fazed-girl

sassy gay sam, and #reverb11 (December 22 - 24)

2012-01-23T08:06:00.000-08:00

WOW THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

I'm done with #reverb11 and have been for some time now, but I haven't posted any of my responses because I feel so apathetic about the outfits that I'm trying to work my way through.

(Also I am still working on the domain transfer, so I've been kind of occupied. It's coming along.)

(Also if you've looked at my tumblr recently, you've probably realized that my entire life has been sucked into the black hole that is BBC's Sherlock.)

Here's an outfit in which I unintentionally posed like the Tenth Doctor (or, as I call this particular picture in my head, "Sassy Gay Tennant"):

SO SASSY

Unfortunately I am not as attractive as David Tennant, so sassy!Sam is considerably less funny-looking than sassy!David.

This color combo makes me think of eggplants.

Double fishtail braids! These actually didn't work out that well because one side turned out longer than the other, but at least it looked a little bit alien, which is what I was going for.

Sweater: uncle's. Pink t-shirt: Paul Frank. Striped shorts: aunt's. Tights: BP Nordstrom. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz. Friendship bracelets: DIY. Batman watch: Target.

I hate these friendship bracelets because making them gave me tendinitis, but I also love them because the one on the left makes me think of a unicorn princess, and the one on the right looks like a glamorous version of a 12-year-old summer camp project where you were trying to be ~edgy by using black with pink.

Cool story, Sam.

#reverb11 prompt for December 22, 2011:
What were your favorite songs?

If I had to choose 11 songs to stick in a time capsule to remind me of 2011, I’d pick…

“Hand Covers Bruise” – Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network
Because this song makes me feel hollow and worthless and vengeful, which is pretty incredible considering it has no lyrics.

“One Time” – Justin Bieber
Because listening to Justin Bieber makes me disproportionately happy, and I hope no one will ever take that away from my plebeian tastes.

“You And Me” – Penny and the Quarters
Because I, like most people, only heard this song because of Blue Valentine, and it makes me feel full of young optimism. Which is, like, the greatest thing, because, to quote Doctor Who as I love to do, you may ask, “what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later? The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later” (and clearly I am writing this after the actual date of the prompt, because that quote is from the Christmas special, but whatever).

“Raise Your Glass” – P!nk
Probably because of the UBC Lip Dub, and because I had the need to tell myself over and over that I was not going to apologize for being a nitty gritty dirty little freak.

“Alright With Me” – Kris Allen
Because I most definitely had to use this as a “get happy” song in 2011.

“Misery” – Maroon5
Uh. Because this is my 2011 equivalent of “Leavin’” by Jesse McCartney. Which is to say, I have mentally classified this as a sexytimes song, an association that was probably amplified by the time frame when I had it stuck in my head.

“I Am The Doctor” – Murray Gold
Because Series 5 of Doctor Who, like Season 1 of Misfits, is incredible television, and it’s hard to get over that wibbly-wobbly humany-wumany Jell-o stomach feeling of excitement I get whenever I hear DOO WEE OOH!

“Rolling in the Deep” – Adele
Because it was sort of my “fuck you” song for 2011. (In conjunction with “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too” by Say Anything. Previous years’ “fuck you” songs include “Love Song” by Sara Bareilles, “Fuck You” by Cee-Lo Green, and what is arguably the best “fuck you” karaoke song of all time, “Don’t Want You Back” by Eamon.)

“Mama Said” – The Shirelles
Because my mom remained my cheerleader when I started hating my living situation.

“Shake It Out” – Florence + The Machine
Because when I first heard this song, it felt sort of… spiritual. Not in a “Florence Welch talks to God” way (which is what I kind of think about Terrence Malick), but in a “celebration of myself” way. Which is probably the worst way I could have phrased it, because I’m not a Walt Whitman fan.

“Someone Like You” – Adele
Because this song actually makes me feel really peaceful, not sad, which sums up how I’m ending this year.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 23, 2011:
Who did you miss?

I started writing this and shocked myself with how direct I was because I usually shy away from how I feel like I’m at the edge of a bottomless pit but evidently it’s time to look down, so who did I miss?

My father, in a big, vague, sad way, and I’ve felt like this since he died, but I’ve always asked myself why I feel so sad about it when I barely remember him anymore and what little I do remember is hardly with any fondness. This year, I didn’t ask. I just knew that I missed him, or I missed the idea of him, or I missed the idea of being a daughter, or the idea of having a father, missed the idea of having the family I should have grown up in, the arguments we would have had, the family vacations and Christmas mornings and Sunday evenings, the way things might have turned out differently if he’d been alive, the parts of me would have turned out broken instead, everything that could have been. I missed his blue sweatshirt with elbow patches, and the buzzed part of his hair at the back of his neck, and his Sentra with the fuzzy seats you could brush patterns into. I miss my dad, not because I remember what he was like, or what my family was like, not the way I have missed friends or places, not because I remember what it feels like to have a father or to see my mom have a husband, but because I don’t know how not to miss him.

This will always be a thread in my story, this big gaping hole that death cut out, that I have been too afraid to look at for most of my life. I am looking now, and everything is blurry, and everything is okay.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 24, 2011:
When did you take the easy way?

I don’t know if this was actually the easiest way or the hardest way, but sometime near the end of November, I decided I definitely wasn’t going to stay in school a semester longer than I had to. I’d been debating whether I would continue with my plan to graduate early or steamroll the plan and take a couple more computer science classes instead, just to have done them, because they would supposedly make me more employable.

On the car ride home for some weekend, we were stuck in traffic, and I blurted out to my mom that I felt like now that I was graduating, I should actually go get a computer science degree because I knew I was more capable than a lot of my classmates had been, and I would be able to do it; it would probably just take a while. She thought it was a great idea.

I spent the next few days seriously contemplating it and writing a lot of pro-con lists and things like “it would be financially smart to get a computer science degree from berkeley, no matter how long it takes me” and “srsly haven't felt this bad in months. like just sitting around and wanting to burst into tears on the regular.” When I pulled up the list of major requirements, I started to feel light-headed and then I noticed my breathing had gone shallow and I was getting sweaty. I took my pulse just to make sure, and it was about fifteen beats per minute faster than usual. How dramatic.

We celebrated my mom’s birthday at a Chinese restaurant, and I had to excuse myself from the dinner table and lock myself in the bathroom because I’d been sitting there completely oblivious of the conversation being made around and at me, hearing nothing but the thrum of blood in my ears, feeling like I was sinking under the weight of the resignation that I had to do this, and my little cousin was staring at me because I was starting to cry.

And then I puked for two days straight after Thanksgiving break, and realized that there was no way I would ever go back to that fuckery that was me trying to do something I hated doing, because bodies are fragile, and I wanted to like my life for as much of the time that I was alive as possible.

national importance, and #reverb11 (December 18 - 21)

2012-01-08T08:10:00.000-08:00

No, I didn't wear this on the Fourth of July to be festive.

I wore this on the Twenty-Sixth of June to go to Target.

It was a day of national importance, because I am a National Treasure.

Sparkly red cardigan: Old Navy girl's. T-shirt: Old Navy men's. Striped shorts: aunt's, hand-me-down. Tights: generic. Saddle shoes: Payless.

why am i allowed to have a computer

do you like my bad image editing job

do you like how the eagle is wearing a crown of sams

it represents the united states as a democracy ruled by me

wonderful eagle image taken from here

On a slightly more serious note, #reverb11 prompts after the jump.

#reverb11 prompt for December 18, 2011:
Who touched your heart?

I want to write about my mom, but her story is not mine to tell, so I’m going to wax poetic (or prosodic?) about Amy Pond from Doctor Who and Lee from Secretary. Now, I realize that Doctor Who and Secretary are two dramatically different pieces of media, but hear me out if you’re going to hear me at all, because both Amy Pond and Lee “touched my heart,” if by “touched” you mean to include the action “scraped with a serrated knife.”

I’d tried to watch Doctor Who before, starting with the Ninth Doctor, but Doctor Who circa 2005 was so cheesy, I couldn’t bring myself to suspend my disbelief for an entire episode. When I tried again, I went for Eleven in Series 5, which turned out to be a great decision, because even though I started sort of mid-story, I was smitten in the first five minutes, when Amelia Pond started praying to Santa. Because she was a child, and she was alone, and she was abandoned, and she had no one who believed her, and no one to ask for help, and that’s what I felt like a lot when I was younger. I don’t know how other people forget what it was like to be a child, because I don’t think it’s an easy time for anyone. How is it not branded into the back of your throat, that feeling of being discounted because you were a child, as if you hadn’t experienced enough of life to know what pain was? I used to feel like I’d been punched in the mouth, and I was just waiting for everyone else to realize they were going to get punched too, and in the meantime could you all shut up about the bloody tooth that I just spat out because you’re going to lose some teeth in your time too.

And Lee Holloway, who is so closed! I wish I had thought to use that word to describe myself before, instead of painstakingly crafting some hulking extended metaphor about bomb shelters or whatever, because it so succinctly encapsulates that feeling I’ve called being “prickly, like a hedgehog.” I’m not saying that I self-harm like Lee does, but I too like routine. I like rules and being told what to do, and Secretary made me think for the first time that maybe there’s more than one way to get at my fleshy underside, and maybe it doesn’t have to hurt.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 19, 2011:
Where did you visit?

Well, I spent a while in the hospital, visiting, and I visited my relatives in Los Angeles. I don’t have much to say about either of those things, except that I became way more familiar with the nurse rotations and hospital cafeteria food than I ever wanted to be, and that I am starting to suspect that the only places in the U. S. abundant with good Cantonese food are the coasts. (Bless you, New York.)

The only way I can think of to hijack this prompt into something I can ramble about for 250 words is to comment on how I’m probably going to really miss college in a couple of weeks when it becomes obvious how stifling it is to be at home again after not having anyone breathing down my neck for three and a half years. It’s not that I ever hit the point where being at home felt like I was a stranger visiting, or where my apartment felt like more of a home than my house did, but I most definitely prefer the silence and privacy of what I came to think of as my second home. I guess I have to unlearn the need for my own space. That, or I’ll have to spend the next undetermined number of years on an extended visit in this house until I’m making enough money to afford a new place to call home, because as long as it’s visiting, it means I’m not planning on staying forever. Because I really don’t want to, which is kind of weird for me to admit, because I routinely prioritize my family to the point where I get irritated with myself for not prioritizing myself, but I do need space. At least enough to stay reasonably happy, so I can actually be of use to people. The walls at my apartment were so much thinner, but the ones at home are so very close together.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 20, 2011:
When did you cry?

January, February, March, April, and May. (And every month thereafter, but for better reasons.)

Also, at the acupuncturist.

I already wrote (pretty incoherently) about crying at the acupuncturist a couple months ago, but I only found the right words for the realization I had a couple weeks ago, so here they are:

Depression is a dirty feeling, like old dishwater, and it’s hard to get the grayness of it out of your mouth, and the dankness of it out of your clothes. It seeps in and settles into the cracks of your life and lurks in unexpected places, so that you burn your toast and end up crying in the shower for two hours, and you can scrub your skin until it turns pink and little blood spots start to surface, but it won’t come out.

Grief is such a clean feeling, so clear and sharp and painful. There is no shame in grief, and thus no need for pretense. Grief is such a big feeling, like life and death have taken you into their arms and thrown you into the air and you suddenly understand that being human is to be gloriously insignificant, to be enormous and tiny all at once.

Grief is, in my opinion, one of the best ways to start crying involuntarily. So is happiness. It’s like living in high-def with the color saturation turned up to mind-blowing, and while it might hurt, at least you can feel it and know that you exist here and now.

It’s not like depression, not reruns of shades of gray on mute. That is the worst kind of crying.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 21, 2011:
Where did you spend your time?

…At school, being easy on myself, and at home, taking my grandma-sitting shift. I am 100% sure I am not at the point where I can write about this yet, so I won’t.

Literally, where did I spend my time? In my room watching a butt-ton of movies. Consuming things like books, movies, television, fanfiction, and Ak Mak. Curled up in a ball taking up as little space as possible, indignantly jabbing my cane at the air and yelling, “Get off my lawn, you hooligans!” Hiding.

I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s change the subject. Where was I glad to have spent my time? Well. In my room watching a butt-ton of movies, consuming things like books, movies, television, fanfiction, and Ak Mak, because let’s face it: it’s a pretty great way to spend time.

But I was pretty good at working through my create-consume cycle this year (as I think I usually am, actually. Pat on the back, Sam), except this year, a lot less of my create was introspective. I wrote programs for class (as I’ve done before, except this time I could see myself using what I learned IRL), wrote copy for a startup (as I’ve done before, sort of, for my theater group), wrote for Script Frenzy (and failed), made friendship bracelets (and gave myself tendinitis), and wrote some fictional bits for Write One Leaf (aka my baby boy Hugo). And I’m glad I gave my time to those things and not other things, because they were worth more to me than the more self-indulgent creation (by which I mostly mean writing and blogging) that I did last year. I mean, ignoring all the very much not self-indulgent programming I did last year, it’s sort of bullshit to wallow around in your own story after you’ve finally shat it all out and been mad and sad about that intense shit-stain on your floor.

Not to minimize my need for space to process. And not to minimize how much I felt like I was being bullied by the life I chose for myself. But it’s a totally different feeling when you roll with the punches, and I am wretchedly more okay with myself and what I am doing now than I was last year, and it has everything to do with where I spent my time.

comfort zone, and #reverb11 (December 14 - 17)

2012-01-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

Every item I am wearing in this outfit is SUPER COMFORTABLE and part of me wishes I never changed out of this outfit because it was so comfortable, but another part of me says that's gross because this outfit was from June of 2011.

This is also an outfit I am willing to label as "something I could have worn between the ages of 12 and 21," so I guess I must have a fashion comfort zone. (One that definitely involves above-the-knee lower body garments.)

Sweatshirt: Target. Mittens: J. Crew, gift. Shorts: hand-me-down. Tights: generic. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz. Terrible facial expressions: cabin fever.

