Too true, Jeeves.

I used to be a much better writer.

Shit Happens: A Lament

Shit happens, but I don't know why. I wish I had some wonderfully UN approach to this Book of Job phenomenon, but I am drained of most of my compassion and choose to focus selfishly on myself, as I usually and pathetically do.

I don't understand why bad things happen to my good family, why we have no money, why my dad keeps getting sued.

I don't understand why I can't be happy in one place, why I want to get away from everywhere at once so badly.

I don't understand why I fail to communicate with those closest to me and have woven an intricate web of lies to protect myself.

I don't understand why I don't like tomatoes.

I don't understand why I thrive on emotional pain and let the people who caused it back into my life so freely.

I don't understand why I can't stand up to my friends when I need to.

I don't understand why I have let my heart become so callous to the tragedy in my family.

I don't understand why I feel that a relationship with a stable guy will solve all my problems.

I don't understand why I'm so scared of my writing.

I don't understand why my face still breaks out like a 15 year old when I wash it twice daily.

I don't know why I'm so cynical about Christianity.

I don't understand why it takes me so long to open up to people.

I don't understand why I thrive on my vices.

I don't understand why I'm a feminist sometimes, especially since I care so much about what guys think of me.

I don't understand why I feel it is so necessary to put on a show for people, to protect whatever reputation I have.

I don't understand why people trust and respect me sometimes, I want to shake them and scream, "Are you kidding me?? Run, run far away!!"

I don't understand why I can't be like everyone else in Torrey and why it's so hard for me.

I don't understand why I don't rely on God.

Survey stolen from Roxana who stole it from Sydney

Tis' the weekend before finals. Frances, my dear roommate, has left to go to some big Hollywood party with her boyfriend, leaving me here in the apartment with the same pair of sweats I've been wearing for the past four days, a stack of JSTOR articles, and large bowl of cold brown rice to last me through through the weekend, as we have no food and refuse to go to the store before we migrate back home for the holidays. I have been writing the worst paper I've ever written in my life [It's basically done and still has no thesis, fancy that] and this is my reward.

1. Where is your sister right now?I don’t have a sister, I don’t think...unless there is something my parents have not told me

2. Last place you kissed someone? My couch. Or the mouth. I don't understand the use of "place."

3. Name five things you did today?
a. Scrubbed the soap scum out of the bathtub.
b. Ordered a triple venti nonfat extra-hot pepermint mocha at Starbs in my pajamas with mad hair.
c. Cried for a little while.
d. Tried to wrap a bottle of whiskey with holiday wrapping paper. P.S. It's hard.
e. Watched the episode of Friends where Ross marries Emily and then cursed at the TV when I realized it was a two-parter and I didn't have the next disk.

4. Last person you text messaged? Garrett.

5. What are you listening to? Sarah McLachlan's version of Joni Mitchell's "River."

6. Eye Color? Blue-green.

7. Has anyone told you they're in love with you? Bruce Kim my senior year of high school. Poor kid.

8. What color are your bedroom walls? Apartment; off-white. Home; green, blue, and purple.

9. Do you have a chair in your room? Well, in the apartment we have three couches, four dining room chairs, two desk chairs, and that scary one I pulled out of the dumpster in September.

10. What are you doing tomorrow? Alot of the same; sitting on my couch in the same pair of sweats, working. Hopefully someone will visit me. Me and Frances are making a nice dinner for ourselves though.

11. What should you be doing right now? Rewriting this shithole of a lit paper.

12. Do you get along with your parents? It's off and on. We're off.

13. Any pets? Lucy and Prince Charles the Third, my Jack Russells, and Pearl Einstein, my gay stray cat.

14. Favorite band? The Beatles are a founbdational classic, rivaled by Regina Spektor and Sufjan.

15. Are you married/engaged? No. I don't plan on being eiather for quite some time, thank you.

16. When was the last time you talked to one of your siblings? I had a charming conversation with my brother a few hours ago. I was giving him hangover tips. Aww, my baby's growing up, making bad desisions...

17. Do you play an instrument? No. I wish I was more musically inclined.

18. Are you allergic to anything? Technically cats, but I've seen no proof of that.

19. Do you miss someone? Yes.

20. Do you think they miss you too? Yes.

21. How many credit cards do you have? One, but I try not to use it.

22. Have you ever wanted to be a teacher? No.

23. What is one thing you've learned about life? We do everything for sex, money, and approval.

24. Is anyone jealous of you? One of my best friend's girlfriends was jealous of me. I kind of liked that. Kept her in line.

25. Ever been stuck in an elevator? No.

26. What does your dad call you? Alot of embarressing things that I had to ask him politely to stop calling me when I had boys over. Think "Tator tot" and "Bird Brain."

27. What does you hair look like right now? Tamed and on top of my head, with a headband restraining it further.

28. Has anyone told you they like you more than a friend? Yeah. It throws a wrench into things.

29. What did you last eat? A piece of leftover ham, a baked potato, grilled red peppers.

30. Is your hair naturally curly or straight? Niether, it's just mad.

31. Who was the last person you drove with? Erin and I had a mandatory Starbucks run a few hours ago.

32. What are you looking forward to? Elyse's party. Heels!

33. What's your biggest pet peeve? Forced conversation.

34. Do you have any tattoos? No, but I love watching people get tattoos. I secretly want one.

35. What's your favorite drink? White wine or Heiniken. Or, you know. Water.

36. Any piercings? Ears. I going to repierce my cartiledge.

37. What do you want to be? I'm pretty pleased as is.

38. Obsessions? Scruff on guys, grapefruits, straitening my hair, Sufjan Stevens.

39. Have you ever thought about getting your lip pierced? Yes, but no thanks.

40. Are you more of a coffee or alcohol drinker? Both. Together, preferably.

41. Have you ever been arrested? No, but I kind of want to be.

42. What are you afraid of? Being alone.

43. What color are your toe nails? Frosty pink. Kind of not very me, but it's too cold for flip flops, so no one will ever know.

