The other day a ladybug landed on me and I made a wish on it, duh, because ladybugs landing on you = good luck and wishes. Any scientist worth their spots knows that. About eight minutes ago, my friend and I were outside DEFINITELY NOT SMOKING, OFFICER and another ladybug landed on me. So I tried to get it to climb on my finger so I could make sure it definitely heard my wish (more science) and I realized it was dead. DEAD. It had landed on me and died. (Keep in mind, I didn't kill it with my finger. It was already dead when I put my finger NEXT to it. CAREFULLY.) "What does that mean!?" I frantically asked my friend. She didn't know. So I ditched her unhelpful ass and came inside and asked Google what it meant. And I found out that: "If [a ladybug] dies while it's on you, it's supposed to mean that you might go hungry." Also: "If the spots on the wings of a Ladybug are more than seven, it's a sign of coming famine." There were more then seven spots. Dun dun dun! Assuming folklore = science (which is always a good thing to assume, you know) I'm about to have a grumbling tummy in my life.

So it's weird about the dead ladybug thing, because things don't uuuusually die when they touch me and also because the crazy-girl part of my brain has been annoyingly focused on my weight since I was a fetus these past few weeks. Not like, after-school special status or anything super dangerous, but the proportion of thoughts about my weight to thoughts about things I truly do value has been OFF.  And bear with me while I wax philosophical for a moment, but I wonder if the universe is somehow warning me against spiritual hunger. Or something. I could expand on that but since I really don't have much to say about my "body issues" (SO DUMB, and you'd rather read about kittens anyway) that's different from what any other lady has to say about theirs, I will spare you what would be the longest, most arduous blog ever. You're welcome. Anyway I guess my main thing is that I have come way too far in other parts of my life to let this nonsense take up as much space in my head as it sometimes does.

MOVING ON, here are some things I am excited about:

1. Playing with my babies in one week!!! I cannot even. akkjertkcvls

Someday soon I should do a blog called Top Ten Photos That Illustrate How Un-Photogenic I Am.

2. In less than one week, my friend's birthday and the celebration[s] surrounding it.
2 1/2. Being in the same city as some of my favorite people for an entire weekend. 
2 3/4. Having an excuse to wear the sparkliest dress ever. Not that I need an excuse, per se.
3. Printing out my midterm grades and duct-taping them to the fridge. I AM A GENIUS, FOLKS.
4. I am planning a not-so-secret road trip. It's going to be magical. Get excited, friends on the east coast.

If Lindsay has 8,000,000 math problems to do and she has completed 3, what percent of math problems does she have left? How long will it take her to finish the entire assignment? Assume that she will procrastinate by writing a blog.

Yesterday while I was emptying my bank account at Michael's (so many sparkly things!) I decided to make part of my friend's birthday present. I am pretty positive that she does not read this, because she is busy being at Columbia and tidying up people's lives, so here is a preview:

(Psst. J Wells. I have lots of floral paper and subway map left if you are interested.)

Hopefully the crafty feeling lingers because I also had to ("had to," that's cute) buy clothes this weekend because:

Last year's skinny jeans have lost their title. So it was either go back to eating like a third grader or buy new pants. Which as everyone knows I hate, because it is a pain in the ass, because I am awkwardly proportioned and carry all my weight in my trunk and ankles. So I pawed halfheartedly at some pants for about twenty seconds and called it a day, BUT! I found the best two-dollar dress in the history of ever so here is a preview of that:

According to the story of my life, while shopping for clothes because mine are too big I find a dream dress that is too small. And I buy it anyway. So anyway, I need to re-acquaint myself with my sewing machine because this Angela Chase-worthy frock needs to be let out a half inch before making its debut. And if you are concerned at my lack of pants, which of course you are (and deeply), don't fret. I ordered six pairs of leggings instead.

I feel like this was an especially thoughtful, probing blog. I really examined a lot of profound issues here, so I'll leave you to digest. And do my math. I guess. sjdfk

And all that she intends
And all she keeps inside, isn't on the label
...fields of butterflies, reality escapes her
FUEL (SHIMMER)

This song came on in the car this morning and made me so happy. In high school the above lyrics often found themselves in my AIM profile, because I felt they described me SO PERFECTLY. Although I was actually in elementary school when this song came out, and I'm quite certain the lyrics were not written about the first third grader in her class to have boobs. (I only mention the boob thing because, amazing but true, they have been the same size ever since. Cool huh?)

