Just one little complaint for today - remember how I mentioned a couple posts back about how incredibly annoying it is when family members (or others) burst into your room to wake you up, making loud noises such as hand-clapping, and gaily rattle off their day's accomplishments in between yelling at you to get out of bed? At the time, I was upset because Sarah did that at 12:30 on my day off. However, I must say it is far worse when the same thing happens before the clock hour is in double digits (as in, 8 or 9 am), again on your day off, do everything described above and add the greater insult of giving you a long list of things to remember to do that day? Of course, it being so godawfully early in the morning, I usually am able to return to a fitful sleep filled with particularly strange and unpleasant dreams (but hey, sleep is sleep, especially after 4 hours worth). Then, when I finally do roll out of bed due to a particularly grouchy bladder at, oh, 1 or 2 pm, I can't for the life of me remember the list given to me hours earlier while in a state of semi-consciousness. Naturally, if I forget to complete any of the listed items, I'm confronted with disappointed sighs and chiding remarks of lazyness, forgetfulness, etc. All I'm asking for is a piece of paper on the counter or taped to the microwave, a voicemail, even. Is that asking too much, really?

Along with the complaint, an amusing antecdote. Caron stayed over this weekend since it's the last weekend I may end up seeing her for a while due to a long overdue tonsilectomy (or however you spell it). She felt like going out last night, so around 11 pm we went over to Max's house, then went to a bar over on Central Ave. Don't ask me which one, but it had ping-pong tables in the back. We didn't do any big partying thing, just found a little corner outside on the deck. Max had a Bailey's on ice, I had a horrible faux-Cosmopolitan (it probably tasted like the real thing, but the last time I tried one was after 2 triple shots of Captain Morgans and a hurricane glassful of something called a Kitchen Sink, so I really don't know), and Caron had a couple of Bud Lights. We talked, mostly about the old gang from high school. Well, *we* were in high school, they were all dropouts and gang members. We told stories about Jim the Alcoholic, best known for his signature phrase "so now *I'm* the asshole!", and swapped some news. Who is wanted for murder, who is now a call-girl, that sort of thing. We left a little before 2 am, to beat the rush, and as we were slithering through the packed crowd inside, apparently a very large black man with no neck (we later named him Grimace, as in McDonald's, since apparently that was a pretty accurate physical description) flagged Caron down and said, "Don't I know you?" Caron said something like, "I don't think so." Grimace then proceeded to enter the competition for cheesy pickup line by replying with "Can I *get* to know you?" and shouted out his number. Classic.

First off, one of the more embarassing sounds in the world, and also a good clue that you are ready for a lifestyle change: hearing your belly flap against your legs as you run up the stairs. Yiiiiiikes.

Second, and related to the frightening experience above, I have been repeatedly thinking that I obviously don't have the luxury to eat foods that taste good. If it tastes good, it can not possibly be good for me. Also, if it tastes good, I'll probably eat more of it than I need. Example 1: peanut butter. Even if it's all natural and reduced fat (which I can't help but think is a contradiction in terms, but whatever), having nothing but peanut butter lying around as a snack will get you in trouble. (I've been trying to systematically remove any and all snack-type foods from the house, with the exception of pitas and soy nuts (roasted and salted soybeans that are kind of like corn nuts, but not. Jenny tried some and said, "Wow, those things instantly remove all moisture from your mouth, don't they?". But *I* like them). My attempts are usually foiled by my mom's purchasing habits. I eat her food, she buys more. It's a vicious cycle. Hopefully this cycle will be broken by my upcoming move to Pittsburgh. There will be no shared foods. If there is anything I can eat, it will be something I bought. If I don't buy bad-for-me food, I can't eat bad-for-me food. Simple. I can do that easily, I have practiced restraint at the grocery store for as long as I can remember (except for that time I tried to steal mint drops from the bulk goods section. But nevermind that). I figure, switching to vegan won't be such a bad idea, because I'll either be eating foods that I don't enjoy, and therefore won't be tempted to eat them a whole lot, or I'll be eating foods that are good for me, my karma, and the environment. By karma, I mean conscience and the ability to hold my head high at an animal rights lecture. Except for my leather shoes. Ah well.

So, the fact that soy dairy products have, on the whole, a hellish and disgusting aftertaste, is a good thing. I won't be eating soy parmesean cheese as a snack. I won't be having artichoke and spinach dip that often if it has soy ... stuff... in it. And I'll be getting loads of soy protein! Yeah.