44. Ever had your heart broken? Yes. Pretty bad too.

45. What was the highlight of your week? Something foolish.

46. When was the last time you hugged your best friend? Yesterday, two days ago, a few weeks ago [I have a few best friends.]

47. If you could change one thing about your current situation, what would it be? I would have all my work done and it would be awsome so I could Christmas shop and bake pumpkin bread.

48. When is your bedtime? Around 1.

49. What's the first thing you see outside your window?The courtyard of my complex.

50. What would your "Make-a-Wish" be? It would be travel related. Havn't decided where yet.

Mother Russia!!!

I am going to Russia. I am so absolutly over the moon!! Russia is just sort of one of those places that you read abiut and really wish someday you could see, but you never acctually, you know, go. It's not like Europe, it's not so easily attainable. So on the 25th of May, I leave for New York, and then for London, and then for St. Petersburg, and then for Moscow. And them me and some friends will be spending about a week in England and Scotland. I'm too excited to be creative.

The Lobster Race

Mrs. Mitchell was of the philosophy that depravity cultivated moral fiber; a redefined prerequisite for what she assumed was progressive parenting. Her only daughter, Elliott, was cloistered from what her mother had decided would spoil the pure fruit of her “tree of virtue.” These mealy garden worms of devastation included but were not limited to animal byproducts, public television, synthetic materials, partially-hydrogenated soybean oil, and most importantly, religion.
Whenever Elliott would pluck up the moxie to ask her mother for something that happened to fall into her rolodex of corruption, whether that be to attend a sock hop at the community center or have peanut butter instead of flax-seed spread on her sandwiches, she would receive the same well-rehearsed retort from her stringent caretaker: “There is a time and a place for sock hops/peanut butter, but this is not it.”
It was a mantra, an absurd mantra, repeated so many times that it had lost meaning for both Elliott and Mrs. Mitchell. It didn’t take long for her to come to the realization that this time and place would never come as long as she lived under her mother’s roof.
Mrs. Mitchell filed for a divorce from Elliott’s father after dealing with his “poor choices” for far too long. After years of adhering to his wife’s austere and minimalist lifestyle, he found himself longing for the fullness and warmth he experienced as a child living in the Midwest. He looked to the local Methodist church to find himself spiritually, but after a few months he instead found himself divorced. That was three years ago, right after her tenth birthday. Elliott saw him every other weekend, but it wasn’t exactly what she would call “quality time.” He spent the weekend following her around like a puppy with a glass of merlot, hammering her with questions about her mother’s social agenda. Mr. Mitchell was still desperately in love with his ex-wife for reasons Elliott couldn’t begin to comprehend.
The only thing Elliott liked about the odd weekend spent at her father’s was the access to a television. Granted, it was an old white Zenith set from the early 70’s, but she could still get decent reception if she tilted the rusted rabbit ears the right way. She would get a carton of ice crème from Mr. Mitchell’s freezer, her mouth practically watering for unrefined sugar and triglycerides, crash on the cheap futon and educate herself.
She would watch any program that came on regardless of popularity or interest; it was all novel and fascinating to Elliott. Music videos, news specials, 50’s sitcoms, reality programs, game shows, movie reruns…all were grand vessels of pertinent information. Of course she never told her mother about her descent to the realm of mass media. It was better to just read yet another volume of her Encyclopedia Britannica and eat a slice of organic nut loaf, oblivious to the flashing, pulsating world that revolved around her.
It was the night before Mother’s Day when Mrs. Mitchell crept into Elliott’s dim bedroom, and kneeling by her head, reached out a soft hand to stroke her daughter’s rich chestnut hair. Elliott was not yet asleep, she was staring at the wall with drooping eyes, still trying to think her way through the list of ingredients she would need to bake a vegan coffee cake the next morning for her mother. She waited for her to speak.
“What is it?” Elliott finally asked, agitated to be disturbed.
“Oh, honey, I thought you were asleep.”
“Not yet. What is it?” she repeated, still staring at the wall in front of her.
Her mother inhaled sharply.
“I just wanted to make sure to tell you to wash your hair in the morning. We’re going to need to go to the hospital, to visit Tami.” She said the last part very fast.
Elliot flipped over to face her, eyes wide with curiosity.
“You said I wasn’t allowed.”
“I know I said that. But this time is different. She really wants to see you.”
“She really wanted to see me before she overdosed. You wouldn’t let me then.”
“Elliott, please. I said this time is different.”
“Because this time you feel guilty,” she mumbled into the corner of her pillow.
She regretted it the minute it came out of her mouth. The hallway light that escaped through the crack in her bedroom door cast a deep shadow on her mother’s face, but she didn’t need any light to see her tears. She hated it when her mother cried. It was like watching Superman walk with a limp.
Tami was her mother’s younger sister, and Elliott’s favorite person in the world. Tami was everything her sister was not, fun-loving, understanding, passionate. She had hair the color of a freshly-minted penny, and a lot of it. She was a painter, a real painter. Mrs. Mitchell was a painter too, but not in the same way that Tami was. Mrs. Mitchell painted wholesome bowls of crimson apples, or idyllic landscapes with weeping willows and petite chateaus, nothing Elliott had ever actually seen in real life. But Tami didn’t paint things, she painted ideas. Vibrant, revolutionary ideas.
When the Mitchell’s were still married and pseudo-happy, Elliott would be dropped off at her aunt’s house while her parents went out on the weekends. Elliott would sit on a burgundy barstool and watch her aunt paint. She wouldn’t use a stretched canvas like her mother; she would use a sheet of corrugated aluminum siding, something she found in a dumpster in back of the grocery store. She wouldn’t sit on a chair with her legs crossed either, she would dance around in her leggings with bare feet, flicking purple paint on each side of the metal sheet as she belted Elton John, her hair dotted with prismatic turpentine. She would pass the paintbrush off to her niece and both would dance and flick and sing until they collapsed on the floor in a heap.
Elliott wasn’t allowed to see her anymore. Tami had made “poor choices” as well, but these choices had nothing to do with religious preference. Shortly after her sister’s first overdose two years ago, Mrs. Mitchell sat her daughter down on one of the many floor cushions scattered throughout the loft and explained to her that Tami was a user, and had been for quite some time.
“Do you know what a user is?”
“A drug user, yeah,” Elliott responded.
Her mother looked at her with narrowed eyes. She clearly hadn’t expected her daughter to understand.
“I read about it. Newspaper.” HBO, actually, she thought to herself.
From that day forward, Elliott was banned from seeing her favorite aunt. She was still sore about it, and for that reason felt partially justified in snapping at her mother that night. But being privy to her mother’s internal guilt and sorrow was too much to bear the night before Mother’s Day, so she changed the subject hastily.
“It’s Mother’s Day tomorrow.”
“I know sweetheart, but we’ll just have to celebrate when we get back home.”