A note on AIM: It used to be so fun. It was a big deal when my mom let me start using it and I remember IMing my friend Laura and being on the phone with her at the same time. My first screen name was cuppajoe89. (LIE. My real first screen name was years earlier and was Smyli because Smiley was already taken by some other America Online user. And I was only allowed to use it for half an hour a day and never for chatting, because I was in the second grade and my mom was convinced I'd be kidnapped by an internet predator. This was way before 'internet predator' was really a real thing, by the way.) And remember how when you had a boyfriend you would put his name into your profile? Brian 2.14.03 less-than-three (True fact, when I saw my name in my eighth grade boyfriend's profile I felt suffocated and told him as much. I believe my breakup speech included how we were "moving too fast." And by 'breakup speech' I mean the stuff I wrote on a cafeteria napkin that I told my best friend to say to him.) Anyway then high school happened and my friends/boyfriends got cars, The End of AIM.

That was a long note. I forgot where I was going with this. Probably nowhere. I am so glad it's Friday; this has been one of those weeks where all of my first-world problems seem so colossally exhausting. Not emotional exhaustion or anything but actual physical tiredness. And I am not training for a marathon or building houses, friends. I'm talking about, like, doing the dishes. Earlier in the week I dyed my hair ("COLORED, Lindsay. You colored your hair. Also, you PAINT a house. You POLISH your nails," interrupted my southern belle roommate) after class and then sat down in front of the fire and woke up four hours later. So imagine what all the actual real things I had to do felt like. So this weekend I have friends to catch up with, vomit-inducing amounts of math homework to finish, and probably a vitamin B shot to schedule.

This is awfully text-y. I don't really have any pictures I feel like posting but oh yeah, I'm shopping for a new camera. I feel like I ought to suck it up and dole out the cash for a really decent one only I'm not exactly sure what makes a camera 'decent' and also there are probably more practical places for me to dole said cash out to. Anyway I have to go be formally educated now so for the sake of visual stimulation here is one of the pictures from many moons ago that I pulled off my brokedy-broke laptop (by the way, that project lasted two days and then I forgot about it):

It was in the "modeling portfolio" folder, if that wasn't clear.

An inch is all it needs... the way you'd train a lion, something wild and large and capable. I can't trust its care to anyone else, am all too aware of what it might do without a strict hand, am the only one hard enough to tame it.

It makes its small escapes, reaching out to copper-colored women in Spanish Harlem and Koreans with twinkly eyes and stories to tell and circling the possibility of the impossibly handsome cosmopolitan male who is just enough out of reach to make it feel safe and that one from many years ago who kissed you in the garden and fingered your hair washed in sunrise. Always moments to be dipped in gold.

Love someone easier, I want to beg. All you will be left with is the kind of memory that makes you wonder if it ever even happened.

"If he'd asked the question she would have told

him everything, but he didn't know what question

to ask."  

MARK HADDON, THE RED HOUSE (I don't like it as much as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time but he is still a very talented author, and in any case this is what I get for playing the Pick Random Books off the Shelves Game at the library.) 

One night when I was, oh, nineteen or so, someone told me something. THE END. Just kidding. You know how some things people say to you stick with you forever and ever? This was one of those things, and in this case it was a wise thing and not a thing like when this girl I knew in eighth grade told me my face looked fat in a ponytail and so I didn't wear my hair up for two years. What? Oh. So anyway I was in Biloxi for the weekend staying at some sort of awkward volunteer campsite where everybody was literally piled on top of each other and the closest non-dirt-tasting-like coffee was a mile away at McDonald's. (Which tasted like garbage water as opposed to dirt.) It wasn't any more stressful or uncomfortable a living situation than any other I'd experienced that year except that the "fun adventure" part of it paled a little that weekend in comparison to the combination of hormones and frustration I was feeling at the time. I can't remember specifics (re: yes I can, but there were 100000904 of them) but a lot of it boiled down to: I was feeling disconnected from some of the people around me and sad as a result of that. So on the second night we were there, one of my friends hijacked a van and informed me that we were going to get away from the camp because he was bored of seeing me sulking in a proverbial corner, licking imaginary wounds. And I was surprised when another of my friends wanted to come with us, because she was one of the people I had been feeling so rejected by.

So we ended up getting food and driving around and looking at the casino lights and the questionably clean beaches. (There's not too much to do there, or if there is I didn't discover it then.) And talking. And I finally expressed how I'd been feeling, and I remember how good it felt to voice everything. And my dear, sweet no-bullshit girlfriend looked at me and said: "You have to ask for what you want."

That's it. I mean I'm sure they both said other things because I ended up realizing that I was isolating myself and confusing everybody, etc etc. But basically, that's it. You have to ask for what you want. What a beautiful, simple concept. And yet something that is so hard for so many people, myself included. You absolutely have to advocate for yourself, whether you are maneuvering some sort of bureaucracy or a relationship. Whatever this means for you, whatever it may look like, you need to tell people what you want. How else do you get it? For me, often the reason I don't ask for help is because I don't want to risk a "no". Or rather, I don't want to risk feeling rejected. (Mostlyalsotoo I need to be able to do almost everything for myself by myself.) And how silly is that? Hitting a wall doesn't always mean the end. It just means it's time to shift your direction. And that's hard sometimes, but it's also exciting.

