tell her it's over

buhhhh work is annoying. i came in ready to tackle both school work and work work for the day, only to find that i have to help label 900 t-shirts for some stupid thing. i spent all morning so far opening and lifting boxes and i inexplicably only have deodorant on one pit.

my weekend was good though ! on friday, i stayed in to try to get some work done. i had my german class interview and got a 45/50 ! i currently have an A- in the class, so i need to try harder to solidify my chances of getting an A. i really, really, truly don't think i got anything else done though. i did some knitting and watched goodbye lenin.



the movie is about a set of siblings (one being daniel bruhllllll) whose mother, a loyal socialist lady, has a heart attack and goes into a coma during the fall of the berlin wall. when she wakes up, she can't suffer any kind of shock (lest she have another heart attack), so her son persuades everyone to put on an elaborate farce where none of this happened. it was a pretty cute movie, but i can't imagine that it would be interesting if you don't know anything about german history? like a lot of the cuteness and jokes hinge upon events in history and stuff !

on saturdayyyyyy i went to the green line to theoretically work on my paper. i stopped at a garage sale on the way to buy myself this:



both jesse and eric were working, so unfortunately i didn't get much work done. i haven't really talked to eric in a few years so it was good to see him ! also jesse is the funniest most interesting person. she told me some good jokes (not fit for the internet) and showed me some cool maps of holes in the ground ! after awhile, though, i gave up and went to cvs and impulse bought a bunch of pens


two packs of these

they were buy one get one free !! between the hydra and the pens i spent $5, but i'm trying to be more critical of my consumption and not spend that $20-40/mo on stupid stuff ! i finally finsihed my paper at 5:20 (it's due at 6) and showered and got ready to go to shakespeare in clark park with mouse. but guys ! surprise guest ! benji was at mouse's for a jiu jitsu lesson and he came with us. i was super happy to hang out with him because he's the funniest handsomest, and also cause mouse wanted to watch the play and wouldn't let me talk to him but benji would.





oh yeah, the play was a midsummer night's dream, which is actually my least favorite shakespeare play. i also always forget that going to plays doesn't mean a bunch of stuffy british thespians and it usually means drama club people so i'm always a little disappointed (i'm coming around, but it's hard for me to take them seriously because drama club people were LITERALLY the only people lower on the totem pole than gifted nerds !). we sat in a bad place, anyway, and couldn't really hear or see the play. we were right behind a kid eating an entire block of cheese like a candy bar though, which was pretty cool.



benji went home after the play, and we met up with nate at my house and watched futurama. nate declined attending the play cause he remembered what plays are like, but i'm glad i got to see him.

on sunnnnday i slept super late and worked on work stuff and knitted a little bit. i tried to motivate myself to do my history reading but did a pretty awful job. i mostly managed to set up the DVR for shark week (since i'll be too busy with school to watch it) and eat a sandwich. when mouse got out of jiu jitsu, i went to his house because his sister and mom and SCOTTIE were there !!!! scottie is like, the cutest baby in the entire world and his feet are so fat and he made teeny little mouth farts at me.





also, did you guys know that baby spit up is really disgusting? i think baby spit up and drool are like, the deciding factors in me not having kids- unfortunately, this is also the same reason that i will miss out on many beautiful dogs:









(never mind that i also would never buy a dog from a mill or breeder so my chances of having a purebred dog ever are slim anyway !)

we also went to capo giro, where i found out that all of their sorbettis are vegan. i'm so bummed, because we've gone here a thousand times and mouse sadly drinks a decaf americano while we talk about how good the gelato and sorbetti is. i had nectarine and dark chocolate.



after that, i came home and finished my german homework (voice recordings about 'run lola run' !, online exercise, essay) and did some more work work and ended up going to bed before i did my history reading. on my agenda for today: history reading ! and maybe watching one of my history lectures after lunch.

what's up, guys? this is already week five of my six weeks of classes ! it went by super fast. i hope i can hold it together enough to do well in both.

p.s. i want a coffee milkshake more than anything on earth right now?
p.p.s. dogs dogs dogs dogs
p.p.p.s. brooke is coming to visit me aug 12 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
p.p.p.p.s. christina is home from maine !!!!

wipe it on your dress and send it to me

hey guys ! what's up ! unibrow summer may come to an end this week because i'm ultimately getting too self-conscious and am unable to resist sexist beauty standards. i'm trying !

