pushing20

MOVING DAY

2006-01-07T13:55:00.000-05:00

It's moving day here at pushing20! Please visit me over at bex.typepad.com, where I'll be posting from now on.

See you there.

College Football

2006-01-06T00:44:00.000-05:00

Now, I'm not a huge football fan. I'm more of a baseball girl, given the option. That said, I've spent a considerable number of hours over the last week parked on the couch watching the various Bowl games, and it's been a good time.

The Orange and Rose Bowls were particularly awesome games. Three overtimes = exciting game, even if you don't give a crap who wins. And UT's comeback in the fourth quarter last night was incredible to watch. I was sure USC had it in the bag when I forget who from UT was taken off the field with his arm in a splint. I turned to Matt, on the couch next to me, and said "Well, at least it won't be his fault that his team lost the championship game. He can just point to his arm and be all, 'I tried! I broke my ARM I tried so hard!'" And then it turns out that USC might be a very good team, but Vince Young is twice that amount of good. Game over.

So I'm all about the watching of the college football. But when it comes to actual real live college football players? I'm fed up with 'em. I was watching tv tonight in my dorm lounge when six football players came in to play beirut and blast really terrible music. So much for Project Runway. Football players on my campus are cute, but generally a menace. In my dorm alone they've caused almost a thousand dollars of damages, but haven't fessed up to it so the cost will be passed on to the rest of us who live here. Considerate fellas.

In conclusion, I like college football best on television. Go away, football players. It's division III, for god's sake. You're not exactly Vince Young over here.

Brokeback

2006-01-05T00:47:00.000-05:00

It's been three days since I saw Brokeback Mountain, and I can't stop thinking about it. Let me first say: See This Movie. It is one of the few recent movies that I wouldn't hesitate to call capital-I-Important.

Heath Ledger has been getting accolades aplenty for his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar, and they are well-deserved. Ledger completely transforms himself in this role; he speaks, moves, and breathes Ennis. As Jack Twist Jake Gyllenhall is, while marginally less brilliant than Ledger, is the character that makes you believe that these two could be in love, if only because you see in his every move how much he himself believes it.

The sheer sadness of the story is what has kept it on my mind all week. It's hard to remember when you watch the movie and are immersed in the Western scenery that the movie takes place in the 1960's up through the eighties. This isn't the nineteenth century, and it can't be dismissed as history. When Ennis recalls the brutal murder of a gay man (and when one is seen later on in the film), the Matthew Shephard connection is unavoidable. A period piece this is not.

Unable to imagine a life together after an idyllic summer on Brokeback Mountain tending sheep, Ennis and Jack part ways. There is no teary goodbye, buy each realizes what he is leaving behind. Jack breaks down in his pickup as he drives away, and in a nearby alley Ennis violently cries and vomits as his reality sets in.

Jack's marriage to Lureen (Anne Hathaway-- watch her last scene, it's brilliant) is probably the most unhappy marriage ever in a Western, next to Ennis and Alma's (the revelatory Michelle Williams) marriage. Ennis and Jack lead terrible lives punctuated by the shocking passion and sadness of their occasional reunions.

Two twentieth century cowboys trapped by society and paralyzed their own lives and fears, Ennis and Jack could have been saved by one tiny thing.

Each other.

At the end of the movie Ennis is wracked by grief after losing the man he always loved, and more importantly the chance they once had together. For the first time Ennis is able to verbalize his twenty-year commitment to Jack, the man who could tritely be called his soulmate. It's a terrible moment, and one that is awesome to watch. Don't miss it.

Airing Out

2006-01-01T14:14:00.000-05:00

Note to self:

If you wake up and your room smells truly funky and your mouth tastes like vomit, you probably threw up somewhere. Even if you don't remember it.

Commerical Christmas

2005-12-30T00:23:00.000-05:00

This time of year always brings with it an enormous glut of holiday-themed TV advertisments.

There's the annual Coca Cola celebration of all things cute and arctic-- this year featuring the "in" arctic animal, the baby penguin. Nothing like coke in old-timey bottles to make penguins and polar bears dance together in harmony. At least that's what my high school bio teacher used to say. Look, Coke is basically responsible for Santa Claus as we know him, and a big hearty Jewish thanks to them for that. But if there's some big Coke scheme to make polar bears the new emblem of the birth of Christ? They got another thing coming.

Seasonal car ads are the worst. Do people actually give their loved ones cars festooned with enormous red bows? The only place I've seen this happen (and I'm using "seen" very loosely here), is on Laguna Beach, which despite being THE REAL OC--we get the message MTV, really-- doesn't exactly represent reality as actual real people know it. I guess I'll believe it when I wake up one morning with a brand new BMW in my driveway with a 6 foot long bow on it.

This year Planter's Nuts joined the game with a little spot featuring Mr. Peanut as a tot. It starts with a wee peanut boy opening his gifts, which turn out to be a cane, top hat, and monacle. A monacle. I haven't seen a non-peanut wear a monacle...ever. Maybe Grover Clevelend or someone like that in a very old photograph. Not exactly every little boy's dream under the tree Christmas morning, is all I'm saying. But then there's a little pull back and we see it's Mr. Peanut watching the old clip with Santa, having a good chuckle. Kudos to Planters for coming out the most tolerable Christmas ad of 2005. I tip my Mr. Peanut-commemorative top hat to you.

PS. Dear Honda: This season is called the Holidays, not the Hondadays. So no more Hondaday carols, please. Thank you muchly.

ABC's

2005-12-28T01:12:00.000-05:00

First, a rant: GPAs are stupid. They are a meaningless average of numbers that aren't necessarily equal in value. They quantify knowledge in a most arbitrary fashion. They have the power make students crazy over hundreths of a point. Worst of all, med schools care about them. A lot.

My grades were posted online today. I got two A-'s in one semester for the first time in college. I still have yet to earn a straight-up A, but college is hard and I try not to get hung up on these things.

The problem with my blase attitude is that when it comes to my bottom-of-the-curve science grades, I feel like my life is totally ending. Okay, so my I'm not going to keel over and die because I got a C in physics 131. And a B in bio 101 is nothing to be ashamed of (though certainly nothing to boast about--and nothing that will pull up my (ugh) GPA). But med schools care about this stuff. Sometimes I really wish I wanted to be, like, a Starbucks barista or a professional reality TV competitor or something. Anything but a doctor. It'll kill me to watch this particular dream go unfulfilled, but with these grades...med schools aren't exactly fighting over white girls with 3.1 GPAs, is what I'm saying.

Tomorrow I'll have some perspective again. Maybe even crack open the MCAT book. But tonight it feels like my career aspirations are spinning down a toilet. Nothing like school to ruin a perfectly good Winter break.

9021Oh my GOD.

2005-12-23T12:26:00.000-05:00

My love for 90210 knows no bounds, and is generally only increased with the absurdity of the plotlines and characters (all even better relived in reruns). By that measure, the episode I watched this morning might be the best one of all, despite it being a total in-between episode where nothing happens.

It's the one where Valerie Might Have AIDS, after sleeping (last episode) with a heroin-addicted photographer with seriously cartoony track marks on his arms that she somehow didn't notice when they had sex and were, you know, naked together. So Valerie goes out with dumb, ugly Noah and falls off a wall and gets a scrape and then flips out when Noah goes near her POSSIBLY AIDS-RIDDEN blood. As part of this magical plotline, David tries to beat Noah up, which is hiiiilarious.

Speaking of Noah, I don't think there is any actor anywhere who looks quite so stupid. Dude perpetually looks like he just got hit in the face with an oak plank and is seeing stars. Plus, he's dating Donna in her red hair phase, which...blech. So this week Donna somehow can't figure out how to get out of the way of a moving car, and her life is "saved" by the British chef whose name I don't remember, and he insists that to pay him back for saving her she has to go on a date with him to make his (witchy-looking) ex jealous. So in the in-between theme, nothing happens between Donna and whatshisname, except the creepy "I Dream of Jeanie"-you-saved-my-life-can-I-fan-you-with-palm fronds? dynamic.

It's also the episode before Brandon and Kelly don't get married. They write each other the worst, ugliest vows ever. Kelly actually wants to use a poem by Deborah Harry in hers. Blondie, people. In her WEDDING VOWS. That's a big, blinking, Times Square billboard that you shouldn't get married. Plus, at this point they've been engaged like four seperate times. Just choose yourself again, ok Kel?

And then there's Steve, who is just a walking pickup line. Even when he's in love with the married chick (who I think went to an acting school where the only things she learned was to e-nun-ci-ate. Without emoting, which I guess I understand when dating Steve Sanders.) Steve? Barf. Just barf.

For an episode where nothing actually happens, it was pretty good. Not every episode can have an almost-wedding, and HIV test, and three breakups. I think tomorrow's might though, so I'll be watching.

Finally

2005-12-18T17:03:00.000-05:00

Finals are a strange time. The main thing to know is that everyone, I mean everyone, is stressed out. Classes end and it's this great rush-- you feel like you've accomplished something, lived through something.

And then you realize that you have 36 pages to write and three exams to take in the next nine days.

So you're on this rush of classes being over, which quickly becomes a comfy slump. In your head it's something like this: "No papers due for three days, no exams for four. Time to obliterate all knowledge gained this semester! Who's up for a movie? How 'bout three movies? With an option for two more." One night Krystle, Will, and I went to see the new Pride and Prejudice, and then came home and watched the whole BBC series. Nine hours well spent.

You can see the panic coming down the road, the sleepless week ahead, but still you resist getting a head start on things. That's just not how it's done. But suddenly you have an exam tomorrow and hellooo, due dates! And everything goes into hyperdrive. Away messages are all fatalistic hyperbole, all dismal page counts and countdowns to exams like they're missile launches. The pile of stuff to read, stuff to write, stuff to study, is so high you can barely see your TV, which is playing the fourteenth episode of Sex and the City you've watched that day, because, well, the library had it and if it's from the library it's like doing work, and maybe I can write a few pages more tonight if I just watch the episode where Miranda and Steve get back together and....you get the idea.

Procrastination becomes an art form, practically a zen thing. You can rationalize anything. We sit in the dining hall for two hours every night, having cereal AND dessert, because it's finals, goddamnit. Calories don't count if they're ingested while studying. Or thinking about studying.

Sometime midweek days lose their actual names, it's just "two days 'til poli sci is due", then "day before physics exam". Those might be synonyms. You haven't showered since...that day the dining hall had Lucky Charms. Yesterday? Three days ago? You are most definitely out of clean socks. Study group after review session after night in the library after study group, interspersed with midnight trips to Dunkin' Donuts and discussions about how screwed you all are.

And then it's over. The bio exam ends and you walk outside and remember what sunlight is. You do laundry, go out for one last dinner all together before the Dish and Jen go abroad. You really have accomplished something. You lived through finals with with your sanity more or less intact.

At least 'til next time.

CHannukah list (that's with a ch, as in ahhhCHoooooo.)

2005-12-12T00:33:00.000-05:00

The semi-annual list of shit I want. (Also known as: very good procrastination technique. Reading period = very little reading happening.)

So, in no particular order, here are a bunch of things that I certainly wouldn't say no to, should someone give them to me this holiday season. In fact, I would write a very nice thank you note on my fancy stationary if I got any of these things.

-Horseshoe Necklace by Early Jewelry

Because it's pretty, okay? All silver and simple. I don't wear necklaces much, but I think I would if i had this one.

-Grey's Anatomy Season 1 DVDs
I'm pretty addicted to this show. The main character is kind of a bore, but the writing is really clever and the ensemble oveall is pretty great. Plus, I'm a sucker for decent medical dramas. Seriously, I started watching ER religiously when I was eleven (and not just for George Clooney, though I had a serious thing for him when I was like 14. We have the same birthday. IT'S MEANT TO BE.) Anyway. Grey's Anatomy is very good. So I want the DVDs.

-Custom Silver Bracelet, by GK Designs
I think this is a really cool update on old ID bracelets. Kinda funky, really excellent for everyday wear. Not sure what I would put on mine though. It's the kind of thing I wish I had a very thoughtful boyfriend to get me, but alas...

-Paspartou Tote, by Rebecca Haas
I love this bag. Much too expensive, but so. damn. cute. In all the colors, please. The straps look like they'd be exactly the right length, and how awesome would that bag be for going to class in Spring?

(I clearly spend too much time on elsewares.com.)

-Holiday Tea Sampler, by Adagio Teas
I've become a prodigious tea junkie in the last six months or so. I have a whole bunch of kinds in my room here at school, and I love having a big old mug of tea while I read for class every night. It's wintertime, which means lots of tea. These holiday teas look especially tasty.

-Wedding Crashers
Not sure if I want this one because it was incredibly funny (which it was, unexpectedly), or because I saw it with J last summer. I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and I think I'm going to give him a call when I'm in the city so we can get together. So I want the movie, and maybe the guy I saw it with. Only one is available at amazon.com, though.

That's about all I can think of now, with the exception of the hundred or so things on my Amazon Wish List. Lots of nerdy American or New York history-type books, DVDs, music. iPod speaker dock. Fun things.

Of course, I still want a baby panda. Coming soon to Amazon.

White Out

2005-12-09T10:19:00.000-05:00

I woke up about fifteen minutes ago, and it's a Winter goddamn Wonderland outside. Seriously, we must have gotten at least four inches of snow in the last six hours since I went to sleep. It's fairly spectacularly pretty from where I'm sitting; the big trees outside my window have every little branch blanketed in the white stuff, and I can't see one footprint on the snow anywhere.

This would all be well and good if I could sit inside all day and read the new InStyle and watch movies, but it's the last day of classes so I think some physics is in order. So Gwenyth Paltrow and my West Wing DVD's will have to wait a few hours.

Weather is awfully pretty, right up until the moment you have to go out in it.

Lost and Found

2005-12-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

Minus the "and Found" part. And not so much "Lost" as "Stolen". So I guess that title was a big, fat, lie.

I went snowboarding this weekend in Vermont, about an hour north of school. We found a great deal at a Stratton-- like $100 each for two nights' lodging and lift tickets. So we went up on Friday night and got a nice long day in on Saturday. Decent conditions, no lines on the lifts, it felt great to be back out on my board after so long. After the last run of the day, we went to the bar in the base lodge for a drink, leaving our gear on the racks outside the lodge.

Two beers later, my snowboard was nowhere to be found. The cop who came to take the report was kind enough to inform me that they never, ever found this stuff "but [I] could fill out hte report if [I] want to". THANKS FOR THE EFFORT, COP-MAN.

I spent the rest of the weekend discovering my apparently limitless capacity for self-pity. I mean, In my futile quest to try and find my stuff or get a refund on my lift ticket or something, I had to tell about six different Stratton employees that my gear was stolen. And I was thisclose to crying every freakin' time. You know, I try to not be defined by my stuff, and I'm generally not the type made happy by expensive toys and all of that. But I really loved that thing. So I'm just going to have a bratty day today and be really upset that my high-school graduation present from my parents got stolen.

Somewhere out there somebody has my red K2 Luna 151 cm snowboard with matching sparkly red Salomon FastFit bindings. Whoever you are, I hope you fall off the lift and break your leg. Hell, break both. And tear your ACL's.

Also? The board needs a wax and tune-up really, really bad. SO THERE.

Older than I look

2005-12-02T14:18:00.000-05:00

Happy birthday to my fake ID! She's 22 today. I think she deserves a night out on the town to celebrate...

Last Lab

2005-11-30T14:16:00.000-05:00

You haven't really hated your life until you've spent four hours sitting across a lab bench from a girl trying to flirt with a guy named Alfonso. Seriously. If I have to hear "Oh, Alfonso, will you check my calculations? " or "I'm so bad at this stuff...How did you get so good at pipetting, Alfonso? "

COME ON. In this day and age, at one of the best liberal arts schools in the country, must we really pretend to be bad at streaking petri dishes to attract a man?

