perhaps, perhaps, perhaps

not his fault, okay? some bastard stole his favorite cup

2008-05-30T01:08:57Z

I've had bird flu or plague or what-have-you for the last week and a half. It sucked, the end.

I am graduating in two weeks (problems all cleared up!). I have no plan for the after. It's very loser-like.

I'm halfway through a Peace Corps application that will almost undoubtedly be denied on medical grounds, but I pretty much went "fuck it" and decided to try anyway. Progress is slow, because I only actually want to join the Peace Corps about a third of the time. When it gets denied (or I abandon it) I am going to apply to master's programs in the fall, provided I can get a personal statement written. This I want to do a little more reliably, except for the part about accruing further debt and the very real possibility that I cannot get in anywhere, anyway.

In the meantime my plans look like staying at my parents' house. I will need to find employment that does not include interaction with people, and really all I want to do is clean out the barn, find the hole in the liner to the garden fountain, and help train up Dusty. (She's doing better with the saddle! There are pictures. She doesn't even look bewildered anymore.) I find this very odd and alarming.

I have two essays due next week, and I am not worried about them, not panicking, and not doing a great deal of work yet. I may want to savor them.

I don't want to spend my life writing essays, so I suppose I don't want to be a career academic. But I'm going to miss them anyway.

And three of my professors seem to think I am not stupid, that perhaps I am even marginally intelligent. They seem to think this to a stronger degree than is actually warranted. If I wasn't reasonably certain they'd forget me (they have large numbers of students and small attention spans), their regard would make me feel a lot more queasy than it already does.

I sympathize with the dragon in Beowulf. He is my favorite character. I would like to be a dragon. You could coil around treasure for a few centuries and take lots of naps.

The Open Source 'Oh Fuck It, This Is Painfully Stupid' Project

2008-04-29T02:37:20Z

I am...a little inarticulate right now. Christ on toast.

So I've been gone from LJ for awhile. I get back, and I check metafandom, and I fall into an incredibly huge and unbearably stupid explosion of idiocy and the (thankfully intelligent) discourse which followed, all prompted by The Open Source Boob Project.

Yes, you read that right.

I wouldn't recommend reading it, actually, but it seemed stupid to mention it without linking. It's rather hilariously stupid and dismissable, except that he's serious. Anyway, I got sucked into this, and into all of the various replies I could find, approximately four hours ago. I now feel as though I've just woken up, and am wondering why I just wasted the last four hours of my life. I really didn't want to read any of that, although I'm glad to have found people who could be articulate and mean about it (and, because I've subjected you to the crap, I shall also provide quick and easy access to my favorite responses, for those who may be interested: I Want A Great Big Stick And A Large Can of Whoop-Ass, The Open Source Swift Kick to the Balls Project, and The Open Source Women Back Each Other Up Program).

I'm not really hung up on this anymore; I think the past few hours got it out of my system. I just - what a worthless four hours it was. I feel I need some kind of record, to prove those hours actually existed.

I just...what the fuck? What the fucking fuck. Seriously?

I've been torn between (vaguely hysterical, I'll admit) laughter - because I still cannot believe the stupidity involved, or that it got so huge - and wanting to bang my head against the wall. Repeatedly.

21st Century!

random poll of the day

2008-03-09T21:07:30Z

Please answer!

It's actually relevant to something I'm doing right now.

View Poll: #1151411

This poll brought to you by the temporary uglification of my layout and my principles, as I have upgraded to a Plus account to do it.

green is good!

2008-02-12T05:23:10Z

Today I accidentally became a member of Greenpeace. They attacked me with pictures of polar bears, who are cute and also endangered.

I didn't stand a chance. Polar bears inexplicably became popular last fall, so there have been posters everywhere, and I have absolutely no idea why but whenever I see a picture of a polar bear I want to cry. Borders was a really uncomfortable store around the holidays. I wanted one of those stupid plush polar bears so badly.

So anyway now I am saving the polar bears and also the whales and also ending global warming.

