consistently arbitrary since 2001

I thank the Lord there's people out there like you
Because everyone else is doing it, things I'm thankful for today:

1. My cool and mildly insane family.
2. For more reasons than I could possibly enumerate, my friends.
3. Having a job. Especially this job, which allows me to work with fantastic people and paid me today even though I was not working.
4.Learning to put certain things in perspective, thereby making myself a happier and better person.
5. Not getting horribly lost or in an accident in the process of picking up Grandma.
6. That mountain of luscious food that I didn't have to cook.
7. Star Wars being on TV.

Happy Thanksgiving, all.

Monday, November 25

we have begun to change
A week ago today, my best friend had a baby. A baby girl, to be precise.

This is.... amazing. And beautiful, and frightening, and oddly unfathomable.

The other day I was looking through my extremely fat scrapbook (I have to hold it together with a rubber band) that has pretty much every random thing one can imagine from my four years at school in it, and it's so strange to realize how different we all are now. Not that I would expect anything less, but... for as often as I realize my friends and I are not the same people we used to be, I still have to be smacked in the face with it to remember. It's an epiphany every time.

Requisite musing complete, I have finally put up the music page, so almost everything on the site is fully functional now, except for some friends pages, which entail scanning and cleverness and thus are particular victims of my tendency to procrastinate. I made a special effort to complete the music page for Nic, who I knew would appreciate it and to whom I owed an e-favor. It will be his reward for reading my blog, like a nice boy. Incidentally, if you're wondering about the absence of the "k" that (I think) should rightfully go on the end of his name, he lost it on the Internet. He seems to have found it, though, and blown it up larger than any "k" has a right to be, so I don't know what the deal is.

=)

Good God. I have got to go to bed.

Thursday, November 21

time is running away
New favorite song:

Bob Dylan, Not Dark Yet.

So beautiful... but so painful. Glad I'm not feeling depressed.

Monday, November 18

Do you feel the same?
As of yesterday, I've lived here for exactly five months. Weird. Where does the time go? The speed of life seems to have increased drastically since I graduated.

It is a gloriously rainy, windy day. I went for a bike ride around the lake, which is why I am now rather wet and quickly growing colder. The last time I went biking in the rain was midsummer after my junior year, when I was in a foul mood and wanted to purge all my bile. There's something exhilarating about going out and getting drenched just for the hell of it. Once Becca and I went to the rec center to work out in the early evening around this time of year. It was raining on the way, so we got damp before we even arrived, and then we had our workout and got all sweaty. When we came out, the schizophrenic Eugene weather was going full force, and a raging wind was blowing hail and sleet and rain full at us, and we were totally soaked by the time we'd run back to the dorm. Then we decided we were hungry, so we braved the weather again to shiver our way through dinner. It still hadn't let up when we came back out, and at that point I was so wet it didn't matter anymore, so I splashed straight through the lake-like puddles all the way back, which made some drier folk rather displeased with me. When we went in for the last time, we looked like a couple of drowned rats as we dripped our way down the halls. Bliss.

Sigh. I have to write something for work. It's just a little thing, so I'm being silly, but it makes me grouchy, as it's not really part my job description. After all, one of the reasons I became a copy editor was to avoid reporting, because I hate it. However, there's no escaping this, so the question is whether I should start working on it today, my day off, or put it off until the days I have to work. I'm leaning toward the latter. I may not be a student anymore, but the power of procrastination has not diminished.

Am thinking about installing archives later. If I don't succumb to the desire to cuddle on the couch and read away the day.

Saturday, November 16

all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away
One of my favorite poems.

Try to Praise the Mutilated World, by Adam Zagajewski

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees heading nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where the music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

Friday, November 15

the butterfly in reverse here is me
Sometimes I feel like God is trying to tell me something.

I mean, I feel this way often about things various and sundry. But on this issue in particular. You know, it feels like every time I give up and get grouchy about this one person ... he pops back up. I mean, seriously. Every time. You know, I kind of wish I could just be RIGHT in my grouchiness once in a while. Which might be silly, since it would mean crappiness and fuckwittage, but there has been a fair quantity of that in reality, and not just in my imagination. But... don't I ever get to give up on this? Because I kind of want to. But every time I feel like it's the end... it isn't.

Which I guess means someone -- I don't know who, or what, or why -- is telling me to quit giving up.

