So I'm totally obsessed with Netflix right now. Netflix and I are having an illicit and highly improper love affair and I probably should not be typing this for the Internets to read but I don't care because I LOVE NETFLIX, DON'T YOU SEE? WE LOVE EACH OTHER AND I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK! I got a free trial a week ago and opted for the two DVDs at a time plan and now I kind of want to upgrade to the three at a time plan because oh my God, the possibilities. I have spent several hours in the last week surfing around the site, internally screaming things like, "Oh my God! Clarissa Explains It All! NETFLIX, YOU HAVE CLARISSA EXPLAINS IT ALL? Oh my God! Grey's Anatomy! I totally want to watch that! Oh, and Lost! And Prison Break! And... this? I don't even know what this is, Netflix, but you suggested I would like it based on my other choices and I trust you fully! One hundred percent! ALSO I LOVE YOU. SO, SO MUCH." So after a week I have approximately 80 DVDs in my queue and I have finished and returned exactly one of them. Methinks the love affair will probably be lasting long into the foreseeable future.
Speaking of love affairs, I love organization and storage (news to anyone? thought not). Yesterday I went to Target to pick up a prescription and accidentally got absorbed in looking at the plastic storage containers because I am cleaning out my room right now and about to start packing to move and that means that I obviously need many, many more storage containers than I currently have in my life. All of the storage containers I already have are inferior and must be replaced with newer, shinier models. ALL OF THEM. Everything I own must have a storage container to call its own! It would be organizational heaven!
I didn't even realize that Target has a lot of storage containers on sale right now until I got over to that section and then I just stood there in awe as I stroked the containers' discounted plastic exteriors while a little bit of drool dribbled down the front of my shirt. I snapped rudely back to life when I realized that I have approximately $40 in my checking account to last me until Friday, but I bid a loving farewell to the containers and told them I would come back for them before the sale was over. Fear not, my loves! I shall return!
My roommate did a bad, bad thing. For me, anyway. As I understand the story (and to be honest, I don't really understand the story), one of her co-workers had a cat who had kittens and then he had to move out of his apartment/house/wherever he lived, and so Sara took the kittens until they could get their new homes. Most of them already had new homes (I think there were six to begin with?) and the others found homes almost immediately after Sara took them. However, and here is the bad part, there is now one kitten remaining. One tiny, lonely, oh my God adorable kitten. A friend of Sara's has already laid claim to this kitten but won't be taking her for another week or so, which, as it turns out, is about six days longer than it took for me to fall dramatically, irreversibly in love with this kitten. She is a tiny, unbelievably fluffy gray ball of fuzz and she's rambunctious and playful and runs around crazily pouncing on specks of dust, but then last night she curled up next to me and slept that way all night. All. Night. If I moved or turned over, she would move so that she was still touching me. But she didn't want to be ON me - if I put her on my chest, she would almost immediately climb off and lay back down next to me. She wanted to be touching me, but still in her space. Oh my God, she is so adorable. I AM SMITTEN. SMITTEN WITH A KITTEN, LOL THAT RHYMES!
And basically, now I want to keep her. But I can't. So I am sad. The end.
8.01.2007
What? This is still here?
Hi! Still alive, albeit just barely, occasionally! Still in class, although only for one more day, and thank God because if I didn't have the (meager, two-week) break between summer and fall semesters very, very soon, I'd probably be going crazy! And excessively using exclamation points again! I love punctuation!
I got an A- on my last project, which, on the one hand, cool, because it's totally not like a B or a C or a D (all of which my teacher has handed out joyfully and without mercy to numerous people over the course of summer semester) but at the same time my inner perfectionist/type-A personality is totally abusing me because DUDE. You TOTALLY should have gotten an A, you worthless piece of dog poop! You are no more than a smelly pile of feces to me! You hear me? FECES! And I cry a little and promise Type-A that I will do better next time, I swear, I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean it! I don't know what happened! I... please don't hit me!
Anyway, so yeah, aside from my crazy-ass multiple personalities (which were actually what the project was based on, ooh!), one of which tells me that I suck unless I'm perfect, I'm well aware that an A- is a good grade, especially since I think I did better than almost anyone in the class. But still, it's kind of like, I worked so fucking hard on this project, I mean I literally put like 35 hours into this shit in the span of maybe a week, and so I kind of feel like my best work is only worth an A- to my teacher. Like she's laughing at my pathetic efforts, all HA! 35 hours? WIMP. AMATEUR. I scoff at your efforts. A-MINUS FOR YOU, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I AM FEELING KIND TODAY. Begone with you! Better luck next time!
The project I'm working on now is our final project, and I had a really hard time coming up with a concept because I think that the project is, frankly, stupid. Really stupid. Especially for a final project. We are to create at least five postcards. Postcards. Where we take pictures for the front of the postcard, and then we do stuff to the back. We can write to anyone, from anyone. The pictures have to relate somehow to what we write. And! We can manipulate the postcards and use techniques that don't involve pictures! Like painting! And drawing! And... um... stamping? I guess? I really feel like this is an idea that could be successfully executed by third graders, and actually, maybe I did a project like this once in elementary school. I can't remember.
Since I've had such a hard time coming up with an idea for this project, and I think it's kind of stupid, I'm writing to things that frustrate me, and taking pictures that illustrate these things. The recipients of my postcards will be:
- Money (that vicious minx)
- My apartment (fuck you, apartment. seriously.)
- My packrat tendency (see also: I've Saved Everything Since I Was Born, and No, I Am Not Kidding)
- Cigarettes (why, cigarettes? you are so bad for me, yet so enjoyable!)
- uh... one other thing I can't remember right now. Probably not a good sign.
So yeah. Stupid. Very, very stupid. But look! Pretty pictures! Which I will maybe eventually scan and put up here, but probably not!