*headdesk*

(Although, of organizations to join accidentally, it could be far worse. Yay Greenpeace.)

an alternative

2008-02-03T22:24:38Z

I am watching the fourth annual Puppy Bowl.

eyra @ 2008-01-26T08:13:00

2008-01-26T16:37:37Z

I went to work yesterday, which was really quite stupid, and am going to work today, which should be fine. Then I am going back north (again! I have been doing a lot of traveling these past two weeks), for a last hurrah for a friend who is going to India (India!) in February.

That book review assignment was disastrous for my bookfund. I've been meaning to read more books that aren't guilt-ifiers lately, so the books I was looking at were quite in line with my current tastes, and once I had a few recommendations I was off and running and now I have four piles of books on my floor and I really have to return three of these piles before my credit card bill comes in but I do not want to. (Also! I said I was posting my request at a few bookish communities, yes? At one of them, Ellen Kushner left a comment. I mean, Ellen Kushner commented on one of my posts. And then I realized it and turned dork, and only barely restrained myself from leave another [more squealy] comment :D)

I don't have anything else to say. Fair winds and following seas.

eyra @ 2008-01-22T20:38:00

2008-01-23T04:39:51Z

Heath Ledger is dead

I almost can't believe it. What the hell. My God.

good times never seemed so good

2008-01-19T21:24:24Z

Yesterday the world fell apart, and this morning I put it back together. With a mitten. I just thought I'd share.

farscape = yes, muppets in space, but also = awesome

2008-01-10T04:13:54Z

I just figured out why Brad Pitt is attractive: he's symmetrical!

When you think about it, there's nothing particularly outstanding about any of his features, though none (of course) are ugly. Pretty average, really. It's just that they line up perfectly.

Hah!

Also, (1) my job still sucks, but (2) I like being back, anyway. I have history, now, or what have you (which isn't something 2/3s of the employees have), so it's kind of recognized as "my" dishroom. It's a crap job, but at least I get to be a tyrant.

come as you are

2008-01-03T09:30:18Z

A warm welcome to the new year! Don't suck, okay?

There was originally more substance to this entry, but I cut the lot of it. I don't really feel like reflecting at the moment, so suffice it to say that 2007 did not suck, which can be adequately if not wholly measured in the fact that I did not once need to start contemplating seaside resorts, let alone more exotic locales.

I don't want to go. I don't want to stay.

2007-11-30T06:34:37Z

I'm signed on to AIM right now. I don't feel up to actually opening a conversation window at the moment. Too scared, I suppose. I don't know how to talk.

Well. I can talk quite well, obviously; I simply can't communicate. Not lately. Not without a previously-established purpose to the conversation and/or a set time to end it. This is part of why I always feel like I've insulted my professors when I leave office hours. Not that a conversation with a professor is particularly comparable to one with a friend. Er.

But I'm signed on. I feel like I'm hanging out in comfortable silence with the other people who are signed on. I don't need no stinking talking. Er.

I'm looking through communities for a new layout (as I don't feel like making one myself). Time for a change.

P.S. Every time I watch Pushing Daisies I want to make a pie. Then I watch Dexter and no longer feel the need.

music meme

2007-11-29T06:25:19Z

1. You shall put your music player on shuffle.
2. You shall press forward for each question.
3. You shall use the song title as the answer to the question even if it doesn't make sense. NO CHEATING!
4. You shall tag 5 people and rain hell upon humanity.
5. You shall give your own comments on how it relates to the questions.

How are you feeling today? Losing My Religion, REM. And I am amused, because I just finished a comment about how unreligious I am.

Will you get far in life? Desert Rose, Sting. I suppose this means I'll get to a desert. Will have the same qualities of a mirage, perhaps?

How do your friends see you? March of the Sinister Ducks. Oh, for the love of God.

What is your best friend's theme song? Kiss This, Aaron Tippin. (...*cracks up*)

What is the story of your life? Nothing In My Way, Keane. (Hah. Hah. Okay.)

What is high school like? The Worst Day Since Yesterday, Flogging Molly. *amused*

How can you get ahead in life? Evil Night Together, Jill Tracy. This song makes me happy! But really, playlist. Bad timing.

What is the best thing about your friends? Boléro, Ravel. (?)

What is in store for this weekend? Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde, Travis Tritt. Looks like I've got a good weekend ahead of me! Eee! This is so awesome!

How is your life going? King of Wishful Thinking, Go West. Right. Okay. What the hell!

