i will follow you into the dark

mannnn. not sure how to start this entry, because i really don't want to write it, but weirdo's kidney's failed suddenly on sunday and she had to be put to sleep. she was fine on saturday- playful and energetic and annoying and cute, but she didn't finish her dinner. on sunday morning when i left, she was playful but sleepy (kitten attacked my hand when i petted her goodbye), and on sunday evening when i came home, she was completely lethargic and her gums were white. i didn't notice anything strange at first because she was kind of a little floppy noodle cat when she was tired anyway, but after about a half hour of that, we started to get worried.

mouse dropped me off at the emergency vet, and they took her right back. the first time the vet talked to me, we talked about what i should feed her when i got home (i transitioned her to regular cat food, but they suggested i keep her on kitten food for awhile), and then she went to check her bloodwork results. when she came back, she was carrying a box of tissues.


the last picture i took of her

the vet said that it looked like she had congenital kidney problems and at that point, she was so sick that there was nothing she could do. christina came and met me there, and we got to say goodbye to her (and sob and use the entire fucking box of tissues) and hold her and pet her and tell her how much everyone loved her. i had to hold her while she was put to sleep, and she went in about ten seconds.

this... fucking sucks? i don't really know how else to talk about it. i really, really, really miss her and i hate that this happened. like, on saturday specifically i was thinking about what she'd be like when she grew up- any time i picked her up and rested her head on my chest she'd fall asleep, and i was wondering if she'd still do that when she was big.

bleh. what a great little friend.

p.s. christina has been really amazing throughout all of this- i know she loved weirdo just as much as me, but she's been super supportive and great and funny and caring. she also made a donation to citykitties in weirdo's name.
p.p.s. i had a great thanksgiving weekend filled with terrific people who love me and weird stuff and maybe i'll write about that later this week. right now i'm pretty bummed.

i don't want to change the world

goddddd i'm the worst blogger in fucking history ! i've been really fucking busy lately, almost entirely doing reading/writing for school. i'm seriously almost regretting my decision to go back, because i have so little time and i feel like i haven't seen any of my friends in weeks. i barely see christina and we live in the same house. blahhh. all this for a degree that will be totally useless ! five years of AGONY !!!!!!!!!!!



i had a good weekend last weekend- on friday night, i forced myself to do some homework, KIND OF. which is, incidentally, also what i did on saturday. i seriously have never, ever, ever in my life had such a hard time reading a book as i did with beyond the culture wars by gerald graff (and i remember my recent experience with that mamdani book !!!!!). basically the book is about how educators should teach their students about conflicts and controversy surrounding literature and like... every single line of the book is a restatement of that sentence. and like... no offense gerald graff, i'm sure you are a really rad person, but you are a windbag of the highest degree and i hate your book and i fucking hateeeee you.


i'm gerald graff ! i'm a professor ! blah blah blah ! teach the conflicts, kids !

i spent most of the day studying at the green line, half with christina, half without, almost all with jesse (she was working), butttttt i didn't really get very much done. on saturday night, mouse and mike came over to watch the phillies break my heart and we got thai food (well, mouse got chinese food) and the boys played with the kitten. that was cool for me because she's a pain in the ass. i love her, but she's in like... extreme attack mode right now and my arms and neck (she likes to hang out on the back of the couch) are a mess of little bite marks and scratches. anyway, mike played feathers with her for awhile and mouse let her attack his shoes. i was happy to see them both because it's been forever. mike got mouse eskrima sticks for his birthday, so i'm looking forward to getting hit with eskrima sticks while i try to knit or watch movies.


