may have frightened her, though; it was early, so I was in the "not talkative, somewhat somber, straight-faced" mode, and she got pretty uncomfortable toward the end of our little office hours session.

Bottling the Knockout Girly Beer tomorrow.

Another blues stringer back home

Looks like blogger added a "recover post" feature for all those works of genius that the internet eats when its feeling ornery. Just another reason I like it. Not that I've been showing my love for the blog lately.

To condense, I've been really homesick lately. Or peoplesick, I guess. I miss my Anchortown buddies to the point of tears and Eugene, while it's not Spokane, isn't exactly wildly entertaining.

On the less-whiny side, I'm going to see Sarah Vowell in Portland at Wordstock. The name is cheesy, but Miss Vowell's speaky is free.

And I'm listening to the Who, which tends make life easier overall.

Also: I just literally found an ant in my pants. Apparently, they're back with a vengeance, the little fuckers.

Just a couple quick things

I'm taking a silkscreening class at the craft center and brewing beer. The class is a bit dull, mostly on account of the teacher, but as soon as we're actually into the guts of it, I think I'll have a great time. It took me a hell of a long time to figure out why exactly one would want the emulsion to dry on the screen, but after an hour or so of unclear lecture and a less clumsy demonstration, I finally got the idea. And the beer! I'm making a raspberry honey ale that may well push 6.5 or 7% alcohol by volume. Hence the name: Knockout Girly Beer. Now you all know my thoughts on drinking and drunkness, so I say all this trusting you guys understand my joy at making stuff, not drinking it. hmm. rising incoherence. At any rate, it should be concurrently sweet and hoppy -- a really interesting, refreshing summer beer, methinks.

Meg is in my german conversation group, and that makes me endlessly happy. Less English, more German...hooray!

been sleeping poorly. missing people. Bailey, are you out there? I would really love to hear from you, my dear.

A bit of a saga, really.

Indeed they do, and they're far superior to anything that Greyhound has to offer. The past two weeks have been extremely eventful and extremely computer-less as Areli and Sam came to town, Kyle’s computer broke, and I left my little laptop alone in Eugene when I buzzed off to Portland last Sunday. So I’ll regale you with excerpts from the real journal, which is probably more accurate anyway, since it was along for the ride the whole time.

I want to be a line drawing. A simple, transparent line drawing. Actually, I'd like everyone to be line drawings. Maybe then I'd feel more sure of what few pen strokes I have.

Areli and Sam arrived in the thick of dead week -- really, the weekend before, but I had tons of work to do [I go on to list the papers and crap that I had to wade through the previous week, that week, and through finals. --e] We looked for salvia unsuccessfully; I'm not too keen on jumping through hoops to get the stuff, but I'm still curious. Their first full day involved University park (the one with the demon merry-go-round that always manages to fling me off and get sand in my underdrawers), Prince Puckler's ice cream and a tour of campus. They wandered Eugene. Fred Meyer! A movie or two. Dinners: flying dog, ziti bake, awesome quesadillas, pizza, and a cake. The cake didn't have long to live. We demolished it in the fullest sense of the word. Friday: I blew off all my classes (kyle handed in my paper) and went to PDX. We did some general wandering and hit a really great show: The Velvet Teen and Crosstide, with the New Truth (a lesser band, I thought.) The show was really good, but for some reason I hit a real energy lapse -- I was exhausted by nine. I stuck it out and got a second wind, but I considered (and I can't believe it in retrospect, and see it as a real moment of weakness) changing my bus ticket and going back to Eugene seriously. That was a wussy-ass low point, and I feel a bit guilty. We hit a Denny's after a 15-20 minute meander through a frontage road drug bust in industrial north portland. I saw some sketchy parts of stumptown that I wouldn't have otherwise seen, but we needed to ask a cop (who was blockading the road because of the aforementioned bust) for directions to I-5. Eventually, I got my milkshake and Areli and Sam got their fried stuff. Our main problem was a lack of a place to crash. At 1:00 or so at Denny's, our standing plan was to just stay up all night. Vetoed on the grounds of Areli and Sam having 4 more hours of driving. Roberta's [the woman I stay with in Portland -- a friend of my parents and a super cool gal] was ostensibly not an option; she was out of town, and, though she's told me to use the place and not stand on ceremony, I hadn't called her beforehand AND there was a not-Roberta's car in the driveway. Just moseying in would disturb any housesitter, though maybe not Bert. Later I found out that the omninous Trooper was a neighbor's. We had tried the hostel and a couple motels earlier to no avail, so we ended up shelling out for the Thrifylodge on E Burnside. Scuzzy, but acceptable. The room had a queen and a twin like the rooms my parents could sometimes finagle when we all road tripped together. Adam and I would alternate turns on the bed to prevent fighting. We were usually pretty good to each other on those trips, just cranky for autonomous reasons. anyway, the night was fairly uneventful, despite our proximity to bars, strip joints and the Doug Fir (a concert venue/lounge that gets good shows that I naturally can't see stupid 20...grr). The morning was smooth, if early. My bus left at 11:30 or so, and I had to be there an hour early. The Dynamic Duo dropped my off a couple of blocks from the bus station and right next to this little bakery I know -- we parted and I missed them almost immediately. It's nice to have old friends in a new environment. My posse was there -- they had my back. I got myself a muffin and a coffee and a coke for the road to settle my stomach in case of a motion sickness emergency --I was going dramamine commando. Seeing as my motion sickness can reach epic proportions, this was major. but somehow I managed not only to be a-okay the whole time, but I even read and wrote a little. As the Greyhound pulled onto Coburg, it occured to me that what took longer than a feature length movie (the bus ride) would stick in my memory as a montage, complete with iPod soundtrack, if at all. The contraction of life like that bothered me, but I supposed that if we carried every moment of our lives with us 24/7, no one would live to see 20. Destroying our recollection helps us collect more, snippets on snippets.