What song will they play at your funeral? You Spin Me Right Round (Like A Record), Dead or Alive. This is genius. I'll need to leave instructions in my will.

What do your friends really think of you? Bye Bye Blackbird, Joe Cocker. (Er? Don't know what to make of this one)

Do people secretly lust after you? Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in E Minor, Op. 64 - 1. Allegro Molto Appassionato, composed by Felix Mendelssohn, performed by Anne-Sophie Mutter. (*grin*)

How can I make myself happy? Vienna, Billy Joel. Okay then! I've got a plan!

What should you do with your life? Wild Wild West, Escape Club. (I knew it! Secret to life is being mean and having horses. Hush up. This is how I choose to interpret this.)

Will you ever have children? December, Collective Soul. I believe that is a no.

--

I tag anyone and everyone who's been mostly lurking of late, but is definitely about and looking for an excuse to post. Yes, I mean you.

eyra @ 2007-11-14T22:00:00

2007-11-15T06:00:31Z

Dammit. I used to like being a liar.

eyra @ 2007-11-14T21:55:00

2007-11-15T06:00:17Z

This is the Week of the Dead Flags. By which I mean it is War Is Bad Week. Or something; I'm not sure what they call it, but they fork university lawns, only with flags instead of forks. White flags represent Iraqi dead; red flags, American military casualties. Every year there are flags completely covering every square inch of the east campus. When they started this, every flag represented one person. This year, the white flags represent six.

eyra @ 2007-11-14T21:37:00

2007-11-15T05:54:51Z

I just called in sick for tomorrow. I am not sick at the moment, and probably won't be tomorrow.

I have a lot of homework to do; I want to get the backlog cleared up so I can move into Finals Season prepared.

I feel like shit. I will very likely not be able to concentrate on my stupid homework tomorrow, because I will feel like shit then, too.

I was going to do it Saturday, too, but now I think I'll go to work on Saturday and bitch in my head about how much I wish I was doing homework instead, because at least then I wouldn't have to be such an obvious faker. I'm going to be super-efficient on Saturday, too. NO ONE WILL GROWL AT ME.

eyra @ 2007-10-21T14:34:00

2007-10-21T21:42:28Z

I'm trying to write a philosophy essay. Or rather, I'm not trying, at all. I keep sitting here feeling vaguely uneasy because I haven't started the essay due Wednesday, but feeling uneasy isn't enough to make me stop sitting here. Every so often I bake something new, to feel productive. Yesterday evening and today I have made:

1/2 batch cinammon rolls
3 batches cookies
2 coffee cakes (small loaf pans)
1 batch croutons
1/2 devil's food cake mix, extensively doctored and baked as cupcakes, and frosted with
1/4 batch chocolate ganache and
1/2 batch marshmallow frosting

I have to stop. I have to wrap things and put them in bags so they can go in the freezer.

Perhaps I will procrastinate by doing other homework now. At least that is somewhat productive.

eyra @ 2007-10-21T12:40:00

2007-10-21T20:14:39Z

I just calculated how fast I'd have to be moving if I wanted the next eight months to seem like just nine hours. I'm sure relativity's a lovely theory, but I can't move that fast. Doesn't do me much good.

It's always something or other. We all know there's always something tearing you apart, and etc.

I am tired and also currently sick and would like to be done with this part. Not that I know what the next part is.

--

In other news, I am a little surprised at the negative reactions to the Dumbledore-is-gay-and-loved-Grindelwald revelation. I see their point - yes, it could/perhaps should have been in the book itself (in Rita's book, probably, when she was talking about the friendship), but honestly, I kind of consider that it was there, subtext everywhere, and as it was there was a lot of exposition in that book. And given the cute white-picket-fence heteronormative epilogue to Deathly Hallows, this is still big.

The blow-up yesterday was amusing to watch. And I haven't seen much of the bigoted kind of negative reactions (yet), which is awesome, though I expect the book-burning right will have something to say at some point.

seventy four hours and counting, but not for you, and not for me

2007-10-15T08:09:44Z

You believe the truths you are presented with.

