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
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
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).
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.
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
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).
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.
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
These are a few of my favorite things:
It's Thanksgiving Day, but I won't bore you with an essay of the same things everybody is thankful for today. I have amazing friends and an amazing family and an amazing boyfriend. I have a roof over my head and plenty to eat, I go to a great school, I have a great internship, and I always have something to wear (even when I despair that "I have nothing to wear!").
Of course I'm thankful for those things. But there are a lot of smaller, less cliché things that I am also thankful for, and I think they deserve some recognition. This Thanksgiving, I give thanks for...
What random things are you thankful for today? If anyone says "friends and family," I'm spamming your comments section with pictures of slow lorises!
This post is brought to you by my favorite fingerless gloves.
Peace, love and free-range turkey,
Miss Rex
Of course I'm thankful for those things. But there are a lot of smaller, less cliché things that I am also thankful for, and I think they deserve some recognition. This Thanksgiving, I give thanks for...
Light bulbs.
Forks.
Text messaging.
Candles.
Single stream recycling.
Plungers.
Soy milk (picture from Urban Blah).
Bass guitar.
Flannel.
Scott Westerfeld.
Swiss Miss hot chocolate.
Dirty feet.
Neon Trees.
Tuning forks.
Trippy dreams.
Vodka sauce.
Stickers.
Jalapeños.
Hot showers.
String.
Blue jeans.
Semicolons.
Ear goggles.
Forks.
Text messaging.
Candles.
Single stream recycling.
Plungers.
Soy milk (picture from Urban Blah).
Bass guitar.
Flannel.
Scott Westerfeld.
Swiss Miss hot chocolate.
Dirty feet.
Neon Trees.
Tuning forks.
Trippy dreams.
Vodka sauce.
Stickers.
Jalapeños.
Hot showers.
String.
Blue jeans.
Semicolons.
Ear goggles.
What random things are you thankful for today? If anyone says "friends and family," I'm spamming your comments section with pictures of slow lorises!
This post is brought to you by my favorite fingerless gloves.
Peace, love and free-range turkey,
Miss Rex
What the radio doesn't know it wants
Remember how we are all so forward-minded and fashionable around this blog? Well I have another recommendation for you, dear trendsetters. This recommendation goes by the name of 54 Dice.
It's my friend Andrewp's band. Now I'm trusting all you crazy people to know good crazy when you hear it! These guys are experimental and bizarre, yet grounded in classics. By this I mean their foundation rests solidly on guitar, doing well what guitars have done since the days of classic rock, but with innovative interpretations of rhythm, vocals, and harmony vs. discord.
If you're looking for the kind of music the radio doesn't even know it wants yet, be sure to download their free four-song EP! (The website will ask for your email address, but don't worry; Andrewp has personally promised me "no spam!")
Peace, love and sleeping in,
Miss Rex
It's my friend Andrewp's band. Now I'm trusting all you crazy people to know good crazy when you hear it! These guys are experimental and bizarre, yet grounded in classics. By this I mean their foundation rests solidly on guitar, doing well what guitars have done since the days of classic rock, but with innovative interpretations of rhythm, vocals, and harmony vs. discord.
If you're looking for the kind of music the radio doesn't even know it wants yet, be sure to download their free four-song EP! (The website will ask for your email address, but don't worry; Andrewp has personally promised me "no spam!")
Peace, love and sleeping in,
Miss Rex
A pirate's life for me
All right, dear readers. I know you are all forward-minded fashionistas, so I feel it is my duty to bring this exquisite design to your attention.
It was designed by my friend the Hippie and it's eligible to win ten grand, at which point you'll be able to sport this epic yet elegant pirate on your bosom for something in the vicinity of $20. But you gotta give it your love! Cast your vote in the next 24 hours!
By the way, in case you ever wondered what the Hippie looks like, the answer is, he looks like this pirate. Yeah, he's pretty much Johnny Depp and stuff.
Peace, love and 1.5 martinis,
Miss Rex
It was designed by my friend the Hippie and it's eligible to win ten grand, at which point you'll be able to sport this epic yet elegant pirate on your bosom for something in the vicinity of $20. But you gotta give it your love! Cast your vote in the next 24 hours!
By the way, in case you ever wondered what the Hippie looks like, the answer is, he looks like this pirate. Yeah, he's pretty much Johnny Depp and stuff.
Peace, love and 1.5 martinis,
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
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
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
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
Sophomore Slump --> Comeback of the Year
I just found out that the website that hosted my OLDEST oldest blog, I mean the one I had even pre-MySpace, is now a website for porn. Which is really sad because I want to see the kinds of things I was writing in middle school and freshman year, although I'm pretty sure it was just more of the same hyperactive drivel and nothing of actual importance.
But to continue with my perusal of my past, we are on to junior year of high school, at which point some kind soul taught me to use the Enter key or MySpace improved their formatting to encompass spaces between paragraphs.
Things of note in junior year:
1. Obsession with bands, especially Relient K, continued.
2. While maintaining a facade of hyperactivity, I managed to get pretty down on myself, which isn't reflected in the quotes I'm posting here, or even really in the old blog. But I caught whiffs of it: brief references to being down or depressed or emo or wondering what's wrong with myself. I only ever quoted really depressing lyrics. And those whiffs reminded me of some of the circumstances and emotions that brought them about, and suffice to say that I just wasn't a very happy person as a junior. I remember Erny later telling me that she was worried about me that year. But I was happy when I was playing guitar.
3. I craved attention. A bunch of my posts mentioned some guys in my gym class/creative writing class who called me "Girl" because they couldn't be bothered to find out my real name, and even that was something I thrived on. I started to feel inadequate over the fact that no guys ever seemed to be romantically interested in me, either at school or at church.
4. I thought EVERYTHING was SCANDALOUS. Oh how things have changed. Penis.
----------------------
so this really cool guy at my youth group, yeah he's really rad and stuff and stuff and yeah, and i might be going to see switchfoot with him! switchfoot, who i love as much as i love relient k! with him! switchfoot! with him!
wow. that was an exceptionally long rant about virtually nothing. i hope you didnt actually read it. but if you made it this far.... thank you for caring, now go and get a life.
homework bites. erm, not literally, although that would be an excellent excuse for not doing it: "i couldnt do my research paper because it was vicious and kept biting my face!!!"
i definitely just almost washed my face with toothpaste..... nice.
i thought the holiday season was supposed to be cheerful but instead it just makes me want to curl up in a ball until its all over.
why am i so emo?
i called my neighbors to see if they had a witches hat i could wear for my macbeth presentation tomorrow, and my sister was over there when i called since she and the girl who live there are friends. well, i guess her mom told them all why i called, and the other little girl who lives there who's in like 1st or 2nd grade asked "why does she want that? is she going around kissing boys?"
i'm going to come down with a fever and have to miss school altogether, and then i will miraculously recover at 2:36 and start running around because i'll be on vacation.
well, i'm an oxymoron.
later that day i scored a point and so they finally decided to find out what my name was. which they found out by saying "hey, Girl, do you have a name?"
this way when i meet thiessen i can be like "sooo... i'm making a documentary of the night.... and now youre in it. any words of wisdom?" as opposed to, you know, just.......... drooling.
i hope i dont combust before the show. although it would be pretty awesome if i ran across the stage while on fire. well.... no, burning in a good way.
guess who was sitting in my creative writing class when i showed up.... pretty much the entire senior male population of my gym class. this one kid was like "hey!! it's girl! hi girl!" and i was like "hi, boy."
hahahahaha oh boy stalkers are great.
at least we have myspace to hold the world together when everything else falls apart, right?
