A Festival of Lights

Merry Christmas.


I've been reading Hyperbole and a Half, and I've decided that my boring life stories need to be illustrated so as to be more captivating to you, my beloved and mostly-imaginary audience. I'm not sure yet what style I want to draw in - should I go with very crude stick figures, like H&1/2's Allie, or do something more like what you see here (which is actually easier for me, believe it or not)?

This picture is meant to be one of a series, but it was all I could get done tonight, A) Because I'm tired and not sure exactly what I even want it to look like, B) Because my only means of getting drawings on my computer is via crappy webcam or crappy camera phone, and C) Because I apparently broke Photoshop for life by making an enormous poster with 50 layers on my last day at Skipping Stone.

Now it's time to go to bed and wait for Santa Claus!

UPDATE: Apparently I also broke Blogger with my picture last night. But never fear, for I now have a card reader and can upload pictures of pictures that don't suck! Thank you Santa =)

Peace on earth and good will toward men,
Miss Rex

The End is Near

As evidenced by the dwindling number of stress-induced zits marring my face, the much be-groaned finals week has come to an end! Which means (drum roll, please... or rather, victorious trumpet fanfare) I'm on to my LAST SEMESTER OF SCHOOL for the foreseeable future!

I have eight more credits to complete before earning my undergraduate degree. Next semester, between advanced creative writing and my senior project, will be all about finishing a FULL DRAFT of my novel so that I can start sending out queries over the summer... with the promised guidance of Skipping Stone! Many great things lie ahead, and I can't wait to get started - but not before I've indulged in the annual Christmastime month of hibernation and, of course, the chaos known as holiday shopping, which promises to be even more chaotic than usual.

I had the great misfortune of leaving my debit card in an ATM and, consequently, having it shredded, just a few weeks before the biggest gift-giving extravaganza of the year. I finally got a new one this week, which I have been unable to take advantage of due to final projects, papers, and portfolios (although, thankfully, no formal exams). So now, with a week to go until Christmas, I have to purchase stuff for just about everyone I know and find time to hand-make gifts for the rest of the people I know.

The homemade gifts are actually the easy part. It's the grandmas I can never figure out. One of my grandmas I hardly even see except when she turns up on birthdays and Christmas to hand out $25 Macy's gift cards. The best thing I ever bought with one was a toaster oven. As great a purchase as that was (and I truly mean that; I use it every day in my apartment), I am always tempted to buy her a gift card she will find equally useless - to, say, Newbury Comics, which is my favorite store - and then offer to trade. But I suppose that would be rude.

Peace, love and white elephants,
Miss Rex

Finals week post 3: Random quotes

Some people collect stamps, string, or stickers. Others collect mugs, DVDs, and anything made by Apple. I happen to have a rather extensive CD collection, but the collection I'd like to share today is (a small portion of) my quote collection. Yes, yes, how predictable that the writer collects words. What can I say? My "Quotes" word doc is like a scrapbook to me. I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures, so all I have to remember some of the best days in life are the absurd things people said while I happened to have a pen handy.

Caution: This post is rated PG-13. There's some ast*r*sk*d language and subject matter I wouldn't speak of in front of your small child/conservative Christian roommate. But as the following conversation with my supervisor would suggest, you can probably handle it, and who doesn't need a little hilarity to get their hump day off the ground?

That Narnia Girl: I think I could handle it.
Eramer: Handle what?
Me: Profanity.
Eramer: What the f*ck’re you talking about?

Me: Guess what.
JW: What?
Me: I love you.
Taz: Well that was an easy guessing game.

Me: i didnt say lineart was for neanderthals, just that it was a simple concept. if cutting your toenails is that difficult for you then you probably shouldn't be attempting lineart.

Guy outside the window: AOSIUFINEUIFHAEFJDSKFHDFIUGA!!!!
Me: (yelling out window) could you repeat that?
Guy: Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your long hair!
Me: OK! Just hold on a second!!

Jinx!! You owe me a blow job!!

Taz: I’ve been singing “I’ve been working on the railroad,” but I clearly have not.

Me: Is that a lobster… or a baby?

Mnomanoms: She wanted an adverbjective.

Taz: I’m notcho momma!

Me: I hate that sherbet doesn’t have an r in it
Jo-Yo: Yes it does
Me: No, look. S-H-E-R-B-E-T
Jo-Yo: It has an R.
Me: But it’s not SHERBERT.
Jo-Yo: But if it didn’t have an R it would be shebet
Me: Shibbit! It’s gibberish for sh*t!

JW: My eyes are peeing.

Rad: They sold it for, like, really expensive.

Plunging a toilet is like giving a hand job.

That Narnia Girl: Most Voltorbs are red.
Me: Yes, I know. I’m not an idiot. I watch Pokémon.

Kenya: So how was the movie?
Me: Um… good.
Kenya: Did you… watch the movie?
Me: .....no.
Kenya: Yeah, didn’t think so.

Me: If there was one good thing I ever got out of cosmo, it was no sexin’ with socks on.

Me: Ravin just asked me when Thanksgiving is.
Mnomanoms: It’s on Thursday. Like it ALWAYS is!

Me: You wouldn’t kill our child! Even if it was a tree!

Puddlesauce! – me and Mnomanoms

Taz: This is a sign that we MUST go to Canada!

JW: Surprisingly, chewing on my bones doesn’t feel good.

Me: You’re closer to the blind-cracker.

Taz: Take off your little Scottish hat, mon

Eramer: Rex, don’t leave me!
Me: What day am I not allowed to leave?
Eramer: Ever! Never leave me.
Me: OK. Don’t worry, I’ll never leave you. But you’re gonna have to hire me.