i chose this assortment of nunchucks and violence sticks because it says "quality wood"

speaking of the kitten, she is still totally obsessed with food. it is the weirdest thing in the fucking universe- there's nothing medically wrong with her, yet she constantly acts like she's starving to death. any time anyone else besides her is eating, she starts yelling at them and trying to get the food ! this past week, she has bitten, eaten, or tried to bite: vegan pizza, mushrooms, peppers, spinach, TOFU SCRAMBLE, pretzels, a piece of pineapple from pineapple fried rice. what the hell ! here's a picture of her being really cool:



on sunday, i ran some errands and went to whole foods to get food to try to make myself eat food (ED stuff has been weird lately. understatement). i got vanilla yogurt and gingersnap granola from the bulk bins (!!!!!) and pears for breakfast, and i'm gonna try to eat that in a minute. after doing mooooooooore studying all night (at the green line, where patchie entertained me and played good music), francesca came over because she was in town ! holy shit ! i didn't even notice she was short because she acts so fucking tall. she ordered vegan pizza and i ate some pretzels and it was neat. i'm sort of embarrassed because pizza was being aloof and weirdo was being a weirdo.

as for the rest of this week, i've been cornholioing on lattes and studying and i'm still pretty far behind despite my professor giving us a much-needed extension on our genocide paper proposals. i'm going to do my damndest to catch up and get all my work done today and tomorrow. i seriously doubt i'd spend so much time studying if my study habits were more efficient- as it stands, i spend like 8 hours zoning out and read like 2 pages and then the next day spend 5 hours freaking out about how i spent so much time zoning out and then read 2 more pages. life ! is weird.

the only other news is that cam was totally right and my laptop didn't even come CLOSE to fitting in the h bag. i'm going to return it (i guess? i really like it but $58 is too much for a bag i can't use every day, even if i have to bring my laptop to school) and i got this bag instead:



i love it, and it should fit my laptop and school books and crap. and jeanne described it as looking like "something you would put horse feed in" which might be my style? if i wore leather or boots fit my calves i'd either be a robin hood person or look like someone who rides or tends to horses.

i wanted to make this entry more enriching and entertaining but work is fucking annoying ! i hate everything right now ! byeeeee.

east timor

i gotta make it quick cause i have a meeting soon ! hey !

yesterday i mostly slept. i meant to do reading for school but i didn't really get much done because i felt so crummy. i guess that's like... barely even interesting for me to write about, huh? anyway, later that night jeanne and i got dinner ! i didn't eat all day because i didn't feel well, but i got super super starving right before i had to go and i couldn't take it anymore, so i... ate like 10 pickled baby beets on an empty stomach !


please enjoy this genius covered in beet juice

so by the time i got to the restaurant, i had a pretty gross stomach ache ! which was a shame because i ate a big cream-based dinner (pappardelle in a cream sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, onions, shitake mushrooms, marsala wine, pecorino cheese). also, i decided recently that my new signature drink is scotch on the rocks, and i e-mailed my mom and consulted with my friend justin about how to order it in a bar, and was totally ready, but i got a shirley temple instead because my stomach was so upset. maybe next time.



after dinner, we got frozen yogurt at scoop de ville, and then i had to take a cab home because i had to use the bathroom and we were in a weird bathroom desert (i usually know where every public bathroom is and the closest one, barnes and noble, was closed). i got home and hung out with the kitten and edited my essay and got to catch up with christina a little- i've barely seen her since she got back from new hampshire !

sooooo, the kitten. she does not understand the importance of the litterbox. like, she goes in the litter half the time, but the other half she either goes 1) NEAR the litter or 2) where ever. i'm going to have to figure out what to do to give her the encouragement she needs. i'm not home during the day, but when i am home i grab her and put her in the litterbox if i see her squatting to go to the bathroom. other than that, she's super weird and cute. i can entertain her for an hour by putting my hair in a ponytail and setting her on the back of the couch.



i wish that accurately conveyed her smallness. that's christina's flip flop, and christina has little tiny feet (little tiny adult sized feet !). her flip flops are like, a 5.5-6 in womens' sizes. so the kitten is REALLY SMALL.

i have to go because my coworker needs help with something that she made much more convoluted than it needed to be, and i also have a staff meeting. bleh.

oh by the way ! i meant to post this picture of mouse and his nephew because it's the greatest thing ever, so i'm posting it in honor of mouse's birthday. he's not excited about his birthday but i am because he is cool and my favorite.



lots of reading to do today. lots of work at work.