Id almost been martyred in a relient k mosh pit.
Then me and Wanda had the bright idea of borrowing a swivel chair from one of the computer stations in the library, and we rolled each other down the hall in it at full speed. Wanda said she feels like a real rock band.
for the first time in my life, I HAVE a life
I pretended I couldnt hear until pat was like you should bring Girl to the prom, and john was like yeaaaah! and turned around and looked at me, and I was like nnnoooooo
I get to go places with COOL PEOPLE tomorrow. mostly one cool person actually. we wont elaborate further than that but if you know me well enough you probably guessed there was somehow a guy involved. pink monkeys.
the family isnt supposed to know I let Wanda drive me around to the music store and the mall and all that jazz. And Im not supposed to associate with ppl who have unnaturally colored hair.
whatever guys me and Ravin wind up with are going to have to live in our orb with us.
erny stopped swearing so much around me because i used to punch her every time she did.
purple. you know what i mean.
OOH I MADE AN UNDERWEAR REFERENCE!!!
i reproduce by budding, like cells.
---------------------
Peace, love and boobs,
Miss Rex
But to continue with my perusal of my past, we are on to junior year of high school, at which point some kind soul taught me to use the Enter key or MySpace improved their formatting to encompass spaces between paragraphs.
Things of note in junior year:
1. Obsession with bands, especially Relient K, continued.
2. While maintaining a facade of hyperactivity, I managed to get pretty down on myself, which isn't reflected in the quotes I'm posting here, or even really in the old blog. But I caught whiffs of it: brief references to being down or depressed or emo or wondering what's wrong with myself. I only ever quoted really depressing lyrics. And those whiffs reminded me of some of the circumstances and emotions that brought them about, and suffice to say that I just wasn't a very happy person as a junior. I remember Erny later telling me that she was worried about me that year. But I was happy when I was playing guitar.
3. I craved attention. A bunch of my posts mentioned some guys in my gym class/creative writing class who called me "Girl" because they couldn't be bothered to find out my real name, and even that was something I thrived on. I started to feel inadequate over the fact that no guys ever seemed to be romantically interested in me, either at school or at church.
4. I thought EVERYTHING was SCANDALOUS. Oh how things have changed. Penis.
----------------------
so this really cool guy at my youth group, yeah he's really rad and stuff and stuff and yeah, and i might be going to see switchfoot with him! switchfoot, who i love as much as i love relient k! with him! switchfoot! with him!
wow. that was an exceptionally long rant about virtually nothing. i hope you didnt actually read it. but if you made it this far.... thank you for caring, now go and get a life.
homework bites. erm, not literally, although that would be an excellent excuse for not doing it: "i couldnt do my research paper because it was vicious and kept biting my face!!!"
i definitely just almost washed my face with toothpaste..... nice.
i thought the holiday season was supposed to be cheerful but instead it just makes me want to curl up in a ball until its all over.
why am i so emo?
i called my neighbors to see if they had a witches hat i could wear for my macbeth presentation tomorrow, and my sister was over there when i called since she and the girl who live there are friends. well, i guess her mom told them all why i called, and the other little girl who lives there who's in like 1st or 2nd grade asked "why does she want that? is she going around kissing boys?"
i'm going to come down with a fever and have to miss school altogether, and then i will miraculously recover at 2:36 and start running around because i'll be on vacation.
well, i'm an oxymoron.
later that day i scored a point and so they finally decided to find out what my name was. which they found out by saying "hey, Girl, do you have a name?"
this way when i meet thiessen i can be like "sooo... i'm making a documentary of the night.... and now youre in it. any words of wisdom?" as opposed to, you know, just.......... drooling.
i hope i dont combust before the show. although it would be pretty awesome if i ran across the stage while on fire. well.... no, burning in a good way.
guess who was sitting in my creative writing class when i showed up.... pretty much the entire senior male population of my gym class. this one kid was like "hey!! it's girl! hi girl!" and i was like "hi, boy."
hahahahaha oh boy stalkers are great.
at least we have myspace to hold the world together when everything else falls apart, right?
Id almost been martyred in a relient k mosh pit.
Then me and Wanda had the bright idea of borrowing a swivel chair from one of the computer stations in the library, and we rolled each other down the hall in it at full speed. Wanda said she feels like a real rock band.
for the first time in my life, I HAVE a life
I pretended I couldnt hear until pat was like you should bring Girl to the prom, and john was like yeaaaah! and turned around and looked at me, and I was like nnnoooooo
I get to go places with COOL PEOPLE tomorrow. mostly one cool person actually. we wont elaborate further than that but if you know me well enough you probably guessed there was somehow a guy involved. pink monkeys.
the family isnt supposed to know I let Wanda drive me around to the music store and the mall and all that jazz. And Im not supposed to associate with ppl who have unnaturally colored hair.
whatever guys me and Ravin wind up with are going to have to live in our orb with us.
erny stopped swearing so much around me because i used to punch her every time she did.
purple. you know what i mean.
OOH I MADE AN UNDERWEAR REFERENCE!!!
i reproduce by budding, like cells.
---------------------
Peace, love and boobs,
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
...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
Use your imagination...
Presenting the long-awaited cheaptickets.com commercial contest video, starring Miss Rex and The Pantsless One (conveniently clothed for this episode)!
We were shooting for 50 grand but we didn't even make it into the finals. Hard to believe, eh?
But hey, 'twas a learning experience. Now I know how not to light a green screen, but that a decent one can be made for under $10. I know that you should never use the on-camera microphone, but that decent sound effects can be made with a little resourcefulness and imagination. And look at all the fun costumes I got to wear! (Oh god, I nearly died in that snowsuit under all those lights...)
Now let's play a game. With the exception of the flute playing in the Paris scene, all sound effects were created right in my studio (read: bedroom) with everyday household items. Who can figure out what I used?
Peace, love, and not coconuts,
Miss Rex
We were shooting for 50 grand but we didn't even make it into the finals. Hard to believe, eh?
But hey, 'twas a learning experience. Now I know how not to light a green screen, but that a decent one can be made for under $10. I know that you should never use the on-camera microphone, but that decent sound effects can be made with a little resourcefulness and imagination. And look at all the fun costumes I got to wear! (Oh god, I nearly died in that snowsuit under all those lights...)
Now let's play a game. With the exception of the flute playing in the Paris scene, all sound effects were created right in my studio (read: bedroom) with everyday household items. Who can figure out what I used?
Peace, love, and not coconuts,
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
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
Things my mother doesn't understand
My mom and I have a great relationship. We're very open - I really do tell her most of what goes on in my life. I enjoy her company, she enjoys mine, and I value her advice, sometimes a little more than it's really wise to value a single person's input. But then I get a night like this and all I can really say is WTF?
I spent the first three weeks of my summer (excluding the time I was abroad) mostly bored out of my skull, to the point that mom was sick to death of me complaining about how bored I was and actually nagged me to get the heck out of the house. If there's one sure-fire way to get me out of the house, it's nagging, especially about how I ought to socialize.
The functioning and etiquette of college-aged social circles is #1 on the list of things my mother doesn't understand. Texting someone I've barely hung out with day after day asking to do stuff seems anti-etiquette to me, regardless of whether her theory that he's romantically interested holds any water.