Peace, love, and peppermint steamers,
Miss Rex

Finals week post 2: Kicks and Giggles

Thank you, Gandalf, for those words of wisdom. However, before you all get back to studying, give your brain a break and have a laugh with me. The pictures below have, throughout the semester, given me cause to giggle, marvel, or simply shake my head in disbelief.

Check it out: I got a window sheet. Unfortunately this was truly all I had for privacy my first week or so back at school for the fall...



Somehow I don't think this is what your bros are thinking of when they talk about a stripper in a cake.



Just in case you need to make guacamole for an army:



Glad this wasn't my car some Tuesday/Thursday morning at 8AM as I was trying to leave for Skipping Stone...



Sugar cereal cemented with sugar glue: Just what the doctor ordered for Taz!!!



Of all the problems I could have, this one seems like a good one.



Peace, love and Bridezilla,
Miss Rex

Required worship: Check.

The requirement that Go-Co students attend chapel has been something I've loved and hated about this school. For the better part of three years I bitched and moaned about going, and often with good reason - it was boring, the worship was horrible and fake (how could required worship be authentic?), and the speakers were too conservative for me to relate to.

Oh, we would have the occasional gem: Norm Jones would perform a dramatic monologue or a preacher from an urban church would come shake us up a little bit. But until this year, chapel was something I habitually resented. Sometimes I would try to get something out of it, spiritually or intellectually, but I would almost always walk away frustrated. I came to think of myself not as a Christian but as an agnostic.

I'm not saying things have gotten tons better. My faith is still a fragile thing. But, for the first time in four years, I was actually starting to get something out of going to chapel. Perhaps the number of "Christian life and worship" credits I'd earned didn't reflect that, but I was going twice a week ready to engage (as well as attending Sunday night candlelight worship, which doesn't offer credit), and that was a huge step for me.

Then, halfway through the semester, I had five extra chapel credits tacked onto my requirements, pushing me up to 35 for the semester. Between my night shifts at the writing center, my afternoon classes, and my internship, I literally could not attend afternoon and evening events. I counted, and there were not enough morning chapels left in the semester for me to fulfill the requirement.

They don't stop you from graduating if you don't make all your chapels. As a part-time student next semester, my record will be cleared anyway. But it was the principle of the thing. I asked for a reduction in chapel requirements and was refused.

Suddenly what little motivation I had to attend was replaced by the same familiar resentment that kept me from God over the past few years. The expectation that I, a Christian teetering on the brink of faith, should have to make better than perfect chapel attendance for the rest of the semester was absurd. I determined that the chapel office was run by a slew of heartless bureaucrats with no concept of the Christian concept of mercy.

I almost decided to boycott and start having my own private worship time. After all, the idea of Christian life and worship is to bring you into communion with God, and I could do that just as well on my own. I thought, who the hell are the bureaucrats to tell me whether my Christian life and worship is sufficient? Are they saying I'm only good enough for God if I'm good enough for them? But we are not trying to please men, but God! He is the only one who should be attaching a value to my Christian life and worship.

Well, today I completed my 35th chapel of the semester. I am done. I don't know how I managed it; maybe it was the Thursday night movie screening that I only went to because Skipping Stone had a hand in its production, or the debate on human suffering, or the visiting author whose discourse I had to attend for my writing class. Regardless, I did it, and I think that the victory is as pleasing to God as it is to the chapel office. I at least know that I feel better rounded and spiritually stimulated than I have in past years.

Put that in your censer and smoke it.

Peace, love and truffles,
Miss Rex

tl;dr

I dreamed I was in my apartment with one of my guy friends, but it was the middle of the night, and our school has a rule that you can't have visitors of the opposite sex in your apartment past a certain hour, so we were blatantly breaking the rules. But no one would have known a thing if my apartment mates (who were not the same as my real life apartment mates) hadn't suddenly brought a party into our living room. A very loud party with girls AND boys.

Of course we got caught. I stepped out of my room to be like "WTF guys?" just in time to get nabbed with the rest of them. But when I told the RD I had no idea why there was a party in my living room, he let me go without saying a word about the friend who'd been in my room. I was so relieved he hadn't noticed. When I got back to my room, they had transformed the living room into an all-out bar (another no-no - we aren't allowed to have booze on campus, nor are we allowed to turn out the lights in mixed company).

Picture from...

A bunch of us went down to the first floor, which is a guys' floor. Apparently it was all right to be down there if we stayed in the main corridor, which was easier said than done since all the walls and doors were gone; the place was transformed into a huge cafeteria. I saw someone I knew and went over to say "hi," but it turned out he was a zombie, so I went back to my other friends. Suddenly we realized we weren't in the main corridor and thus were technically in violation of visiting laws, so we scurried back to safe ground.

Seconds later I got a text. I didn't know who it was from, but whoever sent it said they'd seen what I'd just done and I should turn myself in for it. I couldn't even tell where the corridor turned into restricted territory, and I'd only crossed for a second! Like hell I was turning myself in.

But this person kept hounding me. Every time I looked at a screen, and sometimes just randomly in the air in front of me, his messages would appear. They were always on a grid of hash marks that flickered in and out like the screen was about to die. It had a very creepy feel to it, like this person that I didn't know and never saw was some kind of ghost or demon, or worse yet, a Fight-Club-esque alternate self. My techy friend was trying to help me figure it out, but he was never there to see the messages and I started to get the feeling that he and the sender were actually one and the same.

Picture from...