i had a pretty good weekend. on friday after work, i did some german homework, and then mouse and i went to south philly to make dinner and hang out with jeanne and mike. they're the best? we made two delicious pizzas and one okay pizza- one for mouse that was vegan and was basically a hot open faced bell pepper sandwich (he seemed to like it though ! but i cruelly starved him for hours and hours before he got to eat it), a fresh spinach pizza, and the aforementioned potato and olive pizza (i used black olives but should've used kalamata, and should've salted the potato water more !). so we ate pizzas and watched the monster squad.



seriously, what a beautiful creech. i agree with mike who said something along the lines of, "omg that is the flyest creech on earth" and snapped his fingers. maybe i'm remembering it wrong? i also got to hang out with vinegar the cat (fig only made a brief appearance) who has grown into one of those perfect cats who is like a limp noodle when you hold him.


with his buddy, the wolfman

mouse has a sore back from jiu jitsu and had to work in the morning, so we left before the movie was over and i came home and finished my german homework. on saturday, i worked on my history homework and read the ghost next door


the ghost next door by wylly folk st. john

i actually really loved this book. i've read tons of spooky ghost is haunting stuff until someone solves its murder/lays its soul to rest books for young adults (i'm looking at YOU, betty ren wright !) and there were a few pretty unique characteristics in this book.

1) the existence of ghosts is left ambiguous and there is a healthy amount of skepticism and arguments both for and against ghosts
2) the main character largely involves her parents and other trusted adults in her investigation of the ghost. this was super refreshing because, while i always advocate a healthy amount of secrecy from your parents, i'm a reasonable adult now and appreciate the portrayal of other reasonable adults who take children seriously and believe them.
3) the book contains seances and psychics and spiritualism which some of the adults are into, and are involved in psychic societies, and it isn't presented as weird ! like even the skeptics are polite ! and i love that as a skeptic because i love a good hoax seance !

i almost made it through the entire book before i got to the gross fatphobic part (the medium was so disgustingly fat she could hardly walk and the couch was buckling under her fat disgusting body), but it was still there. bummmmmmmmmer.



after that, mouse and mike g. came over so we could watch back to the future, because i'd never seen it. it was really cute and funny, and has one of my favorite movie elements: unexplained shit ! like, why was a cool high school teenager buds with a mad scientist? who cares ! just roll with it !



i really did like it and think it holds up in a way a lot of 80s movies don't, but i wish i'd seen it as a kid because it was hard for me to shake certain elements of it? like... bif tries to rape mrs. mcfly? and then later in life the mcflys have a dude who attempted to rape their matriarch doing odd jobs for them? that said, tom f. wilson's performance as bif was amazing and he was so villainous and i'm sorry being such an a-hole ruined his career. or maybe being a big beefy doughface ruined it because he's basically like the archetypal character actor.

by the way, mouse usually laughs when mike g. ruins movies for me by talking and talking and talking and asking questions (ex. when christina was watching sabrina, asking "is that sabrina?" about every person on screen. or when marty mcfly sits down at the breakfast table and his sister is sitting there, asking, "WHO IS THAT?"), but the shoe was on the other foot this time. mouse's blood pressure jumped like 100 points ! it was great.



on sunday, i mostly hung out and did errands. lazslo came over in the morning because he was here for a show the night before and he and christina got brunch ! it was nice to see him, he is my brother in weird al (besides my real brother. and mike b.). i got a car share car even though there was a big gigantic storm and went to trader joe's, the first of 29390283 errands. i found everything i needed, it wasn't too crowded, the handsome tall guy i like to look at was working, i got in and out in 20 minutes, and then... my car wouldn't start. i got soaked trying to figure out what the problem was, and realized i left my cellphone at home, so i had to go back inside soaking wet and sheepishly ask to use a phonebook and their phone. it took about a half hour, and the battery was totally dead, so i just had to return it and not run my other errands. fuck you, prius !



i came home and had some food and watched tv and knitted with my main man, christina. she was watching mad men, which i have to admit i don't really get. it's basically like having a shitty job and a shitty life in real time? like it's super dull and the thought of having to spend so much time and money on clothes and grooming stresses me out. i think it would be eased a little if i found jon hamm attractive but i think he looks like someone's dad. or like a future stepdad for me, since my mom thinks he is hot (you have some competition for my mom's affections, antonio banderas !).


