Can’t you come home with me?! April 17, 2009

I would be lying to say I have not received my fair share of compliments. I can’t say thank you to anything besides holding a door open, so I usually get a bit flustered. It’s also a ridiculous thought to return a compliment with a compliment. Seems forced and let’s face it, you wouldn’t have said anything if they didn’t.

“I love your shoes!”
“OH, um. I really like your…uh purse.”

That’s happened. And it sucks.

While in Florida I would constantly be complimented. One lady said, “It’s a good thing you’re the first one people see when they come in. You’re just so pretty!” Then someone else said I looked like Tori Spelling and I had to take my break because I thought I was going to start crying in front of guests. True story. I called my mom and told her and she was all OMG NO! I mean the lady ended her backhanded compliment with a “you’re gorgeous” but still. I’m not an alien! I take these compliments lightly though, thousands upon thousands of people walk through those gates daily. Someone is bound to find you attractive. So whatevs. It is weird and uncomfortable most of the time though, since married men sometimes ask if you’re a part-time princess in front of their wife and daughters.

My favorite compliments are the kind you never really think of getting. The ones that are so off the cuff that whoever said it probably didn’t even realize. Case in point: day before the regatta junior year.

Quite the party was raging in my pothead friends’ suite and everything was going swimmingly. Everyone was beyond plastered, and I’m sure was on my way. Then there was girl-like shrieking coming from a room and many were vacating. Turns out someone threw up and they were all too drunk to do anything about it but be morons. So I decided to take the reigns, along with a friend, to get things straightened out. We organized someone to help the vomiter get a clean shirt and washed up, I grabbed all that was in the spill zone. A comforter, blanket and hoodie. Now, if I was a smidgen more sober, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this, but I’m impervious to bodily fluids while drinking apparently.

I took the grossness down to the laundry room and threw the stuff in the washing machines. Two machines mind you, this was an expensive night. The cycle finishes and I didn’t realize that the girl didn’t throw up just her beer, but it seemed like everything she ate in the past week. So I had to take everything out, and (EW) hand wash out a lot of it in a sink. After this I washed again, caused some mayhem with fire extinguishers and called it a night at 6am.

The next morning, I got up and went to grab the stuff out of the dryers. It was oddly still warm at noon. I walked back into my friend’s room, threw the hoodie to the owner in the common area and put the comforter and blanket on the bed. We were all discussing the night a bit and suddenly from the common area comes a yell, “OH MY GOD SMELL YOUR BLANKET! It smells just like Liz!” So he did, and he exclaims as well about how great it smells.

Best.compliment.ever.

It’s something I’ve never thought of. Smelling good isn’t a top priority as much as not smelling at all. So to hear that people enjoy my scent, that’s kinda awesome. And highly unexpected. I didn’t expect a room full of stoners* to be so excited about a clean smelling blanket.

The other day I was told I have the uncanny ability of making people feel involved in group settings. I never thought of it, but I guess I do. I don’t know if that’s a compliment as much as it’s an observation. An observation of my awesomeness, of course. I think something like this has to be pointed out in me since it’s quite the anomaly. I’m not nice by any stretch of the imagination, so for me to possibly compromise my good time just to make sure someone else is having fun doesn’t make sense. It’s crazy what the juice can make you do.

There was something else, but work is looming and all I can think about is how much I just don’t want to go. Damn crappy jobs. Damn them!

*So, they let ‘kinda’ slip by as correctly spelled, but ‘stoners’ isn’t a correctly spelled word? Huh. Maybe the plural of stoner is stoner, like moose. Possibly (read: never) looking into this.

All I want for Christmas is… December 24, 2008

Ahhh, holidays. I love how it is so cut and dry; you either hate it or love it. I’m a lover of the holidays. I like the cold too. Only because I’m a firm believer that bugs should never be a part of my life. Ever.