On Wednesday my friend Bear, who I met through Ravin a few years ago, and who she in turn met at school in Ohio, came to visit. After a bizarre twist of events that ended with him not being allowed to stay at her house the first few nights, we put him up Wednesday and Thursday, and as good friends are wont to do I have hung out with him and Ravin and sometimes The Pantsless One (TPO) pretty much non-stop since Bear got here.
I should mention that Bear doesn't sleep more than four hours on a good night, so I stayed up late keeping him company the two nights he was here. This was not an act of pity on my part. The great thing about Bear is he puts me at ease so that Suppressed Me can show her face, and that's something special.
This brings me to item #2 on the list of things my mother doesn't understand: Teens/twenty-somethings' sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. I believe that, as people who are biologically alive, the most vital thing for us to do is to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life" at whatever hour that marrow is there for the sucking, even if the hour is late or the place is far. I'm flexible; late hours and far places don't bother me, and if it gets too late or too far, I'd sleep just about anywhere.
I have friends who are early to bed and early to rise. I have friends who play all night, then sleep until the sun sets. I have friends who seem not to sleep at all. They are all dear to my heart and I will do everything I can to savor the marrow with them, especially friends like Bear, who I see twice a year if I'm lucky.
Obviously this is not exactly how my mother sees things. Sleeping in one's own bed at night seems to be very important to her. Oh, I can get away with a night or two a week at Ravin or TPO's house, but sleep away more than one consecutive night and I can feel the bad vibes beginning to pulse. Staying up late with people is irresponsible.
While yes, it may look that way, I'll point out that I have never been late for work, never missed a class, and have gotten straight As since I got to college because I know how to balance my time. No, I don't always make the best decision. Some days I'm so tired I can barely stay awake through chapel. But I am aware of my obligations and take them into account, and when it's summer and I have none, I don't worry too much.
Speaking of responsibility, driving long distances is also irresponsible, regardless of whether I am personally at the wheel and regardless of whether the car is likely to break down (though I'll concede that with Derry this is very likely).
Point #3: Distance is not an issue when it comes to doing something or seeing someone you love. Music is my passion. Driving two hours to a concert is more than reasonable. It's liberating. It actually gives me a little bit of an adrenaline rush. This is all the better when the bands I'm seeing are my friends, like Kiros and Adam Ezra Group, because it becomes not just about the music but about friends (see #2).
Mom says driving far away is ridiculous; don't my friends and I have any common sense? I get this even more when we drive ALL OVER the south shore in one car, which is convenient for no one because we live in an equilateral triangle of 35-minute sides, but it is fun for everyone because we're best friends and we're together and to us that's more important than gas money, car mileage or drive time.
Last night Bear and I slept at TPO's house. Ravin was supposed to as well until she found out around 11:30 PM that she had to be home early for a violin lesson. Then I woke up at 8:45 to a text from XL saying that he was at my house, which I totally wasn't expecting at such an early hour, and my mother was displeased that I had invited XL only to have him hang out with me and Bear all day as opposed to just me.
I have this memory (maybe real, maybe hallucinated) of a conversation with XL that went, "We have a friend in town so you'll probably be hanging out with all of us if that's cool," followed by something like, "yeah, I'd love to meet your friends" in response. But frankly it was none of my mother’s business to be concerned about it anyway.
Tonight Ravin, TPO, Bear and I went to see Toy Story 3 (WHICH I'll add was hysterically clever, surprising, touching, and featured a Totoro plush toy) and we were going to go swim at Ravin's after, except my mother insisted I come home.
I tried to argue my way out of sleeping at home tonight, since from tomorrow night onward I'll have to actually be responsible because I'm starting work, but no dice - it's father's day tomorrow, among other reasons that ranged from semi-legitimate to completely random. To be honest I was pissed. We were all hyper and having so much fun. We picked up our friend The Italian, who was drunk and therefore hilarious. But I had to leave, and it just didn't seem fair.
When I got home I found out the reason I needed to be there first thing in the morning on father's day is that I am supposed to help make breakfast for my dad. I think that's sweet. If I'd been told that to begin with I would have been so much more compliant! Disappointed, yes, but not angry. Instead I feel like this:
On a side note, I’m starting the process of making sure all the people mentioned in my blog get code names. Sorry if things get confusing ^_^
Peace, love, and residual Chocolixir/Mountain Dew/favorite people high,
Miss Rex
I spent the first three weeks of my summer (excluding the time I was abroad) mostly bored out of my skull, to the point that mom was sick to death of me complaining about how bored I was and actually nagged me to get the heck out of the house. If there's one sure-fire way to get me out of the house, it's nagging, especially about how I ought to socialize.
The functioning and etiquette of college-aged social circles is #1 on the list of things my mother doesn't understand. Texting someone I've barely hung out with day after day asking to do stuff seems anti-etiquette to me, regardless of whether her theory that he's romantically interested holds any water.
On Wednesday my friend Bear, who I met through Ravin a few years ago, and who she in turn met at school in Ohio, came to visit. After a bizarre twist of events that ended with him not being allowed to stay at her house the first few nights, we put him up Wednesday and Thursday, and as good friends are wont to do I have hung out with him and Ravin and sometimes The Pantsless One (TPO) pretty much non-stop since Bear got here.
I should mention that Bear doesn't sleep more than four hours on a good night, so I stayed up late keeping him company the two nights he was here. This was not an act of pity on my part. The great thing about Bear is he puts me at ease so that Suppressed Me can show her face, and that's something special.
This brings me to item #2 on the list of things my mother doesn't understand: Teens/twenty-somethings' sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. I believe that, as people who are biologically alive, the most vital thing for us to do is to "live deep and suck out all the marrow of life" at whatever hour that marrow is there for the sucking, even if the hour is late or the place is far. I'm flexible; late hours and far places don't bother me, and if it gets too late or too far, I'd sleep just about anywhere.
I have friends who are early to bed and early to rise. I have friends who play all night, then sleep until the sun sets. I have friends who seem not to sleep at all. They are all dear to my heart and I will do everything I can to savor the marrow with them, especially friends like Bear, who I see twice a year if I'm lucky.
Obviously this is not exactly how my mother sees things. Sleeping in one's own bed at night seems to be very important to her. Oh, I can get away with a night or two a week at Ravin or TPO's house, but sleep away more than one consecutive night and I can feel the bad vibes beginning to pulse. Staying up late with people is irresponsible.
While yes, it may look that way, I'll point out that I have never been late for work, never missed a class, and have gotten straight As since I got to college because I know how to balance my time. No, I don't always make the best decision. Some days I'm so tired I can barely stay awake through chapel. But I am aware of my obligations and take them into account, and when it's summer and I have none, I don't worry too much.
Speaking of responsibility, driving long distances is also irresponsible, regardless of whether I am personally at the wheel and regardless of whether the car is likely to break down (though I'll concede that with Derry this is very likely).
Point #3: Distance is not an issue when it comes to doing something or seeing someone you love. Music is my passion. Driving two hours to a concert is more than reasonable. It's liberating. It actually gives me a little bit of an adrenaline rush. This is all the better when the bands I'm seeing are my friends, like Kiros and Adam Ezra Group, because it becomes not just about the music but about friends (see #2).
Mom says driving far away is ridiculous; don't my friends and I have any common sense? I get this even more when we drive ALL OVER the south shore in one car, which is convenient for no one because we live in an equilateral triangle of 35-minute sides, but it is fun for everyone because we're best friends and we're together and to us that's more important than gas money, car mileage or drive time.