when i'm dreaming of you

i had the best weekend and now i don't feel well !! i'm not sure if it's allergies (since my eyes itch) or what, but my nose has been gushing, my head and neck hurt, and i've felt super super super exhausted since yesterday afternoon. i called out of work, but i still have to go to class tonight because i missed class wednesday. blehhh.

welll here's all the good stuff ! on friday, i picked up weirdo II from jeanne ! i had to drive in south philly, which is sort of a nightmare of narrow streets and jay walking guidos, and was not able to parallel park to go inside (her street is REALLY narrow !), but weirdo and i made it home and she is the cutest sweetest smallest best dude ever. seriously, i cannot convey how fucking small she is ! here is a picture of her being small with me:



mouse stopped by on friday night to visit her and loved her, of course (he is interested in kittens)- we also discovered that she's obsessed with food. the second he opened his burrito and she could smell it, she frantically climbed all over him, meowing and then ran down his leg and bit his burrito !!! it was the funniest weirdest, but during the course of the weekend she did that with:

- thai curry
- pickles
- bbq seitan
- twizzlers

basically any food sends her into a ridiculous frenzy and she screams and tries to bite your food. it's very cute now that she's tiny, but will possibly not be that cute when she's big !

on saturday, mouse, nate, anna, and i went to linvilla orchards and met up with kati, alan, james, rachael, ashley, and sarah (who i FINALLLLLLY got to meet !). that sounds like a billion people, and it was ! linvilla is my favorite orchard, and it was packed.



i had the best time with everyone- we mostly looked at animals and ate food. a real stupid goat ate some corn out of my hand !!!!! and i saw a cow pee for like a minute straight. a horse too ! and we looked at some super gross emus. i also had french fries with vinegar, an apple cider slushie, a cider donut, and a slice of frozen chocolate covered cheesecake on a stick. who knew such a thing existed? holy shit. i felt like cathy.



but because of all of that, i DIDN'T get a caramel apple, which is a bummer because caramel apples are my favorite food and i only get to have one a year (because i have terrible teeth !). i also didn't get to have deep fried oreos, which i get to have no times a year (only because i'm not often around them, not because of any kind of cathy-esque food rules). so many regrets ! i declined going apple picking (since i can never find any good apples on the trees) and instead bought some neat stuff at their store- i got:

- pumpkin butter
- orange blossom honey
- pickled baby beets
- sweet garlic dill pickles (!!!!!)



anyway, i had the best time and got the worst stomach ache ! after all that, we came home and parted ways- i had a ton of homework and was super tired, and ended up crashing out and not doing any homework.

on sunday, mouse and i went to laurel hill cemetery (a gigantic beautiful victorian cemetery here) for the spirits and spiritualists tour. it was great, and laurel hill is beautiful (especially on an overcast day, because i'm a goth teenager), but there wasn't really thaaaaat much about spiritualism on the tour. we did learn about margaret fox, who was basically the inventor of spiritualism, who was very famous for being able to communicate with the dead with rapping and crap, and her love affair with the famous explorer elisha kent kane. they were going to be married, but his family forbade it because they were stuck up assholes !!!!!! anyway, he wrote her a bunch of romantic letters about how she'd be buried in his family crypt with him when she died (why don't guys do stuff like that anymore?) and after he died she was like, "actually we secretly got married and i want his shit", and i believe she ended up getting some of his shit.



his tomb is in the side of a hill just outside the cemetery fence (i think cause they couldn't fence around it?), and margaret didn't end up in there. boo. other than that, there wasn't too much spiritualism on the tour, but he did show us all the famous graves (general meade, harry kalas, frank furness, charles thomson, etc.). i had a good time, and i tried to touch every tombstone to see if a ghost would haunt me, but it didn't happen.

after the cemetery, we went to whole foods, where i got $98329829832 worth of stuff from the salad bar/hot bar, and i came home to study and do homework. i didn't end up getting too much done because i was already starting to feel sick, but i got the main assignment i had due finished. today i have to do a little reading and maybe work on an essay, but i'm probably going to take mucinex and sleep.