hambone. not pictured: flippy

after that, i retired to my room to watch a movie on my xbox. i ended up watching the edukators, a daniel bruhl movie about anti-capitalist activists who accidentally kidnap a businessman.



it was surprisingly non-annoying for a movie about young radicals ! daniel bruhl is the handsomest, though he had really unfortunate facial hair and i can't tell if he's a good actor cause he wasn't speaking english. i surprisingly understood a lot of the german dialogue too ! the only element that bothered me on a personal level was one dude "stealing" his best friend's girlfriend because nothing makes me feel shittier and sicker (i can't even watch daria anymore or the episode of MSCL where rayanne bones jordan catalano). i also felt myself feeling strangely sympathetic for the rich asshole they kidnap because it's probably really scary to be kidnapped.

blehhh. that's about it. totally demolished my weekend to-do list, except i didn't start my history reading so i'll have to put my nose to the grindstone today. i also need to bring some papers to LPS tomorrow to complete my fall application. i'm still pretty nervous about that. other than that, i'm wearing a sleeveless dress today.



though i'm generally self-confident and utterly unconcerned about peoples' feelings about my appearance i do have a slight hang-up about showing my arms. but like... i don't think fat arms are unattractive or weird or unacceptable on other women, so... why would that be the case for me? it feels pretty good to feel good today.

it doesn't really matter if we live or die

hey buds ! what's up ! i'm at work with a fan kind of blowing my skirt up. JEALOUS? the first thing i heard this morning was a security guard telling everyone who passed her that a guy had died on the bench outside my office over the weekend. i was like, 'oh, that's really sad' and she reacted really blankly. i blame video games !

i don't actually remember what i did on friday? i think i may have taken a nap, watched tv, and knitted. working on the entrelac scarf is kind of stressing me out. no matter how many people reassure me, i have major knitting anxiety and cannot imagine what type of person would wear this thing.


here's a good example, from this stage crew nerd's blog

i'm also a little unsure because the yarn is thick/thin and i think it looks lumpy? maybe i can fix that by blocking it. anyway, i don't know- i think i'm going to send it to my craft swap recipient with express instructions to give it to a high school art teacher or with an IOU for something better.

on saturday, i got a car share car by myself (christina had to finish her paper for her class) and went yarn and grocery shopping. i had to parallel park outside of the hospital at 19th and south, and it was like... the most stressful thing ever. the second i started backing into the spot, both the person in front of me and person behind me got into their cars and tried to pull out of their spots? but there wasn't room because 19th is a narrow one lane road there, so everyone was honking at me and i wanted to cry.



i don't drive often, don't have depth perception, never really learned to parallel park, and crack under honking, so i finally gave up and just drove around the block and pulled into the now-gigantic spot. man, it doesn't sound like that bad of an experience now that i wrote it out but at the time i was suuuuper embarrassed ! i immediately put out an open call when i got home to anyone who will teach me to parallel park and i've had a few takers. people i know, i mean, not like craigslist sex and parking maniacs. anyway, i went to loop and got more noro kureyon 250 for the aforementioned craft swap scarf.



i also finally caved and got two skeins of imperial stock yarn because they were on sale for $7.50 each (down from $12.50). there was a color i'd been admiring for awhile and i couldn't resist, though i try to be conscious of not being a Yarn Person- a lot of my friends who knit get overwhelmed by all the beautiful yarns in the world and buy yarn faster than they can use it, or with no projects in mind- this is not a judgment, it just doesn't make sense for me/my budget/my knitting skill.


imperial dusty rose- the color is a lot paler and more muted in person

after that i went to trader joe's to get some bagged risotto because i want all of my dinners to cook in 5 minutes or less during the summer, but the entire italian frozen crap case was empty. i did get some pretty cool chipwiches though.


i wish trader joe's was not so drama club-y in its demeanor and packaging. it's JUST A CHIPWICH

mike and mouse had plans to wrestle (they both do jiu jitsu, though mouse does brazilian jiu jitsu and mike does um, japanese art of softness jujutsu) which i wanted absolutely no part of, so they did that while i took a nap. then we went to lemon grass, which is normally my favorite thai restaurant but they served me a bum royal bath this time- the royal bath being the thing i always order. it's just a gigantic pile of spinach and tofu with peanut sauce


sorta like this but with better presentation

but this time the tofu was all desiccated and there was barely any spinach, and it was $1 more expensive ! i wasn't super hungry anyway but it was still a total ripoff. after dinner we came back to my house and watched futurama and had dessert, and christina finally came home and we deliriously bro'd down until she had to go to bed.

