in my way I set you free

Pictured above is Thanksgiving Dinner, Part 1. It didn't know it was the first in what was to be a series of turkey dinners, and neither did the girl who made it. Her boyfriend had brought fresh cranberry sauce home from work, and also she knew she was working on real Thanksgiving and as such was sad about having to wait until Christmas to eat her mom's green bean casserole. So she got some deli turkey and baked a sweet potato and mashed it up and made the casserole from memory. It turned out okay. 

Then we went home (HEY NARRATIVE CHANGE-UP, HOW YOU DOIN?) the next weekend, and had (another) (early) turkey dinner (again.) (There was a better picture of my mom and Diego stuffing fruit up a turkey's butt together, but someone who shall remain nameless deleted it because he didn't like it. DON'T WORRY, I threw a temper tantrum of disproportionate proportions in reaction to this crime when I went to look for that one specific picture and realized it wasn't there.) We hadn't planned on visiting, so it was a nice sort of "Surprise, Thanksgiving!" impromptu sort of occasion, and also instead of pie we had birthday cake because of my brother. 

And also, we waxed lips and eyebrows while waiting for the turkey to be hot enough. What does your family do? Let me know in the comments below, and you'll be entered to win an iPod shuffle from 2005 and the privilege of my esteem. 

This picture doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving, except that it happened at some point in between the three Thanksgivings I had. Look at how good my sparkly sleeves are. 

On real Thanksgiving, I worked for ten hours and had a lot of fun making up stories about the people who found their way into my work on Thanksgiving Day and then came home to eat the turkey mole the BF made. It was the same as our Thanksgiving last year, I think we even got the same wine, except that in a different apartment and this year we put our plates on a box instead of directly onto the floor. We have, in fact, managed to fit a table into our 2.4 square feet of living space, but, picnic. Also, it's fun to do these silly things every year and think about eventually having babies to do them with. It's weird to have found the person I want to procreate with, weird to actually have my person sitting in front of me, and know that someday there could be tiny people who look sort of like us and think that Thanksgiving is the holiday where we sit on the floor to eat dinner and aren't Mommy and Daddy wonderful. Mostly Mommy.

Thanksgiving weekend we went to an event that that same nameless person from earlier spent a panic-attack inducing amount of money on tickets to. It was fun. I wore colors on my eyelids and sparkles on my skirt and a cardigan, and won an award for least amount of skin showing. 

I also won an award for most amount of time in between eyebrow waxes. You know what, though? You manage my schedule and simultaneously maintain perfect brows and I'LL give YOU an award. (You guessed it, an iPod shuffle from 2005.) Edit: I realize that I just showed you a picture of waxing on Thanksgiving and now a week later my eyebrows are furry again. To be clear, my eyebrow bushes don't regenerate themselves at an unusually fast rate, I just didn't do them on that day because of laziness. (Also because I was more focused on how much fun it is to wax a boyfriend.) So also, to clarify, it's less my schedule and more my laziness that accounts for my being unkempt. 

I'm taking a mini vacation for Christmas, and I'm not sure if I'm more excited about sparkly lights or about not having to wake up at 3:30 for four days in a row. It's probably about equal. Today is my day off from work and school and boyfriend because he's at work, and I don't mean that in a mean way I mean it in an I-don't-have-to-talk-to-anybody-today-if-I-don't-want-to-and-it's-my-favorite-day way. I had grand plans of finishing all the homework and studying for all the finals but instead I went back to sleep this morning and didn't get up until noon. And then I washed the dishes, and then I wrote this blog. And now I'm going to take a shower and go buy vegetables because I'm so bloated I'm surprised I can walk in a straightish line without tipping over. 

who suggested a hot dog bake sale

 

The point of this picture was to see what my legs looked like in tall shoes, because while I'm totally good with flashing my stem skin now it hasn't always been that way and I still have feelings of mehr about my sturdy Irish farmer legs. (That came without ankles but in the interest of keeping away from body shaming or whatever I won't bemoan my lack of ankles here. Except that yes I will, because this is my blog and it's not shaming to wonder where the HELL I was when the ankles were being handed out.) So whatever anyway I took a picture to decide whether or not I could wear these shoes in the world. And I realized that sometimes I spend far too many minutes trying to see my physical self the way others see it. That is an unnatural angle for one's neck to be craning in for so much time, friends. And I am sharing this with you because I think, somehow, it would bother me more if I kept it to myself. All secret-like and dust-gathering and gross.

