last night, watching planet of the apes:

me: "'you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers!'"
chris: "does he say that in this movie?"
me: "uh, no, he said it as president of the nra."
chris: "charleton heston is president of the nra?!"

and she just thought i was being witty. :(

despite a good half-hour of snow last night--slushy, wet snow mixed with rain, true, but snow all the same--this saturday morning is much unlike others of the past month: terminally gorgeous, radiating sunshine blinding every view, coupled with a perfectly blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds. what did we pacific northwesterners do to deserve such a ridiculous excuse for a winter?

oh, i suppose it's not all bad. when it's not annoyingly drizzly and so-cold-it-hurts with gusts of wind that make you forget you're wearing clothes, these temperate days of sunshine and little moisture are spectacularly beautiful. i mean it. going into my living room in the morning to see the shadows cast by paper snowflakes from the windows to the walls by bright sunlight is one of life's many small pleasures. everything looks greener and the puddles all but disappear. it's as if we don't live in a city known for rain at all.

but when it snows, or even acts like it might be considering it for a fleeting moment, we behave like children, giddy and excited to go to disneyland for the first time. we know that, realistically, even when it does snow in seattle, it seldom sticks, and on those rare occasions it manages to accumulate, it doesn't keep more than a few inches at best, and then, well, it melts by afternoon. of course, in most parts of western washington, people flip out at the first hint of snow, calling for 2-hours-late schedules at public schools, running all buses on mythical snow routes, calling this piddly two-inch dusting "SNOWSTORM OF THE CENTURY!" and other such hyperbole.

the university of washington, however, never closes. the city doesn't actually shut down, though half its citizens are clueless as to how to drive in actual snow--though many argue they are clueless as to how to drive in the first place, which i'll grant is possible. some people are newcomers from lands afar where it regularly snows in mass quantities, where they have snowplows and such, or maybe they visit the mountains frequently enough not to be clueless. but as for me and mine, well... we just enjoy the giddiness while it lasts.

social psychologists' research has revealed that self-efficacy, or a positive bias for oneself and one's abilites, has many positive effects. for example, lower levels of anxiety, higher goal-setting, greater effort, increased/sustained persistence, and producing more efficient and sophisticated problem-solving strategies, which are almost inarguably things that we consider survival skills in society. why, then, are these things which are produced from basically lying to ourselves? what is the value of honesty when the truth is relative and certainly biased?

my own self-efficacy is frequently proven inaccurate, yet i continue to attempt things i know i cannot do better than many. why try? well... why not? karate, for example. i am severely uncoordinated and often accredit it to my inexperience, but i look around at other white belts, other first-quarter students, and they're getting it. my pants are falling down, i need help tying the belt properly, and i can't slide out of the way diagonally enough. try to throw in those blocks and punches and... damn. i'm all mixed up. i need to work much more slowly than the pace of a martial arts class, which probably means i should be practicing on my own or with a friend. i don't have any friends in the class yet, though. i talked to a few people, but they seem to live up north campus way, are freshman, and think anything near terry-lander is "way far away!!" (to which i reply, "screw you guys and your view of the u-village!!@#" which doesn't seem to get their goat as much as i'd hope...)

i often consider myself intelligent and a good student, as if these were objective claims on which i could justify my downward social comparisons. in my overconfidence, i gloss over learning in favor of a general understanding, then move on, squandering any true knowledge of how certain mechanisms actuall work or what words actually mean. "i understand it," i say to myself and others, "but i can't seem to explain it to you." what good is that?

now i'm hungry and contemplating leftovers. those things which i have proficiency are those with which you must have tactile knowledge to speak intelligently--foods, music... even though i'm not a musician (to speak of), it's something i understand and can explain. psychology, i'm getting there. but a lot of things remain beyond my grasp and may well remain so for a long time unless i work to improve myself.

not everyone can carry the weight of the world.

listening: r.e.m. - driver 8

down with people.

i almost want to make this entry a giant "fuck you, everyone!" list, but, y'know. tact. stupid tact. i don't have a hell of a lot of it, but that which i do, prevents me.