class tonight- the syllabus instructs us to bring our laptops, which is awesome because it's rainy and gross outside and my laptop is too big to bring places, but i'll do it.

oh how happy you have made me

blahhhh hi ! class last night was kind of rough- this week we were covering settler genocides and specifically aboriginal child removal in australia, so we watched rabbit proof fence, a movie based on a true story of three "half-caste" (of indigenous australian and european descent) girls who were taken from their indigenous australian parents and put in a "school" (to be trained as servants and bred with europeans to "breed out the black"), who later escaped and walked 1000 miles home.



it was a great movie and it was brutally sad, and of course i was the only one crying. i'm not sure what is up with like, the dead-eyed unsympathetic generation that i'm going to school with? anyway, i have to write a paper for this class, and i'm thinking about doing something about gendercide. i got gendercide and genocide by adam jones, and gendercide by mary warren. i also have some other books already that may be relevant (rape of nanking for one). wish me luck !



sooo what else, besides genocide? i came home from school and remembered i had to raid. our plan was to kill the lich king, buttttt we kept wiping on sindragosa. we don't have a ringer group right now since no one is really playing, so it wasn't an ideal set up, and paul was cranky because the padres blew it.



oh, also ! ALSO !!! tonight i'm picking up my new kitten. hannah was fostering her, and she dropped her off with jeanne last night to babysit (since i had class), so i'm going to get her after work. according to jeanne, she enjoys playing and eating and putting her paws on you.



i'm excited ! and a little nervous. it's been a long time since i had a kitten.

weekend? hanging out with mouse (i feel like i've barely seen him lately), going to linvilla orchards (unless the weather blows?), hanging hard, doing homework.

throw every last care away

ahhhh my back is ruined ! i fell asleep in a crappy position when i was benadrylled out and hurt my back and it's felt crappy for a week ! it's specifically the muscle i use to get up and sit down- so it's fine when i'm up walking around or laying down or sitting (except in my work chair, which is a problem), but having to sit down and get up from a sitting position is torture. TORTURE !


it actually hurts right about where the skeleton is hurt

i had a good weekend ! on friday i intended to do homework but ended up taking a nap, eating dinner, reading a non-school book, dropping my laundry off at the laundromat, and loafing. i managed to finish my outline of a chapter we had to read but i still have an essay to write before my class tonight ! i'm nervous that i won't be able to get it done because all of the material for the writing seminars is poorly written and i don't think i understand the instructions, but i'm sure i can bang something out- it's a first draft, anyway.

on saturday, i got a car and went to the bank and picked up kitten supplies. i got a tiny litterbox, a bunch of (tiny) cans of kitten food, and ordered a broken heart best friends necklace for the kitten and pizza's collars.


i didn't get THIS one cause it was $220

after my errands, mouse, nate, and anna came over to watch the phillies game, which was a total bummer. fuck the mets. we got pizza from ed's buffalo wings and pizza, since they have vegan pizza. the vegan pizza was probably the best vegan pizza i've ever had. the non-vegan pizza was probably one of the worst pizzas i've ever had. the vegan pizza was better than their regular pizza ! probably the best development of the night, though, was that nate and anna decided to come with us to the old timey baseball game on sunday !

...the old timey baseball game got rained out on sunday, but we all went to delaware anyway and went bowling with kati and alan. i didn't bowl because i'm too competitive and also too bad at bowling, but i knitted and drank a giant fountain coke, so i had a really good time. the bowling alley was blaaaaring like... weird tween music? like a mix of bad teen pop music and... adult pop music being covered by teenagers? also they had cosmic bowling at 2pm.



i like all that stuff though ! after bowling, we stopped at a kind of crappy thrift store (this was like, the most teenagery day ever- bowling and thrift stores !) and went back to kati's, where she and alan made us dinner- sweet potato fries and those veganomicon chickpea cutlets. kati also had cherry cider which was excellent. their house is so cute. they also have a very handsome 3-legged cat named sandy who sort of has a half leg? and the tip of his half leg is hairless and the nub feels like a paw pad ! pretty exotic. he is the cutest and he and anna formed a special bond.