yesterday i slept super late and tried to tackle my to-do list. i worked on my scarf a little and played borderlands with perry and gavin (i think i may just like... not be good at borderlands? but not being able to read quest text or weapon stats on my tiny tv doesn't help) and watched inglourious basterds again because of daniel bruhl.



i didn't even like the movie THAT much, but i am totally weird about celebrity crushes- like, NOT like fan fiction and posting on messageboards and calling them by a nickname weird but like... uh, when i liked bill paxton i befriended billy bob thornton's former personal assistant to get dirt. so like, not harmless stage crew virgin weird, but like actual creepy real life weird?

annnyyyyyway, here's what was on my list:

- straighten up bedroom
- read my history chapters and take notes
- work on my craft swap scarf
- hang out with christina
- tune up/grease/clean bike (mouse and i are going to nockamixon this weekend)

i absolutely need to do the rest of that stuff this week, and i only have plans wednesday (mike and jeanne are coming over to watch wolfhound !), so it shouldn't be too hard. here is my revised list:

- straighten up bedroom
- read my history chapters and take notes (despite the first chapter being called "DOING HISTORY")
- tune up/grease/clean bike
- straighten up the kitchen and livingroom
- go back to trader joe's for some frozen crap
- catsit hoolie ! (i didn't make it on thursday cause of the storm- i'm not the worst person ever, there is someone else sharing cat sitting duties)
- brush my own cat and clip her toenails

i'm going to keep you guys abreast of the situation as it develops.

p.s. i changed the way my blog looks
p.p.s. OH YEAH ON FRIDAY NIGHT I ATE CAT FOOD BY ACCIDENT. i was crushing up a pill in some wet food for my cat and i ABSENTMINDEDLY LICKED THE BACK OF THE SPOON. it was so disgusting and tasted like gross unseasoned gravy without human flavors and ufslkdjflskdjglskhg. i'll never be the same again.
p.p.p.s. i saw a guy eating taco bell somehow at 8:30 am (philly BARELY has taco bells and i don't think they open that early?) so when i pick up my birth control and buy tokens, i'm totally having the most taco bell for lunch. 21 layer burrito !

hoo's on first

they're cleaning the windows at work so all the blinds are open and it looks so sunny and cheerful in here. unfortunately the building is like... entirely windows so if we live the shades up we get cooked like ants under a microscope.



i got my first textbook yesterday and intended to do my reading for my first class ! and then of course i totally didn't do it. class doesn't start til july 6, so i have time ! heh? i helped paul make a website, which so far just contains a picture of his dog



and ate some m&ms and tried to watch another movie with daniel bruhl called ladies in lavender, where he um... plays a violinist who washes up on a beach and is nursed back to health by maggie smith and dame judi dench. i have to say, it is not quite as exciting as it sounds.


they're all... wearing lavender

what the fuck ! what the FUCK ! why am i watching this shit ! my celebrity crushes (though i don't get them frequently) rarely make sense and usually involve me watching a bunch of movies the person was in and then resenting them because i had to do that- my biggest celebrity crush ever was BILL PAXTON, and this was all wayyyyyy before he was on big love. for every aliens and near dark he made, there's like 20 boxing helenas and twisters. he wears a MESH SHIRT in boxing helena and utters the line, "hasta whatever." that's what i had to put up with ! god.

what? anyway, i unfortunately could not make it through ladies in lavender. i think i was supposed to feel for the old ladies, who were clearly hopelessly in love with their young guest, but as a young person it made me uncomfortable? like the dude obviously thinks of them like grandmothers and they let him rest his head on their shoulders and get grandma hugs and stuff while wanting to fuck him? that's weird, right? unfortunately the plot had not become apparent an hour and 20 minutes in so i am not actually sure what the story was.



there's bill paxton at his best to cleanse our palates.

after giving up on that, i did another left 4 dead 2 campaign with ken. this one was in a swamp, and it was sort of comforting because it looked like the black hammock (the area i grew up in).



i did half as well as ken which i've deduced as promising because he's MORE than twice as good as me. not sure how i worked that out, but whatever. this is only the second time i've played and i think i actually did worse this time. i definitely need a bigger tv, but that's going to have to wait until i'm very rich which is never going to happen because i have no ambition and i hate money, and i'm also not going to buy a tv just for video games.

or am i?