In other news (that is the only segue I seem to be able to use appropriately), someone left the office for good (again) yesterday, and when I arrived this morning there was a cake sitting in the refrigerator. A chocolate cake, with chocolate whipped-looking frosting. My stomach was immediately screaming at me to eat this cake, I mean it, NOW OR ELSE! and so I finally got a piece and oh my, is it ever delicious. There's chocolate syrup or something on the inside and it is covered with a huge layer of chocolate-flavored whipped cream instead of icing, which is good because I hate regular icing. I am almost finished with my piece and I am sort of sad. I kind of want to announce that I am quitting just so I can get a cake and then come back the next week and be all, just kidding guys! I still want to work here! But damn, that was a good cake, huh?
I got an A- on my last project, which, on the one hand, cool, because it's totally not like a B or a C or a D (all of which my teacher has handed out joyfully and without mercy to numerous people over the course of summer semester) but at the same time my inner perfectionist/type-A personality is totally abusing me because DUDE. You TOTALLY should have gotten an A, you worthless piece of dog poop! You are no more than a smelly pile of feces to me! You hear me? FECES! And I cry a little and promise Type-A that I will do better next time, I swear, I'm sorry, I really am. I didn't mean it! I don't know what happened! I... please don't hit me!
Anyway, so yeah, aside from my crazy-ass multiple personalities (which were actually what the project was based on, ooh!), one of which tells me that I suck unless I'm perfect, I'm well aware that an A- is a good grade, especially since I think I did better than almost anyone in the class. But still, it's kind of like, I worked so fucking hard on this project, I mean I literally put like 35 hours into this shit in the span of maybe a week, and so I kind of feel like my best work is only worth an A- to my teacher. Like she's laughing at my pathetic efforts, all HA! 35 hours? WIMP. AMATEUR. I scoff at your efforts. A-MINUS FOR YOU, BUT ONLY BECAUSE I AM FEELING KIND TODAY. Begone with you! Better luck next time!
The project I'm working on now is our final project, and I had a really hard time coming up with a concept because I think that the project is, frankly, stupid. Really stupid. Especially for a final project. We are to create at least five postcards. Postcards. Where we take pictures for the front of the postcard, and then we do stuff to the back. We can write to anyone, from anyone. The pictures have to relate somehow to what we write. And! We can manipulate the postcards and use techniques that don't involve pictures! Like painting! And drawing! And... um... stamping? I guess? I really feel like this is an idea that could be successfully executed by third graders, and actually, maybe I did a project like this once in elementary school. I can't remember.
Since I've had such a hard time coming up with an idea for this project, and I think it's kind of stupid, I'm writing to things that frustrate me, and taking pictures that illustrate these things. The recipients of my postcards will be:
- Money (that vicious minx)
- My apartment (fuck you, apartment. seriously.)
- My packrat tendency (see also: I've Saved Everything Since I Was Born, and No, I Am Not Kidding)
- Cigarettes (why, cigarettes? you are so bad for me, yet so enjoyable!)
- uh... one other thing I can't remember right now. Probably not a good sign.
So yeah. Stupid. Very, very stupid. But look! Pretty pictures! Which I will maybe eventually scan and put up here, but probably not!
In other news (that is the only segue I seem to be able to use appropriately), someone left the office for good (again) yesterday, and when I arrived this morning there was a cake sitting in the refrigerator. A chocolate cake, with chocolate whipped-looking frosting. My stomach was immediately screaming at me to eat this cake, I mean it, NOW OR ELSE! and so I finally got a piece and oh my, is it ever delicious. There's chocolate syrup or something on the inside and it is covered with a huge layer of chocolate-flavored whipped cream instead of icing, which is good because I hate regular icing. I am almost finished with my piece and I am sort of sad. I kind of want to announce that I am quitting just so I can get a cake and then come back the next week and be all, just kidding guys! I still want to work here! But damn, that was a good cake, huh?
7.13.2007
Okay, so remember that time I posted twice in like four days, it probably won't ever happen again
Life these days has been a confusing mix of busy as shit and boring as... well... shit. I guess. My job mostly accounts for the boring part and I don't know what to do about this, really. My job is kind of boring but I like the people I work with and for and I've been here for a long time and they're really cool about working with my hours since I'm in school. I come in at 11 the days I'm not in school and basically stay until whenever I want, depending on the amount of work I need to get done and the amount of crap breathing down my neck and begging me to come home and do that instead. But it's like a forty-minute drive from my apartment and did I mention that the work I do is pretty boring? Because it is. This paragraph is basically pointless because I'm not trying to come to any kind of decision about a major life change in the form of a new job. I'll probably quit working here eventually and find something more fun and closer to where I live, but for now this is working out pretty well. Mostly.
In other news, my summer photography class is kicking my ass. When I signed up for it I was like, "Well, I mean, I don't know if I really want to take a summer class but I really need to, and I mean, it's photography for God's sake, I've taken it before so it will totally be a breeze cause I already know everything anyway. No time spent outside of class studying! Lots of extra time to sit around and stare at my belly button!" WRONG. We covered the basics in like one class period and from there it has been TAKE PICTURES PROCESS NEGATIVES MAKE CONTACT SHEETS MAKE PRINTS MAKE MORE PRINTS FUCK THESE HAVE DUST ON THEM MAKE THEM AGAIN MOUNT THEM HURRY HURRY TURN THEM IN!!! CRITIQUE OMG!!! The photography class I took last year was like... well... NOTHING compared to this. Nothing. I could have done that shit in like two weeks, seriously. I have no concept of how it took us an entire semester to get through that class. I shot like maybe four rolls of film the whole semester and only processed one of them in the darkroom. I've already shot and processed six rolls of film in three weeks and wow, it is time-consuming. I love it, I really do, and this is definitely not going to deter me from pursuing photography, but this summer class is nothing like I expected it to be. We have two more assignments -- big ones -- left to go this semester and only three weeks. Between twelve hours spent in class a week and 21 to 24 at work, it's hard to find another twenty or thirty to spend taking pictures and working in the darkroom. At least it's something I love, ja? Except for the times when I end up crying in a corner because my prints won't come out correctly even though I've done them 18 times and someone keeps opening the drying cabinet while my negatives are in there, making dust attach itself permanently to all my negatives. Which is then impossible to get off and leaves spots all over my prints. But I love this class. Really.