Anyway, more #reverb11 prompts after the jump! (The one for the 15th includes an almost-complete list of the movies I watched in 2011. If you are interested.)

#reverb11 prompt for December 14, 2011:
Where did you leave a mark?

The fact that I’m having so much trouble answering this question probably says a lot about me. To be fair, I don’t think many of us spend much time thinking about what kind of positive impact we leave on people. I can think of times this past year when I left a negative impact on people, but, well, I’m not used to congratulating myself. Not where it counts. (My face does not count.)

In my female sexuality class, we had this one activity near the end of the semester where we anonymously let each other know who from class had positively impacted us, and the outpouring of love that day was overwhelming. It’s sad that it came as a surprise to me. I mean. I can talk about how much I love myself all I want, but you can love yourself and still be forging armor and building bunkers because you don’t trust the world to love you like you do.

It’s one thing to love yourself, and it’s another thing entirely to look at yourself as if you are someone you love. I know I’m supposed to look at myself the way I look at my best friend, but it’s hard.

Especially when you think you’re doing okay, and then somebody comes along and tells you HEY GURL, that’s a really cool dead horse you’ve been dragging around, and you go, Oh shit I forgot to hide it, and they’re like, NO NOT YET I WANT TO SHOW YOU MY DEAD CAT, and you think, Hot damn, I haven’t even looked at this horse in years I don’t think I’m ready to show you you’re a stranger and the last time I showed it to someone they spat on it get out get out you don’t understand the horse sound the alarm ABORT

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 15, 2011:
What movies did you see?

In alphabetical order, unitalicized, the 55 movies I watched between January 1, 2011 and December 15, 2011, inclusive:

A Single Man; About A Boy; Across the Universe; Adventureland; An Education; Anastasia; Attack the Block; Black Swan; Blue Valentine; Boy A; Bridesmaids; Brothers; Captain America: The First Avenger; Catfish; Crazy, Stupid, Love.; Cursed; Despicable Me; Easy A; Fight Club; Full Metal Jacket; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2; Holy Rollers; How to Train Your Dragon; I Love You, Man; Inglourious Basterds; Iron Man; Iron Man 2; It's Kind of a Funny Story; Kick-Ass; Love and Other Drugs; Never Let Me Go; Never Say Never; Ponyo; Ratatouille; Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974; Secretary; Sherlock Holmes (2009); Sleepless in Seattle; Super 8; The Fox and the Hound; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009); The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus; The King's Speech; The Living Wake; The Prince of Egypt; The Princess and the Frog; The Secret of Kells; The Squid and the Whale; The Thin Red Line; The Tree of Life; The Virgin Suicides; Tropic Thunder; X-Men: First Class; Zodiac; Zombieland.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t get me to the ~250 word minimum I was aiming for, so I’ll just go into some detail about my favorites…

A Single Man, The Thin Red Line, and The Tree of Life blew me away. They weren’t necessarily the most entertaining movies I watched, or the ones with the most fun storylines, but they just captured feelings so well, I was amazed. Maybe it was the lack of dialogue. Maybe it was the way the shots were set up. I don’t know, but I’ve never seen movies that made me feel like this before.

Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes are mostly here because I like Robert Downey Jr.’s characters. And face.

How to Train Your Dragon and The Secret of Kells are such incredible animated movies! The adult/child relationships in both of them hurt so good. And The Secret of Kells has a crazy fun animation style.

I Love You, Man and Zombieland are smart dumb movies that I can’t even lie about. I laughed so hard at both of these.

Never Let Me Go didn’t make me all that sad, but it’s so incredibly full of sorrow, despair, and resignation. It’s beautifully done, and Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield are stunning.

The King’s Speech was really pretty, and Secretary was crazy sexy. WATCH IT.

[EDIT: As I reread this on December 31, 2011, I feel the hysterical need to add that between the 15th and the 31st, I also watched the following 7 movies: Due Date; Thor; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows; Warrior; Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang); The Thief and the Cobbler. I also feel the hysterical need to add that this list does not include rewatches. (The ones off the top of my head are The Social Network, Billy Elliot, The Prince of Egypt, Moulin Rouge, The Emperor's New Groove, and The Professional, but there are probably a few more I rewatched in 2011.)]

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 16, 2011:
What did you accomplish?

In 2011, I finished a college degree. Funnily enough, that’s not really something I’m very proud of, because it wasn’t very hard to do aside from trying not to get bored of school. (Granted, I didn’t have to work to make rent because financial aid covered it, so I’d probably be more proud of finishing college if I had more obligations to juggle. Or harder classes.)

Some things I was way more proud of were programming in Ruby, getting my Rails apps to work, actually understanding how CSS works instead of just making good guesses and using trial and error, being told my hems were nice, watching such a frightening number of movies that were actually good, and not freaking out while driving.

But the thing I was most proud of accomplishing in 2011… was getting my menstrual cup in. And I know, I know it’s so inconsequential, but it was a huge deal for me. I’m not one of those people who used tampons and felt like I saw the light, but the first time I put my cup in, I grinned like a crazy person, which probably would have been really alarming if anyone had walked into the bathroom right then, because I was naked and covered in almost as much blood as was on the shower floor. (It had been a long and strenuous hour and a half.) It’s just that tampons were such an ordeal, and I didn’t feel empowered when I was wearing them, but when my menstrual cup finally popped open in the right position, I felt like I finally understood how my vagina was supposed to work. I don’t know if it’s because I went to Catholic school for nine years (and so, you know, tons of sexual shame), but it’s always been this… this gross, messy thing that nobody would ever want to deal with, except at the same time, I’m supposed to enjoy someone sticking a penis in it, but I’m not supposed to want them to.

I don’t know. Here’s the important part, though: IT’S NOT GROSS! IT’S JUST ME.

And that was a pretty exciting revelation.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 17, 2011:
When were you the most grateful?

I can actually pinpoint the day, and it was November 22nd, and maybe it was because I had way, way too much caffeine that day, but I felt so grateful, I felt like I needed to punch something just to relieve the tension.

On the 22nd of November in the year of our Lord 2011, my English class (which featured two of my least favorite English class texts, Mrs. Dalloway and Beowulf) was cancelled; the paper calendar pinned on my wall in the style of Harry Potter counting down the days to September 1st when Hogwarts term begins was almost completely crossed out; I ate ugly, deformed, delicious organic strawberries; I put my eyeliner on perfectly; I watched the Misfits episode where Kelly (my favorite character!) saves an alternate universe from “fookin’ Nazis”; I wore a tiny skirt; I had really good, really strong, really pretentious black tea with someone whose pride at being a new father was so palpable it probably could have sunk the Titanic, and who offered to be my reference; I finished writing up my homework assignment before Thanksgiving break; I got my head anonymously tapped by members of my class for categories like “people who changed your life” and “people you think are strong”; I was caffeinated for the entire afternoon, evening, and night, which left me antsy, indiscriminately overenthusiastic, and jittery with love; and I finished the day by concluding my list of things I was thankful for with “and and and everything and everyone and wanting to stop and give thanks and prostrate myself and weep at the glory of this life.”

a(n edited) 2011 bumper survey

2012-01-01T02:41:00.000-08:00

Because it actually is tradition on this blog, a nonsense end-of-the-year bumper survey. This post has no pictures, so feel free to scroll past it.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before?
Watch porn in a group. Purchase and successfully use a menstrual cup. Talk about my own birth with my mom. Buy flushable toilet seat covers in bulk on Amazon. Intern at a startup. Meet someone else who’s divorced their faith tradition. Watch and fall in love with Doctor Who, Misfits, Downton Abbey, Sherlock, Archer, and Suits. Have my own room (albeit by happy accident). Put a condom on a banana. With my mouth. Eat cottage cheese. Try Russian food. Try German food. Watch a Terrence Malick film. Watch a Quentin Tarantino film. Encounter a live termite. Make friendship bracelets. Have tendinitis (have less than fully-functioning hands). Read the Hunger Games series. Fishtail braid my hair. Watch a Robert Downey Jr. film. Learn to hem properly. Eat popping boba. Color a line drawing of a vulva. Watch so much television. Sew hundred-year-old pants. Buy “interview clothes.” Be officially sorted into Ravenclaw. Enjoy a comic book movie. Be published in any capacity (see Tinsel Tokyo’s Fall ’11 issue, pp. 56 – 57 for some writing I find kind of off-putting rereading it now). Like a Stanley Kubrick film. Drink almond ginger milk tea (HNNGHH). Drive a car without panicking. Cry over a wall (see Doctor Who, Series 2, Episode 13). Participate in Script Frenzy. Photograph the roof of my mouth. Ingest so much charcoal and grape seed oil. Watch a Sofia Coppola film. Watch the Oscars from start to finish. Watch an Emma Stone movie. See so many girls/women with armpit/body hair (UNF). Watch an entire episode of SNL (the things I do for you, Eisenberg). Be summoned for jury duty. Program in Ruby. Have someone offer to be a reference for my future job search. Use CGI, Ajax, JavaScript that wasn’t copied and pasted, MySQL, SQLite, Ruby, and WordPress. Feel like a movie was a religious experience. Find my Holy Grail mascara (blinc). Receive acupuncture. Watch a movie in a theater by myself. Pay for web hosting.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t make any, so I suppose I didn’t keep them. Or I did? Anyway, yes, I do want to make resolutions for next year, because I feel like my life actually has space for them now.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Not close to me, but I got to see baby pictures, which is close enough!

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Paid employment. Fuchsia corduroys. …I think that’s it.

7. What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 22nd because I had so much caffeine, everything felt like it was happening with at least twelve times the normal intensity (as I will soon relate to you in my #reverb11 response for December 17th).

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Er… I’m probably supposed to say “finishing a college degree,” but I’m going to go ahead and say “successfully using a menstrual cup.”

9. What was your biggest failure?
GIVING MYSELF TENDINITIS MAKING FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS FOR MYSELF, BECAUSE WHO DOES THAT?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Right after Thanksgiving was the only time I was ill this year (for which I am really thankful). I have never vomited that violently before.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
It’s a tie between paid web hosting and my MiaCup. (Or my thrifted fake fur coat. Or my thrifted Betsey Johnson dress. Or my Cole Haan Air Evan Chelsea boots. Or my ticket to watch Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy because it was the first movie I watched alone in a theater, and it was so much more enjoyable than watching with company sorry guise. I don’t know. I feel like I made a lot of good purchases this year.)

14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent and tuition.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
DreamHost + WordPress. Also, my period, between when my MiaCup order arrived and when I first tried using it.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
I’m going to have to go with “Alright With Me” by Kris Allen just because I listened to it a lot, and it marked a kind of turning point.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you happier or sadder?
Happier, although that’s not saying much considering how my last year ended.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Checking in with people! I keep forgetting to! (Not like “Hey! What’s up?” but like “How are you doing? How was your day?” and listening and absorbing the response.)

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
...Making friendship bracelets because it gave me tendinitis that I am still healing from, and I haven’t really worn them yet anyway.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Definitely Doctor Who for the characters, but Archer and Sherlock are seriously quality television. Downton Abbey and Misfits were also really, really good.

26. What was the best book you read this year?
Small Gods. Other books I read for the first time and really liked were Good Omens, Never Let Me Go, and The Hunger Games. (YES. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, GET ON IT before the movie comes out! It’s not amazing prose, but it’s nowhere near as poorly written as Twilight and is equally if not more addictive. The characters are pretty nice, and the world is GREAT.) I also reread a lot of books this year, and off the top of my head, the best ones were The Phantom Tollbooth and The Little Prince, but there were so (so so so) many.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Er… I listened to Florence + The Machine’s “Shake It Out” and Kimbra’s “Settle Down” for the first time this year.

28. What did you want and get?
A menstrual cup, Chelsea boots, a physical copy of The Grapes of Wrath, many distractions, useful classes, thoughtful classes, and warm fuzzy feelings.

29. What did you want and not get?
…To watch the American version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. That’s probably it, because there wasn’t much I wanted this year.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
My favorite movie that came out this year (that I watched) was definitely The Tree of Life. My favorite movie that I watched this year was either The Tree of Life or The Thin Red Line, but other movies I really enjoyed were A Single Man, How to Train Your Dragon, Secretary, The Secret of Kells, Fight Club, and Zombieland.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I woke up, received a FutureMe email from 2009, received my Pottermore email, bought an unnecessary pair of red satin heels, and ate too much Ici ice cream on my 21st birthday. But the events of that day were mostly eclipsed by Pottermore, so.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
From “practical-warm-14-hours-in-the-hospital” to “intentionally cute” to “wear pants for your own safety” to “giant sweaters, tiny skirts.”

34. What kept you sane?
Movies. Tumblr fandoms. Television. Writing. Reading books. Music.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
As always, I’ve got a many-way tie going, this year amongst T o m Hardy, Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Carey Mulligan, Natalie Portman, Daniel Radcliffe, Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, David Tennant, Robert Downey Jr., Jane Aldridge, Jordan Reid, and Noelle Stevenson. (But to be accurate, my biggest, most time-suckingest crushes were Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg, Natalie Portman, and Jordan Reid.)

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.
Life is a lot more fun when you surround yourself with only people you really like.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope”

badly formed, and #reverb11 (December 10 - 13)

2011-12-18T08:05:00.000-08:00

ALL RIGHT, KIDS. I'm finally moving into my outfits from June.

I mean in terms of posting. I do not mean that I am going to rewear everything I wore in June.

...I'm probably the only person who might have mis-parsed that sentence, huh? Okay, Sam, pull yourself together.

Here's an outfit that's as poorly formed as the second sentence of this post.

The sweatshirt is kind of terribly ugly in an "I can imagine the kind of people who would buy this sweatshirt in earnest, and I never want to be any of them" way.

Which might be part of the reason why I like it.

But my socks just look nonsensical in this context. BAD FORM, SAM!

Sweatshirt: Old Navy, brother's discarded gift. Shorts: Alloy. Tights: generic. Socks: Target. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden.

#reverb11 prompts after the jump! I've actually finished writing more than these, but I felt like it would be unreasonable to dump them all into one giant post, so.