sandyyyyyy. after dinner, we came back to philly and i unwisely took a nap before starting my homework which means i.. didn't really start my homework. i SORT OF finished huckleberry finn, because the essay i have to write is about the end. i'm probably going to write the essay at lunch today. basically i have til 5:30 to cobble something together. i sort of hate this writing class? no one wants to be there so the environment is weirdly hostile and i don't really have a class friend. oh well, i like the professor and it's a good class to take alongside a hard class.

hmm, what else? i started the presto chango jacket for helen's baby. it will look like this but less purple, more red, and cooler with cool faux jet buttons:



i'm going to go find breakfast or something and then get to work on... work.

how to boil water

okay i haveeee to complain a little about my writing class again. we have a class blog that we have to write in, every day, monday through thursday. we have to write at least three lines, about any topic. nearly everyone is acting like the professor tossed them a scalpel and asked them to perform brain surgery. so far, many of the blog entries are like, HOW CAN I FIND TIME TO DO THIS EVERY DAY? HOW CAN I REMEMBER TO DO THIS EVERY DAY. like, how do you remember to do anything every day? just do that. i personally put an outlook reminder on my calendar for every day, monday through thursday, until the end of the semester. put me in, coach !



i don't know- i guess i'm surprised that people are acting like whiny high school kids in college? like IS THIS GOING TO BE ON THE TEST? GOD THERE'S SO MUCH READING I DON'T HAVE TIME, THIS SUCKS. THIS CLASS SUCKS !)(!#@())(###

oh, did i mention that getting my courses evaluated has been a total bust so far? i had 7 possible classes that i was told "would transfer" (which i think was a poor choice of words on the part of my adviser, who seems to be... totally clueless. it took 3 days and 6 emails to get her to actually attach the attachment she forgot to attach to the first e-mail). of the six courses i was able to find syllabuses for (out of 7), 1 has been accepted, 2 have been denied, and 3 are in various queues. my dream of knocking a year off of my school career (in exchange for attending 2.5 years in the early 00s) isn't going to become a reality.



last night i desperately tried to read for genocide class- still reading saviors and survivors. it is a very intelligent and well-researched genocide denial i think? but it's frustrating me because i don't actually know enough about darfur to say this guy is wrong, and i only know that some people who DO know about darfur say he's wrong. i am also frustrated by his recounting of the history of darfur, including the ancient history- this SHOULD be interesting, and the history of race and politics in sudan and specifically in darfur are super important to understanding the current climate and conflicts, buttttttt he's just rattling off lists of names and dates and it's fucking boring ! it's frustrating because 1) i love history and 2) his writing was engaging in the previous chapters ! so i don't know what's up.


mahmood mamdani

anyway, all that aside, the main point is that i didn't do as much reading as i should have. i have a good excuse- my back is sort of fucked up and sitting in a crappy chair at the green line away from my computer and xbox and stuff seemed painful. haha. so after my writing class tonight, i have to do exactly that- no excuses. i need to read like 200 more pages tonight.

so far this entry has been all complaining and genocide denial so i'm going to cut it with knitting and kittens. first, here's a picture of tavi in an awesome sweater (let's ignore the fact that kathleen hanna gave it to her):



all of my knitting dork friends are trying to figure out how to make a chart for that so we can all be huge copy cats of a 14 year old. granted, a super smart and sharp 14 year old who makes our 14 year old selves look like total posers. i definitely think that pattern would work well on a scarf.

in other news, the kitten i'm adopting is very cute. here's proof:



i'm going to have to look into teeny kitten accessories for her- like a collar tiny enough to fit her, a litter box (though she'll probably use a pizza box til she gets a little bigger), toyssssss, etc. i'm also going to shop around philly vets because mine is in the suburbs and it's sort of annoying to go there, and the little lady needs her vaccinations and needs to get spayed. ahhhh my baby. i hope pizza likes her.

