So let me tell you a little something about funnel cake

My life isn't all that interesting right now in the OHMYGODITHASTOBEDONENOWRIGHTNOW way, and so I have been experiencing the mind-expanding qualities of Morrowind with my Boyfriend. This means that I sit in front of this computer screen for 8 hours and whine while he helpfully navigates, reads the strategy guide, and pulls out his hair when I decide that I MUST go on another TEENY TINY killing spree. Quote of this afternoon:

Me: "I'm hungry, can't I have lunch yet?"
Boyfriend: "Only Hlaalu Hortators get lunch"
Me: "Oh."

You see, it's kinda like having a personal trainer for my gaming character. It's getting results. I'm the Buffy to his Giles.

In any case. As to the title of this post. We went off to Great America on Monday, rode the rides (ALL the rides), laughed at youngsters, ate glorious amounts of food, skipped gleefully about the park with wild abandon, and ate funnel cake.

Now funnel cake for me is an interesting proposition. You see, the first time that I ever beheld this decadent delight, I was at Great America. This is not normal funnel cake - it has the cake, ice cream, strawberry topping, whip cream, peanuts, and a cherry. Clearly far far more delicious than the norm.

Post this original funnel cake many years ago, I attended a carnival of some sort and was greeted with a greasy pancake of a pastry with a pathetic dusting of snowy powdered sugar insufficient to even activate my tastebuds. Nasty.

Now the only place that I can eat funnel cake is at Great America. One problem. Admission is $41 a person, and the cake itself is $7.50, with $2.99 sodas.

What is the price of deliciousness my friends? $51.49

Oh I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner....

So I am back in Chicago after a merry jaunt to the cheese state. And I have brought the charming and ever-congenial boyfriend with me. We have played Morrowind - and behold the peoples of Vvardenfell quake at the mere echoes from our footsteps.

(at least we like to think so)

The boyfriend just patted me on the head and said "they quake in your footsteps, sweetie"

(I feel that I have just been mocked -- but my Daedric Crescent says "oooh baby")

In any case - I have been mostly incognito this past week except for a strange interest in politics (Farenheight 9-11 rocks!), a bizarre interest in the structure of the U of C (YAY meetings), and a delicious interest in the ripening avocadoes on my counter.

Oh yeah, and that lesbian love affair (just kidding folks - if only my life were that interesting right now)

In any case - tomorrow is Great America in celebration of The Boyfriend's birthday... to be followed later this week by dim sum - oh yeah.

I don't know which was the worse idea - buying the big bag of rock sugar in Chinatown, or opening it this afternoon; but I have the feeling that they will both be playing a role in my jumping on the bed this evening.

Huh.

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

You are Nicola Tesla, inventor of the Tesla Coil!

A minister's son from Simljan in Austria-Hungary, you were precocious from an early age. At three you could multiply three-digit numbers in your head and calculate how many seconds visitors to your home had lived. In awe of your older brother Dane, you shot a pea-shooter at his horse, causing it to throw him and inflict injuries from which he later died. This tragedy haunted you ever after. You frequently suffered bouts of illness with hallucinations throughout your life. During one affliction of cholera, you encountered the writing of Mark Twain, with whom you were later to be close friends. Later, another, this time mystery, illness inexplicably heightened your senses to a painful extent, only relenting when you hit upon the idea of the alternating current motor.

You developed an aversion to human contact, particularly involving hair, and a fear of pearls; when one would-be lover kissed you, you ran away in agony. Later, you insisted that any repeated actions in your day-to-day life had to be divisible by three, or, better yet, twenty-seven. You would, for example, continue walking until you had executed the required number of footsteps. You refused to eat anything until you had calculated its exact volume. Saltine crackers were a favourite for their uniformity in this respect. In the midst of important work, you forgot trivial details such as eating, sleeping or, on one memorable occasion, who you were.