I'm pretty comfortable with my body but I do catch myself measuring it against the standards of some made-up something that I never have been and never will be more times than I am happy with. I remember telling my brother I wished I had his legs once when I was like ten and he was eight and we were laying in the hammock in our yard only by "laying" I obviously mean trying to push each other out of it or make it spin all the way around with both of us inside of it because that is clearly the intended purpose of hammocks. I WANTED THE LEGS OF AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY. A particularly scrawny one, at that. What in the whatting what. And I don't do that anymore, honestly ever, look at someone else and say "I wish I had their ____." Because that is a waste of wishes, is what that is. And also because the older I get the more I appreciate the reflection of my life that my body is, and also also, let's be honest, I have aged really well. I look good. I mean really good. In fact, why doesn't everyone come and see how good I look? 

Anyway all I'm trying to say is, if you don't see me around in grown lady shoes during these hot months (which I don't believe are ever going to get here for real and stay because I have PTSnowD) it's not because I'm insecure about how they display my lack of ankles. It's because I can't walk in them. And also because my summer project is to trick this man who is only slightly taller than I am down an aisle (any aisle, I'm not picky, but hopefully the cookie one) and if that isn't a good excuse to keep on wearing different-color Old Navy flip-flops and passably-cute Target sandals from like three years ago, then I honestly really don't know what is.

i must be what i must be and face tomorrow

This is what I'm wearing today. It might get all the way up to 60 this afternoon
and I might wish I'd worn a dress, but no I will not because one can always remove clothes.
It's much worse to be cold and not have more clothes to put on.

Can we talk about Forever21 for a minute? GREAT.

I'm pretty sure I've said this a million times before but I get 95% of my clothing from Goodwill. Usually I buy shoes new (not because I'm opposed to second-hand shoes, but because there aren't ever any non-disgusting ones in my size) and obviously I have my underwear custom-made for me. Or if my tailor is booked I buy it at Target. (DIGRESSION: Once I had a boyfriend who offered to buy me clothes when he found out I shopped almost exclusively at Goodwill. I laughed for a long time but I did let him buy me a lot of food. Also once right after I moved to Brooklyn and he'd come to visit, he left piles of quarters around my bedroom "accidentally." Basically he didn't understand anything about my whole entire life. He was very nice though, and a very safe driver, and he loves his mom a lot but not too much, and he built his own house, so if any of you ladies are in the market for a twenty-six-year-old malething to make a baby with I will try and set it up.)

I know I said I wanted to talk about Forever21 and then I didn't. But I'm going to. Right now.

I have vague moral questions about shopping at big box chain stores or whatever it is they're called, but as I think I illustrate here pretty regularly, I don't know shit about shit and so, whatever. As far as I'm aware they're not clubbing baby seals in the warehouse, and also I think the economy is made out of make-believe anyway, and also other things. My objection to Forever21 is not that. But first I have a question: How many of you actually go inside an actual Forever21 to purchase clothes? Do you mainly just use the website, or do you like physically going in there and shopping?

Because I get panic attacks even walking by a Forever21. Well no, that's a lie. I see one and go, "Ooh! There are things that are pretty inside of there" but then the minute I step inside I remember that I hate everything about being alive and having senses. Because the music is always louder than my thoughts are and I always feel like the other customers are shopping with a purpose and know where stuff is and I'm always bumping into someone and crying because I just need the cardigan section, please. Where is the cardigan section? And the dressing rooms are always ROASTING and it stresses me out that the dividers are made out of fabric and I'm afraid I'm going to fall over sideways (a reasonable fear if you are me) and rip everything down. This past weekend I was like two hours early to meet my life partner in Union Square, so I went into Forever21 because I sort of wanted something a little scandalous to wear out. I'll give you a minute to disapprove. Okay. So all of the things I just described went on, plus I had my bags with me so I was in extra-strong knocking-stuff-over mode. Plus all of the girls working that day had on crop tops and I am always fascinated by girls who look good in crop tops because that will be me never, as long as Cheetos keep being a thing, and so in my wild-eyed/distracted/overstimulated state I bought this dress (WITH ALL OF THE DOLLARS I DEFINITELY HAVE):

