School started last week and I’m busier than ever. Three jobs, three classes, and thousands of friends that are constantly looking to spend time with yours truly.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I’m busy, which is probably good, because it keeps my mind from lingering on emotionally consuming events that have recently taken place in my life. For now, I’ll settle for doing my homework (of which there is an abundance), watching movies On Demand (watching MIB as we speak), and making exorbitant purchases online (new computer arrives in three days!).
This year’s birthday is rather anticlimactic compared to the past few years when I’ve celebrated it at our property. No lawn games, no BBQ, no bon fire, no midnight hide-and-go-seek, and no campout. Basically I’m just passing up an opportunity to invite all my friends home for a day to party, but no matter - we’ll have a good time.
After all, birthdays are about celebrating life, and it doesn’t matter where you are, it matters who you are with.
Current gift tally:
- Miley Cyrus’ Breakout
- Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination (book)
The other day at work, I pulled my iPod out of my purse and discovered that it was dead; I had forgotten to charge it. I began to panic in the ensuing silence. Would I be able to survive the day surrounded by sounds of furious typing, muffled telephone conversations, and squeaky office chairs? Sure, I told myself, it can’t be that bad! After the longest 10 minutes of my life, I realized that I was woefully wrong.
First, I tried listening to online radio, because my sudden desperation had caused me to temporarily forget that the radio sucks my balls.
Then I remembered Pandora, an online radio-station and music recommending site that I had briefly played with months ago. So, I tuned in.
For the most part, I’d say it was a success. I was introduced to some good new music - granted, I disliked most of it, but for the few songs that I did like, I fell in love. It was love at first hear.
Here’s a sample of one of my new favorite songs, “Rock and Roll” by Eric Hutchinson.
It’s happened. I’m officially a fan of Firefly. Le sigh.
Last week our Internet went down and me and Josh were freaking out. Since we don’t have cable, I started searching through Josh’s DVDs to see if anything looked good. Then I found Firefly. People have tried to get me to watch it before, but I was never in the mood. I guess it was just my time.
That night I watched three episodes, including the two-hour pilot. The next night I watched four episodes. It tapered off a little after that, but I still managed to finish the series in 4 days. My next goal is to re-watch the series with my boyfriend, then watch Serenity, then re-watch the series for myself with audio commentary on. This is going to be a busy summer!
Filed under: Family
This weekend my family is hosting our fourth annual pig roast on our property. It’s a big outdoor shindig with lots of family and friends and good eats. It’s also a great opportunity for my dad to get all riled up around a lot of people and for my mom to stress out and spend too much money; any good family event should include these two things at the very least. I always come home the night before so I can help run errands the day of before guests arrive, and that’s where I am right now, home with my parents.
There are a few really great things about being home that I always miss:
- Friskie. My wonderful, obnoxious, needy cat has been my baby for well over a decade and I’ve loved him with my whole heart for just as long. He has a hard time jumping and he sleep a lot, but his coat is still shiny and he’s just as frisky as ever. My baby.
- Food. Ain’t nothing beats home cooking.
- Sleep. For whatever reason, I sleep so much better at home than I do in Seattle. Usually what happens is I come home, spend a little time chatting with my parents, then fall asleep on the couch; and it’s always the best nap I’ve ever had.
Friskie, my darling kitten
For the first time in my life, I feel like I have an icon who represents the kind of person I want to be. A hero.
A few days ago I went to see one of my favorite authors, Connie Willis, do a book reading at a local book store. For those of you that don’t know, Connie has won more Hugo and Nebula Awards than any other writer in her field. For those of you that still don’t know, the Hugo and Nebula Awards are given for outstanding achievement in science fiction and fantasy literature.
She was a brilliant speaker, the definition of eloquence. The anecdotes she told were humorous and honest and I soaked in every word of it. At times her stories were tinged with snobbish, offhand comments or tired, overdone comedic bits, but I can’t blame the woman: she was real.