and DON'T FUCKING ASK WHY I SAY FUCK YOU INDIVIDUALLY!! jesus. you people. you know i love you, somewhere deep down. but fuck you, too.

except my mom and dad. they totally rock right now. i see no evil in my parents of late.

last night, i was just... in a total bitch mood after karate. well, karate went well, and sweating felt fabulous, but then i got into a conversation with my roommates about boys, and that just leads down a trail i don't ever, ever like, i don't think. for one thing, especially with josie, i can't pine over guys or anything by simple virtue of the fact that i have gotten laid more recently than she has. nevermind ... well, every circumstance of that besides the whole "wow, that was amazingly nice" aspect of the visit itself, she moans, "i just want to make out with someone!" and i'm like, "yeah, me too!" and she gets a little defensive and brings up mike's visit. as if it had any bearing on my current desire to be kissed. jesus.

anyway. i was bitchy because of a kind of stupid thing, but it annoyed me all the same, so i'll see what y'all think. girl wants to make out with guy. girl and guy have good chemistry; neither are otherwise occupied with other people. roommate of guy/friend of girl quite possibly harbor(s/ed) a crush on girl, towards which he did nothing to affect change in their relationship. girl does not want roommate "that way;" it's presumed to be fairly clear in "nonverbal communication." however, girl refuses to make out with first guy due to said extenuating circumstances. i think it's bullshit since girl/roommate have no clear relationship beyond friends, nor the potential to be; i feel that since his feelings for her were never clear, she does not owe him this courtesy; besides, just freaking making out? what is up? that's fun, god dammit. *insert mad cursing here; i feel like cursing a lot lately* anyway, other girls here are very appalled at my lack of concern for roommate's feelings, since it's widely suspected that he liked girl for awhile. they fear he would be "hurt" by the incident, and therefore, girl will not do it, merely whines about how much she wishes she could.

whatever. i'm very bad at casual stuff. i wish i were better, because i don't think i want a relationship now. i want more friends who will do cool shit with me and be interesting and NOT BE FREAKING GIRLS ALL THE TIME, bleh. i'm rubbin' the wrong way, barkin' up a bush instead of a tree. (uhh, heh, no pun intended, but i guess it could work!)

anyway. must return to the studying madness of psych before watching six feet under and sleeping sweet, blissful sleep until 7:15. *yay.*

listening: david holmes - freaknik

oh, and today i just got the best referral EVER from a google search for "Fuck Tim Eyman." god bless you, whoever you were.

*insert random characters here emitted from frustrated fingers attached to a frustrated brain through a complicated series of neurons and connective tissue*

oh my god.

i'm studying for my psych test tomorrow, right? and i realize i also have a shit-ton of reading and pseudo-homework for poli sci to do. and i didn't help greg crush boxes! anyway, psych studying sucks ass!@# i'm going to kill it! killkillkill!!!!!@#$% it's taken me two hours to get through not even half of the review sheet!!!!!! and this is two weeks of material! only TWO WEEKS!!!! yeah, i know, i'm whining, and, like, i shouldn't be surprised cos i know ITS COLLEGE, ITS SPOSED TO BE HARD, DUMBASS, but it has never been this insane for me. maybe i've just been lucky. maybe my prof is insane. maybe it's both. i just hope it's worth it. jesus goddamned christ on the cross.

wow, exams do not typically work me up this much. how 'bout i calm down now, hey lady? kthx!!@#

(i don't know why, but "kthx" really appeals to me as online syntax. it's strangely descriptive in its curt brevity and mild implicit sarcasm.)

i should go back to studying now!@$ yay review!!!

i know i said i might not blog today, but i finished my psych assignment fairly quickly and am in no mood to continue studying psych until have to go to psych at 2, so... here i am. i was definitely in the mood to write on my way to work.

in fact, i think i'll talk about my way to work. it's a very lovely walk. i wish i could videotape it, or take pictures, but i don't think still photography could begin to capture what i like about it. there is much in movement that creates beauty.

