Victory!

I'm not at all bothered that I am the kind of person who curses out my computer, software, and the printers, because I also coo to them when they're being helpful.

And sometimes I make out with them so that they'll do what I want, but that's only because I'm manipulative.

Guster - Satellite

How can I not be totally in love with this guy?:

"This song reminds me of you because I like Science. And I like you."

Shining like a work of art
Hanging on a wall of stars
Are you what I think you are?

You're my satellite
You're riding with me tonight
Passenger side, lighting the sky
Always the first star that I find
You're my satellite

Elevator to the moon
Just a little favorite tune
Trying to get a closer view

You're my satellite
You're riding with me tonight
Passenger side, lighting the sky
Always the first star that I find
You're my satellite

Maybe you will always be
Just a little out of reach

You're my satellite
You're riding with me tonight
Passenger side, lighting the sky
Always the first star that I find
You're my satellite
You're my satellite

Guster - Satellite [mp3]

Monday Madness - Computers

How many desktop computers in your home?

Just my roommate's

How many laptops?

Three, right now.

What kind of internet service do you have? (i.e. phone modem, dsl, etc.)

cable modem

Do you tend to use more than one email account regularly?

No, but I do have a spam email address that I use to sign up for things. Unless you count my work email address, then I use two regularly.

Do you use email as a main source for communicating to your family and friends?

Yes

What kind of computer monitor do you own (flatscreen, or other)?

I have a laptop.

I had to hide another one of my flickr photos today.

I suppose I should stop posting photos of my feet on the Internet.

About a year ago, I found a nail polish at my salon that was called "Ruby Pumps." The concept was a glittery red color, much like Dorothy's slippers in the Wizard of Oz. I took a picture of my pedicure when I got home, to show one of my friends.

This morning, I checked my flickr activity and saw that someone had favorited this year-old (untagged!) photo. Now...from previous experience, I've learned that virtually no one favorites foot pictures unless they're some sort of fetishist or collector of random snapshots of women's body parts. Never mind how he even found the photo in the first place.

And sure enough, there was my photo in his favorites -- sandwiched between a bare breast and an "erotic" foot photo. I know that art is subjective, and maybe some poor, misguided girl thinks that this is not amateur porn, but "art." And while normally I could not care less about what people put up on the Internet (I judge, but I wouldn't want to censor), my foot was next to a woman's breast, for Christ's sake.

I'm just glad I marked it as private before he had a chance to go jerk off to all of his favorites this afternoon, since I can only assume that's what you do with a collection of "naughty" flickr photos. And my foot.

Monday Madness - Compound Words

Please fill in the following blanks, to make a compound word:

1. GROUNDBREAKING
2. FIREFIGHTER
3. HOUSEBROKEN
4. OVERWHELMED
5. SUNRISE
6. UNDERWHELMED
7. OUTSIDE
8. SOMEDAY

Concerts of '07

I just bought tickets to see Kings of Leon for J and myself. I'm so excited! I have a tendency to waffle right before I buy concert tickets, and end up getting balcony seats because I spent too much time wondering whether or not I should go. This time was no exception, but at least they're center seats. The only time I waited and still got an amazing seat was the time I saw the Raconteurs at the Orpheum because I bought a solo ticket and was squashed in between two couples.

I've been making an effort to go to more live shows in the past year, and even though it can be hard on the wallet sometimes, I think I've gathered a respectable list:

Raconteurs
Art Brut with Tokyo Police Club
We are Scientists
Pete Yorn
Bloc Party
Voxtrot (with Au Revoir Simone)
Kaiser Chiefs (with the Walkmen)
Jet
LCD Soundsystem (with YACHT)
Voxtrot and We are Scientists (again, this time at the Siren Music Festival)

I'm hoping to add a few more to that list before October, possibly including The Mountain Goats, Animal Collective, Tokyo Police Club or Play Radio Play, Stars, Of Montreal, Spoon, and...erm, maybe Voxtrot...AGAIN (I can't get me enough Voxtrots. For real).

What LOLcat R U?...is I?

According to OK Cupid I are Serious Cat

48% Affectionate, 27% Excitable, 57% Hungry

Hungry for knowledge in any internet forum, I demand decorum. Any off-topic remarks, absurd statements, or tomfoolery on the interweb is deeply frowned upon by me. Truth has no room for drollery.

To see all possible results, checka dis.

Finishing Harry Potter >> Sleep

2:00 AM:
J rustles awake...
"I just finished Harry Potter. Go back to sleep."
"Was it everything you'd hoped for?"
"It was. And more."
"Does Harry die?"
"...I'm not going to tell you that! You have to read the book!"