#

Fountains sputtered chemically-treated water from one tier to the next, fichus trees sprouted in every corner, and the floors were so glossy that Elliott could see every freckle on her fair face, just by looking down. The nurses were waiflike and merry, pushing equally cheery convalescents around in hospital-owned wheelchairs, all smiling stupidly. What was the point of the hospital lobby looking like a Marriott? It was like putting pink frosting on a rotten fish…sure, it made it look better, but it’s still a fish, and a rotten one at that.
Elliott looked up from the floor to see her mother leading a handsome man over to where she stood. Mrs. Mitchell sported a plastic smile, which looked odd juxtaposed with her puffy, pink eyes.
“Elliott, you remember your cousin, Bryce?”
Vaguely. Bryce was the child Tami had in high school, before she dropped out and moved to Wimbledon with Bryce’s father, a motocross hopeful. Elliott met him once when she was seven at the first and last Mitchell Family BBQ, and even then it was only for a moment.
She was awkwardly aware of their age difference. Elliott had yet to fit into her bra, while Bryce had a tattoo of Bach on his neck that poked out of his wrinkled Sex Pistol’s t-shirt. She smiled sheepishly at him. He made a peace sign with his fingers. With that greeting, the three set off through the swinging double-doors of the intensive care unit.
The atmosphere changed dramatically. The walls were the color of mint juleps, and framed desert scenes hung crookedly on their nails, but that couldn’t mask the omniscient presence of death that lingered behind ever gurney, leaned against every nurse’s station, and breathed down Elliott’s neck, fogging up her wire-rim glasses. It was a world of cold reality, far from the synthetic optimism of the bobbling Mylar balloons and perky Gerber daisies. It was a world of tears and moans and IV drips. There was no need to pretend in the ICU. No need to frost the fish.
For a minute, Elliott thought they had entered the wrong room; the woman in the bed looked nothing like the vivacious aunt who used to put on puppet shows in the garage with cooking utensils and old gym socks. But Bryce made a beeline for the bed and kissed the corpse of a woman on the forehead, making her pallid face twitch. Her usually brilliant hair was ruddy and limp, eyes closed, veins prominently violet through her paper-white skin.
Elliott stood at the edge of the bed like a specter, hovering silently while her cousin and mother spoke in frantic whispers. She was starting to wonder why she had even come until she sensed Tami’s hand shakily moving towards her own, her index finger overlapping onto Elliott’s pinky, a haunting smile forming at her lips. Tami and her niece stayed like that for several minutes, until she started to twist from side to side in obvious discomfort, wobbly hand reaching to grab the rim of the plastic bowl on the nightstand.
It all happened very quickly, Bryce had pushed her out into the hallway before her aunt began to retch, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against the wood railing, staring at the closed door, slowly breathing in the stale, clinical air. She tried to cry, but nothing happened. This frustrated her even more.
After a while Bryce came out, brow beaded with pearls of sweat. He clicked the door shut behind him. He looked down the hall both ways before settling his eyes on his cousin.
“So, your mom is gonna watch mine for a while, just while she sleeps.”
“Okay.”
“Wanna get some grub?”
“What?”
“Food. Do you want some food?”
“Oh. Sure.”
He had a Jeep, a big black Jeep with no top on it. Elliott stared at the monster while he unlocked the passenger side door.
“Can this drive through water?”
“Probably. Not like a lake or anything. But big puddles, sure.”
They drove without saying a word. Bryce immediately jerked the knob that controlled the volume of his custom sound system to the right, prompting the netted speakers to explode with music Elliott was sure her mother wouldn’t approve of. She passed the time on the freeway by counting all the words she wasn’t allowed to use at home.
Bryce dropped his cousin off in front of a quaint beach house off of Tea Street, paralleling the famous Tea Street Beach. Tami used to take her there when she was little with her mother, when they sort of got along, or tolerated each other, at least.
“The key is under the mat. I gotta grab something from a buddy for dinner, there’s not really much in the house, you know?”
Elliott nodded. As she turned to face the house, she heard the wheels of the Jeep screech along the asphalt as he sped down the quiet residential street. The house, even without the loving touch of its mother, looked truly lovely in the late-morning sun. It was a fairy-tale cottage, sort of like the ones her mother painted when she wasn’t teaching. Cornflower blue hydrangeas lined the cobblestone walkway leading to the driftwood front door. Copious amounts of glinting silver wind chimes jingled a merry melody as they danced in the sea breeze. She could taste the salt on her tongue. Elliott bent down, retrieving the key. As she unlocked the door, her eyes fell on a small heart carved in the wood, right over the handle.
“From a lover,” Tami had answered one morning over their chai tea. “He carved that into my door the night after he professed his love for me.” Her eyes were alight with mischievous fire, remembering. Elliott smiled; hoping one day a lover would carve a heart in her front door too.
Tami rented the little beach cottage from an elegant elderly woman she met teaching art at the YMCA down the street. She had gone on holiday to North Umbria six years ago and simply never came back. She let Tami stay in her house just in case she did decided to return, but they both knew it was terribly unlikely.
Tami would lean over the table when she told this story again and again, and whisper playfully, “She met a man! An Italian man…can you imagine?”
Elliott could not. She was nine.
She would always ask her to imitate Dame Marie, as she was called. No one could do impressions like Elliott’s aunt. She did them the right way, with facial expressions and accents and props. She would wrap a pashmina around her shoulders and take great strides around the parlor, throwing her voice and clicking her French-manicured fingernails on the Formica countertops, name-dropping and making her niece roar with laughter.
Sometimes they would samba. They would samba around the armchairs and umbrella stands, sambaing through the kitchen and the backyard and the bathroom and the garage, and they would form a Congo line, just Tami and Elliott. Her mother had always frowned when they danced. Her mother always seemed to be frowning when she was around her sister.