Only in pink. So anyone who's ever bought a dress at this establishment understands that the models are aliens and in real life nowhere near that much leg is covered. This is not news. This is like, Forever21 101. Well I failed. I really do not know what drove me to take it home, except that if you ignored the fact that you could see my uterus it really was a very pretty dress. And my uterus and I looked AMAZING in it, I'm just saying. So whatever, my misgivings started as soon as I walked out clutching the tiny yellow bag and by that night I was 99% sure that that purchase wasn't the best idea I ever had. And I have had some shockingly bad ideas. So I tried it on again and it was unanimously decided that it looked good, but in a weird Barbie kind of way because I was too worried about shortness to do anything except for stand very still. So I thought, maybe if I size up it'll be longer, so I had my mini friend from a previous SFW post try it on so I could see what it was supposed to look like. AND IT LOOKED AMAZING ON HER. So I killed her. And then the next morning I took it back but of course the next size up was not only way too big but somehow still way too short. So I gave up and just got yet another black polka-dot dress (that actually fits like a dress and not like a necklace) to add to my rapidly-growing collection, plus a ring that I think I already lost. And then the gent at the register said I still had a few dollars of credit left, and I must have looked dismayed/nauseated at the thought of going back out onto the floor to find something else for two dollars, because he pulled out the mustache tote and my dismay evaporated.

So all of this rambling was really just a way to tell you that I did not mean for that mustache tote to come into my life, but it did. Which further cements my sort-of belief that everything happens for a reason, sometimes. Just like when you get ladybrain about one person, which turns out to be a good thing, because if that never happened you wouldn't have met this much better person, only now you kind of feel like you're on the verge of throwing up all the time because you haven't felt feelings in a while and it is shocking to the system. IT'S BEEN A LOT OF HOURS WHY HASN'T HE TEXTED. Why am I thirteen. Why. Why. Also thank goddess texting wasn't a thing yet when I really was thirteen because, because.

Remember yesterday when I said I'd participate in the last day of SFW if I had my life together enough? Well, my life is not together but instead of doing something about that I am writing long rambley blogs about I already forgot what. Sometimes I think blogging is just one giant displacement activity for me, which would explain why I am almost never talking about anything.

Linking up with Delirious Rhapsody! Sorry I tricked you guys into thinking this was a post about clothes. Don't be mad! I can change!

they had a broken keyboard, i bought a broken keyboard

I was pretty miserly yesterday. And if how I feel this morning is any indication, today might be the same. I keep trying to decide to be in a good mood, and sometimes it works for a few minutes, but mostly I just want to push stuff over. Also I feel lecherous and gross-looking, which is neither helpful to my "I just want to lie down forever" outlook nor is it in keeping with the spirit of Spring Fashion Week. Sorry for being all Debbie Downer, ladies. And THANK YOU so much for all of your sweet emails! My comments are disabled, so it's not you, it's me, for those of you who asked. And thank you to Deanna for hosting a week where pretty, interesting women compliment the crap out of each other. I like it. And I like creeping on all of your pictures.

What I'm wearing today. Right now. To be at school for forever.

(I'm over learning, you guys. I'm hoping it's spring fever and not "I want to move again" fever.)

Cat dress and carousel earrings. Chucks not pictured.

Can't remember where mystery bruise on arm came from? Probably Forever21.

Another Little House on the Prairie-inspired outfit. 

I like this dress but something about the fabric transforms my underarms into the Orinoco. 

In a sexy way, obviously.

This coat was six dollars.

I won everything forever that day.

Linking up with Delirious Rhapsody! I may or may not participate tomorrow, since it is a packattheverylastpossiblesecond/classes/travel day and how together my life will be is hinging on whether or not I am still an exposed nerve by the end of today. I think I am going to eat a lot of chocolate and hope for the best, although I'm not sure that's a good idea when I already feel like an ogre? WHAT DO I DO. Maybe will just put my head down for a long time. 

xoxo!

the time i was a cat lady. all of the time.

Sometimes I dress like an extra on the set of Little House on the Prairie.

Although now as I'm looking at this picture I'm realizing it's also a lot like what I wore to kindergarten.

If I could get my hands on an adult-sized purple Lion King sweat suit I'd wear that, too.

Also a Little Mermaid nightgown. Also I wish my mom still brushed my hair for me.

When I bought this dress it was down to my ankles so I chopped it and used the excess fabric
to upholster a cat-sized sofa. I was going to take the rest of it in so it'd actually fit me, but

I feel like I'm going to want a huge tent-y dress this summer because of hotness and eating a lot of things.