Next thing I knew I was being held hostage in my bedroom at home. There was a party going on in my back yard, like a birthday party or something with lots of young kids who might have been my mom's piano students. I was standing in my back window looking out, thinking about how far down it was. The grass was so green and soft that I knew I could jump the one story down onto it without getting hurt, and I was about to when I got kidnapped.

Now I'm in the back seat of a car. I don't know where they're taking me, but it can't be good. They are not good people. I am working on a diversion of some kind. I think it involves food. The last thing I remember is preparing to jump out the back door while the car is still in motion...

Good morning, Saturday.

Luckily things only got better as the day went on. I spent the afternoon with JW and his family. They had about 20, 25 people over for Thanksgiving: Round Two - and that was only about 5% of the family tree. It was so fun. Big families are great. Remembering all those names was good mental exercise, too.

Then I drove home to see Adam Ezra playing in the town next door, in fact at the same place we had my post prom party. I went with my daddy, and it was nice to go do something with him, even though he wasn't crazy about the headliner (and I would have to agree that Adam's music is more my type). But I did get to have a good long conversation with Adam that touched on his tour with Enter the Haggis, the band's new album, my finals, my internship, and fantasy literature, especially our mutual love for The Golden Compass and the fact that, unlike a lot of people who say "your book-in-progress sounds interesting, but fantasy's not really my genre," he actually seemed excited to read what I'm working on. We agreed that when he finishes his album and I publish my novel, we'll trade. Cool beans.

Peace, love, and sweet dreams,
Miss Rex

A Letter to Voldemort

Dear Voldemort:

Normally I would write to someone nicer about this (perhaps Albus Dumbledore or Sirius Black), but, well, first of all, you've had them both killed, but second (and more importantly), I feel that you have a special kind of expertise in the particular matter that concerns me.

I am speaking of the matter of sinuses. Since you, my dark liege, lack the protection afforded by a traditional protruding nose, I thought perhaps you would know of a spell or potion to combat discomfort or infection of the deep nasal passages. It has been a recurrent problem since the days of my youth; so recurrent, in fact, that I can pinpoint the day it will befall me before I even show symptoms. Precisely 365 days ago Monday, I was hospitalized for an especially brutal case of sinusitis. This Monday, I was forced to retire early by a sharp sinus headache and heavy congestion. I am sorry for the graphic description, although I'm sure my liege has seen worse in his decades of malevolence.

I know that you are very busy being evil, but if you get a chance, I would really appreciate your help in this matter.

Love,
Miss Rex

Claymore.

Thus concludes my first weekend working at Claymore! Overall it's a pretty sweet gig. I get to make free drinks (well, one free drink per shift), which means Excavations of Claymore are soon to return! In just two nights, I've already created Crackle Cider and the Golden Mocha. At last my creative taste buds can be exercised to their full potential! Soon my tongue will be nice and buff, like Trogdor's beefy arm. Rawr.

It didn't take long for me to learn to make a quality latté. My organizational skills are a little lacking, but that will improve with practice. The only real downside I've seen is that, every so often, you get a psycho on the other side of the counter.

My first night, two other baristas came in partway through my shift, both thinking they were working a double with me. As they were sorting out the schedule, I was working on drinks for a few different people and paused to rinse off some things (because if the next person orders chai, they don't really want residue of hot chocolate in their drink). This girl at the counter loudly demands, "HOW LONG DO I HAVE TO WAIT TO ORDER?"

The other two apologized and told her they were just trying to figure out who was supposed to be there. She said something along the lines of that wasn't her problem and she'd been waiting there for blah blah (she'd only been there for like, three minutes, and there had been two or three people ahead of her).

I politely told her that I could include residue of banana and hazelnut in her order if she'd like to place it right away.

I think this will be my downfall. I don't take shit from people like her; I dish it right back. Hope that's not grounds for unemployment (grounds... ha ha... that's punny, cause I work at a coffee shop... get it? Ha ha...)

The other downside is, I'm gonna have to make it through my 10:30-2AM shift without making myself any coffee, because I was up until 4 this morning even with the time change factored in. But it was a darn good coffee. Soon to be excavated.

Peace, love and third person omniscient,
Miss Rex

No Teabaggin'

This here's my Silversteinian request that tea bags be put in their proper place in the apartment. Yes, I have found them in all of the places named in the poem. Except the trash. In all fairness, they might appear there on occasion; I would not know, for I do not root through our trash. That's Garby's job. Garby is the imaginary dog Mnomanoms and I plan to adopt to be our garbage disposal, since at present there is no standard operating procedure for compostable materials....

You know, someone told me today that 80% of what people say is miscellaneous rambling. I would have to agree with this stat.



Peace, love, and Leviathan (more on that laters!),
Miss Rex

Anniversaries

Today, is an anniversary. First of all it's my parents' anniversary (and, crazy kooks that they are, they're taking me and JW out to dinner... this somehow seems backwards, but who am I, a hungry and broke college student, to complain?).

The popular thing to do these days seems to be divorce. When there's a hitch in the going, the hitched get going, or something like that. Contrariwise, my mom and dad have stayed together through thick and thin, and I admire that.

But their anniversary is not the only one I'm celebrating today. I'm also celebrating my own anniversary, the anniversary of my freedom from my last crap-tastic relationship. I guess it was kind of selfish of me to get dumped on my parents special day, huh? But alas that is how it happened.

I thank that breakup for reminding me how to love God school, for getting me into Adam Ezra Group, for making it permissible to sneak out of monasteries to make out with Italian boys in the middle of the night, and for scaring me into working seriously on my novel (I'm scared to end up like that).

I thank that breakup for acting as foil to the relationship I have now. Without knowing the worst, I would have no idea I'd stumbled upon the best (or been stumbled upon by the best, as the case may be). The most I could muster would be a half-appreciation. JW deserves better than that.