Your inventions, always eccentric, began on a suitably bizarre note. The first was a frog-catching device that was so successful, and hence so emulated by your fellow children, that local frogs were almost eradicated. You also created a turbine powered by gluing sixteen May bugs to a tiny windmill. The insects panicked and flapped their wings furiously, powering the contraption for hours on end. This worked admirably until a small child came along and ate all the creatures alive, after which you never again touched another insect.

Prompted by dreams of attaining the then-ridiculed goal of achieving an alternating-current motor, you went to America in the hope of teaming up with Thomas Edison. Edison snubbed you, but promised fifty thousand dollars if you could improve his own direct-current motor by 20% efficiency. You succeeded. Edison did not pay up. It was not long until you created an AC motor by yourself.

Now successful, you set up a small laboratory, with a few assistants and almost no written records whatsoever. Despite it being destroyed by fire, you invented the Tesla Coil, impressing even the least astute observer with man-made lightning and lights lit seemingly by magic. Moving to Colorado Springs, you created a machine capable of sending ten million volts into the Earth's surface, which even while being started up caused lightning to shoot from fire hydrants and sparks to singe feet through shoes all over the town. When calibrated to be in tune with the planet's resonance, it created what is still the largest man-made electrical surge ever, an arc over 130 feet long. Unfortunately, it set the local power plant aflame.

You returned to New York, incidentally toying with the nascent idea of something eerily like today's internet. Although the wealthiest man in America withdrew funding for a larger, more powerful resonator in short order, it did not stop you announcing the ability to split the world in two. You grew ever more diverse in your inventions: remote-controlled boats and submarines, bladeless turbines, and, finally, a death ray.

While whether the ray ever existed is still doubtful, it is said that you notified the Peary polar expedition to report anything strange in the tundra, and turned on the ray. First, nothing happened; then it disintegrated an owl; finally, reports reached you of the mysterious Tunguska explosion, upon which news you dismantled the apparatus immediately. An offer during WWII to recreate it was, thankfully, never acted upon by then-President Wilson. Turning to other matters, you investigated the forerunner of radar, to widespread derision.

Your inventions grew stranger. One oscillator caused earthquakes in Manhattan. You adapted this for medical purposes, claiming various health benefits for your devices. You found they let you work for days without sleep; Mark Twain enjoyed the experience until the sudden onset of diarrhoea. You claimed to receive signals in quasi-Morse Code from Mars, explored the initial stages of quantum physics; proposed a "wall of light", using carefully-calibrated electromagnetic radiation, that would allegedly enable teleportation, anti-gravity airships and time travel; and proposed a basic design for a machine for photographing thoughts. You died aged 87 in New York, sharing an apartment with the flock of pigeons who were by then your only friends.

Ridiculed throughout your life (Superman fought the evil Dr. Tesla in 1940s comics), you were posthumously declared the father of the fluorescent bulb, the vacuum tube amplifier and the X-ray machine, and the Supreme Court named you as the legal inventor of the radio in place of Marconi. Wardenclyffe, the tower once housing your death ray, was dynamited several times to stop it falling into the hands of spies. It was strangely hard to topple, and even then could not be broken up.

Apathyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

So post-German letdown is setting in, and I have a whole lot of apathy working against me right now. I just can't seem to work up the will to work on anything. Orals? eh. Job? eh. Watching movies for 6 hours while I rearrange my bookshelves? eh (but that's what I've been doing).

I woke up at 6 this morning and laid in bed for 3 hours staring at the ceiling. I'm sure that this is a bad sign. I guess I'm just one of those people who isn't happy unless they're stressed about something.