Also I only know two tricks on my sewing machine and that's not one of them.

Easily the most versatile sweater I own, it goes with everything. Everything. Always.

Leg warmers and slippers happened a lot of times this winter/fake spring.

Evidently so did my face makeup not being the right color. I AM GOOD AT THINGS.

Linking up with Delirious Rhapsody!

and the sun pours down like honey

I don't know, you guys. I feel like I could definitely be a full-time fashion blogger. Kindergarteners are practically teaching themselves these days anyhow. I will call this chapter of my memoir "The Time a Link-Up Altered My Life Trajectory." 

But that won't be out for a while so in the meantime LOOK AT THESE PICTURES OF ME:

 I only look miserable because it's five in the morning and my smile was still in bed.

I like this dress because it's made out of some weird material that feels a lot like wearing a hug.

The problem with this dress is that it creepily bunches up in the middle and if I'm not careful

my ovaries wind up exposed to the elements. Plus, lumpy-looking.

On the regular, I find dresses and get really excited about them only to realize

that they are NOT dresses, they are jumpers. And generally I think jumpers should be 

reserved for people who are four. But this one was practically free and I really liked the neckline,

so I thought MEH and brought it home and cut out the shoulder pads. And it was fine,

until I had to pee. And let me tell you, "Neglecting to Take Bodily Functions into Account
Whilst Making Purchases" is going to have to be another chapter of my memoir because if telling
the story of how you spent too many minutes shivering half-dressed in a cold stall while
praying that there wouldn't be some sort of emergency evacuation isn't literary gold,
then I don't know what is.

And because of honesty: 

What I Wore to go to school and then to the train station

and then to put a lot of dinner into my mouth and then to make

gestures at "staying in and studying" in an attempt to make up for the 

poor life choices that would be made over the next few days.

Go look at pretty girls.

i wear your grandpa's clothes, i look incredible.

I know this is supposed to be 'spring fashion week' but I think
Deanna forgot to tell spring stop by my house so I could participate in her link-up.

It's kind of nicer out lately, yes. But my low iron and I will continue utilizing layers until we get to 70 degrees,

and we will also continue to be tempted to put blankets over the girls who are already laying

on the grass on the quad in their undergarments.

The above is the least amount of clothes I've worn outside since last summer,
and that is actually a lie because at the last minute I put a sweater on.

Also, since it's Fashion Week and all, I feel like I can tell you a secret.
When I am packing my weekend bag (which is actually just a reusable grocery bag and/or my backpack for school,
don't let me fool you into thinking I am put-together enough to own a "weekend bag") I sometimes
take pictures of the clothes I'm considering bringing to try and minimize the amount of extra stuff I pack to
try and minimize the amount of curve in my spine. Also I get up too early in the morning.
Also I should probably be medicated, because also also I make "real-life" poses sometimes

to try and mimic what the clothes will look like "in action." You want to be my friend, and it's fine.

These are some outfits that never saw the light of day, or, as the case may have been, the dark of night:

The middle dress was the most disappointing, because I didn't realize until I got it home
that it accentuated parts of my person that I would rather not be accentuated, ie, HI LOVE HANDLES.

So I gave it to my friend who is miniature and it looked more like a dress on her
and she got a lot of compliments and I was only a little jealous.

Here is an extremely flattering picture of that:

Reason #183710984 why I'm not on Facebook:
This is one of the more flattering pictures of me floating around on there.
I cannot face the faces I make. I haven't the strength.

Now gooo look at all the cute girls linking up.

your sky all hung with jewels

At the Dressing Table, self portrait, Zinaida Serebriakova

The source is the internet, stupid.

I will ruin your shots, so hard, every time. So why, then, these images of myself? 
(Probably I am just a douche, but if so I'm not the only one. And I want to know why we are being douches. If that is what we are being.) 
Do you know why, though? If you do, could you tell me?

(Is taking pictures of yourself different from carving your name into something? How is or isn't it? What's the fascination? What's the motivation? What's the velocity of a swallow?)