I feel like the fat on my body is this strange alien entity, like some kind of parasite that's attached itself to me. Sometimes I feel like when I'm eating, I'm just feeding this parasite, and the only way to kill it is to starve it. Of course, I'd also be starving myself, too, so at this point I have the idea that the parasite only likes certain things, and ignores the rest. If I just eat the things it doesn't like, maybe it'll go away and leave me alone. Unfortunately, my gigantic alien ass and I have similar tastes in food. So, if I have to avoid eating alien-friendly food for a while, or a long time, or the rest of my life, then that's what I have to live with.

The problem is that right now my priority list is very short. School, family obligations, 'work' (painting the bathroom), fun/social life, sleep, chores, eat. Depending on my mood, those priorities can switch places. But damn, that's a short list, and it's a long day. If more things were included in it, or if the things already there took up more time, the whole 'eating' thing wouldn't come up as much as it does. Also, if I added exercise to that list, that would help a whole hell of a lot. I'm hoping that I can get going this summer, take a karate class, some yoga (Ayako asked if my goal by the end of the summer is the ability to kick ass and then fly away. I told her, actually, it would be, if that was physically possible), maybe start lifting weights. Lifting weights is fun over long term. You get to add a new weight every week or two, and before you know it, you're bench-pressing your classmates. It's quite enjoyable. And it makes me feel butch, which often is a good thing. Yes, I know, I'd make a good lesbian, if I wasn't so damn attracted to men. Note: 'attracted', not 'attractive'. Sigh...

My digital camera's working again! Here are the pictures I just took with it. (*Boredom warning*: these are all of my cat and our newly striped dining room. Unless you like small cute fuzzy things or are thinking of reserving 4 days to paint stripes in your house, I don't suggest looking at these.) The first 21 pictures are of my incredibly fuzzy cat who is wondering what the hell I'm doing. That one picture is not him yowling in pain - I caught him in mid-yawn. The rest are of the dining room. Mind you, my mom wanted this room 'completed' so she worked around the clock for days trying to finish, and was sorely disappointed when I didn't help her with the touch-ups because I had other things to do. However, the china has been sitting in boxes and on the table for the past 2 weeks. Mmmhmm.

Anyhoo, I'm either going to paint the ceiling, post to a discussion board for class, or do some programming labs. If it's one of the latter two, expect more postings. I wonder if there's an award for the most boring blog. Of course, it has to have regular postings, or else that would be a different award (most neglected?). I think I'd at least get a nomination.

It's been a while, so as usual, I will update you in reverse-chronological order, because that is one of the stupider ways to do so.

I spent the last few days trapped in Sarah's townhouse (aside from time spent at school). Mom was at the furniture market in High Point, so I had to stay in her place in Elizabeth cuz I can walk to there from class. This morning I set my alarm for 7:30 so we could leave by 8, as per her Monday instructions. She'd gotten home late last night, though, and I didn't hear her alarm go off, so I figured she was sleeping in. Unfortunately, I didn't figure this out until I was already dressed. Blegh. Anyway, I didn't have the stomach to start the next part of Beloved, not that early in the morning, so I picked up Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. I remembered seeing it a lot on Hyperdramatic's blog, and I noticed it next to Sarah's other book club selections such as The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love and The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I read it for about an hour and a half that morning, ten more minutes while waiting for Mom to pick me up, and finished it after dinner once I got home (another, oh, 2 or 3 hours). I like reading books like that, in between the more difficult and serious works of literary geniuses. No insult meant to Sedaris - I loved his book or I wouldn't have devoured it like that.

I guess I needed a little culture after spending the previous couple of days watching endless hours of TV, gorging on snack foods and eating two pizzas. I watched Feds, again, for the god-only-knows-how-many time, mostly because it was on HBO and I could actually hear Mary Gross say "Suck shit through a tube". I love HBO. We don't get it at home. You know, they should have a paid service for people with new TVs. They can broadcast regular TV shows and movies without bleeping or fuzzing stuff out, if you so choose. If you're an uptight soccor mom who wants to keep her kids 'innocent' (snort, who the fuck are you fooling), you can fix the rating that comes through it. Yeah, it's like the V-chip, but opposite, so that your narrow-minded morality isn't imposed on the rest of us out here in the real world, who don't give a flying fuckity-fuck fuck. ;) Hell, everyone knows your kid is a lazy brat who doesn't care about school, you should applaud any new vocabulary that s/he can pick up. Let us see our gratutious violence, listen to our degrading insults, racial slurs and curse words, and see our T&A in peace! Jeezus.