i leave the hub, where i've just had food of some sort, holding a small paper cup of hot tea by the bottom rim and lid. my other hand is shoved in a pocket, because it's freezing goddamn cold outside. i walk through the low brick gateway south of the hub lawn and turn onto the shady walkway between guggenheim and sieg ("sieg heil! i mean, hall!") towards drumheller fountain. at least the wind isn't blowing too hard. down the second set of steps, i pass someone from my poli sci class, but there's no greeting. for some reason i'm hoping and thinking i look kind of good at the moment. as i approach the fountain--which is not actually fountaining since it's the winter and all--i notice that, from this angle, the small group of ducks that congregate there are gliding out from the north side in all directions, leaving in their wake these perfectly triangular currents reflecting the white of the sky. these fade as i draw nearer and they rest once again, but i stop to put on my gloves. the water still reflects sky on the tips of the little waves from the breeze.

on the ground between the fountain, the rose gardens, and bagley is a section of newspaper, weather-worn and seemingly wallpapered to the concrete by rain. though it's been dry for days, the paper is still there. i walk though the mud and trees to the outdoor path through bagley, which is lined with large, rectangular bricks, arranged symmetrically as bricks on a house. i love the way these look in perspective, all zig-zaggy and just strangely, aesthetically pleasing. this pattern soon ends, and a large set of stairs begins. now the wind is blowing, cold and fast, in my direction, and i haven't even buttoned my coat.

here, i'd like to say that as i descended the stairs, my eyes looked up to see the gray skies in all their seasonal brightness, but a sense of honesty prevents me. i didn't even think to look at the sky until i was at the bottom of those stairs; usually, i just look at the steps themselves. i find it hard to embellish without emotional context, and here there is none. from here, it's all pine cone sections on the walkway, crossing the street, and forgetting to look at the greenhouses on my way past kincaid...

i cross the pedestrian bridge over pacific, making note of the bored faces exiting hitchcock on my way over. there is a path between part of the health sciences complex and the temporary modular buildings of the annex lined with now-leafless trees bearing slowly dropping red berry-like fruits and the occasional park bench. the tree branches, set against the sky and the brick of the building behind it, please me immensely for some reason i can't explain. this is my last small joy before arriving at work, which, while it fails to crush my spirit--i would say it doesn't even try--cannot rival the natural, urban beauty of this campus.

i'm sleepy and listening to neutral milk hotel. mm. today has been so short somehow, and tomorrow i have a test, class, work, and probably errands to run. whoop-de-shit. i still have at least three and a half more chapters in this book for poli sci, but i don't think it's going happen. if i were a wiser person, i might study for my test, but it should be easy. the material is fairly obvious to me; the rest i have more or less assimilated into my knowledge with basic notetaking.

i'm so, so sleepy. jeez.

the harem went to the zoo today and learned about monkeys that also live in harems. the monkeys were cute. so was hansa, the baby elephant. and red pandas. and the toucans that are not as big as you would expect being raised on froot loop commercials. madagascar cockroaches, on the other hand, are NOT cute. we were shrieking like the girls we are until reid was like, "shush, guys, cool it, aight? geez!" i contended that, for apartment-dwellers, cockroaches were a legitimate fear; she said something about orange county being worse. we don't have roaches, though; i haven't even seen a silverfish, which were fairly rampant in lander last year. but still. ew.

and it is motherfucking COLD outside lately. when will we get snow, mmf?

i have very little of interest to discuss now. maybe i won't even blog tomorrow; i should spend work time studying and reading and crap instead of wasting it away like i usually do. karate starts tomorrow, too! yay!

god is a place you will wait for the rest of your life.

from the "Walter Scott's Personality Parade," which is basically where people "write" to pry into the personal lives of random celebrities:

Q: Many Americans would like to know off Iraq's Saddam Hussein, but don't we have a policy against assassinating foreign leaders?--Benny G., Washington, D.C.