That was, of course, a preamble to this:

What I wore to life this week! Except it is a lie because of blizzards, so it's kind of last week too, because fuck putting on clothes to be snowed in.In the house = pajamas, always.
Personally I like when blog ladies post clothes pictures. Not fashion blogs, I don't read those, because in my opinion they are boring and I like blogs that um, talk about stuff.
Number one, I just like pictures of pretty girls, and that is what you all are.
Number two is that I steal clothes from the friends I see all the time, so why should you all be exempt from my sticky fingers? I'll be at your house in an hour.
Number three is just that I'm a creepy voyeur, but you knew that. (This seems like a good time to tell you that in real life, I have a mustache.)
Also I've found that you can learn a lot about somebody from their outfit photos. For example, you all now know that I sometimes wear fur. And that I shop in the little boys' section of BJs more than sometimes. And that I wear the same shirts a bunch of times in one week, which you probably already knew, just like you already knew I don't brush my hair a lot. And don't you like me more now?

and i don't even identify with many phish fans anymore

I don't want to make you work that hard. It shouldn't be like that.
Maybe someday I can be the love that knocks on your door.

nobody knows it but me when i slip, yeah i slip i'm still an animal

Because sometimes mirrors aren't entirely truthful.
(Sometimes I am pretty sure that watching Clueless so many times during my formative years did something permanent to my brain. Once when I was watching it the summer before freshman year I remember her relationship making me think, "No one has felt a love quite like mine for my boyfriend. I am so lucky." We'd been going out for eight whole days and about two days after my Cher-inspired reverie he dumped me via AIM, saying: "I'd rather be a good friend to you than a bad boyfriend." So yeah, since I've been dumped twice in my entire life I'd say that makes my average a pretty good one. Except it's going to really fucking suck when I'm actually in love with somebody and they break it off and my system goes into shock because I haven't built up a tolerance. OH, my god. This blog is a giant exercise in testing the limits of how many nonsense digressions parentheses can hold.)

So despite the lack of anything remotely interesting going on in this space (EVER) I have been making a point to write more, and regularly. And by "making a point to" I mean I wrote it down in my journal as a goal to meet, which is how you can tell I mean business (at the exact second I write down a goal, until something more interesting happens and I forget about self-improvement.) A thousand words of free-writing a day (or any writing really outside of academia) seemed pretty do-able and I have surprisingly been do-able-ing it.. Actually I usually end up with more like 5000 words, which is partly why this blog has been so quiet, because my intention was to share pieces of whatever I came up with on here. Which was a Good Idea, since it would combine my winding-down-before-bed-time with my blogging-time-that-I-never-actually-scheduled-before-but-will-now-because-it-is-in-combination-with-something-else. Except that it is also kind of a Problematic Idea because AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME TO READ THOUSANDS OF WORDS' WORTH OF YOUR AIMLESS THOUGHTS, LINDS.

broken hearts hurt but they make us strong

My blood is probably 105% sugar right now.
Because that's what Christmas is about.
(Gaining several pounds of cookie weight so that when you go back to eating normally after the New Year you automatically lose it and fulfill a resolution. Achieving goals is really important, you guys. Remember that.)

So around this time last year my brother came to visit me and my friend and I took him out in Manhattan for his birthday. (Ostensibly. The real reason I made him come was to force him to pay for half my mom's Christmas present and to use his employee discount to get this jacket I really wanted. You wish I was your sister.) There were Santas EVERYWHERE. And none of us had any idea what was going on. Because we are uncultured and unworldly and had never heard of Santacon. We weren't near the real action but Santas and elves and some Grinches filtered in and out of the bars we perched at and my brother groped a man dressed as the Pope. And that made me happy, because for once I wasn't the one making inappropriate advances at a man of the cloth.

Anyway this year I was super excited to participate! No, just kidding. I mean I did participate and it was fun, but I did it less out of excitement and more because this is the kind of shit you get roped into when you chill with sorority girls from South Carolina. They LOVE a good crazy outfit and some dranks. The dranks would be the reason I don't have any pictures. NOT BECAUSE OF TOO MANY, or anything. But because of, you know, holding them. Also holding hands with Santas. And you really need a hand free to put your fake phone number into the Santas' phones under the name "Mrs. Claws" because, cat joke, get it. The whole thing seems kind of fratty and dumb to me and I imagine a lot of people get irritated with drunken Santas stumbling through the streets and trains BUT. I got to wear a Santa hat with a giant green glittery bow sewed on, so. Also three of us ironed "HO" on big red man sweatsuits (on top of like 3 other layers, DECEMBER IS COLD GIRLS) and some Asian tourists asked to take a picture with us. So I'm famous now. So see you losers never. I feel bad about not being able to show you guys how seriously cute I was as 1/3 of Santa's weather-appropriately-dressed hos so here is a picture of What I Wore to Take My History Final Today, featuring my lucky tie-dye that I slept in last night and yesterday's flattened curls and my legs looking really fucking weird:

I feel like that makes up for it. We STILL have no Christmas decorations up, which is especially sad when even my Jewish friends have Christmas tree pictures on their walls:

See it? Oh what? Did the really awesome birthday present I hand-crafted for her take up most of the picture? Whoops.