Okay, that should tide you all over until I get to finals week and spring break. Bear in mind I did omit some banal things without noting them.

I'm sorry

In your grief, please know that I am here for any support you want or need.

I'd like to think that it's super noble of me to be working on papers two weeks ahead of time, on account of Areli and Sam visiting. But it's not. It's shockingly responsible, but noble it ain't. To that end, el blogadero is not exactly going to be brimming with insight, photos or antics. Not until the 4th, anyway.

I'M SO EXCITED!

In retrospect, I should call it "playa theory." Elementary schools everywhere had a sort of anti-love Valentine's day, more or less favoring the kids who weren't exactly winning any beauty pageants. On some level, everyone knew that the "Valentines for everyone or Valentines for no one" mandate was a crock, a pity-play on the part of the teachers. That didn't stop me (and hopefully many others) to treasure the Bart Simpson or Kermit the Frog or Scrooge McDuck proclaiming Platonic love with some kind of pun. Occasionally, people would go all out and make 25 individual cards, attaching a hershey's kiss if they felt racy enough to kiss everyone in class. Therein lay the added benefit of circumventing the dictatorial love structure -- a savvy valentineer could make a little extra effort than the fold-and-cut heart for the Object of Affection. I did. I made a big, florid heart heart for Dylan Watts one year and agonized over what to write on there. My shyness won, of course, and a really ridiculous construction paper monstrosity dwarfed the inane happy-valentine's-day-you-are-really-nice (not those words, but equally lame.) In fact, I usually made my own valentines, either because my folks wouldn't buy the Muppet cards or because I had an ulterior motive.

The store-bought cards confused me after I made my first-ever round of 25 'tines. I had given time to every member of my class, and I got a forum letter back. The impersonality was one thing, but the mass distribution with nothing distinguishing me from the pretty girl, her from the weird boy mystified me. So here's where playa theory comes in. Mass valentines mean one of three things:

1) The sender doesn't care, but wants the candy. This didn't appeal to me, but was probably the most true. Also along these lines is the scattershot theory that sending out 25 valentines ought to yield SOMETHING.
2) The sender actually does love everyone in the class equally, making the same mass-manufactured Daffy Duck a pretty accurate measuring stick for his or her love.
3) The sender knows that there is something about this love thing that is desirable. My elementary school self wasn't so aware of the concept of sex drive, but I had figured out that people want lots of love from lots of people. I wasn't that dim. By way of flimsy, red cardstock, I realized that there is something Machiavellian in love. It's about gaining as much affection as possible at any cost.

In sixth grade, I didn't make valentines, but gave everyone a hershey's kiss instead. In part to satisfy the number ones, in part because of my disgust at the number threes.

I'm happy to say that we've all graduated from that. As well as from the incessant drama of junior high and high school. So let's take this V-day for what its worth and do something free of that sick control. Actually, it's not V-day anymore, which means in 18 hours or so, I should call my dad and wish him a happy birthday. but still. let go of that fucked obligation system.

Not taking pictures really fucks me up. Not writing is bad too, but the photos are an irreplaceable high. It's a reward, a miracle, a feat when something comes out better-than-expected, especially when your expectations are high as hell. So here's some stuff.


I thought of Sophie when I took this one. You know, because of her ferocity.


In which our heroine discovers the best light in her apartment -- it's the bathroom and it's reflecty walls.


Not doing the dishes sometimes results in good things. Really. I think I have about a dozen shots of these almost ethereal lines of starch clinging to my (christmas gift/totally sweet) saucepan. It reminds me of engraving.


Over winter break, my dad and I staked out the birdfeeders outside his bedroom window and had a couple long photo sessions. He has some BEAUTIFUL close-ups of nuthatches, black-capped chickadees and bohemian waxwings -- his little zappy camera has about twice the zoom as my clunker. But I love my clunker because I have more control than those zippity doo-dahs. So there. Anyway, this is a pair of feasting redpoles.


This fellow (Bohemian waxwing) knew I was taking his picture. I mean, look at him.


he's totally midcomplaint. Probably going off on the magpies.


Cropped severely, but otherwise undoctored. All of these were, for that matter.

Since I posted last, I've done some stuff. Such as turn in my financial aid and study abroad applications, make chicken stock again, turn in an agonizing paper for Comp Lit, agonize some more, read from Che Guevara's Guerilla Warfare (as well as some Shakespeare, Drayton, Marlowe, Lanyer, Donne, Nietzsche, Foucault, Rimbaud, blah, blah, blah von blah blah, and blah look at how intellectual I am!!! Reading brilliant minds makes me brilliant!!! ...fucking school... That's really more to illustrate how much crap I've had to do over the past two or three weeks rather than a display of my intellectual chops. I don't have to prove ANYTHING! [ha.]), noted the odd punctuation combination I just created, played Kingdom of Loathing a little too much, seen several movies, gotten an A on said paper, raged between hating school and loving it, and more fairly mundane crap.

I've also started scrawling things in other places, but it's not amounting to much. Nor do I expect it to because I'm finally realizing that that's not the point. Expect stuff later.

My grandma sent me a scarf and hat today. She knits like crazy and sells her wares at the Saturday Market in Anchorage, but winter (except for the holiday bazaars and the occasional substitute teaching job at East) is a dormant period for her. I'm her guinea pig for some new patterns, she said in her note on endearingly florid stationary. She sent me the hats saying she wasn't too fond of them, but I was welcome to keep or distribute them. It was a really sweet gesture; she's not too demonstrative (somewhat Victorian in a way), so it really throws me when she shows me the softer side of Granny. Two Christmases ago, she gave me a couple framed pictures of my mom and her siblings, circa '66 or so. For the longest time, I thought she was sort of ambivalent towards me because I wasn't going to be a party to her dressing me up in pinafores. Learning that's not true is quite the process. I'm wrong a lot.

