brothers and sisters, before i depart...

surely you must have a need to waste time.

in such an event, may i recommend this?

as kevin said, it's better than am i hot or not?

thanks, chris, for the tip.

listening: the gloria record - good morning, providence

mmm. it's friday morning. technically the last day of classes for spring quarter, and i'm skipping out to go to san jose. i'll be back in the wee hours of wednesday, most likely.

sometimes, i love my life.

listening: neutral milk hotel - naomi

"everyone converges on the bathroom at the same minute."

these were the first words out of my mouth this morning, about quarter to 8am. three of us attempted to use two bathroom sinks to complete minor morning hygiene rituals at the same time, causing minor amusement.

yeah. i'm tired.

so i have blogged the past couple days, but i didn't say shit about my actual life, did i? how about i do that? it could be fun.

i checked out chris's new digs on tuesday after class. they are very stylin'. it's nice-looking, nice location, everything. oooh, i'm kinda jealous. then we were going to try to hit up the dollar stores on the ave, one of which appeared to be mostly a crappy convenience store and one of which was closed (aw!), so no knives were purchased. instead, chris decided he wanted to hunt for old nintendo games, so we hit up some record stores. i told him he would have to drag me out, since i was drooling over vinyl. mmm, vinyl. i wanted it alllll. he did get the mario trilogy, which is pretty cool. seems like some other stuff happened... lalala... yeah.

watched a bit of ghost dog on sundance, which i hadn't seen before, which was nuts. then we took a walk to some happylands nearer his house, namely the park we hung out in the first time we met, sitting on the swings after dusk. it was pretty fun. then we parted company and i tried to go to safeway. i was going to buy junk food. oooooh, bad me. i was in line at the cash register when i realized i had purposely not brought my wallet on the walk, heh.

tuesday at lunch, i also tried the spicy grilled catfish taco at agua verde. oh man. that is some yummy shit. agua verde is amazing. i didn't even know i liked catfish (which is why i tried it).

yesterday was also pretty cool. i met the newly-seattlelited ed (whom you may know at the mysterious ed who's been posting comments on the blog of late) and saw insomnia. meeting ed was fun! the movie was merely ok. (i might save my criticisms for another time or personally if you're actually interested. my thoughts: kind of too long, kind of bad dialogue, kind of holey without the cool gimmick that made memento cool the first time i saw it, and al pacino's three fungus-infected fingernails were kind of gross and distracting. only not kind of on that last count.)

in bad news, my turntable seems to be unhappy with life, and wants to revolve at less than 33rpm when at that setting. this makes me sad, because if i cannot listen to records, i will inevitably get songs stuck in my head that i have only on vinyl. also, wahhh!

in other annoying news, while i must be out of this apartment before 9:30am june 15, i can't move into the new place until after 4pm the same day. they are cleaning it noon to 4. this is very, very annoying, but we'll deal. i think we'll just end up dumping stuff currently in this apartment in the new place as soon as it becomes available, then go back to olympia and move the rest later. it would be a much less stressful day, anyway. saturday is going to be hellish. a lot of people are moving, dorms close, and there is graduation. good planning, uw!

today is laundry, packing, and wasting time day. oh, and maybe some studying and last day of psych. we're getting a lecture on how the mental health profession is thinking about how to deal with the mass trauma caused by 9/11 or something like that. dr. zoellner just attended a conference on the subject, so it should be fairly interesting.

and then tomorrow i'm going to california.

june journal smackdown!

Thursday, June 6
bad habits

despite my lack of the usual bad habits people might have--drugs, alcohol, cigarettes--i still have more than my fair share of habits i'd like rid of.

i've been a nailbiter from a young age. a really nasty nailbiter, complete with the chewing the sides of my fingers. i know it's bad. i can't really quit effectively. my nails are predisposed to suck. they're very thin and will curl upwards if allowed to grow very long--my sister's do this, and it's rather gross. my mother always bit her nails, and i have done likewise for as long as i can remember. recently, as in the past few years, i've been good about keeping them clipped, filed, and painted with clear nail hardener so they are at least presentable-looking and long enough to scratch my nose, which, sadly, is relatively novel to me.

i snack compulsively. if there is junk food in my presence, i will eat it. it's awful. it's my weakness. in my next place, i'm not gonna allow shared snack boxes and stuff like we have here. it's totally evil, i tell you. i snack when i don't even want to, when i'm not hungry, it's just nervous habit, and that's really unhealthy.

i drag my feet when it comes to getting shit donw. all the time. some things i can be totally prepared weeks in advance, but some things--like big homework projects, such as 5+ page papers!--get pushed to the last minute. i don't know why i can't force myself to concentrate on them and practice "good study habits," but i am so distracted by the rest of the world.

