i may well be gone for a couple days between moving and perhaps not having internet access soon after i move in (gasp! the horrors!). still need to call attbi for installation stuff as soon as possible. oh yeah, movin' back down to cable. sigh.

i think we're going to want to install it on my machine. it's pretty stable, and if i get a new computer, it's becoming a linux box in the living room. we need a hub and long ethernet cables.

we need a lot of things. i'm gonna go thrifting like a madwoman.

and my sister's graduating from high school on monday evening, so i'll be in olympia for a few days. i can probably blog in oly, though, and i probably will.

otherwise, the rest of my immediate future should be dedicated to packing, moving, and...oh yeah, that whole acing-a-final-in-abnormal-psych thing. well, maybe not acing, but doing passably well.

thanks to kevin and sammy for their suggestions for my list. where's YOUR contribution?

throwing this out here real quick:

as i've mentioned before, i should have a gig as dj for the new internet radio station run by my school's associated student body. my show, which i intend to call 'mixtape for the masses,' will showcase a variety of music centered around a different theme each week, like a mixtape. i'm putting together lists and lists of songs that might work for various theme shows, as well as theme ideas, and i'd like your suggestions. the weirder, the better.

here's the list so far. leave me some comments here!

june journal smackdown!

Thursday, June 13
"Which part of your house is always dirty?"

my house, or rather, my apartment is always, always dirty. i seldom clean the bathroom myself, and vaccum only when absolutely necessary. i pick stuff up in the living room and bedroom when the clutter starts to bug me and try to keep things relatively organized.

the kitchen is the fun part.

i can really get into cleaning the kitchen, because there is always something to clean. its dirt is constantly in motion. there is dirt all over the fridge, food molding in cupboards, on countertops, in the fridge. there are dishes piling up in the sink every time someone eats (and in a house of six girls, that's frequently). things are spilled on the stovetop and all over the cupboard doors and drawer fronts. there is dirt in the sink. there are clean dishes that are magically unclean.

in fact, i just spent an hour cleaning the kitchen. and some change. i went through two cds, and there is still plenty of dirt.

that's ok. i'm moving out. i don't know.

the bathroom is perpetually dirty because i hate cleaning it. no one else likes to clean it, either. there is mildew and hard water stains and random gunk and dust collecting in corners. there are hair clumps over the drains. we got dinged on our quarterly "inspection" for having showers of an unacceptably low cleanliness level. (fuck that; we tried to clean, it wasn't our fault.)

honestly, i swear, it's only dirty in the details, for the most part. and in the smut littered about the place, but that's another story.

listening: dj krush - shin-sekai (feat. rino)

i can't think of anything to say on yesterday's smackdown topic, repetitive motion injury. i've never had one. i hope i never get one.

i mean, maybe if you count hurting myself by chewing my fingernails and the skin around them too much... that's repetitive, and it involves bleeding and small infections and stuff. but that isn't exactly carpal tunnel.

my favorite college english teacher once said, "carpal tunnel isn't exactly a divine experience." i wish i could remember the context, but it's still amusing.

my mom has foot problems. i forget what it's called, but i think it may also count as a repetitive motion injury. it makes it hard for her to walk, because her foot hust hurts. i used to give her foot massages for it when i came home on weekends because dad didn't do it right. he seemed hesitant to apply the force of his knuckles. i got her a knuckle-like wooden massage tool for her birthday, which i think worked out for her ok. now she spends a lot of time in her hot tub, blasting her feet with the jets.

as for today...i'm at work. since 7am. it's the only day i work until june 24, though. i will be working 7 to 10:30am four days a week over the summer. my boss said no one is happy with the schedule, but you have to pick your hell. i think i prefer a weekday hell with weekends free to one where i have no days completely off. at least i'm not working thursdays, if that's any consolation. i'll have to learn the delicate balancing art of napping and caffeine addiction, which i have thus far managed to avoid in my college career.

the harem is weird now--reid's moved out, carly seems gone, jana is busy with life (and done with finals, and leaving for a vacation to colorado on saturday), christine is probably coming back today, and jen is gleefully done with her classwork, too. someone did away with all the communal foods that once lived in the corner of the counter, so i am missing five english muffins and four roma tomatoes. i'm hungry. my food supply is dwindling, and i can't quite justify going grocery shopping. especially after the money i spent last weekend. oh yes. lots of eating out. mm. food. i'm hungry. but the harem!

yes. it's disappearing. i am sure we will do stuff over the summer, but it's not the same. the harem is pretty fucking cool, and things will be different now. ah, well.