After the sun goes nova, vaporizes the earth and sheds its envelopes of matter into the universe, it will dwindle into a little dwarf star and eventually die a quiet death. My recycled bones will, in billions of years, disintegrate along with the rest of the planet and the molecules will reduce to atoms and perhaps some sub-atomic bits. Our carbon will float among the rest of the stellar discharge, everything from my fingers to the entire body of literature. Will the next archeology be an alien race reconstructing our art microscopic fragment by microscopic fragment? Will they learn our languages and piece together adolescent diaries and masterful sonnets? Will they eventually be defunded when their civilization goes to war? Or will we make up their world until the universe freezes in total entropy?

This is my kitchen, as drawn by me. With my new favorite toy.

ETA: It looks lamer than it did before. Suddenly, perhaps because it's public, I'm as proud of it. This ultimately goes back to something Lynda Barry wrote about why kids stop drawing. They start asking whether it's good or not. To avoid those questions, she contends, is to create great stuff because it's not constrained. So to that end, I'm still keepin' it up.

Thanks for bearing with the previous angst-o-rama/stressoutapalooza. Things are much less melodramatic now. In fact, I saw a fellow ardently playing a didgeridoo while walking down the street today.

Everyday my walk to school takes me past the ambulance area of Sacred Heart hospital. This doesn't affect me -- hospitals are necessary, and I'm not at all the type to be unnerved by them. Today, though, the hoity-toity restaurant across 13th Ave. from the hospital had declared war. Excelsior (the restaurant) incensed the air with garlic and cloves, and Sacred Heart responded in kind with vomit. Then SH upped the ante with a siren. A wave of laughter swept through Excelsior. Sacred Heart won, with a clattering gurney and a moaning young man. But it felt to me that Excelsior pulled out because it lost interest; the wine arrived, perhaps, or the waiter told a charming joke. I entered Deutsch feeling more contemplative than usual.

BAH to paperwork. BAH to UO. BAH to bureaucracy and departments telling me what I can and cannot do.

No, fuck YOU. It doesn't matter how well anyone knows me -- my elastic frustration at myself often puts me in that long-suffering mood that most people tend to shed in junior high. I could hurl myself off of my balcony right now, but not before writing an angry diatribe, filled to the brim with self-righteous and self-hating rhetoric battling for supremacy. I'm just that pissed, and the reason pisses me off still more because it's really not a legitimate impetus for leaving an Erica-shaped dent in either the parking lot or that red Jetta.

So I missed an organizational meeting for one of my classes yesterday. The one I was most excited about, actually. I completely fucking blanked it, even though I had, not two hours prior to the meeting, lamented leaving Espresso Roma for my apartment because I'd only have to walk that way again in a scant hour and change. I also spaced out the Literary Society meeting. Everything is getting hazier in my mental appointment calendar, when I was once actually reliable. I had an organizer last year. I eventually stopped using it, as I always do. Last term, I forgot a meeting with an artist for work. I felt shitty for days. Work in general tends to slide out of my brain now. I'm behind on my meaningless paperwork, and even though I honestly don't give any form of a shit, I still feel guilty. And a little bit like I'm breaking, falling into obsolescence.

I got theory-whacked in my classes this term. My comp lit class on madness has been especially difficult so far, not having read much Nietzsche or dense theory in a while. I never taught myself to read this stuff. I can do it, it's another challenge, but the conceptual arena is not a place that I should get stuck. Maybe it has something to do with my cerebral reaction to the university or my own disconnection from everything that doesn't feel like home, but my head keeps rolling away.

So I get a "fuck you" email. I don't know how she means it, but I know nothing will end. We've been friends for way too long to just give the cowardly dramatic flourish of a two word e-missive as the sign. And I know that Joe passed away. And I know that I want to talk to Jordan. But what she knows (not Jordan, but the previous she) is that she's Jordan's protector and sister, and whatever she interprets my actions to mean. There's some gut reaction of hers that I'm not understanding, and fuck-all if I ever will entirely. But I am very transparent (she knows this) and I say what I mean about 95% of the time now.

Then I read the news, and I think the world isn't such a very bad place. It's just filled with assholes bent on ruining it. The scandal du jour and the rehash of the prior ones makes my stomach fucking turn.

In short, I want to cry. And I've wasted my day not doing it or anything else.

Doing some overhauls, now that I have time to do so. (Ahhh...free time.)

State of the Erica: BLAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Thank you, and god bless America.

Work broad-sided me when I got back. I'm sort of treading water for now, and all of those good intentions I had for the term (not blowing off homework, for starters) got knee-capped right out of the gate.

I miss everyone. A metric fuckload.

I dare you to match or beat me. Oxfam now has twenty of my American dollars, to be used for tsunami relief. If you're feeling guilty, indulge that little nag in your head and donate. A dose of antibotics costs a quarter.

Other areas need relief too. I started to type a list of countries off the top of my head, but it got too long. I'm going to keep this short because it's way preachy, and I'm well aware of the hypocrisy of seasonal charity (help is needed after Christmas too, although that didn't stop my mother and I from baking pies for Bean's -- I kind of thought it would be more appropriate in February when it's still fucking freezing, but no one feels compelled to help.) But America is proving its stinginess by bumping aid numbers only when criticized for being cheap. (From $15 mil to $35 mil to $350 mil...look up corporate campaign contributions and prepare to be disgusted. If I were prez or a congresslady, I'd propose tax breaks to companies that donate X tons of supplies. But that's just crazy me.)

In other news, I'm back in Eugene. Classes start monday, and I'm kind of lonely.