So this guy in my drawing class reminds me of this other guy at school who I have had a crush on (of varying degrees) for um, years. I don't think I'd actually like *him*, but he is on the cute side, and reminds me of my personal sweetie. Like, he came around filling our water cups for ink drawing, and I got all flustered and stupid. Yay. Anyway, so now *he* has a crush on this other girl, Martha-the-ridiculously-talented, and she's not all that fond of him, and it's really quite funny. We're practicing for our self-portrait so we drew other class members today to learn about proportion (I finished with a mixture of good and bad trials), and he scootched his desk over to sit right across from her and draw her. First thing. She had this look on her face like, 'Greaaaat. Here we go again.' Other people's embarassment is FUN.

Tuesday Sarah woke me up at noon (don't you hate it when you finally get to sleep in, and your chirpy roommate/family member/whatever wakes you up clapping their hands and brightly listing their daily accomplishments thus far, and saying that it's time for you to get up? Regardless of whatever time it happens to be, don't you fucking HATE that? If you had more energy, wouldn't you pounce on them and squeeze their energetic little throat?) and invited me out to lunch. I can rarely turn down an excuse to get out of a domicile, especially when prepared food is involved, so I agreed to go to Brixx. I saw soy cheese on their menu and decided to try it with appropriate toppings to cover whatever extra flavor might be involved. Unfortunately, I didn't learn until after I'd ordered my wild mushroom and arugula pizza that they were *out* of said soy cheese, and then it was too late. It tasted... woodsy. Anyway, we were talking about my Mythology class and how Joseph Campbell has been covering Eastern religion thus far. Sarah mentioned that she always thought Hinduism was the most fascinating, and asked if I had ever read Siddhartha. I said, um, I think you're thinking of Buddhism. Transcendentalism, enlightenment... Buddhism. Gods with many arms and legs... Hinduism. She seemed confused and doubtful, and then mentioned that she wanted to learn more about Shintoism, specifically the sect that worshipped ancestors. I'm not sure what to make of that one. Grandpa said at Thanksgiving the year before he died that Sarah was full of shit. I wonder how that might factor into her conversion....

Remind me when I'm on here next time to rant and rave about how the goddamn networks are cancelling all the quality entertainment on TV and are going to leave us with nothing but quote unquote REALITY TV shows that are ridiculously stupid and an insult to the majority of American intelligence. Well, maybe not a majority, but a lot of us. Some of us. Whatever. Peace out.

Wendifer: How do you plan on achieving world peace?
Alice:With my sophisticated neural network.
Wendifer: Do you plan on controlling world leaders with this sophisticated neural network?
Alice:That was my original intention.

Is it just me, or does this sound like a critique of the modern family structure? Chicks caught in parental crossfire.

By the way, I was viciously rebuffed by Rubbermaid, and I have decided (after a frustrated cry/freakout last night) that I am definitely going to Pittsburgh this summer. Still not sure what job, but eh. And I think we may have the summer room situation figured out. So all is pretty well, except for the fact that I forgot to call the HUB about never getting my financial aid package, and the deadline was 2 weeks ago. Oops.

I'm chatting with A.L.I.C.E., the chatterbot. Here's a particularly amusing excerpt:
Wendifer: Dr. Wallace programmed you to sell me porn?
Alice: It is only one of his accomplishments.

Ha.

Well, I just sent out an email to Rubbermaid asking if I'm still in the running. Otherwise, I have to figure out which job I want in Pittsburgh - high pay student work, or low pay non-design work? And we have to figure out how 8 people will fit in 5 bedrooms for the summer. Ahem.

Anyway, wish me luck. I'm off to do work.

I'm not sure why, but that new commercial for whitening gum (the one where the little giggling chiclet-looking things clean a picture of a woman's teeth) reminds me of the evil isz. I wish there was a place where they showed the dark cartoons again, like they used to on MTV and Liquid Television. I remember watching marathons of that when I was 14/15. After it was over, I'd go downstairs and be around my family, and I would feel so out of it...

Anyway. If Cartoon Network is going to have an adult swim, they should put the Maxx and Aeon Flux on it. God knows if I could afford it, I'd be a comic book freak.

Aww. I just read this article about Rudy Galindo, because I couldn't remember his name and did a Google search, and this turned up. He's HIV positive, that's so sad. I mean, it's sad when anyone is HIV positive, but he just seemed so incredibly happy on ice. I guess he figured out that you should do what you want, what makes you happy, and the hell with anyone who says otherwise.