I thank that breakup for re-defining and re-outlining who I am. I'm not your average Christian, but I'm feeling close to God for a change, and I sure couldn't say that last October.

I think we celebrate a lot of frivolous things in our culture (half birthdays, national kids day, etc.), but this isn't one of them. You can celebrate an ending as much as you can a beginning. After all, as Semisonic said many a year ago in the song Closing Time, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

Peace, love and apple cider,
Miss Rex

Now I know what Mom went through

If you ever want to know what your mother went through when you were a teenager, try losing your roommate.

As crazy as she is, Taz is a creature of habit. She goes to bed early, gets up early. She hangs out with boys but won't let them touch her. She's random, but not reckless. JW, Jo Yo and I invited her to come see Adam Ezra Group with us tonight, but she declined on the grounds that her sleeping pattern had had a rough week and she wanted to get to bed early.

She made plans to watch an Adam Sandler movie with Abs, one of JW's apartment mates who she might be crushing on a little bit. Last I saw her she was vacuuming our living room in anticipation of his arrival, which was not at all extravagant for her - she goes all out for her boys. She will make a wonderful girlfriend when she finds the right dude.

Fast forward.

Went to the show. Paid three times more than we should've for parking because there was an event at the Agganis Arena next door. Lost tickets, found Rob (bassist), got new tickets for free. Got deafened and danced upon. Didn't stick around for drinks because the show went so long that last call was already over by the time we got out. Came home at 2:10AM to an empty room.

I was just going to go to sleep when it struck me how very odd it was that Taz was still out. It would have been less odd if she hadn't specifically said she wanted to go to bed early... but it still would have worried me. So I did what my mother always taught me I should do at at time like this.

I panicked.

Cue frantic phone calls, texts to JW asking if Abs was in the apartment (his light was off and JW was worried he'd wake up the roomie, so we never did find out), midnight wake-up call for Mnomanoms, and (half an hour later) a last-ditch effort sprint to the dining hall. I expected Lane to be closed at such an hour, but it was the last place Taz had told anyone she would be and the last place I could get into without a key to search for her.

It was open. This was the first time I've ever looked at our dining hall as a beacon of hope, and will most likely be the last. Sure enough I found Taz and Abs sitting on a couch downstairs, just talking. Taz was quick to point out that my fly was down. I was quick to point out that I'd been halfway into my PJs before the notion struck me that she was probably floating face down in Coy Pond and I had better go find her.

So, Mom, this post is for you. For the random times I didn't make it home when I said I would, or somehow failed to communicate what time I would actually be home, and for all the times I was over friends' houses with no cell phone reception (which was usually, because everyone I know lives in dead zones)... I'm sorry.

Peace, love, and undead roomies,
Miss Rex

Threehundredthpostapalooza!

Today my blog turns Old. It's the big three-oh-oh for A Silvertongued Serenade. If the Internet could eat a cake, Silvertongue's would probably look like this:



But the Internet can't eat cake, so instead I made my very first video blog ever! Come take a virtual tour of my apartment, a.k.a. The Fishbowl II (fondly named after the Fishbowl we lived in last year).



Fan-freaking-tabulous it is not, but it is very orange and blue, which surely counts for something.

Peace, love and vinyl,
Miss Rex

It was nice, knowing everything there was to know.

Senior year of high school, my present writing voice began to emerge.

I finally accepted who I was and where I stood in the social structure - completely.

I had a lot to say about the topic I knew least about: love.

I became a passionate person. I was passionately Christian, passionately angry at a lot of people for a lot of reasons, passionately counter-culture, and even passionately confused.

So I guess not a lot has changed. I'm just passionate about different issues, or the same issues but from different angles.

Words from my seventeen-year-old self:

ON FRIENDS:

Ravin said i had big feet, so Ash decided to try on my shoes, so i stole his, and then i drove him home, and when i pulled into my garage, i looked down and realized..... that i was STILL WEARING his shoes. i mean, they felt EXACTLY LIKE my shoes but on a slightly larger scale. which makes sense, because i HAVE the exact same shoes on a slightly smaller scale.

i know that there are some of you who... attempted to make me "tall and stout" one year because you didnt think i could look fat, but you know what, i have just one word for you..... snowgear.

Kim gave me pocky and koalas. i love kim.

saturday night after the semi, we went to shaws with Ravin and Lonewlf to get juicy juice, and Lonewlf comes running up to us with a huge package of pads and goes, "LOOK! TAMPONS!" and we had to explain that those weren't tampons.

i escaped to the kitchen to call Ash and ask him about his koto, which was in my house for half a week and i never told him about.

i told [Erny] i was ryan ross, who is really a member of panic! at the disco... little did she know that Wanda and i invented ryan ross the sophomore and were really referring to her sister the whole time.

Lonewlf decided to wear his "hot pants" and nothing else. Lonewlf's hot pants are a pair of girl jeans cut so short that you can see the ends of his boxers poking out at the bottom... [then he] pretended my emergency blanket was a cape. now i have to wash it because it has been on his mostly naked body.

ON PARENTS:

EVERYBODY says that about their parents, and I usually think theyre just exaggerating, but Im telling you, the guy is a total kangaroo.

on friday night, my mom and i frolicked in the church parking lot.

ON RELATIONSHIPS:

It all began with "…two North Dakota… three North Dakota…" in the darkroom.

i dont know. one minute we were talking about werewolves, and the next, he invited me to the prom.