On Holiday Gifts:

I will be giving very few gifts in person. Most people like mail, so I'll be making and mailing gifts to y'all. 100% unique, but somewhat cheap and lettery. But they're a one-at-a-time process, and I'm taking my time because I want them to be good. Sam's is in the mail. I've got ideas for most people, but I'm taking my time on a few people (Areli being an excellent example -- but hers will evolve into a birthday thing anyway, so maybe that's a bad example) because I want them to be fully-formed, not some half-assed thing I whip out. So it's a slow process, but most people (read: Alaskan buddies) will be receiving mail from me over the next couple of months.

Clearer above: You'll all get something eventually. And it will be a thoughtful, personal gift.

In other news, I'm home.

I am still reading y'all's journals and whatnot. But don't expect replies to anything until the weekend. I'm in PDX without much computerage. This is Kyle's laptop at the commie cafe open mic night. Free wi-fi and loud grrrrrrrrrrrrrrl rawk,etc. Expect me in Anchorage late on the 20th. 21st, really. happy 'olidays.

It occurred to me today that a lot of my life is complete escapism. But I don't really object to that because what exactly am I escaping? I'm more or less at peace with the burning philosophical questions with my unique blend of existentialism and bullshit, I meet my basic survival needs admirably (we made a hearty Irish stew!) and my various mental illnesses are usually at some kind of equilibrium. So why not distract myself with blogs, chocolate, movies and Dave Eggers? Other than it feeling kind of superficial in that leaves-a-bad-taste sort of way, I mean. I haven't created much lately. That kind of smarts. The rut I'm in now was better than the rut I was in before, which was better than the rut I was in before, which... is this recursive, relative non-suckitude life? Gotta say that's not so attractive. Good thing I bought an iPod (20GB).

Hey, please don't read this as self-pity or any of that crap. I'm totally smiling right now. There's some funny stuff in here. I mean, I know that little consumer thrill people get when they indulge themselves. Usually, since I'm cheap as hell, it's how I feel when I buy myself a book or a new pen (and don't pretend you don't enjoy it -- you're all like me). And then later, you're writing with your new pen, and it's awesome. Great flow, nice grip...it's a fucking RUSH! But after a little bit, it's not necessarily the first pen you reach for. It becomes one of the half dozen you carry in the front part of your backpack, and whichever one you fish out first takes the notes that day. A different, older pen will splutter out of ink, and hmm. Maybe you oughta get a new pen. If you're like me, you'll hold out until most of that half dozen needs replacing, and then you'll make a calculated decision with a coupon. It totally looks like you're a dorky miser, but you are fucking STOKED when you try out every color in that style you like. Check out the ballpoint on THAT bad boy! The coupon and test pads are just icing -- the hunt for acquisition is definitely the cake AND ice cream. But what happened to that pen you bought X ago? Oh, it's okay, but just get a load of this one! And I've got a coupon!

Or buying a book when you know there are at least two new ones sitting unread, pining for attention on your shelf, looking to your battered Neruda and Steinbeck for guidance. Pablo and Johnny aren't much help. They've always been well-thumbed. I got The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004 for my birthday, but I'm not quite done with 2002. And I bought myself the complete short works of Kafka in PDX. So Old School is giving me a dirty look, but Cruddy is trying to calm him down. I got around to Lynda Barry, and I'll get around to Tobias Wolff, and man. It's worth waiting for.

Grabman, Sophie, Meg, whoever else may know: Where can I find Dreamweaver for no money? Or at least a trial version that I can scam?

Taking a brain-break from the final chapter (!!!!!) of Ulysses, on which I must give a presentation tomorrow. School-wise, tomorrow sucks. But otherwise, it should be awesome. I am leaving my teen years behind. In fact, in about 34 minutes, I'll be 20. The Awkward stage will cease. I will neither stumble nor walk, but float. Glide, if you will. (Ha. Given my absurd level of klutziness, I may have to hold out for 30. Or my next incarnation.) Kyle has taken over celebration plans, and I know nothing of what's going on. It's like Christmas eve, here. Except for the studying.

I SWEAR TO GOD I saw Snoop Dogg talking on a cell phone, smoking a cigarillo and driving a white Honda Civic (California plates) through the streets of Eugene today. Seriously. Down to the cornrows and mad cheekbones.

U of O has suddenly become a very alienating place in many ways. It doesn't always feel like I have a lot of friends here.

I will return to Anchortown on the 20th, and depart again on the 31st. Missing everybody ridiculously. I even found myself missing Europa (hellish bakery at which I slaved for almost two years).

There's a lot to say. I think of things I want to tell everyone every goddamn day. But I never write it down and it gets lost in the brainstuffings. More later. Perhaps much later. It IS dead week, after all.

A small preface: if you haven't seen sorryeverybody.com, (go to the gallery) I have linked for your convenience. These pictures, some quite eloquent, are pretty damn expressive of my feelings about the election. So I made my own to send. It's the new hip thing, so why not?



Sophie, you have formal permission to iconize. In fact, I'd like to commission that, if I could.

So. I was thinking about alphabet soup when I was eating my apologetic dinner. And it occurred to me that alphabet soup must not have hit the consumer market until most of the buying public was literate. When was literacy so prevalent that alphabet soup could be successfully introduced? To Google!

...so naturally, the internets crash. I'm having laptop difficulties like no other. Our wireless is incredibly unreliable and now my sound driver is fucking up for no discernable reason. I NEEDS MY MUSIC. This is making an iPod more and more attractive. Ima go reinstall some drivers now.

I promised pictures, and be damned if I don't deliver! VIEW MY APARTMENT AND ITS SHABBY GLORY!


Our lovely view. All you New Englanding foliage elitists can shove it. Eugene is gorgeous in the fall.


Unfortunately, Smoking Dude is not out smoking. We tend to stare at him, and laugh when he tries to adjust his (very nice) aloe plant and fails. He seems mildly intrigued by the three girls living yonder, but our relationship is limited to staring, laughing and the occasional wave. We can see into his living room (and he ours) -- we're glad he moved his furniture because now we can't see his creepy ceramic monkey. This thing could have a series of horror films. Seriously.