Last night Bear and I slept at TPO's house. Ravin was supposed to as well until she found out around 11:30 PM that she had to be home early for a violin lesson. Then I woke up at 8:45 to a text from XL saying that he was at my house, which I totally wasn't expecting at such an early hour, and my mother was displeased that I had invited XL only to have him hang out with me and Bear all day as opposed to just me.
I have this memory (maybe real, maybe hallucinated) of a conversation with XL that went, "We have a friend in town so you'll probably be hanging out with all of us if that's cool," followed by something like, "yeah, I'd love to meet your friends" in response. But frankly it was none of my mother’s business to be concerned about it anyway.
Tonight Ravin, TPO, Bear and I went to see Toy Story 3 (WHICH I'll add was hysterically clever, surprising, touching, and featured a Totoro plush toy) and we were going to go swim at Ravin's after, except my mother insisted I come home.
I tried to argue my way out of sleeping at home tonight, since from tomorrow night onward I'll have to actually be responsible because I'm starting work, but no dice - it's father's day tomorrow, among other reasons that ranged from semi-legitimate to completely random. To be honest I was pissed. We were all hyper and having so much fun. We picked up our friend The Italian, who was drunk and therefore hilarious. But I had to leave, and it just didn't seem fair.
When I got home I found out the reason I needed to be there first thing in the morning on father's day is that I am supposed to help make breakfast for my dad. I think that's sweet. If I'd been told that to begin with I would have been so much more compliant! Disappointed, yes, but not angry. Instead I feel like this:
On a side note, I’m starting the process of making sure all the people mentioned in my blog get code names. Sorry if things get confusing ^_^
Peace, love, and residual Chocolixir/Mountain Dew/favorite people high,
Miss Rex
All you need is love
All you need is love, and my weekend was full of it.
Thursday I had dinner with my friend Shmoe and his parents. We've been friends since Shmoe moved here our sophomore year of high school and I've always been close with his family too. Now that he's in the Coast Guard, we don't get to hang out much, so it was really excellent to catch up. After dinner we went for a night walk to see the fireflies in the fields behind his house. I've never seen so many! It was most magical. Shmoe caught me one, but it liked him better and flew away when he passed it to me.
Friday I took Derry on a little road trip to see my buddy Extra Large in a Medium World (remember my Awkward Game adversary?). I didn't think the little guy (the car, I mean) had it in him, but he made it without a problem. If one considers me driving most of the way without stepping on the brake to be "without a problem."
XL's mom made us delicious French toast with homemade caramel syrup for brunch. Let's just say I can understand why XL doesn't like school food. After, he took me to this park with a pond and a waterfall where he used to go fishing. We found a tetherball pole and I challenged him to a game.
If anyone is wondering, taking on a 6'7" guy at tetherball is not a recipe for win, and I have a bruise on my shin to prove it (turns out climbing the tetherball pole is also not a recipe for win).
We had to stop for crumbly crack (to all you normal people, butternut) donuts from this place in his town because even crazies need a little extra crazy sometimes. Then we crashed XL's dad's college reunion. They gave us good food and we cloud-watched for a solid hour and a half while the alumni caught up. I spotted an elephant and Hokusai, the great wave. XL found a bunch of dinosaurs and a camel. Overall a pretty successful round of cloud-gazing. We'll call it a tie.
Saturday I got to play princesses with Princess Sharon. She used to be my teacher but now she throws magical birthday parties for little girls, and I help sometimes. I befriended this in the mansion we partied at that day:
"Ford." "Yes." "I think I'm a sofa." "I know how you feel..." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The party was in the town next to the town where my first boyfriend (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named) lived. His house wasn't exactly on the way, but I was early and remembered how to get there even after six years (and in spite of the fact I hadn't driven myself there back in the day; it was before I had a license). So I thought I'd drive by and see how the place was doing. HWMNBN moved out west ages ago but the house is still crunchasaurus ice cream blue, so I assume his grandparents still live there. It was weird seeing that it hadn't changed at all. It was like, instead of going to the town six years later, I just drove back in time and saw it the way it used to be. Hm, surreal. But off topic.
After the party I drove into Boston (miraculously Derry STILL hadn't broken down) to see another school friend, who we're gonna call Rad because he showed me this amazing song by the band Radical Face:
You don't have to watch. Just listen and be amazed.
Rad and I grabbed dinner at Chipotle and walked around the Prudential Center playing Never Have I Ever. We realized we'd mostly done and not done the same things, except I'd never kissed a girl.
The mall was mostly closed since it was after 9, but Barnes and Noble was still open (cue heavenly light beams and angel choir). We bonded over creepy posters of Robert Pattinson and that werewolf guy, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and (naturally) poetry.
We were going to crash a bar after that, just to see if we could get in, but everyone was carding at the door so we just went back to his apartment. Rad played Train and Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his electric ukelele and showed me his balcony. Then I realized it was late-ish and my mother would worry if I didn't come home soon, so I left, and Derry still didn't die.
Today I had lunch with an atheist I met at my former youth group. It had been more than a year since we'd hung out, but thankfully he's one of those crazy people who never change. At least the parts you love never change. I'm sure he's smarter and more mature than back in the day. We got sammiches and ice cream and disturbed the other patrons with our enthusiastic discussion of mosh pits and hymns.
The reason I had to go back and write this very long post (thank you, anyone who's still with me) is because someone I consider a decent friend made me feel really stupid and worthless tonight, and I needed to remind myself how many amazing, positive, loving people I have in my life. The Beatles got a lot of things right, and this was one of them: all you need is love.
Peace, love and Paul McCartney,
Miss Rex
Thursday I had dinner with my friend Shmoe and his parents. We've been friends since Shmoe moved here our sophomore year of high school and I've always been close with his family too. Now that he's in the Coast Guard, we don't get to hang out much, so it was really excellent to catch up. After dinner we went for a night walk to see the fireflies in the fields behind his house. I've never seen so many! It was most magical. Shmoe caught me one, but it liked him better and flew away when he passed it to me.
Friday I took Derry on a little road trip to see my buddy Extra Large in a Medium World (remember my Awkward Game adversary?). I didn't think the little guy (the car, I mean) had it in him, but he made it without a problem. If one considers me driving most of the way without stepping on the brake to be "without a problem."
XL's mom made us delicious French toast with homemade caramel syrup for brunch. Let's just say I can understand why XL doesn't like school food. After, he took me to this park with a pond and a waterfall where he used to go fishing. We found a tetherball pole and I challenged him to a game.
If anyone is wondering, taking on a 6'7" guy at tetherball is not a recipe for win, and I have a bruise on my shin to prove it (turns out climbing the tetherball pole is also not a recipe for win).
We had to stop for crumbly crack (to all you normal people, butternut) donuts from this place in his town because even crazies need a little extra crazy sometimes. Then we crashed XL's dad's college reunion. They gave us good food and we cloud-watched for a solid hour and a half while the alumni caught up. I spotted an elephant and Hokusai, the great wave. XL found a bunch of dinosaurs and a camel. Overall a pretty successful round of cloud-gazing. We'll call it a tie.
Saturday I got to play princesses with Princess Sharon. She used to be my teacher but now she throws magical birthday parties for little girls, and I help sometimes. I befriended this in the mansion we partied at that day:
"Ford." "Yes." "I think I'm a sofa." "I know how you feel..." - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe party was in the town next to the town where my first boyfriend (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named) lived. His house wasn't exactly on the way, but I was early and remembered how to get there even after six years (and in spite of the fact I hadn't driven myself there back in the day; it was before I had a license). So I thought I'd drive by and see how the place was doing. HWMNBN moved out west ages ago but the house is still crunchasaurus ice cream blue, so I assume his grandparents still live there. It was weird seeing that it hadn't changed at all. It was like, instead of going to the town six years later, I just drove back in time and saw it the way it used to be. Hm, surreal. But off topic.