Hmm. What else. On Friday I spent all morning and most of the afternoon Christmas shopping and stalking the Union Square Holiday Market for free fudge while other people, like, I don't know. Went to their jobs or something stupid. It was really nice to spend a day alone because I feel like I don't get many opportunities to take myself out on special dates lately. Later we "baked cookies" to bring to a holiday party/cookie exchange right after Santacon, which somehow turned out to mean making best friends with 900,000 of Astoria's local dollar store merchants in search of a gingerbread man cookie cutter and then driving around Flushing in the middle of the night. In New Haven on Sunday night something sort of scary happened which will probably have its own post later. Monday class was cancelled which would have been nicer had it not been for kind of a sad reason so I spent all day studying, yesterday I crushed the first part of my math final and got my speech grade (100 obviously) and had the nicest friend date ever, and today I took another final and am at this very moment writing an extremely long and rambling blog instead of studying more math for tomorrow.

one step closer to that pulitzer

I was going to attempt to do a week of "What I Wore" but after a few days I realized that perhaps pictures of me in my bedroom at five in the morning aren't terribly interesting. And also I am not particularly fashionable, but rather a classic, timeless beauty-having type. As you know. But exactly TWO persons suggested I might like doing outfit posts and really, any excuse to take pictures of and admire myself.  Maybe definitely should fix this camera situation and make effort to take pictures in places slightly more exciting than my bedroom. [I have left this space for you to insert your own pun about my bedroom being a VERY exciting place. You see, I am always thinking of you.]

  Paint, sweat, black mold, soil, plaster dust/drywall dust/canyon dust/sawdust, clay, kid boogers, mud - lots of substances memories in the fibers of that sweatshirt. But as the memories are many years old all germy properties are neutralized. SCIENCE. Also sweatshirts are a conveniently transcendent pajama/daytime clothing item.

sweatshirt - courtesy of nccc. get things done, plus get a sweatshirt. 

t shirt - don't remember

jeans - don't remember

shoes - chanel slingbacks (not pictured)

 dress - target/goodwill

cardigan - not sure, possibly stolen from roommate

shoes - diamonds in the soles of (not pictured)

 

 dress - goodwill/target

cardigan - same one. still probably stolen. although i can hardly be blamed for theft when things are all mixed in together. also because i black out when i steal things.

shoes - glass slippers, cinderella-style (not pictured)

sweater - knitted by angels in forever 21 factory

earrings - "let's move in together" present from ex boyfriend. cute despite questionable karma of having hurt feelings of giver. 

shoes - channeling socrates, not wearing any

 shirt? dress? - goodwill/h&m

other shirt - old navy

shoes - ruby, like dorothy's (not pictured)

Hm. Not exactly sure how successful this experiment was. Let me know in the comments below - oh, nope.

[I'm about to complain for a minute, skip this if you want.]

You guys. I feel so annoying about this, but one of my professors gave me a completely unfair grade on an assignment I recently did. The reason I feel annoying about it is because I got a 98. I know I know, wah wah wah. But I earned a 100, I know I definitely did. And in the comments on the grading sheet she wrote how wonderful (exact words: vivid, interesting, relevant, engaging, excellent) it was, nothing about why she'd taken points off, and at the end of my speech (the assignment) I got a standing ovation from the class INCLUDING the people of the stoned/disinterested/asleep variety. Listen, I give BOMB speeches. For real. It's the universe making up for me being completely inept in every other social arena. If this class weren't a requirement I wouldn't need it, which is why it is burning. my. ass even more that the professor is so... whatever she is. I like her fine, she's just outrageously unorganized (ie, losing people's work, insisting that people never turned things in even though they are holding in their hands the exact work that she has already graded and handed back) and I am beginning to think she must not like me so much because it's not like she's grading me harder than everyone else, which might be equally unfair but at least would be something I could understand. Actually I'd appreciate that because then I'd be forced to improve and might actually get something out of the course. But she's not, and as I've looked back over other assignments I'm realizing that any point I have ever lost has been either arbitrarily taken off or has been the result of her being unclear about what she wanted. Oh oh! AND on this particular assignment she had originally written "10/10" next to what she'd taken points off off and then gone back and changed it. UM. And the icing on her poor communication cake is that she's legally deaf, which doesn't necessarily impair a person's ability to effectively communicate or teach but in her case means that any and every conversation you have with her involves repeating yourself nine hundred times because first it's that she actually can't hear you and then that she's just a hot mess. Anyway I have to meet with her to talk about my grade and the fact that she's lost another one of my take-home tests and hopefully this scheduled conversation goes better than our other ones, because I hate turning things into "situations" but I absolutely fucking will if someone's just not doing their job. And I like her as a lady. I really do. Sigh. Awkward.