Our kitchen has a pointless wall. It seems to be there only for toe-stubbing reasons. I managed to get three toes simultaneously today. Needless to say, it better be load-bearing or else...


The rest of our kitchen. Note the bright orange countertops (only the finest in 70s decor here at Club Mill) and mostly-done dishes.


Here's the living room. The couches and endtables were so free. As was the lamp. In fact, we have tons of free stuff in our apartment.


Living room, different angle. I need to remember to post a picture of Awesomesaurus later. Truly Awesome. Saurus.

Okay. This is the only decoration in the living room, wall-wise, and it isNOT mine. Nor is it Kyle's. This tackiness, which I can't even enjoy ironically, brought to you by Marie. The one with the dragon and the yin-yang is (thankfully) in her room. She's a great roommate otherwise. Except for the bathroom time issue. But enough words. More pictures!


Show-ah. Our bathroom is pretty tidy. Current reading material: Trader Joe's Fearless Flyer. We read about yuppie food in our water closet.


Close up of a shower tile. Does anyone else think this looks like what I think it looks like?


Mah room. Note the posterage. One is of Mannhattan, another is pasta. Quilts courtesy of my mom.


The built-in desk/dresser. It's pretty nice, but I never do work there. I haven't once. Great place to put stuff, though.


You may have noticed the floor is clear of clothing. It was once not so. Piles of clothing EVERYWHERE until we invested in this fine device. I can walk without tripping again! I've reclaimed my life!


The obligatory mirror shot. The better of two.


I loves me the Freudian criticism like I loves me the barbeque.

General update: I am buried in work (for which I finally got paid. bastids) and schooly-school. My brother is officially coming down to Eugene over spring break. He's going to have a blast. Or he better, if he knows what's good for him...
Our friend Aaron came over last night, ridiculously stoned. He wanted to have a nerd party. That may or may not happen. He's a nutty guy, and he's got that lovable college scruff going for him. He'll have some great stories when he's 40.

To bed!

Short post for the moment, but if you're not actively seeking independent news sources by NOW, you may as well plug into FOX news. So try Salon. You have to watch a short ad to log in, but it's worth it and the cookie lasts all day. They carry Tom Tomorrow and WayLay too, so all the more reason.

Also: Forgive the lack of postage, please. Like all of you, I'm ridiculously busy. The next post will have pictures. I promise.

Since it seems to be trendy to bitch about the election and/or make stirring posts about Our Civic Duty, consider this my two bits.

First, I'm disappointed and shocked. Our civil liberties will need defending. Chances are, the US will continue to lose international support. The US may end up very alone. Things look bleak, and action will be necessary.
That said, I want to give my gut to the noble e-speeches cropping up in my Friends List, in high-profile political blogs, in a few scant op-eds floating around. I do agree that we will need to shout louder and hit harder and raise more money and cause more hell. But will the inspiration be there for the public? My first reaction to Kerry's concession was not plotting to overthrow the Bush regime, nor was it dreaming up a new non-profit to defend us. It was to leave. Expatriation for an ex-patriot. In essence, I said, "Fuck this." Because I didn't choose him the first time around, and I didn't choose him this time, but apparently by dint of being an American, I deserve this circus. My first point: I, like many, simply want to leave it all behind.
A mass exodus, however tempting, seems unlikely. At the first signs of the flood, most industrialized countries would close their borders, leaving the ones to whom our lined American pockets would be a boon. Historically and by the fact of human nature, no one does anything until their standard of living is in peril. Not just in rhetorical terms. The Patriot Act chafes us and robs us of our basic right to privacy, but it doesn't keep food off of our tables. Until, like wars past, everyone knows someone who was injured or killed in Iraq, Afghanistan, or whereever we invade next, nothing will change. The US presence stayed in Vietnam for almost a decade --that's how long it took the people to impress upon the government that something had to change. And that was a certain majority America talking. Second point: When people can live normally, politics floats to the periphery.
The majority was tired of seeing the death toll. For some reason, the number, somewhere near 1100 now, of Iraq casualties flashes on the screen and then goes down the memory hole. No one is impressing the horrors of war onto us. No one is showing us that No Child Left Behind is a steaming heap of shit that will make struggling schools worse off than before. No one is showing us how borrowing some healthcare ideas from those Crazy Canadians or "Old Europe" may actually help us, especially our senior citizens choosing between food or pills. The media is failing us because, pay attention, they make money off of partisan politics. The punditry and business and dog and pony show of it all is good for business. Don't want to alienate the (left/right)-leaning advertiser? Tweak the story, change the wording. It doesn't seem to make a difference because we're locked into the two-party system anyway. Another crazy idea from those countries that aren't US. Final point: Media + two-party system = political circle jerk.

So my basic message is, yes, your heart is in the right place. I will help, for as long as I'm an American. But please, and I mean this without aggression or arrogance, put your money where your mouth is. A lot of people can talk or write well, but who can follow up?

This is hilarious. It's already been Sophie-approved, so don't just take my word for it. These people are passionate about their cheese. I mean Wallace passionate.

I'm trying to solve the "More..." dilemma with the last few posts. Ideally, I'll have the cut-text option with some nifty little code bits, but I guess I did something wrong.

NaNo: 706 wds.

So...who's NaNoWriMo-ing with me? readysetgo.

Update: This is amazing. It's already gotten Sophie-approval. Check out the mirror site in Italian.

I NaNo'ed a bit at work. The excerpt is up at nanowrimo.org -- my author name is (you guessed it) ericarothman.

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!