"Get up"
"I don't want to"
"But you have.. er... stuff to do"
"Really? Do tell!"
"Um... you could wash dishes"
(snuggling deeper under the covers) "Oh THAT'S a reason to get up. Damn, I'll get right on that"
"Sarcasm is a delicate instrument, not a cudgel"
"Eh."
"What about your orals?"
"Next week"
"What about your paper?"
"Next week"
"What about thrift stores"
"Last week"
"Chocolate?"
"Requires movement"
"So you're going to just die here then?"
"Maybe... eh... Maybe not... eh.... I guess I could return my library books"
"THAT'S THE SPIRIT! Up and at 'em little KT, we're going to go play!"
"At the Regenstein? You must be joking"
"Clearly"
"Let's go in an hour"
"Yeah, I'm really comfy here in bed"

Yeah. That was my morning.

So now I'm standing in the Regenstein in the vain hope that being in an academic atmosphere will encourage me to work. So far, it's not working. I packed up my books, my lists, my returnables, and headed down here for a studyfest and I'm blogging instead.

Anyone have a cure for summer apathy?

Just because it's a lame post doesn't mean it's not worth reading.

There's nothing quite like sitting on your kitchen floor on eviscerated paper bags painting a Parisian cafe chair with a foam brush to kick off the summer. For reference “Krylon gloss black acrylic latex enamel” paint sucks ASS. I had to go buy a can of primer just to cover the shameful remains of your pathetic, watery, crappy-ass, looks-like-stain fucking "one coat" bullshit.

So now I'm waiting for my primer to dry and thinking about the month ahead of me.

Agenda:

1. Orals lists: at least put them down on paper for God's sake!
2. Rewrite Prof X's paper: *sigh* *groan* *whine* and it will suck. But it must be done.
3. Job?: I don’t know about this one. I really need the extra cash, but where to work? Bar? Bookstore? Office? I’d really like to work at a library, but I should do the temp thing because that’s where I have all my experience. I would love a teaching job, but it is a wee bit too late for that.
4. German: Later – see previous post and rant.
5. Create a secret society: Always wanted to
6. Drinking, Sleeping, Debauchery, Road Trips, and Painting.
7. Become master of all organization: see below

Speaking of which - I BOUGHT A BINDING MACHINE. A late-night ebay purchase to be sure. It seemed like such a good idea at 3am that I clearly remember rationalizing a "buy it now" purchase price more than $50 over the current bid because there would be free shipping. It will be here on Thursday. I know because I'm compulsively checking the FedEx website and sending wishes of good speed to my knight in binding armor (oh dear, that doesn't sound good at all). In any case - also raiding the office supply stores nearby in hopes of finding cheap binding combs.

Don't knock it man, this is my reason for existence right now.

So let's see... this weekend.

Well. Friday I went home to Racine to experience hanging-outness with my family and eat vast quantities of Chinese food. I also did the Sheridan Road Antique Hunt, which was a partial-day trek across the vast fields of Illinois and Wisconsin stopping at every estate, garage, Salvation Army, Goodwill, and thrift store sale that crossed my path. This led to a car full of rather interesting tidbits, a hole in my wallet, and a huge grin.

Saturday started out so normal. I went out with the family for lunch and celebrated Fathers' day. But then my sister convinced me to join her in Madison for the Firemen’s Festival (with promises of cheap pitchers and trashy music). Driving up there, we arranged through a system of smoke signals, Walmart bags tied to street signs, and a conveniently placed car to lead my boyfriend to our location. Brats were eaten, pitchers of beer and something delicious called Bacardi Limon were drunk (I gave up on the glasses and simply drank straight from the pitcher (which led to interesting if rather incriminating pictures)), The Boyfriend went on the Tilt-a-Whirl after consuming, I swear:

A corn dog
A Bratwurst
A Hamburger
A Slice of pudding pie -w- whipped cream
A Slice of Pizza
A "Pork" sandwich
A Funnel Cake with cherry topping
And 2 pitchers (1 of beer and 1 of Bacardi Limon)

And did not throw up. I don't know how this is possible, but clearly he has made some kind of deal with a an evil being (didn't even have a hangover).

Fuck. Now that's a Madisonian for you.