The excerpt she read was from the book she’s currently writing about time travel to WWII. It was great to hear her read the words as they were intended to be read. Plus, the excerpt was awesome and only made me want to hear more; she is truly a great storyteller.
After the reading, I stood in a surprisingly short line to get a book signed. I wish I had said something cute and clever, but words escaped me in the moment and I said something lame about enjoying her reading. What a dope. It doesn’t matter though, because for those ten seconds, I got to pretend like we knew each other, and that was all I wanted, really.
My Dad - God bless him - is such a typical parent on the Internet, it’s not even funny. When I first taught him about instant messaging, he seemed to pick it up pretty quickly. Soon after, I got online but left my computer momentarily when my father instant messaged me; when I returned, he had written me a single “Alicia, how are you? We have been busy this weekend…” email-esque instant message and signed off already. Nice, dad.
He also loves to forward on sentimental stuff with egregious colors and formatting, residual from the 90s. It doesn’t really bother me; whenever I get one of his forwarded emails, it usually provokes a sigh and an “Oh daddy,” and then I read whatever it is he sent me because it always seems to come from the heart anyway.
His latest email threw me off. It was terribly sentimental but also kind of hilarious. All it had was a link to this video. I had no idea what I was going to be looking at and neither do you! Enjoy!
As the number of years between now and high school grows bigger, I feel like I become more well-adjusted and satisfied with my life. Even though high school sucked in a lot of ways, the experiences I had in high school have really shaped the way I interact with people now and the friendships I have. For instance, my low self esteem causes me to feel threatened by other girls very easily, which is why I think I don’t have many female friends.
Recently, however, I’ve begun to suspect that perhaps I don’t have low self esteem - maybe I just have low esteem for everyone else. I know, I know, I’ve been watching too much Daria lately, but in all serioussness, it makes a lot of sense.
I have pretty reasonable self worth and, even though I often feel like I’m making a fool out of myself Bridget-Jones-style, I’m pretty good at shrugging off things that embarass me. Where things get a little foggy is trying to gauge what other people think of me. I generally assume that people feel luke warm about me, or that they don’t really care about me at all, which is fine. But when I really think about it, I feel like people would care about me if they knew me better… I’m a fun person! Well, other than the fact that I’m kind of boring. Other than that, totally fun, I swear.
So in that way, perhaps I’m actually a little conceited. I believe that I’m really awesome (which I am), but I think that everyone else around me is too dense to see that. Which is pretty hypocritical of me, because I usually don’t warm up to people until after I have known them for awhile and they have proven that they are worthy of my friendship (not really, but kind of).
There is a guitar in my living room and no one in my apartment can play it. My roommate snatched it when the dorm kids moved out and left behind all the junk they didn’t want to take home for the summer. One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure!
Anyway, it occurred to me that I have a lot of time on my hands this summer, and shoot, why should the guitar go to waste? I used to play violin in junior high after all. I can be musical.
Musicality aside, turns out that my itty fingers had a bit more of a problem reaching the strings than I had anticipated.
SMALL FINGERS = FAIL
So I switched to the ukelele but I’m still having problems stretching my fingers across the neck. I think I’m going to get finger-stretching surgery.
I have a new favorite show: “Pushing Daisies.” I discovered it after falling madly in love with actor Lee Pace, badass and teddy bear all in one le sigh. According to this article, it’s exactly that duality that makes Lee Pace the latest example of several nerd-hunk leading roles.
Of course, I’ve known all along that dorks are the way to go. They’re smart and clever, kind and thoughtful, and, if you play your cards right, you can easily find one who’s pretty straight-edge without being boring. My kind of man.
To be fair, these geek-studs being portrayed in the media are pretty questionable. Although Lee Pace plays a sweet, humble guy in “Pushing Daisies,” he’s undeniably hunky and does suave just as good as endearing. Isn’t that why he’s an actor after all?