Poor Alfonso had, like, negative interest in this girl no matter how much she threw herself at him. I guess she gets a few points for going after what she wanted, but then loses all of those plus some for being such an idiot. On the up side, my (very very good looking) lab partner bonded over what a fool she was.

Bio 101...not exactly a meat market, no matter how hard you try. So let's all try a little less, mmmmkay?

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-11-24T01:12:00.000-05:00

I came home this weekend for two reasons: to eat turkey, and to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Now, I'm not one of those crazy Harry Potter people who think the books really are for adults and are just so magical and OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN'T READ THEM? HOW DO YOU LIVE?

That's not me. I practically had to be tied down to read the first one, and then read 2-5 when my boss at my summer job was aghast that I dare work with children without having read HP cover to cover. So she lent me one book each week until I was caught up, and then she lent me the latest this summer. (She, without a doubt, falls into the above category. They're good people, but...misguided, a little.)

Despite initial reluctance, at this point I have to say that I'm sucked in. And the latest movie was really, really satisfying. Did it cut out parts of the book? God, yes. The book was like 600 pages long. My brother wasn't thrilled with how they cut it down, but I thought it was well done. Like, you don't get all of the Ministry of Magic stuff from the book, but HOW GEEKY CAN YOU BE to complain that you didn't get enough of the Cornelius Fudge/Bartemius Crouch dynamic.

So yes. I liked it. It's a little like watching Star Wars, in that the special effects are completely astounding and the acting is kinda lacking. That said, it is MUCH better written than most of the Star Wars movies, and had at least a few moments of real honesty. Sure, it's a movie about wizards and dragons and all of that, but the moment where a fourteen year old boy finally realizes that his best friend is, like, an actual girl, or the conversation where the Hermione asks Ron and Harry to write to her during the summer, and they're teasing each other in that way that best friends do when they know each other so well they can't even try to BS each other...those moments really worked for me, and they grounded the movie to a place where you almost believed it was real.

And then there was evil, evil, Ralph Fiennes. ohhhhhhh god, is he evil in this movie. As Voldemort, Fiennes is the epitome of sniveling, bald, noseless evil. The man is equally convincing as a Nazi, an amnesiac British soldier, and Wallace and Gromit's arch-nemesis (Dear Ralph, No more movies with J.Lo, please. I'm just looking out for you here.)

I really liked Hermione's wardrobe. Is that wrong?

Ron needs a haircut. My brother had some weird theory about the long hair hiding the fact that he's like seventeen now, but I think the poor kid just needs some good advice. Ron got fugged!

Overall? The latest Harry Potter is as magical as ever, and about twelve times scarier.

Absurd to the 104.7th

2005-11-18T02:42:00.000-05:00

Krystle, Jen and I went to our local Chinese/Japanese place tonight for sushi and, more importantly, saki bombing. For the uninitiated, saki bombing consists of copius amounts of Sapporo beer, with sake balanced above on chopsticks and ceremoniously dumped in. And then you drink the Sapporo/Sake mixture. And you enjoy it.

So we're at the restaurant, enjoying our sushi. Our favorite waitress comes over and invites us to her birthday party, taking place like an hour and a half later at the restaurant. Three Sapporos and carafes of Sake later, we're sticking around for the Chinese extravaganza.

Turns out? The birthday party consists of like 18 Chinese people and like 35 dishes of weird food, including fried FROGS and steamed jellyfish, both of which Jen, Krystle, and I ate politely. Plus, they fed us SO MUCH beer. We were doing shots with Sushiman who "doesn't drink", and with the owner of the restaurant.

Still, highlight of the night was when Jennie at a frog's HEAD. blechhhh.

Fishballs, jellyfish bellies, pork sausage puree stuff, solid pig blood, shrimp eyes...the things I will eat for free beer. And a little love from Raymond the waiter, who barely speaks English.

It was a weird night.

Happy Birthday, waitress Sharon.

Sakeeeeeeee BOMB!

(ps. if i can figure out how to get pictures off my phone and on to my computer, there will be visual aids aplenty with this entry. We'll see.)

Lessons Learned This Week:

2005-11-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

Just because I can read a 300-page book in one night doesn't mean I should read a 300-page book in one night, especially when a paper on same book is due the next morning.

Going to class is actually instrumental in passing exams, even if the class is boring. Physics 131 and I will be spending much more time together for the remainder of the semester.

Asking people if you can take their blood pressures is not a friend-maker. Even if it's just practice for EMT class. Especially if you're bad at it and end up squeezing their arms for minutes at a time.

Movies that you thought were really, really funny when you were nine are not necessarily actually really, really funny. Exhibit A: Death Becomes Her. Bruce Willis, Meryl Streep, Goldie Hawn, and dialogue like this:

Ernest Menville: Where did you say you put my wife?
Second Doctor: She's dead, sir. They took her to the morgue.
Ernest Meville: The morgue? She'll be FURIOUS!

Recipe for Disaster

2005-11-14T00:41:00.000-05:00

Ingredients:
-twelve (12) 20-ish college women, highly varying personality types
- one (1)rugby club for them to run
- eight (8) bottles of champagne (Andre brand ideal, any variety, only $3.50 a bottle (we're classy))
- chips, salsa, cheese, crackers, baby carrots...really any snack food.
- one handle of Jose Cuervo (1.75 Liters. Non-negotiable.)

Instructions:
- First, assign each girl a position of quesitionable authority. Watch them butt heads and develop minor grudges.
- let stew for eight (8) weeks (exact time can vary, certainly eight is enough. For better results, wait longer).
- add champagne, snack food. Mix well for at least one (1) hour.
- watch the most fantastic inter-personal meltdown any of us have ever seen ensue. Crying, screaming, running away, and attempts to take a swing at one another should all appear. Once a little bit of truth comes out, the explosion is over. Remnants should be found not only in original container, but also in nearby stairwells and bathrooms.
- Add tequila. Watch the girls hug and make proclomations of "a sisterhood".
- Add more tequila. Watch them vomit.

Make at your own risk.

Frivolity (is an interestingly conjugated word)

2005-11-08T00:31:00.000-05:00

I had dinner the other night with an Israeli family friend who, at 22 years old, has just gotten out of the army. He regaled us with stories of sneaking off the base to a local bar, impromptu parties thrown with contraband liquor, college-age idiocy of all kinds with his squadron.

That was in between guard duty on the West Bank, of course.

Tonight I spent a few hours at the library writing about jurisprudence-building and enfranchisement during the two eras of American Reconstruction. On the way back to the dorm, I got to thinking about whether or not Jennifer Garner has had that baby yet, and whether she and Affleck named it Spearmint or Hazelnut or Pepsee Investigator (Teller (or Penn?) I'm looking at you) or, you know, JoeBob. And then I wondered if Brit-Brit and little Cheeto were wondering where deadbeat dad K-Fed was, and if they really cared.

You know what? In the long run, pretty much everything I thought about tonight--from the Civil War to fundraising for my team to Rupert Grint's truly unfortunate haircut--seems pretty frivolous when Raffi spent his 20th year manning a border checkpoint between Israel and Lebanon.

I <3 My Bed

2005-11-07T03:15:00.000-05:00

I'm home this weekend in the City, going back up to school early tomorrow morning. I've been up all night writing a paper, and I realized a while ago that I haven't done any real work at home in like three years. Pretty weird, considering the hours I used to put in during high school. We'll see if the view of the Empire State Building helped inspire me.

I've spent most of the weekend eating in different places. Chinese on Friday night, Union Square Farmers Market Saturday lunch, sushi Saturday dinner, brunch today at my bro's first apartment, and my mom made dinner tonight. I was happy that I got to be there to be one of big bro's first houseguests. It really sucks sometimes that we live in different states...I feel like I'm missing all the fun stuff. Like, his girlfriend got to help him pick out furniture for his first apartment, and his little sister didn't. I wish I could have been a part of that.

But he knows me pretty well and didn't order photo prints to put up without me clearing them first. No pasty-face, messy-hair, zit-chinned photo of me, thankyouverymuch. Even if he's lookin' sharp. Hell, especially if he's lookin' sharp. I can still pull the sister veto on some things.

My mom fell asleep in the middle of the living room after dinner one night when all four of us were sitting around, watching tv, talking, whatever. She woke up a few minutes later.

"That's the best nap I've had in months," She sighed. "My kids are home".

Feels good to be loved like that, even when they drive me crazy. Family, you know?

Movie Review: Prime

2005-10-31T01:36:00.000-05:00

I had to read about a book and a half today, so I did the responsible thing and went to the movies with my friends. We saw Prime.

It's billed as a romantic comedy, so I was primed (no pun intended. blech.) for the regular meet-cute/fall in love/encounter obstacle/happily ever after formula. Nothing wrong with formula, if it's done right, and it looked like a good Sunday movie.

Let me say that Uma Thurman was, for me, the highlight of this movie. She was totally luminous and funny and mostly believable as Rafi, a recently-divorced 37 year old woman cautious about giving her heart to a younger man. The younger man, David, was played by Bryan Greenberg, who certainly held up his end of the movie as the funny, well-mannered, smokin' hot 23-year-old who falls for Uma's character. Meryl Streep plays David's mother and Rafi's therapist. Perhaps a bit of a charicature of a Jewish mother, but there were real moments of truth and humor in there.

The movie deals with David's mother's unhappiness with his bringing home a non-Jewish woman, and while at times it seemed silly, as a product of a similar household (uber-liberal and accepting--up to the point that the prodigal child brings a non-Jewish significant other home for the weekend), I thought overall it rang true.

Now I'm going to spoil the end of the movie, so deal. Here goes: They don't end up together. Rafi and David make an absurdly attractive couple and I certainly found myself rooting for them, and god knows I love a happy ending. But the movie had to go and be true to the characters, damn it, and they split. (See: Queer as Folk. I'm STILL sad about that one.)

Sigh. I need to watch something cheesy to restore my faith in perfect Hollywood love. Princess Bride, anyone?

Halloween costume ideas, courtesy of Goodwill

2005-10-28T23:08:00.000-04:00

crazybrains: http://www.goodwillnj.org/halloween/make-costume.html
bex: what am i looking at
crazybrains: A Bag of Jelly Beans: You'll need a clear plastic bag. Step into the bag making holes for the legs and arms out the side. Fill the bag with different color balloons and use a flashy scarf to tie around the top of the bag. You may want to place a sign that says "Jelly Beans 5¢ " in front of the bag. For the clothing underneath just about any color leotard will work.
crazybrains: just the whole page
crazybrains: i got 2 pairs of jeans this weekend and i just googled "black jeans" because one pair is black
crazybrains: and got this
bex: what the hell is goodwillnj doing??
bex: i want to know who sat down and wrote this. and then meet them, because creative thought like this should not go unrecognized.
bex: or rather, unpunished.
crazybrains: obviously "you may want to add a sign" means "no one will know what you are"
bex: right
crazybrains:Grapevine: Grab a boom box and start blaring "Heard it Through the Grapevine!" Then get suited up in a brown body suit or leotard. Cover your body with double-sided tape. Then blow up purple balloons and attach them to the tape. For added security (it could be a windy Halloween), use garbage bag ties to affix balloons to tape.
crazybrains: this is totally psychotic
bex: craaaaazy
bex: that's a TERRIBLE costume
crazybrains: how funny is this
crazybrains:Babe Magnet: Have you always wanted to be a Babe Magnet? Seize the moment this Halloween! Get a garbage bag and cut out slots for your arms. Collect a bunch of old Barbies and attach them to you with string or tape! Start attracting!
bex: yeah i read that one
bex: brilliant.
crazybrains: Undercover Agent:
Show your wit this Halloween with this easy to assemble last minute costume. Wear a long sleeve shirt with a pocket and a pair of khakis. Then throw a blanket over you. Walla…now you’re an undercover agent!!!
crazybrains:seriously
crazybrains: each one is better than the next
crazybrains:i want to write to goodwill
bex: walla?
crazybrains: OH
crazybrains:WALLA
crazybrains:VOILA
bex: voila!
crazybrains: I JUST GOT IT
bex: HAHAHAHHHAHAHAH
crazybrains:HAHAHAHAHAHA
crazybrains:HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
bex: walla!
crazybrains: WALLA
bex: hahahahhaha
crazybrains:IM LAUGHING SO HARD
bex: too funny
bex: me too
bex: walla walla!
crazybrains: what the hell is walla!
bex: noooo goddamn clue
crazybrains: Old Man/Woman: Dress in something old looking. Stuff some newspapers to create a large behind that juts out.
crazybrains: THATS THE BEST ONE

Mountain Day

2005-10-27T01:24:00.000-04:00

We've had like three straight months of rain now (months, weeks, potato, potahto). Mixed in there was exactly one beautiful day, and we made it a good one.

One of the perks of going to a tiny old college in the middle of nowhere is that that we have two hundred years of goofy traditions in the vault. My very favorite of these (and there are many) is Mountain Day. On one of the first three Fridays in October each year we have a surprise day off from classes.

Everyone sleeps in a little, goes to a campus-wide picnic,
Me, The Dish, and Jen. Tim and Krystle in the background DJing. When your friends are the DJ, they play allllll your requests.

and then we all gather on the top of a mountain and drink hot cider and eat fresh donuts.
So there we are, hundreds of college students looking at the pretty, pretty leaves, looking shockingly like a page out of the viewbook. Some student groups sing (GOD I hate a capella. But that's another story...),

A Capella Sucks.

and the whole ridiculous group of us bumble through our alma mater (appropriately titled? "The Mountains", of course), and then we head back to school with a lot of irrational love for the college.

Wibbs, Krystle, Jen, and me. We're happy because it's not raining.

It's why we've got a billion dollar endowment, I'm sure of it.

The Dish, Jen, Angry Will, Krystle, and me. Fall is PRETTY. Too bad it snowed yesterday.

Hiatus? Over.

2005-10-24T01:30:00.000-04:00

Rugby season is one week from over, midterms are very nearly finished, and I'm sure sometime soon I'll get more than five hours of sleep at a stretch. So hopefully no more ten-day breaks from here.

We had like two straight weeks of rain that dumped about nine inches of rain, six of which came in one twelve-hour period. And today it might snow.

So, as the crappy pop-punk band Reliant K would say, " lately the weather has been so bipolar (and consequently so have I)" .

More to come. Now back to the paper. And the lab report. And the problem set. That was due yesterday. Awesome.

Lately the weather has been so much better
(and consequently so have I)....

1356

2005-10-13T13:39:00.000-04:00

That's the approximate number of times I've watched The American President. I love it for many reasons, but primarily because the villains? Are Republicans. And they are eeeeevil. In one part, the bad, bad Republicans are talking about how they couldn't run the kind of character attacks they wanted to in the last campaign (because Republicans looooove character attacks; they're their preferred campaign strategy. At least according to Aaron Sorkin). Random Republican #1 points out that their opponent is the same guy as before, character attacks still won't stand.

Cue big evil chuckle from other Republicans. Turns out that Random Republican #1 has been on a HUNTING TRIP so he's behind on the news of the President's girlfriend. A HUNTING TRIP, people. Geez. I love stereotypes. Was he hunting gays? I think that was implied.

God, this movie is good. I'm going to go watch it again.

Unrelated: the baby panda at the National Zoo is getting officially named on Monday. My vote is for Butterstick, even though it isn't on the ballot.

All together now: BUT-TERSTICK! BUT-TERSTICK! BUT-TERSTICK!

Thinking Blue

2005-10-05T23:05:00.000-04:00

After the heartbreak of the 2000 and 2004 elections, I've tried to be cautious with my optimism for the political future. Tonight I heard Joe Trippi speak, and like the Grinch before me, I think my heart grew three sizes.

Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager in the '04 primaries, has faith in Americans. And if he does, I think I do too. We're stuck in a cycle of transactional politics, he said. Politicians trade tax cuts, prescription drug benefits, or protection of certain values for your vote. Give your vote, get something back. Personally. What we need, what we've been lacking for forty years, is transformational leadership. Someone to tell us that it is a tax increase that might save us in the long run, and convince us that the greater good is more important.

We haven't been asking what we can do for our country for a while now, basically. Trippi told the story of Senator Akaka (D-HI) coming to see him. "What the Dean campaign has done", Akaka said, "is restored America's faith in strangers." Maybe it's true. Maybe in 2008 the Democratic party will start trusting its members to vote for what is good, rather than what looks good.

I don't know, but if this guy who has been burned by seven (!) presidential campaigns can stay hopeful, maybe I can too. I'm young. I can handle a little heartbreak.

Now Playing

2005-10-03T00:51:00.000-04:00

On repeat this week:

It's pretty much the kind of sentimental, naval-gazing pap that my friends and I spent a lot of time ridiculing in tenth grade. That said, it's the soundtrack to my life right now.

Right now I'm listening to the Fray and reading a 600-page behemoth that of course I didn't start until like an hour ago. This book is long, and I am an idiot for procrastinating so fantastically.

Jellyfish Sailboats

2005-09-30T14:37:00.000-04:00

In a week full of serious news stories, my favorite bit of levity is this: the giant squid has, at last, been captured on film.

I mean...come on. This thing is legendary. There was like a fifteen page article about it in the New Yorker a while back, and I just ate it up. For it to be 2005, and there's an animal that no human has ever seen alive? With eyes the size of DINNER PLATES? It's too good to be true.

And yet, some scientists from Japan are now the proud owners of an 18-foot section (section!) of tentacle. So true it is.

My away message the other day was about the squid, which inspired the following conversation with HSG about scary possibly-real animals:

HSG (10:38:36 AM): i think bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. it's not the photographer's fault. bigfoot is blurry, and that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out of focus monster roaming the countryside. run, he's fuzzy!
bex (10:39:52 AM): but even the new york times calls the giant squid a "sea monster"
bex (10:40:00 AM): freakin' huge
bex (10:40:26 AM): they brought up an 18 foot PIECE of tentacle. that means tentacles are bigger than 18 ft!
HSG (10:40:33 AM): i'm just saying, if bigfoot really is blurry, that solves the mystery of all the blurry photographs of him.
bex (10:40:45 AM): that makes sense
bex (10:41:06 AM): but some people in japan have solved the mystery of the giant squid, so you can stop thinkign about that one
bex(10:41:17 AM): except to be terrified of a 26-foot sea-beast
HSG (10:41:31 AM): bigfoot and werewolves are one phenomena, by the way... people cyclically turn into some sort of big werewolf, but then they get embarassed, so they go into the forest and run away from photographers
bex (10:41:39 AM): ugh gross. they baited it with small squids. that's so wrong.
bex(10:42:07 AM): eight arms AND two longer tentacles. bonus arms. like super-octopi.
HSG (10:42:44 AM): forget the sea thing, in a couple million years there are gonna be serious electriv eels, who shock everything close to it and then eat all the dead animals... i saw it on animal planet. future animals scare the shit out of me, and they should scare you too, because we're all screwed.
bex (10:42:59 AM): in a couple million years i'll be fertilizer
HSG (10:44:26 AM): damn straight you will be, once the turtle dinosaurs get to you, and the jellyfish sailboat
bex (10:44:51 AM): well, with that happy thought, i have to go to physics
bex (10:45:32 AM): turtle dinasaurs. pft.
HSG (10:45:38 AM): they're huge
bex (10:46:28 AM): i love that oyu saw like forty minutes of something on the discovery channel and it changed your life
bex (10:46:44 AM): you should watch more shark week
bex (10:46:51 AM): less apocalyptic, more funny
HSG (10:47:30 AM): animal planet. discovery channel is for people who want to learn stuff.
bex (10:48:05 AM): of course. i'm out.
HSG (10:48:18 AM): animal planet is for people who want to see a future animal that can only accurately be described as a cross between an ostrich and a pack of tigers
bex (10:49:29 AM): bye

I like it when that he makes me laugh before physics.

Awful.

2005-09-29T03:31:00.000-04:00

Crazybrains woke me up with a phone call at 730 yesterday morning. I knew something was wrong-- we had talked just the night before, and 730 is pretty goddamn early.

"Patrick's mom died."

And I just...lost it. It's obviously awful to lose your mother, but here's the kicker: Pat's dad died in April. That's six months ago. When I saw him this summer he seemed to have dealt with his Dad's death with such maturity, such poise. But now this? In half a year he's gone from carefree college student to...orphan.

You know, I know that bad things happen to good people. I get that. But come ON. I mean, this kid is practically Job. He's New Orleans.

God has one hell of a sense of humor.

First Paper

2005-09-26T01:00:00.000-04:00

My first real (read: long) paper of the semester is due tomorrow afternoon, and while I'm no stranger to cranking out a seven page paper in an evening, I'm out of practice. So I'm sitting here at the computer with like two pages written since I started this thing about an hour ago, and what I really want is to go to sleep.

No dice, I guess.

The ascriptive theory of Americanism is interesting enough to fill the pages-- if only my concentration were good enough. Instead tonight has been all about the West Wing premiere. And then the Desperate Housewives premiere. And then, uh, Grey's Anatomy. I love Sunday night TV. I'm weak, what can I say?

So I'll make another pot of coffee on my illegal-in-the-dorm coffee maker and toss my cool new rugby ball up in the air for a little while as I consider the legacy of Alexis de Tocqueville, and hopefully get to sleep sometime soon. Or, you know, not. We'll see.

Having a Veruca Salt Moment...

2005-09-22T01:02:00.000-04:00

I want a baby panda.

The Washington Post has been reporting all summer on the giant panda birth at the National Zoo, and you know what? The thing is really freakin' cute. Is there a waiting list for getting one of these things? You know, before it grows up to be 250 lbs and eats 60 lbs of bamboo every day. At that point it's probably going to be more trouble than it's worth.

Seriously. I want it now.

Things I Know

2005-09-17T20:39:00.000-04:00

Here are some things I know right now:

"so pissed off right now" is a frustratingly passive-agressive away message.

Plum pits are good to suck on, especially on long drives through the Berkshires.

By the end of this weekend, I will have read Alexis de Toqueville's Democracy in America in its entirety. Just how this will happen is up in the air, but happen it must, so happen it shall.

Sports Night was a great show.

I know that my favorite season is baseball season, but rugby season is a close second.

Today was the first half of our big-season opening tournament. We got pretty well killed in our first game, but it was against the second-best team in the country, so I was prepared to deal with that. But that game tired the hell out of my team, so we fell hard in our second match, which we could have won. Oh well...two more games tomorrow, and starting with another 5:15am departure from campus. I should feel great come Monday.

Also?

Thursday night I got reeeeeal drunk and brought home a very cute freshman football player. For a C-span-watching nerd, I got some game.

Four More Years

2005-09-11T12:33:00.000-04:00

Today I wish that I was in New York.

It's Sunday and there are brunches to eat and books to read and last night to disucss, and all I can do is look up at the pale blue sky and wish that I wasn't the only one in the room feeling like this. On the first anniversary I was at home in the city, and there was no doubt of what the day meant. Year two, I was a freshman in college, sitting in my religion 101 class between 8:30 and 10 AM, watching the minutes pass by on my watch, ticking off the events in my mind.

8:45. First tower hit.
9:03. Second.

So now it's four years on, and I sit here at my computer, and I'm sort of nauseous and fidgety. I don't know what I expect on this day. I don't know what to do. I still hate most memorials, most things people write about it. I loved something I read once about the FDNY football team in Sports Illustrated, and an essay by Colson Whitehead (later published as the first chapter of The Colossus of New York), and this, and the Portraits of Grief that became daily reading for those first few months.

Mostly I like things by New Yorkers, other people who on September 12th came out of the video store and thought something else had happened because of the smell, but no, the winds had changed and were blowing things uptown and that's what the smell was, and oh god I haven't watched the news in half an hour what if something else is happening?

I wish that I could walk by my neighborhood firehouse today with the permanent memorial to the nine guys that didn't make it out of the fire that they ran in to. It's comforting knowing that if there are people on this earth who will crash airplanes into buildings there are also people who will run straight in to fires to pull people out.

I have nothing particularly eloquent to say, no conclusions or realizations today. But here we are, four years later, another mayoral primary in the city, another early fall day with a bright blue sky.

I wish I was there, is all.

"It's a good thing we have classes, or else we'd be so goddamn bored all the time."

2005-09-09T01:00:00.000-04:00

(quote courtesy of The Dish, in our 6 days before classes started when we pretty much sat around doing nothing all day.)

So it's been a big couple of days since my last post.

Started school. Three out of four classes so far, and they seem pretty good. I think I might be in over my head in a class on Duke Ellington, but that's what we overachievers call a challenge, right? Sure. Poli Sci and bio both sound manageable, and physics starts tomorrow. So while I'm looking forward to working hard, classes shouldn't be killer this semester.

I had a very intense dream the other night about a guy that I barely know. This swimmer named Blake. We had a class together last semester where we joked around a lot, and I've run in to him a few times this week. The dream was kinda graphic, truthfully. I was surprised by my own imagination! Anyway, I'm now totally on the lookout for Blake wherever I go. Totally weird and unexpected, but kinda fun, you know?

I'll end here with some pictures of my dog that Nanno and I took before I left home, because in all honesty, Abe might be cuter than Blake.

Long Night.

2005-09-04T01:45:00.000-04:00

So it's my second night back at school, and I spent it in the hospital. Classes don't start til Thursday, so naturally we're all drinking irresponsibly while we still can, and one of my friends overdid it and so we went. It totally sucks for her, and I hope I made the right decision in calling the ambulance-- hospital bills (and telling her parents what they're for) are going to be unpleasant, but I guess that's what you get when you drink yourself unresponsive.

Anyway, I'm back in the dorm now (she's still at the hospital for at least a few hours), and I'm hoping this is the last time for a while that I'll have to watch a friend strapped to a stretcher in an ambulance.

I mean, can't we find a way to be responsibly irresponsible?

onnnnnnnnnne.

2005-08-31T23:26:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I woke up early to meet Nanno and Crazybrains at our favorite diner, a 24-hour joint that we have been frequenting for close to ten years now. It was CB's sendoff breakfast before she headed back to Ohio for her junior year. One last time before our company of three went our seperate ways, we sat down and ate greasy eggs and perfectly toasted muffins and burnt home fries and steaming cups of coffee. All served by the increasingly crazy Manny, whose age seems to have a direct relationship with the likelihood that he will say something strange in the course of serving refilling our cups.

Since CB left a few days before me, it didn't quite feel real to say goodbye to her. I hugged her and gave slipped her annual going away present into her carry-on bag (always a book-- something for her to read as she tears up in the cab on the way to the airport. This year? Green Eggs and Ham. A classic.) But like I said, it didn't feel like a real goodbye. And then a few hours later I was sitting on the couch in a happily bored kind of way and it was the kind of moment during which I almost always call CB to come sit and watch TV with me, or meet for iced coffee or a walk.

Onnnnnnnnnnne.

That's the sound of me dialing the first speed dial on my phone. My direct line to CB. I think right then it hit me: summer's over. I hung up quickly, before her machine picked up.

So I leave for school tomorrow, moving in on Friday morning. Am I excited? Of course, for all kinds of reasons. But I'm also totally bummed because I know there will be a moment in the next few months when I'm watching Sex and the City at school and during an establishing shot of the City I'll get teary and wish that right at that moment I could be on a blanket in Central Park with Nanno and CB, a huge spread from Eli's and the Sunday Times all around us. It's just the way things go, when your best friends are a thousand miles away.

Until then? Onnnnnnnnnne.

New Toys

2005-08-31T23:16:00.000-04:00

New cell phone and camera this week! Because everyone needs two digital cameras in their bag every day. The phone is a schmancy motorola v-something with a 1.2MP camera. A fairly significant step up from my last phone, which had a black and white screen, flaking silver paint, and had bite marks on it from where my dog chewed on it.

The camera is So. Awesome. It's a Casio Exilim EX-Z55, 5.2 MP, 2.5" screen, and it's the size of a deck of cards. It's cute as hell (and takes very nice pictures). Here are a few shots of Abe that I took with it:

And one of me and Nanno, who after a brief health scare got very good news today. We simply couldn't be any more relieved if we tried.

the Tri-Not-Birthday

2005-08-30T23:15:00.000-04:00

With the end of summer more or less upon us, Crazybrains, Nanno and I finally got around to celebrating all of our birthdays since we never get to be together on the real dates. First we tried to average the three, but more or less ended up with my birthday, when we aren't together. So then we gave up on any date that had an actual meaning, and settled on August 28th as our collective non-birthday.

Fancy dinner ensued. Lovely in every possible way.

I love exchanging presents with my best friends-- it's one of those times that giving is truly much much better than getting. (Not that the getting is so terrible...) CB and I got Nanno a very cool watch that she ended up loving and has been wearing since that night.

The funniest thing, though, was that CB and I got each other pretty much the same thing. We've been working on becoming tea snobs over the last year or so, and I think we're finally getting there. I got her a really pretty glass teapot and a bunch of loose ginger tea, and she got me an IngenuiTea and some loose green tea.

The IngenuiTea is basically the best tea invention ever, and everyone should check it out (watch the video on the site...it's awesome).

The best part of CB's present for me was a mug that she convinced our favorite 24-hour diner to sell her. It's heavy cream-c0lored porcelin and when I hold it in my hands it feels like I'm sitting in a booth in the middle of the night across from CB. I love it.

We spent about ten minutes on the floor laughing about the fact that we got each other the same damn thing. And then we made tea.

Dylan McKay, Animal Lover

2005-08-27T01:35:00.000-04:00

This summer I've taken full advantage of the family Tivo, mostly to tape old ER's and Beverly Hills, 90210's. Today's 90210 was one of the very best: the one where Dylan McKay gets married to Toni Marchette, daughter of his father's murderer (also named Tony Marchette). Nice wedding on a bluff by the sea, loving toasts to the couple from rest of the gang, and general happiness ensues. All lovely.

And then, of course, Toni gets her brains blown out by her mobster father's henchmen who were under orders to kill the new son-in-law. So then we get a spectacular scene where Dylan opens Toni's car door and her body spills out onto his lap and he screeeeeeams into the rainy night sky. Poetic.

Dylan decides to skip town after the funeral. You know, ride off into the sunset, away from Beverly Hills and the evil grasp of Aaron Spelling. Dylan is supposed to be this James Dean-type guy, a tough, misunderstood loner.

There's one major chink in the armor though-- Strapped on the back of Dylan's motorcycle? There's a CAT CARRIER. That's right. Dylan is bringing his kitty on his big Brood Across America?

He ain't no Easy Rider, is all I'm saying.

Floating

2005-08-23T20:14:00.000-04:00

News O' The Week: I will soon be the proud owner of a Casio Exilim Z55 digital camera. 5.0MP, 2.5" screen, the size of a deck of cards. I'm very excited.

Here are some pictures taken on other people's digital cameras this weekend, at my parents new lake house. Nanno and Crazybrains came up, and we all pretended not to be city people for a few hours.

The setting:

a float so giant the three of us almost passed out blowing it up:

and some tasty, tasty, gazpacho (courtesy of The Mom).

It's been a good summer.

Baseball Season, Jr.