In the spirit of expanding my horizons and doing things on my list of undone, I am A) having a party in my own apartment and B) reading Ulysses. For real this time. I'm in a class, so I have to. I got the annotations from the library and I'm going to do it right. Already it's dense as hell, but the more I learn about Irish history, catholicism, Shakespeare, and modernism the more amazed I am with this book. It's the only novel I think I've ever read where each word, sentence, paragraph, and chapter are labored over in both minute and grand scales. Or at least the only one where every word has the greatest possible meaning. Granted that I'm only up to chapter two, Joyce is awe-inspiring nonetheless. I'm hooked enough now, scant pages into the work, to consider a life as a Joyce scholar. If only someone would actually pay me.

The more interesting subject being the party, I'll go on about that now. Yes, it's a collegiate party with booze and revelry and more people than the fire marshall would approve of (admittedly not that many considering, but we've invited everyone we know and like.) We have agreed, out of cheapness and practicality and safety, that we aren't going to provide enough alcohol for any one person to get shit-faced. This will be a social, partially BYOB, and hopefully monstrously fun occasion. I'm cooking up a huge thang of pasta and several huge thangs of sauce (perhaps veggie and meaty, though entirely veggie may be how it goes), and the bottle of wine we hoarded in the dorm for half the year will finally be deflowered. Funny thing: We're asking everyone to bring a plate because we don't have enough for everyone. In fact, we have five plates for three people. I actually consider that quite respectable, given our student status.

Meine Deustch Professor ist nicht gut, aber nicht schlecht. Er spricht als wir Kinder sind. Meg, wer hast du? Hast du Maria wieder?

I have the same birthday as the following celebrities:

Britney Spears
Lucy Liu
Maria Callas
Julie Harris
Ed Meese
Nelly Furtado
Stone Phillips
Nigel Spackman

The following people died on my birthday (among many others, no doubt):

Philip Larkin
Desi Arnaz
Marquis de Sade
Harrison Ford (not Indiana Jones, but a silent film actor of the same name)

Connie Chung and Maury Povich were married the very day I was born.

---

With all of that out of the way, I figured I should update. Cultural Forum (henceforth "the cult") training is going well. My job is probably the least labor-intensive, which is good because my stipend is crap. It's also something I would probably enjoy doing in the real world. I'm curating two small galleries in the student union. So far, so good.

My apartment is starting to take the shape of a home now that we're stocked up with food and shelving and a vacuum cleaner. We (myself, Kyle, and Marie) are waiting for classes to start, revelling in freedom/boredom. Marie has taken to walks about campus and Eugene, while Kyle and I are researching food-making ideas. Homemade bread and pasta, as well as homegrown herbs, are in our future. (!!) This will also be the point at which I mention that Marie is 21, so I can ACTUALLY cook with wine and liquors. And enjoy a glass of vino with my well-prepared meal. Soon, we roast a chicken and make stock from the carcass. Hooray for chicken noodle soup!

On the downside of apartmenty things, we have ants. It's a minor problem, so we probably won't spray. Infestation still bothers me a great deal, but they're leaving my goldfish crackers alone. I guess I can't really complain. Qwest, however, is on my shit list. Boycott them whenever possible. Their phone service alone gave me a fucked-up little run-around, and apparently we need to "apply" for internet service. My ass.

Classes start on monday. Tomorrow night, I host the comedy open mic night for the cult as a part of "intermingle" -- basically, a big UO block party. (Eugenians: It's at 11 in the buzz. Please come and laugh and bring funny friends.) Until classes start, I'll be cooking, exploring Eugene, and camping out in a library from time to time to work on my other web projects. If I haven't emailed or written you, it's not personal. I'm lazy. This is something I am making time for over the next few days. Expect emails and letters. I still miss everyone fervently. Eugene is not quite home yet, no matter how much ramen is in my cupboard.

I can hear "Radar Love" coming from another room. Oop, crossfade to Pearl Jam. An improvement. Anyway, I've been not-blogging for a while because I decided that livejournal et al was equal to poison in its addictiveness and ability to hurt people. The stalking thing, too. It enables stalkers easily. However, it's one of the easiest ways to keep in touch with people. So: Yes, I'm still reading you all. No, I (largely) haven't been commenting much. No, it's nothing personal. Yes, I'll eventually be more dilligent about it. No, I don't really think I'm going to switch to LJ for anything other than accessing friends-only posts.

In other, more relevant news, I'm thinking of starting a new blog dedicated to shoestring photography, digital and film. It would be an excuse to post photos as well as research and get creative with cheap tricks, goods, and services. And if there's anything I love, it's cheap services.

SERIOUS QUESTION ALERT: I'm in a new music/reading material mode. Please tell me what you've been reading and listening to lately. Do eet!

But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

final lines from Pablo Neruda's Your Feet

Dear Mom,

I don't judge your emotional outpourings -- I admire them and wish you would have more. Maybe you'd be happier if you took off the teacher face once in a while.

Love,
Erica
____________
Adam,

Go easy on our folks, mmkay? I know you're 15 and all, but please. For their mental health.

Love,
Erica
____________
Dear Dad,

Where have you been? Why do I only see you for a few minutes everyday? Why are those minutes so often filled with criticism? I still love you, you know.

Always,
Erica
____________
Kyle,

You're cute when you're shelving.

Remembering what Natalie said,
Erica
____________
-----------,

I'm beginning to doubt your intentions, and whether you are who you say you are. Maybe that's convoluted, but so is the damn internet.

Erica
____________
-----------,

As always, I'm a flake. But you're a flake too, and too often incapable of seeing that. I can't bring myself to say it because I fear for our (fading?) friendship.

Erica
____________
-----------,

Chill.

Erica
____________
-----------,

Were you not so far away, I'd suggest a shot of local music and maybe a gin and tonic. Glad to see you are thriving.

Missing you constantly,
Erica
____________
-----------,

Everyone has doubts, but they're just doubts. Which is rich coming from me.