“You’re going to get yourself into trouble,” she would say, glowering. “More trouble,” she would add.
Tami would flick her wrist into the air. “Lighten up, Lee Ann,” she would say, with a lighthearted smile.
Elliott didn’t understand what her mother meant by trouble, at least not until that morning, when she saw her fearless aunt vomit into a bucket with tubes sticking out of her side, hooked up to boxes that beeped. Trouble.
The front door slammed open, startling Elliott. Light streamed into the dank house. Bryce walked towards her out of breath, a delighted look on his face. He thrust his arms outwards towards her; pushing a two squirming, clicking creatures at her face. She involuntarily recoiled.
“Lobster!” He proclaimed proudly. “Buddy owed me a favor. We’re eatin’ somethin’ gourmet tonight!”
Elliott looked at the prizes closer. They were indeed lobsters, two soggy, scarlet lobsters double-wrapped in butcher’s paper. Their feelers waved every which way, desperate to collect their bearings out of the comfort of the tank. Their massive claws were rubber-banded shut, green elastic handcuffs for the innocent captives.
Bryce left the room; she heard the bathtub water start to run, followed by two distinctive splashes. He returned, a smile on his face.
“So, what do you like it with? Melted butter, or somethin’ a bit more high-brow?”
“Sorry?”
“For the lobster.”
“Oh. I don’t know.”
“You’ve never had lobster?”
She looked at ground, embarrassed of her own inexperience. He in turn threw his head back in laughter.
“Oh, man! How deprived are you? I spose there’s not enough room between your bran muffins and lentil soup to fit in lobster, eh?”
She smiled a little, and followed him to the kitchen. He was filling a deep pot with water with one hand, and rifling through Dame Marie’s spice rack with the other. Elliott wondered if he was thinking about Tami as much as she was.
“Are you scared?”
“What?” His head was in a drawer, looking for metal tongs.
“Are you scared about…about your mom.”
Bryce straightened up. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes, instead he chose a spot next to her ear, and focused on it intensely, clicking the tongs together.
“Oh. Yea, I guess. But I mean, it happened before, you know? And she got out of it. They told us then there was no hope either. I don’t think I really believe the doctors at this point.”
“Why didn’t she stop the first time?”
“Stop doing drugs?” He smiled a little, and his smile turned into a chuckle. Elliott once again felt the stark difference in their ages. “You can’t just…you can’t just stop doing drugs like that.” He snapped his fingers together for effect.
“Doesn’t it bother you that she does them at all? I mean, she’s your mom, and…”
“I love her the way she is, it doesn’t matter what she does. Not everyone’s life is perfect, Elliott.” His voice had lost its congenial warmth.
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“I need to get the lobsters.”
Elliott stood, swaying on the spot as he whisked by her, her shame rising red-hot to her cheeks.
“When Mom would get us lobster, we would always have a lobster race.”
Bryce had returned to the room empty-handed. His hands were in his pockets, his eyes sullen. She hadn’t noticed the purple rings under his eyes before.
“A lobster race?”
“Yeah. We would make a track around the house, like a racetrack, and we would, you know, race them.”
“What did the winner get?”
He grinned. “Freedom. We would take him down to the beach and set him loose.”
She needed no more convincing. The two cousins began clearing a track in the cluttered house, moving end tables and piano benches, tearing the cushions off the couches. Books became barriers, as did crystal clocks and buckets of paint. Bryce told stories about his mother while Elliott listened. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she nodded, but most of the time she just remembered. At that moment, the only Tami that existed was the one who sambaed in the kitchen and blew the whistle at the start of the great lobster race.
“ When Aunt Tami gets better, we should have another one,” Elliott grunted as she pushed her weight against a cabinet, urging it to move. “I’m sure Mom would let me. She feels really bad about being…what’s it called? Estranged. We can come over every weekend, and we can race lobsters.”
“Maybe crabs too. We can have them fight each other. Mom would like that.”
The two stood back against the wall and admired their creation. The track started at the bathtub, where the two oblivious lobsters bubbled gleefully in the lukewarm water. It followed out the door to the living room, curled around a chintz armchair, paralleling the oak coffee table, littered with travel magazines and Tami’s art journals. It then traveled through the kitchen, under the knotted dining table, and finally into the den, where a shoelace lay across the brown shag carpeting marking the finish line.
“Which one do you want?” Bryce was holding the squirming lobsters.
Elliott chose the smaller one, and the crustacean athletes were placed on the worn bathmat, spilling water all over the linoleum. Bryce put his fingers to his mouth and whistled as if he were calling a cab. The race was on. The cousins then prodded their lobsters which reluctantly started to move, blindly bumping into the towers of antique books and shipping boxes collected from the garage. They screamed like parents at a little league game from the bathroom to the living room to the kitchen. Bryce’s lobster seemed to be edging ahead, but it was difficult to tell; they kept knocking over the pillow-walls with their flailing claws.
The lobsters were rounding the den when the phone rang. The shrill ring pierced through the air, giving Elliott’s arms; already wet from wrestling her sodden lobster to the starting line; little oval goose bumps. In a way they both already knew, even before Bryce picked up the receiver. She stood perfectly still, keeping both her eyes on her cousin as he listened intently to the voice on the other side of the phone. His lips pursed together as he silently nodded, eyes closed tightly. She felt the color drain from her face.
Had she been paying attention, Elliott would have noticed that her lobster, although smaller in stature, was far craftier than her cousin’s. She had taken the initiative and knocked over a goose-down pillow so she and her mate could escape the racetrack. The two were headed for the open front door, the door with Tami’s heart on it. They were heading for the front door, heading for the ocean, heading for freedom.