Also, during our critique on Tuesday, my teacher made three people cry. Out of nine. That's like one-third of the students in the class that were in tears at some point during the class period. I wasn't one of them this time, but I fully expect to end up red-eyed and blotchy before this semester is over. Art is hard.
Moving on, I have been really hungry lately. Really, really hungry. And by lately, I mean like the last two days, but still. I was really hungry yesterday and now I am really hungry AGAIN today and that's enough to create a pattern or continuation or whatever, and now I find it weird. Yesterday I was at school and had my typical lunch of sandwich and chips, which normally keeps me good until class is out, but I was starving by about three hours later. This morning I had cereal for breakfast around 10:30, which usually means I won't be really hungry again until 1:30 or so, but I was ravenous a WHOLE HOUR EARLIER. And then I ate chicken nuggets and a large fry from Chick-fil-a and I'm still not wholly satisfied. I could eat more. Normally I can't even finish that meal. What's going on? Am I feeding the stress? Am I ovulating? Is my body determined to make me obese by the wintertime so I won't be so cold? Stay tuned!
Speaking of yesterday (with the food? remember? the hunger? I spoke of yesterday, just trust me) I twisted my ankle and fell down. I want you to visualize this in your head, seriously, because it was the least elegant and most awkward thing I have done in a while, and I do a lot of awkward and non-elegant things. I stepped weirdly on some uneven pavement, my ankle went TWIST approximately perpendicular to my body, and in about a tenth of a second I had flown onto the ground. Please note my choice of words: flown. Not fallen, not... some synonym of fallen... FLOWN. It was pretty acrobatic, I think, being that my lens cap from the camera INSIDE MY PURSE popped off and flew onto the sidewalk. And seriously? Who falls? I mean, people trip a lot, you know? And then they catch themselves after a bit of a stumble and they keep walking like nothing happened. Not me! I fell. Hard. I scraped my hand up pretty well and my ankle was going, "Um, hi? What just happened? I think I kind of hurt?" and then I got up and felt dizzy. Flash forward a couple of hours, my ankle hasn't been hurting very badly but suddenly begins to hurt VERY VERY BADLY (possibly due in part to the fact that I walked around a museum on it for three hours). I begin to freak out and ponder the fact that I could very well have fractured a bone in my foot and/or ankle due to my horrible awkwardness and clumsiness. Flash forward a few more hours, and the tear-inducing pain has subsided, and this morning I am convinced it's nothing but a simple sprain, because it hardly hurts at all anymore. Just a little bit. Also the big scrape on my hand is stinging whenever it touches something, but whatever. The moral of the story is that my body likes to freak me out with horrible pain and then say, just kidding! Oh man, I totally got you. You were totally scared that it was something worse than a sprain. Man, you are gullible. Too easy.
In other news, my summer photography class is kicking my ass. When I signed up for it I was like, "Well, I mean, I don't know if I really want to take a summer class but I really need to, and I mean, it's photography for God's sake, I've taken it before so it will totally be a breeze cause I already know everything anyway. No time spent outside of class studying! Lots of extra time to sit around and stare at my belly button!" WRONG. We covered the basics in like one class period and from there it has been TAKE PICTURES PROCESS NEGATIVES MAKE CONTACT SHEETS MAKE PRINTS MAKE MORE PRINTS FUCK THESE HAVE DUST ON THEM MAKE THEM AGAIN MOUNT THEM HURRY HURRY TURN THEM IN!!! CRITIQUE OMG!!! The photography class I took last year was like... well... NOTHING compared to this. Nothing. I could have done that shit in like two weeks, seriously. I have no concept of how it took us an entire semester to get through that class. I shot like maybe four rolls of film the whole semester and only processed one of them in the darkroom. I've already shot and processed six rolls of film in three weeks and wow, it is time-consuming. I love it, I really do, and this is definitely not going to deter me from pursuing photography, but this summer class is nothing like I expected it to be. We have two more assignments -- big ones -- left to go this semester and only three weeks. Between twelve hours spent in class a week and 21 to 24 at work, it's hard to find another twenty or thirty to spend taking pictures and working in the darkroom. At least it's something I love, ja? Except for the times when I end up crying in a corner because my prints won't come out correctly even though I've done them 18 times and someone keeps opening the drying cabinet while my negatives are in there, making dust attach itself permanently to all my negatives. Which is then impossible to get off and leaves spots all over my prints. But I love this class. Really.
Also, during our critique on Tuesday, my teacher made three people cry. Out of nine. That's like one-third of the students in the class that were in tears at some point during the class period. I wasn't one of them this time, but I fully expect to end up red-eyed and blotchy before this semester is over. Art is hard.
Moving on, I have been really hungry lately. Really, really hungry. And by lately, I mean like the last two days, but still. I was really hungry yesterday and now I am really hungry AGAIN today and that's enough to create a pattern or continuation or whatever, and now I find it weird. Yesterday I was at school and had my typical lunch of sandwich and chips, which normally keeps me good until class is out, but I was starving by about three hours later. This morning I had cereal for breakfast around 10:30, which usually means I won't be really hungry again until 1:30 or so, but I was ravenous a WHOLE HOUR EARLIER. And then I ate chicken nuggets and a large fry from Chick-fil-a and I'm still not wholly satisfied. I could eat more. Normally I can't even finish that meal. What's going on? Am I feeding the stress? Am I ovulating? Is my body determined to make me obese by the wintertime so I won't be so cold? Stay tuned!