(no)

tonight mouse is coming over to eat spaghetti. i'm going to try to get him to bring a watermelon too but i'm not entirely sure how that's going to go. my plan is that he and i can both have some watermelon and then WHO WANTS TO CARRY A CUT WATERMELON HOME?? so i get to eat the rest of the watermelon.


mouse gets that little piece !

i gotta go, i have a meeting. BYE

i eat stickers all the time

heyyyyy dudessssssss. i'm feeling pretty good ! i slept pretty well last night and once i'm done writing this stupid thing i'm going to get a gigantic iced coffee !

you guys haven't really missed much. our internet was out for a few days, so comcast came and replaced our router. it confuses me that no one at comcast understands how the internet, computers, tvs, or cable works. like every single person i talk to is clearly doing that thing where they make up an answer and hope you don't understand computers or whatever enough to question them.



among other things, he told us that the reason our internet was fucked up was because our router was too old and not "compatible with xfinity" (really? it isn't compatible with an intangible thing that amounts to little more than a marketing campaign?), that hdmi cables "don't work" (the sound on our dvr box cuts out, and he said it was because "hdmi cables don't work" and no one uses them and we should use component cables, which are "the same"), and asked me if i painted my frank frazetta prints.



anyway, our new router seems to work. i'm really nervous because i'm taking online classes starting in july and i hope to have a reliable internet connection so i don't have to take them at work.

when christina got home from work yesterday, we watched youth in revolt. i remember liking the book, which i got in the same shopping trip as girl by blake nelson, both based solely on their covers, with a walden books gift card i got at school for being a nerd.

+

i can't say i actually remember much about the book so i couldn't really compare it to the movie, but the movie was really wooden and dispassionate. like, there were definitely some really weird/funny things in it, but overall it seemed like everyone was phoning it in. they had a great cast too ! it just like... lacked any kind of feeling or excitement which seems like important stuff for a movie about first love and blowing stuff up. i assume the book wasn't that good either though because i barely remember anything about it, though i totally hated girl and i remember every single word of it (todd sparrow, cow dress, we are all pretty candy, sins of our fathers, etc.).

i knitted for awhile and made some progress on the entrelac scarf. i'm being super annoyingly insecure about it because i can't believe anything i don't like is desirable in any way to any person, so give me some reassurance. here's some stuff i don't like.


entrelac scarf


john krasinski


bell peppers


mint stuff that is green instead of red, pink, or white

no one likes any of that stuff right? ugh. i hope my craft swap recipient has an art teacher aunt she can pass it on to if she hates it.

last night i was going to kill zombies with ken, but i missed my chance, so i ended up watching love in thoughts, which i only added because i'm weirdly fixated on daniel bruhl (my celebrity crushes have no rhyme or reason- my last big one was bill paxton? and this was before big love ever aired, when he was pretty low profile). i'm happy to report, though, that i am into him even when he isn't dressed as a nazi (my biggest fear being that i'd somehow developed a "nazi thing") !



the movie is about a suicide pact gone awry. it takes place in the 70s and involves a straight virgin and his openly gay best friend getting involved in a weird love triangle (virgin is in love with his best friend's sister, sister is in love with HANS, best friend is also in love with HANS, HANS makes out with brother AND sister, sister's best friend is in love with virgin) that leads to them deciding to kill everyone who stands between them and love (aka sister and HANS) and then kill themselves. it was really beautiful to look at, and they did a wonderful job portraying first love/first sexual experiences. the actress playing the sister, hilde, was really amazing, especially considering that she was like 18 or 19 when it was filmed. it was a little frustrating to watch a german subtitled movie though because i could understand what they were saying 75% of the time and it didn't always match up with the subtitles exactly. so like, maybe don't watch it if you took a bunch of high school german?

by the way, the reason i kept capitalizing hans is because hans was super funny looking and it was so funny to see people pining for him !


HANS

i have to go make fundraising calls now. twice a year, every year, everyone in my office has to do it, and it's always the worst day of the year. at least hardly anyone answers !