2005-08-15T22:13:00.000-04:00

I'm a Mets fan. It's a masochistic endeavor, especially in August when their record gets so abysmal that there's just no hope of clawing up to the wild card. Every year I get to a point where my frustration and disappointment which I find a way to savor in April and May becomes totally depressing and I stop trekking to Shea, stop watching the games, everything. The only info I get on the Mets right now is my daily glance at the standings when I scoff incredulously at how last year's freakin' Expos, a team that couldn't find its way out of the cellar with a ladder and a flashlight, are STILL winning games when my Mets are eight and a half back and falling fast.

So I have to find something else to watch, something else to follow obsessively in my fallen-from-grace-Mets' stead.

Luckily, mid-August means one thing on ESPN2: the Little League World Series in Williamsport, PA. Twenty-nine games aired on national television, and that's not even counting the regional championships. And you know what? I'm going to watch as much of it as possible.

One does not watch the Little League World Series for the athleticism. Not since Danny Almonte has the athletic prowess on the LLWS field dramatically exceeded what you would expect from a bunch of twelve year olds.

The real draw are the commentators, former MLB players reduced to saying things like: "Bobby Henson might weigh only 83 lbs, but at 4'10" he sure does have speed! And his favorite movie is Space Jam. Good choice." Or "The boys from Oahu sure have traveled far. But these Hawaians know how to party! They invited their rivals from Idaho to share in a barbecue, where each team prepared their own local specialties. Gosh, these young men are good sports."

I guess every player has to fill out a survey before they get to Williamsport with their favorite food, subject in school, tv show (Does this even have to be a question? It's always SportsCenter.) Favorite baseball players, football players, college basketball teams are all at the commentators' fingertips, ready to be peppered into the game coverage. Brilliant.

And nothing, nothing, tops the fact that the ESPN cameramen have somehow figured out exactly what middle-American woman belongs to which middle-American preteen. After every double, every ball caught in the outfield and every slide into third base, there is a closeup of the players' mothers to catch the reaction. Because without Mom's crestfallen mug on screen, lil' Derek "Jeter" Finklestein's bottom-of-the-sixth (there are six innings in little league) strikeout wouldn't have been painful enough.

I mean, come ON. The kids CRY when they lose. Sit down, Hogan family. Outwit, outlast, outplay? You're outta here. This is reality television at its very best.

Oh, and about the international teams? Pfft.

Six

2005-08-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

Scenes from the job:

"I'm six years old and I've been playing chess since I was five."
"Fine Kaia. No more tips. Your turn."
I won, cuz I got game. That and I learned to play chess like eight years before she was born.

Fast forward to two hours later.

"So that's a no on the popsicle stick art? How about Parcheesi?"
"Nah."
"Wanna just hang for a while?"
"mmhm."

We covered day camp, kindergarten teachers, school uniforms. The playroom was quiet.

"I'm too young for this."

'This' being the thing that has kept her in the hospital all week, chart as big as a phone book.

"Yeah," I said. "You really are."

Queer as WHY DO TV SHOWS MAKE ME CRY

2005-08-07T23:05:00.000-04:00

The Queer as Folk series finale ended tonight, and god damn it, I got a little emotional.

Despite the fact that this show's heavyhanded political posturing is a little hard to take sometimes (like, everyone who watches is pro-gay marriage, gay adoption, gay everything. Bible-belt Christian Republicans probably don't make up a large part of the QaF audience), the characters are among the most appealingly realistic and well-rounded on TV.

So aside from being totally bummed that the show isn't going to be on anymore, I was pretty satisfied with the ending. Of course the Notting Hill-loving, Notebook DVD extra-watching part of me wishes that Brian and Justin had ended up living happily ever after, but I'll have to live with the ambiguous and character-appropriate ending they got. My only legit complaint is that Emmett got totally shortchanged-- his storyline got tied up too quickly and in a random (albeit happy) way. I feel for Peter Paige, who took what was initially a joke of a character and gave him such depth and meaning, and then was cheated out of a proper ending for his story. Poor guy.

Mostly I'll miss Sunday nights when Nanno and Crazybrains come over and my family sits down and ther we are, four 20-somethings and my 51 year old parents, enjoying the highly attractive men simulating gay sex and sometimes, just sometimes, making us cry.

Summer Reading: Two Months, a Whoooole Bunch of Books

2005-08-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

A few weeks into this summer (once I had more or less recovered from finals), I wrote about what I was planning on reading this summer. At the time I was rereading Sedaris's Naked and reading Sarah Vowell's Partly Cloudy Patriot for the first time. Partly Cloudy Patriot was so unbelieveably awesome-- Vowell is like the smarter more eloquent version of the voice inside my head. I've been lending the book out to anyone and everyone in my life since I finished it in mid-June. Out of five stars, this book gets like seventy-three.

I like rereading, so I went back to Harry Potter books 4 and 5 in anticipation of the upcoming fourth movie and sixth book. I'm glad I went back to four and five; the first time I read books two through five I ran through them at a quite a clip, since my boss was lending me one each week. I timed the re-read pretty well this summer-- by the time I finished rereading book five my brother had finished book six and I didn't have to buy my own copy. I had one major complaint about the latest installment: the first 400 pages were a slow, leisurely path through Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, and then the last 200 pages had SO much going on that it was almost overwhelming. I guess I liked it overall, but I'm not a Harry Potter nut so meh.

I keep trying to read Loose Change, which was assigned for one of my classes and I never quite finished but had started to enjoy during the semester. Still haven't gotten more than halfway. I think I give up.

Hands down, my favorite book this summer so far has been The Island at the Center of the World. Subtitled "The epic story of Dutch Manhattan and the forgotten colony that shaped America", this book was right up my alley. First of all, Russell Shorto is fucking brilliant. Like Joseph Ellis did in Founding Brothers, Shorto manages to bring history to life so vividly that I practically felt the events happening. The notion of Manhattan as forest crisscrossed by rivers and surrounded by rivers that have never seen a sail has always seemed too distant to be real, and Shorto made me believe it viscerally. I read most of it during my lunch hours in Stuyvesant Square Park, sitting near the oversize, cartoonish statue of peg-legged Peter Stuyvesant while reading about him tromping through the Dutch colony that just south of there. It was so completely awesome. I can't wait to read it again. (Shut up.)

Last weekend I read Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies. It only took me like five hours over a few days. I guess I'm not big in to fiction right now, but I liked The Namesake when I read it for a class, so I read this one. She's got a great, clear voice in her writing that I really enjoy, but I think when I'm reading such phenomenal nonfiction it's hard for me to get in to the fake stuff. (I am shockingly nerdy.)

Right now I'm reading His Excellency, by Joseph Ellis. I read another one of his over Spring break, which, ok, not exactly beach reading. Like I said then: I'm in college, I'm allowed to be an intellectual snob. I've never read much about George Washington so it's good.

The plurality of nerdy nonfiction is a little unsettling, now that I look at it all together. I swear, I actually spend a lot of time reading gossip at perezhilton.com, sending midday emails to my friends about how funky looking Zahara Jolie is, and watching summer reality shows like Kept and Hooking Up. God, I love summer reality tv. And nonfiction, I guess.

How to Ruin a Great CD

2005-08-02T00:02:00.000-04:00

(or, The One Where I Talk About My Job).

Like many jobs, my summer job is incredibly awesome about some of the time, totally terrible sometimes, and most of the time it's somewhere in between. The hours aren't bad, my coworkers (for the most part) are smart and hard working, and the paycheck doesn't suck.

In the details though, my job veers pretty far off of the traditional college summer job track. I work in the Child Life department in a hospital-- essentially, I work in a playroom for sick kids. I've been there for about three years (off and on), and I consider myself indescribably lucky to have had the experiences there that I've had.

First off, I'll just say that every cliche you've ever heard (and many you haven't) about working with very sick and terminally ill children is true. You think it's the size of the dog in the fight? You haven't seen enough six year olds with brain tumors. It's the size of the fight in the dog, and these kids just know that if their fight isn't big enough, if don't want it bad enough, they're done. And by "it" in that last sentence I mean an eleventh birthday. (Want to be inspired? Read If I Get to Five.) Brilliant physicians treat the disease, but there's more to it than that, and anyone who tells you otherwise has never been sick.

To make a sick kid laugh, to challenge them to an Uno tournament, to sit and watch a movie with them while their chemo drips in from a bag above our heads-- these are the moments that I have learned to savor. To know that I am part of the team getting these families through the hardest experience of their lives is incredibly rewarding.

On the other hand, the crappy part of my job is so much worse than the crappy parts of other summer jobs. Most of the time I can keep a certain amount of distance-- I've learned that when I leave for the day, I don't have to feel guilty about going out and laughing. But there are days when I leave the hospital and feel like I can't breathe, like the sadness and the unfairness of it all has taken a hold of my heart and it squeezing hard and will. not. let. go. I seem to hit a wall every summer with this-- a point at which the patients' reality begins to edge out my own, at which their fights become my own.

And this is where ruining good music comes in to the picture. I started listening to Coldplay's Rush of Blood to the Head every day on my way to and from the hospital shortly after I started working there, and at this point I've rewritten the soul of the record. I call it my twenty minute rule-- I give myself the twenty minutes of my commute to be heartbroken for the kid whose cancer has spread, for the one whose infection has them stuck in the hospital for the third week this summer. When I get home I turn off my music, and hopefully my heartbreak with it. It allows me to go back to my "real life", to seperate who I am from what I do at work.

I love the job. It's rewarding, it's hard, and it makes me want to be a doctor more and more every day.

Still, I don't think I will ever be able to hear Chris Martin sing the "the Scientist" and not think about some of the kids I've watched win their fights, and the ones who were not so lucky. But not for lack of trying.

Night of Gross

2005-07-25T23:42:00.000-04:00

I proclaimed tonight the "Night of Gross" while in the midst of a quasi-hysterical fit about an hour ago. I'll tell the end of the story but not the rest, because frankly it's the only part that involves road head, which eclipses whatever else might have happened.

So I'm walking home with Crazybrains from sitting on a stoop outside Nanno's building. We're half a block from leaving Nanno, on York Avenue in the 70's. We start crossing the street, but are cut off by a white Lincoln Towncar that inside had a red interior and, most importantly, a fantastically obese woman whose head was firmly in the driver's lap. Face. Down.

Thus the aforementioned quasi-hysterical fit, wherein CB and I try to get the image of a gross, old, livery cab driver getting a blowjob from his plus-size...wife? Girlfriend? Passenger looking for a fare break?

eeeeeeyuch.

Engrish

2005-07-21T10:58:00.000-04:00

If you go to engrish.com today, the "Engrish of the Day" picture is one that my cousin and I took in Japan last summer!

Em and I were too cheap to buy all of the stupid engrish products we came across, but we took pictures of a lot of them. That one was definitely the best.

Runner up: "Shoot me through my mellow heart AUDACIOUSLY", also on a t-shirt. yyyeah. I don't get it either.

Chipmunky

2005-07-19T22:20:00.000-04:00

As of about 1pm today, I am officially wisdom toothless.

I've been icing my face all day, and have determined that frozen peas are the best thing for the job. They stay remarkably soft and moldable to my cheek while at the same time retaining their low temperature for an impressive duration. Less well-suited to the job (but still functional) are frozen corn, tater tots, and coffee beans.

My fridge is stocked with orange jello, chocolate pudding, and home-made chicken soup (thanks, mom). Pretty much sticking to foods that have no independent shape for now. The more slurpable, the better.

J. and I made plans to see each other on Thursday. The plan is to see a movie, but if I'm feeling crappy he (very sweetly) offered to bring me soup and hang out on the couch. I'm hoping that if I ice my face nonstop I won't bet too chipmunky come Thursday...we'll see, anyway.

And in case you were wondering, actually do feel a little less wise since the removal of my wisdom teeth, but something tells me that's just the oxycodone talking.

Snowflakes

2005-07-14T00:27:00.000-04:00

There are certain songs that I know will bring back memories, recall long-ago moments. If I look at a list of songs I can probably pick out a few that will take me somewhere old.

Today Guster's "Happier" came out of my headphones on the way back from the gym. "Happier" isn't a song that I thought I associated with anything in particular, but as soon as it started my mind did a little flip. I went through a brief, regrettable Guster phase this year, with a few songs on heavy rotation on the iPod.

Suddenly, all of the dozens of things that were tying me to walking home from the gym on 2nd avenue at 7pm on this summer evening seemed to dissolve. Even though I knew I was walking past a Chinese restaurant, a bodega, a bar, with all the smells of a hot New York night, my mind was screaming "morning in the snow. on the way to class."

I know that I unconsciously tucked my chin to my chest to fight the non-existent January wind.

Trudging through the mid-July storm in running shorts and flip-flops, I felt snowflakes on my eyelashes.

getting ahead of myself...

2005-07-12T23:25:00.000-04:00

Our parents have said it jokingly for a decade now. "You two are going to get married. J., be nice to bex. You'll regret it when you want her to go out with you and she won't because you teased her when you were twelve". So it's been this running joke since I was ten. And we've always had an easy (if sporadic) friendship-- he tried tirelessly to get me to go to his university, having me stay in his dorm room for a few days to show the place off, then reminding me to get my application in early. When my team played at his school last fall he came to the game, cheered for me even though he had no idea how the game worked.

Now J.'s graduated from college and is working in the city, and I went out with him and his friends this weekend. My hair looked great. We laughed a lot and he said he'd call to go for dinner this week. I was too tired at 2:30 AM to want to go back and watch movies at his apartment (other friends still around, and staying over. No big moooooove this weekend).

Clearly I'm getting waaay ahead of myself here, but it feels nice to be thinking of this guy who isn't HSG, who isn't any of the minor characters I've convinced myself I might like at school, who actually knows me and likes me with whom I have absolutely no drama yet.

I'll end this with a tip for all the fellas: pay for her cab home. It's a classy move. (Worked on me, anyway. God, just read this sappy-ass post.)

The (Product Placement) Island

2005-07-12T23:12:00.000-04:00

A few things I learned from The Island:

-Ewan McGregor is unkillable. Dude can fall from seventy stories up in the sky and not. die.
-I have a girlcrush on Scarlett Johannson. You should too. She only had like seventeen lines in the movie-- her job was just to look pretty. Mission accomplished.
- Speedo, Aquafina, Miller Genuine Draft, Jack Daniels, Puma, Calvin Klein, and about four different car companies paid a lot of money to get futuristic versions of their products onto the big screen. Thumbs down for two-hour infomericals.

I won't even get started on Fantastic Four.

THUD (that's the sound of names dropping).

2005-07-06T23:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was the 826NYC fundraiser I'd been looking forward to, and it lived up to my (very high) expectations. Sarah Vowell opened the evening, talking about the cause and about the podium, which was the podium from which Abraham Lincoln gave one of his most important speeches, in 1860. "Let me just touch this podium for a minute," she asked the audience. "And just for the record, I too am against the expansion of slavery into the Western states."

And in that moment, she cemented her place in my pantheon of favorite authors.

David Sedaris hosted the event, and towards the end of the reading he and Vowell made their plea for donations. He started by dropping $500 in cash into the collection bucket. Why should we give mony, aside from the obvious reasons? "Because I love money so much. I just want to smell it," Sedaris said. Reason enough for me.

On top of Sedaris and Vowell, there were Joyce Carol Oates, Akhil Sharma, Charles Baxter, and Amy Hempel. Wonderful writers, all. But the big surprise came when for the last reading of the night, Steve Buscemi walked out on stage. He, in all his creepy, surreal glory, read a completely appropriate story-- a laugh-out-loud funny account of a guy being shot in the head. Seriously.

All the stories read were from Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, which I will soon own.

