i whine about having to work, but i don't really mean it. honestly. it's the only place i'll actually do homework, for the most part. so work is a good thing. and the whole money for stuff thing, like the records i have been buying lately (that i shouldn't be buying, i should be saving money or whatever, but ohh, music calls to me and makes me greedy).

this morning, i awoke with an empty stomach and breath that tasted like the revenge of last night's dissatisfied homemade tabouli. oh, day-old onion breath never had it so good. i'm trying to think of ways to salvage the tabouli into something edible, because there's no way i'm going to be able to eat it as-is. it would've looked better with green peppers, too, but all i had were red ones. i need to try roasting the other two sometime this weekend. they're my experimental bell peppers.

i had a dream a few mornings ago--the dreams that i remember always happen just before i wake up--that has disturbed me since. i dreamed that my brother paul and i had to shoot each other. i shot first, but only he went to the hospital. they couldn't find the bullet in my chest, even though i felt it aching there, festering with the guilt of shooting my little brother for reasons neither of us remembers and no one else would understand, and i could still feel it when i woke up. it's fading now, but i know exactly where it is. my dreams are increasing in weirdness as the convolutedness of life does; not sure if it really means anything.

can't get that sound you make out of my head...

tonight, cutejen is coming over and we're going out for thai. she's never had thai and is quite eager to try it, so now i face the decision of which restaurant to try. my roommates have a strong affinity for the thai-ger room that i can only really understand atmosphere-wise; i like the new star restaurant for some reason. it's impossible to get seated as thai tom, so i've never eaten there. heh. there are a ton of other little places that i haven't really tried, but those are the hot spots. i'm definitely thinking of new star. i just *like* new star for some reason. maybe their pad thai isn't as good or something; i don't usually get pad thai.

there is not a soul in this lab besides me, and we've been open half an hour. stranger still, all the lights, computers, and printers were on when i arrived. usually i have to turn on most of them.

i am such the tangential girl. that's my superhero name, by the way. need proof? i got proof.

mike: ;]
emily: robotwinkie!
emily: twinkie winkie little peach, how i wonder what you'd reach.
mike: yes sweet emily
mike: you're insane

...
mike is so right sometimes.

it's a little bit funny, this feeling inside. i'm not one of those who can easily hide. i don't have much money, but, boy, if i did, i'd buy a big house where we both could live.

...
yeah, i thought it would be amusing to start a blog with that, until i realized what song it was and that it was in moulin rouge and probably everyone gets it and is sick of it by now. so it *isn't* funny, and that makes me sad.

dammit.

way to start a depressingly beautiful saturday when i have to go to work and not listen to music for four straight hours.

*giant sad face*

listening: built to spill - i would hurt a fly

sometimes i think to myself, shut the fuck up, and save the storytelling for your novel. but it's so hard when the record is spinning and spinning and my head is spinning and spinning and the words keep coming. for me, music and words just come together sometimes.

and tonight, i sat down and discovered a love of neil young i never even knew i had.

ok, i got into a compulsive cataloging mood this evening and went through and updated my mp3s list, as well as adding an owned list that i was too lazy to actually list the cds in, but videos and records are there. this is basically an exhaustive list of stuff i listen to, not counting loose mp3s scattered about which probably cover even more territory. *phew*

and all this, why, you ask? because i'm crazy. i don't know. i like making lists. i can't help it.

and...

listening: silence. wtf?

it's a thursday that feels like a friday at the end of a week that feels like it should be spring break already. sure, the gusts of wind made it feel bitterly cold, not to mention forcing the wisps of hair that had already wandered away from the braid to blow around my face and land in the most uncomfortable positions, but besides that, it was relatively warm, and the sky was beautiful blue.

after class, i wasted money on records (tom waits' small change and neil young and crazy horse's everybody knows this is nowhere) and determined that i really need to expand the variety in my music collection. i have exactly one blues record, for example. i have one cd that could rightly be shelved under rap. i don't own nearly enough punk rock. i like lots of things! i get urges to listen to lots of things, and they simply are not there for me. people, give me tips! leave a comment! uhm, well... maybe it would help to know what i already have. that's...not really an updated list...and it doesn't include the vinyl...maybe i'll get around to updating it soon! in the meantime, suggestions! artists AND ALBUMS! and broadening, not continuing in a same vein. i dunno. whatever.

i have not a lot to talk about lately. trying to have a life or whatever, but still managing to spend a vast majority of my time sitting down. heh.

listening: r.e.m. - romance

hmm, a few other things:

wing chun's bad teen novel is some of the fucking funniest shit i've been reading lately. seriously.

and i love my mom and dad. they're just awesome people. i have a lot of respect for them. this is for no particular reason. i just talked to them on the phone today, and sometimes the joy of having such good people for parents swells within me. i dunno.

yeah, so. i guess that's all. read the BTN!

listening: marine research - you and a girl

good day, i suppose. nice, full, busy day, with lots of people and taking care of life. and then the laziness. much laziness. but not too much.