Ultimately of course this doesn't actually matter, and I know that and have had to deal with far more difficult people in far more serious situations and don't worry, yes I am feeling as guilty as ever about complaining about my first world problems because at least I have a toilet (which, let me take a minute to complain about that too: LADIES. WTH. Wipe the seat. God.) but still. Boo hoo, 98.

/complaining

Also I feel I must share this with you, as it is an age-old question that I myself have been faced with THREE TIMES so far in my twenties: How do you know if you're on a date with a lesbian or if you're just two pretty girls hanging out? It makes me feel enormously better that it's not just me this happens to, although full disclosure requires me to admit that I have definitely encouraged said Sapphic sisters in these "Are we girlfriends or are we, you know, girlfriends?" situations. I have to keep reminding myself that there's a difference between being "open-minded" about, hrrrm, "engaging in certain activities" and being gay and that I need to get a grip because let's be real, I'm marrying a boy. Anyway Samantha Irby is my favorite and I'd definitely go on an on-purpose date with her. SO OH HEY, SAM!

~

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.

And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others.

And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore  

~

Those pictures are about a year old. You don't mind though. 

Here's a recent picture: Remember that two-dollar dress I told you about that one time?

Thankful.

So, to preface this and the rest of what I say to any of you for the rest of my life, I am going to be twenty-four on my next birthday, not twenty-three as I said in my last post. I miscalculated because sometimes I don't know what year we're in. 

This song is stuck in my head:



Grizzly Bear is fun to search on YouTube because, obviously. "Grizzly bear devours trainer," etc. Also grizzly bears make me think about Dwight Shrute. (Who IS Justice Beaver? Do any of us really know?)

And also this song:

Over Thanksgiving break, I will: 
-Bake some stuff.
-Read a lot, but
-NOT check out dense Russian literature. I will leave it on the shelf for people who will actually read it.
-Take long walks to balance out the baking.
-Buy a new supportive undergarment. (I need a bra that doesn't poke me, but I didn't want to just write bra? So I wrote "supportive undergarment" instead, only that's worse, right, because now it sounds like I'm going girdle shopping. And now you're picturing me in girdles!! Or, you weren't, but now you are because I said that. Probably should just take this whole part out but I feel like I'm invested now since I've been typing it for almost a minute.)
-Not be on the internet and
-DEFINITELY NOT get on any trains to go do things I shouldn't want to do with people I shouldn't want to do them with. Ugh.
-Maybe might actually though.

I know I keep saying this but I'm so glad it's not hot outside. The frost this morning made me nervous for winter, though, because I really don't enjoy the feeling of bone chill. Anyway cooler weather is just so much easier to get dressed in. Mostly because of pea coats:

EVERYBODY looks good in a pea coat. And no matter what you have on underneath I always think you look fancy. (I also think name-brand Velveeta is extremely fancy though, so, you might want to consider that.) Speaking of fancy, I bought a pair of tights at Rite-Aid the other day. And as an extra-special bonus, they matched my beverage the day I wore them:

 

There is a vat of sweet potato casserole sitting in my refrigerator right now and I may or may not keep daydreaming about it. I just googled "Thanksgiving dessert recipes for kids." Do you guys think prostitution should be legalized? Call me/email me/come wake me up in the middle of the night to discuss it. I have to write a paper and I already know how I feel but I'm kind of interested in what other people think. You know, so I can correct them if they think the wrong thing. 

I hope you all enjoy your break if you get one, think of fun tricks to play on your boss if you don't, and have lots of nice things to be thankful for. xo