Speaking of yesterday (with the food? remember? the hunger? I spoke of yesterday, just trust me) I twisted my ankle and fell down. I want you to visualize this in your head, seriously, because it was the least elegant and most awkward thing I have done in a while, and I do a lot of awkward and non-elegant things. I stepped weirdly on some uneven pavement, my ankle went TWIST approximately perpendicular to my body, and in about a tenth of a second I had flown onto the ground. Please note my choice of words: flown. Not fallen, not... some synonym of fallen... FLOWN. It was pretty acrobatic, I think, being that my lens cap from the camera INSIDE MY PURSE popped off and flew onto the sidewalk. And seriously? Who falls? I mean, people trip a lot, you know? And then they catch themselves after a bit of a stumble and they keep walking like nothing happened. Not me! I fell. Hard. I scraped my hand up pretty well and my ankle was going, "Um, hi? What just happened? I think I kind of hurt?" and then I got up and felt dizzy. Flash forward a couple of hours, my ankle hasn't been hurting very badly but suddenly begins to hurt VERY VERY BADLY (possibly due in part to the fact that I walked around a museum on it for three hours). I begin to freak out and ponder the fact that I could very well have fractured a bone in my foot and/or ankle due to my horrible awkwardness and clumsiness. Flash forward a few more hours, and the tear-inducing pain has subsided, and this morning I am convinced it's nothing but a simple sprain, because it hardly hurts at all anymore. Just a little bit. Also the big scrape on my hand is stinging whenever it touches something, but whatever. The moral of the story is that my body likes to freak me out with horrible pain and then say, just kidding! Oh man, I totally got you. You were totally scared that it was something worse than a sprain. Man, you are gullible. Too easy.
7.02.2007
It's only been, what, like four days?
And I'm back?! SHOCK AWE! AMAZEMENT etc. You know what I really, really hate about living in Atlanta? The traffic. I love Atlanta, I really do, and I have no desire to ever live in the 'burbs or out on the rambling countryside, except when I am stuck in traffic.
Exhibit A: Last Wednesday I went to my dad's house after work to take him some paperwork for insurance, and a trip that should have taken me 45 minutes took me close to TWO HOURS. TWO. HOURS. OF SITTING IN THE CAR. NOT MOVING. It turns out that something had happened involving some sort of tour bus and a middle lane was inexplicably blocked (but the bus was pulled off to the side of the road? I DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON). The H.E.R.O. trucks (is that what they are?) were sitting in the blocked middle lane with lit-up arrows pointing left or right, like, hey, this lane is blocked but choose any of these other available lanes! They are all equally desirable! But they were NOT. I moved into the right lane only to discover that it was ALSO CLOSED until past the exit, so I had to get OFF the EXIT and wait for fifteen minutes just to turn around and get back on the interstate. But did the helpful arrows inform me that this was going to happen? No! They didn't. This is why I hate arrows. Also traffic.
Exhibit B: Last Thursday (yes. only a day after horrific traffic incident number one) I left my apartment around 6:45 to attend the last Screen on the Green (an outdoor movie) of the summer at Piedmont Park in the middle of Atlanta. The drive from my apartment to Piedmont should normally take between ten and fifteen minutes, maximum. I left my apartment all jolly, like, yay, last Screen on the Green of the summer! And they're showing E.T.! And I haven't seen that movie since I was like, I don't know, six or something and I think it totally creeped me out and gave me nightmares for some reason but now I'm 21 and I'll be fine! And hanging out with friends! Yay Piedmont Park! My attitude swiftly changed when traffic completely stopped the minute I got off the exit. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the park. ONE HOUR. AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. That is fully an HOUR longer than it should have taken me. And then? SCREEN ON THE GREEN GOT RAINED OUT. CANCELLED. SEVENTY-FIVE MINUTES OF DRIVING FOR NOTHING. I called my best friend every five minutes and gave her traffic updates on my position since I was supposed to be meeting her at the park. Our conversations went something like this:
Brittony: Hello?
Whitney: IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES AND I HAVE ONLY MOVED FIVE FEET. FIVE. FIVE FEET IS ALL I HAVE MOVED IN TEN MINUTES. SO ANGRY. If you hear something on the news about a car stopped because the driver had a concussion from repeatedly banging her head on the steering wheel, YOU KNOW IT IS ME. SO ANGRY GRARRHHGGGHHH SMASH ANGRY.
Traffic also makes me use an excessive number of capital letters. It's really not my fault; I turn on caps lock and then the anger pouring out of my eyes blinds me to the fact that it stays on for more than a socially acceptable amount of time.
Aside from Horrible Traffic Incidents 2007, I had a nice weekend. Saturday I woke up inexplicably grumpy and then compounded the problem by not eating breakfast because I had run out of breakfast food. I have low blood sugar, so not eating when I'm hungry is neverrrr a good idea. Anyone who's ever been around me when I'm hungry can vouch for this. My little brother was having a birthday party at a bowling alley and my dad told me to be at his house at noon to go with them. I got there five minutes after noon and they had already left. I stomped around the house for about thirty seconds yelling about how I couldn't believe they had already left because seriously, my dad knows I am chronically late because I get it FROM HIM, and if he was leaving at noon why wouldn't he tell me to be there earlier than that? Or call me to find out where I am before they left? HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION. I called my dad and he informed me that they had, in fact, already left, and that I should just meet them at the bowling alley. I hung up the phone with him, sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor, and sobbed for about five minutes. For no reason. Just sobbing for the hell of it, apparently, with the tears and the blotchy face and the feeling pitiful. When I decided enough was enough I picked myself off the floor, ate two bowls of Berry Burst Cheerios and went bowling. Which was, you know, fun. After the sobbing, and also the sweating because my car needs something done to the air conditioning and I can't ride in it for more than five minutes without the sweating. Down my back, on my upper lip, between my thighs (which I HATE ew), under my arms. Ew.