I hate the way dudes just throw "I love you" around like beer in a mosh pit... If youve been dating somebody for a month, two months, in cara's case five days, or even a year or two, YOU DO NOT LOVE THEM. Okay? You dont. [Author's note: JW has proven me wrong on this point. Nuff said.]

Ash tried to be the psychologist and told me that i'm just jealous because i think i'm going to be lonely forever.

there are a heck of a lot of things i could do that i would regret more than not doing them, if that made any sense at all. but of course it didnt, because nothing makes sense anymore, and it feels like nothing will ever make sense again.

it's like happy rainbows are coming out my ears or something.

ON ART:

i'm sure there's an actual word for fear of hot glue guns. i mean there is a word for "fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth." there's got to be one for glue guns.

[there was a photo] of a kid with a skateboard gazing contemplatively at artwork hanging on a wall. the picture he's looking at is of a hawk, and i insisted it was a reference to tony hawk and how the kid wanted to be just like him. my grandma didnt get it, but i dont think she knows the first thing about tony hawk anyway.

bar chords kill my wrist, which i think is related to the fact that my thumb is not really opposable. i hate my thumbs so much. i swear, one of these days i'm just going to shut it in a car door or something and hope that when it heals from being broken, it will be weirdly bent into a much less awkward position than.... whatever weird shape it is now.

please pardon my logorrhea.

i tend to have epic dreams when i sleep on my stomach... last night/this morning, i got the second half of a dream that inspired me to write a story, which i stopped writing because i didnt know where to go with it, but now i have a better sense of direction, so maybe i can get working on that. [Author's note: This dream, from an entry dated 2006, was the foundation for Before the Empty Moon. Yep, STILL working on that.]

ON SOCIAL GATHERINGS:

they have a mario kart tourney..... funniest thing since sliced bread.......

good goobers, maybe it's happened to me! -what they always say about kids getting addicted to the internet!! and myspace!!!

On our way to the club, this guy in girl pants pointed at my relient k shirt and got all excited and yelled "you're going to the relient k concert! Yay!" or something, and I just sort of watched his little outburst with internalized amusement and continued eating my ice cream like "hello, can't you see i'm busy here?"

i told the bride "happy wedding" (DDR reference, b/c i'm a dork), and when the pastor started speaking, all i could think of was the guy in the princess bride.

ON BABYSITTING:

i really have corrupted the girl i babysat for on saturday. i taught her the meaning of emo, and now she gives me weekly reports on how many emo kids she's counted.

the boy would not go to bed, and finally i said, "all right. i'll read to you some more. let me go find a book." and went and got my systematic theology book, thinking, "this will put him RIGHT to sleep." not so. that rebel child had me read ten pages of impossible-to-pronounce names and titles before he finally conked out.

trust me to deal with flying shards of flaming glass with "LET'S EAT ICE CREAM!"

ON HIGH SCHOOL IN GENERAL:

i'm so used to being on the fringes of the social structure that i can tell everyone i dont care if they reject me, but of course i do. nobody wants to be rejected.

Wanda and I sat on the floor during lunch again.

i used to come home in tears because i couldnt understand why nobody understood me. my word, i was emo all the way back in second grade. i should have known it was hopeless.

I was ignored, as usual. I should just not bother talking, ever.

Let's face it. Just like everything else about school this year, spirit week and homecoming are going to suck. But you know what? I'M GOING TO BE A PIRATE ANYWAY. AND I'M GOING TO WEAR MY 80S SHIRT ON 70S DAY. AND I'M ADDING A NEW SUPERLATIVE CATEGORY FOR MYSELF: Most Likely to Instigate Revolution. Take that, CHS.

today was so long that i looked down at my shirt this afternoon and thought, "mandii, you scrub, you wore the same shirt two days in a row," and then realized that it was still the same day.

never be too "cool" to be a fool or too "old" to be bold. those are lame excuses for thinking small.

i am sick and tired of putting up with the other editors in my independent study, one of whom does not even have authority of any sort over me except in her imagination where she dominates the world because she thinks she is that smart and talented and special.

BRENDON URIE came over and inspected the hot water pots, to no avail, obviously, since they were empty. And then I realized that he had a big Styrofoam cup of ramen in his hand, just like me, and I had to stifle a laugh. Poor kid. He's fueled by ramen, but apparently not today.

eating is so strange. i mean, think about it. theres something in front of you, and then you put it into this big hole in your face and mash it all up, and suddenly it isnt there anymore.

your self-help forum says, "go play in traffic." thank you, and have an EMO DAY.

yesterday was "Senior skip day." needless to say, i went to school and skipped through the halls with my friends and sang, "senior skip day! senior skip day!" everywhere i went.

Peace, love, and reliving the not-so-golden years,
Miss Rex

While the rest of the world worries about acid rain...

One of the best and worst things about living in an apartment is cooking for yourself. On the one hand, there was rarely anything in the dining hall that was both vegetarian and appetizing, but on the other hand... well, let's just say my cooking skills are... rudimentary.

I've been using a lot of Parmesan cheese. It's great for the obvious (pasta), but also on summer squash or with garlic and crushed red peppers in olive oil as a dip for bread.

JW and Cripple were over at dinnertime the other evening and I offered to make pasta. Everything went fine until someone reminded me we needed cheese. I noticed the granules had clumped together to form a huge ball of Parmesan and started to shake the container.

Next thing I knew it was raining cheese.

I guess the lid wasn't shut very tightly. The worst part is that it was probably me who failed to shut it in the first place, since I use sprinkle cheese way more than anyone else around here. D'oh.

Peace, love and Parmesan rain,
Miss Rex

Indulgences

Yesterday I indulged in...

...Juicy Juice that I got from Wanda. She was late to my end-of-summer bonfire and I called her to say we were out of Juicy Juice, so she showed up with juice boxes.

