ok, this is very shallow, but the new conditioner i've been using for only a week is making my hair super soft and nice. i really like it. and, of course, it's trader joe's brand stuff, $1.99 a bottle. i am such a junkie for that place, it's sad.

since i am mostly homework-free for the next... while, i spent my afternoon today hopping buses in the tunnel and seeing the annie liebovitz: women exhibit at the seattle art museum, which was extremely cool, and wasting money at uwajimaya on fresh produce, packaged soup, thai tea, and pretty gift wrap for christmas presents. i got some really cool red mulberry paper, and for some of the presents, i sewed the paper together with gold thread instead of just using tape. not very practical, but much cooler-looking. the other print was a simple glossy green-white-red-gold japanese fan pattern that, due to its coloring, looks christmasy without referencing santa claus, bells, trees, stars, snow, or any other cliche'd christmas decoration. not there is anything wrong with those cliches, i just like this better. it's *pretty.*

i really need to do something fun this weekend. what, i don't know. there are a couple movies i could go see--the one about ron jeremy that's opening at the varsity and ocean's 11, which looks good although i haven't ever really *liked* a soderburgh picture for whatever reason--and a couple shows i could attend--jenny's raving about the international noise conspiracy show on friday and there is some hiphop thing at the paradox that, for $7 and a less-boring saturday night, might be worth checking out. i am currently sad that i missed the man... or astroman? show that, i think, was actually all-ages at graceland last night, though they are also listed as having a show on the 15th that i can't go to because i'm taking a fucking math final and it might not be all ages (again?). i am so confused. dammit. i should just be turning 21 on tuesday instead of 20 so i could go to any goddamn concert i wanted without worrying about the whole "ooh, you're too young to come in here because we're goddamn liquor nazis even though you have no intention of drinking" thing.

holy shit, i'm turning 20 on tuesday. wait, the number is useless, but my mom (and maybe my dad) visiting me for dinner and bringing my new record player(!!!) and buying me cool vinyl is definitely worth being happy. birthdays are weird. NONE OF YOU ARE ALLOWED TO MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF MY BIRTHDAY, and i am not being a drama queen here. do not ask me if i want anything; i don't. etc. etc. you can say happy birthday and join me for some pleasant meal or out for coffee sometime. that's great. whee.

it's really interesting how the word "nazi" has come to be used colloquially in a sense that isn't particularly true to what the word originally meant. in the sense that when we refer to someone as a "nazi" (in the colloquial sense) we mean they are ridiculously oppressive, it makes some sense, but... this is what the oxford english dictionary has to say on the subject, and, well... it doesn't talk about ridiculous oppression. that's our historical connotation taking on a weird modern bent. similar to the way that "ghetto" has taken on a modern connotation not necessarily referring to a section of town forcibly segregated from the rest due to race/religion/class or whatever, but still negative and, in some vague sense, similar. annnnnnnnyway.

i need to start telling stories or something, but sometimes it feels like the story is something you just have to see, and you can't walk in my shoes, see through my eyes, perceive with my mind. so your story is yours and my story is mine and even with all this technology for communication, i don't think the message ever really gets across. perception is strange and confusing and fascinating enough without it having to be turned inside-out and sent outwards, if that makes sense.

all this breathing in, never breathing out...

there are so many things i will never understand, never know. so many life experiences i'll never have. i'll never know what it was like to fall in love at a young age--18 doesn't seem that young for that, somehow--i'll never.. i don't know. a lot of things. and sometimes i regret that, for whatever ridiculous, sentimental, silly reason...

i hate that i can never win, only play the game. i hate games.

please don't tell me that you love me, cos i'd rather not know the truth.

(i made that up, but i italicized it to look like a lyric because it felt like one.)

and i should never listen to nick drake and try to have a heart to heart or whatever. i just want to go out and experience the coolness of living and stuff, but sometimes it feels like i haven't the time. i can't stop and smell every fucking rose, much as i wish i could. and feel their thorns, taste the dew on their leaves...

apologies for the randomness of this entry, i'm incoherent lately.

i feel very much like skipping my english class tomorrow. i think i will. i haven't skipped it all quarter, and i haven't done the reading for tomorrow, so... it'll just be more discussion that, while it may be quite enlightening and occasionally truly interesting, will make me wish i were still in bed. of course, that also leaves things wide open for skipping math, because that always is fucking lame and useless and so on, but i skipped it on friday. uh. yeah. heh. so i'll go to psych, anyway, and then work! where i will do math homework! yay! and after work, i'll come home, eat dinner, and go see not another teen movie for free at the hub with josie, because we can. we're all about ridiculous humor.

speaking of movies i've seen lately with josie, we went to the 11am showing of amélie at the egyptian this morning, which was a theater josie'd never been to. i worked there a couple times last spring with the film festival. too bad josie is going to freaking london this spring and can't work that, too, but i'm sure she will have a fabulous time in another goddamned country. both her and anna will, i'm sure. london. meh. anyway, the movie was awesome. though we parted ways in the restroom after the show, we both admitted to grinning about life and things for at least an hour afterwards. (she was happy for longer because she went christmas shopping all afternoon, while i hit the broadway fred meyer and took a bus back to the u-district and worked for four hours, but whatever! smiles all around.)

tonight, we watched a shitload of variously amusing television--the man show, the simpsons, malcolm in the middle, and an hour of sex and the city, god bless--and basically frittered away the hours that would certainly be better spent on homework or intellectual pursuits of some kind. we spontaneously put up anna's newly-purchased strands of white icicle lights in the living room, which now hang over the sink window and the big window by the table pending aesthetic adjustment. soon, we should have a semi-tall fake christmas tree for exchange gifts, desked with lights and cranberry strands, sitting in the corner under my "what is sex?" poster.

i forced the name exchange tonight, too. graylan was visiting, so the only exchange-participating harem member not available to draw from the hat was adam. i will deliver his name in class tomorrow.

josie's friend jesse has been frequenting the harem often lately; we're thinking that if he keeps this up, he may become an honorary harem member the way christopher, graylan, and adam already are. we wish we could consider the other harem boyfriend, jana's shane, as such, but he simply doesn't spend enough time here to warrant such a title. still, as a harem boyfriend, he has a status above and beyond the average person.

i will be sad when josie and anna leave... maybe we'll live together again this summer and next year, but still. the dyanamic will have fractured, and it's a pretty fucking cool dynamic. better enjoy this second half as it comes, slowly as possible...