So yes, where was I? Bowling. We went bowling and it was fun. There were blacklights. And pizza and cake and pictures. Afterward we went to the river and sunned ourselves on the rocks like lazy cats before going to the rope swing that I was too much of a pussy to swing off of (even though I did it last summer. But seriously, it's intimidating.) And then later in the evening, I got a washer and dryer! Which I can't plug in yet because they got severely rained on while we were transporting them to my apartment and I'm afraid they will short out if they aren't dried out yet. I spent the night at my dad's house on Saturday for the first time in quite a while and spent Sunday laying around doing nothing because... I could, I guess. I should have been working on a photography project but the people who agreed to be my subjects were unavailable. So instead we went to the river again (and I swung off the rope swing twice! omg!) and then ate a big family dinner. When I came back to Atlanta I met up with my boyfriend and his brother and my friend Kathryn and we all smoked hookah (oh how I love hookah) and sang along to Prince. Life could totally be worse. Even though, you know, traffic.
By the way, regarding my profile picture:
1. I am not as ugly and awkward as I look in that picture. I don't think.
2. I am, in fact, eating a kitten. Please pay special attention to the way the kitten is looking helplessly at the camera, like OH MY GOD I AM ACTUALLY IN SOMEONE'S MOUTH. I REALLY THINK SHE IS GOING TO EAT ME PLEASE HELP.
Exhibit A: Last Wednesday I went to my dad's house after work to take him some paperwork for insurance, and a trip that should have taken me 45 minutes took me close to TWO HOURS. TWO. HOURS. OF SITTING IN THE CAR. NOT MOVING. It turns out that something had happened involving some sort of tour bus and a middle lane was inexplicably blocked (but the bus was pulled off to the side of the road? I DON'T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON). The H.E.R.O. trucks (is that what they are?) were sitting in the blocked middle lane with lit-up arrows pointing left or right, like, hey, this lane is blocked but choose any of these other available lanes! They are all equally desirable! But they were NOT. I moved into the right lane only to discover that it was ALSO CLOSED until past the exit, so I had to get OFF the EXIT and wait for fifteen minutes just to turn around and get back on the interstate. But did the helpful arrows inform me that this was going to happen? No! They didn't. This is why I hate arrows. Also traffic.
Exhibit B: Last Thursday (yes. only a day after horrific traffic incident number one) I left my apartment around 6:45 to attend the last Screen on the Green (an outdoor movie) of the summer at Piedmont Park in the middle of Atlanta. The drive from my apartment to Piedmont should normally take between ten and fifteen minutes, maximum. I left my apartment all jolly, like, yay, last Screen on the Green of the summer! And they're showing E.T.! And I haven't seen that movie since I was like, I don't know, six or something and I think it totally creeped me out and gave me nightmares for some reason but now I'm 21 and I'll be fine! And hanging out with friends! Yay Piedmont Park! My attitude swiftly changed when traffic completely stopped the minute I got off the exit. It took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get to the park. ONE HOUR. AND FIFTEEN MINUTES. That is fully an HOUR longer than it should have taken me. And then? SCREEN ON THE GREEN GOT RAINED OUT. CANCELLED. SEVENTY-FIVE MINUTES OF DRIVING FOR NOTHING. I called my best friend every five minutes and gave her traffic updates on my position since I was supposed to be meeting her at the park. Our conversations went something like this:
Brittony: Hello?
Whitney: IT'S BEEN TEN MINUTES AND I HAVE ONLY MOVED FIVE FEET. FIVE. FIVE FEET IS ALL I HAVE MOVED IN TEN MINUTES. SO ANGRY. If you hear something on the news about a car stopped because the driver had a concussion from repeatedly banging her head on the steering wheel, YOU KNOW IT IS ME. SO ANGRY GRARRHHGGGHHH SMASH ANGRY.
Traffic also makes me use an excessive number of capital letters. It's really not my fault; I turn on caps lock and then the anger pouring out of my eyes blinds me to the fact that it stays on for more than a socially acceptable amount of time.
Aside from Horrible Traffic Incidents 2007, I had a nice weekend. Saturday I woke up inexplicably grumpy and then compounded the problem by not eating breakfast because I had run out of breakfast food. I have low blood sugar, so not eating when I'm hungry is neverrrr a good idea. Anyone who's ever been around me when I'm hungry can vouch for this. My little brother was having a birthday party at a bowling alley and my dad told me to be at his house at noon to go with them. I got there five minutes after noon and they had already left. I stomped around the house for about thirty seconds yelling about how I couldn't believe they had already left because seriously, my dad knows I am chronically late because I get it FROM HIM, and if he was leaving at noon why wouldn't he tell me to be there earlier than that? Or call me to find out where I am before they left? HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION. I called my dad and he informed me that they had, in fact, already left, and that I should just meet them at the bowling alley. I hung up the phone with him, sat down in the middle of the kitchen floor, and sobbed for about five minutes. For no reason. Just sobbing for the hell of it, apparently, with the tears and the blotchy face and the feeling pitiful. When I decided enough was enough I picked myself off the floor, ate two bowls of Berry Burst Cheerios and went bowling. Which was, you know, fun. After the sobbing, and also the sweating because my car needs something done to the air conditioning and I can't ride in it for more than five minutes without the sweating. Down my back, on my upper lip, between my thighs (which I HATE ew), under my arms. Ew.