i have to go get ready for a stupid meeting now. blehhhhh.

walk the dinosaur

hey dudes ! i had a wonderful and very benadrylled weekend ! on friday, i came home and actually wrote my essay- i had to write an essay about huckleberry finn, and then write an essay about my essay where i went through every line and had to paraphrase each line (to say what it SAYS) and then explain what each line DOES. it wasn't as tedious as it sounds ! then i had to read a chapter of beyond the culture wars by gerald graff and do a SAYS/DOES outline for that. what a weird book- this is my first year back at school in a billion years and it is some like... weird academic-y jargon-y book about problems in academia. why would i care about that? i have no clue what he's even talking about. like, going to school to learn about going to school doesn't seem interesting to me.



the class is pretty rough. so far it is like... middle school type stuff, but the instruction is muddled and the assignments are tedious. i'm bummed, because i have a lot to learn about writing and i'm not sure i'm going to learn it in this (required) class. we have to do a class blog and i know that not everyone is a superstar blogger or whatever, but everyone's entries are so weird and tedious and are a mishmash of incomplete sentences. also even though they can be about ANYTHING, most people write about the class. i feel like a jerk complaining about it though !

on saturday, i went to hannah's to meet my new kitten !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hannah found a teeny tiny baby kitten, and i get to take her home in 3 weeks. she's about 3 weeks old now (though she seems to be around 4 weeks developmentally and 3 weeks in size? so she may just be tiny). she is seriously like... the cutest kitten in the world. she put her paws on my face and nibbled on my chin and alksjdkaslks she's so cute. hannah is a saint for taking care of her !



after that, i went to target to get some qtips and new bedding and ended up running into jeanne, mike, ryann, and ned ! and then a few minutes later, benji ! it was pretty neat, except i was self-conscious about my eye and the fact that i was sort of covered in kitten pee. i got some bedding and some qtips and headed home, where i met up with mouse and benji (again !), fresh from their jiu jitsu lesson. i made them spaghetti with field roast sausages:



and mouse and i tried to sell benji on band of brothers. benji isn't a tv person but he's a cool human so he'd probably love band of brothers. i got to hang out with mouse a little too after benji left, which was nice because i don't get to see him as much because of school.

on sunnnnnday, i did some reading for my genocide class- this week we have to read saviors and survivors by mahmood mamdani. it's about darfur, and my professor said that she considers it to be genocide denial. so far, that seems pretty right on, but i have to claim ignorance here and say that i really don't know enough about darfur to know if what he's saying is completely preposterous.



i have a lot more reading to do, because i hope to write my paper for the class about genocide denial, so i think i need to actually stick to my plan of reading when i'm supposed to be reading ! after doing some reading, though, i went to jeanne and mike's house for fake thanksgiving ! ryann came too. we made quorn roast, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and brussels sprouts, and i brought a cherry pie and some pastries. the food was so good and i had the best time, and i'm glad i got to hang out with ryann again cause she's cool. also thanksgiving is the best possible meal of all time and i want to have it again right now?


someone else's vegan thanksgiving

what else? i'm off of work today because my eye totally sucks. benadryl made the swelling go down, but i didn't take it last night so i could get up for work today, and it came right back. the hydrocortisone my doctor suggested (did i mention that? my doctor suggested benadryl and hydrocortisone on friday for 3 days, and if it wasn't gone today, come back) seemed to make my face redder, and the really itchy spot is my tear duct. this really, really sucks.

what else? oh, in times of stress, i get fixated on stupid things. troll dolls. bill paxton. floaty pens. right now, it's, uh, how i met your mother. i will say right off- this show is not funny. it has a good cast (minus the main character, who is like jimmy fallon taped off the radio, and then someone made a tape of that tape, and so on and so on and so on) and good writers and almost good jokes, but the delivery of every line is so horrible, the laugh track is really weak and oddly placed, ugh. it's a TERRIBLE show. and yet i am downloading all five seasons and have bought some episodes on itunes.