J isn't a fan of Harry Potter (I know...I don't know why I'm still with him, either), but he was with me at midnight on the 21st when I went to pick up the latest Harry Potter book, and he didn't complain at all about my blatant neglect this weekend, while I read cover to cover without ever putting it down.

I don't have too much to say, except that it was brilliant, and perfect and totally warranted staying up until 2:00 in the morning.

Anyway, does anyone else watch Flight of the Conchords?

If you do, and you're a David Bowie fan like me, you were probably also very excited about last night's Bowie trib:



Space Oddity is probably one of my favorite songs, ever.

Monday Madness - Food

Are there any weird "food rules" you have? Feel free to list as many as you like.

Not really, it's just that I hate onions and won't eat them. That's not a rule, just a way of life.

When you were growing up, what ONE thing did your parents always remind you of, when it came to meal time (or cooking)?

My dad ALWAYS reminded me that we weren't at Burger King and things couldn't be cooked our way. My mom worked hard making us a meal, and we'd enjoy it and to stop asking for things with "no meat" (me) or "no green things" (my sister). Never mind that the only reason my mom had to make "special" meals for the two of us was because my dad refused to eat things with "no meat" or "no green things."

Is there anyone you know whose food you won't eat (for one reason or another)?

I don't really like eating food made by people I don't know, period. Especially old people.

Is there anything you "specialize" in cooking, that people actually ask for?

No, but I make a decent bowl of salsa

When you were growing up, what one meal do you remember as being your favorite?

Spaghetti

Today, what is your IDEAL meal?

Pasta, interestingly enough, but I prefer Angel Hair pasta to spaghetti.

Harry Potter leak = Boston Tea Party

I just read about this article (Spoiler Warning!) on Pop Candy, but the real hilarity was here in this article, where they likened the Harry Potter leak to the Boston Tea Party.

That's why I grew up to be the way I am

I was a very very very intense, quiet child. I usually read books in a corner and didn't want to talk to anyone.

Is that strange? People seemed to like me anyway. And then they wanted to talk to me, even though I was all sorts of not interested and could they please leave me alone so I could finish this chapter?

It doesn't always work as well as an adult. Today, I was told about how depression can cause certain things in people's life to deteriorate (social circles, careers, life-paths), and one of the reasons you may have a hard time pulling yourself out of the depression, even if you try really really hard, is that even though sometimes you try, people who don't truly care about you aren't going to put up with the shit you dole out when you're at a low point, and the consequences aren't always easily undone. (I have never loved J more than when I typed that paragraph...)

That makes sense, even though mostly I think I come off as quiet and shy, and sometimes I say stupid things and instead of letting them go I die a million deaths inside and stop talking. Personally, I have a Very Hard Time returning to places that make me remember the god-awful lows, and if I've embarrassed myself in front of someone (by doing something they probably didn't even notice), I have a hard time ever speaking to them again. I know running away from things isn't the solution, but sometimes I wish that I didn't get one chance at a first impression...especially when some alien thing has taken over my body and people aren't really meeting me.

I want to work past this, I really do, but it's time to face the reality that all the meds are going to do is make me more myself. And I should be comfortable being myself -- and my self is quiet. She is shy. And sometimes she would rather be reading a book quietly and alone instead of talking to people.

I'm working on it, at any rate.

A Day at the Beach

Yesterday, J and I spent the day at the beach.

It was so refreshing to take a 3-day weekend for ourselves for no reason, and it was a fitting "end" to a weekend full of activity.

Granted, there were a lot of screaming kids, and some rambunctious, Frisbee-throwing teenagers, but it was still significantly less crowded than it would have been on a Saturday, and it was still relaxing and glorious.

He started reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, while I pored through the most recent Potter book...like many other people are doing now.

It made it so much harder to be at work today, partially because it felt so nice, and partially because my dosage was increased and now I'm tired as all holy hell. Tired, but happy...

I'll take it.

BOOM!

One of the most confusing things I've ever done with my life was forget to take the GRE.

I've been thinking a lot about the past year and a half, and now that I'm getting better, I've snuck a peek at my old journal entries. Today I went through all of my flickr archives. The memories came back like a belly flop from the high dive. What surprised me most, actually, is how completely surprised I am by some of the things that I did to try to wrestle with this thing on my own. Sad things. Embarrassing things...and drastic things, just to make myself feel better -- or sometimes just to feel anything.

To me, the most interesting way that I tried to deal with my depression was to make big plans when I was feeling well, because I thought it would motivate me to pull myself out of the "slump." Sometimes it worked for a little while, but mostly it served to remind me of all the little failures in my life, because by the time those decisions affected me, I wasn't feeling well anymore, and I would deliberately put those things off and push them as far away as possible. Grad school would be a good example.