Erica

I love Lake Tahoe. The Washoe believed that the place had powers of cleansing and relief -- I'd have to agree. My family has had a cabin there for several generations, and the general state of repair reflects that. It's falling apart. Ownership has shifted from the Greatest Generation to my father and his cousin. What To Do is the big issue. Renting it out is the main option, but no one wants the place to be treated like a hotel room. Renovations are destined to be expensive, though. I spent half of my first day there digging for a water main. Despite all of the labor that will inevitably be involved, no one mentioned selling the place altogether, which gives me heart.

When I got home, it seemed like everything was wrong. Subsequently, my stomach rebelled. I'm finally getting over that, and I feel light and easy for the first time since my return.

Alison, a former neighbor who babysat me eons ago, is getting married today. Going to a wedding is the last thing I want to do today. Ah well.

Currently reading The Accordian Crimes by Annie Proulx. It started very well, but I think my enthusiasm is flagging because I'm already starting to look at other books.

Work sucks in a big way. Just a month more.

Sophie: Check out the Arts and Entertainment section of Salon.com -- they have a huge article about Mark Ruffalo.

Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from , everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems painful can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Henry Miller

A little something for sustaining us all, I guess. I leave for California on Thursday, to visit family. Don't expect a lot of posting, but I'll make an effort to swing by the inbox at least once.

Guess where I am! Guess! Guess! I'm at Cafe del Mundo, home of the free wi-fi. Sweet indeed. Now that I can easily slide onto the internet from any number of ridiculously named "hot spots" (including my front lawn, since my next door neighbors got wireless a few months ago), my photos are finally web-accessible once more. Which means that my Great Internet Project (or GIP! if you're Sophie) -- putting up pictures on an online space, namely, my UO space, is forthcoming. I need to renew my FTP program (it's a demo), and then it's all ready to rock. Until then, I'll continue to use photobucket. As I mentioned eons ago, the user name is ericarothman, and the guest password is heyjude.

New toys aside, things have been pretty good lately. Although a bit of awkwardness occurred at work yesterday when Aubrey came in again. I didn't realize she was in my line until I looked up to say some sort of can I help you bit. Surprised, I didn't handle it well. It seems like she's playing a game with me or something. An awkward game.

This is the kind of day where it's in my best interest to stay the hell away from bookstores, music stores, even Fred Meyer at the risk of treating myself to a big-time splurge. Which sounds harmless worded that way, but as we all know, splurge spelled backwards is egrulps: latin for "dwindled checking account." But it's a strange mood I find myself in, this "I need new books/music/canned foods because I feel like it" mood. It's dangerous. The old money bags have been fluctuating wildly as I make money, spend it, find odd jobs, spend more, get reimbursed for some things, pay people back, pass go, collect $200, pay luxury tax, etc.

This may take the cake for best opening paragraph ever.

After more than 600 years, it was his handwriting that gave him away. A scribe - who until the weekend was known to history only as Adam the scrivener - so infuriated Geoffrey Chaucer with his carelessness that the poet threatened to curse him with an outbreak of scabs.

More here, for you anglophiles.

About ten minutes ago, I was cruising down C street, having dropped Kyle off moments before. Tuned out and listening to NPR, it took me a little bit to realize that a large Dodge ram (newer than mine, at least a '96) was pacing with me. Its occupants? Two young fellows, who could have passed for 15 easily, staring at me with what they must have hoped was suaveness. I accelerated; they accelerated. I rolled my eyes; they made kissy-lips. Stop light. The driver said, originally enough, "Nice truck, lady." I thanked him and turned.

Lady? LADY?! I'm what? Pushing 20? The big 2-0? Oy. Kids these days.

My scrappy little kitty got into a fight; she's covered in scrapes and scabs and walks with a slight limp. I'm not surprised at all -- she tends to strut around the nieghbors cats with a bit too much swagger. They, being larger and not declawed, usually come out on top.

Getting back online when it's so gorgeous out is criminal. We've had about two more or less complete weeks of awesome weather (aside from the intermittant smokings from nearby forest fires), and my outside time has been disappointing at times. Blaming work isn't entirely accurate, but BT and the subsequent BT-induced exhaustion are sleep-inspiring, not hike-Flattop-for-a-midngith-picnic-inspiring. But that's just me making excuses.

Natalie left for Europe two days ago. Her boyfriend put it best, "I'm going to miss the everloving crap out of that girl." I'm jealous of her trip, but glad that she's taking it because she deserves it.

Part I: The Sweeping Update

In no particular order: I saw Rita, back from Brooklyn. She's living the dream as the night manager of a bakery there. I missed that girl and didn't even realize it until she walked up to my register at Bear Tooth. Auntie was there too, who I also missed. The both of them need to give lessons in awesomeness. On the other hand of coincidence, I've seen a lot of people I'd rather not see at work. People whose names I've forgotten, people who I don't care about and don't have the energy to pretend, people that never gave me the time of day before but decided to become my buddy now. It's quite a schmeet. Also seen at work: Sam Beck, who is nice to talk to. His overall decency as a human being slipped my mind because I associated him with a certain bloc of West '03 males. And: Aubrey. Not sure if she's still reading or not. I interpreted her not coming to my register as a sign of indifference, which is probably how these things ought to be. Work, all of this, aside, is pretty good. Considering that I forgot Saturday's little shift switcheroo with my long-time pal Toby, and simply didn't show (prompting a call and a lot of embarrassment, guilt and tears on my part), yeah, it's been okay. I like my coworkers, for the most part. And it's an easy job. Other things: I haven't been hanging out with people as much as I'd like, and I still have yet to see a lot of people period. Like Ness. And Bob. And more. Tonight, though, I fucked up. I sort of gave Areli and Sam a big cold shoulder because I misinterpreted Kyle's wanting to go home remark. Guilt abounds.