classes. dr. wenderoth talked about digestion and explained what happens to olestra. not something i really want to hear at 9:15am, but it's part of my education. i'll live. i have a strong stomach (no pun intended), and i may well have been too brain dead to properly process the grossness of her depection. graeme, my poli sci ta, introduced us to project censored, telling us he "had hoped there would be some people in the room who bought into that [conspiracy theories]." i later wrote him an email in which i told him that, while i didn't buy them, i did enjoy window shopping occasionally. psych was interesting, as usual. actually, the other day, my prof said something really amusing. he was talking about watching the 1988 olympics for the african-american figure skater, and he said something like, "i hadn't watched the olympics since peggy fleming, but, uh... that was for a whole other reason..." it was fucking hilarious at the time, at any rate.

work was work. i think i have a paycheck that i need to pick up. i should really just set up direct deposit. i emailed some people about things. (yeah, hey, emily, let's write sentences with specific points, shall we? kthx!) i did my reaction paper and even answered some of the reading questions from the 'logic of american politics' text. then, aleks and patrick were pointing to the 'logic' part of the title and asking for confirmation of its accuracy. we flipped through the book a little and landed on a page with a box that was titled, "PORN FOR CORN." i cracked up, and they mocked me for now being interested in the text, and someone walked up to the desk to ask a question just as i was exclaiming, "porn for corn!" i don't think they were amused, either. sad.

i even hit some stores after the day had officially concluded. got more neutrogena t-gel because, after only a WEEK of not having the stuff, my scalp has become a flaky wasteland again, bleh. bought new pens, since the ones i bought at the beginning of the quarter have all gone to suckville by (1) being inky fuckers, and, (2) somehow losing the rollerballs that made the tips so pleasant to use. my crappy ballpoint pens were just not cutting it, comfort-wise, so i got some upscale ballpoints (pilot easytouch) in three colors. i did some weekly shopping at tj's, fully intending to do only a simple "i'm feeding a gradeschooler" basket of bread, jam, peanut butter, and milk, but i also had to get a lot of veggies, some protein bars, and chocolate sorbet. i think that was all i got, though, and i spent about $10 less than i normally do, which is super double-plus good! i am, however, mildly annoyed that, for the second time in a row, i was the purchaser of all-harem garlic, and i also bought free-for-all onions. i don't know why that annoys me, but it does. *shrug*

gilmore girls is starting to make me sad. #n00n enjoys bashing it (except for offie, offie is full of love) and, admittedly, it has gone downhill. very disjointed and, tonight, there was very little actual funny. the point of watching is the funny, not the drama of stupid jess stealing rory's bracelet and rory's whole "acting" role for the evening being "stressed" with the occasional reference to her more amusing qualities. everyone was stuck in one mode. maybe it's always been like that and i'm just finally building up the callous of cynicism enough again to notice it, but i don't think so. i have a new television love--six feet under. season premiere on sunday! yay!

eggrolls are yummy, though. quality harem cooking. yay harem.

had lunch with adam today, too. always nice to see adam and actually be able to talk.

i have fuck-all else to say. what day is today? oh, tuesday. right. tomorrow is...nothing...and thursday is nuts. registering for classes, my parents' 21st anniversary, aja's birthday. maybe something else i'm forgetting. i'll probably blog some bullshit from work. woo-hoo, work! where i get paid to sit on my ass!

listening: john lennon - oh yoko

march 23, life begins to look up.

it sounds like the tagline for a movie, but it's my life. hee!

that's spring break. i'm going to the bay area, as i've joyfully mentioned at least twice before. spring quarter, i am only planning to take two actual classes, as well as a psych 499. that is being a research assistant for someone in the psych department (either faculty or grad student), and i just met with dr. richards, who was my lecturer for 209, about working with her. that involves nine hours a week of... something she doesn't know yet. and the film fest is upcoming. yay!

i have always enjoyed observing clouds, but never before today did i truly see animals in them. i remember the distinctly animal-shaped clouds in storybook illustrations from my childhood, but the clouds i saw in my sky never told such a direct story as those. shapes, patterns, movement, yes; actual objects, especially animals, no.

but today--and it's another day of blue skies for this strangely unwintery february--just outside my window i saw a dinosaur. what i grew up calling a brontosaurus, which i now hear is a made-up being, properly referred to as an apatosaurus or some such nonsense, with its craning long neck, appeared to drink from the endless pools of cool, blue water. swiftly drifting winds in the atmosphere quickly destroyed this scene, replacing it with a tiger, his front paw outstretched and his jaws open wide. the cloud even formed large top and bottom incisors in its mouth.

now it's all gone, leaving only that endless blue pool in its wake.

not to contradict the years of work by archaeologists and other bone-diggers, but dinosaurs, to me, have always been a mythology. that these massive creatures, whose bones we now see laying in dust on the discovery channel or polished and behind ropes in natural history museums, once ruled the earth is as unreal to me as zeus tossing lightning bolts from the clouds above mount olympus or poseidon storring up storms to overturn the boats of those he despised. they are so much storytelling from my childhood and beyond, a muse, a figment of hollywood's expansive (but admittedly dwindling) imagination. i would not go so far as to say i believe they are fictional, because i don't, but i do think of them as myths and legends, like ancient gods and goddesses or superheroes.

i'm still figuring out what storytelling of biblical adventures means to me in this context, too. something to ponder, anyway. as if i needed more of that.

listening: carissa's wierd - lazy eyelids