Name-drop event number two was tonight. I saw Avenue Q with my dad. It wasn't as good as the first time, but that's to be expected I guess. The highlight was at intermission, when who should be standing next to me as the aisles filled with people but Clinton (of Clinton and Stacey (of TLC's What Not to Wear)). He was taller than I expected, but a little less cute. With a freakin' beautiful boyfriend. So I tried to call anyone who might care that I was like four feet from Clinton (whose clothes, for the record, looked great), and of course noone picked up their goddamn phones, so I geeked out all alone with only my non-TLC-watching father for company. Perfect.

Fourth

2005-07-04T11:38:00.000-04:00

Two hundred and twenty-nine years ago, those men, brilliant and frustrated, decided it was time. I imagine passionate arguments, white hair curling in the heat, tailored jackets made by tailots in the way that no one makes anything anymore thrown over the backs of ancient chairs. Unable to wait any longer, they politely asked Great Britain to Kiss Our Collective American Ass.

And so they presented this list of grievences, this list of self-evident truths. I read the Declaration in awe and with a little bit of contempt. Created equal, are we? Millions of dead Native Americans (for god's sake, it's right there in the name-- Native Americans. Why couldn't they see it?) and ninety years of slavery, not to mention the thousands of Asian Americans who wouldn't see citizenship until 1965. These are our original sins.

And yet there is hope for redemption in the Declaration, and then ten years and eleven months later in the Constitution. Perhaps it took those years to realize what is now so evident. We can hope only for a more perfect Union than what came before, and if we work tirelessly and believe in it hard enough maybe someday we'll get there.

I speak of America in religious terms because I know no other way. Sins. Redemption. Faith. Our founding fathers are more than heroes, they are legend. Monticello and Mount Vernon are the American Mount Olympus.

I study America because it is frustrating, challenging, and inspiring. Our narrative is one of blind faith in ideals and nose-to-the-grindstone hard work. President Clinton said in his first inaugural address that there is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right about America. I can't help but be moved by his optimism and unwavering faith in the principles that the founding generation wrote down for the first time in the history of the world.

Today I'll go to the gym, watch fireworks, and laugh with friends. But at the same time in the back of my mind I am constantly in awe of the real reasons we all get together to barbecue and drink cold beer on July 4th.

I celebrate America's birthday today and look forward to the challenge of creating a more perfet union in our own time.

(re)Certifiable

2005-07-02T04:33:00.000-04:00

Today was a very long day.

Started out normal: woke up around 7:30, at work a little before 9. Instead of my regular day at work, I spent about six hours renewing my CPR certifications. Adult, child, and infant CPR and First Aid? You are all my bitches for the third year running. I own you, and I will soon have the valid Red Cross cards to prove it. Now, since I've done this a few times already, the re-cert class got pretty slow and my mind wandered, as it is apt to do. Instead of concentrating on, say, how to treat unconscious choking, in my head I was off on a whole thing about how the instructional video was so goddamn old, and how funny the hairstyles were, and how maybe this was those actors' first job ever and they are earning their SAG cards right in front of my eyes and isn't that exciting? Oh right. Heimlich. Got it. (Nice 'do, Lady With Heart Attack. In a very 1987 kind of way.)

So six hours of that. Then I spent the last few few hours at work doing my actual job in the playroom. I was playing Candy Land with a girl named Frangie, a sibling of a patient. For some reason I kept calling her "Frangia", and couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

Two hours later, on the train to meet The Dish at 42nd st, it occurred to me. It sounds like Franzia, the boxed wine we often enjoy in large quantities at school.

After work I went to the Mets game with The Dish and her sister and her sister's boyfriend. A very good (if somewhat rainy) time overall, and the Mets won, which is awesome. It was also fireworks night, so we were there til like 11:30 checking out the show, which was SO good. Probably one of the best of the season, other than the Macy's 4th of July show, which is impossible to get near anyway so this was great. Fireworks are magic.

The last part of the night was spent in Brooklyn, at a party with a ton of people I went to high school with. I dragged The Dish (who wasn't totally thrilled, but I think was pretty entertained by the drunken fools I grew up with), but she left after an hour or so. I stuck around and had a chance to catch up with some people. It was mostly very good, to see all these people that were once such an important part of my life-- my physics lab partner, the people I went to falafel with every day for lunch, the one who I always left parties with late at night becuase we grew up so close to each other.

At long last I'm back home, ready to sleep and sleep and sleep. Tomorrow night I'll see an old friend's band play, so that should be a good time.

Twenty-two hours since I last saw my bed. Like I said, it was a long day.

Mermaids

2005-06-25T20:33:00.000-04:00

Spent the day today at Coney Island with Nanno, CB, and Raj. Coney Island is hard to describe if you haven't been there-- it's completely unlike anywhere else in the world. You take the D train to the very last stop and all of a sudden you're on Mars or something. It's partly just a beachside carnival and boardwalk, but mostly it's this giant convergence of weird. It's creepy, funny, crowded, ubelievably old fashioned, decrepit and brand-new. Sometimes all at once.

For example: one of the carnival rides is called "Arctic Freeze" and is decorated with murals of polar bears. But between the polar bears are the giant heads of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. They're just hanging out in the background of this ride, with the polar bears.

And then there's the Cyclone, a septuagenarian of a roller coaster whose matchstick support system threatens to splinter any moment. It is a terrifying ride not because it is a particularly fierce roller coaster, as those things go, but because you can actually hear it creak. It is visually and audibly terrifying.

Coney Island is a place filled with New York history, which makes me love it that much more. The same place where the young working class at the turn of the last century first went to dance halls and wore swimsuits in the company of the opposite sex is where the average New Yorker hangs out now, crowding the beach until it's packed as solidly as my sock drawer. It's comforting, really.

In addition to the regular craziness of Coney Island, today was the Mermaid Parade. Now this is something they weren't doing in 1903, when co-ed dancing was risque. It's a huge celebration of, well, the wacky. People dress up as mermaids, fish, sailors---whatever, really. They dress up their dogs, their children, and their friends until the boardwalk is a sea of sequins.

It's insane.

Now I'm home, wasting Saturday night because I have to go in to work tomorrow morning. I'm wearing the loosest tank top I could find because the line right above the shirt I wore today is sunburned (twenty and I still can't put on sunscreen properly). I've got about fifty new freckles and a pound of cherries and a Harry Potter book to reread tonight. Summer, as Martha might say, is a good thing.

Lightweight

2005-06-22T01:10:00.000-04:00

Went to a party tonight at a friend of Steve's house. I didn't stay long since I have to be at work at 9 tomorrow, but it was fun. Good to meet some new people. I had two beers (mmmm, Brooklyn India Pale Ale) and kinda got buzzed. I'm officially a complete lightweight...I guess that's what happens when you barely drink for a month and a half. Though it is a good thing to let my liver regenerate for the summer, before I beat it into submission when I get back to school .

Devonric + Carmindy 4eva

2005-06-20T23:11:00.000-04:00

Here's a conversation I had online with my cousin a few nights ago. I was watching TLC's What Not to Wear, and it turned out she (in Chicago) was watching the same thing. In like twenty minutes of conversation we managed to cover all the stuff excerpted below.

The lesson in all of this? My family has a collective attention span of 17 frickin' seconds.

bex: my mom's new favorite show is mtv's true life
cousin em: hahaha nice
cousin em: mine is Kept
cousin em: i LOVE kept
bex: i lvoe kept too!!
bex: all my favorites get sent home though
cousin em: do you love Austen like i love Austen?
bex: i loved frank a little
bex: austen is growing on me a lot
cousin em: austen really is my soulmate i think.
bex: i didnt like him the first episode
cousin em: he's been my fav. since the first minute
bex: but now i do
cousin em: i think if he gets cut, i'll chase him down and nurse his egoo back to health
bex: good plan
cousin em: isn't he HOT?
bex: his mouth is kinda giant
bex: but it makes him distinctive i guess
cousin em: i likes it
cousin em: i like everything.
cousin em: also, i hate hate hate Ricardo and Slavco
bex: of course
bex: i cant stop making fun of devonric's name
bex: because it's silly
bex: like, FUCKING PICK ONE, DUDE
cousin em: hahahaha
cousin em: HAHA
cousin em: i agree
bex: but he is very very good looking
cousin em: he is
cousin em: it's true
.
.
.
bex: right now we're all watching what not to wear
cousin em: me too!
cousin em: haha
cousin em: that lady hates her hair
cousin em: i love carmindy, she and devonric should get married
bex: HAHAHAHAH
bex: yes
cousin em: hahahaha
bex: aaah that's my new away message
cousin em: its all yours
bex: awesome
bex: i have no idea why people dont just follow the damn rules on this show
cousin em: i know
cousin em: they're assholes
.
.
.
bex: please don't be as ho-y as erin
cousin em: i'm not even a little hoy
cousin em: ho=y
cousin em: ho-y
cousin em: hoie
cousin em: hoey
bex: no good way to spell that
cousin em: slutty.
bex: right
.
.
.
cousin em: i gotta jet
cousin em: bye boo
cousin em: love you
bex: byye
bex: you too

Summer Reading

2005-06-18T23:09:00.000-04:00

I've spent the last few weeks in recovery from the academic intensity of finals. I've barely read the newspaper, let alone a real book. I made plans this week to go to an upcoming fundraiser for 826NYC, so to get psyched up for that I decided to get reading again. (Side note: 826 is a totally awesome cause. Donate money, or go to the superhero/pirate/lumberjack supply store near you and volunteer your time. Also, I love Dave Eggers.) The fundraiser is a reading featuring David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, Joyce Carol Oates, and other awesome writers.

To get in the mood, I reread Sedaris' Naked this week, and bought Sarah Vowell's Partly Cloudy Patriot, which I am completely loving right now. She is so, so, SO awesome.

I've updated my "Currently Reading" section to include all the stuff I'm working on right now. A little bit of New York history, American history, and a book one of my profs assigned that I never quite got around to but looked good.

I think I'd forgotten what it was like to actually choose what I read. Feels good.

What a long, strange...commute?

2005-06-17T19:57:00.000-04:00

Most days my commute is boring and predictable. Like tens of thousands of other New Yorkers, I walk from home to the subway, take the subway a few stops, then walk from the subway stop to the hospital where I work. I get my amNewYork, squeeze on to the 4, and get an iced coffee outside the station on 14th street. Every day.

Today wasn't really different, per se, but I had a few unexpected moments.

First one came when I was across the street from the 86th street subway station. The filing deadline for NYC City Council is coming up soon, so lots of candidates have people on the streets collecting signatures to qualify to get on the ballot. I got cornered this morning not by a volunteer working for a canidate, but the candidate himself. So I sign his thing, and by then the light has turned red, which gives Mr. Dan Quart, candidate for City Council, the chance to try and bond with me for a few moments. We talk about where I went to high school and then I mention that I go to college in Massachusetts. I say goodbye as the light changes, and as I cross the street Candidate Quart calls after me "Do you want me to send you an absentee ballot??"

Now that is a thoughtful man. Quart for City Council!

Thing number two that happened on the way to work: my coffee guy remembered my order for the first time this summer. I'm officially a regular! I get an iced coffee with skim milk (no sugar) from the little breakfast cart outside the train station at 14th street, and today when I walked toward the cart he poured my coffee. I love being a regular. I've been a regular at a few different places for my morning coffee since about 10th grade, and it never ceases to put a little smile on my face to be recognized and remembered by my caffeine supplier. Love it.

Third thing: I found five bucks.

Finger-Lickin' Good

2005-06-13T01:00:00.000-04:00

I am always extolling the virtues of my fair city, but I'm man enough to admit that New York's got a few shortcomings too. One signifant problem is this city's lack of good barbecue.

This weekend I had my first experience with the Big Apple BBQ, and I am thrilled that over 50,000 New Yorkers agree with me, and at least a few of them are doing something about it.

So Saturday I headed down to Madison Square with Nanno and Steve to check this whole thing out. We spent a while perusing the guide to which barbecuer what making what, including a healthy debate over the merits of eating something called "Pig Snoot". In the plus column, "snoot" is really fun to to say. In the minus column, Steve and I were afraid it would look like the nose of the fetal pig we dissected together in AP Bio a few years back. In the end, we all agreed that we could say "snoooooooooot!" at inappropriate volumes without ever actually eating it, so we went for more traditional pig parts.

And then there was the strawberry rhubarb cobbler. Ohhhhh, the cobbler.

Of course, the company was as good as the food. At one point we were trying to figure out what night we might go to Steve's favorite gay club this week.
nanno: we should go Thursday-- isn't that student night? Half-price cover.
bex: sounds good.
Steve: But Tuesday is showtune night!
bex: That's really....gay.
Steve: I love showtunes. And once you two get some cocktails in you, you will too.
Well argued, Steve.

there's a great entry on the same event over at This Fish. Check it out and be jealous you weren't there too.

What's up, Bro?

2005-06-11T16:01:00.000-04:00

I've been watching a lot of 90210 reruns lately, and something has been bothering me. Brandon always calls Brenda "sis". As in "Can you pass me the orange juice, sis?" or, "Hey sis, is David on crystal meth?" (Yes. Yes he was. For four harrowing episodes.) I'm completely bugged by the whole "sis" phenomenon. It's very Berenstain Bears-esque-- the Berenstains don't even have names other than Brother, Sister, Mother, and Father.

I don't know why Brandon's penchant for calling Brenda "Sis" gets me so bad...I mean, this is a guy who spent most of the 90's calling Steve Sanders "Bro", for god's sake.

False Advertising

2005-06-09T23:47:00.000-04:00

Every morning on the way to my summer job I turn to go down the stairs to the 86th street subway station and grab a free copy of amNewYork to read on the train downtown. Today, in addition to the woman who always hand me my paper there was a man handing out what looked like free samples of something.

Now, I've lived in New York a long time, and while it doesn't happen totally regularly, it's not all that rare for someone to be giving away freebies by the subway station. Most times it's a company trying to promote a new cereal or shampoo or something. Once (on election day a few years back) it was a local candidate handing out cups of hot coffee. Everyone loves free stuff, right?

So when I someone shoved a granola bar stapled to a card in my hand this morning, I shoved it in my bag and went down to catch my train.

Twenty minutes later, I'm walking out of the station downtown and I figure, hey, there's no time like the present for a free granola bar! So I pull it out and look at it, and in my head I'm all "Thanks, Quaker Chewy Granola Bar Man, for this nice snack!"

As I munch and walk, I checked out the card it was stapled to. Not a coupon or promo for the granola bar as I'd expected-- the ad encouraged me to attend Sunday services at the Manhattan Church of Christ.

Thanks, but I like my granola bars without evangelism. (Also? Girl over here is Jewish. But thanks for trying.)

While I won't be heading to church anytime soon, I did stop buy a box of Quaker Chewy Granola Bars after work.

An Open Letter to My Favorite Neighborhood Crazy Guy

2005-06-07T23:36:00.000-04:00

Dear Guy I Like to Call "Dee Snider's Uglier Brother",

First off, let me say that I applaud you for managing to be crazier looking than the one of the craziest looking people ever, Dee Snider of Twisted Sister.

You managed to up the crazy quotient significantly, particularly with your use of the Daisy Duke/thong hybrid that I think you invented yourself. It shows off your very old (but surprisingly perky) backside very well-- especially since you wear those lovely ripped-up black stockings underneath the thong contraption.

Your tight black tank top highlights your giant, unruly (and decidedly Snider-esque) salt-and-pepper mane. In short, I love you.

I'd especially like to thank you for the service you provide for your fellow New Yorkers. When you were crossing Second Avenue tonight, I was standing about two feet away waiting for the light to cross 84th street. I spent a moment admiring your whole getup, then the woman just to my left and I shared a laugh and an eye-roll. I had a nice little bonding moment with this stranger, all on your account.

So thanks for everything, you certifiable nutball. Keep it up.

Shiiiiiiit.