#reverb11 prompt for December 10, 2011:
What questions did you ask?

Maybe this is cheating, but for me, the point of #reverbN is to reflect on the past year. Not to write. So here are a few questions I asked myself, roughly reconstructed from memory:

WHERE THE HELL IS MY CERVIX?!
How has Catholicism had a positive effect on my life?
Who was in the room when I was born?
Who’s the genius who decided to make “std” the abbreviation for “standard” lol
What is the adjective form of infidelity?

And a giant set of direct quotes:

Does that make me depressed? Or nihilistic?
Am I eating Saltine crackers because I feel nauseous... or do I feel nauseous because I am eating Saltine crackers?
Do people actually die from jumping off?
the dirty-looking guy I worked with (what's his NAME???)
finals y u so angst-inducing
dammit i think my patronus would definitely be a whale. would that be like the magikarp of patronuses?
but then what is the point of me?
What on earth have I been doing during lecture... class notes: "Can a snowman be set on fire? Can gasoline be frozen?"
question of the hour: how do chinese programmers program? are there chinese(-language) programming languages? why am i thinking about this?
HOW DO YOU GRAMMAR
WHY ARE THERE LITERALLY NO LOBSTER CLASPS IN THIS HOUSE
is it okay to be more attracted to men when they are smeared in dirt or
Does sexuality have to do with who you want to have sex with or who you want to be in a relationship with?
Does androgyny get its own category?
What if you like aesthetically pleasing people regardless of gender or sex but would want to pleasure or be pleasured by one sex/gender but would only want to watch another sex/gender be pleasured rather than participate?
how do i get my first job?
did you know chris pine went to uc berkeley??
remember sock em boppers?
WHO THE FUCK IS CHRIS PINE
socializing: how do you do it.
your mom still menstruates??
IS THIS ALL YOU HAVE TO OFFER ME? VERY LARGE PICTURES?
....................................................................would it be okay if i pre-ordered justin bieber's under the mistletoe or
...no seriously what if I get sorted into Hufflepuff WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN POTTERMORE EARLY REGISTRATION IS TOMORROW why am i so nervous
How does one 1) not jump in front of a train in post-grad despair 2) acquire monies
how do justin bieber's pants stay up anyway?

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 11, 2011:
Who surprised you?

I’m going to write this in angsty, enigmatic xanga-style, which is to say, directed at anonymous addressees. Because I feel like I need to. Especially because… once again, these are conversations I cannot bring myself to have in real life.

// ONE

You surprised me when you told me you had a crush on me because REALLY, SON? I had a terrible haircut and was super depressed all the time when you met me, and I swore you were interested in someone else at the time, and I REFUSED TO TALK TO YOU FOR MONTHS. Is that attractive? Maybe you like that kind of thing. I really like how we get along, but I don’t think our lives are going to cross again, which makes me sad but feels right.

// TWO

You surprised me by continuing to include me in your life, and FOR THAT I AM SO, SO, DISPROPORTIONATELY GRATEFUL. I want to prostrate myself at your feet in thanks for your continually trying to help me out, and for taking me so seriously, and for telling me that I am selling myself short, and for sharing little pieces of your life with me, because I NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD BE PRIVILEGED ENOUGH TO BE LET IN, not even a little bit. You make me feel sparkly.

// THREE

You surprised me by being the only person kind enough (uh, and smart enough) to not let me walk home by myself that night, which is kind of sad if you think about it. Sometimes I wish our lives overlapped more so that we’d see each other more often, but you move in an entirely separate social circle, and a lot of the time, I feel like I have nothing to offer you. …I don’t drink much, but I would totally get drunk with you.

// FOUR

You surprised me by asking me if I felt uncomfortable. I have this delusional idea that I am super emotionally strong because I get emotionally battered so easily that I must’ve developed some resistance by now, but I’m not and I haven't. I was surprised by how open you were about yourself, and how much better you made me feel. I can’t believe you did that for me. I don’t know if it even took a lot of effort on your part, but I can’t believe you even thought to do that for me. You are so, so, SO beautiful.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 12, 2011:
What did you learn?

(I guess I’ll continue with the bite-size prompt responses.)

A lot of women think they are peeing the first time they squirt. (As in, the first time they experience female ejaculation. Or vaginal ejaculation. VAJACKING.)
I do not have a low cervix.
Technically, a fetish is something that’s not typically sexual or erotic (e.g. feet) but is required for arousal. Otherwise, it’s a kink.
There is a much larger population of former Catholics out there than I imagined.
Christianity had a huge effect on how this nation was created and continues to have a huge effect on how it operates, and it manifests in ways that I’ve never even thought about.
The best menstrual cup fold for me is the punch-down, not the origami.
Feather stitches and blind hem stitches are a lot easier than they look.
When I used to sew snaps, hooks, and bars as a costumes underling in high school, it wasn’t that I was just really slow at it – they’re actually really tedious.
I can control my emotions by doing math problems in my head.
Ruby, Ajax, CGI, MySQL (and SQLite) are surprisingly not super hard to use.
It makes a huge difference when you like the space and people where and with whom you spend most of your time.
Friendship bracelets are literally just a bunch of knots.
Professor McGonagall should seriously just be referred to as Badass McGoogles.
Synthesizing voices is really hard, but not at all impossible.
Ovarian cysts are usually benign and go away by themselves.
All my least favorite English classes have included either Mrs. Dalloway or Beowulf. (Or both.)

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 13, 2011:
When did you feel the most relaxed?

Honestly? Probably either while in the costume lab, zoned out by the physical task of hand-sewing, or while I was watching The Thin Red Line or The Tree of Life.

If you think about it, those are all sort of the same experience.

I think one huge reason I used to think I wanted to hand-sew for a living was because I always used sewing as a way to turn my brain off. Making your stitches even is such a singular task, and it’s all about fine motor coordination, with this physical piece of the world that you have to concentrate really hard on. I know other people can talk and sew at the same time, but I can’t. I feel like my mind only operates well verbally, and my physical coordination is so poor, it requires like a full 95% of my consciousness to make my body parts move the way I want them to. (See: Why Sam Can’t Dance and Why Sam Can’t Operate a Motor Vehicle.) But sometimes I do want to turn my brain off, and that’s when I reach for sewing (or knitting, or collage-ing, or whatever the craft of the week is).

And… this makes me think of The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life because both of those movies make me feel so simultaneously grounded and godly, and sometimes I need to turn my brain off when I’ve gotten so wrapped up in my thoughts, I’ve forgotten that I am on this earth with one body and a double handful of people to love. Doing something that requires physical coordination always reminds me how human and divine this life is, and I guess that’s the most relaxing thing I know.

PSA: Because it's practically tradition at this point

2011-12-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

Me, catching up on Misfits while trying to do my last Ruby assignment (...the textbook reading about Rails has not helped me at all), instead of studying for my English/linguistics and theater finals. With dirty hair.

See Spring 2011 and Fall 2010. I think my drawings have gotten progressively less attractive, but maybe this is because my hair has gotten progressively longer and dirtier.

MISCELLANY:

I really want to watch Warrior (with Tom Hardy!!!) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (with Tom Hardy!!! And Benedict Cumberbatch!!! And Colin Firth!!!) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (with RDJ!!!) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (for Rooney Mara's Lisbeth, her chemistry with Daniel Craig, and David Fincher's directing).
I also want to watch The Fall because it's supposed to be pretty.
I ordered a pair of Cole Haan Chelsea boots!!! HOLY EXPENSIVE!!! I hope they fit.
I have no job prospects!!!
My posting has been spotty this entire year, so I feel like it's pointless to say "I'm studying for finals, so I'm not going to try to post," but I just made this point number 5, so...
I might be moving to my own domain.*

[EDIT: P. S. I'll be procrastinating on tumblr and twitter. Come say hi! Or tell me to get back to work.]

[EDIT: *but I'll be changing the name of my blog if I do. Will keep you informed.]

like a Lisa Frank bruise, and #reverb11 (December 6 - 9)

2011-12-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

IDK, maybe I need some sparkles and a black leopard print overlay to truly qualify, but my colors make me feel like a Lisa Frank bruise.

But I wouldn't know... I was never a big fan of Lisa Frank. (SMITE THEE, SAM!)

Yeah, no. I can't lie. I wasn't. It was "too girly" and I'd rather have had a Power Rangers or Transformers folder than a rainbow-ass leopard folder. (Now, though, I'd probably take both. Except make it a Batman or Iron Man folder, plus a rainbow-ass leopard, and I'd be sold.)

Scarf: gift. Sweater: uncle's. Skirt: Goodwill. Pink tights: DKNY. Purple tights: H&M. Saddle shoes: Payless.

All right, maybe this is better:

I hope this makes up for all those years of hating on Lisa Frank, because I think this is kind of GLORIOUS.

(Leopard print taken from here. Abominable photo-editing done on GIMP.)

All right, 2.5 readers. #reverb11 prompts are after the jump.

#reverb11 prompt for December 6, 2011:
Who was important to you?

I was going to write about my mom, because, well, she was really important to me this year. Even more so than other years. And it’s weird to me that I’d have ever answered this question with anyone else, because my mother tops the list when it comes to whose absence would have the biggest negative impact on my life.

But I think I should write about my broski Spenser because I never say thanks to him, and this is a one-sided conversation that I could probably never bring myself to have in real life. So.

Spenser, you were important to me this year because you sent me emails at 12:32 AM to let me know how addictive My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic was, and I emailed you back with “Where is your life?” and an MS Paint drawing of a giant crack in the earth with a miniature one-armed James Franco inside it. You have sent me drunk texts and dumb-ass emails and have been my remote TV-watching buddy. We Doctor Who’d, and you made me Suits, and I made you Downton Abbey, and everything was Matthew’s Resurrected Penis and nothing hurt. And and and I know all of that is just normal stuff you do with your Brosephs and Brosephines who are across the country, but what was really, really important to me this year was one text you sent me on a night when I was slowly and uncontrollably descending into despair, as I seem wont to do, and you were rewatching Cowboys & Aliens, as, I suppose, you are wont to do.

Because I once put all my eggs in one basket, and by basket, I mean person, but you’re right. I’m pretty sure people have tried to tell me this before, and I know I’ve tried to tell myself this over and over – that even if people are telling me I should do something doesn’t mean I should, especially if I hate it – but no one’d ever said it to me so plainly, and so it was the first time I believed it: the egg basket isn’t always right. Fuck the egg basket.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 7, 2011:
What do you hope to remember?

Perhaps this will sound naively optimistic in a few months’ time, after I’ve been rejected from every entry-level job I’ve applied for, but right now, I feel like I’m blossoming through hard soil, and I guess what I hope to remember is that spring will always come. At least until the sun explodes (or whatever). And maybe I won’t be there to see it come in, but it will come, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

I guess I hope to remember that family trumps all. I hope to remember that even when I feel eighty years old, here and now, I am still young. I hope to remember the helpful advice that “if I were you I would not join a nunnery just yet.”

I hope I remember all the stories I’ve heard, watched, and witnessed this year. I hope I remember what it’s like to sleep in my own bed in my own room, because I’m not going to have that again for a long time. I hope I remember what it was like to cram into a tiny living room and tell my story out loud, to a room full of people offering nothing but ears and love. I hope I remember to honestly check in with everybody who matters to me. I hope I remember something for which I have forgiven myself only this year, that "Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn't know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you're picking up the pieces" and literally no one is qualified to sit there and tell me to get over it.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 8, 2011:
Where did you spend money?

According to the file on my desktop called expenses.xls, I spent most of my money this year on rent and tuition, as was expected and as is proper. I also spent money on really excellent food at a lot of really excellent restaurants, and

Y'know, I've never been totally sure on this, but I think it's generally accepted that reaction GIFs don't need to be sourced. (Also, they're really hard to source. So, um. Oops.)

I spent money on my mom and brother, and on Etsy and at Goodwill, and at a hospital cafeteria, and on public transportation. In previous years, I probably would have written off all the eating out as “eating out” and all the gift-buying as “gifts” and all the bus fare as “transportation,” but this year I decided to employ a new categorization system, and I started listing non-tuition, non-rent expenses as either “love” or “wasted.” Because really-really, most things will show themselves to be one or the other in time.

Lunch with people I don’t actually like? Wasted. Sci-fi/fantasy novels? Love. Sparkly gray eyeshadow pencil I bought just to buy something? Wasted. Menstrual cup? LOVE TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH.

Things that are worth more to me than the money I spent on them? Love, uncomplicated and without restraint.

And isn’t that how all the people I spend my time with should make me feel? Like they are worth it? Like I wouldn’t rather be somewhere else, with someone else, doing something else? Shouldn’t I always be acting out of love, so that when I look back, I won’t say “That felt like a waste of time”? “You felt like a waste of time”? Is that okay, or does that just make me a self-justifying asshole with intimacy problems that no amount of sparkly positive language will unravel?

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 9, 2011:
When were you most scared?

I don’t know what this says about me, but on April 7, I wrote “I am having one of those nights where I can't stop the tears from welling up IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and I am Googling symptoms of depression and DYSTHYMIA which, uh, is possibly my whole life. The thing is. I don't have the interest to... to interact with people, or to WRITE, or to make anything, or to ... or for school, or to get excited about class, or to develop a more substantial crush on he-who-has-a-voice-like-heavy-silk. oh god oh god oh god fuck. fuck fuck FUCK” and…

That basically could have been a journal entry from any month of any of the past fourteen years of my life, whereas on July 22, I wrote about my first experience with sleep paralysis because it terrified the shit out of me and then made me feel really, really calm.

So.

So when I was little, I used to lie in bed and “practice dying,” like I’d try to stop moving and breathing and thinking, to see if I would somehow float out of my body and know what it was like to be dead. I’d only ever get so far as not moving and not breathing before my brain caught up with me and did that blasphemous thing we call thinking, but my premature conclusion was always “Well it’s not that bad.”

And so at a very young age I decided that if death wasn’t painful, the actual being dead part was, well, kind of better than being alive because God, if the being left on earth after everyone had died part was this bad, of course being dead was better.