But it's all so damn complicated, and that's just so tedious. I just want it to be simple. Yes. No. One or the other. For sure.

Hmph.

Thursday, November 14

the people we have been
Four girls, one bathroom. Just like old times.

The weekend was fabulous. There was no getting lost, nor did anything embarrassing happen. There was a lot of eating, and a lot of vegetating, and a trip to Target, since we all seem to enjoy that a lot for no apparent reason. Victims of consumer culture, I guess. It was nice to have all of us be in one place again and remember what it was like to be roommates, and how much fun we had living together.

At the same time, though, there was a lot of nostalgia involved, because, of course, we're all living in different places, doing different things with our lives. No matter how much fun we had, the knowledge was hanging over us that this was just a hiatus from reality; in two days, we'd all go our separate ways again. It's depressing to think I might always be counting the hours I get to spend with my closest friends. It's getting easier for me to understand how time and distance and the mundane details of life can slowly strangle even the greatest friendship.

Change is hard.

But Shan and I are dorks, even when we're not in the same city. IM silliness:

K: I think your pink obsession is... getting more obsessive.
S: why do you say that?
S: because my typing is pink?
K: I dunno. the pink type and all.
S: lol
S: peletathy
K: this telepathy thing is starting to creep me out a little.

Soon, we won't even need the phone, being that we're obviously sharing a brain already.

Friday, November 8

revolver's been turned over and now it's ready once again
In a mere 17 hours, the spinster sisterhood will be reunited (although I might add that the recent actions of SOME members may cause their expulsion, as they clearly are NOT going to be spinsters).

Mayhem will probably ensue. Probably starting with my getting lost on the way back from picking Robin and lauren up. Possibly continuing on to the consumption of alcohol. Robin has also expressed an interest in pounding on the door of the attractive boy from Tennessee who lives upstairs and inquiring about his personal history. I think I'll leave that mission up to her.

Incidentally, I hate paying to do my laundry. I'm going through quarters like candy. If they're going to gouge me in this appalling way, why can't they at least make washers and dryers that take nickels and dimes? I have plenty of those, even after I decimated the supply last year for thesis research.

Hm, the word "thesis" still makes me cringe. Ugh. I really don't miss that. Or classes and papers, for that matter.

My ice cream is melting. Will be back next week with tales from the weekend. Any tales not too embarrassing to recount, anyway.

Thursday, November 7

it's the end of the world as we know it...
... but I don't feel fine.

It's become a deep, dark, Republican world. I wish Trent "Let's roll!" Lott many a long, arduous Democratic filibuster.

I have a bunch of other stuff to say about this, but I don't really have time right now. It demands some thought, not just me throwing it out there. But for now, the above statement pretty much sums up the way I feel about the political state of this nation.

Thought for the day:
"The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best -- and therefore never scrutinize or question."
--Stephen Jay Gould

Wednesday, November 6

my four walls my shape defines
All right. In an effort to make this journaling easier for myself, I'm trying out blogger. This means that for the time being, everything I've written up to this point has gone away. Which is pretty much ok, prolly, because everyone who reads this already (all... 2 of you?) has read that stuff, and really, who reads archives? There'll be more soon enough. Besides, many of them just recount my summer of trying to deal with the total upheaval of my life after graduating and moving and becoming employed.

So, since I'm doing a test run, let's talk about my day. Day off. Hooray! I got up late. I watched TV. I went to the library, where they were having this great fund-raising sale: get a bag of books for $1. I couldn't find anything I wanted, though, so that wasn't fruitful, but it was fun. Then I went to the store so I won't starve to death this week. I bought the new U2 best-of album, which I'm liking quite a lot, made some potato soup and muffins, and talked to both Robin and Shan, getting all our plans straightened out for the spinster sisterhood reunion this weekend. The fab four back together again for two days of reliving last year's debauchery. This included several successful parties, a lot of watching of bad movies, and a lot of ice cream. Also an incident in which three of us walked home from our favorite bar, drunk on alchol and sleepiness and being drunk, singing "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman." I hope not to repeat that, though I admit that I remember it fondly and with great amusement. I can't WAIT. I miss having a social life.

Anyway, with some editing, this seems to be working out quite well so far, so ideally it'll mean I'll be posting much, much, much more often, since it'll be far easier than my earlier methods.

Also, a nod to lauren, who thinks my blog is better than hers. A compliment I appreciate. But she's wrong.