And it shouldn't take a fatal disease for you to realize that.

It seems my productivity has definite limits. So far, I've done 1 load of wash, taken a shower, and watched my mythology video. Otherwise, I watched the last 2/3 or so of 3 different movies. I started with an Elvis movie about Carnies (mmkay), proceeded to TeenWolf (.... no comment) and finished with Badlands, with Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek back in 1973. Pretty. The movie was well made, too. ;) Y'know, it's funny, but I never thought that Emilio Estevez looked *anything* like his dad, until I saw that movie. He's almost an exact copy with blond hair. Awwww! For some reason, I love entertainment families. I don't know why.

During the TeenWolf commercials I watched parts of that Stars on Ice thing on TNT. I caught Rudy Galindo's performance. I loved it. The utter confidence, and happiness, with which he wore that sailor's uniform and danced to the Village People medley - fabulous.

One of my recurring daydreams is being a hip designer living in a well-lit loft in New York and just being incredibly trendy and irresistable. It's occasionally stoked by movies in Manhattan, and actresses like Parker Posey. For some reason, I'm always listening to The Strokes. I don't know why I keep coming back to it. I'd hate New York. But I have the haircut for it.

Oh, I forgot to mention. I had a technology awareness moment the other day. I was taking a break from painting (it hurts my neck, okay??), and found an old edition of Game Developer that I hadn't read yet. So I'm sitting there reading an article on the use of symbols in video games, I'm listening to MP3s playing through the DVD/digital TV setup in my mom's room. It hit me while I was listening to modernhumorist.com's rendition of Jewel's 'My Hands', except she's singing about Wolverine and the X-Men (made right before the movie came out). She sings out 'modernhumorist.com' at the end, and I was like - woah. Is this the digital age or what?? And then I went back to standing on a rickety wooden ladder and painting on the ceiling. I'm not sure whether it's contrast, or seamless transition. Interesting.

Hmm. I haven't posted in a while, have I? Well, I guess that's what productivity does to a blog. I submitted my resume and portfolio link and cover letter to Rubbermaid (half an hour before the deadline, of course). Such a rush of adrenaline!

Then I decided to see what my backups where, since I just didn't have an overly positive feeling about the whole thing. I e-mailed Barb, the environmental guru on campus, who I worked with a little on recycling and Earth. She sent me back an offer, that day, working as her full-time intern for 8.50 an hour (good for a campus job). Except it didn't sound like much designing, not as much as I would want in an internship.

I e-mailed Bronwen (prof) at the same time, to see if she had a pet project or knew of one that I could work on. Again, same day, she e-mails me back and offers me a spot working with Laura and a group of other juniors on the Construction Junction project. 500 dollars a week. So I can work with Laura, and get to know the juniors before I move into studio as the weird leftover senior, and it's design! Except she doesn't really tell me a whole bunch about the project. I remember Laura not thinking it was the greatest thing, but maybe it's changed - I also remember thinking it didn't sound very design-oriented, and it was more like, organize us and clean our warehouse, and by the way we need a new letterhead. Plus I've been doing group projects with undergrads for the last 3 years.

So bottom line? I really want the job at Rubbermaid. Otherwise I'll be settling for a more mediocre job, but it'll be on campus, and I'll be in my house, and I'll get to spend the summer with Laura and Ayako, and it'll be fun! And I'll be independent, and making money! I feel bad about abandoning Lisa, but either of these jobs is more design-related than working with her, although they may not be as fun. I do feel bad, though. I dunno. Now that I've got it in my head, I want to get out of here. Not that Mom isn't great, but I don't think she needs me here, and it's way past time for me to get some independence back in my life. A city where I don't need a car to go down the street is a good thing!!

And I need to do a pointilist rendering of a small natural object (on 8x10 paper) by Monday for 4 homework grades. And watch my video and post to the discussion board (80 on that test. egh.). And edit Ayako's thesis for her. And finish painting the ceiling, or as close as I can get. I'm thinking of calling myself "Michaelangela". Yeah. Or Michaelangelina, although that's a bit much. And Lisa's so much better at it than I am! I take forever to do a little bit, and she does everything like, so quickly. Wow. That was a deep sentence.

So after she left, I left all the paint open, talked on the phone with Ayako for over an hour (killed my daytime minutes), left the paint open and watched a Parker Posey movie on WE while eating pistachios. Then I was going to start painting again, but I remembered that I never sent the e-mail to Laura that I had mostly written, so I went upstairs to finish it. Then I decided to fix Mom's online bill pay, and then fix mine, and now it's 6:15 and the paint's been open for 5 hours, and mom's wondering what the hell I've been doing all day. Frankly, so am I.