Of course, not to be outdone, I attempted to do the same, but only got through a pitcher, a corn dog, a bratwurst and some potato salad before I felt that my Tilt-a-Whirl enthusiasm was terminally limited.

After that - the strip club. Where there was apparently some kind of 4 girl half naked dancefest going on. Wow.

Back to my sister's house for sleep and a morning full of Swedish pancake goodness followed by TV reruns and a nap on the couch.

Then back to Evanston with The Boyfriend for an evening of well... sleeping actually (I was pretty damn tired by this point)

This morning I was booted from my German class (amazing, someone forgot to cap enrollment at the U of C?! No! Never! THAT MUST BE SO RARE!!!! so I have to take it later this summer.

All of this culminates into the following sentence.

I am so tired, but at least I have a month of vacation in front of me.

These, my friends, are the joys of summer.

I made a pity purchase today.

There was this trashy little shop with an emaciated woman sitting by a 1970’s cash register. A deep layer of dust was forming around her as she sat skeleton-like on a little bar stool behind a cracked glass counter, and I could imagine her sitting there until spider webs delicately attached her blonde wig to her nicotine-stained fingers. So I'm poking around and attempting to look for something cheap and interesting; and she keeps on being so polite and helpful and trying to help me find things in my size. All of her stuff was overpriced and ugly, and there wasn't another soul in the store. And damn, I just felt bad for this poor woman in her crappy store trying to scratch out a livelihood on other people's used clothing (and failing). I mean, really – that’s when you know you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel retail-wise. When you fail at a thrift store. So I bought a necklace I didn't really want because I just didn't think I could leave the store without something. I thought as I was buying it – “maybe she’ll eat something tonight”. Is that wrong? Does this happen to anyone else?

Maybe it's just me. Ah well.

So all y'all who keep saying that you want to come thrift shopping with me....

My god.




I have been to heaven.




And it is covered in rhinestones: blue, pink, red, green, Lisner, Hobe, Coro, goldtone, necklaces, bracelets, rings, earrings

It was so beautiful I almost had to look away. Almost.

Come with me and we shall see the promise land together. For it is a little shop on Touhy and N. Harlem called "The Antique and Resale Shoppe".

So I made a trek today - thinking hell, their business card has a big shiny set of lips on it; it might be worth a try. I walked in the door, gaped, and nearly fell to my knees in prayer to whatever deity led me here. EVERY INCH of furniture was COVERED in costume jewelry. Every drawer was full of pins and bracelets and buckles and lighters and charms and lingerie and shot glasses and vintage clothing and hats and... the list goes on and on. Spangly things, sparkly things, beaded things, ugly things, things for hats, things for wearing, things for hiding in your closet.

I have this fantasy that they would let me stay there – just dressing up in costume jewelry and dancing to the 50’s music that plays from their vintage radio. Perhaps they would find me one day curled up amongst the feathered hats, bespangled with rhinestones and wearing a boa, sleeping blissfully like a contented cat. It would be a silly life, but I would be happy.

Incredible. Just Incredible. Seriously. They have more jewelry than I do.

All you people that keep saying that you want to go antique and thrift shopping: Come with me - For I have wondrous things to show you.

Teeny Tiny Little Party.

You see, my culinary adventure got entirely out of hand - and I had all this food left over, and my apartment was so empty of people that I could yell "echo" and receive merely a sigh back from my bored walls - so I had a party last night.

The charming Salinda and her beautiful daughter came over and we had tacos with guacamole, salsa, cheese, sour cream, etc. and they brought magnificent donuts. We tried on all my costume jewelry, took pictures of one anther dressed up like wealthy heiresses, went for a walk / carry all over Northwestern campus, chatted, and had a lovely time.

These are the moments that make you think - oh yeah, that's why I'm in grad school: to meet cool people like this. Oh yeah, and study - almost forgot studying. Clearly that is important too.