i should be studying for my psych final. that's all i have left. it is supposed to be a gorgeous day, which means the temperature will creep towards 90 (or so i'm told), which is hardly my definition of a nice day. i like it 65 degrees, maybe a slight breeze, and cloudy. full sun is annoying. heat is annoying, especially when there is moisture in the air. it's quite unbearable and makes me feel sluggish. but yes, i must study.

chris is bored bored bored (as evidenced by the insane amount of work he's put into his blog recently) and wants to do something. i could probably stand to get an iced cappuccino and go sit on the swings in the park near his place again. heh.

there's a guy who just came to the desk to ask if we have any computers up here that can access the library catalog. "oh, yes," i told him, "all of them." he wandered over to the drop-in area and started trying to wake up some macs. i think they're turned off. i am half-positive he's going to wander back over here in a minute and ask where the library catalog is. it's online. there is no specific link for it. he seems confused, but he didn't ask. yet. whew. fortunately, very few things of catastrophic consequence occur during this shift, else i'd just be dumbfounded in the face of such emergency. people ask to borrow scissors, the copier runs out of toner (boss has to tell me how to add toner), the print stations reboot. nothing i can't handle. yup. yay.

wow, luna was good live. too bad they didn't play the song that i have stuck in my head now, special thanks to the girl who repeatedly requested it during the encores.

i'll write today's smackdown when i get home.

does anyone care about these smackdown entries? heh. i think it's kind of fun, though i am not babbling enough about them.

yeah. back to studying for an hour. and then i should pick up a paycheck and go home. yeah. what a life.

stuck in my head: luna - tiger lily

june journal smackdown!

Tuesday, June 11
"What's your earliest memory?"

i'm told memories before around the age of four are pretty unreliable, so it is with great trepidation that i say my earliest memory is probably from about age two and a half. it's entirely possible that this memory is constructed from what people have told me about the time, but with memories, it's rather hard to tell.

(i am taking a class on human memory in the fall, yummy!)

when i was two years, four months old, my sister was born. i distinctly remember running around the hospital, obsessed by the stairs and elevators. i remember running into the room where my mother was with my newborn sister and coming up to the bottom of the bed. there is also an image of an apple somewhere.

my mother told me before that i ran around like a crazed maniac and rode the elevator to the point of annoying hospital staff. i was a two-year-old terrorist.

there isn't much to the memory; it's pretty fuzzy, but it's definitely connected to the earliest thing i think i can remember.

listening: jimmy eat world - spangle

june journal smackdown!

Monday, June 10
body hair

yes, playing a bit of catch-up here. it counts for one daily serving of vegetables in school cafeterias.

body hair is an issue near and dear to me. i haven't shaved my legs regularly since i was 15 or 16. hairy legs have served me well. they allow me to be lazy and occasionally give me traction while i get up on the soapdish about the issue.

i sometimes feel very self-conscious if i'm wearing anything that reveals my legs. it seems pretty socially unacceptable for a girl to not shave. i mean, people will say that's cool, but you don't ever *see* it. i know girls who don't, but i also don't see their hair unless they roll up their pantlegs and show me. this was one of the first things that made me know i was going to get along just fine with christine last year, in fact--neither of us shaved. my mother thinks it's rather disgusting, and once told me it reminded her of her mother, who would neglect to shave and wear pantyhose, under which all the little dark hairs resembled downed forests or something.

some boys don't care. others, when pressed, admit that, yeah, they find it kind of unattractive, though they recognize the hypocrisy, blah blah blah. i have long said i would shave if the person i was with cared enough. my main reason for not shaving is having no reason to do so. of course, i'd prefer to keep it that way.

on the other hand, i shave my armpits. hair there just...annoys the crap out of me.

in general, though, i would say i don't mind it at all. body hair is perfectly natural, etc. blah blah blah. i used to have more issues with it, but now... meh. hair grows where it grows, and, in general, it's not insanely unattractive. i make an exception for very thick, curly hair on the shoulders of middle-aged white men--that's just downright ugly. something i really did not want to see on a cruise ship at age 13, anyway.

listening: fatboy slim - santa cruz

hmm.

i'm not sure what to say. but i should say something.

my trip was...great. yes. i wish i were still there. i really do not want to be home.

let's see. trip in a nutshell.