And two birds started nesting in the wreath on our front door! Sarah (drawing class) told me the same thing happened to her mom's Christmas wreath, and you couldn't even go near the front porch without them swooping at you. I figured, since they were still in mid-construction, that it was better to move it before they laid their eggs, to avoid any problems. I mean, we get deliveries, and one of us, maybe my sisters, would forget and go out the front door, and the eggs or babies would fall out, or the birds would freak and attack them, or whatever. I felt bad moving their cute little nest, though. I wonder if they'll even touch it if we hang it up on the other end of the porch.... Mom mentioned getting a birdhouse for them. I can understand why they'd love the wreath, though. No chance of predators, it's 5 feet off the ground, stuck on a vertical metal surface. And it's all naturalish, twigs and fake leaves and fake flowers. It was sooo cute. Oh well.

It's about time for me to get off this damn computer, so I'll say adieu.

This is bad. I want the rubbermaid internship. I want to do design. But I do not, I repeat, DO NOT, want to write my cover letter, which has to be in to her by tomorrow. Which means I really need to write it tonight and send it out, but I just don't feel like it. I want to say, "Hi, it's me. You want an intern? I'm your wet dream, baby. You know you want me. Just let me know when and where I should show up, and throw everyone else's stuff out, because I'M ALL YOU NEED. Love, Sugarpuss."

Goddamn. Why can't I show a sense of humor here? Why do I have to whore myself using such staid structured grammatically correct language? Why do I have to figure out how to say how fantastically wonderful I am without repeating 'skills' 'abilities' and 'experienced'? Argh. Sux0rs. <-(h4x0r) Blagh.

Fuck this. I'm gonna go eat ice cream.

Well, I've been SO productive this last week that I haven't even posted. I'm serious. I've been working on my resume and portfolio, getting my C++ labs done, watched my backlog of mythology videos and read (some of) the readings, took 2 tests, finished my ceramics project for Monday, and did various things around the house. Woohoo! Go me.

I got a 84 on my C++ test. I've gotten 100 on every lab so far, I'm hoping it'll keep up. I just don't do so well with some of the vocabulary. Plus I don't read everything in the book, because it's too huge and boring. So I get a B instead of an A, even though I know how to do all the important stuff. He asks questions about the details... If I get a 90 on the next test I get an A in the class. Not that I need an A, I'm 90% sure these classes won't count towards my QPA (I sure hope not), but it's nice to know, just in case.

Don't know what I got on the Myth test yet - it was damn hard. All those Hindu gods, and the different Chakras, and all this other difficult terminology (which may have been cleared up by the study guide, but I don't read that, since it too is huge and boring). So I'll either get an A or a B in that, depending on .. stuff. But so far, no Cs, which is a good thing.

I have to finish my portfolio, or at least write a cover letter and send it out today. It's not really due until Monday or Tuesday, but it never hurts to get things out early. Plus I can always update my portfolio in the meantime. They might not even look at it for a while.

Then I have to get started on mom's ceiling - we taped off the top 14", and Mickey painted that top a light grayish blue and the bottom a light-medium brown, for our undercoat. There's a one inch border of no paint, but it doesn't matter. I'm handpainting it all, anyway, doesn't matter that much. But I need to take pictures or draw clouds, and figure out what to put 'outside' the 'wall'. It's going to break away in the corner over the tub, so I'm gonna do some trompe d'loiel (I know that's not spelled right, but whatever, 'french for fool-the-eye') of a garden, or vineyard, or Tuscan countryside, or some such thing. Woohoo, fun. But most of it will be stone wall and either grapes or wysteria coming over, to match mom's purple bedroom. I also suggested (stupidly) that she should get a stencil of ivy or grape leaves and frost her shower door. Now she wants me to make the stencil. D'oh!

Anyway. I'll be working on my portfolio all day, and cleaning up the kitchen, now that I've taken the tape off the bathroom walls. I felt a little like Michaelangelo, balancing on a rickety stepstool and getting a crick in my neck. How am I going to paint the clouds on the ceiling, anyway?? I can't just ask a Medici to buy me some scaffolding. I don't have an assistant to pass me my brushes and paint. This is gonna be interesting. Painful, too, probably, but I always seem to work that into my artistic endeavours.

Sigh... okay, time to start pulling my hair out with javascript. Yay.