So when I was lying in bed in July and suddenly became conscious that I was lying in bed but unable to feel any sensation or perceive anything about my surroundings, no matter how hard I thought about trying to feel the blankets on me or the position my body was in, I freaked the fuck out. At first, I was like OH SWEET JESUS IS THIS WHAT DYING IS LIKE BECAUSE I AM 100% SURE I CAN’T FEEL MYSELF BREATHING, and then I was like HOLY CRAP I’M DEAD BUT MY MIND EXISTS SEPARATELY FROM MY BODY WHAT WHAT AM I A SOUL FLOATING AROUND NOW OH SNAP HOW COOL WHAT IS GOING ON OH MY POOR FAMILY UGH WHO’S GOING TO FIND MY BODY, and then I felt my tongue on the roof of my mouth and all other sensation came back over the next few minutes and I felt moderately disappointed that it was over.

What, are you like a kitchen appliance or something? and #reverb11 (December 1 – 5)

2011-12-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

I wore this to watch Bridesmaids with Sunshine in May. Obviously I had the foresight to dress in pink to match the movie posters that I didn't see until after I left the theater.

Sweater: uncle's. T-shirt: probably Hanes. Shorts: some brand from Nordstrom. Tights: DKNY. Saddle shoes: Payless.

Anyway.

Kaileen Elise does not write my favorite blog in the world (currently, Jordan Reid is holding that title), and these aren’t my favorite prompts in the world. But I like the idea of #reverbX and had a really good time doing reverb10, and Kaileen Elise has some decent-sounding, sufficiently vague prompts, so here I go, late as usual, with my #reverb11 responses for December 1 – 5, after the jump.

As before, I’m aiming for ~250 words per prompt, and as before, I’ll probably end up writing more than that.

#reverb11 prompt for December 1, 2011:
Where did 2011 begin?

My 2011 began the same place my 2010 ended, which I should probably have taken as an ill omen for the coming year, and which is to say in a hospital next to my cousin and grandmother. It was. Strange. Because after I completely gave up on my soul-crushing fall semester of computer science classes, I didn’t think there was any way to go but up. I wasn’t expecting spring semester to – but nobody ever expects these things, and that’s why they matter. Because life just keeps coming, and so does death, like actors in an unrealistic porno.

I wasn’t ready for 2011 to start. I pretended it didn’t. I put it off for a couple of weeks until I felt like I could say, Okay, that’s enough, Sam. That’s enough. Put it away now. Turn around and keep walking or you’ll fall off the side-scrolling screen. When I went back to school for spring semester, it was the first time I had ever cried because I was leaving home, because I was off to go be useless and frivolous when I could be useful and real and present instead, and it just hurt so fucking much to walk away and give my energy to these stupid classes when I could have been doing any one little thing for my grandmother. I just.

There are few times that I have felt as dumb as when I was reminded that family trumps all. Because it does, and this has never really been in question. When I remembered that I can always walk away from school. That I can walk away from school and still have everything, but if I walk away from my family so I can do fucking school I have nothing left worth sticking around for and that is a stupid, stupid way to try to live.

When did my 2011 actually begin? My quiet pathetic admission is that even though I wanted it to start in May when I finally moved out of a completely toxic living situation, I don’t think I actually felt it start until October, when I started an unpaid internship where my writing and creative skills were actually being put to use, because that outside responsibility forced me to start doing me at the same level as I was doing everything else.

And all was well.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 2, 2011:
Who did you meet?

In 2011, I didn’t meet anyone new who would stick around in my life much longer than this year, but I met a lot of people who gave me little gifts I’ll probably be carrying with me for a long time. If I Transfigured these people into objects, my cup of tiddles would be brimming with swatches of American Apparel jersey, leopard-print slipper-flats, a copy of Super Mario Sunshine, a pair of ratty dress socks, a tube of MAC lip gloss, a menstrual cup, a serving of poutine, and a vintage corset.

In 2011, I also met some people who will probably stick around forever, but they’re not flesh-and-blood people, and somehow that means they’re supposed to count less, but I say that if a story can help you through something when a person can’t, it’s good to have a lot of stories to choose from. So it’s nice to meet you, Nathan Young, Tony Stark, and Sterling Archer. I love watching your insecurity manifest as general douchebaggery. How do you do, Lady Mary? I like to sabotage myself for the sake of defying expectations too. Hi Katniss. I also don’t want to have kids and for the same reason. Fancy seeing you here, Brutha. I also Found Religion after I was supposed to have already had it. Hello, Doctor! You have seen so much and still you believe so hard in the goodness of things. And hello, little Amelia Pond. We both know that people always leave, so let’s form inappropriate attachments together!

My little cup brims with tiddles.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 3, 2011:
What books did you read?

I actually read and reread a relative lot of books in 2011. (As opposed to an absolute lot, which has a fixed number of parking spaces.)

The important books I read for the first time were Small Gods and Never Let Me Go. The important books I reread were The Phantom Tollbooth, the entire Harry Potter series, and The Little Prince.

If this were any other point in my life, I would probably write about Harry Potter because I am so attached to him, but there’s something I want to say about Never Let Me Go, and I can’t figure out what it is. I read it in March and I know it stirs in me some great, vast emotion, but it’s like my mind has shut down and built a cage around it. I can’t even access what my feelings are, no matter how hard I think about it, and I feel like it might be a defense mechanism because if I actually get around to opening that Pandora’s box, the only things that will come flying out will be a copy of Never Let Me Go and Despair. It’s like I’ve unconsciously built walls all around it so that I won’t have to look it full in the eye and be blinded by it, and so it won’t destroy me.

Never Let Me Go walks around that Pandora’s box and looks at it from all angles and then pokes it and then lovingly lays it cheek on its surface and listens to its heartbeat, and it is just sorrow sorrow sorrow.

There’s a passage from Small Gods that I think actually sums this feeling up very well without causing any kind of debilitating despair, so I’ll excerpt it here. This is a lowly monk, Brutha, talking to the god Om, currently in the form of a turtle (although that’s irrelevant):

“Don’t you fear death? You’re a human!”

Brutha considered this. A few feet away, Vorbis stared mutely at the patch of the sky.

“He’s awake. He’s just not speaking.”

“Who cares? I didn’t ask you about him.”

“Well…sometimes…when I’m on catacomb duty…it’s the kind of place where you can’t help…I mean, all the skulls and things…and the Book says…”

“There you are,” said Om, a note of bitter triumph in his voice. “You don’t know. That’s what stops everyone going mad, the uncertainty of it, the feeling that it might work out all right after all.”

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 4, 2011:
When did you struggle?

It’s nothing new to me to struggle with communicating how I feel to other people, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I had so much trouble with my housing situation in the spring. I mean, I have always been someone who is better on paper than in person, or at least I have been since first grade, when writing started to matter. In person, my tongue stumbles over itself trying to attach words to thoughts, but on paper, they just come unbidden. (Money shot.)

So in the spring I struggled with communicating with my apartmentmates. I don’t know how you start the conversation, “I’m being an iceberg that lumbers in and out of the apartment and spends most of the time in one place being frigid and silent because I’m so emotionally tightly bound and turned in on myself that I don’t have any energy to direct toward you.” (And to be fair, given the fact that my old roommate switched rooms without telling me over last winter break, it probably started last fall, when I was, I think, actually depressed and not in near-grief, but I was more like a dead jellyfish than an iceberg, because jellyfish sting people who poke them.)

Do I think it’s fair that I wasn’t told until late in the housing search game that my apartmentmates were planning on moving out en masse? Do I think it’s fair that as soon as I voiced aloud that in that case, maybe I should look for a new place too, one of them decided that it would be totally acceptable to move three of her friends in instead of moving out? Do I think that was okay?

Not really, but I’m not going to complain because I’m rather pleased with the lucky accident that my roommate is still paying rent but living at home this semester. And it’s nice to have central heating. And it’s in the past, and they’re just not people worth getting upset over anyway. I’d rather iceberg them.

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

#reverb11 prompt for December 5, 2011:
What did you discover?

Funnily enough, someone asked me a similar question pretty recently, and I had a lot of trouble answering it. My first response was Doctor Who, because, well, I’ve only been acquainted with the show since April, but I already want to stick it on my hermit crab shell because I care about Amy Pond and the Doctor so much.

Other things I discovered were that I could insert a menstrual cup without passing out; that in other parts of the world, it’s atypical for a doctor to deliver a baby and typical for a midwife to do it; that it makes all the difference in the world when you feel that you are doing meaningful work; that it is really tiring to spend more than two days in a row attending to someone in a hospital; that Netflix is actually godly; that a lot of people suffer silently at this school; that Neutrogena Norwegian Formula lip balm is my Holy Grail of lip balms; that my Cantonese skills are inadequate but still much better than I thought; that taking computer science classes actually makes programming much, much easier to learn; that I wear a size 5.5 ring, not a 6; that I both love and like my family; that having a good GSI makes all the difference in the world (although this is more like a confirmation than a discovery…but I’ve only had a couple of outstanding GSIs in my time at Cal); that I don’t like Glee all that much anymore; that there is a lot of really excellent television out there currently being produced; that I really really like Justin Bieber; and that Christian doctrine is still having repercussions in the United States today, to an extent I never realized.

I also discovered Script Frenzy, how to do a really even running stitch, and where “me love you long time” comes from.

Onward, 2012!

pick up the slack & Eroticizing Safe Sex

2011-12-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

So after a bout of stomach flu (or norovirus or whatever else it was that induced the most thorough stomach evacuation I have ever experienced), my teeth are stained blue from rehydrating with so much Gatorade, and my last classes of the semester (and of my college career!!!) just kind of ended... around me.

So now I'm left with an English essay to write, some reading, a Ruby programming assignment, and months' worth of outfit photos to blog. (And some studying for finals. Eventually.)

(And a movie I need to watch! It's going to be History Boys, Dirty Dancing, or Secretary. This may be hard to believe, but I've actually never seen any of them before. Now how to decide...)

Anyway, let's start the outfit barfing with this one from May:

Jacket: mother's. White shirt: Target probably. Skirt: American Apparel, secondhand, gift. Tights: secondhand, gift. Black and white oxfords: Miz Mooz.

To my inner voice screaming at me about posting my Reverb11 and Things I Love: November instead of this,

I KNOW, I KNOW. BUT I DIDN'T THINK ANYONE WOULD COMPLAIN, BECAUSE I TRIED TO WRITE EROTICA AGAIN. (Disclaimer: It was for an assignment.) (See my previous two attempts to write in the style of a trashy romance novel here.)

The assignment was to write an erotic story involving safe sex, at least one page long. This turned out to be just under seven. And it doesn't even get to the sex. I regret nothing. Although I think I used too many "said"s.

It wasn’t like they hadn’t joked about it before.

When he was seventeen, she’d actually backed him into a locker after AP Physics and said to him, with the front of his t-shirt balled in her hand, “You. Me. May 27th. Sixth floor, Regency,” and winked.

Roguishly, he thought at the time. In a manner of or relating to rogues.

He took so long deciding whether to laugh or not that she dropped her hand. “You already have a date.”

“Are you asking?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling.

“Fuck.”

“Wait.” He was confused. “No, wait. I mean, I mean, May 27th. Prom night.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m still underage,” he said. “It’d be statutory rape.”

And then she’d grinned at him like she’d just conned him into selling her his soul, and she stage-whispered, “Not after midnight,” and moved away with another outrageous wink. “Hey, what do you want for your birthday, anyway?” she called as she walked backwards.

“Girl,” he said, trying not to laugh as he pitched his voice low and drawled. “You know what I want.”

She stopped walking and they yelled to each other simultaneously, “Portal 2!”

It wasn’t like she’d meant it. Anyway, he was pretty sure the only kids in school who were actually having sex were the same ones who dropped out before graduation, but it wasn’t like they weren’t going to talk about it. They weren’t prudes. It wasn’t like they weren’t thinking about it. They were adults. Prom night was fun. Nothing happened. It wasn’t like he’d expected anything. He wasn’t even sure he wanted anything. There was school. There wasn’t time. They were friends.

Only now, he’s not sure. 22,000 miles, three years, two boyfriends, three girlfriends, and a year in Spain does that to people, he supposes.

He also supposes that maybe he shouldn’t have spent the whole evening scamming on their waitress, but it’s been a long time since they’ve sat down and talked, properly, like people who’ve known each other for seven years, and he feels uncomfortable, feels like he’s trying to talk to her across a mile-wide chasm, so what’s your major, oh cool, did you join any clubs, yeah, yeah, I know what you mean, what’re you planning on doing when you get out, yeah, same here, how’s the weather there, haha yeah, man, that chicken was really good, yeah, it was, yeah, who the fuck invented small talk, and besides, the waitress seems interested enough, so he’s not entirely surprised when the bill arrives with a phone number scrawled on the back, although he has to admit this is the first time he’s been successful.

“I got it,” she says, taking the check.

“Actually I think that’s for me,” he says, gesturing with his glass of water.

“Seducing the waitress. Extra classy,” she snipes, with a bit more bite than he’s used to.

“I’m a classy guy,” he says easily, vaguely wondering why that kind of hurt. “In fact, I’m so classy, I’ll get it,” he says, reaching across the table to take the check from her.

“No, no, I’m good. It’s cool,” she says, digging in her bag for her wallet.

“No, come on, I got it,” he says.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. I said I got it.’

“You don’t have to – ”

“I still owe you for prom tickets, you know.”

“Didn’t you pay for dinner that night?”

“We ate at Olive Garden. The tickets were like a hundred bucks each.”

“Oh yeah.”

“Yeah,” she says, finally fishing out her credit card. “You actually forgot that, didn’t you?”

He has to think for a moment before he can reply.

“No. I just always thought of it as even. I didn’t know you didn’t.”

“You never asked.”

“True. Pretty sure you did all the asking.”

She laughs. “Ah, well. I wanted to make sure I had really good-looking pictures.”

“You pushed me against a locker,” he accuses.

“Mmhm. And you didn’t complain.”

“That was literally right after I walked out of physics. That was like manhandling.”

She shrugs and mutters something about not complaining.