i got in friday evening before sunset. kevin was wating outside the security checkpoint, which was very near the gate. i discovered the joy of polarized sunglasses and funny plane windowpanes on my way down and saw pretty rainbow-colored waters the whole time. i had a window seat, unobstructed by the wing, and could see the ocean the whole flight. from the airport, we drove directly to los gatos for the all-ages jason webley show there. we got lost trying to find our way around town, but eventually discovered the venue tucked behind the baseball field of the local high school. appropriately, the place was swarming with crazy high school kids, maybe some younger. i talked to jason briefly, during which time i managed to indicate my obsessive fangirl-like qualities for his performance ("this is my 10th time seeing you!"--he stepped back in surprise). his set was good--he plays different stuff for the non-cult seattle fans, though some kids were obviously familiar with his work and singing along to the older songs. he even played the aardvark song. heh. people danced and stuff. he told them to follow the carrot. his drummer, michael mcquilken, was playing his rhythmic device (made of cans, etc.) outside after the show and wowing the kids who didn't care about the silly cover band that came on after jason. sammy showed up late to the show, and i think he only caught two songs.

after the show, sammy went back to san jose and kevin and i went to santa cruz. we watched stars on the beach until it was too cold, then enjoyed the remnants of someone else's bonfire on the walk back to the car. they hadn't bothered to put it out.

on saturday, we watched bottle rocket, which i hadn't seen before, and went to downtown santa cruz. this involved some browsing of various stores and purchasing of too much music at streetlight and a postcard for meesh. we had food at this really cool vegetarian place called dharma's and headed up to the city to hang out in golden gate park for awhile before the luna show. there was an insane wind at the park, and the sun was so bright... we wandered for a few hours before taking off to find bimbo's 365. kevin had been there before, but we still got a little lost in that we made the wrong turn right next to the club and went for blocks in the wrong direction. oops. we had to park waythefuck up the hill, too.

kevin and i got there before the opening band, and we stood right in the front, stage left, and leaned on a monitor. sammy arrived later by cab with his friend jenn, and i ran out to give him his ticket. the band, sonic boom, was... bad, for lack of a better word to encompass their suckiness, but at least they were amusingly sucktastic. they were really...dull. they played about three notes a song and just dragged them out over the course of several minutes. sometimes there were lyrics with very silly and cliched sentiments, also repeated. i seem unable to describe how ridiculous they were, so it will have to remain the butt of inside jokes.

luna, on the other hand, rocked a whole fucking lot. they played good songs and they played them well. luna live is great! they played two encores. after all that, i was dead fucking tired, but still stayed up much later.

sunday we went to a state park with redwoods and ate a picnic lunch. it was quite lovely. after that, i was a little sleepy, but we drove to this beach outside of santa cruz near some cliffs and sat in the wind and the sun for a long time, mostly huddle next to each other and blocking our eyes from the sun. kevin said he forgot where he was for awhile. when we did watch the surf, though, it was beautiful, crashing on the rocks and up the steep embankments of rough sand. we thought about going to a movie after that, but ended up browsing cookbooks for an hour before getting thai food.

we got up early on monday and drove to point lobos on monterey bay. we spent about three hours walking all over, watching sea lions, noticing where the wind blew bitter and cold and where it subsided, watching hyperactive schoolchildren throw rocks at the water, climbing rocks, examining tidepools, and just generally enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery. i don't think i'd ever seen the pacfic ocean look so blue and amazing. after that, we spent some time at the monterey bay aquarium, which was fun. there were some neat exhibits.

yesterday we watched the fisher king, went to the beach, and ate at dharma's again before leaving for the airport. i found out after kevin left and i went through security that my flight was delayed half an hour.

i really don't want to be here! now i need to shower and eat and study for a final that's happening in a few short hours (but for which i have studyed not at all). my allergies are back and i'm out of nasal spray. too much unfun shit to do this week that might seem less unbearable if i hadn't just returned from such an amazing weekend. damn you, kevin! (...i take that back. damn irony. it must be at fault. not me.)

listening: red stars theory - a sailor's warning

ooh ahh. i'm home. i don't really want to be here, but hey. it's gotta be how it is, i guess. i've got obligations, like school and people and living arrangements. can't put all that aside for the bright light of happiness i beheld down in cali-forn-i-ay. yup.

my ears are plugged up, and i'm tired. i think it's bedtime.

i'll talk about it tomorrow, i guess. i am not sure what all to tell. it was a good trip. no, scratch that, it was a great trip. yeah. if i don't talk about that, i'll at least try to catch up on smackdown entries. being busy is nuts, yo. but i regret nothing.

listening: luna - going home