...Skipping chapel.

...Buffalo chicken with Razz, who's also a veggo.

...Cake smothered in frosting, coconut and jelly beans that my apartment surprised me with.

...Reading children's books while sitting at the RMV waiting to get my new license.

Then JW, my knight in shining armor, whisked me away to Boston.

We got dinner at Fire and Ice and I got a delicious strawberry mango margarita. JW told the chefs it was my birthday so they let me come up to the grill and stir fry my own food while everybody else waiting for their dinner had to sing to me, lest the chefs refuse to feed them. Then the chef handed me a bag of potato chips, said "happy birthday," and handed me my plate. Udon noodles are fantastic.

After that, JW took me to the North End, which is the Little Italy part of town. He treated me to Limoncello, Bailey's, and two Washington Apples. Then we sat on a park bench, took pictures with statues, and befriended the cop who was guarding a giant statue of macaroni.

I didn't get trashed on my 21st birthday. I didn't even get drunk (though I might have been a little tipsy). And I'm really glad that's how it went down. So many people get trashed, throw up, pass out, or drunkenly screw up on their 21st birthdays, but I will remember every perfect second of my perfect night.

Peace, love and Starbucks' Caramel Apple Spice,
Miss Rex

3 x 7 = How old I am today

Oh dear God, reading my old blog is EXHAUSTING. I was so freaking hyper at 14. And I knew it. And I think I knew it was obnoxious, or at least I said I knew it was obnoxious, but I’m pretty sure what I actually thought was, “I am freaking hilarious. Everybody listen to me being hilarious.”

My first blog was from back in the days of dial-up Internet, when MySpace was the place to be. Knowing how bad our Internet connection was, I can’t imagine how I was online enough to post as many as three times a day. And it was all. Useless. Drivel. I talked about Relient K every other word. But at least I had the good sense to know it was embarrassing that I had ever liked N*Sync.

Also, had the return key not been invented in 2004? Because everything I said was in one long, rambling block of text, which leads me to believe I didn’t pause to breathe a single time in the year 2004. For someone who was supposedly a “good writer,” I wish I’d had some idea what a run-on sentence was.

In honor of my 21st birthday today, I'd like to share some choice tidbits from my high school self, for your amusement (but even more so for mine). These are from sophomore year... more to come.

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OK so how many gwapes can u fit in YOUR mouth? well i can fit 11 and so can my friend raven but my other friend spleen can fit 12, right before she bursts out laughing and they go flying all over the table and look really gross. who knows tomorrow maybe she'll bring smaller grapes and then she can fit 15. once i knew this kid who could fit 18 full-sized marshmallows in his mouth at once, and still say "fluffy bunny." and this other kid who could fit an entire clementine in his mouth and almost close it.

i need someone to talk to. i feel rather lonesomeful. hmm well i can go talk to my sis who i guess thinks she is a water fountain, please dont ask. oooooh! a lollipop!!

well jmae was reading my blog and decided that she was inspired to imitate an elephant. and now i guess she has a few words to type. hmm i guess i better proofread this... ok this is jmae:
emememememememem
ok i guess thats what she thinks an elephant sounds like.

i played volleyball on a moonwalk and the guy who came with the moonwalk was reaaallly cute so me and heather named him skittles.

what if somehow my brain got switched with my ex-boyfriend's brain? and suddenly we had to live each other's lives? i'd be RUINED i tell you! ...friends? idk maybe he could handle them... if he just shut up and pretended to have laryngitis... seriously i mean i dont hate him but we're polar opposites, i dunno how we ended up going out. (Author's note: I apparently feel this way about every ex-boyfriend I have. Is there a lesson I should be learning from this...?)

yay guess what my clock is all better. i think it caught my cold but i gave it some medicine and now its stuck at whatever time it was when i poured cough syrup on it... just kidding it says 3:48 just like it should.

yayy i got my yellow belt!!! and the creepy kid didnt tell me what i smell like!

and tristram, my sped buddy, was like 'mandii is the gay pride penguin' so i hit him with a ruler because i most certainly am not.

mr leary.... i know youre not reading this... but... YOU OWE ME A STAPLER AND I BETTER FIND ONE IN MY STOCKING ON SATURDAY!!! or i'll turn you into strawberry milk

we had a 2 hour delay cause of the snow... first i couldnt hear the bus go by on its way up my street, and i was in the kitchen when it went by the other way. it stopped by my house because my neighbor and i always have to catch it on its way back, and i pulled on my chucks without tying them and grabbed my backpack but no coat and ran out there in the foot-deep snow, but it drove away without me. so now my feet were cold and my chucks were soaking. so i tried to dry them off with a hair dryer but my mom told me I was being stupid and to wear different shoes.

i told heather she had a lima bean on her face, and then i decided it was a brussel sprout instead. even tho it was really just a piece of dirt or something. then i accused her of giving me foot cancer.

period 4 - health test. agh. I HATE SEX IT IS SO GROSS.

i hate math with a passion that burns like a burning passion of hatred. but today i am a mathlete.

my neighbor says... SQUIRREL!!!!!! SQUIRREL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! icky coconut GET OFF MY LEG I CANT FEEL MY LEG EEWWWW DID YOU WET MY LEG?????

dear diary today me and lily discovered how escalators REALLY work. theres little guys on bikes inside them.

then i accidentally shouted really loud in the library so i shut up and ran into the young adult room where i fell over a chair. it was such fun!

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Peace, love, and legal indulgences,
Miss Rex

Sky vom

We're going to skip the awkward "oh hey, long time no post" conversation. I neglected you again. I'm deeply sorry and will start in on my penance after I click "Publish Post." On to more interesting things.