Last night I was perusing articles on Jezebel.com, a site I frequent but lurking only. And there was one article about how one of the editors, who’s Jewish, kinda got off at the ability to ruin us Christian* kids’ idea of Santa. I was trying to remember the day that I learned Santa Clause didn’t exist. I would think this would be one of those pivotal moments of childhood, where you start to actually grow up and realize that make-believe is actually make-believe. It would be like, everyone knew where they were on 9/11 and everyone remembers when they found out Santa and the Easter bunny didn’t exist, you know? But I don’t know when it was. I actually can’t remember a time when I genuinely believed in a bloated man breaking and entering into my home in the most ridiculous way possible to leave me goodies that I’ve never told anyone but my mom that I wanted.

For the most part, I LOVED that I was getting presents. I was a spoiled shit growing up. Like I cared who was giving them to me. It isn’t like I rejected the idea of Santa though. I was never that kid that needed “proof”. I put out cookies even though I knew there were presents upstairs in my parent’s room. It was just accepted that this man was going to be in the house for a reason unknown and all this magic was going to happen or something. Whatever. I’m glad I grew out of that whole ‘just accept this as the truth’ phase. Too bad everyone doesn’t grow out of it. *cough*

Now with all that said, this story is a completely anomaly in my life. It doesn’t add up to much and remains a mystery to me. It is possible I could have been dreaming, but I can remember waking up. Like when you wake up but your eyes are still closed because you know what woke you up wasn’t supposed to wake you up. Now that I confused you with that last sentence, on with it.

My mom would always put our stockings in our rooms as like a road block to waking them up in the morning. So we would marvel at personalized toothbrushes and pencils for long enough to give them an extra half hour or so to sleep. At some point I must’ve been told that Santa doesn’t actually put them in our rooms but that an elf helps a brother out and does it for him. One Christmas Eve, (Which by the way, I think I was old enough that my parents didn’t even wait til night to put out the presents and we even got to open one on Christmas Eve. Plus I could see which meant I had my contacts in, had to be at least 6th grade.) I woke up to sound and like I said, didn’t open my eyes. I figured someone got up to pee or something so I opened my eyes and saw something in my room. My eyes adjusted to the dark and swear to all the things on this Earth, there was someone in my room. Not just someone, but a fucking midget. I silently freaked out because a real life elf was in my room. I closed my eyes and waited for some noise to cue that it left but I didn’t hear anything. And i could even feel the presence in my room, like it knew I saw it and was just waiting for me to look again. I think I scared myself back to sleep because I don’t recall anything else.

Maybe a midget used to live in my old house and died and came back to visit. Ooooh, I can see ghosts.

Either way, I think about this little guy constantly around Christmas and it pretty much blows. With that said, Merry Christmas and that good stuff.

*I feel funny calling myself Christian when I clearly do not believe in that anymore. Like Santa, I just stopped accepting it and when questions can’t be answered and logic outweighs faith, it feels just as silly to believe in a book of fables as it does to believe in Santa Clause. But for argument sake, I was of that faith back then and it just fits story-wise. Even though I fucking hated going to church.

And in a completely unrelated note, I gave in and love Rihanna now. I’m such a sucked for pop music.

Thoughts every holiday should evoke. December 1, 2008

I have this really funny private entry that basically outs that I hate half the people I converse with on the daily. Man, I crack myself up. But that’s not what I’m here for today.

Yesterday I had Thanksgiving part duex. The real one was mom’s side, this one was dad’s side. I enjoy the company of all my family and I’m not going to bore anyone with details of how great everyone is and all that yummy, cuddly bullshit. So, I’ll enlighten you on something that came up during conversation.

During dessert, the topic of not wanting to know what your kids are really doing came up. Like, drinking, drugs, stuff like that. My uncle’s philosophy is unless you get caught, you don’t have to share this shit with the world. I, of course, kept my mouth shut. Apparently my cousin was found smoking the weed once by my uncle and was in turn called a moron for doing such thing. While I realize this is a sentiment that many would pass on to their kin, I would not be able to. I can’t really lie like that. I can lie about unimportant things but I can’t lie about how things effect me. Weed has done nothing but enriched my life. For serious. I met a lot of great people and got a lot of work done. THC stimulates dopamine production in your brain, which in turn helps you concentrate. During the time that I was smoking the heaviest, I did my best in school. Who would’ve thought.