Across the Frickin' Universe!!

Last night I went to the Arclight in LA to see Across the Universe a week before it hits the masses. Me, Bruno, Elyse, and Deave tarted up and hit Sunset Blvd. Friday night, saturated with the Beatles songs we had set on shuffle/repeat all week. After smooging around Amoeba for a while lusting after appropriately priced LP's, we claimed our $14 seats at the Arclight and prepared ourselves for the most remarkable viewing experience ever. The 4 of us were the most obnoxious people in the theater, screeching when our favorite songs came on or when Jude looked especially hot. [Even though I personally prefer Max, don't ask me why. He was the brother in Becoming Jane, and I wanted to sex him up good then.]

This movie....it made me perfectly happy to be myself, happy to be free, happy to be liberal, happy to be a Beatles fan, happy to be alive, happy to be young, happy to have the world open to me.

Plus, I saw Ryan Gosling.

An Unfinished Apartment

This is a tour of my favorite parts of our unfinished apartment, and it's really unoragnized because I suppose it's representaive of how unorgainized the apartment is and plus I don't really know a foolproof way of uploaing pictures on a blog.

This is where me and Frances live, Beachcomber 204. It's really something lovely.

This is the view from our peephole. You can see Erin, Holly and Kerri's apartment, it's right there in the corner.

This is a great ironical photo that is kind of representative of our kitchen.

This is the lantern that I MacGyver'd Up with tacks, safty pins, supeglue, and a piece of brown ribbon.

This is the chair I dug out of the dumpster. I like it, even if it probably does carry diseases.

This is our Couch Which Has No Parallel. Nothing compares to the comfort of this couch, nothing.

This is our collection of votive candles. We have a seperate collection of tea lights, tavel candles, and stick candles. All totally illegal.

This is Ross. He's my air purifier. He makes sure that we sleep well in an allgery-free enviroment, and block out [most of] the sirens.

This is Paddington. He is the protector/bear rug that basically takes up the whole bedroom.

These are our enviroment-saving canvas bags. We have 8. We take them shopping with us.

Feather in a Baseball Cap

I have a bit of a confession. I was in the bath tonight, marinating in cucumber bubble bath and ZZ Packer's prose when the fire alarm went off. And by fire alarm, I mean Renee, my RC, burst into the room yelling, "FIRE DRILL" in a voice that cannot possibly fit in her small body. I could hear her through the door of course, I'm not deaf. In fact, I'm sure if I was deaf I could have still heard Renee. But I didn't jump out of the tub to play follow-the-leader with the residents of Beachcomber and Lido. I was naked. Really naked. Instead, I turned the knob to make sure the water didn't drip and give away my position, and slunk to the door in a towel to make sure she had taken the apartment to be empty and left to parade her girls down Rosecrans Avenue at 11 at night. I then spent the next 10 minutes sniggering to myself in the tub, feeling perfectly sinister for disobaying Biola and risking a $50 fine.

I'm only confessing because I know all of like, two people are acctually going to read this.

Revamped for your pleasure.

Blogging and I have an on-and-off relationship. We are hot and heavy for a while, and then have a fight and don't speak for a while. The idea of blogging in my mind is eaither completely brilliant or a total waste of my time, depending on that day. i'm unfortunatly going to have to force myself to get in the habit, not exactly for myself, but for the good of others.

My childhood best friend, Lauren, is in Chile. My best friend back home is, as of yesterday, in Argentina. My dear friend Morielle is, as of yesterday as well, in Uraguay. My two closest friends and previous roommates, Roxana and Sydney, are in London. The latter two will be rather pissed off if I don't at least make an effort. I did promise them, after all.

So that's kind of why I'm writing again.

Waiting for the stars to come out

Storms in Fallbrook are the best. They happen so rarely in America's finest county that when they come, my brother and I would just sit at the big picture window in my living room and watch the rain cascade down from the gutters with pure joy plastered on our faces. As much fun as the storm was, there would come that beautiful night where the clouds finally clear and the stars come out. And my God, there can not be anything more breathtaking than a night sky after a storm in Fallbrook. I feel like I can stare into it and never be confused or scared again.

That's about where I am right now. There have been--and are--some nasty clouds above me, looming ominously and every so often throw a lightening bolt my way. But they can't wait around forever, evtually the stars will come out. And I swear to God, I can't wait. It's been 2 months of storm. I'm ready for some sun.