i am very fidgety. always moving my posture, my legs, my hands, my arms, my fingers, my lips. touching my face with my hands. doing random stretches of the arm/back. i sit at work and probably look like a zoned-out spaz. if i'm not paying attention, i have bad posture.

i also tend to babble at people about things they don't care about at. all. my roommates all know about my food obsessions, my music obsessions, etc. they must be careful not to get me started on such a topic, lest i blather endlessly about it.

probably my worst habit is my inability to give or receive compliments graciously. jana will compliment the food i'm cooking, say that it smells good, and i will practically put her down for mentioning it. i don't mean it that way, that's just my overdeveloped sense of humility kicking in. on the other hand, i always find it hard to express my appreciation for certain qualities of those i respect and love of my peers. it seems...trite to mention the obvious, like haircuts or other such physical shifts. i will compliment food, but it never seems like i do so as profusely as i could. i don't know, sometimes others just gush and i'm not prone to that, though i may feel thusly.

listening: the apples in stereo - seems so

(from the steno notebook files, today at lunch)

"it's better to regret something you did than something you didn't do."

i'm thinking of trying to abide by this more. if i'm scared, i'm gonna try to do it. if i haven't done it and i'm curious, i'm gonna try it. if it sounds like fun to me, i'll plan to be there. this doesn't mean i have to try everything--how many people say, "i regret not getting piss-ass drunk throughout my college years and fellating slimy fratboys!" or, "damn, i wish i smoked more weed!"--just more things. i don't do enough that i want to do. i miss concerts, experiences... but i'm making strides. i can do shit on my own; i've lost a little inhibition. i wish i could care more about some things, but anytime i try, fence-sitting is too appealing. (i may sometimes say, jokingly, "oh, don't make me choose!" it used to be that i meant it; now, i am more capable of committing to decisions, i think.)

the fact is, if i want to be happy in my intended career(s), i must be able to live outside my shell more often. i must be a part of a community, something i've never really felt possible. i always feel like an outsider, even among close friends. if there are more than just the two of us, i am loathe to attract too much attention to myself, even if that's where part of me wants the focus. i am good at talking to people personally and making them trust me enough to speak honestly, given a fair chance. i like this about myself and wish i gave it more of a chance. i'm not the actor, but i feel i might be invaluable as a behind-the-scenes person.

and then sometimes i can stare at a blade of grass and feel my confidence falter.

june journal smackdown!

i think i'll try to keep up with this as much as i can with my busy month. maybe i will add the missing entries at random times.

Wednesday, June 5
"How do you think other people perceive you?"

i think the general population doesn't really notice me. i tend to be unobtrusive and quiet, despite my self-consciousness.

those i know, i think they see me as cynical, funny, intelligent, and trustworthy. i know these to be true.

people who know me well--especially roommates and family--will assume that i have a different tack on current events and pop culture by virtue of my cynicism. they never expect me to simply agree with them or with the general consensus. sometimes they won't even ask my opinion at all because they know (or think they know) it will be contrarian.

i make people laugh. it's what i like to do. they do laugh, so i can only presume they find me funny from time to time.

some people ask me questions which require knowledge and/or thought. i'm frequently consulted for computer issues by my roommates (as well as library patrons, but there it is, in fact, my designated job to help them), as well as language questions, etc. even when they totally disagree with me, my opinion is usually somewhat respected.

i've been told by people i hardly know they feel they can trust me and talk pretty openly about stuff you don't tell everyone you meet. i like that. it's amusing, because i don't really think of myself as trustworthy, exactly, but i suppose it is fair enough.

i swear, i can be more interesting about some of the other topics!

i'm actually a little more worried with how people *don't* perceive me... the aspects of myself i think don't come across somehow, or aren't readily understood, that i feel are integral to knowing and understand me.

listening: blondie - divine

oh man. i am so, so tired. it's only three. i have another 2.5 hours before i can go home and crash. and i am so crashing. boom, crash! satisfying thunderous noises as i fall into bed with the drapes closed and the lights off. hours later, perhaps, i will remember wakefulness and stumble into the kitchen for some sort of meal... maybe just lemon cake. yeah, cake. mmm...

drifting, drifting... yeah.

i'm very bored right now. and tired. not wirking. kind of reading about dissociative and somatoform disorders, wooooo, party in my pants.

it's all so exciting.

i keep all the embraces that once kept me warm in a scrapbook i flip through sometimes. i get drunk on nostalgia...

dude. cannot remember the rest of the lyric. dammit.

perhaps...coffee?