After the party I drove into Boston (miraculously Derry STILL hadn't broken down) to see another school friend, who we're gonna call Rad because he showed me this amazing song by the band Radical Face:
You don't have to watch. Just listen and be amazed.
Rad and I grabbed dinner at Chipotle and walked around the Prudential Center playing Never Have I Ever. We realized we'd mostly done and not done the same things, except I'd never kissed a girl.
The mall was mostly closed since it was after 9, but Barnes and Noble was still open (cue heavenly light beams and angel choir). We bonded over creepy posters of Robert Pattinson and that werewolf guy, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and (naturally) poetry.
We were going to crash a bar after that, just to see if we could get in, but everyone was carding at the door so we just went back to his apartment. Rad played Train and Somewhere Over the Rainbow on his electric ukelele and showed me his balcony. Then I realized it was late-ish and my mother would worry if I didn't come home soon, so I left, and Derry still didn't die.
Today I had lunch with an atheist I met at my former youth group. It had been more than a year since we'd hung out, but thankfully he's one of those crazy people who never change. At least the parts you love never change. I'm sure he's smarter and more mature than back in the day. We got sammiches and ice cream and disturbed the other patrons with our enthusiastic discussion of mosh pits and hymns.
The reason I had to go back and write this very long post (thank you, anyone who's still with me) is because someone I consider a decent friend made me feel really stupid and worthless tonight, and I needed to remind myself how many amazing, positive, loving people I have in my life. The Beatles got a lot of things right, and this was one of them: all you need is love.
Peace, love and Paul McCartney,
Miss Rex
Final thoughts on Rome, and VIDEO!
Rome may not be the center of the world anymore, but try telling that to the eight million tourists milling around the Vatican. For the number of people here and for the diversity of language and race, it’s easy to forget that all roads no longer lead to Rome. But the bustle of the city also begs the question: Has Rome been too commercialized? Or does it still retain some of the ancient magic that made it a cultural hub years ago? I think the answer is, “both.”
I believe it’s important for people to come here and see the artifacts and sites. It provokes a connection and sense of reverence regarding history that can only be gained in a hands-on way. It’s mind-boggling to picture a group of people more or less like me erecting hundred-foot-tall stone columns at their public forums or the thousand arches of the Coliseum, not out of aesthetic ambition but for practical use. Just as I walk to the dining hall and then to the chapel and then to the library each day without a thought, the ancient Romans worked, ate, worshiped, played and studied in these majestic structures every day.
Imagining a population for whom these sights were ordinary offers a moving peek into history that we are fortunate to have.
Beyond even that, structures such as the crumbling Coliseum remind us that no earthly empire is everlasting, no matter how vast or powerful. I am reminded of the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which tells of a traveler who found the ruins of a huge statue. An inscription reads, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Ozymandias thought his kingdom would last forever. In the same way, people thought Rome would never fall. Neither is with us anymore. It’s not hard to imagine tourists visiting the United States in a few millennia to see what’s left of the Pentagon or Mount Rushmore. It’s a sobering thought, but I think people need to grasp the transience of all we take for granted – not only so we can appreciate the good things we have, but also so we can learn to hold those things loosely, assigning greater value to the intangible qualities of culture.
Yet on the other hand, the commercialized aspect of the tourist scene makes me cringe, and it’s more than the pressing crowds that make me feel that way. It seems somehow wrong to “go see the Vatican,” a place that was built to be holy and honoring to God. It’s not a museum. It’s holy ground (or should be). I’m glad the Pope still used it for his weekly message and that pilgrims still worship there. In this way, it is still being used for its intended purpose. On the other hand, I think the builders’ original vision for some of the other monuments has been lost.
But then, we have progressed. Maybe it is too much to ask that a new culture in a new millennium cling to the values of a culture so old we can hardly understand it. To the ancient Romans, watching lions eat Christians was quality entertainment. It would turn our stomachs today. For us, it would be sick to reinstate gladiatorial fights in the Coliseum, yet I believe it is a good thing to use that space as the public arena it was meant to be. I heard there was recently a concert there. Surely the designers did not intend for power chords to resonate through the stone arches. At the same time, this use of the Coliseum holds true to a purpose the architects may not have intended, but which is nonetheless as old as the structure itself: spectacle.
The real disrespect is the way vendors and con artists have turned the historical and religious sites into marketplaces and stages for robbery. Walking out of the Vatican, souvenir shop windows display tacky gold souvenirs plastered with the face of the Pope as if he were some flamboyant celebrity. It makes me think of the Bible story about Jesus overturning the tables in the sanctuary. It’s an even greater shame that portions of the city, including some of the most ancient sites, bear the artwork and tags of vandals.
All else aside, the fact that the new Rome reflects aspects of the greater global culture can hardly be pegged as a bad thing. Global culture values green space. One can see this in the city of Rome. As a matter of fact, the Italians have valued green space for centuries. In the center of the city you’ll find the gardens of the Borghese palace, a sprawling grassy space with paths for horseback riders and knolls for picnickers. Trees are scattered about and green and yellow birds fight scrawny brown squirrels for branch space. The gardens have been there for six hundred years, way before the rest of the world had even begun to create the pollution we are now desperate to eliminate with our city parks and nature reservations. Rome does not just open a window on ancient cultures; it spotlights today’s in a manner that even the culturally semi-literate can comprehend as a good thing, in spite of what may have been lost in the sweep of time and tourism.
------------------------------
And now for the much-slaved-over video, for which my video partner Tyler went to great lengths to procure a firewire cable (which connects the camcorder to the Mac) and for which he was pick-pocketed in the process:
Peace, love, and jet lag,
Miss Rex
I believe it’s important for people to come here and see the artifacts and sites. It provokes a connection and sense of reverence regarding history that can only be gained in a hands-on way. It’s mind-boggling to picture a group of people more or less like me erecting hundred-foot-tall stone columns at their public forums or the thousand arches of the Coliseum, not out of aesthetic ambition but for practical use. Just as I walk to the dining hall and then to the chapel and then to the library each day without a thought, the ancient Romans worked, ate, worshiped, played and studied in these majestic structures every day.
Imagining a population for whom these sights were ordinary offers a moving peek into history that we are fortunate to have.
Beyond even that, structures such as the crumbling Coliseum remind us that no earthly empire is everlasting, no matter how vast or powerful. I am reminded of the poem “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley, which tells of a traveler who found the ruins of a huge statue. An inscription reads, “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.” Ozymandias thought his kingdom would last forever. In the same way, people thought Rome would never fall. Neither is with us anymore. It’s not hard to imagine tourists visiting the United States in a few millennia to see what’s left of the Pentagon or Mount Rushmore. It’s a sobering thought, but I think people need to grasp the transience of all we take for granted – not only so we can appreciate the good things we have, but also so we can learn to hold those things loosely, assigning greater value to the intangible qualities of culture.
Yet on the other hand, the commercialized aspect of the tourist scene makes me cringe, and it’s more than the pressing crowds that make me feel that way. It seems somehow wrong to “go see the Vatican,” a place that was built to be holy and honoring to God. It’s not a museum. It’s holy ground (or should be). I’m glad the Pope still used it for his weekly message and that pilgrims still worship there. In this way, it is still being used for its intended purpose. On the other hand, I think the builders’ original vision for some of the other monuments has been lost.