The "Vasty Jaws" of War

My class was cancelled this morning, which meant I took off my pants and layed on the futon for about 3 hours while my roommate called me a bitch and threw candy wrappers at me. Well, I took the spare bit of time I had and scanned through the headlines on CNN.com, as usually I skip over them on my homepage, but there was a bright red box that read that 18 children had been killed from an AMERICAN bomb in Iraq, 18 little boys who were just going playing soccer. I mused aloud on the state of the would for a while to no one inparticular, and was reminded of a line in Henry V in which Henry is pleading with Charles to cave in:

"...take mercy on the poor souls for whom this hungry war opens it's vasty jaws..."

America is stuck in a mire of a war with only themselves to blame. And who is taking the brunt of it? Not us. I am so sick of all this I could scream. How many deaths is it going to take? How many families and lives ruined to realize that we are doing NOTHING??? I don't know alot about governments and foreign policy, but I know a lost cause when I see one. That's all.

A Restaurant Review by Taylor

So I went to an excellent restaurant today. I also acctually learned how to spell the word restaurant today as well, I always thought it was resteraunt which looks really dreadful all spelled out but I have more important things to do than check my spelling. [Note to all future publishing houses I will be applying to after college: Disregard the previous statement. And hire me. Please.]

I had a long standing date with my mom in Pasadena, and we happened upon an Italian restaurant on Colorado Blvd, 25 East Colorado Blvd, to be exact. It's called Mi Piace, and it's a kitchen, bakery and lounge. Or so the sign says. I saw the first two. It's really high class, they put us at a window table with linin napkins and stainless silver sugar cups and candlight and eveything. My mom and I kind of stuck out as we were as soaked as a sponge from the rain and wearing sweatshirts and the place was full of Carrie Bradshaws and gay couples on dates. I was pleased we got sat between two gay couples rather than the Carrie Bradshaws because...well, it's a self-esteem thing. Damn Sex in the City.

Anyways, the food was tremendous, Tropical Iced Tea to die for, the bread was warm and smothered with all kinds of herbs that doin't come dried off a Target spice rack. We ordered a iceberg salad with bacon and blue cheese and apples which was so crisp and delicious, but creamy. I got fettucine alfredo in a creme and shallot sauce with chicken that made me have a Meg Ryan orgasm that broke gay couple #2 apart from their Camels and capuccinos. My mom got ricotta and pumpkin ravioli. It's way better than it sounds. Then we had amazing close-my-eyes-and-oh-my-God-I-must-be-in-Naples tiramisu. PLUS they gave out the good kind of matches, the ones that make me say "Oh, look, matches! I suppose I'll take a box..." and then stuff 19 in my shirt.

All that to say, well done Mi Piace, well done.

Thanks again, CNN!

I am really really really sick of opening up Internet Explorer to find my CNN homepage boasting yet another update on Anna Nicole Smith. The first few, I can understand. But it is getting ridiculous. This new story is flaunting the to the minute details of the trial over who gets to delcare custody of the rotting corpse.

I'll give it to you, it was sad. This woman apparently had it all, the money, the body, what have you, a regular Marilyn Monroe, without the class and talent. And she dies. I will give you a million dollars she killed herself or overdosed on something, but I suppose it's not about that. It was sad because she is a person whose life had meaning, even if it didn't seem so. She had a newborn beautiful baby girl, who now is motherless and has no idea who her father is.

But frankly, I would rather hear about the UK pulling out of Iraq. Personally.

Thoughts on Valentine's Day

I really don't get the whole depressed, wearing black, "Single's Awareness Day" thing. True, in the past I have exhibited behavior that would support a negation of the previous statement, but I feel like I've moved beyond that.

I may only be 19, but I've had alot og Valentine's Day. Some were shitty, spent crying myself to sleep at night because I felt like no one in the world would ever love me (albeit, I still have certian days that seem to consist of that very activity), and I've had some that left me with a glow on my face, box of chocolates, single red roses, and emotion-laden poems in my hands, feeling like the most special girl in the world.

To be honest, this year I don't have the energy to bust out any feminist rants on how Valentine's Day is a mass-produced holiday for the sole purpose of making others feel like crap, and niether do I have the energy to articipate in any grand romantic gesture. Basically, this Valentine's Day, I was perfectly satisfied with a valentine from my mom. And, coincidentally, Roxana's mom too.

I walked out of my dorm this morning to find the sidewalks covered in love messages for some girl named Lindsay. It made me happy. Good for her. She's loved. I went and bought a bagel and didn't dwell on the fact that no one wrote love messages in chalk for me. I don't need to. People focus too much on romantic love on Valentine's Day. Why can't we focus on love in general? Why can't the day being about my love for my roommate, my mom, my dad, my brother, my girlfriends, my guy friends, my Torrey group? I love them all, intensely. Why can't Valentine's Day be about them?

So I did. There are three girls in my life who bring me joy every day and make like worth living. Why can't the day be about them? The three of us got dressed up and went to Steamers, listened to jazz, chatted, ate desserts with alot of chocolate goo. We were very nearly the only people in the tiny club who were just out with each other, not a "significant" other. Why does a significant other have to be romantic? I don't get it.

Would I have liked a date for Valentine's Day? Sure. Am I going to wear black and cry about it? Hell no. It's the same thing with having a boyfriend. Yea, having a boyfriend would be nice, someone to hang out with, and love and all that. But am I going to stifle my life because I don't have one? I don't think so.

Maybe next year I'll have a date. Maybe next year I'll be sitting in Steamers in a pair of heels with a stupid smile on face trying to figure out how to trick the waiter into bringing us a mojito. Does it matter? Not so much.

Happy Valentine's Day.

P.S. Best thing about Valentine's Day with girlfriends: didn't wear a bra and didn't have to worry about it. : )

O brave new world that has such people in it...

I read Brave New World this morning with a pencil and a huge cup of coffee. This are some little bits of fantastic Huxley writing and ponderings.