2005-06-06T17:12:00.000-04:00

No pictures for a while. My digital camera was working perfectly Friday night, and then Saturday it wouldn't turn on. I figured it was the batteries, but as it turns out, it just hates me.

So there goes all my birthday money!

Any recommendations for an affordable, VERY portable 3-4 megapixel camera?

This sucks.

I'm on Google!

2005-06-03T23:49:00.000-04:00

I try not to be too obsessive about it, but like any self-respecting egomaniac, I check my referral logs fairly regularly. For the first few months that I was writing here, my referrals were mostly BlogExplosion, then once I had a few people (with spectacularly good taste, of course) linking to me I started getting traffic from those. I also get some "unknown" referrals, which I guess means you people are finding your way to me on your own. God bless you, and get your asses back here as soon as possible.

Suddenly this week I started getting hits from Google searches. TOTALLY weirding me out, folks. I'm a result on Google! Small step for man? Sure. But a giant leap for...uhh...me.

I thought I'd share some of the ways people are ending up here:

-The following searches all ended up at this post, which I wrote one night when I couldn't sleep and apparently is of interest to many people: "true life i'm a twin mtv", "tia and tamara mowry", "twin boys on full house", and my personal favorite: "Full House: Nicky and Alex disturbing".
-to my post about the Numa Numa Guy: "numa numa guy", "funny numa numa guy", etc.
- the post where I admit to coveting Kim Jong Il's sunglasses: "photo of Kim jong-il with sunglasses"

I'm a result for "I'm in a shitty mood", "pope jokes" and "coming fall 2005" also. Though I don't think the "coming fall 2005" searcher was looking for my post about Britney Spears' baby.

Too Much TV

2005-05-30T01:13:00.000-04:00

HSG (11:58:36 PM): hey
HSG(11:58:38 PM): what's up?
bex (12:01:51 AM): nothing at all
HSG12:02:22 AM): daily show reruns and whatever's on vh1 kind of night?
bex (12:03:02 AM): pretty much
HSG(12:04:43 AM): i continue to recommend animal planet
bex (12:06:59 AM): let's see what's on...
bex (12:07:09 AM): ok i have no idea what number it is
HSG (12:08:19 AM): that's no excuse, you have a guide button. you press it all the time. you've mastered the ability to search the guide and continue to watch your show at the same time.
bex (12:08:43 AM): well that's definitely true
bex (12:08:45 AM): here it is
bex (12:09:02 AM): 86
bex (12:09:11 AM): "the planet's funniest animmals"
HSG(12:09:20 AM): oh that show blows
bex (12:09:25 AM): oh god
HSG (12:09:42 AM): get rid of mario lopez
HSG (12:09:50 AM): it's just sad
bex (12:10:07 AM): you know what else is sad?
HSG (12:10:42 AM): pigs named "squeal o'neal" jumping through hoops?
bex (12:10:57 AM): no (though...yeah.)
bex (12:11:11 AM): the fact that you know who the host of "america's funniest animals" is
HSG(12:12:00 AM): oh shut up, so do you
HSG (12:12:24 AM): once you turn on animal planet once and see ac slater talking to dog owners about dog tricks, you never forget it
HSG (12:12:46 AM): ...it's not like i watch the show
bex (12:12:52 AM): mmmmmmhm

As if I needed more reasons why I didn't want to live in LA...

2005-05-29T22:03:00.000-04:00

I saw Crash with my mother the other night, and it made me realize something: LA, despite being home of the entertainment industry, is portrayed as the worst place ever on the silver screen.

Overall, I thught Crash was a really good movie. It examined race tensions and class structures in Los Angeles. A bit heavyhanded at times, but unexpectedly powerful performances by Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, and (to my complete shock) Ludacris made it worth the $10.75. (Side note: theater owners are criminal for charging that much. End rant. Exhale.) Despite (or becasue of) the powerful performances, I left the theater believing that LA was this racially segregated hellhole, plagued by so many social ills I'm shocked it doesn't curl up and die. Plus, it made the LAPD look like racist assholes. Becuase I guess we haven't had a new reason to hate the LAPD in a while.

It got me thinking about other instances of LA in the movies. First thing that came to mind was Collateral.

There's a great example of fine, upstanding Angelenos.

Magnolia? Boogie Nights? Almost enough to make you lose faith in the possiblity of human happiness.

Interested in dismal views of the future? Check out the Los Angeles-set Terminator and Blade Runner .

Training Day gives us yet another glowing appraisal of the LAPD, just in case the memory of Rodney King has faded.

For god's sake, even Pretty Woman, a generally fun movie that I watch pretty much every time it's on cable (which is basically twice a week) is about a prostitute, for fuck's sake.

Being Still like a Vegetable, Laying Like Broccoli

2005-05-27T00:54:00.000-04:00

I am doing as Julia Roberts suggested in Pretty Woman.

I've spent the last day and a half sprawled out on the couch watching TV, catching up on everything the DVR has saved for me since the last time I was home. I'll start working soon, hopefully join the gym tomorrow, but for now, sitting here feels pretty damn good.

About three hours after I got back from Williamstown on Tuesday I had to be at a dinner with 25 friends of my family. In fact, all of the families met nine years ago when we all went on a trip to Israel. All good people, but all crazy Jews--certainly a high-energy group. Definitely not the place I wanted to be after very little sleep in the last week or so. Plus, when I get back to the city from school I tend to get very overwhelmed-- I need a quiet day or two to readjust to city life.

So I walk in to the dinner (which was held in a private room at a nice Italian place in midtown) with my brother and poor, poor Krystle, a friend from school to whom I had offered a place to crash before she flew home Wednesday and then I somehow sucked her in to going to this event. I saw my parents for the first time in a month and a half, and what was the first thing they said?

"Bex, you look like you need a drink. Go get one and then we'll talk."

God bless Grey Goose. Dinner wasn't half as painful as I'd feared it would be.

And now, back to my TV marathon. I've watched like six episodes of The L Word today (fyi: Showtime on Demand is ruining my life), plus like 6 other hours of television. I think I'm turning into asparagus.

huh.

2005-05-24T00:27:00.000-04:00

All the comfy stuff is gone from my bed. The memory-foam pad, the quilted matteress cover, cozy duvet, most of the pillows. All packed away in self-storage. All I've got now is a fitted sheet, a pillow, and my extra blanket. Stuff I can stick in at the last minute.

I'm lying here doing my regular nighttime thing (laptop sitting on my belly, one last e-mail and news check, a little conversation with HSG...), and it seems like everything is echoing against the cinderblock walls that were covered all year.

Posters? Safely in their cardboard tube. Clothes? Suitcased. TV? DVD player? Rugs? Lamps? All packed away tight. All the drawers are empty. Closet too.

It's a strange feeling, knowing that the place I've called home for the last 10 months is about to be someone else's home. Where my pirate flag used to hang, someone might put (shudder) that stupid Animal House poster every college guy seems to have. The bathroom that the Dish and I shared might not have a stereo--and the people who shower there might not sing.

I'm looking forward to this summer and then coming back for my junior year, but right now, what would feel just perfect would be to be curled up in my bed with all my pillows and over-sized comforter, not knowing that everything is about to change.

iTunes Anxiety

2005-05-22T13:20:00.000-04:00

The "Top 25 Most Played" smartplaylist on iTunes really messes with my head.

I'm at least a little bit from the school that believes that what you like is nearly as important as what you are like (tm, High Fidelity), so the appearance of, say, The Get Up Kids on my most-played list is troubling on an existential level.

Now, contrary to my last statement, I am not a music snob. Movie snob? Probably. TV snob? Abso-fucking-lutely. But for all of those I think there's a place for "junk food": stuff you love but is terrible for you. I mean, let's be frank: listening to Britney is like eating Cheetos. Seems totally perfect at the time, but afterwards, you're all "huh. I just ate an entire bag of Cheetos/listened to all of "Hit Me Baby One More Time". I should never, ever admit that to anyone. And I should probably go to the gym."

My top 25 is mostly acceptable. My tastes are fairly diverse, so nothing has like 65 plays in the last year. My top is 29 (Howie Day's "Collide" and Guster's "Either Way"). No jazz is represented on the list because I rotate my collection too much. Some songs are underrepreseted because like more than one version. Example: I love Bush's "Glycerine" (shut up, it came out at the exact right moment in my life and shhhh.), and the combined number of times I've listened to the version off Sixteen Stone and the live at MTV Spring Break (acoustic) add up to 20, far more than Death Cab's "Lack of Color" (16 plays), or Guster's "Fa Fa Fa Fa" (14), which I don't even like that much. Individually, Neither "Glycerine" makes the list, even though combined they are right there with the Smashing Pumpkins' "Today" (21).

Sometimes I look at the list and get totally freaked out that, like, Toad the Wet Sprocket is up there, so I listen to Queen's "Under Pressure" (which, by the way, is the best song for finals EVER) three times in a row to get Toad to go away. Also, I think I like "Under Pressure" better than "Bicycle", which was already on the list, so a little manipulation of the list might be in order there.

Another example of the "Glycerine" problem: Dave Matthews' "Proudest Monkey" made the list (16), but "Crash in to Me" and "Satellite" did not. Three versions of each of those babies, adding up to 20 and 15 times apiece. Individually, each has a pitiful 5-10. There is no justice in iTunes.

So I write all this to say: please don't judge me by my Top 25 Most Played. It's given me such a headache already.

No more pencils, no more books...

2005-05-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

Whew.

All done with finals.

I can't believe I'm halfway done with college. I don't have my grades yet, but I'm comofortable assuming that I'm passing all my classes. I had a great semester-- good profs, interesting classes, a successful rugby season.

Tomorrow I'll go through the very strange process of packing up my room, taking down my posters and emptying the shelves until it looks like every other cinder-block dorm room on campus. But for now, I'm just going to sit here and feel good.

T-minus 12 Hours...

2005-05-21T02:19:00.000-04:00

Less than 12 hours til my chem final. Having a bit of a nutty.

Will feel much better when this is all over (in 13hrs 41 minutes, but who's counting?).

Blocked

2005-05-19T17:29:00.000-04:00

Having some issues with writer's block over here.

I've been writing my American Studies paper since about 11AM. I got through the first five pages before lunch. Since lunch? It's been like pulling friggin' teeth. It's takein me four hours to write three pages.

So eight pages down, three or four to go. This sucks.

That oughta be worth an extra half a grade on my paper

2005-05-19T14:43:00.000-04:00

Or, "How Being a C-SPAN Nerd Finally Paid Off".

As I've mentioned before, I watch C-SPAN. Nerdy? Maybe. I like to call it a healthy interest in government. Potato, Potahto.

Yesterday (and today, and for however long it goes on) was fairly exciting in the Senate-- it's Judge Priscilla Owen's confirmation hearing, but what it really is is the culmination of the debate over the "nuclear option". Exciting stuff, so I woke up early yesterday to watch some of the debate before I headed to the library.

A few hours later I went to Professor Mellow's office to hand in my final poli sci paper, which incidentally was on how the filibuster affects presidential power and accountability. I mentioned to her that I had been watching it and the debate was pretty exciting, and I sat down and talked to her and another prof for a while aobut what was going on, and more generally about how I probably watch too much C-SPAN.

I told my prof that Senator Leahy (D-VT) essentially made the points that I had made in my paper, so if she wanted to just watch that when it was re-run yesterday evening I could just hang on to my paper.

I think she'll read it anyway.

(The stuff going on right now on the floor of the Senate is really exciting, and if anyone out there is interested they should turn on C-SPAN2 or go to c-span.org and watch it live. God, I'm such a parliamentary procedure nerd.)

Well, that's three hours of my life that I'll never get back...

2005-05-16T23:28:00.000-04:00

I just spent three hours watching the Bachelor with some girls that live on my floor.

Three. Hours.

I'm just going to have to live with the fact that even though I have twenty pages of writing due this week, I chose to sit there and watch Charlie "not as cute as Jerry" O'Connell and Chris "my other job is hosting Designers' Challenge on HGTV" Harrison.

He ended up with Sarah, if you were wondering (...which you weren't, because noone with half a brain watches this show).

Occifer!

2005-05-16T19:35:00.000-04:00

As I wrote last week, this past Saturday my rugby club held our annual elections. It's a long, drunken process further complicated by the fact that it is held about nine hours after the end of our Spring banquet (a beer-soaked bonfire, complete with roast pig on a spit...) ends. 9am Saturday morning thirty or so hungover college students file sit down and start drinking again, if only to make the intense headaches subside. We're all-stars, I know.

the bonfire

Rugby is a strange sport. This is true in a thousand ways, but the way I'm thinking about right now is this: chugging a beer is considered a punishment (i.e. if you're talking when something important is happening, our chief can tell us to finish our beers), and beer is also a reward-- our trophy bowl comes filled with beer, and when you get an award you drink it down. Paradox much?

izzi drinking her trophy

Anyway. Elections.

So I sat there nibbling a bagel, chewing each bite for like fifteen minutes until my stomach agreed to keep it down, sipping my mimosa (quickly followed by beer, once those ran out).

junior, marilyn, and myself at elections

Elections officially start. President elected, line and scrum captains elected. fine. Here comes the fun part: I was nominated for the next SIX positions, and LOST THEM ALL. I got the seventh thing I was nominated for. Not an awesome feeling.

When I started to get upset around loss #4 or 5 my friend Beth came over and talked to me. She was great, assuring me that I'd be an officer, that everyone knew I was really committed to the club, all good stuff. I'll miss Beth a lot next year (she's graduating), and it really made me feel sorry that we hadn't been closer friends while she was still on campus. Oh well...

In the end though I was elected to the position of Head Advisor, which puts me in charge of recruiting freshmen and getting them to stay in the club next year. I'm getting excited about it, especially since we had our incoming/outgoing officer dinner last night (drunk pictures and tales to come later...suffice it to say that we went through 2.5 handles of Cuervo between nineteen of us. gross? maybe. absurd? definitely.)

So THIS is why I go to school here...

2005-05-11T00:13:00.000-04:00

What with my dorm being invaded by mice and bats, the spectacularly unpredictable weather, and the feeling that I've eaten in each of the 5 local restaurants about 8000 times, it's easy to forget why I chose to go to school in the country.

72 degrees and sunny, today was made for college viewbooks. Classes were held outside on picnic tables under trees. People were throwing actual frisbees. The faint smell of almost-blooming lilacs mixed with freshly-cut grass made it hard not to smile as I squinted my eyes into the perfectly blue sky. Maybe not perfectly blue, but the only clouds were hand-drawn fluffy, Jet-Puffed above the Science Quad.

Granted, I spent half the day in the lab and half the day writing in the library, but the walk between my dorm and the library could not have been lovelier. After four months of grey winter, the mountains rising above campus are finally looking less spiny, more Bob Ross-esque (happy trees, people. keep up.).

In two weeks I'll be headed back to the City. Anyone who knows me knows that there is nowhere I feel more at home than New York. But you know what? I'm gonna miss my little town in the Berkshires.

I think Presidential elections are simpler than this...

2005-05-10T23:42:00.000-04:00

This weekend marked the official end of the spring rugby season, with our last game Saturday morning, and then our bi-annual tea party that night.

Now, when I say "tea party", you might think off a bunch of young ladies sipping Earl Grey, resting flowered teacups on saucers. Well, there is no English Breakfast at our tea parties.

Our tea isn't grown in China. Rather, the recipe comes from Long Island. And the only rule is that you have to "double fist" with a purple plastic cup of tea and a clear plastic cup of beer. Wonder why? Well, I think the reason has something to do with our tea recipe, which includes like five handles of liquor and a few liters of Coke(real, not Diet), all mixed together in a 5-gallon Gatorade cooler. Gotta love college-- the only time in your life that 30 smart young women (no guys in sight) will get all dressed up to barbecue and get completely ripped. It's a fun tradition.