“And then – ”

“And then you said something about statutory rape, and I said it would be legal after midnight.”

“And so the night after prom, instead of giving me your virginity, you gave me Portal 2. Which was awesome but I beat it in two days.”

“Ooh, take my portal,” she taunts, waggling her eyebrows outrageously. “How fast can you beat it?”

He stares at her.

It’s not that this is the sexiest conversation he’s ever had, and it’s not like she’s serious, but something about the way she says it is so endearingly familiar, he’s horrified to find that his throat feels a little tight and he probably imagines it, but he swears there’s a ghost of cold metal against his shoulder blades and the heat of a hand curled over his chest. He’s inexplicably reminded of his first girlfriend, who liked blindfolds. The first time she’d ambushed him, all she’d done was walk in and say “Hey,” as he was trying to memorize a sheet of formulas with his feet propped on his desk, chair tipped so dangerously far back he almost fell over when everything went dark and he felt a knot being tied at the back of his head. His legs came down reflexively, and so did the front of the chair, and then his pants were down and there were things in life going down that he didn’t know the gravitational constants for and didn’t care about anyway.

He realizes belatedly that he’s been staring at her mouth when she has to ask again, “Hey. Did you park nearby?”

His brain feels slow, and he fumbles for his water and spills it across the tablecloth just as the waitress returns with the card and bill. She seems unimpressed as he mumbles his apologies and thanks and completely forgets about the bill with her number on it and scrambles out of the restaurant to breathe in the night air, crisp, almost painful, and he’s glad for the discomfort, anything to take his mind off –

It’s not like it matters, he didn’t say anything, she doesn’t need to know –

This is totally normal, isn’t it? Yeah, of course this falls under the realm of acceptable attraction, it’s been a while, and he’s, you know, always thought of her as someone he liked who happened to have nice breasts, but it’s not like – they were never a possibility, not – she wasn’t ever really – but now, could they – they’d both had –

And when she pushes out of the restaurant with a little window of chattering diners bookending the sound of her “You forgot your…” he’s taken aback by the familiarity of her, the way she stands as if she can’t be bothered to distribute her weight evenly on both feet because as far as she’s concerned, she’s level and the world was built crookedly around her, her fidgeting hands, the way she gets right up in his personal space and demands, “Are you okay?”

He thinks maybe he should look away before he says this, but he can’t. This is too familiar, too foreign, he doesn’t recognize what happened between them, what they were to each other then, what he is about to say.

“I always thought it would be you.”

“What?” she says blankly.

“My first time. I thought it was going to be you and me. Maybe not right then, but eventually. At some point.”

She shrugs. “Me too. Didn’t work out, I guess.”

But he wants to push this, can’t help pushing it –

“Do you want to come over?”

She looks like she’s about to laugh, so he continues in a rush, “My apartment’s just a couple blocks, I walked here. We can Netflix something and I have some wine, plus I need to get caught up on Community so you could come over and we could watch. Or we could talk, I feel like we haven’t caught up at all, so you should definitely come over. If you want to. Unless you have other plans, in which case I totally understand and please don’t feel obligated,” he finishes lamely.

She looks a little stunned. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“But I’m so buff,” he says.

“Maybe. I’ve changed, do you like my implants?” she says, gesturing as if to display her wares.

“But – they look the same – ”

She smiles at him, slow and warm and a little sad, and she says, “A+ for observation.”

They watch each other for a moment.

“What happened to us, anyway?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. Life? Do you want to come over?” he asks again.

“I’ve only seen like the first six episodes, so I hope you have a lot of wine.”

“I think it’s probably enough,” he says, thinking of his fourteen bottles in the pantry.

“Is there like a Long’s or something on the way?”

“Yeah, on my block.”

They’re at the automatic sliding doors when she interrupts her own story about standing in line at a Starbucks behind Elijah Wood and tells him he can wait outside, she’ll be like two minutes.

He does, and as he waits, he realizes he feels a little punch-drunk already, reeling with the idea that she’s back in his life, at least for now, and they’re still the same people, but everything’s changed, and he doesn’t know how he stopped missing this because now it feels like he’s been waiting this entire time for them to come back together, like magnets snapping into place.

In astrophysics, there’re things called binary stars that are used to calculate mass. They orbit around a common center and if they get close enough to each other, they can start exchanging matter. If they keep getting closer and closer, spiraling in toward each other for millions of years, faster and faster, they crash into each other so violently that their explosion is visible from billions of light years away.

He feels like this has been a long time coming.

She rejoins him on the sidewalk and they round the corner to his apartment and make their way up too many flights of stairs.

“Sixth floor,” she remarks, a little breathless.

“Regency,” he says, suddenly irrationally nervous about how messy everything is, how tacky his furniture must look.

She smiles at him like a devil from hell, and it’s familiar, but there’s something in it he can’t quite place for a moment, until he understands that she’s backed him up against his own door. It’s intent, that smile, intent in a way that they have never been with each other before, because now – now they’re not just talking about it, this is actual, it’s not joking if you’re planning on following through, and this is happening, and no wonder he liked when his last girlfriend tied his hands during sex. He feels like he should have connected the dots sooner, and this – this explains everything.

He closes his eyes, and she kisses him, carefully.

It’s a little strange at first, and he almost wants to laugh, but then she makes this satisfied sort of sound that he’s never thought about her making, and he’s suddenly hot with the idea of this, like all these years have been leading up to this, to them at last.

He pulls away to make sure that they actually make it inside the door because he’s not eager to find out what will happen if his landlord walks in on him here, and more importantly, splinters, and he looks at her dark eyes and wet lips and forgets what he was doing, and he has to take her lower lip between his teeth to clear his head.

“Do you – ” he manages some moments later, trying to keep his voice even as her lips slide down to his neck. There’s a rough drag of teeth and he’s pretty sure he whimpers in some embarrassingly desperate way, but he’s determined to ask, he needs to know because he wants to do this right.

“Are you – I – ” He slams the back of his head against the door as she presses him back with her whole body. “Fuck – ”

This is getting out of hand. He gropes for his key and they stumble inside and momentarily, they are not touching anywhere. This is good. He flicks on a lamp, kicks the door closed behind him, and asks, “When’s the last time you got tested, and are you on birth control?”

He wants to hit himself. That was the least sexy delivery in the history of ever. That was clinical. Why is he allowed to speak English? “I’m clean,” he adds, hoping he hasn’t just chopped the mood into hundreds of tiny pieces and left them in an anonymous sack on its family’s doorstep.

She approaches him slowly, deliberately. He feels light-headed. “Last month, clean, haven’t been with anyone since, IUD, thank you for asking, and what I want to know,” she says, breath hot on his ear in a kind of gross but decidedly erotic way, “is if you – ”

She presses a condom into his palm and draws back to look at him.

“ – are down – ”

She’s mostly looking at his mouth.

“ – to fuck.”

His breath hitches on her last word, and he sounds a lot breathier than he would have liked when he says, “Are you asking?” but he doesn’t really care because she says,

“Yes,” practically into his mouth, and his fingers are shaking a little as he finds the tear line, but he hesitates. He just needs to know one more –

“Can you tie me to a chair?”

“Yes,” and how did he not notice when she undid his belt because her hands are – oh

The winner of the Shabby Apple giveaway is...

2011-11-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

Lauren at Knitastrophy!

(I think the Universe is winking at me because I clicked through to Lauren's blog when she commented (as I do for everyone who comments!) and got so sucked into one of her posts, I actually left a comment. (Which I rarely do.) IT WAS LIKE A BLACK HOLE. Of greatness.)

I'll be sending you an email shortly, Lauren!

(For anybody who's been waiting, sorry for the delay! Here's a picture of Ryan Gosling from The Notebook to make up for it:

Confession: I don't understand people who find Ryan Gosling more attractive with a beard and shaggy hair than clean-shaven with floppy hair.

HOW CAN YOU RESIST THE FLOPPY HAIR

This has been the blog post of someone who was a preteen girl when boy bands were popular.)

advanced babbling (holiday style)

2011-11-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you this outfit from May (MAY!!!) as evidence of my seasonal inappropriateness.

Well, I mean, it's winter now, and this was a spring/summer outfit, but this actually looks pretty appropriate for a mild winter, aside from the florals (which I condone all season every season anyway), so you may think it's seasonally appropriate,

BUT COME ON. SERIOUSLY? This outfit is just over six months old. If it were a baby, it would probably be in the stage of its language acquisition where it starts babbling with vowels and consonants. THAT IS SOME ADVANCED BABBLING.

And so to make up for the seasonal inappropriateness of this post, I'm going to holidayify it. (Or is it spelled holideify? Verb? To make holy Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, &c. through ritual worship?)

HOLIDEIFIED WISHLIST:

spiked hot chocolate (BEHOLD! I AM 21! I constantly forget this!) made from actual chocolate, not that powdered abomination (or else you will be excommunicated)
this Sherlock print
every color of Maybelline Baby Lips, just for the packaging, because CUPIDDAMN if they wouldn't make great stocking stuffers
The Very Hungry Caterpillar sheets
to rewatch The Tree of Life (so I can weep) and Love Actually (which made me tear up when I was like 14 but which I have no feelings about anymore except for the whole HUGH GRANT! COLIN FIRTH! ALAN RICKMAN! MARTIN FREEMAN! party. Shame? What is shame?)
this Justin Bieber t-shirt (you may think I am joking but I am not)
Urban Decay Super-Saturated High Gloss Lip Color
an ugly micro-striped sweater (with bonus points for intermittent metallic stripes)

Here is another photograph because I need to fit it in this post somewhere.

Sweater: uncle's. Light blue thermal: Old Navy, gift. Floral dress: Ross. Tights: DKNY. Plaid shoes: Keds.

HOLIDEIFIED OUTFIT PHOTO (BEFORE):

HOLIDEIFIED OUTFIT PHOTO (AFTER):

I see your pastel penguins and raise you a smiling star in a Santa hat.

Here's another photo I need to fit somewhere.

Oh my Santa Claus! Plaid with florals! The heresy!

CAN YOU TELL I'M EXCITED FOR HOLIDAY SEASON?

P. S. My Shabby Apple dress giveaway ends tomorrow!

well shit, son

2011-11-17T08:01:00.000-08:00

What if

instead of "Well shit, son"

you read it as "Well-shit, son!"

I was walking along the Great Highway with my totally pasty, unshaven legs chilling out in striped shorts (rather inappropriate for the bitingly cold wind, for the record), when I asked my mom to take an outfit photo with her phone for my blog. Immediately after she snapped the first one, I was shat on by a bird.

Well-shit, son.

Then my grandma made me go buy a Lotto ticket for good luck.

I guess I must not be very lucky, because I didn't win. Maybe the third time's the charm. I've only been pooped on by birds twice, after all. (The first time was in fourth grade. I was wearing glasses, and it somehow pooped on my left eye in the space between the glass and my face. Well-shit indeed, son.)

By the way, here's the first of the many friendship bracelets I GAVE MYSELF TENDINITIS making.

Hat: gift. Sweater: old school uniform. Striped denim shorts: aunt's. Boots: Steven by Steve Madden. Bracelets: gift and DIY.

rings with wings and new beginnings

2011-11-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

This is the last outfit I ever photographed at my old (and first ever) apartment, which, I have to admit, I was really happy to leave behind.

Something about this outfit makes me feel like a semiprecious stone. You know, like I'm simultaneously both Romeo and Juliet, checking myself out at a party. "She hangs upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiope's ear..."

...Maybe it's because this dress makes me feel like A MILLION BUCKS, which is what you would need to get started on buying me every single piece of beautiful, flawless, stunning, &c. jewelry I want from The Three Graces, semiprecious stones or not. (I hope this doesn't look like a sponsored post, because it isn't. Although if you'd like to sponsor my happiness, please feel free to buy me any of these shiny things that make me weak in the knees.)

(Actually, I doubt that adds up to a million bucks, but my dress makes me feel like at least the summed value of the above linked items. Which is a large number. Especially considering the $13,750 earrings.)

MULTIPLES OF ME!

Look at me trying to be all twee and bloggery against the dirty wall of my poorly-lit apartment! Don't I look... semiprecious?

Eh? EH? The poor funnification of this post is brought to you by a Sam who has been reading Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby for class, and let me tell you, the deranged writing style rubs off very quickly.

(Funnification is not a word, Moony.)

Rings! With wings! And my face looking bizarrely tan and my hair in a swirling haze of flyaways!

Dress: Goodwill + hemmed. Thermal: some brand at Macy's. Tights: generic. Oxfords: Payless. Rings: Rapunzelsgold on etsy and Forever21.

Speaking of which, this reminds me of a song I listened to for several weeks (or months) straight in high school.

(Miles above and beyond "Hey Juliet", which was sooo 8th grade and which made a resurgence in my life right before college. Because I'm hella classy.)

P. S. Enter my Shabby Apple giveaway before the 23rd to win a dress for the price of a comment!

GIVEAWAY: Win a dress from Shabby Apple!

2011-11-11T08:08:00.000-08:00

My dearest of dear 2.5 readers,

Shabby Apple has generously offered to host another giveaway on this blog (open to U. S. residents only), this time for your choice of one (1) of the following two (2) GORGEOUS (!!!) dresses:

The Boogie Woogie as pictured above, normally priced at $88, featuring a jersey top and embellished sateen skirt (hello, perfect dress for the holiday party circuit!), or...

The Lighthouse as pictured above, normally priced at $89, featuring white cotton with "an under-bodice of butter-yellow cotton voile." (It even sounds pretty!)

In case you haven't yet heard of Shabby Apple, it's an online fashion company that "was started by women for women to bring dresses back to what they used to be – a one piece outfit." If you're not already sold on their philosophy, just click on through to their selection of vintage style dresses and BASK IN THE GLORY OF THEIR BEAUTY!

(Especially their Green Leaf collection - which is a collection of dresses I'd wear to a tea party in the middle of the woods.)

Basically, Shabby Apple does the classiest giveaways on the block.