But then, we have progressed. Maybe it is too much to ask that a new culture in a new millennium cling to the values of a culture so old we can hardly understand it. To the ancient Romans, watching lions eat Christians was quality entertainment. It would turn our stomachs today. For us, it would be sick to reinstate gladiatorial fights in the Coliseum, yet I believe it is a good thing to use that space as the public arena it was meant to be. I heard there was recently a concert there. Surely the designers did not intend for power chords to resonate through the stone arches. At the same time, this use of the Coliseum holds true to a purpose the architects may not have intended, but which is nonetheless as old as the structure itself: spectacle.
The real disrespect is the way vendors and con artists have turned the historical and religious sites into marketplaces and stages for robbery. Walking out of the Vatican, souvenir shop windows display tacky gold souvenirs plastered with the face of the Pope as if he were some flamboyant celebrity. It makes me think of the Bible story about Jesus overturning the tables in the sanctuary. It’s an even greater shame that portions of the city, including some of the most ancient sites, bear the artwork and tags of vandals.
All else aside, the fact that the new Rome reflects aspects of the greater global culture can hardly be pegged as a bad thing. Global culture values green space. One can see this in the city of Rome. As a matter of fact, the Italians have valued green space for centuries. In the center of the city you’ll find the gardens of the Borghese palace, a sprawling grassy space with paths for horseback riders and knolls for picnickers. Trees are scattered about and green and yellow birds fight scrawny brown squirrels for branch space. The gardens have been there for six hundred years, way before the rest of the world had even begun to create the pollution we are now desperate to eliminate with our city parks and nature reservations. Rome does not just open a window on ancient cultures; it spotlights today’s in a manner that even the culturally semi-literate can comprehend as a good thing, in spite of what may have been lost in the sweep of time and tourism.
------------------------------
And now for the much-slaved-over video, for which my video partner Tyler went to great lengths to procure a firewire cable (which connects the camcorder to the Mac) and for which he was pick-pocketed in the process:
Peace, love, and jet lag,
Miss Rex
When in Assisi, do as the Franciscans do
Ciao, friends! I'm writing to you from Assisi, Italy! So fear not, there IS a good reason for my neglecting you all week.
I'm here for a journalism seminar with 11 other Go-Co kids. I'm in charge of documenting the trip and compiling a promotional video, since this is a new seminar. Thus I have waaay too many pictures to upload them all, but I'm trying to pick out the best of them. I shall post them tomorrow for Photofinish Friday! Until then, some thoughts:
There is something pleasantly surreal about living in a city that is centuries older than my entire country.
Passing under stone archways, I wonder how they are still standing and what it was like for Saint Clare to pass under those same arches in the 1200s. Climbing the hill to the castle called La Rocca, I wonder how many battles were fought on these ancient slopes and for what. I wonder how this rich culture and civilization could be so deeply rooted in these mountains for thousands of years without tarnishing the green of the valley. I wonder how an ancient religious order still draws practicing friars in the 21st century.
Here in this place, free from cell phones and wireless Internet and the general hubbub of the States, where the gardens encroach on the city, where you can wash down gelato with a glass of wine, where the locals need their afternoon siesta, here where history is in the very mortar of the walls and where learning is not a chore but a privilege – here I can breathe.
We have a fantastic group without whom this beautiful place would be infinitely less beautiful. Everyone is so chill and there is almost always someone up for doing something (especially drinking vino!). It's hard to buckle down and do work when you're surrounded by so many great friends and such a rich culture, but thankfully the load isn't as heavy as our professor keeps making it out to be. At least I haven't found it to be so. Video work isn't stressful for me; in fact, except for the headache that is logging and capturing videos from a camcorder, I find it almost therapeutic. And with that I am off to play with my new buddy, Final Cut Express. Arrividerci!
Peace, love and gelato,
Miss Rex
I'm here for a journalism seminar with 11 other Go-Co kids. I'm in charge of documenting the trip and compiling a promotional video, since this is a new seminar. Thus I have waaay too many pictures to upload them all, but I'm trying to pick out the best of them. I shall post them tomorrow for Photofinish Friday! Until then, some thoughts:
There is something pleasantly surreal about living in a city that is centuries older than my entire country.
Passing under stone archways, I wonder how they are still standing and what it was like for Saint Clare to pass under those same arches in the 1200s. Climbing the hill to the castle called La Rocca, I wonder how many battles were fought on these ancient slopes and for what. I wonder how this rich culture and civilization could be so deeply rooted in these mountains for thousands of years without tarnishing the green of the valley. I wonder how an ancient religious order still draws practicing friars in the 21st century.
Here in this place, free from cell phones and wireless Internet and the general hubbub of the States, where the gardens encroach on the city, where you can wash down gelato with a glass of wine, where the locals need their afternoon siesta, here where history is in the very mortar of the walls and where learning is not a chore but a privilege – here I can breathe.
We have a fantastic group without whom this beautiful place would be infinitely less beautiful. Everyone is so chill and there is almost always someone up for doing something (especially drinking vino!). It's hard to buckle down and do work when you're surrounded by so many great friends and such a rich culture, but thankfully the load isn't as heavy as our professor keeps making it out to be. At least I haven't found it to be so. Video work isn't stressful for me; in fact, except for the headache that is logging and capturing videos from a camcorder, I find it almost therapeutic. And with that I am off to play with my new buddy, Final Cut Express. Arrividerci!
Peace, love and gelato,
Miss Rex
Photofinish Friday: The end of junior year
Oops. I meant to post this yesterday, and thus begin the tradition that is to replace Excavations of Claymore for as long as I have no Claymore to excavate (i.e. for the summer). It's been crazy - I'm simultaneously trying to move back home and pack for Italy (I'm leaving tomorrow). So, alas, our new tradition fell by the wayside.
I am calling it Photofinish Friday. Although I cringe a little bit at the alliterative title, I think it's apt - Photofinish Friday posts will finish off the week with a series of photos I've taken that week.
I have two hopes for this new tradition. First, I hope it will encourage me to keep experimenting with my new camera, Cassie - not that I will simply take pictures but that I will learn all the cool features she has to offer. Second, I hope the posts will be quick "reads" for all of you. As much as I like to write longs posts, I don't usually like reading them because I have so many blogs to keep up with, and I figure many of you feel the same way - hence, the quickie.
So to kick it off, I've got some photos from the last week of school - enjoy!
Peace, love and packing,
Miss Rex
I am calling it Photofinish Friday. Although I cringe a little bit at the alliterative title, I think it's apt - Photofinish Friday posts will finish off the week with a series of photos I've taken that week.
I have two hopes for this new tradition. First, I hope it will encourage me to keep experimenting with my new camera, Cassie - not that I will simply take pictures but that I will learn all the cool features she has to offer. Second, I hope the posts will be quick "reads" for all of you. As much as I like to write longs posts, I don't usually like reading them because I have so many blogs to keep up with, and I figure many of you feel the same way - hence, the quickie.
So to kick it off, I've got some photos from the last week of school - enjoy!
Peace, love and packing,
Miss Rex
On Being a Loser
I wrote this for my internship in light of the fact that yet another school year is ending, possibly the best school year I've had yet at Go-Co, and how depressing it is that summer break is starting even now while my friend KZ packs his stuff into a mini-van and drives away.