So yes, where was I? Bowling. We went bowling and it was fun. There were blacklights. And pizza and cake and pictures. Afterward we went to the river and sunned ourselves on the rocks like lazy cats before going to the rope swing that I was too much of a pussy to swing off of (even though I did it last summer. But seriously, it's intimidating.) And then later in the evening, I got a washer and dryer! Which I can't plug in yet because they got severely rained on while we were transporting them to my apartment and I'm afraid they will short out if they aren't dried out yet. I spent the night at my dad's house on Saturday for the first time in quite a while and spent Sunday laying around doing nothing because... I could, I guess. I should have been working on a photography project but the people who agreed to be my subjects were unavailable. So instead we went to the river again (and I swung off the rope swing twice! omg!) and then ate a big family dinner. When I came back to Atlanta I met up with my boyfriend and his brother and my friend Kathryn and we all smoked hookah (oh how I love hookah) and sang along to Prince. Life could totally be worse. Even though, you know, traffic.
By the way, regarding my profile picture:
1. I am not as ugly and awkward as I look in that picture. I don't think.
2. I am, in fact, eating a kitten. Please pay special attention to the way the kitten is looking helplessly at the camera, like OH MY GOD I AM ACTUALLY IN SOMEONE'S MOUTH. I REALLY THINK SHE IS GOING TO EAT ME PLEASE HELP.
6.29.2007
In which I ramble semi-nonsensically (again)
Okay, so obviously I sometimes forget that I have a blog, and by sometimes I mean all the time, for months at a time. I had actually composed a post where I began to talk about Europe and how much it kicked my ass and how much I miss the trash-strewn streets of Italy (well, Rome anyway, Florence was mostly really clean) but then I got overwhelmed and I let it hang out in Drafts for a while and now I think it may have been deleted by the Blogger ghosts? I don't know. I didn't look hard enough because I don't really care.
But I do want to start blogging (every time I write that word I feel like I'm talking about how I want to pick my nose in public and then wipe in on my forehead, why is that word so gross?) if only because I read a lot of other people's blogs without ever commenting and I want to start commenting but I feel like I probably shouldn't without some reciprocal blogginess of my own. Because, I don't know, I feel like commenting sans one's own blog is a little scary stalker-like, even though I'm pretty much an open book in that if anyone asked about any part of my life ever I'd give you a long and detailed story that would have you wondering by the end if I had any friends at all and if so, where are they and why are you the one that is having to listen to me talk about my IBS for two hours?
So, okay. Europe was awesome and it kicked my ass in the good way and oh my God, I want to go back. I miss everything about it except for French people and also French food (although I am having an illicit and highly improper love affair with Nutella) and French trains and all the rain and the cold in London. Mostly I miss Italy and I want to go back right this second. I think I want to live there some day, albeit when I have learned more Italian than "prossima fermata" which, although that phrase is useful on the trains (it means "next stop") that's pretty much the only place it's useful. Unless I want to make my living giving piggy back rides around town to small Italian children, which I don't.
Everything we saw in Europe was about a billion times bigger and a billion times more beautiful than I had imagined it, except the Sistine Chapel. I was actually a little disappointed by the Sistine Chapel and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that because I feel like it makes me sound like an under-educated, over-expectant American. But really, after seeing all the other beautiful cathedrals we had seen (St. Paul's, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Peter's Basilica, Sainte-Chappelle), ol' Capella Sistina was almost a letdown. Don't get me wrong, it was totally beautiful and awesome and stuff because it was the Sistine Chapel, but it was kind of like the Mona Lisa in that way -- awesome because it's so famous and hyped, but not quite living up to the fame and the hype. I think I would have liked the Sistine Chapel a lot more if we hadn't had to spend two hours slugging through the Vatican Museum in a crowd of thousands of other people who got angry if you stopped to look at a painting because you were holding up the flow of traffic through the endless halls toward the Chapel. By the time we finally got there I was just tired and I wanted to sit down and have no one touching me. Plus even though I wasn't using flash the guard told me to stop taking pictures, which I did, until he walked away. One guard can only do so much against hundreds of people with cameras.
Other than that, though, I was not even moderately let down by anything. Westminster Abbey was beautiful and Big Ben was big and the Tower of London was awesome. Versailles was breathtaking and the Louvre was mind-bendingly large and the Eiffel Tower was way taller than I ever expected and Luxembourg was lovely. The Roman ruins were absolutely fascinating and so was the Collosseum. My heart aches for gelato and European chocolate, which all involves hazelnut in some form. TRL was being filmed two minutes from our campsite in Florence the entire time we were there and I couldn't help but laugh at that. Every time we got on a bus to go back to our campsite it was filled with excited Italian teenagers and I wanted to look at them all and say, seriously? You LIVE in FLORENCE and you are excited about TRL? THIS IS FLORENCE. AND YOU LIVE HERE. They don't even know.
So yeah, Europe. And I'll put pictures somewhere online whenever I finally get them all organized and stuff. There are over 1200, I think. I'm a little picture-crazy.
Speaking of pictures (segue! segue!) I'm going to a mental institution on Wednesday with my photography teacher. We're doing a project this semester involving several of the patients at the institution and my teacher has been there twice to work with them. She picked me and a guy from my class to go with her because she said we were the best in the class thus far (and the twelve-year-old in me mentally pumped the air with her fists and pelvic-thrusted) and she needs help talking to the kids because she can't handle all of them by herself. We're doing sort of a self-portrait project and so we're going to talk to the kids about how they want to do their self-portraits since they can't include their faces in them and to maybe help them take some pictures with our cameras since there's only so much you can do with a black-and-white disposable camera. I'm excited but a little nervous.
But I do want to start blogging (every time I write that word I feel like I'm talking about how I want to pick my nose in public and then wipe in on my forehead, why is that word so gross?) if only because I read a lot of other people's blogs without ever commenting and I want to start commenting but I feel like I probably shouldn't without some reciprocal blogginess of my own. Because, I don't know, I feel like commenting sans one's own blog is a little scary stalker-like, even though I'm pretty much an open book in that if anyone asked about any part of my life ever I'd give you a long and detailed story that would have you wondering by the end if I had any friends at all and if so, where are they and why are you the one that is having to listen to me talk about my IBS for two hours?