I was looking through the U Penn "calls for papers" board yesterday - thinking seriously to myself that I was pissed that the deadlines had passed. A moment of my scholar-ness flashed upon me

"you're what?! You want to go and present papers?! Are you insane?!"

my inner-scholar replied with a polite shrug "You'll have to do it sometime. These look really interesting. Don't you know that the department will pay to send you out there?"

In a panic, I pull up all of the old high-school-fear-of-presentations-jazz "all those people, all those professors - and you're ideas?! They suck! you're not even published! clearly you have nothing to say to these people that they don't already know!"

my inner scholar won with a slight shrug, a brief dissertation on the need for me to put myself out there in academia, and an indication that if she likes the papers maybe someone else will.

I think that this means something regarding my academic life... I don't know what it is, but... it must be something.

On a side note - although this post is getting rather long... I had a dream last night that there was a thumb growing out of a rib on the left side of my chest, right next to my breast, and that NOONE CARED and I hadn't even noticed until that day (although apparently it had been there for years). This has got to be a rather odd dream, and as wish-fulfillments go, it's not making a lot of sense, so if anyone has a possible explanation I would be more than happy to accept your ideas.

There we go - that's the past two days summed up in their ridiculosity.

New Quarter Resolutions

This seems to happen to me during every vacation - prior to the work that will be rained down upon my head in the quarter to come. I resolve to do x where x includes one of the following:

cook every night
clean my apartment on a more regular basis
do something different with my hair
spend more time on non-shchool activities
lose 10 pounds
save the world
get published
write a bestselling novel
become a supermodel
develop magical powers
clean my carpet
etc.

some more plausible than others, all impossible to manage. In the vain attempt to attend to at least one of the list, I have dragged from Racine a Health Rider. It sounds naughty, and looks like a torture device. I'm fairly sure that it could easily break arms and / or legs, although it was suggested to me as a low-impact workout. We shall see. So far it has been quite high impact, as I impacted it on my shins, my thighs, my shoulder, and my head (low doorway) attempting to get it up the three flights to my apartment.

now on to saving the world!

Salsa, Guacamole, Bacardi O, Chips, and ... Corn Pudding? Oh yes.

Today has been a day of food, of delight, of attempting to create salsa from a recipe downloaded in a thunderstorm on the hunch that it might be very similar to the salsa I love. Now I know that you'll all probably roll your eyes and sigh when I tell you that it is the incredibly delicious, slightly malicious, Chili's salsa (modified for my personal KT enjoyment).

There was laughter, there were tears (onions), and there was my inexplicable inability to tell the difference between TSP and TBSP ahhhhh cooking.

I was over at the ever-entertaining Jett's last night for dinner. Again - I am sure that I have repeated this over and over, but he is a stunning cook (which served to inspire my culinary adventure this morning (more about this later). We laughed, we smoked, he read poetry, I read tarot, and we drank. Noelle, thank you for the charming Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais-Villages, it was fantastic. Other than that I experienced the mind expanding qualities of Bacardi O with Coke and lime (tasty!). Riding home on the L and surreptitiously taking sips from my pimp-esque hip flask of the charming beverage, I made a bleary-eyed resolution to do something interesting this week. This looks like a good start.

Jett, I can't even perform that drunk test sober (standing on one foot, head back, eyes closed, and touching alternate index figertips to one's nose). Does this say something about my sense of balance or the difficulty of the test?

So this morning (after waking up at a deliciously late 11:45am) I scampered over to the local Jewel and attempted to remember all of the things that I needed for my salsa. And I got it totally wrong, oooh and I forgot the cilantro (which I drove all the way back to get before looking at the recipe only to find out that I didn't need it at all). Not to be daunted, I concocted substitutes for almost everything in the recipe. My old metal Osterizer was bullied into service as a high-speed food processor, my kitchen is covered in a fine layer of tomato, my eyes are watering, and I am totally happy.

Because, despite all of this, it is DELICIOUS... exactly what I wanted. Now on to the guacamole!