I'm sorry (not really though) if this doesn't make a lot of sense - it's just that lately, so many things in my life are reminding me of the importance of speaking up for myself. (You get so used to advocating for others and if you're not careful you start to forget about yourself a little.) All different situations, all different feelings associated with them. (None of them are terrible, CALM DOWN.) And all of them come down to that one straightforward, lovely tenet: I have to ask for what I want.

  

If you never say your name out loud to anyone,

they can never ever call you by it.  

REGINA SPEKTOR

Some random thoughts pertaining to academia:

Reason #19837401 why I'm pissed I read Twilight: I accidentally nerd-flirted with this gentleman at school last week and then yesterday he wasn't in class. But then I ran into him a little later. And the first thing I thought was not "Why'd you miss class, idiot?" (that was my second thought) but "Oh, he's probably a vampire and is so attracted to me that he HAD to skip class because he wants to eat me." That was a real thing my brain thought. I have read probably over a hundred books of actual intellectual value since that swine masquerading as vamp lit and STILL it lingers. Damn you, Stephanie Meyer.

and

I cried a little in history this morning while the professor was saying something off-topic as usual about populism and socialism and things. Nobody noticed but don't worry, I told myself to get a grip. It is nice to be reminded, though, that I mostly do have great faith in the human spirit. EVEN IF SOME HUMAN SPIRITS STILL HAVEN'T WRITTEN ME A CHECK, three hundred months later. 

When people are making beer bread and beer soup in your kitchen, GET UP IN THERE. Only you can prevent wasted beer.

It's a good idea to be nonchalant about this, so you might want to pretend you are making a pie. I pretended so hard that a pie actually appeared. I know, right?

Two things: One. That's a cat I cut out in the center, as you can probably already tell because I did such a good job and have a natural affinity for baking. Pie crusts = hard. Two. Another thing that is hard is taking pictures when your camera is broken. (Again, I know. I should be reported to some sort of bureau for electronic abuse.) It doesn't have a viewfinder and the screen is busted so most of the pictures here lately are my 'best guesses.' WOE. But not really.

Another important element to this fun-filled activity is that there should be a fairly important history test you are supposed to be studying for. Memorize things in between 'rescuing' beer and peeling apples. You will get an A. (I did. Like. A. Boss.)

And then when you have eaten more in a day than you have in two weeks, drink some tea because you have to use up the lemon because you used the entire peel because you thought it said 1/4 cup instead of 1/4 teaspoon.

Now, notice my over-painted thumbnail. I left that in on purpose in order to share with you Lindsay's Extremely Lazy Beauty Tip #83479: When you are painting your nails, get that shit everywhere and then just scrub it off in the shower later. You don't actually save any time. Tell your friends.

Whenever I want you, all I have to do...

Generally, I remember most of my dreams. Or at least I remember that I had them. Over the past year I noticed that I was dreaming a lot less, and the best I can figure is that it had to do with not getting enough sleep and not sleep-cycling enough, or something. (Obviously I am a scientist.) And when I did dream, it was my subconscious trying to trick me into thinking I wanted to snuggle with one of my coworkers. (Mission accomplished, brain. Mission. Accomplished.) Anyway, I've been enjoying watching brain movies at night again. Even the scary ones. (Does anyone else find a part of themselves enjoying their nightmares? In middle school my friend and I would purposely try to have them. One time she heard that if you ate chocolate right before you went to sleep it would give you nightmares, and so we ate like six mini Milky Ways before bed that night. I only got a stomachache. Note to self: Perhaps middle school would have been slightly easier for you if you had been conditioning your hair instead of stuffing your face with candy bars at night. Just a thought.)

EXCEPT LAST NIGHT. Last night I had the worst nightmare I have ever had in my whole history of nightmaring. I went to sleep. ONLY NOT REALLY. It was horrible. I was dreaming that I was lying in the exact same position in my bed, trying to go to sleep, and I couldn't. And I was really worried that I would be too tired to wake up in the morning. So I worried myself awake and realized that I HAD been sleeping after all. And then I'd eventually fall back to sleep, and have THE SAME DREAM. Did I say how horrible it was? Are you getting that? That went on until about midnight, and finally I had some normal dreams about chubby babies and a child that was mine but not really and having to go to see a movie at two in the morning. I hope it wasn't a disturbance when I walked into class this morning dragging an IV of coffee.