A lot has happened since my last post, but tonight, being the night after the first day of classes, shall be dedicated to (drum roll, please) the first day of classes.

First things first. It has poured for three days straight now, and I have been completely unprepared. We were in the middle of a freaking drought. Why should I pack galoshes? But of course as soon as everybody moves back in to Go-Co everything turns to sky vom. I forget that this place does that.

By the time I got to chapel I had taken two showers; one when I woke up, and one on my way to the chapel. I literally wrung out my hair when we got inside.

Afterward, Jo-Yo and I decided to run our clothes through the dryer, which is now "free" to use (i.e. doesn't take quarters, but there's an $80 laundry fee tacked onto our room and board costs). But my skinny jeans shrunk in the rain and I couldn't get them off, so Jo-Yo had to undress me.

Then I finally managed to access my email for the first time all week and realized I was supposed to be at a meeting at 8:00 this morning, which obviously didn't happen. I feel that I've hit the bottom of some academic bell curve for missing my first obligation of the year. And I thought I was so good for going to chapel.

Before I left for my 2:10 class, I cut up a trash bag to make a poncho. Wouldn't you know it, the sky had ceased puking by that point and was only taking a tinkle on us.

My first class is a communication theory class. I wish I could tell you more about it, but when the prof described what we'd be learning, I had no idea what the flamingo he was talking about. Luckily he grades on a contract, which means that if you do everything you're supposed to do, you get a B, even if you don't do it well. I know what grade I'll be getting in that class.

My second class is a fiction writing class. We've already started working on dialogues and drafts. I am, for the first time in maybe forever, legitimately stoked for a class. I'm hoping to use this as an opportunity to workshop parts of my novel.

And that's all the classes I have this semester! I'm getting 4 more credits for an internship I'm doing with a company we'll call Skipping Stone Media, which doesn't start until the middle of September.

So I've got my reasons for being stressed and my reasons for being stoked. Although most of the latter are related to a) living in an apartment with Razzmatazz, Mnomanoms and Taz, which is b) upstairs from my marvelous boyfriend, who deserves a post all his own, and c) turning old enough to take part in my friends' drunken revelries, since up to this point I have, of course, abstained from ingesting any and all alcoholic substances.

And just for the record, Friday (my birthday) is slated to be sunny with a high of 75.

Peace, love, and ponchos,
Miss Rex

You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone...

Today has been weird.

It all started with this crazy dream in which I'd gone fountain-diving for change. When I surfaced, I decided I had better find a Coin*Star, but then my ex was there with a $25 bill and he said he'd trade me.

"Are you sure I even found that much?" I asked dubiously. He seemed to really want the change, so I dropped it at his feet.

"Just kidding," he said, but I was too quick and I took the bill from him. He wanted to fight me for it so I ran. Turned out it was actually a $220 bill. I realized I'd made out like a bandit and hid it in my pants, because that's what all good crooks do with their money. Please don't ever try to rob me.

Long story short, he chased me around for what seemed like hours. He caught up to me in an elevator that looked like the inside of a glacier. I pushed the button to go down to my car. He pushed the button for the top floor. The elevator started to go up. I was stuck.

Lucky for me, his half of the elevator suddenly dropped away as an automated voice said it had gotten too hot. Global warming for the win.

Some kids I found upstairs agreed to help me escape. My ex soon found me and I started jumping down whole flights of stairs to get away. I think the kids deterred him but I woke up before I could get to the car.

When I woke up, my alarm hadn't even gone off yet. Normally it's all I can do to roll out of bed after hitting snooze a couple of times, but today I couldn't even fall back asleep to finish the dream.

It was a dark, but thankfully not stormy, day at camp.

When I got there, two of the three other counselors I work with in the half-day program weren't in. All the older campers had gone on a field trip, leaving us with the run of the school, field, blacktop and playground. Eerie factor #1: Spending the day in a ghost school.

Then my boss randomly told us we're no longer allowed to help the kids in the bathroom, even the three-year-olds who can't always pull up their pants themselves. I'm sure some parent complained (that's fairly common in our line of work), but it seemed random in the context of random events that preceded and followed. That was eerie factor #2.

Then the fire alarm testing began (eerie factor #3).

We took the kids out to the playground because the noise was scaring some of them. I prayed to God it wouldn't rain. It stayed dreary and hot.

We were in the middle of setting up for our unbirthday bash - complete with hoodsie cups, party hats, and noisemakers - when, eerie factor #4, water started gushing out of a spigot in the side of the school. Not just any spigot, either - one at the top of the wall, just inches below the roof line. And not just any water - this shit was black.

It was all we could do to keep the kids from going to investigate, especially when our instincts were to do the same. After about 5 minutes it stopped, leaving a stinking black puddle on the blacktop. I started to wonder whether calling it "shit" in my mind was really such an inaccurate prognosis.

And THEN the seagulls showed up. A huge one landed right in the middle of the tables where we'd had our unbirthday bash. My co-worker's boyfriend had brought their kitten for show and tell and I was terrified the monster bird would carry it away. Good thing there was a wall of children surrounding the poor thing.

After my boss chased away the seagull, it perched on the corner of the building and watched us, calling to its minions every so often. That was eerie factor #5. Alfred Hitchcock, anyone?

By the time we went inside, seagulls were wheeling overhead and my kids were preparing to sacrifice me to them.

Needless to say, TGIF.

Peace, love and stupid frickin goddamn silly bands,
Miss Rex

On parachutes, props and pride

Today was awesome. Okay, some stuff went wrong here and there, also known as being a woman, but really I haven't a single complaint.