Tonight's agenda:

Watching: "Army of Darkness" and "Dead Alive" or possibly "Hamlet" (Kenneth, not Mel)
Cooking: Corn Pudding? Tacos? Guacamole? Les haricots verts?
Drinking: Lambrusco Rinuite
Painting: My fingernails
Playing: Morrowind:Tribunal and Bloodmoon (Oh am I going to kick some Black Dart Gang ass tonight!)

So here I am.

Sitting in my chair - looking at my computer screen.

People have been rater nasty lately. It makes you wonder, though, how many people really don't like you that pretend to do so. Please seem my post "I feel that I have to say this"- Oh well. I'll survive. Can't say I'm not sad, but really - what can I do? Yell back and I'm a self-righteous bitch. Whine about it and I'm a puss. Be mortally wounded and I'm playing right in to someone trying to cause me pain. Clearly the high road is better. So I say: "ah well... if people don't like me there's not much I can do about it." Better luck next time KT.

That aside, I went to see the new Harry Potter again yesterday. Still charming! I spent some time with Kerri, who wants to go estate saleing as soon as she gets back in town.

As for me - cleaning of apartment, possible rummage saleing, drinking, sleeping, etc.

A fun-filled if boring kind of day.

DONE DONE DONE DONE!

I just emailed in my paper. YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY! *whew* YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!YAY!

Thank you.

So this week.

I know, I know, the postings have been totally scattershot this past week or so, but I have been all over the place. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and this morning I was in Madison - spending some quality time with the boyfriend and trying to finish up this last paper (at last it is almost done. Appendix tomorrow morning and 2 references to check and then I'm done! - it will be gone by tomorrow afternoon).

So this morning I get up at 4:45 am with the boyfriend so that he can pre-round on his patients before 6 - which means that I was on the road for Chicagoland at 5:45am. This, sadly, means that I achieved the Kennedy Expressway at approx. 8:30am. Oh so bad. A drive that is normally 3 hours became something like 4.5. Bleah. Got to Hyde Park, switched my summer registration from Latin to German (Yay less work!), finished up my paper, watched LOTR III with Kerri, went to the grad party, gave a piggyback ride to the charming daughter of a fellow grad student, got shunned, and finished LOTR III up at Kerri's post-party.

So it's 12:30 pm and I just walked in the door of my apartment for the first time since, er... Monday morning.

I lead an extremely nomadic life. If only I got the exercise that my car gets - I would be a supermodel by now. Sadly, there is no possibility that this will change in the near future - so I just pack a bag, keep 3 kinds of jacket in my trunk, bring everything I need for an overnight stay with me everywhere and experience being "the wind". It's a good thing that I'm not too high maintenance, or I would have a much bigger backpack (“haha, impossible”, you say – well “pbtttt” just wait until I break out the metal-frame backpack – then you’ll be… um… well mostly I’ll be sorry (My back! My back!).

Speaking of injuries, I was attempting to carry upstairs a metal library paperback rack that I got at a book sale (yes, I am the only person on earth who can go to a BOOK sale and come home with FURNITURE), and it caused some severe damage to my thighs and arms – I look as though I have been beaten with a stick. So now I’m trying to think up really interesting things to say to people when they ask what happened. I’m thinking about muttering something about “ferret stampede” but that seems too implausible – any suggestions would be appreciated. The rack, however is cool – perhaps it would be more cool if it had the little metal thingy that makes it spin, but 30 min. with a saws-all and it is no longer a paperback rack and is instead more of an all-purpose bookrack.

Noelle was kind enough to give me a bottle of wine (Beaujolais!) for random computer aid, so I am thinking that this will play an integral role in my weekend plans.

In rereading, I have decided that this post is clearly disjoint and pointless – and yet I will post it anyway. This probably has something to do with my exhibitionism or perhaps the fact that I feel everything I write deserves a home somewhere – or perhaps it is because I am way too tired to try and create coherence out of the chaos. If you like, you can cut out the sections, number them, and create some kind of “guess what Katie’s thinking game”.