Now, most people call weed a gateway drug. It is. Well, it was for me. But no big deal. I can’t say I found anything those drugs did to be so wondrous I can’t live without them. But who says I would want to anyway? For 8-10 hours of life you get to escape and be someone else, so why not. Plus, none of these drugs have had any effect on my life. If anything I have ever done was hurting me in any way it would most definitely be alcohol. I’ve missed work, been to tests drunk and have missed deadlines. Different story for a different time, I suppose. But I will say this, I took my AMS final out of my head stoned and got a 98. I still wonder where those two points went. Damnit.

The first time I ever did anything outside of smoking was acid. It was quite the group, ten of us in all and only two have ever done it, or any hard drugs, before. We all made a pact not to fuck with each other, just in case someone had a bad trip and even the resident ballbuster was unusually nice to us. I’m going to say that we all had fairly low dosages of it, but that’s not saying we didn’t feel it.

We did some miscellaneous stuff, made grilled cheese, walked around, sit around, got locked out, smoked, etc. before some of us really felt it. Four of us decided to go on a trip to a dining hall for some reason. Maybe we were hungry but this seems debatable considering we would’ve been leaving a room with pizza in it. So we leave on our adventure and decide that the shortcut through the woods would help us out since we had no idea what time it was and the woods cuts about 10 minutes off the walk. So we’re walking and walking…and walking….and walking. Time was standing still basically and we were getting nowhere it seemed. One of my friends began to be scared being in the back of the pack and I was forced to stay behind him while holding his hand(aww, right?). So we finally get there and we all decide that there’s nothing that we want. On the way out, a muffin is spotted in a plastic container.

My scaredy cat friend goes, “We have to buy this muffin, we’re going to need it”.

I agree and get it. We walked back the normal way since the woods seemed even scarier…even though we had literally just emerged from them. Once we neared our building, we see a bunch of people we know. One of them is kinda pissed, he fell in a pond and had to go shower and change, thus he wasn’t able to get to any food establishment on campus to get something to eat before closing. Me and my friend just looked at each other. The muffin has fulfilled its prophecy. It was one of the most mind blowing moments of my life. He was even excited that it was a muffin! Perfect!

One of the people decided to tag along with us back inside instead of riding around on his bike drunk. While we didn’t really want him with us, we didn’t want to put forth any effort to make up lies about why he couldn’t follow. We figure we can just drop in to the ballbuster’s, and he’ll effectively scare him and rid him of us. It didn’t really work out that way though…

We got in his room and found that our dealer was in there and in some strange twist owed weed to him. Who are we to question? So we all somehow regrouped and shoved in a room is like, 15 of us smoking for hours. The drunk bicyclist began telling us how he used to smoke when he was younger but decided to quit. After some prodding we found out he smoked once at the tender age of 15 and then never again. Until that night. As a group, we were all pretty heavy smokers, multiple times a day, everyday raises your tolerance and we were able to smoke for hours on end without any unintended effects. For the drunk, not the case. It felt like hours but in reality was probably only 20 minutes of smoking and he had had enough. Before departing, he decided to enlighten us as to why he had to leave. And it went a little something like this:

“Sorry guys but I gotta go upstairs. I’m about to pop a boner and I’m gunna have to take care of this”.

Silence. Someone followed him out to re-towel the doors, but none of us moved. We maybe stared at each other in disbelief. The second the re-toweler came back, we all died. Laughing, crying, exclaiming. What in the world would possess someone to let a room full of basically acquaintances know that? Best. Line. Ever.I think this was the point that everyone decided this was worth it and would hardly agree in another round.

It also posed as the beginning of the end, as the effects started to wear off, the fact that daylight was on the horizon was setting in and we all started nodding off and going our separate ways. I do believe it was 6:30AM when I left, and I woke up around 7PM. I had to make cookies, pfeffernüsse to be exact, for German class so I started on that instead of seeing how everyone else fared. While baking in the basement kitchen I was pleasantly surprised to be visited by one of my friends that was part of the adventure in the woods. He wouldn’t stop talking about how great it was and the fact that most, if not all of the other people are still not awake. I took the opportunity to bring them some cookies to wake up to, even if pfeffernüsse isn’t exactly a tempting treat.