First off. It's been a while since I've updated. I'm working at summer camp again with the 3-5 year olds. I was disappointed they put me with the littlest littlies this year, but you know what? They are a-freaking-dorable, and they get bonus points for ALL being potty trained!

A couple weeks ago I told my supervisor we should get the kids a parachute because it always used to be my favorite part of camp, but she didn't think we had it in the budget. Then today she showed up with a parachute! All the other counselors gave me funny looks when I jumped up and down with excitement. I just love parachutes. I got to be the mouse for Cat and Mouse. My job is the best.

Then I went to The Pantsless One's house to film a commercial for a contest we're entering. I borrowed ALL sorts of equipment from a friend who works at a TV station (we won't name any names here ^_^) and I was pretty much set to shoot the thing.

Unfortunately, the guy putting in the floor in the room we needed to film in didn't leave until 7:00 (I swear the floor was done when I got there at 2), and our time-killing prop-shopping spree fell on its face when Wal*Mart failed to have a scuba mask.

But TPO's living room is now effectively a green screen studio, complete with amazing pro lighting that DIDN'T blow any circuits! It's a small miracle. Not to mention we have something resembling an actual script now that we've had time to talk it over, and it's leagues better than the vague idea I started with. Tomorrow we film!

After the studio was set, we picked up our friend The Italian and watched The Breakfast Club, which I shamefully have never seen. But I left early so I could get a good night's sleep before work. So why am I here online blogging at 1:30 in the morning, you ask?

I couldn't stop thinking about a sentence I lost. It was the last sentence of my entire fantasy series and it was possibly the most beautiful thing I'd ever written. But I hadn't had my notebook with me when I thought of it, so I jotted it down in... whatever I happened to be carrying at the time, which could have been anything.

I remembered the page being narrow but still having lines. I remembered it being the last empty page in the notebook. But I'd already checked the last page of every notebook I could find with no success.

Since sleep would not take pity on me, I got up and dug through some more school papers. I checked between the pages of books to see if I'd torn it out and used it as a bookmark. I found a $15 iTunes gift card, which was the next best thing, but no epic concluding sentence.

Then I got the crazy idea to start reading every page in all my notebooks until I found it. First I started flipping through one of the notebooks I'd used for my journalism class, and BAM! There it was! Right in the middle of the notebook. I think it really was the last blank page I had, it just wasn't at the end....

The last reason today was awesome is this article. Christians get a bad rep for hating on homosexuals, and I resent that. As I'm sure I've said many a time, being a Christian is about LOVE. Jesus didn't support prostitution, but he loved the Samaritan lady who had had five husbands and was living with another man. So too should we love the people we tend to judge. Judging is never our job.

I admire these Christians who showed up at a gay pride parade to humble themselves and apologize. I am moved and inspired by their bravery. I hope God blesses them and all they do in his name, the name of love.

Peace, love and panda hats,
Miss Rex

Defying woman's intuition

In my head, I have a pretty good sense of what's a good idea and what's not. You hear about a woman's intuition, and I definitely have it. Yet that doesn't stop me from doing a lot of things that I think are bad ideas. Why? I can't explain it. I guess it... generates writing material...?

Even as I'm goofing up, there's a little voice in my head by the name of Jiminy Cricket asking me what the hell I'm getting myself into this time. But what fun would life be if we didn't spend 90% of it defying our better judgment? Thankfully Jiminy is only a cricket, and easy enough to ignore; thus I continue to do the following.

1. Using Facebook. It's such a black hole. At any given moment that I am on Facebook I can usually think of at least fifteen better things I could be doing, yet how can I fight that kind of gravity...?

2. Procrastinating. If it's not due tomorrow, I'm not worried about it (blame #1). Then when it's due tomorrow I don't have enough time to do it. Vicious cycle.

3. Drinking coffee at night. I can only do this if I intend to stay up for at least six more hours, and even after six hours, going to sleep can be problematic. This means I am tired the next day and need more coffee. Another vicious cycle.

4. Foregoing sleep. I can almost get away with alternating nights of no sleep and 12 hours of sleep. Almost. But I'm not saying it's healthy.

5. Agreeing to nap with a certain friend of mine. You'd think by now one of us would have realized we have totally different definitions of napping. If I say I want to nap, it means "I didn't sleep last night. Unconsciousness is necessary RIGHT NOW. I am saying it's cool if you join me a) because you are comfy, b) because I am too tired to argue with you, and/or c) because I want to retain some hope in your half of the species." Somehow my intentions always get lost in translation...

6. Being the sober one. You'd think I'd regret being drunk more than staying sober, but the fact is I hate playing babysitter and I can't handle it when people barf. And I get tired and cold and hungry, which I don't think I would notice if I was drunk.

7. Breaking visitation. I'm not even sure what the consequences are for spending the night in a dude's room but I'm sure they are not pretty, regardless of what actually goes down in said dude's room (the handbook does not differentiate between hawt sex and watching movies about journalism).

8. Climbing buildings. It's a $400 fine if you get caught... but everything is more exciting at higher altitudes, and visitation hours don't apply to rooftops.

9. Playing the awkward game. Letting people know you have no shame is pretty much an invitation for them to try and make you feel uncomfortable. Case in point? I have this one friend who's been trying to wig me out by putting his face really close to mine, so last night I kissed his cheek, which freaked him the heck out. He jumped across the lobby and turned bright red. Funniest thing I've ever seen. So today he happens to walk by while I'm taking down the whiteboard outside my room, runs over, and kisses me on the mouth. And runs away.

Peace, love and true confessions,
Miss Rex