This weekend we have our last two rugby events of the year: Spring banquet (bonfire with the men's rugby team, complete shitshow from what I remember from last year...I threw up in my friend Chris's sink. Lovely evening.), and then Awards & Elections, which takes place this coming Saturday morning, when we will still be drunk from banquet the night before.

Rugby elections, like any elections, are quite political. Just imagine 40 girls, all either drunk, hungover, or somewhere in between, getting completely worked up about things that frankly don't matter that much. It's important that our club has responsible people running it since it's a club team and thus entirely student-run, but the amount of intense debate (at least last year, my first on the team) is astounding.

The process goes something like this:
- Last week our current club president sent out an e-mail to all rising juniors and seniors asking us what positions we want.
- This week there is some politicking going on...this year's officers feeling out who they want to succeed them, prospective officers circling to see what position they might be nominated for.
-Saturday morning each current officer will nominate the person they want to succeed them, then anyone can nominate other people. Anyone nominated for a particular position then leaves the building, probably with a few drinks to pass the time.
- We sit and talk about those people, debating who will do a better job. This can take up to an hour or so for the "big" positions on the team (prez, captains).
-We vote. Candidates are brought back in, winner is announced.
-Rinse and Repeat for every officer position (there are about 10).

So yeah. I am in the middle of dealing with all this crap right now. It's dumb, but you gotta play the game, you know?

WARNING: i'm drunker than you right now.

2005-05-06T20:57:00.000-04:00

So here's the birthday-in(-drunk)-progress post.

I am 20! my mother has called about 12 times to wich me a happy happy, as has my father, grandparents, aunts, my two bestest pals from home, my brother-- just everyone. Also lots of warm wishes via IM from people I haven't seen in a million years. Feels great to hear from everyone.

My room is full of huge, floaty, helium-filled balloons, care of my awesome friends. Just when I think I am sooo ready to go home for the summer, they do awesome things like fill my room with balloons and give me a terribly happy birthday. You know you're lucky when you love all your friends so much you don't know which ones you want to be with, you know? I'm very lucky, and very loved.

IN the grand tradition of my rugby team, our team chief brought me one of those teeny bottles of Jose Cuervo. So I downed that like the pro that I am (I got props for taking it so well...yay for starting early and knowing how to take a fucking shot). And then since it was our last practice of the year, we did a little celebrating afterwards.

So in closing, on this 20th anniversary of my birth, I feel just incredibly lucky and happy and not just a little bit drunk. Here's to another 20!

(also? Mets are up 6-1 in the 4th. YEAH.)

2005-05-05T10:39:00.000-04:00

Here we are, a month in to baseball season. Mets are 14-14, just barely hanging on to .500. As I've written before, I've been a Mets fan all my life and plan to stay that way till I die, so my criticisms are all out of love.

But here's what I've noticed this year:

I feel like every (well, almost every) game they play is a blowout. You just never know if it's gonna be the Mets slugging in 5 runs in the 4th inning, or if they're gonna be the guys with two hits and 4 errors for the game.

I guess it more or less correlates with the pitcher-- when Pedro pitches, the Mets are gonna blow the other guys out. But more generally, this is a rediculously unpredictable team. For example: just when you think Jae Seo and Victor Diaz suck so much they couldn't possibly suck anymore...they prove that theory, and stop sucking so much.

Cliff Floyd, somehow, has been the only constant on this team. The guy just completely earns his paycheck, every freakin' day. Piazza has been almost as consistent: the guy can't hit a ball to save his life. Everyone knows he's a shitty catcher, but we love him because he's a slugger, right? Yeah, a slugger with a .198 batting average. Great.

Oh, and Braden Looper? I hate you almost as much as I hated Armando Benitez. Think about that.

ps. I TURN 20 TOMORROW. how 'bout that?

Never thought I'd say it,

2005-05-02T15:16:00.000-04:00

but Laura Bush? Is FUNNY. Or at least has a great speechwriting staff. Frankly, I don't care which. She totally brought it the other night at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

The speech, apparently penned by Landon Parvin, poked fun at Barbara Bush, Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and most importantly, President Bush. Now, I'm as ardent a Democrat as you will find, but I give whoever decided that the First Lady should make fun of everyone a lot of credit. It was a great way to soften up the president, and it was executed brilliantly.

Here are a few of my favorite lines:

"George always says that he's delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He's usually in bed by now. I'm not kidding. I said to him the other day, George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

"George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. Which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well."

"The amazing thing is that George and I were just meant to be. I was a librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George."

Lots more available here and here.

I still disagree with just about everything on the President's agenda, but I can recognize a clever political move when I see one. Two thumbs up to the First Lady.

For today, anyway. Tomorrow? All bets are off.

Apparently, I scream like a girl.

2005-04-29T13:51:00.000-04:00

...At least when rodents are involved.

There was (is? ) a mouse in my room.

We had pretty severe critter problems in my dorm this fall, with mouse sightings in almost all of the 12 rooms on my hall, and several killed in traps. We were told that the mice would go away when the cold weather came, and they did.

But now? The good weather is back, AND SO ARE THE MICE.

I was watching TV down the hall today when the Dish came in to the room and told me she had bad news. She saw a mouse in our shared bathroom, and it had scurried in to my room. After a cursory investigation (read: we tiptoed two feet into my room, each telling the other one to go farther), we confirmed that there was a mouse (read: saw it and screamed like the little girls that we apparently are).

We went and got a boy, because boys are better at dealing with vermi. Boy did some investigation but of course my tiny furry nemesis refused to come out. I left my door open and went down the hall for half an hour. Haven't seen the thing since I came back to my room, but I'm staying with mycomputer and all my limbs safely on my bed.

God. Sometimes I HATE living in the country.

Redeeming moments

2005-04-26T23:36:00.000-04:00

Today was crappy. Awful chem test that made me question my pre-med-ness, didn't make the line for our rugby match this weekend against our biggest rival, and there might have been a huge spider in my room very early this morning. All in all? Shitty.

There was one bright spot though.

As it turns out, I can be an enormous academic snob sometimes. Today was one of those times. My poli sci prof sent an email to the class, suggesting that we check out Krugman's op-ed in the Times today because it was relevant to what we've been doing in class (about Presidential accountability-- to his supporters? to all his constituents? Interesting and frustrating discussion, in light of current politics.).

Read it here, it's a good little piece.

So she sent it out, and I HAD ALREADY READ IT. And thought about how it fit in to class stuff. Sure, not a big deal. A really teeny deal, I guess. But I had a nice little moment of academic smuggery.* Feels good to actually recognize the real implications of what I'm learning...and to be a step ahead of the prof!

* I know smuggery isn't a word. It should be.

My Pope jokes are fucking pathetic

2005-04-24T19:36:00.000-04:00

An AIM conversation from last week with a friend from high school, wherein he reminds me that I am not as funny as I like to think I am:

M. (on what Newt Gingrich had said when he spoke at M's school that day): just about how the country was in danger, and how we all had to turn to god
bex: good thing we;ve got a new pope to guide us
M.: you just reminded me of your terrible pope joke *
bex: i need some new german pope jokes
M.: no you dont
bex: or i can always stick with the classic popemobile references
bex: i hear ratzinger is upgrading to a pope-vertible
bex: or a pope-utility vehicle
bex: no good?
bex: i just came up with those on the fly
bex: on second thought, let's just keep it between us that i ever said any of that
M.: you suck at this
bex: fine, let me hear YOUR pope jokes
bex: leave me one while I go get a commemorative pope-sicle from the freezer!
M.: you're an idiot

* the old Pope joke was from around when JPII died, Crazybrains and I were joking around about the possiblity that an African cardinal was going to become pope.

"What's he going to be, Pope click click?"
(the click clicks were noises made with our tongues, not the word click. hard to type those.)

Needless to say, M. thought it was stupid. CB and I still think it's funny, so screw him.

Downsizing?

2005-04-21T16:19:00.000-04:00

Just because scheduling seems to never, ever work out in my favor, I'm going to have to move out of my dorm about half an hour after my chem final next month. My extreme lack of car (and lack of being picked up from school) means that I will have to move myself out of here on my own. To decrease the amount of shit that I will need to take with me when I move out, my mother suggested that I bring as much stuff home as possible when I go home tomorrow for the weekend.

Good idea, right? But here's the problem.

My stuff generally falls in to two categories: stuff I need only at school or in the Winter, and stuff I need all the time. Stuff I need only at school or in the Winter will get stored here in MA for the summer, so that's easy. But what about the (much larger) category of stuff I need all the time?

Now sure, "need" is relative. But I like my shit. I like having the full rainbow of tank top colors, and my little library of comfort-food books, and something like 35 t-shirts so I don't have to do laundry all the time and also don't have to wear dirty stuff to practice every day.

So then I was thinking that maybe I can bring home all my movies. They take up a lot of room and I will want them over the summer.

But then that will never work. What if I get a sudden hankering to watch The Goonies? It's not totally out of the question that I'll come home from the library one night reeeally wanting to watch The American President for the 973rd time, and goddamn if I'm gonna give up my West Wing dvd's during finals. So I guess the dvd's will stay.

Okay then, how about my wool sweaters and corduroys and sweatshirts and all of that? I can part with the cords, I guess. But what the hell do I need those for at home? The sweaters too, except then they will get dry cleaned, which wouldn't be terrible. Also? It's still like 40 degrees here at night, so on second thought, I need my sweaters.

My snowboard? Totally useless to me for the next four weeks. And for the entire summer. I guess it goes in storage.

My Complete Cartoons of the New Yorker. Yes! That's it. I got it as a gift a few months ago and will make it through the next month just fine without it, then can waste hours going through the endless stream of cartoons all summer. The book can go.

Everything else stays.

My Charlie

2005-04-21T00:41:00.000-04:00

Something things happened this week that made me think of a scene in one of my favorite movies, High Fidelity. In the scene, John Cusack's character Rob wants to find his ex-girlfriend Charlie's phone number, and is shocked to find her right there in the phone book. His reaction to finding her just like any other normal person in the city:

 Charlie's in the fucking phone book.
 She has come to assume such an
 importance, I feel she should be
 living on Mars.  She's an
 extraterrestrial, a ghost, a myth,
 not a person with an answering
 machine, in the phone book...

The way Rob feels about Charlie is sort of how I felt when I found an old friend on facebook the other day. Facebook, for those who aren't in college, is a huge timewaster for students across this great nation. It's basically friendster for 18 to 22-year-olds. Anyway, I was just browsing around lists of friends' friends, and here I came across L.

My mouth literally dropped open, right here in front of my computer.

We spent summers together when we were younger, and while it may seem trivial, I consider her to be one of those people who really had a hand in shaping who I grew up to be. And for some reason, when we lost touch five-ish ago, I guess she just got suspended in my memory the way I knew her. If she crossed my mind from time to time, it was the nine-year-old L who was my first friend at sleepaway camp, or the fourteen-year-old who late at night sometimes woke up hysterically sad, and would make me cross the bunk to sit with her until she fell back asleep. I don't think I'm doing a very good job of expressing it, but we were very close. We climbed mountains together, literally as well as the other way, if we're gonna get all metaphorical about it. I don't really climb mountains much anymore. Either kind.

And then we drifted apart, as fifteen-year-old girls who don't live in the same city and don't go to sleepaway camp anymore tend to do. So L stayed suspended in my head, and as I turned seventeen and eighteen and nineteen she just stayed back there.

Until I found her on facebook. And like Rob finding Charlie, I couldn't believe it. She should be on another planet by now, not on facebook, like every other college kid. There she was, with a profile and a picture that looked just like the girl I used to know so well, but with much better hair and a drink in her hand.

There are some people that you're just sure have ceased to exist, you know? And there they are, right when you least expect it.

Reasons Why I'm in a Shitty Mood

2005-04-18T20:39:00.000-04:00

1. Mets are losing to the Phillies 4-0 in the fifth inning. And after the awesome 5-game run last week...Also, no Mets games on TV up here. I'm smack in the middle of Red Sox Nation, so we get all their games, and anything nationally televised. I caught a few innings of the Cubs-Reds matchup today, but I miss my Mets.

2. Three papers due this week. I got one in today (on Nixon's response to the Kent State University shootings in 1970), and hopefully will knock out a draft of my english paper before I go to bed tonight.

3. Chem problem set is due SATURDAY. What the HELL. That means it has to be done by Friday afternoon, since Friday night does not mean chem time, and I have a game on Saturday in Amherst, MA. Add it to the ever-growing pile of shit I have to do in the next three days. Awesome.

4. I was reading the Washington Post online a few minutes ago, and for some reason decided to go ahead and read the whole article on PA Senator Rick Santorum. Here's my favorite bit:

"He has a gift for getting attention, for better or for worse. The most egregious example of "for worse" occurred two years ago, in remarks to the Associated Press about a challenge to the constitutionality of Texas's sodomy law, a matter before the Supreme Court. According to the AP, Santorum said that if the court allows gay sex at home, "you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything." "

For god's sake. If a US Senator is espousing this kind of bullshit, it's no wonder eleven states passed laws descriminating against homosexuals this past November. I'm so sick of Republicans I could vomit.

But no time for a political rant now (see above). I'll just sit here and stew over it for a little while, then throw up my hands and go to my chem study group.

5. I was a huge, enourmous, beeyotch to HSG yesterday. He was annoying me and I was stressed out so it just happened. I'll call and apologize this week. Maybe. Or not. He called my facebook picture ugly, so two thumbs down to him. You don't earn cookies by pissing me off when I'm writing a paper at 2:30 AM, you know?

So to get Santorum out of my head, here's a picture of "interior designer" (read: fame whore/regular-type whore) Bobby Trendy. Link on over to Fugging it Up to indulge in a little Monday Night Funny.

Nice boa, Bobby.

Advil Cold and Sinus and bex: A Love Story

2005-04-15T14:05:00.000-04:00

First of all, if you haven't gone to Britney Spears' website yet as I urged you in my last post, do so at once.

Done? Good.

I've finished a full box of Advil cold and sinus in the last four days.

(I know the image cuts off...deal with it)

I used to be the kind of person who didn't like taking drugs when I didn't absolutely have to, but in the last few years I've realized that that over-the-counter medicine is your friend, and particularly it is my friend. I have no excuse to bitch and moan about how bad my cramps hurt, or how much pain I'm in from rugby, or how sore my goddamn throat is and how my sinuses feel like the Keebler Elves have set up shop in there unless I try and do something about the discomfort I'm feeling.

So this week I'm all hopped up on cold medicine, because when I don't take it (and sometimes when I do) I feel like total shit. But with a game tomorrow and two papers to write on Sunday, I don't have time to fall behind, so I'm doing my best.

Skipped chem this morning. I'm baaad.

Awesome thing that happened this week: I GOT MY FIRST A ON A PAPER (in college, anyway). It's not that I'm a huge dumbass, or that I don't work hard. I can hold my own in the brain department and while I am an expert procrastinator, I get my shit done. The fact is my school is one of the few that has really kicked the grade-inflation problem. (Kicked it but good. Something like 8 people a year graduate with better than a 3.7.) So earning my very first A was thrilling, and if I keep doing well in that class maybe my pathetic little 3.04 GPA will go up.

The paper was on Fredrick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois's autobiographies, and the different ways they used religious rhetoric in telling their stories and gaining support for their causes. It was an interesting topic, I think. Anyway, I'm proud of it. It's goin' on my little dorm fridge.

The Keebler Elves in my sinuses feel like they're trying to get out. Pass the Advil, please.

Coming Fall 2005: Spawn of Spears

2005-04-13T00:19:00.000-04:00

Have you been to Britney Spears' offical website? If not, go right now. NOW.