i actually don't feel like coffee today. but this level of awakeness isn't quite working for me.

i'm typing over the edge of my book. it's kind of an awkward angle. hmm.

friday is coming. look busy.

stuck in my head: random stuff from the new webley cd

monday morning. i went to be at 1:30, woke up at 5, couldn't get to sleep, woke up again around 7... took a shower at 8, tried to sleep more, failed.

i am ok at the moment, but come the middle of my shift this afternoon, i'm going to be dying for a nap. someone is going to ask why their print job isn't coming out and i will respond with a much longer "uhhhh" than usual and proceed to take ten minutes to realize they put change in the machine at the same time they had their card in the card reader. they will argue with me that the machine took their money but none of the print job came out, at which point i will want to throttle them for not understanding the principle behind paying for the whole job before any of it will release.

things are so weird. i'm happy. but things are weird.

and i should get dressed, but all i want to do is sit here and listen to this repeatedly...

listening: bright eyes - june on the west coast

my walls are almost completely bare now, save a calendar by my desk. my knicknacks are packed into a box with FRAGILE scrawled on all sides. i have swept crap out of the corners behind my desk. there is still a lot to do, and i'm not even leaving until the 15th.

it's weird in here now...

oh yeah. i am not, have not, and WILL NOT read the fucking harry potter books. thank you.

listening: beck - jack-ass

don't you love having cereal stuck in your teeth?

yeah, i thought so. it's a lovely feeling. i want to go brush my teeth now, but then the chunks will just mix with the frothiness of toothpaste and be even grosser. in a few.

that was probably more than you wanted to know about my teeth.

orange is really not my color, but i like this tshirt for some reason. it's orange and says "TOLMAN, KIRK ATTORNEYS" in big blue letters across the front and has a white number 4 on the back. obviously it was from some kid's local business-sponsored sports team, but it amuses me for some reason. i think just any phrase ending in "attorneys" has this effect on me. i know that doesn't make any sense, but think about it. you can put several ridiculous word combinations before the word "attorneys" and say it in a semi-serious tone (something akin to dan ackroyd's "we're on a mission from god," but without the accent), it would be funny. or like the "they fight crime" generator. yeah.

but orange is definitely not my color, no.

last night was jason. i was antsy. chris kept trying to get me to calm down. chris kept asking if i wanted to share his trash can when i complained about the sun getting in my eyes. this, too, amused me more than it should have. we ended up somewhere in the middle of the floor. it was very crowded. jason's friend the drunken pirate did some introductions, and several of jason's other musically-inclined friends came out and performed one or two pieces each. there were four or five of these, i forget. they were interesting. we were asked to sit down just before michael mcquilken came out, though, and he's the nifty drummer, so...that was kind of silly. and sitting down is bad when you are down to standing room only. ow, my tailbone. we had to keep sitting until after the 7th song. jason was playing the album pretty much straight through, which was excellent. he had a clock and big blow-ups of the artwork that accompany each track in the album sleeve. i knew nearly all of the songs already, and they are awesome songs! i determined that this is my ninth webley show, too. weird. that's not even going to every possible show i could go to--i distinctly remember missing one when kk was in town long ago and i was scared of running into this icky guy at the show (or that is what i remember telling him...and, no, it wasn't my ex), as well as the kirkland show with the piano. the show was, overall, very cool, if not the coolest i've been to (that would have to be his birthday last year, good freaking god). we didn't have a march and there weren't as many theatrics, but it was still good. jason looked happy, and we sang him happy birthday. he played "against the night" for us at the end while sitting atop a ladder.

the new album is good. it has a very different feeling from the other two, and sounds... odd, but i am sure it will grow on me. there are a lot more musicians and orchestration, which is cool, and it feels like a very coherent work.

and chris has been successfully indoctrinated into the cult. muahahaha.

it's kind of weird to me to be part of the fandom of someone like this. i'm quite obsessive; it disturbs me. i wouldn't say jason webley is my favorite artist of all time, but he's one of them, definitely, and a big part of that has been the shows.

i just want to find an excuse to interview him for a publication or something. i want a reason to talk to him beyond, "so, um.. yeah, your music is really cool, and your shows are amazing experiences for me, and the lyrics touch me, etc." and unlike some people, i don't want to marry him. ;)

it looks like a nice day. i wonder if i can convince anyone to rent a canoe with me. that might be hell on my tailbone, though.

i should organize and clean and such today in preparation for moving. i will not have a shitload of time after i get back from california, so that would be a good idea.

i like some people today. people are kinda fun sometimes.

and jason is breaking my heart. like neil young said, only love can break your heart.

listening: jason webley - southern cross