Chapter 1
"For particulars, as everyone knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectoers compose the backbone of society."

"That is the secret of happiness and virtue: liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like thier unescapable social destiny."

Chapter 4
"Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly, they'll go through anything. You read and you're pierced."

Chapter 6
"Progress is lovely, isn't it?"

Chapter 8
"Lying in bed, he would think of Heaven and London and Our Lady of Acoma and the rows and rows of babies and Jesusflying up and Linda flying up and the great Director and World hatcheries and Awonawilona."

"A man can smile and smile and be a villain."

"He had never really hated Pope before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these words like drums and singing and magic. These words and the strange, strange story out of which they were taken (he couldn't make head or tail of it, but it was wonderful, wonderful all the same)--they gave him a reason for hating Pope; and they made his hatred more real; they even made Pope himself more real."

"He had discovered Time and Death and God."

"If one's different, one's bound to be lonely."

Chapter 9
"Zip, and the zip; zip, and then zip; he was enchanted."

Chapter 10
"The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray."

"Murder kills only the induvidual, and after all, what is an induvidual."

Chapter 11
"...there she remained; and yet wasn't there at all, was all the time away, infinitely far away, on holiday; on holiday in some other world, where the music of the radio was a labyrinth of sonorous colours, a sliding, palpitating labyrinth, that led (by whatr beautifully inevitable windings) to a bright centre of absolute conviction."

"Bernard would parade a carping unorthodoxy."

Chapter 12
"'What fun would it be,' he thought, 'if one didn't have to think about happiness!'"

Chapter 13
"An emblem of the inner tide of startled elation, the blood rushed up into Lenina's cheeks."

Chapter 16
"Only in Othello's words could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred."

"Our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel, and you can't make tragedies without social instability."

"Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparision with the overcompensations for misery."

"Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy."

"Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasis from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness...Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't."

Chapter 17
"But God dosn't change."
"Men do, though."
"What difference does that make?"
"All the difference in the world."

"We are not our own masters. We are God's property. It is not our happiness thus to view the matter? Is it any happiness or any comfort, to consider that we are our own?" [To be fair, this is acctually the philosopher Maine de Biran's words.]

"Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons--that's philosophy."

"Providence takes it's cue from men."

"Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears--that's what soma is." [Soma is a anti-depressant/instant holiday pill given to all castes.]

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

Chapter 18
"'I say,' Helmholtz exclaimed solicitously, 'you do look ill, John.'"
"'Did you eat soemthing that didn't agree with you?' asked Bernard."
"The Savage nodded. 'I ate civilization.'"
"What?"
"'It poisioned me; I was defiled. And then,' he added, in a lower tone, 'I ate my own wickedness.'"

Basically, read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It's brilliant.

Comment eviter leur realisation definitive?...Les utopies sont realisables.

Today at Barnes & Noble, I indulged myself. I bought myself a copy of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, as I have always wanted to read it and never have, and a book stand. It's very cheap, it looks like it was made out of an old shopping cart, with stems of metal and shards of blue Albertson's-esque plastic piping. But I adore it. I set it up in my bathroom after several frustrating minutes of trying to get it off the cardboard, and put Brave New World on it.

My mother knocked on the door wondering why I was squealing for joy.

Noodle Love

On January 6th, 2007, Momofuku Ando, beloved creator of Cup Noodles and other delicious ramen concoctions, died of a heart attack at age 96 in Japan.

This is old news, but I happen to be having a chicken Cup Noodles for lunch today so I was reminded to pay homage to this great man.

Who would have thought that hydrogenized noodles in a waterproof polystyrene container could bring so much joy to post WW2 families and poor college students (me) everywhere.

A Tale of Heroic Valor on Basically Nobody's Part

It was a very cold night in Fallbrook, roughly 20 degrees. This was enough to make the stairs of the hot tub freeze over so when you tried to get in you slipped off and lay prostrate on the grass moaning and shivering in your bathing suit which quite frankly, does not cover much at all.

Anyway.

When it gets cold, we turn on the heater. Obviously. For most people, this is is normal. However, our house was built in the 40's pre-WW2, meaning that we can only get hot water at certian times of the day, can only have so many lights on at one time, and have to pray and cross your fingers if you want the heater on. When it is on, it makes dreadful bangs and moans like a giant flailing dying animal thrashing agaisnt the walls of the house in agony. Sometimes.

So when I was snug in my bed at 4 in the morning, toasty from many layers of synthetic fleece and wool, and I heard a bang I figured was the heater. It persisted. I realized that the heater usually is not so good with keeping time and rythym, as this mysterious sound was. So I went out into the living room, and there banging on the door like his life depended on it, was a very bearlike man. he was jiggling the handle and screaming with a very angry look on his face.

"What do you want?" I sqeaked through the door.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

This was the point in which i slid over the hardwood floory to my parent's bedroom. My dad shot out of bed like a bullet which was really funny to watch because he ran into a wall which he thought was the door, grabbed an umbrella, and went to the back door holding the Marimekko umbrella like a field hockey stick.

"Wrong door, Dad."

So he went to the front door and started yelling at the guy who was still there looking angry and obviously plastered as he didn't make eye contact and was stumbling. So my dad screamed. then the guy screamed. Then they both screamed. At this point I sat down on a throw pillow in the dark and laughed, enjoying the show. My mom called the police.

A few minutes later, the police showed up. There is nothing more beautiful that the flashing blue and red lights piercing the darkness on a winter's night. I wish i could say this was the first time a sqad car hasbeen on our property. The guy was running around our front lawn screaming when they took him away.

It was at that point that I realized my neighbor, Eric, was having one of his parties. He does this almost every weekend. Sometimes there's noise, but most of the time it dosn't bother me. usually we find used condoms and beer bottle on our lawn, but not crazed drunk guys calling me Dave, trying to break into our house.