Er… actually, that would be really lame, don’t do that.

I need to go to bed. Night all.

This weekend

So this week-and-weekend has been rather maddeningly frustratingly busy. Apparently that streak of posting every day has been broken.

In any case.

Friday night was a punk party. So cool. To those who were there - you looked awesome. For my part I dressed up in a black dress, a ripped Bombardier t-shirt (decorated), gobs of jewelry, and punky-teased pigtails. OOOh and lots of makeup. Allyson, who helped me figure out the outfit the evening before, said that I looked like the cheerleader from hell. I hung out with Amber all day and then made the leap to party goodness at 10pm. I was home at 4am.

Then up at 8 to go to Racine and visit the family! There was an unbelievable amount of delicious food! There was antique shopping! There was a Greek Festival! There was hanging out with my awesome sister! There were orange rolls on the porch! There was the happy goodness of seeing my mom and dad! In all, the kind of relaxing weekend of familial happiness that everyone needs at the end of the quarter.

And I didn't even have to pack anything.

And I got a library bookstand (one of those metal paperback stands) at a book sale. Very cool. In fact, I also got a lot of fun books and things including but not limited to: another rhinestone necklace, an aurora borealis necklace, a silver plated bowl, a bunch of rhinestone hairpins, a jadeite salt and pepper shaker, a very old primer in German, kataifi, and Krispy Kremes.

And now I am back in Chicago, working on my paper and hoping that I can get all my shit together for the final week of stuff before the summer which will be full of stuff and the other stuff that I have to do so that my stuff will all be more stufflike.

And for the record: I deleted the post, but the feelings remain. Dude, the medication thing was totally below the belt and over the line. Not cool. This exact situation is why I am sick of people and the way they treat one another.

All gone

Popups are gone now. Alas, this means that there will be no more quizzes or counters, but I have to make a personal stand against pernicious popups.

I hope that you understand.

Inexplicably

Apparently somehow my page has contracted popups (kind of like chicken pox, scarlet fever, or eep, ebola). I think this might have to do with my new counter (which I will try to remedy because - hell - we all hate popups).

In the meantime, I highly recommend (for those of you who don't already have a popup blocker) the free Pop This program.

My apologies for the popups. I didn't actually notice them (since I have a popup blocker) until I tried to access my page from a different computer.

The politics of detachment: My office in the Ivory Tower with the rose-colored window.

I have recently become a fan of the Caribou Coffee. Never been much of a drinker of coffee before (too bitter), but I find that with 4 packets of Equal and about 1/4 cup of skim it's actually quite good. And potent. This stuff has all the kick of a frightened ostrich (it could, metaphorically speaking, put your kidneys on the barn wall). In any case, they also have a leather couch with the texture of butter and a bevy of cute beverage assistants? clerks? espressoliers? coffee stewards? coffeetenders? In any case, it has become my home-away-from-apartment-away-from-home for the past week or so.

Today, while working, a little sprite of a girl peered over the back of a leather armchair opposite me.

"Whatcha’ doin’?"
"Writing a paper"
"On what?"
- My brain races... What is it about? It is something like Coverdale's folklorization [made up word] of characters in The Blithedale Romance as a way to obfuscate their historical situation using a degraded genre of "magical explanation" such that he can evade questions of class and gender by nonpresence while authoring a text that (through its participation in the normative genre of folklore) allows him to assert his presence-as-author in the language of the general people (thus authoring a folktale that evades the non-authorial genre of folktales).... shit... "It's about fairies."
"Oh" *big grin* "I like fairies."
"Me too."

I sit there with a funny grin on my face - It has just been clearly pointed out to me that what I am doing is really really pointless.

I sit back in my chair - I am the only person who cares about this, and I am really actually excited about it.