Also. I am very, very easily amused.

between the cardboard pile and the bread bowls

2007-10-04T04:37:06Z

Medieval Britain is fun, the literary crit class is easy but interesting, and philosophy is incomprehensible, but I'm fairly certain it's supposed to be. I had a fourth class, but I dropped it, because it was when hours were available (for the dish gig, la).

The last week has been...problematic. I think I'm in trouble, actually, but it's not something I have to worry about for a year or so, so I'm going to put off said worrying as long as possible. I don't really want to talk about my week, so I did this meme instead:

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk* to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma*
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods*
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
~~The Canterbury Tales~~
The Historian
~~A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man~~
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein*
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King (yeah, these two puzzled me)
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984*
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility*
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
~~Tess of the D'Urbervilles~~
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
~~Les Misérables~~
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States:1492-Present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere*
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short history of Nearly Everything
Dubliners*
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
~~Slaughterhouse-Five~~
The Scarlet Letter*
Eats, Shoots, and Leaves
~~The Mists of Avalon~~
Oryx and Crake
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northhanger Abbey
The Catcher In the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakanomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainence:An Inquiry Into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood:A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers*

It's not about the pompous ass, it's about his poem

2007-09-26T01:53:59Z

I just took a break from reading Beowulf to rant about Beowulf.

Yes, I am reading it again. I'll have to read it Spring term, too.

The post more or less went like this: this poem's relevancy has been disastrously overblown, and it's very nice that all these people think it's important and momentous but they're wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. The post was much much longer than this one, but its central claim was basically that using Beowulf as a historical document to reveal a true perspective on pre-Christian Saxon culture is exactly like researching nautical warfare during the Napoleonic Era by reading Her Master and Commander:

When I saved the entry I made it private because I got really long-winded about why its use as a historical document is a total crock, and I just didn't want to legitimate my own ravings by making them even remotely public.

So I made these ravings public instead.

I have to go back to rereading Beowulf.

eyra @ 2007-08-29T13:41:00

2007-08-29T20:45:33Z

That likely wasn't the best way to say hello.

I've been off the 'net because I gave my mother's laptop back to her, and had to clean it first, and the only time I've really been online lately has been the occasional use of the slow and clunky family computer downstairs. I now, however, have a shiny new notebook, and it is all mine.

You are all terribly prolific. I'm going to start working my way back through the flist this evening. I hope you've all been well and happy.

I move in about a week.

all the people on the street

2007-08-29T20:40:25Z

I HATE PORTLAND AND EVERYONE IN PORTLAND* AND PORTLAND HATES ME. I hate Portland drivers, and Portland bicyclists, and Portland construction workers, and especially Portland pedestrians, and no I didn't hit any of them but I should have because THEY HAVE IT COMING, OKAY? THEY DO. And most of all I hate Portlanders who DON'T KNOW WHERE BURN-FUCKING-SIDE IS, OH GOD. The only thing more idiotic than me having to actually ask how to get to Burnside (I felt so stupid) is someone who LIVES AND WORKS in Portland being unable to get me there (at least I had company)! It's like going to Small Town, America and asking for Main Street!

I drove on no less than FIVE HIGHWAYS in and around Portland this morning. There I'd be meandering on 1st, not where I want to be but perfectly reasonable, thank you, because I know where the number streets are and I know where Alder and Taylor and Yamhill and Salmon streets are, but then 1st would mysteriously have turned into Grover when I wasn't paying attention and then OH HAY LOOK IT'S A HIGHWAY WE'RE GOING TO LAKE OSWEGO! And all of the DRIVERS, GOD. Excuse me if I day dream for a minute. I don't have to deal with your entitlement issues! I'll let you in if I damn well please!

Except that that was at the beginning of the drive, and by the time I'd spent AN HOUR driving around Portland (which, by the way, is the same amount of time it took me to GET THERE in the first place), weaving around the blocked construction streets and dodging ~~dumb-ass~~ brave pedestrians, I realized that I'd obviously shredded my driving karma, and so I let people in at every merge on the way home.

This song makes me feel better.

*except Kaet.

a threefold cord is not quickly broken

2007-08-13T18:02:28Z

Back, and going nowhere until I move to Eugene, thank God. There were fires everywhere in Montana; towns were being evacuated, and you couldn't really walk about some days without inhaling the smoke. And it all made for a bloodred sun in the sky, at which you can actually straight look - the first grader in me noted this with obnoxious glee. My first grader is a dork.