- why would the main character's voice change as he aged so he turns into bob saget instead of having the same voice?
- how do two assholes in nyc afford such a HUGE apartment?
- how do they afford to go drinking every single night?
- why bother living in nyc if they don't go anywhere but their apartment and the bar directly downstairs?
- some of the stuff barney does is super sketchy/sexual assault-y. why are they friends with him? especially the women?
- who on earth would tell their children some of the stuff that goes on on this show? why would a child ever care how their parents met?
- why am i so attracted to jason segel?

these are questions i cannot answer. i hope this passes soon.

anywayyyyyy see you tomorrowwww

we are 139

yesterday was my 138th entry ! hayyy.

this morning my eyes were so swollen and i looked like this guy:



christina put zyrtec eyedrops in my eyes, which was super relieving, and i took a zyrtec- the alavert i was taking just wasn't cutting it, and i feel a little better, but i also had to drink a 32 oz iced coffee to combat it and now i feel like, Very Insane.

the bigggggg news is that weirdo's owners found out we had her, so we had to bring her back to them. it was a bummer because she's back outside already. the cat seriously has zero street smarts and is constantly almost getting hit by cars. i guess they'll be sorry when she's dead? we'll miss you, weirdo (and i reserve the right to name any future cat i get "weirdo II" with a silent "II").



at least jeanne got to meet her ! jeanne came over and petted her forever, and then we ordered delicious thai food. i had crazy allergy head/face so i didn't feel like going anywhere, so we hung out at my house and talked. jeanne is coooooooool. after she left, i read some of huckleberry finn. wow, huckleberry finn is a total sociopath ! i remember his exploits sounding a lot more fun and clever when i was a kid and now i'm like, "what a maniac." i'm kind of kidding, but kind of not kidding too. reading nothing but huckleberry finn and a million genocide books and articles this semester is probably going to turn me into an empty shell of a person who eats a lot of corn pone.



i got some yarn in the mail, too, to make baby stuff for some babies ! first, i'm making mouse's nephew scottie a tiny little mailman replica cardigan (using a patch from one of mouse's old work shirts), and this pattern:



and knitpicks worsted swish superwash in dark navy:



and i'm going to make the presto chango cardigan for helen's upcoming baby



with garnet heather swish worsted yarn, which looks a little like this but is more vibrant with black heathering:



and these faux jet buttons from etsy:



i'm pretty excited to do some baby knitting, since it seems like things will knit up fast and i have a little while before i need to finish, but i ammmmmm a little worried about knitting time vs. school time. i barely knitted anything over summer, but knitting in the summer also kind of sucks. oh, i also bought these buttons on etsy, for use with... some other baby thing? maybe a fancy baby sweater?



they seem too beautiful to waste on a baby (i love babies, but they don't know an ornate button from a shit-lined shoe) but they're also super tiny and i think they'd get lost on any kind of adult garment. i just need to meet a really elegant and fancy and worldly baby. maybe a millionaire baby? dannielynn birkhead? hillary swank?



i guess i should get to work- i'm going to read huckleberry finn on my lunch break, and do a little reading for my genocide class. i have to write a response paper for that class, which is intimidating because i don't really know what that is. here's what the professor wrote us:

I encourage everyone to try out a response paper for Thursday. This will help you codify the definitional questions involved in the study of genocide and perhaps clarify some deeper thoughts you have on the subject. It will also give you a chance to see how these response papers work. As I mentioned last Thursday, guiding questions will be posted each week. Feel free to use them as a guide when writing your response paper. I have found that the most successful response papers engage one question or a set of closely related questions in a sustained way. Response papers are semi-formal--please correct spelling and grammar before handing them in! You should also feel free to draw on personal experience, and by all means use the first person.

hopefully this all works out and it isn't graded too harshly- we have 13 weeks in class and only have to write 10 papers, so i could skip it, but i want all the feedback i can get, so i'm going to try my best and try not to be too worried about "doing it wrong."

okay cya !