A: Gerald Ford's 1976 executive order prohibiting assassinations still stands, but it didn't deter plots against Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 1986 or inhibit President Bush from ordering Osama bin Laden captured "dead or alive." Our sources say Mr. Bush may lift the ban.

oh my fucking god. they talk so nonchalantly about changing what i consider to be a pretty darned good piece of foreign policy--maybe uninformedly so, but jesus, it doesn't sound like a smart thing to say "we want to assassinate someone," regardless of how we believe them to be connected to something bad happening... that's just fucked... and they treat it like gossip.

i hate people.

i'm beginning to think that caffiene gives me bad cramps, and not of the gastrointestinal or overexhertion varieties. i had a tall mocha last night... mmm, mocha; nice and barely sweet, just like i like it--as i told chris, it makes me feel like i'm suffering for my art.. and later that evening, i had cramps like i've never had before. just the kind of pain that makes you wince and go, "ohJEBUSthathurtsrealbad, where'smyadvil!!!!!" jana had to offer me prescription meds.

i think my body took the suffering part too seriously.

now i had a big cup of green tea when i got to work three hours ago, which isn't heavily caffienated, but the caffiene is present all the same, and i'm suffering. i should have thought to bring some advil, dammit.

on another note, families who all come to this library with their kid who's researching something for school are cute. everyone who doesn't come here often speaks in a very low voice, y'know, the whole "library" thing... it's funny. "we're not that kind of library. speak up, dearie, i can't hear you over the din of excited med students."

i really should be doing reading for class or something. i'm just sure of it. after this, i will go home and have dinner and hang out and listen to records and catch a bus downtown to go dancing to silly '80s music, so... reading ain't gonna happen then. tomorrow we'll go to the zoo during my hours of accomplishment, and there's the weekend, all said and done. i have to remember to pick up scantrons sometime before monday morning, too. *mental note*

so yeah, the possibility of reading looms. i'm out.

don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just god when he's drunk...

much of this will be tmi [=too much information, in case you didn't know, commonly used on the soon-to-be-late hissyfit forums], so hold onto your panties.

now that i've warned you, it'll probably end up being tame, like the last time i mused about writing dirty stuff. meh.

sometimes, alone at night, when masturbating (i always feel like that word needs a disclaimer), i wrap myself so so much warm blanket that it's almost equal to the heat of another body beside me. i try to remember what that was like, actually having someone there--what individual parts looked like in the low light; lips, eyes, hair; the way sound slipped in and out of silences as my concentration level fluctuates. the heat from the comforter is dry until it makes me slightly sweaty; real human contact is not so neat. it haves has less give than a body. i try to recall the sensation from a single, gentle brush of his hand, or the pleasantness of a long kiss after climax, when my breathing becomes steady again.

that's what i think about, for those who wanted to know.

well, sometimes i just get plain ol' poetic and shit, or i think about patti smith or something.

change of pace: last night, christine and i watched a beautiful film, in the mood for love. there were scenes were we both just... cringed and gasped for the beauty of it all. those sashaying hips, draped in such a lovely gown... especially the one with two-tone shiny fabric that just... moved when she walked up the stairs, each slow moment of which felt pregnant with sorrow.

prior to watching the video, we visited the local espresso roma for some people-watching, chocolately goodness, and random talk. we sat at a table by the big windows that expose the cafe to passers-by on 42nd street. one of them was a middle-aged-looking guy who first waved, then knocked on the window at chris. she waved back, and as he walked away, he blew her a kiss, which she returned. "do you know that guy?" i asked her. "nope!" she said. we just laughed, especially over the kiss-blowing.

then we hit up the rekkid store, mission-style, returning home with a bagful of yumminess. she got some more bob dylan--the rest of her vinyl collection is presently in portland, though--and i picked out patti smith's easter, jimi hendrix's electric ladyland, a muddy waters and howlin' wolf live record, r.e.m.'s document, and the velvet underground's white light/white heat. they had no tom waits, and i couldn't find nick drake, but i'm guessing i didn't look in the right place. i desperately need to move my stereo to a nice corner where jerky movement in the room will be less likely to disturb the music, though. that's driving me completely fucking nuts.