So, okay. Europe was awesome and it kicked my ass in the good way and oh my God, I want to go back. I miss everything about it except for French people and also French food (although I am having an illicit and highly improper love affair with Nutella) and French trains and all the rain and the cold in London. Mostly I miss Italy and I want to go back right this second. I think I want to live there some day, albeit when I have learned more Italian than "prossima fermata" which, although that phrase is useful on the trains (it means "next stop") that's pretty much the only place it's useful. Unless I want to make my living giving piggy back rides around town to small Italian children, which I don't.
Everything we saw in Europe was about a billion times bigger and a billion times more beautiful than I had imagined it, except the Sistine Chapel. I was actually a little disappointed by the Sistine Chapel and I'm a little embarrassed to admit that because I feel like it makes me sound like an under-educated, over-expectant American. But really, after seeing all the other beautiful cathedrals we had seen (St. Paul's, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Peter's Basilica, Sainte-Chappelle), ol' Capella Sistina was almost a letdown. Don't get me wrong, it was totally beautiful and awesome and stuff because it was the Sistine Chapel, but it was kind of like the Mona Lisa in that way -- awesome because it's so famous and hyped, but not quite living up to the fame and the hype. I think I would have liked the Sistine Chapel a lot more if we hadn't had to spend two hours slugging through the Vatican Museum in a crowd of thousands of other people who got angry if you stopped to look at a painting because you were holding up the flow of traffic through the endless halls toward the Chapel. By the time we finally got there I was just tired and I wanted to sit down and have no one touching me. Plus even though I wasn't using flash the guard told me to stop taking pictures, which I did, until he walked away. One guard can only do so much against hundreds of people with cameras.
Other than that, though, I was not even moderately let down by anything. Westminster Abbey was beautiful and Big Ben was big and the Tower of London was awesome. Versailles was breathtaking and the Louvre was mind-bendingly large and the Eiffel Tower was way taller than I ever expected and Luxembourg was lovely. The Roman ruins were absolutely fascinating and so was the Collosseum. My heart aches for gelato and European chocolate, which all involves hazelnut in some form. TRL was being filmed two minutes from our campsite in Florence the entire time we were there and I couldn't help but laugh at that. Every time we got on a bus to go back to our campsite it was filled with excited Italian teenagers and I wanted to look at them all and say, seriously? You LIVE in FLORENCE and you are excited about TRL? THIS IS FLORENCE. AND YOU LIVE HERE. They don't even know.
So yeah, Europe. And I'll put pictures somewhere online whenever I finally get them all organized and stuff. There are over 1200, I think. I'm a little picture-crazy.
Speaking of pictures (segue! segue!) I'm going to a mental institution on Wednesday with my photography teacher. We're doing a project this semester involving several of the patients at the institution and my teacher has been there twice to work with them. She picked me and a guy from my class to go with her because she said we were the best in the class thus far (and the twelve-year-old in me mentally pumped the air with her fists and pelvic-thrusted) and she needs help talking to the kids because she can't handle all of them by herself. We're doing sort of a self-portrait project and so we're going to talk to the kids about how they want to do their self-portraits since they can't include their faces in them and to maybe help them take some pictures with our cameras since there's only so much you can do with a black-and-white disposable camera. I'm excited but a little nervous.
5.14.2007
I suck at blogs
News to no one, yes? I suck at journaling in general unless I'm sad/depressed/anxious/sleepless/otherwise in a mood to write journal entries that will make me look back and think, seriously, was I depressed for four years straight? Because I can't write as much when things are going good, I guess. I just don't feel the need. I feel like I've reverted to sixteen-year-old me, like omg! Things are great! I love life! Like now. I started this entry because I was like, well, it's been over a month since I posted something, which, you know, would matter if I had more than one regular reader, and knew how to write without the excessive use of commas, but I feel like I should post even though no one reads what I write. Misled sense of duty? Nagging need to have my thoughts be a part of the vast Internetly world? Extreme boredom with my job? You decide! But I started the post, and now I feel like I'm just babbling. Which I kind of am, and I can't think of much to say because there have only been two (2) things on my mind lately:
1. Europe, and
2. My new camera.
Neither of which needs to be talked about any more than I already have. A few nights ago I was writing in my journal and realized that I was babbling about LUGGAGE, of all things. Honestly. Older Me is going to read that journal and wonder if I was depressed for four years straight AND wow, did I really not have anything more interesting to write about than luggage? Because I thought there was a lot more going on in my life when I was 21.
Speaking of being 21, I don't think I am. When I was young, I looked at people my age and I thought that they were the coolest, most mature people ever. 21 seemed so old and grown-up to me and I knew that when I was 21 (or 20, or 18) I was going to be so awesome and grown-up. But now that I am 21, I realize that mostly, I feel no different from the way I felt when I was 11 and thought that 21-year-olds were the shit. I'm still awkward and self-conscious and I still laugh too much and I still don't know how to sit in skirts without showing everyone in the room my underwear. I was observing P.E. at an elementary school last year and watching the fifth-graders talking as they walked laps around the field and I wondered if it was abnormal that I still felt like I could go join them and feel totally fine about it. I hear all these people talking about this "growing-up" thing and wonder if I'll ever experience it, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm just an 11-year-old who has a job and pays bills and goes to college.
1. Europe, and
2. My new camera.
Neither of which needs to be talked about any more than I already have. A few nights ago I was writing in my journal and realized that I was babbling about LUGGAGE, of all things. Honestly. Older Me is going to read that journal and wonder if I was depressed for four years straight AND wow, did I really not have anything more interesting to write about than luggage? Because I thought there was a lot more going on in my life when I was 21.