shyness is nice and shyness can stop you

what a wonderful weekend ! friday was jeanne's art show at benna's and it was phenomenal ! jess and laszlo came down from new york to go with us. everything was so beautiful in person and a million billion people came ! unfortunately, kat bought the sirin, but i bought a print of it ! and also bought prints of like.. every other possible thing. christina bought this one:



it was the most fun- jeanne's art looked so great and it was so impressive. there were a ton of people so i kept getting like social anxiety horror feelings, but i made myself stay inside and talk to new people and act fairly normal, though at one point i almost reached out and stroked a girl's hair? we were packed in like sardines and my brain misfired and was like, "if someone is this close to me it means we're on hair petting terms". luckily i didn't do it ! there were a million people there that i know and kinda know, and i got to meet nate's brother (finally) which was exciting !

after the show, we tried to go to the pope and were REBUFFED, so we went to the pathetic adobe which is always empty. i split a pitcher of apple margaritas with someone and got instantly hammered. p.s. apple margaritas taste like garbage. i actually got to talk to labuda for awhile, which is a feat (since i never leave my house) and got to talk to ryann and ned (ryann, ned, and kat are the friends of jeanne's that i'm trying to pokemon) !



on saturday, jess, laszlo, christina, and i tried to go to mi lah (not to be confused with my lai), a vegetarian restaurant in center city with a really amazing looking brunch menu. we got there at 2:30 (brunch is from 10-3) and.. were told that the kitchen was closed. we ended up going to monk's since we were already on 16th street, and we had a good time. i wish they lived here, but i'll have to settle for emailing jess and getting a weird al bro tat with laszlo.



when we came back, there was a beautiful stray cat on our porch and we petted her before dropping jess and laszlo at the bus station. then we went to whole foods, where i got a vegan carrot cake for carol's party that night ! when we got home we couldn't resist the beautiful stray anymore and i decided to take her ! so, if everything works out with her health / her relations with pizza, i'm going to keep her. her name is weirdo and she's really super tiny (like 6lbs) and very sweet and nice and has big eyes and a teeny mouth !



god she's great ! she's so soft ! and tiny ! after getting her situated in christina's room, mouse picked me up and we went to carol's house. i only got to see carol for a little bit, but i got to pet three great cats and hang out with jeanne and look at all of carol's stuff in her bedroom- she's the only person i know who has a kurt russell action figure.



i also saw her lil wayne - the carter record's spine and thought it was a tia carrere album about wayne. everyone was hanging out on the roof, and i was wearing a dress and didn't really know anyone and didn't feel comfortable like, awkwardly climbing out there and showing everyone my vagina so that was sort of a bummer. we left around 10:30 and went back to my house and tried to find videos of dusty's love on the internet (dusty's love being a saturday night live thing mouse is obsessed with, about a blind girl played by sarah michelle gellar who is in love with a disgusting alien who eats horses?). SURPRISINGLY, we came up empty-handed !

on sunday, i tried to do some reading for that social contract class but it was so oppressive and uninteresting that christina and i cleaned the livingroom as a distraction. after assessing the reading for the class, though, i decided that that class would be too hard to take in conjunction with my genocide class, and i dropped it. i signed up instead for a mandatory writing seminar (which i have to take at penn- no previous composition or english course i took can be used to fulfill that requirement) about huckleberry finn.


i'm your huckleberry

What is a literary education good for, anyway? What makes a Great Book? In this class we will look at the debates and crises that have shaped literary study over the twentieth century. Our entry point into these controversies will be Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has been alternately celebrated as a “Great American Novel” and trashed as a childish, racist, and outdated relic. As a critical community, the class will engage with debates over this novel and reflect on our own literary educations—what they have been and what they should be. Students will write, peer review, and revise several short essays throughout the semester. They will also keep a class journal, in which they will write informally both inside and outside of class.

the class meets on monday and wednesday, but only for 1.5 hours, which shouldn't be toooooo bad. hopefully i can handle it with the genocide class !

oh, mouse came over to to meet the kitty and to copy some good music from christina (i also might do that soon). tonight is my first meeting of the aforementioned writing class and i'm nervous and excited. i hope i can do it !

okay talk to you later.