I'm so glad to be home. The longer I'm around people who feel they have a claim on me, the more I tend to turn gray. Or perhaps a wan beige. I'm not sure which. And, of course, as it was my cousin's wedding people kept reminding me to invite them to my own wedding, hint hint, and then there were the job questions, and then there was the uncle who's started greeting all the cousins with some variant of "ugly girl!" (in all fairness, he's one of my favorite uncles, and I probably would have found it funny if I hadn't already been exhausted by the aunts and the interminable wedding preparations), and then there were just the demands to know about my life. I don't want to talk about my life. It's my own damn business. I got approved for the apartment, which is awesome, but my mother kept telling me to share my "news," and she kept looking annoyed when I didn't do it with sufficient excitement, but my excitement over my "news" centers over the fact that it is a one-bedroom at least an hour away from all family members and it ensures that I will never have to share my "news" unless I damn well please. I can go home and shut up for hours.

Also, I'm so very very pleased to have a kitchen (!!!!!). I can make my own food! And save left overs! Not to mention a proper bathroom. One more year in the dorm and I was going to go nuts.

I'm in a happy place right now. As of today, my younger brother is at band camp every week day, and my parents have gone back to work. So until I move out, I still have most of my days completely alone. It's so good to finally rest.

The wedding wasn't bad. Vaguely tacky, but a lot of them are. I don't know why I'm always surprised by it. My cousin and her new husband were perfect, though, and looked very happy. Her dress was gorgeous, of course. Also, I'm now very fond of her, though I've never known her particularly well. I got roped into helping by the aunts, and they all needed to invest in some very large stress balls except they didn't have the time, and meanwhile Amy was just, "hm? The seamstress hasn't brought my dress back yet? She will," and, "we only have half the food? That's alright," and "Stop worrying, everyone, we'll be done on time. Have fun." All about as far from Bridezilla as is humanly possible. It was very Zen.

Also: does anyone really think it's a good idea to play Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You" at a wedding? Really? The DJ was chosen because the groom's brother-in-law is a DJ - one of those family obligations things - and he played it three effing times.

I will not make the same mistakes you did? Because of you, I am afraid? For fuck's sake. At least he didn't play it for the father-daughter dance. (I once heard John Mayer's "Daughters" for the father-daughter dance. How frakking weird can you get?)

play it cold

2007-08-04T03:14:44Z

Went camping on Sunday, got back Thursday, and went apartment-hunting today.

I have to leave for my cousin's wedding on Sunday. It is in Montana.

This is all after ten days in Klamath Falls. I feel a bit like screaming.

I trailed along on my family's two vacations, because I could and because I knew it would be fun, but I can't opt out of this damn wedding and I would give a lot to stay behind. But if I don't go I will never hear the end of it, from a lot of people in my extended family and from my own mother in particular. I'm considering waiting until Wednesday to go to Montana, however, if only to give myself some time to rest before leaving again. The ostensible, Responsible Reason will be so that I can continue the apartment-hunt.

I found the perfect one, though. It's even in my price range, though I'll have to pay electricity separately, and I'm not sure I can do that at present with my budget as I've formulated it. But I can just move things around a bit. All the units face an inner courtyard (with a TREE), the complex is two blocks from a major street on one side and two blocks from a park on the other, it's near a busline that can get me to school or to a grocery store in less than twenty minutes, the city's best gourmet bakery is a three-minute walk away, and it's dirt cheap. I hope I can make this work, but it's not a complex that's accustomed to students, so they expect a bit more in the line of decent credit history than I really have to offer (which is a big blank). But I have hope.

I'm so tired of living out of a suitcase. I want to stay home for a fortnight and watch stupid television on my computer.

ps I can't get the sound of water out of my head, and there's always a blur of green just beyond my peripheral vision. I don't know why my brain is doing this; I think it may have short circuited when I was camping. I started taking a nap every day because I was so tired. It's vaguely surreal.

ETA - Oh, LJ. Or 6A. Wow.

but it happens, yeah?

2007-07-26T05:05:15Z

That's ironic.