I had the best hall ever this year. Thanks, guys, for resurrecting my social life. I made great friends in Claymore and I am sad to see the ghetto basement coffee house relocate to our lame fake pub next year. It's weird to say goodbye to the seniors after looking up to them for the past three years, and even though I have fewer close friends graduating this year than I did last, the ones that are leaving..... how will Go-Co ever be Go-Co without you? It will become a different place, and it will always be deficient without your presence, your advice, your laughter. Without you.
So yeah, before I start bawling my eyes out, here's the thing I wrote, entitled "On Being a Loser."
Every time I go home for the summer I find myself excavating the closet under the eaves in search of something I’ve lost. This also happens at Christmastime, Easter, Thanksgiving, and on sundry weekends throughout the year. I can’t help it; I’m a loser.
My favorite pants went missing for more than half a year. I haven’t seen my hiking boots since high school. There is a tragic space between Mae and Muse on my CD shelf where Matchbox Twenty should be. Sometimes when I leave my dorm I don’t even know where I parked my car. For the record, I hardly ever lose the keys.
But these things are only misplaced. More regrettable are the things that promise to stay lost: the poem I wrote in fourth grade, the recording of my best friend singing about green tea and the word “pshaw,” the plush bear my birth father gave me when I was born (one of the only mementos I had of him).
Are these important losses? I don’t know. For now, I still have the memories. The poem was less important than how nice it felt to see people smile when they read it. It’s not important that the recording got deleted as long as my friend and I can still scream “green tea!” to each other at random and confuse everybody else at parties. Knowing that my father wanted to be remembered is enough to remind me to remember him.
I think the greater losses are the ones we couldn’t hold to begin with. I lost a best friend once, and not knowing what happened to our friendship was volumes worse than not knowing what happened to the many books and CDs absent from my shelves.
I lost my childhood a few years back, and that was a shame, too. Finally realizing what a blessing I had in spite of stupid bullies at school, I’ve returned to my tree-climbing, Disney-watching days as best I can, but it’s not the same as having no obligations.
With the end of the school year looming, I realize I am about to lose something again. More friends are soon to graduate. In another year, I’ll be the one leaving school behind. Maybe then I will look back on these four years the way I look at childhood now.
But I don’t think we really lose the things we leave behind. I think we carry them forever. They carve themselves into the fleshy pink tissue of our brains and into the caverns of our hearts. We don’t lose them because they are us, and if we do lose them it’s because we meant to, or maybe they didn’t pierce us as sharply as we once thought.
My grandfather is losing his memory to Alzheimer’s. To me this seems the greatest loss of all. Everything I create, writing or otherwise, comes back to the friends who left and the ones who stayed, to the parents who loved me enough to give me up to a better life through adoption, to the songs that served as soundtracks through the high school gauntlet. To the things I carry in the compartments of my mind.
I know how to love because I’ve been hated. I know how to sacrifice because I’ve been shown more than selfishness. These are things I haven’t lost and will never lose, even if I can one day forget where they came from. I can tell that my grandfather still has them, and because of that, I can hope that wherever I may have left my car, there are some things I’ll never lose.
RIP, Go-Co 2009-2010. We'll go out with a bang at the Batrave tonight!
Peace, love and black lights,
Miss Rex
I had the best hall ever this year. Thanks, guys, for resurrecting my social life. I made great friends in Claymore and I am sad to see the ghetto basement coffee house relocate to our lame fake pub next year. It's weird to say goodbye to the seniors after looking up to them for the past three years, and even though I have fewer close friends graduating this year than I did last, the ones that are leaving..... how will Go-Co ever be Go-Co without you? It will become a different place, and it will always be deficient without your presence, your advice, your laughter. Without you.
So yeah, before I start bawling my eyes out, here's the thing I wrote, entitled "On Being a Loser."
Every time I go home for the summer I find myself excavating the closet under the eaves in search of something I’ve lost. This also happens at Christmastime, Easter, Thanksgiving, and on sundry weekends throughout the year. I can’t help it; I’m a loser.
My favorite pants went missing for more than half a year. I haven’t seen my hiking boots since high school. There is a tragic space between Mae and Muse on my CD shelf where Matchbox Twenty should be. Sometimes when I leave my dorm I don’t even know where I parked my car. For the record, I hardly ever lose the keys.
But these things are only misplaced. More regrettable are the things that promise to stay lost: the poem I wrote in fourth grade, the recording of my best friend singing about green tea and the word “pshaw,” the plush bear my birth father gave me when I was born (one of the only mementos I had of him).
Are these important losses? I don’t know. For now, I still have the memories. The poem was less important than how nice it felt to see people smile when they read it. It’s not important that the recording got deleted as long as my friend and I can still scream “green tea!” to each other at random and confuse everybody else at parties. Knowing that my father wanted to be remembered is enough to remind me to remember him.
I think the greater losses are the ones we couldn’t hold to begin with. I lost a best friend once, and not knowing what happened to our friendship was volumes worse than not knowing what happened to the many books and CDs absent from my shelves.
I lost my childhood a few years back, and that was a shame, too. Finally realizing what a blessing I had in spite of stupid bullies at school, I’ve returned to my tree-climbing, Disney-watching days as best I can, but it’s not the same as having no obligations.
With the end of the school year looming, I realize I am about to lose something again. More friends are soon to graduate. In another year, I’ll be the one leaving school behind. Maybe then I will look back on these four years the way I look at childhood now.
But I don’t think we really lose the things we leave behind. I think we carry them forever. They carve themselves into the fleshy pink tissue of our brains and into the caverns of our hearts. We don’t lose them because they are us, and if we do lose them it’s because we meant to, or maybe they didn’t pierce us as sharply as we once thought.
My grandfather is losing his memory to Alzheimer’s. To me this seems the greatest loss of all. Everything I create, writing or otherwise, comes back to the friends who left and the ones who stayed, to the parents who loved me enough to give me up to a better life through adoption, to the songs that served as soundtracks through the high school gauntlet. To the things I carry in the compartments of my mind.
I know how to love because I’ve been hated. I know how to sacrifice because I’ve been shown more than selfishness. These are things I haven’t lost and will never lose, even if I can one day forget where they came from. I can tell that my grandfather still has them, and because of that, I can hope that wherever I may have left my car, there are some things I’ll never lose.
RIP, Go-Co 2009-2010. We'll go out with a bang at the Batrave tonight!
Peace, love and black lights,
Miss Rex
Dear Mother
These may be a tad late for Earth week, but I'd like to share them all the same. Not sure how to give Mother Earth a hug? Here are some ideas.
1. Save the monkeys by buying your monkey bread locally.
2. Save water by not flushing the toilet.
3. Save a mattress: sleep outside! Who needs waterfront homes when the view from the ground is this stunning?
4. Do your homework in a tree.
5. Stop and smell the roses (or whatever these are).
But DON'T do this:
"Dear Go-Co: Happy Earth day. Let us take these trees off your hands. Love, Some Assholes With Chainsaws."
Don't worry, the pics from Salisbury will be up shortly; they just require a little more adjustment as far as lighting and such. I only post the best for you guys.
1. Save the monkeys by buying your monkey bread locally.
2. Save water by not flushing the toilet.
3. Save a mattress: sleep outside! Who needs waterfront homes when the view from the ground is this stunning?
4. Do your homework in a tree.
5. Stop and smell the roses (or whatever these are).
But DON'T do this:
"Dear Go-Co: Happy Earth day. Let us take these trees off your hands. Love, Some Assholes With Chainsaws."
Don't worry, the pics from Salisbury will be up shortly; they just require a little more adjustment as far as lighting and such. I only post the best for you guys.