I was going to move to Chicago, come hell or high water, and go to grad school there. I became obsessed with Chicago; with shedding my Boston skin and starting over as a new person -- a happy person. As ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn't see how unhealthy it was to put so much emphasis on how this singular act would make me happy. How if I thought I would be happy then, it only served to highlight how unhappy I was now. I had no idea how to get from point A to point B, but, goddamnit, point B was where happiness was.

During one of my slightly more manic (and DRUNK) moments, I signed up to take the GRE. $130 is a lot of money, especially because I was unemployed, but this decision was going to CHANGE MY LIFE.

I chose a date that was a month and a half away so that I would have time to study.

I think I opened a book once. It was a Princeton Review study guide my mom had gotten me for Christmas the year before, and I'm pretty sure I didn't do much more than skim the first chapter.

The date for the test came and went, and I didn't even realize it at the time. It wasn't until a week later that I even bothered to check my email to see when I'd registered to take the exam, and instead of being upset, I was kind of relieved. Maybe. Mostly, I was too tired to care, anymore.

This is not one of my prouder moments, and I don't think I've ever admitted it to anyone.

I'm nowhere near completely healed from all of this, but I'm working on it. And the longer I work, the more results I see and the easier it gets. I'm excited about life again, and the little changes are enough for now. I'm nowhere closer to a decision about school or my career, or even where I'll be living a year from now, but it's indescribably different, in a warm happy way.

Monday Madness - Laundry

Do you do your own laundry or do you send it out?

I do my own

Do you laundry at your home or a laundromat?

Laundromat

Are there certain articles of clothing that you need to have dry-cleaned on a regular basis?

My slacks -- I made the mistake of washing them once...they're pretty much ruined now. Also some of my skirts and tops are dry-clean only.

How often do you do laundry? Is there a certain day of the week that you consider "laundry day?"

I probably honestly do it once a month...I should do it every other week, at the least.

Do you iron your clothes as you pull them out of the dryer or do you wait until just before you wear the clothing to iron?

I just wear them. Iron? What's that?

Do you hang your clothes outside to dry or do you dry them in a dryer?

Dryer or my bathroom. I should hang them outside now that it's nice.

Do you own things that need to be hand-washed or do you try to avoid buying things that you can't wash in the washing machine?

I should avoid it. but I don't.

On blasting your mom into space

I thought I'd share a story with you today:

I went to dinner with J and two of his friends once.J and I showed up some time after Jordan and David, so they were well into their first beers, and had been having various sorts of conversation. Evidently, earlier in the evening, David had asked Jordan, "If you could blast anything into space, what would it be?"

Jordan didn't answer at the time.

About fourty minutes later, we were eating dinner and he'd finished his second beer. He slammed the empty glass onto the table and said, "David, if I could blast anything into space, it would be your mom."

Jordan has a two beer minimum on your mom jokes. And Boston is going to be a much less amusing place when they both go to grad school.

In a word: "hootie." In four: "hootie," "and," "the" and "blowfish."

I found this CRACKED.com article about the 25 Most Ridiculous Band Names in Rock History to be ABSOLUTELY HYSTERICAL.

My favorites were The Smashing Pumpkins (at #20), and !!! (unsurprisingly at #1 -- How many times have I looked at my playlist and rued the day they chose to name their band something that fucked my entire organizational system?)

He bought my flowers, I gave him a cold

"More Animals Need To Be Shot From Cannons"

I volunteered to watch my friends' rats when they went out of town...
J said, "This is all fine and good, until they get out of their cage"
"Then I'd need a snake -- to get them out of the apartment!"
"Then you'd have a snake"
"I'd get a coyote....but then...I guess I don't know how I'd get rid of a coyote..."
"You'd have to get a cheetah."
"There is nothing that would solve a cheetah infestation, J"
"Except a great white shark"
"Now how the hell would we get a shark into the apartment?"
"A CANNON!"

Start Making Some Pockets

I've been listening to the Thermals pretty non-stop these past few days. I suspect this is what will get me through my deadline, unless I tire of them before the end of the week (It's happened...)

I thought I would have Voxtrot, but with the exception of two or three Really Good songs, their new album is...only meh. Don't get me wrong, I totally heart Voxtrot, but I fell in love with every single that wasn't on this album. I'm still going to be taking my shirt off for them at their concert next week. Erm, I mean, rocking out to their jams.

Since I have been on a Thermals kick, I thought I'd go ahead and provide a handy link to Here's Your Future, and ask a question. When God says, "It's gonna rain," does it remind anyone else of the blackie weather forecast in Family Guy? ("It's gon'rain!") Just me?

And on that note, I wanted to end with one more Very Important Question: Why do people think that my friends and I are mean?

"Look, [I hit the pool balls so that] they made a triangle."

"How about instead of making triangles, you start making some pockets?"