Here's how to enter:

STEP ONE

Leave a comment on this post at or before 11:59 PM (PST) of Wednesday, November 23, 2011 with your name and email address so I can contact you if you win. (First name only is fine, and if your email address is in your profile, just say so! I'll click through.)

STEP TWO

Choose one of the following two actions:

Like Shabby Apple on Facebook, and mention that you did so in your comment,

Tell me what you'd wear to a tea party in the middle of the woods (in your comment).

That's it! I love you! Please enter! These dresses are really, really fabulous! (So fabulous they're even worthy of being worn by your fabulous selves!)

P. S. As a heads up, Shabby Apple posts special promotions and discounts for those who Like their Facebook page!

P. P. S. If you're purchasing from Shabby Apple, enter "fazedgirl10off" for 10% off your purchase. This code is good for the next 30 days (which means until Saturday, December 10th)!

P. P. P. S. I'm an artist.

Now, the important question is... are you a good witch or a bad witch? (A glamorous jazz singer in a smoky lounge or a self-made millionairess reclining on your yacht?

Things I Love: October 2011

2011-11-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

OCTOBER, I feel like I've been idling for a year now, but you just dropped out of the sky and reminded me what it's like when my hands are not idle, and for that I thank you, because I feel like I'm in motion again. I want to kiss your stupid face for bringing me these:

trying the small shower down the hall because it is very clean and has excellent pressure
hot showers when I am cold
talking with my mom about my birth (such a strange topic! But I feel like we bonded so much!)
the Gibson tuck via All This Happiness
Spenser texts, Bella texts
Commentarius, the novel-length Lily/James fanfiction I have been reading on my phone over lunch, for its James Potter because he would purposely get detention so he could spend more time with Lily
condom comebacks from my Female Sexuality class

Not that I've had reason to use any of these yet.

"COME HERE. I'LL CHANGE YOUR MOOD."

Sorry, I know I'm totally making fun of this, but I do wish that requesting condom use was a non-issue. It's just that these make me giggle like a Catholic schoolkid in 7th grade sex ed.

"I'VE GOT MOVES RUBBERS CAN'T STOP."

finally unlocking the whale and elephant (yay mammals!) on Alchemy
pumpkin gelato
English muffins with butter, lamb chops with garlic, sugar cookies, prunes (I am actually 95 years old), bok choy, and really good snickerdoodles
the cemetery
watching women’s gymnastics on TV
my brother, who OMG flew a plane
not sleeping through my midterm as I had dreamed
Doctor Who, especially for Karen Gillan and Alex Kingston in the Series 6 season finale because UNF

Karen Gillan looked amazing in this episode, and so did Alex Kingston. I think it's because they darkened all the women's makeup.

Yeah, that's right, look at that fabulous hair.

Amy Pond is holding a gun. Also Amy Pond's hair. Nothing else is relevant.

Reeeallllly fabulous hair. Also, a little bit obsessed with her lip color.

OH MY GOD HER HAIR IN THIS SCREENCAP. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MYSELF I AM FLAILING SO MUCH.

My apologies to Matt Smith for playing favorites, but his mullet for the majority of the season finale was just so directly in opposition to my preference for short-in-the-back, long-in-the-front hair.

Archer for Sterling Archer (personal hero) and Archer/Lana (OTP)
being inside when it is raining
chocolate-dipped biscotti with warm milk (hhnnggghhhh)
that my hair is long enough to twist up
tai chi to the Tree of Life soundtrack ("Funeral March" makes me feel super grounded, just saying)
the first stretch of the morning
my first experience with Russian food at Katia's, especially for the beet borsch, shashlik (a lamb dish), and potato cutlets (and their really, really pretty butter with dill pressed into it)
Inglourious Basterds

Honestly? I'm probably never going to be a Tarantino fan because I can't stand the violence (I started watching Reservoir Dogs and stopped about 10 minutes into it because I was so grossed out (and I found the dialogue boring; I found the opening dialogue of Pulp Fiction so boring I stopped after about 5 minutes; SORRY!)), but the part in Inglourious Basterds where Shosanna's getting dressed is just so good. It was a very nice-looking movie, and watching it stressed me out the way I think it was supposed to. But man, did I have to put my bowl of rice down to get through it. (Unrelated: Michael Fassbender's teeth were especially shark-like in this movie.)

these FutureMe emails I decided to send myself (from this time last year, and this time four years ago)
my female sexuality class and the unintentional comment “Oh, 'you look fertile,' like you want to plow her? (crop plowing motion) …Oh my God”
MY PERIOD, WHICH FINALLY CAME!
a termite-hunting fest at midnight, because while it meant that our house is indeed infested with termites, I think my brother would have found it really fun to join our stakeout with the vacuum cleaner
really delicious ginger chews
How to Train Your Dragon SO HARD

I can't believe it took me this long to watch this! I love stories about problematic parent-child relationships, and this kind of just immediately shot right up to the top of my favorites list next to Tangled.

Also when Astrid was introduced I laughed so much it was disgraceful.

Also Jesus Christ, Blogger, you need to get your newline formatting together because this is untoward.

GETTING MY MIACUP IN
eating alone in a crowded shopping mall (awww yeahhhhhhhh, I can't be the only one who really likes doing this)
backing up my text messages with SMS Backup so I can finally delete them from my phone and have it running at normal speed again
Ak Mak with edamame hummus (godly) and cottage cheese with granola
Florence + The Machine (and Ceremonials)
finally finishing my Dr. Bronner's peppermint lip balm because I can now convert everything to my Holy Grail of lip balms, Neutrogena Norwegian formula

I usually go for greasy lip balm, but this works like a greasy lip balm without the hair-stuck-on-my-lips-in-the-wind effect. HOLY GRAIL!

penne with leeks, corn, and browned butter
the women in my life
Marnee Thai, especially for their golden triangles, spinach wraps, and veggie Pad Thai (and I'm not usually a Pad Thai fan)
little squashlets
that my associations with the rainy season in college all involve people I liked a lot, because it makes the weather that much more bearable
deliciously crisp grapes
Mockingjay, for Katniss/Peeta, because Katniss/Gale should have happened but life got in the way (and I was pleasantly surprised by how political the whole series turned out to be instead of romantic)

(YESSS! Finally someone else on tumblr posted a GIF of the Mockingjay pin catching on fire from the The Hunger Games trailer! I would've done it myself because I really wanted to be able to use it, but I don't know how to make GIFs from videos. (Now if someone would make an infinite-loop GIF of the burning Mockingjay pin from the movie website, I'd be totally set, because it is really effing cool.))

As always, click through (the image) for the source.

signing my first non-disclosure agreement!
LUMPY BARTLETT PEARS GOOD LORD THEY ARE DELICIOUS
that my pseudo-internship and Ruby programming class are distracting me from Berkeley
Justin Bieber, Justin Bieber’s leaked “Under The Mistletoe” album, and Justin Bieber’s pre- and post-pubescent voice, because I have no shame
that a former classmate from my acting class remembers me as the alien monologue girl
finding out that I am two degrees of separation from Chanel Iman

THAT Chanel Iman.

THE VICTORIA'S SECRET ANGEL CHANEL IMAN.

Whose face is so incredible that sometimes it makes me want to weep.

Musical Offering for their London Fog, which is Earl Grey with like milk and vanilla or something, and their oatmeal with brown sugar, milk, raisins, and walnuts (everything was delicious and only lightly sweet)
fishtail braids
feeling blessed
feeling beautiful
browsing for varsity jackets, metallic striped sweaters, and chunky knits
phone calls with Bella!!!
vegetarian food on Kirkham (seriously, this place has 4.5 stars on Yelp for a reason)
drying my feet with an actual towel
dinner at La Med with my mom :) because despite the truly terrible service, the pomegranate chicken with pilaf was soooo gooooood
Iron Man, which I somehow only just watched for the first time, for Robert Downey Jr.'s stupid adorable face, Tony Stark's douchebaggery, and the only time I have ever liked Gwyneth Paltrow

TONY STARK I JUST WANT TO SEE UNDER YOUR ARMOR IN EVERY WAY

I am so glad these GIFs are small enough to place side-by-side because... I think I'm going to have a full-blown Robert Downey Jr. situation soon.

I MEAN, JUST LOOK AT THAT FACE.

BB BOIIIIIIIII I WANNA HOLD YOUR HA-A-A-A-A-AND I'LL MAKE LOVE TO YOU LIKE YOU WANT ME TO

green papaya salad from Loving Hut (worst restaurant name ever?) because it was really, really, really good
hot split pea soup from the SF Soup Company
club sandwiches with tons of Thousand Island, served with French fries
working on a giant (giant) hem with Sabah
cold weather finally coming in
Spenser for this really awful text, courtesy of voice recognition and Halloween partying:

I am stop drunk right now, hit gels awesome. I have a chapter of thesis too suite tomorrow, but I don'T give a shit, I'm just too drunk right new YouTube She Dip Nico fun at 1 am, holy shit

Downton Abbey for Sybil, Mary, and Edith, and for Matthew, Lavinia, William, Daisy, Sybil’s face, Cora’s crazy-eyes, beautiful costumes, music that is now familiar and dear, the end of the war!, and the melodrama
Tylenol
searching for ugly striped sweaters
panda-shaped cupcakes
finally realizing my code wasn’t buggy; my testing was buggy
Misfits, because Rudy is like Nathan but with an actual soft side (see: Sterling Archer, Tony Stark, and other characters I love and whom I believe are redeemable assholes), and because I love Kelly

that I still don’t have a roommate
Sam, Howard, Charlie, Elaine, Jess, Sabah (thank you for sorting socks with me! Worst job ever!), Evelyn, another Sam, Savio, Marimar, Nadya, Lou, Shannell, Jane for "Where is my bowl of sound?", Becky for her OMG AMAZING rings, and Wendy for letting me hem hundred-year-old pants
that the series of earthquakes we had that one weekend wasn't huge or damaging
bananas eaten with peanut butter straight out of the jar (GODLY)
THESE STUNNING HUMAN BEINGS:

Alicia Silverstone looking AMAZING in a cropped fuzzy sweater and feather boa. Don't you just want to ...lock eyes from across the room and spend all night being intimidated by her? (Wait, is that just me?)

The color of the TARDIS offsets Karen Gillan's hair brilliantly in this GIF. Also, oh my God her eyebrows and eyes and mouth and DID I MENTION HER HAIR?

I feel like Ash Stymest is the only human who can be wearing that mid-smoke facial expression and standing with a group of male models and still be the most attractive person in the photo.

The further I get in Commentarius (at the time of writing, I'm on Chapter 15), the more I imagine James Potter played by Andrew Garfield, even though I was so, so opposed to the idea when I first heard it because he just doesn't fit my mental picture of him. (But now I think Andrew Garfield + really dorky suave = James Potter. Like Andrew Garfield as Eduardo in The Social Network, but less "sweet-looking Brazilian sophomore," and more "pasty Englishman," crossed with the tender parts of Jack from Boy A, Anton in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and Tommy in Never Let Me Go, for when it comes to James's soft spots for Lily Evans and Quidditch. CAN'T YOU JUST SEE IT? HE EVEN HAS THE HAIR ALREADY.)

Pull your shirt down, Armie Hammer. You're going to cause a riot.

So this is Eddie Redmayne, whose acting I've never seen before (YOU GUISE, he's going to be in My Week with Marilyn alongside Michelle Williams THAT MEANS AN HOUR AND A HALF OF HIS FACE), but whom I'm sure most of you saw in the Burberry campaigns from a couple years ago. (Yeah, you might remember him as the one with the incredible bone structure and a mouth that should be illegal. GOOD THING HE'S COVERING IT IN THIS PICTURE.)

Harry Shum Jr., dancing in ridiculously well-tailored clothes. Yeah. Yeah, this is basically porn.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SENDING THIS TO ME, JESS.

OH, OCTOBER! IT'S BEEN GLORIOUS.

nard and saffron & W1L 033: Write one leaf in which you answer a question incorrectly.

2011-10-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

I guess I don't know how to wear neutrals yet because I always ruin the effect with an inappropriate shot of color.

Cue lavender socks.

Today I was reading the Song of Solomon for the first time ever for one of my classes, and I got totally sucked in even though I was barely following the content. The translation was just so rhythmically pretty.

Also lavender the herb used to be called nardus in ancient Greek. #hellarelevant

Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;

milk and honey are under your tongue.

The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.

You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;

you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.

Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates

with choice fruits,

with henna and nard,

nard and saffron,

calamus and cinnamon,

with every kind of incense tree,

with myrrh and aloes

and all the finest spices.

omg my facial expression. why am i allowed to have a blog

Sweater: grandmother's. Skirt: secondhand, gift. Tights: generic. Socks: Nordstrom. Shoes: Miz Mooz.

This is the last Write One Leaf I have prepared, so if you've been reading along, you can, I don't know, weep and tear out your hair in anguish. If you haven't, you could toss a virgin into a volcano and drink honeyed milk in celebration or something. Y'know. If you're into that.

W1L 033: Write one leaf in which you answer a question incorrectly.

PERSONAL CHALLENGE #10: Write in rhyming verse.

My original response to this prompt is here (at the very bottom), but the personal challenge for it was to write in the style of a trashy romance novel. The question was "What is the capital of Botswana?"

Perfection is not my game, but I am not thrilled with this version. In any case, at the end I've tacked on a poem I wrote for my theater group a long time ago because I like it better than I like this.

Her name, by the way, was Sally Sparrow.

"What was the name of Carey Mulligan’s character on Doctor Who?"

I think what’s wrong with this question is that
It doesn’t specify whether
My giving her given name is preferred,
Or if I should name her by feather.

(You see what I did there? Sometimes I’m so clever
I want accolades for my words.
See, I awkwardly rhymed whilst I blatantly referenced
Her name, that of passerine birds.

And just so you know, for your edification,
I had to Wiki that shit
So if you did too, don’t beat yourself up.
The internet fuels this wit.)