Let's get ready to raaaaamble
This Sunday was Adam Ezra Group's Ramble at Salisbury Beach. If you saw my Ramble plug, you know that buses were supposed to pick up concertgoers and take them to the venue for a pre-amble complete with sand, snacks and the obligatory meet and greet. All fabulous in theory. In practice, though...
My bus never came. Turns out that the driver got so turned around by the Walk for Hunger in Boston that he just forgot to come to Go-Co. My car effed up again on my way back to school Friday afternoon, so I was wary of taking the poor guy on a 45-minute road trip, but I was desperate. It would've taken more than twice as long for the bus to drop off the rest of the kids and come back for me. On the bright side, it was a gorgeous day for a drive and my route took me through some really nice scenery. And I didn't have to leave the show as early as everybody else did, which equaled chill time with the band, which you know was a big perk in my book!
Salisbury Beach was a town in a time warp. There were old-school arcades with games from the early '80s, if not earlier. I imagine Hull used to look like this back in its heyday. Wish it still did. I took on Rob, AEG's bassist, at air hockey and tried all the cookies in the fundraiser contest, but I didn't get much hang time with the band because I was so late and they had to go warm up. Adam felt really bad the bus forgot me. Turtle said, "I told you it wouldn't work."
I took many a picture with my new camera, which I've dubbed "Cassie." Here I'd like to share the best of them with you. Concert photos first; later I'll post pictures of the town once I've had a chance to sort/fix them.
I helped the guys pack out after the show and we chilled outside with a couple girls who go to even more of their shows than I do. I found out Chappy (the one playing the weird drum thing that looks like an urn) grew up in the town next to mine. Small world. Then they all decided to go to a bar, and they were going to pretend I was 21 so I could go in with them and I just wouldn't order any drinks, but alas, they were checking IDs at the door, so I left. Apparently I am now cool enough to get a kiss on the cheek from Adam when I say goodbye. That's kind of rad.
The rest of the night turned into a fiasco of epic proportions, but that is a story for another time.
My bus never came. Turns out that the driver got so turned around by the Walk for Hunger in Boston that he just forgot to come to Go-Co. My car effed up again on my way back to school Friday afternoon, so I was wary of taking the poor guy on a 45-minute road trip, but I was desperate. It would've taken more than twice as long for the bus to drop off the rest of the kids and come back for me. On the bright side, it was a gorgeous day for a drive and my route took me through some really nice scenery. And I didn't have to leave the show as early as everybody else did, which equaled chill time with the band, which you know was a big perk in my book!
Salisbury Beach was a town in a time warp. There were old-school arcades with games from the early '80s, if not earlier. I imagine Hull used to look like this back in its heyday. Wish it still did. I took on Rob, AEG's bassist, at air hockey and tried all the cookies in the fundraiser contest, but I didn't get much hang time with the band because I was so late and they had to go warm up. Adam felt really bad the bus forgot me. Turtle said, "I told you it wouldn't work."
I took many a picture with my new camera, which I've dubbed "Cassie." Here I'd like to share the best of them with you. Concert photos first; later I'll post pictures of the town once I've had a chance to sort/fix them.
I helped the guys pack out after the show and we chilled outside with a couple girls who go to even more of their shows than I do. I found out Chappy (the one playing the weird drum thing that looks like an urn) grew up in the town next to mine. Small world. Then they all decided to go to a bar, and they were going to pretend I was 21 so I could go in with them and I just wouldn't order any drinks, but alas, they were checking IDs at the door, so I left. Apparently I am now cool enough to get a kiss on the cheek from Adam when I say goodbye. That's kind of rad.
The rest of the night turned into a fiasco of epic proportions, but that is a story for another time.
Narcissism.me
Have you heard of formspring.me? Of course you have, you good little social networker, you. It's the new Twitter, the grandchild of the 200-question MySpace bulletin survey. ANYONE CAN ASK YOU ANYTHING, AND YOU'LL LOVE IT.
EVERYONE will ask you bazillions of questions, because EVERYONE wants to know the deep dark secrets of quirky, fabulous YOU, and you will get social networker's high telling them all the TMI they never wanted to know about quirky fabulous you. To the umpteenth degree. Am I right or am I right?
Problem. As much as quirky fabulous narcissistic you loves telling un-quirky un-fabulous everyone-else about YOU, well, everyone else would much rather be telling YOU how quirky and fabulous THEY are. It's all one big cry for attention. And look, I get it; we all love the feeling of eyes on us, we all want to be loved, we all want to feel like others find us interesting and unique. I want that, too. But frankly they don't give a damn about your deep dark secrets.
At least this is the theory behind why I don't have a formspring. It seems like people are always using their Facebook statuses to beg their friends to ask them questions on formspring.me, and that is just sad. Sorry if you do this, but when I see that on my news feed, I think, "This is stupid." I always want to ask a question because I feel bad that they have been so unsuccessful in their ventures of narcissism that they need to go on Facebook to ask people to ask them questions, but I can never think of anything interesting or creative to say.
I was never too good at truth or dare, either.
But I was always good at those 200-question MySpace surveys (probably because they were all about quirky fabulous ME), which makes formspring sound like it COULD be fun. I just... can't be okay with further fueling said narcissism. I mean, I guess it's narcissistic to blog, too, as if anyone should care what I have to say, but at least a blog is a legitimate way to get your name out there en route to authordom.
I also have a problem with the anonymity factor. Some small interactive feature might redeem this Me machine, but you don't even know who's asking you these (sometimes highly personal/inappropriate) questions. Yeah, sometimes that affects the answer; but it should, shouldn't it? In a normal, healthy, face-to-face conversation it would.
I guess it also comes down to the fact that I don't expect anyone would be very interested in asking me anything anyway, and I think that would just be depressing.
EVERYONE will ask you bazillions of questions, because EVERYONE wants to know the deep dark secrets of quirky, fabulous YOU, and you will get social networker's high telling them all the TMI they never wanted to know about quirky fabulous you. To the umpteenth degree. Am I right or am I right?
Problem. As much as quirky fabulous narcissistic you loves telling un-quirky un-fabulous everyone-else about YOU, well, everyone else would much rather be telling YOU how quirky and fabulous THEY are. It's all one big cry for attention. And look, I get it; we all love the feeling of eyes on us, we all want to be loved, we all want to feel like others find us interesting and unique. I want that, too. But frankly they don't give a damn about your deep dark secrets.
At least this is the theory behind why I don't have a formspring. It seems like people are always using their Facebook statuses to beg their friends to ask them questions on formspring.me, and that is just sad. Sorry if you do this, but when I see that on my news feed, I think, "This is stupid." I always want to ask a question because I feel bad that they have been so unsuccessful in their ventures of narcissism that they need to go on Facebook to ask people to ask them questions, but I can never think of anything interesting or creative to say.
I was never too good at truth or dare, either.
But I was always good at those 200-question MySpace surveys (probably because they were all about quirky fabulous ME), which makes formspring sound like it COULD be fun. I just... can't be okay with further fueling said narcissism. I mean, I guess it's narcissistic to blog, too, as if anyone should care what I have to say, but at least a blog is a legitimate way to get your name out there en route to authordom.
I also have a problem with the anonymity factor. Some small interactive feature might redeem this Me machine, but you don't even know who's asking you these (sometimes highly personal/inappropriate) questions. Yeah, sometimes that affects the answer; but it should, shouldn't it? In a normal, healthy, face-to-face conversation it would.
I guess it also comes down to the fact that I don't expect anyone would be very interested in asking me anything anyway, and I think that would just be depressing.