Part II: A Clever Segue

The guilt thing is well-documented. But it's clear to me that I over-react. I felt like crying after running out of paint for my grandpa's fence, for god's sake. Call me the gulit machine. This troubles me, but I don't know what to do about it.

Part III: Realizing there's nothing to segue to

I'm kind of tired, so this may be completely incoherent. But I thought I should mention a few more assorted things. The stain I used on Papa's fence was the color of caramel. I have bruises, but I don't know where they're from. The CD in my car has Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Dinah Washington and Billie Holliday. My parents are driving me mad. I need to put the oven mitt away. I'm re-reading The Odyessy because I'll be reading Ulysses next term. I have the best friends in the world.

Like A-Train at work says, "It's all milk."

I pity any hairdresser that gets me as a customer. Today, it was a poor lady named Robin who moved to Alaska from Florida eight months ago. At the urging of my dad, I stopped talking about getting a haircut and actually did it. Usually, this process takes a few weeks -- I need those weeks, too. I learned that today. First, I step into the hair joint and my hairstylist/dresser/cutter/designer/whateverer starts to crow about my loads and loads of thick hair. "People spend so much money to get hair like this!" After I get this latest incident straightened out, I'm going to grow that bitch out and donate to one of those wig groups. But I digress. I'm not very good at articulating what I want in a hairstyle, and people tend to interpret that as conservtism or reticence. Today, I decided I wanted something drastic, and I just got something bizarre. So I went back and asked her to taper because it was a little too Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction" crossed with Annie Lennox at any point (except for the total buzz-cut thing). If that means anything to anyone. Long hair story short, it's tolerable now, but she told me to come back for some trimmage in a week or two. For those of you who know her, I was going for something along the lines of Savannah's hair (from second floor) -- it didn't quite work out.

What a way to break the silence, eh? Bitching about my HAIR OH MY GOD etc. As far as general life updates go, I'm okay. The job is good, the family things are as good as they'll get, and so on.

Does anyone know if a Daria DVD set is coming out anytime? And subsequently hitting Blockbuster's shelves? It won't be long before I run out of Cowboy Bebop...

Not dead, but suffering from a slower-than-normal connection. I know, wah wah wah. So...I got a job, thanks to Awesome Toby. I now work at Bear Tooth Theatre Pub, a reasonably hip pizza/movie place. Due to laziness and seeing the people I use this thing to keep in touch with, I think posting will be very light over the summer. But I hope everyone is well and stays that way.

Prefacing: I told myself (and Kyle) that I wouldn't read anyone's livejournal until I got home because it made me miss everyone too much. Unbearably. It made me grumpy and kind of hard to deal with, so I decided to butt out for a little more than a week. Today I broke down and read a few, though, and now I don't know what to think. Will someone fill me in? I keep thinking the worst.

That said, today didn't exactly turn out as planned, what with the ending up in the emergency room and all. I woke up this morning with tear-my-uterus-out bad cramps. Kyle and I trudged over to the dining hall with ibuprofen in our pockets, and sat down to another disappointing meal. I had some breakfasty potatoes, some salad, orange juice, two ibuprofen, and a coffee-like product, but I still felt shitty, shittier by the minute -- dizzy and in severe abdominal pain. When I put my tray into the dish-washing conveyor belt, my cone of vision started to do wonky things. Blackness irised in, and I fainted. I have never considered myself the fainting type -- there's no shrinking Scarlett over here, I tell you what. Nonetheless, I passed out at the crescendo of dizziness and pain. Some guy caught me, and I wish I knew who because he saved me the hassle of a head injury, and I'd like to thank him for that (first typing: "tank him for that.") Apparently, I was only out for a few seconds, but I remember it being longer. Everything was surreal when I woke up. I was dandled from dining hall manager to DPS (campus police/cop in the box) to the EMTs. There was vomiting and unpleasantness all around -- emphasis on all around, as I was still really dizzy and my cramps/abdominal pain was killing me. Two or three friendly EMTs loaded me into an ambulance and whisked me away to Sacred Heart hospital, which is about a five minute walk from campus (even needing Kyle and dining hall lady to help me walk, I felt bad about using an ambulance -- and I'm sure the inevitable bill will have something to say about that.) Once there, Friendly Nurses Kris and Natalie (two names with Anchorage counterparts of whom I've been thinking of) ascertained that A) my blood pressure and heart rate were just dandy, B) NO, I was NOT pregnant (the dining hall lady, the DPS lady, the EMT, a nurse, and the doctor asked me if there was "any chance" of that, C) I could use a steady IV drip of saline and some blood work, and D) that I was all snuggly in my gown and thin blankets (it was cold, and I was shivering anyway), they let Doc take over. Get this: Kenneth Starr, MD. Not the same Ken Starr by a long shot (you think I'd let that guy near me?) -- this Ken Starr was tallish and clearly not enjoying the thought of giving a girl (on the first day of her period) a pubic exam, but examine he did. With the speculum from hell. THEN they took a "cath sample" -- cath...catheter...get it? Never again. After all of that, I gradually stopped shaking, the pain went to a totally tolerable level, and my head stopped doing loop-de-loops. Doc Starr told me that they weren't really sure what was wrong, but it could have been a number of things, most likely dizzines (my official diagnosis) and a helluva cramp. One of the nurses postulated the flu, but the whole affair, from getting up to leaving the hospital took less than 5 hours. My dad, when I called, thought it was food poisoning (entirely likely), and Mom decided dehydration played a role (unlikely, but I'll let her have it). I'm going with a combination of all of these and what Kyle calls "the body hitting the restart button." At any rate, I'm fine now, although a bit more careful than usual. Kyle, by the way, was there the whole time, proving how awesome a girlfriend she is.

This is dead week. Next week is finals week. I'm writing papers and moving out and getting all of my crap straightened out. Just so you all know I haven't been hit by an errant volkswagen.

Gentlemen...BEHOLD! My project is FINISHED!

That's all for the moment.