But maybe what’s worse is the silly assumption
That someone who’s seen Doctor Who
As written by Moffatt can lightly forget
What the Vashta Nerada can do,

Or blindly remove to the back of his mind
The library’s shadow and silence,
Which echo with footsteps of airborne piranhas
(Well, sort of) and flesh-eating violence,

Or that Melody Pond is a young River Song
(or old River Song? I’m not sure.
I guess it depends on how you approach it.
We might look all backwards to her.)

Or Captain Jack Harkness, who’s everything-sexual,
That poster boy face, those blue eyes,
Innuendo squad captain, professional flirt,
A lover whose love never dies,

Or the childish inquiry, “Are you my mummy?”
Repeated through rubber and skin
Of a face once familiar and dear and loved,
Now empty, with nothing within.

No, I can’t forget that girl’s Gamma Forest
Tongue, which has no word for “pond,”
(The only water in the forest is the river.)
So brave as she left for beyond –

They’re all brave for him, they’re larger than life,
Bigger on the inside,
Traveling in the Doctor’s wake,
Those who have loved him and died.

Though Silence may fall and I won’t recall
What I’m supposed to fear,
The cracks in time will remain in my mind
As silence remains in my ear,

I’ll know not to blink, whatever I do,
I’ll know that time doesn’t flow straight,
I’ll know that the angels have the phone box,
I’ll mark fourteen years to wait.

And I will remember every last name,
All of the characters alien,
And human, just as the Doctor would,
Til a casket is found to lay me in.

I swear on my grave I’ll know til I die,
Til I’m buried deep with all of the
Former companions of the Doctor, know
Her name, found in ornithology.

I couldn’t forget her messy blond hair,
Those eyes that would cleverly narrow,
Her dimples, her wit, her humor, her smile,
Her name – Kathy Nightingale.

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

I wrote this for my old theater group. The name of the show that year was "Condensed Milk," and this poem was not written jointly, despite what the website and program said.

When life presents you only lemons sour
And failures drag you down into the deep,
When no one hears you in your lonely hour
And Death evicts the company you keep,

When on your journey there's no end in sight
And optimism makes you hope too much,
When fate's so cruel you lose the will to fight
And friendships seem to crumble at your touch,

When what your heart can feel your lips can't speak
And all your noble efforts are in vain,
When nowhere can be found the one you seek
And shelterless you get caught in the rain,

Keep close the little things that make you smile;
curl up and sip condensed milk for awhile.

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

Ha! I just found this in an old diary entry. I don't know what I wrote it for...

Book: a convenient compilation
Of paper, ink, glue, and punctuation
Between whose two covers
Dwell dragons and lovers,
Questing for life past their margined nation.

Things I Love (Belatedly): August and September 2011

2011-10-24T08:07:00.000-07:00

This is hella late because of my tendinitis, but don't you worry ~~there my honey, we might not have any money, but we've got our love to pay the bills~~ because Things I Love October will be (somewhat) more timely! (I hope!)

In August and September, I went from home to school, from having trouble gripping doorknobs to being able to floss my own teeth, and from Muggle to official Ravenclaw. It was awesome. So thanks, August and September, for bringing me this giant bundle of joy:

removing very long, very stubborn ingrown hairs
rereading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, especially for canon!Ron and smarmy!Lockheart (and Draco's sometimes witty insults)
Blue Valentine, which I somehow forgot to mention when I watched it in July, even though it was painful to watch, for Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, and "You and Me" by Penny and the Quarters

I've had a crush on Ryan Gosling since I first saw Remember the Titans (which I paid almost no attention to because I was completely thunderstruck by Ryan Gosling's charm and dumb hair and great smile). I was ten when Remember the Titans came out, so it's a bit strange to me that I still find him really attractive. I think it's that mixture of earnest and cheeky that I find completely irresistible.

gummy vitamins
Spicy Thai kettle chips
getting into Pottermore as StarMoonstone25
rereading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, for Cedric, Fleur, the Quidditch World Cup, and reading into the Draco/Pansy responsible for the Rita Skeeter articles
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, mainly for Aziraphale and Crowley, but also for Anathema Device and Newton Pulsifer, Adam Young, Death, Famine, Pollution, War, and the four other Riders of the Apocalypse (I was laughing so hard I had to spit my drink out when they were introduced)

OOH ER, MR. AZIRAPHALE
LET'S DO IT
AND I WILL LEAVE MY TARTAN STRAPS ON

rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, totally just for Draco
rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for Sirius and how Harry loses him (and for Tonks before she and Lupin become a thing)
poached peaches
long-ass walks
Nature Valley granola thins (This is the second time they've shown up with their own captioned picture in a Things I Love post, but I refuse to apologize because they are the FOOD OF THE GODS.)

♪ I've never had a dream come true / until the day that I found you ♪

"Coda To An Epilogue: Twenty Years Later, Or The Kids Are All Right," the epilogue-compliant Harry Potter fanfiction by Maya. (Accept no substitutes!) If you never read any other piece of fanfiction in your life, this is the #1 short piece I recommend. (As for long pieces, Maya's "Quality of Mercy" is GREAT, and so is The Shoebox Project. Actually "Drop Dead Gorgeous" by Maya is really good too, but the premise is so crack-y it makes me nervous to recommend it.)

James’ Owl had begun: Dear Mum and Dad, You never listen to me even though I am always right. That little nit Al got himself Sorted into Slytherin.

“Oh, my God,” Harry’d said. He’d told Al there was nothing wrong with it, and of course there wasn’t, but he’d been counting on James to look after Al in Gryffindor and – and anyway, Al in Slytherin, it was ridiculous, how did they even do the Sorting these days?

Small Gods by Terry Pratchett, for Brutha, religion, faith, Om, and turtles. (I suspect this might be my favorite Discworld novel so far, but I have to reread it to make sure I like it better than Night Watch.)
Archer, because WHY DIDN'T I KNOW THIS SHOW EXISTED? I love it for Sterling Archer, Cheryl, Archer/Lana, Archer and Mrs. Archer’s relationship, and STERLING ARCHER (the still for this video is completely representative of the show, actually)

rereading Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett, mainly for Polly
60s girl group music, thanks to A Fluffy Blog
spicy eggplant
Sebastian, Tony, Jeffrey, Spenser, Lincoln, Jessie, Daniel, Jocelyn, Jess, Mark, Kamille, Shannell, Ash, Evelyn, Sam, Connie, Jason, Dustin, Jessica, Henry, Steven, and my cousins (boy, I'm sure I missed someone)
girls with body hair, which is ugh so sexy to me (well, hair to a certain extent, like Noomi Rapace's armpit hair in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo HNNGHHH)
that my week ends on Thursdays
Doctor Who, for Eleven, Amy, and "The God Complex" because I have so many feelings for Eleven/Amy's non-romantic relationship

Monopoly Deal, which is the only version of Monopoly I like (because it goes so much faster than the board game)
Ici for Muscat brandied-current ice cream, and something with candied cashews, and candied Meyer lemon, and handmade cones lined with chocolate
ginger ice cream
Chipotle steak burritos with corn salsa
Downton Abbey, for Theo Jones who played the sexy as fuck Turkish dude in Episode 3, Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, Lady Mary, Lady Edith, LADY SYBIL, Gwen, Anna, and the music and costumes. I'm sorry that there are like 30 images to follow.

I don't know why I like Daisy so much considering how much I wanted William x Daisy to happen, but I really do. (It may be my affection for her accent.)

Sometimes I look at Lady Mary and clutch my heart because she is so pretty, even right after she wakes up.

My weakness for turn-of-the-century newspaper boy attire is showing.

Downton Abbey is BEEEAUUUUTIFUL.

Lord Grantham and his flowers.

SEE WHAT I DID THERE?

LOOK AT LADY EDITH'S AND LADY MARY'S DRESSES AND HAAAAIIIIR

Cora's bizarre British/American English pleases linguist!Sam.

DEAR GOD HER HAIR

HAHA LADY GRANTHAM'S FACE

THE DOWAGER COUNTESS IS FABULOUS

I am including this image solely for Gwen. (Well. Her, and the costumes and set are beautiful.)

Cora is judging you.

But not as much as Violet is.

DEM COSTUMES. I love the high neckline + ruffles + necklace on Lady Grantham.

LOOK AT THOSE BEAUTIFUL LADIES

omg Edith's hair and dress

OMG MARY'S FACE AND TOP. That collar and those sleeves and the bust darts and the little buttons!!!

SYBIL CRAWLEY, MY LOVE!

THE DRESS

Just including this because I like Mrs. Hughes.

WHY, GOD? WHY THAT FACE? WHY SUCH BEAUTY IN THIS PLACE?
Also, HER NECKLACE AND DRESS. UNF.

costumesssssssssss

Deeply enjoying Mary's hat. (And her face.) Side note: I didn't realize that most of my theater class didn't know what a milliner was. I live in a bubble.

Oh.

The Turkish diplomat as played by Theo Jones has an OBSCENE mouth. (Well, he's got nothing on Tom Hardy, but still. A guy like you should wear a warning.)

Anna (!) and LADY SYBIL, MY QUEEN

my brother
acupuncture
the Embarcadero Farmer’s Market, pancakes with orange butter and plum (?) compote, breakfast potatoes, fresh orange juice
texting Bella
Jess, especially for introducing me to popping boba, which I find completely gross, but which my presentation partner and I used as the "interactive" part of our presentation on ovarian cysts

We mixed lychee popping boba with strawberry sauce and a bit of chocolate syrup. My presentation partner Ashleyrose did the color mixing, and it turned out uncannily close to the color and consistency of menstrual fluids. If this hasn't totally ruined your appetite, Ashleyrose just started a food blog, and y'all should CHECK HER OUT.

my female sexuality class really hard
my costume lab
reading The Hunger Games, for Katniss, Gale, and Peeta, and for its entertainment value
fishtail braids
forgetting which room the Harry Potter class was going to be in, but not needing to look it up because "Hedwig's Theme" was blasting out of one of the doorways and it was like coming home (even though I had to drop the class ;__;)
coloring my SPACE VULVA

THE FINAL FRONTIER

The line drawing is from the Cunt Coloring Book, and our first assignment for my female sexuality class was to color a vulva. I decided to make mine all space-and-nebulae (so tumblr! so hipster!) because my view on my own sexuality is that it's simultaneously terrifying and beautiful. Also it is mysterious because it's mostly unexplored territory.

Catching Fire, for Katniss, Gale, Peeta, and Finnick (UNF)
a cropped sweater from H&M and a new Aerie bra (I highly recommend the Ella)
the smell of peppermint
tai chi
Stacks for amazing French toast and apple compote (and wow, really good waiters)
bathroom stalls with bag hooks
figs, cherries
rumble strips
Ratatouille

Worth watching if you have been living under a rock like me and still haven't seen it!

Asqew for blue cheese burgers, delicious mashed potatoes, and grilled zucchini
Yeats poems (Remus Lupin knows what I'm talkin' 'bout), which surprises me every time I read him. I think I just like his style a lot.
Suits, for Mike and Harvey's relationship, and especially for Mike/Rachel (which is apparently an unpopular opinion because people like Mike/Jenny more, but I just sympathize with Rachel so hard)

I blame Spenser for getting me into this show. The pilot didn't blow me away, but it was intriguing enough that I kept watching, and by the fourth or fifth episode, I was completely hooked.

my class about religion and spirituality
hummus
Across the Universe, because I've been meaning to see it since it first came out. To be honest, I found this movie surprisingly tedious for one that involves characters breaking into song. That might be because I was upset at how bad Jim Sturgess's mullet looked, or it might be because I get really bored by stories about relationships that fall apart because people are too self-centered. (See (500) Days of Summer. See Closer.)

I felt totally deceived by this trailer because this whole time, I've been under the impression that this was an epic romance (possibly because I was supposed to go on a date to watch this, but the theater was closed, so I always associated this with like romantic blue balls). This is the trailer that made me want to see it in the first place because it made it seem so... First Love. And then it was, but only for like five minutes.

Also the singing soldiers totally rubbed me the wrong way. It's funny because the more war-related film and television I watch, the more I like Full Metal Jacket, even though my initial reaction to it was distaste.

my mother for buying me a polka-dotted Bebe blouse, a floral velvet-slip-dress sort of Betsey Johnson number, and red satin Nine West platform heels, all from Goodwill
date bread from West Portal Bakery
jump roping with Carissa
“Boats and Birds” really hard because I can't help thinking about Eleven/Amy's relationship
Ann Taylor Loft for my very first and only office appropriate skirt
The Emperor’s New Groove, because this movie still makes me laugh like I'm ten years old.

FLAWLESS EMPEROR IS FLAWLESS.

Kuzco is the Master of Disguise.

I love the gross closeups of Izma's face because it reminds me of the gross closeups in Ren & Stimpy (but more funny than disgusting).

MY BB!!!

my brother for new headphones
my cousin for driving me back to school, and his Snoop Dogg GPS
my Doctor Who and Harry Potter posters, thanks to Spenser
delicious fluffy butter with sourdough toast
my MIACUP ARRIVING, because it led to the first time I have ever been excited for my period! (If you're curious about menstrual cups, there's a really good Livejournal community with information here, and I'm planning on doing a post on my experiences sometime.)
The Prince of Egypt

AAARGH, I LIKE THIS MOVIE A LOT. As someone who spent my youth learning the New Testament, it was really exciting for me to finally study the Old Testament in eighth grade (even though it wasn't part of the curriculum), and wow, did it change my perspective on Catholicism. (Maybe that's why they told us not to worry about it. I did end up denouncing my faith a few years later.) (Also, apologies - I should probably say Greek and Hebrew Bibles, but I feel like those phrases are unrecognizable to most people as the New and Old Testaments. Hey! There's the Christian privilege we talked about in class!)

my mom
my grandma
Trader Joe's triple ginger snaps
Thai Basil’s pineapple fried rice (delicious!!!)
chive dumplings
The Playboy Club, which I only watched the pilot of and which was totally cancelled. For Amber Heard, who kind of unfortunately reminds me of Kristen Stewart in that she is really good-looking but spends most of her screen-time looking either vacant or preoccupied with worry, and for the costumes.

edamame hummus (godly!)
celery with peanut butter
FINALLY GETTING MY POTTERMORE EMAIL, MINERVA MCGONAGALL, BADASS MCGOOGLES, and being sorted into Ravenclaw, (RRRRAAAAAVENCLAW! I called it when I was nine. I was always going to be a Ravenclaw, even if I had my Slytherin and Gryffindor doubts. Although to be honest I think the Sorting Hat wanted to put me into Hufflepuff and I can't imagine why.)
GORGEOUS PEOPLE (mostly women this month, which is strange because I thought I overdosed on gorgeous women when I marathoned Downton Abbey, but apparently not)

Starting with some Frida Gustavsson. Who should not be allowed.