After recalling the night, I think I have a new way of thinking about this. I’m not so sure that we were all really on board with this and started a little skeptical. Once we were going though, that’s what becomes the gateway. Weed has limiting effects on what it can do to you, but hallucinogens? Not the case. So my gateway was actually LSD, not this herbal remedy the world seems to be obsessed with. This are the types of drugs though that “open your mind” so maybe it takes doing drugs to advocate their usage properly or not at all. Hmm, taking drugs to fight drugs? Maybe I’ll write a letter to my Congressman.

I can’t stand Rihanna and yet Pandora is set on fixing this. November 17, 2008

I’m a lot of things that aren’t nice. Selfish and mean are just the tip of the iceberg. But I think the good qualities I have are redeeming. Besides having a great rack, I’m very self-aware and pride myself on being able to read people well. I’m the most considerate person you’ve ever met. And because of this and the aforementioned self-awareness, it bothers me to no end when I’m not met with the same consideration. To the point where I will throw a tantrum.  Or manipulate you into feeling the greatest amount of guilt possible. Whichever brings me a greater reward.

I bring this up because living with people makes you realize how much you take others into consideration over yourself. When I first moved across campus and lived with a promiscuous young lady I would make sure I slept in a vacant room at a friend’s rather than go back to my own room Thursday nights because I knew what was going to go down, regardless of me being there or not unfortunately. And let me tell you, it was quite unfortunate when I chose to say fuck it and sleep in my own bed. Because she was never considerate of me. I’ve had countless roommates who could give a shit if I was asleep and they were being loud. I’ve had a roommate FOLD CLOTHES ON ME while asleep. But when I woke up early for class and had the opportunity to bang and crash around to wake her up, I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to be remembered as that bitch that couldn’t be quiet.

There are countless stories I have of roommates I have grown to hate, and this is why I just don’t want any again. But going down to Florida is quite a leap and it would be nice to be with someone during it. I know a lot of people that are planning the same as I, and it would work out nicely to have that built-in support. If I lived on my own then that bit of extra effort has to be put in to hanging out with them and with the amount of time I need to be working and just plain saving money, I would probably just become a hermit for eight months. Although I am the most entertaining person I know, this isn’t healthy. It makes sense to put my own issues aside and pretty much grin and bear it. I just don’t know how much longer I can just let things roll off my shoulders. Just because it has been eight different people does change the sentiment, it doesn’t reset itself. I’m bound to blow a gasket at some point.

I mean I just don’t get it! I try so hard! If I walked in the room and saw a sleeping or studying roommate I would take what I needed out of there and vacant as quickly as possible. I would find things to do, places to go, people to see so I wouldn’t be the cause of any strife. I cannot wrap my head around people that do the complete opposite. Why would you speak in a normal voice on the phone when I’m asleep? Why would you try and hold a conversation with me when I’m obviously doing something that requires my concentration? Why would you assume that you wouldn’t wake me up while in an exasperated tone you explain to your friend how you don’t give a shit if I’m asleep or not, you’ll do what you want? My mind is blown.

I don’t even know how to retaliate properly. I know I’m a loud person, but this is in a crowded bar or a group of people. Just sitting at home I make no noise. No one in my house even knows when I wake up because I don’t slam bathroom door behind me or parade down the stairs. I don’t throw keys down. I don’t openly sigh or yawn loudly. I talk to myself sometimes, but never if I feel like someone is around (lol). So me having a loud phone conversation, or thundering around is so out of character I feel awkward doing it. Like they’ll know it’s on purpose. Which it is…but I don’t want confrontation. Shit no! That would be horrible. Passive aggressiveness is surely enough. If I could just pull it off…

In other news, I’m trying to figure out how to angle my personal statement. I think I have a good idea for my topic, if you want to know you can ask but I’m keeping it to myself for now. I have always felt like I have a certain tone that is oddly sarcastic but endearing enough that I got away with it on every single term paper I’ve written in college. I think the subject matter and its updated views would be accentuated by the way I write. Or something. I want my personal statement to be more like a musing than a term paper. This is probably the way wrong way to go, but I have a feeling it’ll be okay. Unlike this roommate situation. Shit.