The next morning, I was lingering near the front door with some very strong coffee in my Norway mug before work, when I noticed that his car keys were jammed in the lock on our door. Poor drunk bastard.

I threw them in the flowerbed. No one disrupts my sleep and gets away with it.

Thinking about Africa

I work a corporate job which no decent person should work until they are good and thirty as a marketing assistant. Basically what I do is fanaticize about the really sexy landscaper who works outside my window everyday trimming the baby palms and rearranging the wood chips while I do a half-assed job editing consumer reports and capital fund documents, and sometimes transferring agency training documents into free reports. The only perks are that I have my own office, so I’m generally left alone most of the time, in which I have a threesome with YouTube and Facebook. This almost makes up for the fact that I have to wear slacks and heels to work.

So on this particular Tuesday, I’m thinking about making a paper clip chain and hanging myself with it as I flip to page 6 of 150 the capital fund report finding it, if possible, dryer than the pervious one. My supervisor, Susan, walks in. Susan is one of my favorite people in the world. Not only is she a total sweetheart and leaves me to my own devises most of the day from 9-5, but she is more liberal than I am. Plus, she doesn’t care that I draw dinosaurs in the margins of the free reports I’m editing, because no one in the office knows Webster’s Standard American Style Manual as well as I do. So she walks in and starts talking politics, which of course I enjoy. Today, it’s the war, plus a daily dose of Bush-bashing, one of her favorite activities. 20,000 troops are being sent to Iraq for no reason other that Bush doesn’t want to admit he is wrong, and therefore thinks that everyone will forget this if he sends more troops in.

So we’re ranting like two old ladies even though only one of us is actually old, and I start bringing up things that the military should be focusing on instead of Iraq. I bring up many humanitarian efforts, but when I get to the crisis in Nothern Uganda, Susan sports a puzzled look on her face.

I spent the next 15 minutes filling her in on everything, from the Lord’s Resistance Army, to the 50,000 invisible children, to the documentary, to the Global Night Commute, and I looked up to see she was crying. She was so touched by the issue and so ashamed at herself and her country for not acknowledging the issue that she was moved to tears. People make fun of bleeding liberals, but without them the world would be a cold place. The Invisible Children are a huge issue that is sort of a hot button with today’s youth, one of which is sort of popularized. It’s a ‘cool thing” to be into the Invisible Children campaign. Except for Carrie, who is 18 and only works here cause she tried to kill herself and need supervision by her mom, who is an agent in the office next to me. She had heard of it, but didn't give a shit. I could have guessed it.

Anyways, usually people who jump on the train because everyone else is pisses me off (hell, you all saw how mad I got when Regina Spektor started showing music videos on VH1...sell out.) but this is something different. I have talked to people who were acctually full of distain for those people who were just sort of latching on to the whole humanitarian thing. So what? At least the message is getting out somehow, whether or not they are wholly commited, at least they have an idea of what is going on. People over the age of 25 seem to have no clue! So as I watched Susan’s face change as I told her everything I could about the cause, I saw what all of our faces should look like when confronted with a cause so great.

I feel like our hearts have been numbed by news and TV. Just the other day, I was watching CNN, and a story about the tornado in the south came on. What did I do? I changed the channel. It hit me a minute later as I was watching Comedy Central: I didn’t care, it didn’t even affect me! What is wrong with me? I think people, me included, have become disassociated with their own hearts, we hear 1000 Chinese have been killed in a tragic train crash, it’s sad, but we move on and watch the Simpson’s and eat In-N-Out like nothing has happened.

But Susan didn't act like this, she cared, she really, really, cared. She didn't play the part people usually do, shaking thier heads, muttering a "oh, that's too bad..." and retreating back to thier desk to think about lunch. she got on the computor and bought two copies of the documentary, one for me and one for her. Then she ran to Rick, the IT guy who is a divine pain in the ass, to ask if any computors in the office had DVD burning capabilities. Bless her heart, she is going to burn copies for everyone in the office for Valentine's Day, with the words, "Have A Heart" on them. Isn't she great?

Lately I've really been thinking about how to reckon a servant's heart in a self-serving career. I have recently decided on a career goal, a book editor, mainly so when people ask me what I want to do with my english writing major, I won't gape at them like a retarded fish, or have the following conversation:
Them: "So, are you going to be a teacher?"
Me: "No."
Them: "What else are you going to do with your major??"
Me: "Be happy."
Which upon retrospect, is a pretty selfish career. I suppose I can make people happy with books, but still, next to nurses, and psychologists, and teachers, and missionaries whose entire careers is to help people, I feel a strain on my concience.

I've been talking to my oldest friend, Lauren, about this. Lauren as been yo-yoing with majors and careers choices since were 15. We used to love it when the PSAT's rolled around, we would guess what Lauren would put down as a career goal, landscaping, bus driving, chef. Lauren is now thinking about being a missionary doctor, a far cry from all the joking we used to do. I think about this and just feel ashamed that what I'm doing dosn't really help anyone. Lauren, bless her soul, went into a spiel about how my writing makes people happy, blah, blah, blah...

They're not really in high demand for editiors in the jungles of Africa.

So I'm sitting here in an office shivering from the industrial air conditioners, with my bare feet propped up on a filing cabinet, with a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee Roxanne in Accounting made especially for me when I was the last to get to the Mr. Coffee machine this morning. I bitch and bitch and bitch about having to wake up at 7 every morning monday through friday for a job that pays far above minimun wage where I don't acctually have to remove my ass from the padded swivel chair once. I compose these documents that do nothing but make people richer. These people are sharks, out for a deal, out to get what is bigger and better, out to conquer the corporate world. They are bustling around in a caffinated frenzy to serve themselves, and all I can think about is Africa. And I feel like a fool.