Oh my GOD, her face is so sweet. (Also totally fawning over that hair and that dress and those shoes!)

SIGH. Her face slays me.

KARLIEEEEEEEE! Her eyebrows always get me.

Have a Rose Byrne, because she is just UNREALISTIC.

Gurl, your hair and eyebrows and eyes and nose and lips and cheeks and skin rewrite history.

Let's finish off with Francisco Lachowski, because I can't argue with this face.

Or this hair. Or mouth.

My first thought was "This is a good angle for you, Francisco." I wonder what that says about me.

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

Thank you, August and September, for the fantastic end of my summer and gorgeous start to my final semester of college.

Let's get coffee sometime.

promises, promises

2011-10-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

I feel like I lure people onto my blog under the false pretense that this is a fashion/style blog just because I post pictures of myself wearing clothes. (As opposed to pictures of kittens, not as opposed to pictures of myself not wearing clothes, although I guess that wouldn't be a very compelling fashion blog either.)

To prove my point, here is another list of lists (so meta!): ← unintentional sadface

Names of WiFi networks within range of my apartment building:

hide yo kids hide yo wifi
pretty fly for a wifi
Ralph's Stupendous Network
notwork

A smattering of unrelated statements

I am almost at the very last of my Write One Leafs (Leaves?), and I haven't made progress on the next prompt, so I won't be posting any for a while.
I do have a script from Script Frenzy that I'm going to post, though. Six months late.
Target brand Up & Up floss is awful. It's so thin, it's like trying to floss while gripping a piece of hair.
Humid weather does great things for my hair.

Current style direction (aspirational)

Gibson tucks with vintage hair combs
heinous jumpers (a la Arthur Darvill, Matt Smith, Martin Freeman)
peacocks, stags, and whales as clothing motifs
Saltwater Sandals (or sandals of that ilk) with socks
multicolor striped metallic sweaters
Creatures-of-the-Deep-colored hair
gloves (knit fingerless, leather motorcycle)
pants (cords, denim, twill?) in black, forest green, deep fuchsia, bright violet, gray, rust, indigo-blue

Current style direction (involuntary)

what can be termed grubby glow

Really into

tai chi
ginger everything
Justin Bieber's un/broken voice
prunes

Consuming

Pride and Prejudice (very slowly, on a Kindle)
Downton Abbey (FLAWLESS SHOW IS FLAWLESS! You must try at least one episode!)
Commentarius, only because Chandler read it, and he is probably my favorite Lily/James shipper on the internet. (OKAY AND I MIGHT HAVE AN INTERNET CRUSH ON HIM BECAUSE I ASSOCIATE HIM WITH JAMES POTTER.) (Okay, and the writing style makes me want to wince because it's in diary form, but I'm pretty sure my 17-year-old diarying wasn't very mature either.)

(Oh look, I can actually excerpt my 17-year-old diary:

okay after freeze tag i ended up with a scrape on my left elbow and a bruise there, and a bruise on my hip somewhere, a HUGE bruise on my left knee, and a smaller bruise on my right knee. the left knee bruise hurts like CRAZY.
HOW RIVETING, YOUNG SAM!)

The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, reread
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, excruciatingly slow reread
The Golden Compass and The Fox and the Hound in 10-minute installments

Seeking

more natural toothpaste, menstrual pads, deodorant, shampoo, and conditioner

Fictional places I would like to visit

the Battle School in Ender's Game
John Watson's closet, 221B Baker Street (Martin Freeman's version)
Downton Abbey, but only if I were white
ISIS headquarters
the TARDIS
The Shire
Lyra's Jordan College
Dictionopolis
Cher Horowitz's closet
Ariadne, Arthur, or Eames's dreams
The Ministry of Magic's Department of Mysteries
The Ministry of Magic's Auror Office
Malfoy Manor
The Burrow
Diagon Alley
Hogwarts
Pigfarts

~~HOGWARTS~~ PIGFARTS IS OUR HOME.

Jacket: mother's. T-shirt: probably brother's + DIY silkscreen. Jeans: Uniqlo. Shoes: Keds. Rings: Forever21 and Rapunzelsgold on etsy.

pretty amazing & W1L 032: Write one leaf about your favorite job.

2011-10-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

We're doing body image projects in my class on female sexuality right now, and I presented mine last night. I may or may not end up turning it into a post (because, hey, I love talking about myself), but this is a mini-snippet that pretty much sums up my outlook on looks:

"being pretty is a game"

(One that bloggers know how to play.)

There are a lot of things I've wanted to be before - a window display designer, more athletic, a member of the Lord of the Rings cast, and astronaut, a stewardess, a man - but I've never spent much of my time wanting to be pretty, because I feel like once you're pretty, you can never be anything else, and I don't want to be Just Pretty. I want to have the option of being elegant, sexy, stunning, supermegafoxyawesomehot, scary, bizarre, homely, unassuming, cute, whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't want to be Just Pretty.

As long as the video for "Baby" by Justin Bieber (whose target audience is also young girls) has more views than this one, I won't feel redundant in posting Katie Makkai's slam poetry about the word pretty:

I will take Pretty Amazing, though.

Sweater: uncle's. Skirt: American Apparel, secondhand, gift. Tights: generic. Oxfords: Payless. Ring: Rapunzelsgold on Etsy.

W1L 032: Write one leaf about your favorite job.

PERSONAL CHALLENGE #7: Write about something completely fictional and fantastic.

Every time I reread this, I wonder what I was smoking.

This is an unedited version of my original response to this prompt, because "I like to do laundry. Also, my brother is currently TAing a class and one of his ethnically Chinese students is named Fabiola. Amazing."

“That’ll do, girl. That’ll do.”

I wiped my bloodied fork on the grass before winding it back into my hair and patting the tattooed lavender flank of my equine transportation and best friend. It had been a long week on the ground and we were both more than ready to head back to the main castle to recharge before our upcoming flight assignment. Those lemmings are no joke. Ferocious little monsters.

As I rode into the moonset on my trusty unicorn, Fabiola Estella de Cornington, it struck me that the dark blue smock I was wearing was incredibly limp, lifeless, and laden with dirt, not unlike my hair when I forget to cut it, or Fabi’s mane when we’ve been on a long journey through the mucky-muck.

“Can you imagine what the Governess will say if she sees what I did to her clothes again?”

When Fabi didn’t respond, I realized her horn must have been forced to retract in our last fray, where we faced off the lemmings by the edge of The Echoing Cliffs. The little lemmings' trilling war cries had hit the exact resonance frequency of the Cliffs and triggered a rockslide that Fabi and I were nearly caught under. The lemmings weren’t so lucky, which saved us a few nights’ work.

I pulled Fabiola to a stop and popped my glass eye out to get a closer look at the damage.

“Nothing permanent, Fabi,” I crooned, screwing the horn in and all the way back out until it clicked into place. Fabi shook her mane out. “So as I was saying,” I said, swinging my leg back over the saddle, “can you imagine what the Governess will say if she sees what I did to her clothes again?”

“Have you ever considered laundering them before arriving for dinner?”

I flicked her ear.

The sun was up by the time we crossed the drawbridge. I bought Fabi a newspaper and left her with the stable boy, who offered to help me bathe and whom I slapped, before leaving for the bathhouse alone. I stripped down, threw my smock into the washing machine with a pinch of salt, a cup of sugar, two eggs, and three-fourths of a stick of butter, and made my way to the shower rooms for a vigorous scrub-down. I had toweled off and was combing the tangles out of my hair when the timer went off. I ran back to the laundry room and gingerly extracted my smock, knowing that the Governess would be announcing dinner in the next hour.

I adjusted my towel and brought my smock to the growing room, which was empty except for the stable boy, clad, of course, in naught but a towel, lying across three benches.

I was going to have to ask the Governess to reconsider building that second bathhouse.

“What are you doing here, Lloyd? You’re supposed to be taking care of Fabi.”

“She’s fine, she’s fine. I’m just enjoying the view,” he said pointedly.

I selected a bench against the nearest wall and shoved the smock into my mouth and chewed forcefully.

“So, I was wondering, after your dinner with the Governess, if you’re feeling like a midnight swim…” he trailed off.

I pointed to my stuffed mouth and shrugged, taking another giant bite and willing it to go down properly.

Lloyd had been cheerfully insinuating his way onto my bench as I ate, but as I swallowed my last mouthful, he gave a little yelp and his skin became porous and he started to swell and then darken. I always felt kind sorry for Lloyd for being a bran muffin, so I tried not to laugh, but I snickered when he ran out with his towel clutched uselessly over his crumbling midsection.

The clock tower struck twelve just as my own skin began to flake and turn golden brown. When I finished regrowing, I stood up, tilted my head from side to side, and set off for the stables. Right on schedule.

The winner of the $100 Shopbop giveaway is...

2011-10-03T08:25:00.000-07:00

Lin from raw by yours!

An email will be winging its merry way to you shortly.

stardust & W1L 031: Write one leaf in which you invent a word.

2011-09-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

For some reason, this outfit makes me feel like an ancient space explorer.

Sweater: uncle's. Dress: Target. Leggings: American Apparel, secondhand, gift. Socks: maybe Nordstrom. Plaid shoes: Keds.

I think it's the combination of the pattern on my sweater (which I'm aware is more like
"botched argyle coloring-book Easter-egg" than "ancient Mayan/Aztec/Egyptian artwork") with the semi-shiny leggings (which are totally "Supernova Girl"/Zenon don't deny).

Or maybe it's because I was watching Ancient Aliens with my brother recently.

Architectural lines! Geometric shapes on my sweater! It makes sense in my head!

Or maybe it's because of Eleven.

"An ancient creature drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze. For such a creature, death would be a gift." - Doctor Who, "The God Complex" (6.11)

Oh! Maybe I'm channeling the inscriptions on the Pandorica. #highfashion

In any case, this is a great excuse to include some NASA photos. Which I think you will agree are appropriate in any post because SPACE IS STUNNING. COME REVEL IN YOUR INSIGNIFICANCE!

P. S. If you have a name, an email address, and the ability to comment, come enter my $100 Shopbop giveaway! (It closes Sunday).

P. P. S. I guess it's fortunate that I have an enormous backlog of outfit photos, because I've only documented like 2% of my outfits from the past 4 months. I'm supposed to wear pants for my theater classes, and I have a strange schedule on my non-theater days (classes in the middle of the day and then at night, with a huge gap in between), so it's been the summer of 61A all over again and I've been rotating 2 pairs of jeans and like 10 t-shirts, which are definitely not worth photographing.

W1L 031: Write one leaf in which you invent a word.

PERSONAL CHALLENGE #6: Write from someone else's point of view, not that of an omniscient narrator.

This is an unedited version of my original response to this prompt. It was difficult to write but is probably more difficult to read. This is in the voice of someone who used to be my best friend. My main goal was to not sound like myself. That is all.

plutonic (adj.) – folk etymology: of or relating to the former planet Pluto, characterized by amicability, not romantic in nature; see platonic

To my best friend!~

You (yeah, you!)

Yesterday after rehearsal, K, R, and I went to get drinks at Quickly’s while waiting for our ride to arrive. I was afraid it was going to be awkward, and it would just be K and I talking, but R is really funny! Even if she resembles a chipmunk… so sayeth you.

On a random, unrelated note, I think #7 has been promoted from pacifier to crack* status. Actually I say this because K and I were talking about him over our boba, and R was like, “Oooo he’s cute!” which means even the freshmen know who he is. (He’s so cuuute!)

*You know? Crack? Like a crush, but not as hard! A little crush~ It’s just, a little crush, nananana…

After class on Friday #7 was hanging around the classroom to give our teacher a present (I think it was chocolates… how sweet of him! Sweet sweets! Aha-ha-ha…) so I didn’t get to talk to him ONE LAST TIME before summer (NOOOOOO!!! Alas! Despair! Woe is me! Wherefore art thou Romeo!) but we said bye to each other and I suggested that we hang out this summer. He said (something like, I’m not like you and cannot remember word-for-word) “You have my e-mail address, right?” I replied, “Uhhh… nooo…” (Smooth…) #7: “I thought you had it from when we did our group project.” Me: “Oh! You’re right! Aha-ha… I’m so dumb.” #7: “No you’re not! Don’t say that about yourself!” And then Ms. L walked in, so I bid both of them farewell and ran away.

Sooo, best friend… does S bring cheer to thy cheek? Or is he just a plutonic friend? (I’m not sure if “plutonic” is the right word. I heard my cousin use it to describe her best boy friend when her mom asked if they were dating. Like Pluto, right? Distant, or at least not close enough to be romantic liking.) I talked to E yesterday and he said that when you three were outside my classroom (I didn’t even see you! I think I was sleeping. Or looking at #7’s beautiful face! Ehehehe…) S seemed ve-r-r-ry upset when he asked you something like “Why don’t you talk to me anymore?” (I probably didn’t get this right.) What did you say to him?! E said that you guys went off to talk without him and you came back at the end of lunch talking really quickly and laughing at all E’s jokes which he said were not very funny. Hmmm? ;) I know you said it would never work in the long run, but S still treats you like you’re HIS GIRL doesn’t he?

Hm hm hm.

I think you should just tell him. (Aha-ha. I know you’re going to say I should just tell #7, but he’s not the one who already treats me like I’m HIS GIRL.)

Okay, my page is up. Use this wisely! Don’t leave this lying around! You can bring it to rehearsal next Monday and then I’ll give it back on Thursday, lather, rinse, repeat, et cetera! And now, sayoonara!