Found it! November 13, 2008

I thought I lost this for a second there! Whew!

Although there are countless topics I could expand upon here, I have fallen silent for reasons unknown. I have an arsenal of media and text I could pull from to write an extensive, educated, rage-filled entry about prop 8. I could write about the election, but I was one of the, like, ten people in this country that didn’t vote. Don’t hate; New York is always blue. I’ve been having a hard time buckling down and studying for the LSATs, no surprise. And I’ve come to a few decisions that in a few months could play out to change my life. For better or worse, who knows.

The one thing that bothers me endlessly everyday that I felt like the world needs to know? On the cover of the latest Interpol album are lions attacking an animal and it is completely incorrect. The lion on the left obviously has a mane, meaning it is a male, and males don’t hunt. The lioness does. Males just lie around all day while the females go out and do all the dirty work. Typical.

Having recently acquired my license (yeah, six years late say whaaa!?), this has lit a fire under my ass for me to do more. Like, you know, get a job. I’m hoping to work my ass off, because I can’t save money for shit. If I have a good flow of it though, the chance of me spending it all is smaller. But really, who cares about that. Onward!

While watching copious amounts of TV, I began to notice a trend in DS commercials. Wii ones too. Women! The fact that you can carry on a phone conversation while playing Animal Crossing almost made my mind explode. I nearly ran out to get it, before I realized my brother took the Wii when he moved. Bastard! I totally forgot that I wanted to go to GameStop or at least look up the price of a PS2 nowadays. I’ve been aching for Katamari since forever and would give nonexistent parts of my anatomy to play again. That mystery game Liv Tyler is playing in the DS commercial? WANT. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good blood and guts video game, but something in that mystery game made me think of the Highlights picture searches and I got all giddy and shit.

While marketing these light fluff games to women is tugging on my feminist strings a little, I can’t help but be enamored with them. Sometimes you just have to give in and say pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Or in this case Nintendogs is for girls and CoD is for boys.

SIM SIM SALABIM! October 4, 2008

It’s not that late but I have an innate tendency to get pretty manic at night. Plus I just had a bowl of soup I completely didn’t even need to have and although food puts most to sleep, it wakes me the fuck up!

The other night I had this major epiphany about evolution. Well I don’t know if it is major and I would really like to know if something like this does exist. Well no, duh it has to exist because that’s how evolution kinda started but I digress. If this shit has been evolving for a gagillion years why isn’t there an organism that is completely, 100% self-sustaining. Like, doesn’t need food, water, air, space. Where’s that one kind of algae that can flourish in a vacuum? I ain’t no scientist but I just think that’ll be nifty to find one day. Hur-yuck.

At a family gathering last week my aunt was enlightening the table on the differences between right-brain and left-brain kinds of people. She began home-schooling my cousins last September and absolutely loves it, goes to seminars, specialized bookstores and things of that nature. It’s funny how split our family is. There’s not one person that you could look at and be like, “Well, I don’t know they could be either”. We’re all cut and dry. I’m a righty, as I believe all people that write on the internets without a scientific agenda. If you aren’t reviewing the failboats that are the iPhone knockoffs, you’s a righty. But anyway, right-brained people don’t understand things right away, we basically lack a short-term memory. You can put something in front of us and then an hour later ask us about it and we have no idea. Ask the next day, it could be recited perfectly.

So I went out driving yesterday with my mom and let me tell you, I suck at parking. I always thought I had good spatial reasoning but holy moley no. So I try a few times, kinda get it down then head home, which by the way was perfect. I think once you reach a certain age and understand a lot more about certain things, in this case, driving; nothing is frightening anymore. Or, it could just be the right-brainness acting up. Everyone in my family that is left, had major problems passing their road tests. I can also chalk it up to the fact that I should have gotten this shit years ago and it is about time to get the show on the road.

Everything I write is pretty relevant to the subject at hand but makes me a horrible storyteller, no? So anyway, we went back out today and I pulled into a parking spot with no issue. It takes some time but when I know something, I know something.

Did you know a baby giraffe is born six feet tall? Just sayin’.