Speaking of being 21, I don't think I am. When I was young, I looked at people my age and I thought that they were the coolest, most mature people ever. 21 seemed so old and grown-up to me and I knew that when I was 21 (or 20, or 18) I was going to be so awesome and grown-up. But now that I am 21, I realize that mostly, I feel no different from the way I felt when I was 11 and thought that 21-year-olds were the shit. I'm still awkward and self-conscious and I still laugh too much and I still don't know how to sit in skirts without showing everyone in the room my underwear. I was observing P.E. at an elementary school last year and watching the fifth-graders talking as they walked laps around the field and I wondered if it was abnormal that I still felt like I could go join them and feel totally fine about it. I hear all these people talking about this "growing-up" thing and wonder if I'll ever experience it, because as far as I'm concerned, I'm just an 11-year-old who has a job and pays bills and goes to college.
4.11.2007
Because I don't talk about it enough in general
So I could write about how my car got broken into late last week and everything was stolen from it, or I could write about how I've been grumpy for the last few days and am not sure why (weather? PMS? the fact that my car got broken into and everything was stolen from it?), or I could write about how I really need to have my eyes checked and every time I try to get that done something seems to intervene and I have no contacts left and am wearing my five-year-old scratched-up glasses, but instead, I'm going to write about what's been at the forefront of my mind for at least the last week: EUROPE!
Amidst the end-of-semester hustle (three weeks left! THREE!) and the beginning-of-summer jump at work, my mind has only been able to focus on one thought and that thought looks a lot like EUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPE in a fairly continuous high-pitched giggle. I've never been out of the country before and the decision to go to Europe this summer was almost spur-of-the-moment; the boy and I began contemplating it and then had charges on our credit cards for plane tickets about a week later. The trip kind of hung out in the back of my mind for a month or so until a week ago, when I started planning our flights around the continent and our hostel bookings. Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else.
It's been taking me longer to fall asleep at night because my mind is going over the hostel possibilities I checked earlier that day, location against price against facilities and ratings. I sit in art history class during our lectures on Roman architecture and it's all I can do to stop myself from raising my hand and yelling, "I don't have a question! It's just that I AM GOING TO SEE ALL OF THIS STUFF IN SIX WEEKS! HAHAHAHA I WINNNNN!!!" I give everyone I talk to an updated countdown every time I talk to them and I know deep in my heart that it is probably getting old for them, but because of the fact that my brain won't keep repeating, "sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks omg sixWEEKS" it's hard for me to not let it slip out occasionally, like every five minutes.
I am a little OCD and a bit of a control-freak (see also: textbook firstborn) and so I've taken the reins on planning the entire trip. I like to remind Kyle that he has such a good girlfriend who is planning everything so that he doesn't have to do any work; but in reality, whenever he says that he will help plan, no really, don't worry about anything else, he'll do the rest! I start getting twitchy and my eyeballs get a little bloodshot. I'm almost done booking everything and I'm actually going to be a little disappointed when I'm done -- nothing else to compare, obsess over, make lists about. I'll have to start planning and listing other things: what to do, what to buy, what to take, what to wear, what to eat, when we will take our scheduled bathroom breaks, etc.
The best part about this trip is that we are flying between cities instead of traveling by train, which leaves us a lot of extra time to spend in the cities instead of traveling to them. Because of this, we're visiting five different cities in two and a half weeks and basically cramming in as much as possible while we're there and probably not sleeping very much and will probably pass out from exhaustion and sleep for a full seventy-two hours when we return to the States. But it's totally worth it, because the only thing better than being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London." is being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London and then I totally thought I lost it in Paris but I found it in the bottom of my bag in Rome and then wore it twice in Florence and on the train to Pisa."
Amidst the end-of-semester hustle (three weeks left! THREE!) and the beginning-of-summer jump at work, my mind has only been able to focus on one thought and that thought looks a lot like EUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPEUROPE in a fairly continuous high-pitched giggle. I've never been out of the country before and the decision to go to Europe this summer was almost spur-of-the-moment; the boy and I began contemplating it and then had charges on our credit cards for plane tickets about a week later. The trip kind of hung out in the back of my mind for a month or so until a week ago, when I started planning our flights around the continent and our hostel bookings. Now I'm having trouble thinking about anything else.
It's been taking me longer to fall asleep at night because my mind is going over the hostel possibilities I checked earlier that day, location against price against facilities and ratings. I sit in art history class during our lectures on Roman architecture and it's all I can do to stop myself from raising my hand and yelling, "I don't have a question! It's just that I AM GOING TO SEE ALL OF THIS STUFF IN SIX WEEKS! HAHAHAHA I WINNNNN!!!" I give everyone I talk to an updated countdown every time I talk to them and I know deep in my heart that it is probably getting old for them, but because of the fact that my brain won't keep repeating, "sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks sixweeks omg sixWEEKS" it's hard for me to not let it slip out occasionally, like every five minutes.
I am a little OCD and a bit of a control-freak (see also: textbook firstborn) and so I've taken the reins on planning the entire trip. I like to remind Kyle that he has such a good girlfriend who is planning everything so that he doesn't have to do any work; but in reality, whenever he says that he will help plan, no really, don't worry about anything else, he'll do the rest! I start getting twitchy and my eyeballs get a little bloodshot. I'm almost done booking everything and I'm actually going to be a little disappointed when I'm done -- nothing else to compare, obsess over, make lists about. I'll have to start planning and listing other things: what to do, what to buy, what to take, what to wear, what to eat, when we will take our scheduled bathroom breaks, etc.
The best part about this trip is that we are flying between cities instead of traveling by train, which leaves us a lot of extra time to spend in the cities instead of traveling to them. Because of this, we're visiting five different cities in two and a half weeks and basically cramming in as much as possible while we're there and probably not sleeping very much and will probably pass out from exhaustion and sleep for a full seventy-two hours when we return to the States. But it's totally worth it, because the only thing better than being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London." is being able to say, "Oh, this old thing? I picked it up in London and then I totally thought I lost it in Paris but I found it in the bottom of my bag in Rome and then wore it twice in Florence and on the train to Pisa."
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