You can stop searching, because this is hands-down the best site EVER. I originally linked to it from someone's blog entry about La Spears' pregnancy. I thought I'd give you a little guided tour of the highlights.

The site opens up with this really weird drawing of a girl who is SO not britney holding the moon or something. After you click on her, you get to the main page, which is an "I'm a Slave 4 You"-era Britney, and a bunch of bubbles offering the latest news from Spears Land.

Of course, the big news today is that she's knocked up. Yep, Britney's officially got a bun in the oven. Ostensibly the fault of super-fugly Kevin Federline, this child is bound to be the trashiest of the trash. Here's the official announcement, in Britney's "very own" words:

"Dear Fans,
The time has come to share our wonderful news that we are expecting our first child together. There are reports that I was in the hospital this weekend, Kevin and I just want everyone to know that all is well. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.
Love,
Britney and Kevin"

PHEW. So glad Britney and Kevin are letting us know that all is well. I was worried.

The rest of the site is equally priceless. Don't miss the "Dog's Crib Updates", where you will find three pictures of little Bit-Bit's room. ROOM. "Isn't the chandelier adorable?" Britney asks us. Uhh, sure. But not as adorable as the chandalier in MY dog's room.

The "Love B: Stream of Consciousness" section includes missives entitled "Britney on Kabbalah" and "Giving Thanks to Mom". Classics, both.

I'm a little overwhelmed by all of this. So Britney and fugly, fugly, Kevin: I salute you and I think your shameless publicist deserves a raise.

Ego Boost

2005-04-11T15:38:00.000-04:00

I finished the New York Times crossword puzzle in under 20 minutes today at lunch.

I feel smart.*

*OK, not so smart, since it's the Monday puzzle. I have a theory that the Monday puzzle is just to make you feel good about yourself, since any normal human being will feel entirely brainless by the time they try the Friday puzzle and realize they know like three clues.

Lost in New Hampshire

2005-04-11T15:12:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned a few days ago, my first rugby game of the season was Saturday, at Dartmouth. Turned out to be a looooong day. Went something like this:

5:36 AM
Alarm goes off

5:42 AM
The Dish drags me out of my bed. We leave to meet the team about ten minutes later.

6:03 AM
Drive to Dartmouth in my captain Izzi's car. Stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. So far, so good.

8:30 AM
Get to the rugby pitch in Hanover, bitch and moan that we could have slept another fifteen minutes and still been on time. Put on cleats, jerseys, etc., go for a short run, stretch, and warm up. More complaining about how early it is, how cold it is, how hard the ground is, how uncomfortable our cleats are, etc. from the team, which leads to complaining about how complain-y we are. Vicious cycle ensues.

10AM
A-side game starts. I play B-side, so I spent the 90 minutes alternately cheering my team on and muttering under my breath about how badly they were playing. They lost, 21-7. Coach not happy.

11:45 AM
B-Side plays. Our game was only 60 minutes (thank GOD), so I run my lil' self ragged trying to keep the other team back. We must have had fifteen scrum downs in each half, and if you play rugby you know how tiring that can be. I played tight prop, and did an okay job. Not thrilled with my tackles, but I'll work on it.

12:50 PM
I stumble defeated off the pitch. Final score: 12-7 Dartmouth. Plans are made to order pizza and hang out with the other team for a little while. I give money to the people ordering pizza. I get in a car that is making a stop before going to the place where the pizza is.

1:30 PM
No pizza left when I get to the place. I am very sad, but too tired to really care. Drink two beers and get in Beth's car to go back to school.

3:00 PM
Beth (who had typed out directions for all the cars the night before): We take 9E, right?
All of us in the car (without consulting directions): Sure, Beth! blah blah talky talky not paying attention to the road.

4:46 PM
bex: Hey, why is the Man in the Mountain still on the roadsigns? I thought that was just a New Hampshire thing.
...pause...
bex: Holy SHIT, are we still in NEW HAMPSHIRE??
Everyone begins to realize that NH is indeed east of Massachusetts, and 9E probably wasn't the right way to go. and then we all want to cry. a lot.

5:30 PM
Finally backtracked far enough that we are on 9W. Still in if-we-don't-laugh-we'll-cry mode.

7:02 PM
Dropped off at my dorm. Internet not working. Sigh.

Like I said, it was a long day.

I'm a (musical) Pirate!

2005-04-08T18:47:00.000-04:00

Indulging in a little musical piracy from my school library's extensive CD collection. Here's what I got today:

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (Wilco)

The Joshua Tree (U2)

The Genius of Charlie Parker

Elvis Presley: The Top Ten Hits

Groovin' High with Dizzy Gilliespie

The Definitive Bud Powell

As you can see I'm trying to beef up my jazz collection. I've listened to the Parker and Gillespie already, and they're great records. Gillespie's "Salt Peanuts" is one of my favorite jazz compositions because of how playful and silly it is...I've listend to it three times today and it never gets old. The U2, Wilco, and Elvis are all things I've been meaning to add to the collection, so a big thumbs up to the college library!

Hurts so Good (Yeah, I'm quoting Mellencamp. I know.)

2005-04-08T13:52:00.000-04:00

Spring rugby season officially started up this week. I am SO sore from the last few days of practice, but it's a good kind of sore. Every time I shrug my shoulders I feel nine different muscles in my back that I had forgotten existed at all creaking back to life. I haven't done a push up in six months, so those alone are kicking my ass. I have my very first rugby bruises of the season, and as I sit here on my bed I feel a dull ache in my right hip, soreness all up and down my legs, arms, and back, and in general it feel great.

My team was supposed to go to Springfield, MA tomorrow for a match, but the other team canceled on us and now we're going to Dartmouth. This is bad on several levels:
1. They are great team, so the game is going to be really tough and there is an excellent chance that we'll just get pummeled.
2. Hanover is like 2.5 hours away from here so we're going to have to get up REALLY early. And the last time we had a game up there (in October) the car I was in got in an accident and I never made it to the game. So I'm really excited for the drive...
3. HSG goes there. I haven't written anything about him lately, but we're talking fairly regularly again (though not in the last week or so). It's a bit strained, but we've had some serious conversations and I think we'll be back to our normal rythm eventually. That said, I'm not sure I want to see him tomorrow, especially since it will be for like 15 minutes and we haven't seen each other in forever, and I'll be all sweaty and rugby-y. Not ideal. I left him a message last night saying I was gonna be up there, so we'll see.

Here's my team after a very rainy game this fall:

Do I need to change the name of the site?

2005-04-06T20:06:00.000-04:00

Today is one month before my 20th birthday. I started pushing20 a few months ago, unsure if it would last even this long. But here I am, very nearly not a teenager anymore (cue terrified screams), with an poorly-thought-through blog title.

On second thought, screw it. pushing20 it shall remain.

Post-midterm slump

2005-04-06T00:55:00.000-04:00

Seems that I'm in a bit of a slump. I spent most of last night in the computer lab doing a chem lab report, but other than that I've been having a lot of trouble buckling down to do my work this week. I've fallen behind in reading for three classes already-- not an impossible deficit to make up, but daunting.

Also, I got back a TERRIBLE grade on my chem midterm. Let's just say that it won't help me get in to med school in a year and a half. I'll go in and talk to the prof in the next few days to see what I can do to bring my grade up. Blech. Crappy situation altogether, but I need this class so I'll figure it out.

Everything is feeling kinda slump-y. Jen is really sick, so that sucks. She started feeling really bad on Sunday morning, then went to the emergency Sunday night and again this morning. Seems that she's got E. coli, which is affecting her kidneys, and possibly malaria. So she's completely miserable and on lots of antibiotics and pain killers. Fingers crossed that a) she'll get better soon, and b) that I don't get sick too (selfish? yes. deal.).

Sometimes when I come back to school from home I get kinda down on all my school friends. I've made great friends here in the last year and a half, and I'm thankful for that and overall I'm very happy here.

That said, my best friends on the planet are Nanno and Crazybrains, and I am the same to them. There's a feeling among the three of us that we are each other's favorite people, and not just out of habit.

The Dish, Jen, and the rest are great, but it's a very different friendship. I just miss being someone's favorite, and them being mine, you know? I'm not sure that it entirely makes sense the way I'm describing it. It mostly comes down to the fact that I was insanely, unfairly lucky to find Crazybrains when I was 12 and Nanno when I was 9. I'm totally spoiled by having the kind of friends we all deserve but few of us have, and leaving them totally sucks.

The three of us last summer:

So I'm feeling slumpy, but tomorrow the Mets are playing again and I think they and I are both going to have a pretty good day.

Next year is NOW.

2005-04-04T17:41:00.000-04:00

Let me just put this out there: I am a Mets fan.

I love the Mets.

I love the 7 train, where you get a great view of the Manhattan skyline if you look up at just the right moment. The walk down from the elevated tracks is thrilling every time, looking over at the stadium so close you think you might get hit by a ball if the first inning has started already.

I love Mike Piazza, even if he is a terrible catcher. I especially love the rumor from a few years ago that he was shacking up with Sam Champion, the ABC weather guy. I think it's true, even if he's married.

I love the Amazin's of '69 and '86, even though I've only seen them on ESPN classic.

I love the '99 Mets. Even round, Hawaiian (and quickly traded) Benny Agbayani, who promised a World Series penant in five games.

I love Mets fans. Mets fans are loud, opinionated, and passionate. And they won't burn the hat off your head if you're rooting for the opposing team (I'm looking at you, Yankee fans).

Mostly, I love sitting in the upper deck with a lemon icee in my hand, Mets visor on my head, friends on every side.

My favorite season isn't Summer or Winter. It's baseball season.

This joke will never get old...

2005-04-03T03:12:00.000-04:00

...or at least hasn't yet.

Here's the AIM conversation we just had, where I continue to make fun of my best friend and her constant efforts to get out of going to things at the last minute. It's about meeting for breakfast tomorrow morning. (If you've read the last entry it will make more sense.)

[crazybrains] (3:09:36 AM): ok 10ish?
[crazybrains] (3:09:38 AM): 10
bex (3:09:39 AM): by the way, i really can't have breakfast
[crazybrains](3:09:44 AM): SHUT UP
bex (3:09:45 AM): i have to have lunch with my parents
[crazybrains] (3:09:46 AM): SHUT UP
[crazybrains] (3:09:50 AM): WHAT?
bex (3:09:50 AM): on staten island
[crazybrains] (3:09:51 AM): NO
[crazybrains] (3:09:53 AM): JDFKL;SFJSDA;JKLFDASJKLFJLASD
[crazybrains] (3:09:57 AM): DIEDIEDIE
bex (3:10:02 AM): asdfhjkhasjdkhfhahahahahha
bex (3:10:14 AM): I WIN
[crazybrains] (3:10:25 AM): GET OUTTA MY FACE

aaaand I have to be up for 10am breakfast, so I should crash. Happy daylight savings, everybody.

The best April Fool's jokes are the ones that make people feel bad about themselves.

2005-04-02T14:08:00.000-05:00

Well, sort of.

Crazybrains has this bad habit of committing to plans that she doesn't really want to go through with. This week for example, she made a vague commitment to go for sushi with some old friends that she doesn't care much for anymore, and then a few hours beforehand she backed out. Similarly, a school friend thought they were going to Staten Island one day, and CB called her that morning to say she had to have lunch with her folks. Needless to say, she had no excuse for either event (other than hanging out with me), and all the other parties ended up pissed off. She and I talked about how she does this all the time, and how much simpler it would be just to say "Sorry, I don't think I can do sushi this week", instead of "Wednesday sounds OK, give me a call later" when she's planning on canceling at the last minute.

So on April Fools Day Crazybrains and I were planning on going to the Metropolitan Museum for the day. The day before we agreed to around 11, get bagels, and sit on the steps outside the museum and have breakfast. So in the shower that morning I decide to tell CB when we talked around 10:45 that I couldn't go. I had a whole speech planned. I was going to go on and on about how I couldn't go, and maybe it was a better idea for her to go hang out with the friend she had ditched the day before (Staten Island girl), and that I would call her later maybe.

Of course, on the phone I chickened out, and just went with the "uhh, I just woke up, can we meet in like three hours?" which she tooootally fell for, and was all "Really? Oh. Well, I guess. Really? I thought we were gonna-- well, okay. Hm. I guess."

At that point I started giggling and told her I'd walk by her place in ten minutes.

I told her later what the original plan was, and she agreed that I would never have made it two sentences in without laughing.

I'll end this with some of the pieces we spent time with at the Met:

Crazybrains is an art history major, and has been studying Chinese imperial art lately, so we saw a lot of that.

We spent more time in European art than I usually do, which was a nice change. This Goya has always creeped me out a little, but I like it.

This is the Duccio that the Met spent like $30 million on last year. I'd seen it before, but CB hadn't so we checked it out. It is much smaller than you'd think. The NYT printed a picture of it in it's actual size when it came to the Met, but somehow I didn't believe it till I saw it myself.

Back to school tomorrow. Soooo much work undone. But that's for tomorrow night.

I am officially turning in to a vegetable.

2005-03-30T23:43:00.000-05:00

The second part of my Spring break has turned into a week-long veg-out. I'm not complaining at all- I'm enjoying every minute of it. Every afternoon spent sprawled out on Crazybrains' bed watching HGTV, every Real World/Road Rules Challenge marathon, every episode of anything in prime time that I don't get to watch when I'm at school. (As a side note...Crazybrains and I once watched TV for 24 hours straight. But that's a (highly entertaining/ridiculous) story for another day.)

I'm also doing my little food tour of Manhattan, trying to hit as many of my favorite places as possible before I go back to the land of dorm food. So far it's been two great sushi dinners, two different Chinese restaurants, Indian food, falafel, and lunch today at one of the best sandwich spots in the city. Needless to say, I am running out of money. I have $100 in my checking account. oops. There's a bit more in my other account up at school, so I'll make it 'till I get back to work for the summer.

I went shopping today (...yeah. shut up.) and got some good new things. Giant sale at Express, so nice new tank tops. Cute undies from American Apparel. Shiny new aviator sunglasses because I busted mine on the beach. A purse that was half off in 9West, which was totally unnecessary but makes me happy. Also, I'm an Adidas addict (I've gotten like 7 pairs in the last three years), so I got these:

I'm in love with them. Plus, they're kinda carrot-y, which adds to the vegging going on this week.

Beach Reading

2005-03-28T14:53:00.000-05:00

One of the best parts of going to the beach is getting lots of time to read things that weren't assigned. I read three full New Yorkers. I'm just about caught up on those now (until I get back to school, of course). There is almost complete turnover on my sidebar in the "Currently Reading" section. So here's what I'm currently reading/read on the beach:

-I finally finished Founding Brothers. It violated my usual "no books with footnotes on vacation" rule, but whatever. Completely loved it, but then I am an unabashed American history nerd. I'm allowed to be an intellectual snob, I'm in college.

-Native Son (by Richard A. Wright) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey) are for class, so I didn't touch those while I was away. I've read Cuckoo's Nest before so it shouldn't be too bad to run through again this week. The other is a bit intimidating, but I have until a week from today to get through it.

-Last Spring break I read Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and totally dug it. I read You Shall Know Our Velocity a few months back and didn't like it as much, but this week I read most of How We Are Hungry: Stories and am really enjoying it. I think Eggers has a strong, interesting voice in his writing. Plus, I've seen him interviewed in a few places and he seems like a smart, thoughtful guy. I recommend all three, I guess, but mostly the first.

-I haven't started Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies yet, but hopefully I will this week. I read her book The Namesake for my Asian-American history class last semester and thought it was really good, and this one is supposed to be even better.

That's all I'm working on for now, other than some People magazines leftover from the plane. Loooove my People.

Also, I can't find my cord to connect my camera to my computer. Arrrrgh. Might have to wait to get up to school to find it. Oh well.