I look at the ceiling - So what kind of good is this doing for the world?

I study a particularly interesting knothole - Am I willing to be this detached? This utterly insulated from everyday life?

I look over to the newsstand.

I glance at the headline.

Wow.

Yes. Maybe it's better to live in this world of fairies, witches, devils, ghosts and metaphor. I think I've had enough of real people and what they do to one another.

Tempus Fugit

Apparently I have been busy with the colors.

If you like it and you know it clap your hands!
If you like it and you know it clap your hands!
If you like it and you know it all your comments surely show it...
If you like it and you know it clap your hands!

Yet another mode of work-avoidance. I'm getting really good at this (ooh! it looks like my carpet needs vacuuming! Great!)

Clearly I am insane - ignore this post.

Er.... so I've been blogging every day, and now I feel like I should at least make the effort to keep this trend going until 11:38 when apathy sets in.

Class was 5 hours long today. There was food, so in some part of my animal hindbrain I feel as though I was adequately compensated - and yet... 5 hours.

Today was, however, the last day of the last seminar I will EVER HAVE TO TAKE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE! I will be chronicling these moments for you - and myself (I'm thinking of putting a gold star on my calendar). There would even be a festive book-burning party if only I didn't need them for orals - perhaps I will designate proxy books to burn. Or I can burn crappy books - for instance - Tolkien would be a good start.

I would also like to express my bewilderment (wow, I like that word - I will have to use it more often) with the response I got on a draft of my paper (different class). My professor, after having presumably looked it over, writes across the top page "This should be fine".

Nothing else.

What the hell does this mean? Suddenly my "English-student-hat" appears on my head:

"There are multiple possible interpretations to this line"

- I ponder this - surely an analysis of the diction will lead to a more complete understanding of the text?

"What are the possible interpretations for "should" as used in the context of this sentence: will be upon editing? could? I think that it is? ought? might?"

"Does “fine” indicate: satisfactory? OK? A? -A? B? will be fine upon further editing? not coarse?"

"What is the referent of "This": the paper? the argument? the argumentative structure? the 3 paragraphs he actually read?"

- I sigh. Analyzing diction is a classic undergraduate mistake - it only leads to more questions, not answers. Surely if I appeal to different possible intended readings of the line I can get somewhere?

"Was he intending this to be read literally? "Hand it in this way, it's just fine""
"Ambiguously? "I don't want to tell you what to do, so I will give a cryptic answer so that you continue to work""
"Bitterly? "I can't believe you gave me a 12 page draft - that's enough!""
"Sarcastically? "Um - you gave me a 12 page draft - really, you don't have to worry""
"Emphatically? "This looks great""

- Another sigh - clearly I can't achieve any kind of understanding of authorial intent from the text alone. Through interaction with him in class it is highly probable that ANY of these are the intended meaning. What about reader response?

"I feel exasperated: clearly it means that I should stop working now"
"I feel confused: clearly it means that my argument needs a little polish"
"I feel irritated: clearly it means that this answer is cryptic"
"I feel happy: he said it was fine!"
"I want Fig Newtons: clearly I am hungry"

- Humm. Well "If in the arts, feeling is always meaning" I'm fucked. Maybe the modernists or postmodernists can help me?

Barthes: "The author is dead"
Me: "But he's alive and grading my paper"
Barthes: "But it doesn't matter what he thinks - once the work leaves his hands he is not in control of it - it has infinite possible meanings"
Me: "But he's grading me"
Barthes: "Oh, ok - tu es fucked"
Derrida: "Oui - tu es fucked"
Foucault: "Je suis d'accord"

- *fuming*

"You mean with all this theory, with all this reading, with all of these papers - I CAN’T EVEN FIND THE MEANING OF A SIMPLE SENTENCE?!"

Department: "no"
Me: "Oh - guess I'll just have to go ask him then, huh?"
Department: "yep"

Ok.