lauren's

2003-06-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

in the morning after it rained
today it is cloudy and much colder than earlier this week and i am pleased.
i get to register for classes at uw soon. but they tell me what to take so it's not really that exciting.
i think i will be posting at the other page now that i've got it somewhat set up. please read and comment there. my comments are lonely.

2003-06-03T18:33:00.000-07:00

you're taking a gamble on a little sorrow
head hurts. can't think. why am i writing? oh yes: bill is impatient.
we made really good time on the way to seattle; we left just after 3 and got there at about 8:30. dropped eric off at shelby's, then sho and i went to shan's, where we sat around until ten, at which point we went downtown to marcus' martini heaven. they had a drink called san sebastian, but i did not get it; instead i got a scooter which was amaretto, brandy, and cream, and which was also very enjoyable. after that we went to the j&m, which was very loud, had girls dancing on the bar, cost $5, and made me scared for my life because all i could think about was what if there was an emergency? we would be trampled, or the roof would collapse on us, or something. but there were mirrors on the walls, hung at angles (as opposed to flat on the wall) which for some reason pleased me, and the dj was up in a cool pulpit-like thingie. except there were dancing girls on his stairs, so he wouldn't have been able to get out, either. after that we went down the street a little ways, and eric, shan, and kristen had gyros, and shelby and sho had bagel dogs, and i had a pretzel with mmmsalt. we went home after that, and shan and sho and i (why does everyone's name start with sh-?) talked about random things like the mark of the beast, which frightens shan, and the nature of evil, if it exists at all. we were up really late, and sho had to get up and move his car at eight; i felt bad, but since my car-moving skills are non-existent, i couldn't help him.
saturday we did the obligatory trip to pike place market. i was excited about all the fruit and vegetables. cherries! asparagus! artichokes! peaches! honey! yay! (yes, i know honey is neither a fruit nor a vegetable. but i like it a lot.) i am really looking forward to having a market every day, instead of just saturdays and not in the winter, like here. also we went to the fun store on the bottom with the comic books and toys and a lot of pictures of legolas, who, as everyone surely knows by now, is my boyfriend. i was particularly happy about that part. it was weird, though, because every other time i've been to that store, i have not paid attention to the comic book section, which is really a significant part of the store. this time, especially since we were with sho, i looked at a lot of things that he said i would like. (i have not gotten to the stage where i call them graphic novels. i always feel like that sounds more like it means porn than that it means comics.) anyway, we wandered around at the market, ate lunch, went to imax (saw mt. st. helens one and fishies one) and then went back to shan's to nap for a while. later we went to a party as moral support for kristen, but didn't stay very long because we were meeting nic and eric wagner (whose web page is boring) at a bar near shan's house called flowers. we stayed up too late again, this time talking about things like aphids, which apparently freaked sho out, but not as bad as the mark of the beast did to shan. we didn't talk about anything that freaked me out. then sunday morning we had brunch with shelby and then we took off.
on the way back, we stopped at fry's, where i got two new computer games on sho's recommendation, torment and arcanum. have been playing torment, but i think i messed up and left a place i can't get back to before i finished everything i was supposed to do. gr.
other than that, nothing much is going on. my life is boring. i am excited about the reappearance of grilled eggplant in my life, which occurred last night at sebastian's. apparently the math boys barbecue a lot. before i left i had to go to safeway and get my own eggplant, though it is not nearly as good cooked on the stove as it is on a barbecue. that's ok. eggplant is my friend. also, it's funny to say. eggplant eggplant eggplant!

2003-05-30T13:08:00.000-07:00

maybe you can keep me from ever being happy, but you're not going to stop me from having fun
a thunderstorm woke me up early early this morning. it was good. angry weather made me feel better.
going to seattle this afternoon till sunday or so. excited but grumpy. but i will finish my sock and i will start new projects, and i will see shan and shebly. so that is good.

2003-05-27T21:11:00.000-07:00

when you open up your blue eyes
mm. area desk smells like a combination of wet carpet and sharpie marker. i know the marker smell is because i was using a sharpie, but i don't know why it smells like wet carpet. it's gross. fortunately, i get to leave soon. and i think i will go to burrito boy before going home. and since the Important Boy didn't call so i could tell him we were going to the bijou, i think i will take some movies home with me. amélie? fellowship of the ring? big fat greek wedding? prolly all of the above.
there is very little interesting news. i spent the weekend in reno, which makes me miserable (desert, boredom) but which also is fun because my great-great-great grandmother (i think) was married to the man (myron lake) who founded reno. it was too hot and i slept a lot 'cos there was nothing else to do. sunday i came back and then on monday i slept a lot 'cos there was nothing else to do here, either. today i worked at the liberry in the morning and then came to work, where i still am. i brought my own computer so i could download things and play with it and be happy about ethernet. also, have started to think about new layouts for the redesign i will do ... when i move to laurenisms.com!! yes, bill likes to keep tabs on me, and since he offered to host me and therefore make it free, i figured i might as well do it. so, now you can email me at anything you want at laurenisms.com, and it will find me! isn't that cool??

2003-05-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

falling flying tumbling
lauren:
sunburned. bored with work. frantically knitting to finish things with deadlines. excited about seattle. has ever-expanding borders of geekdom -- is now a comic book geek (thanks sho). had a fun weekend with shan and shebly and arlie also, is amazingly and irrationally happy.

2003-05-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

can i blow this small town

seattle.

2003-05-09T11:33:00.000-07:00

seems that i'm always thinking of you
am in portland this weekend to hang out with my sea-star while mom is in salt lake city. i got here last night (in time to watch the famous csi with her) and am staying through saturday afternoon. yay! tonight we are going to chez machin for dinner, i think, since mom left money for us. here there is a nice bunny, and a nice stella-dog who is sleeping curled up in a ball like a cat. there's also an amazingly annoying parrot, but she's not screaming right now, so she's easy to forget about.
haven't blogged much in a while 'cos i've been in a bad mood, but not the kind that it's easy to blog about ... the kind that i think would be impossible to play the vague-blog game with. just ... blah. kind of depressed. (but not of my own accord this time! ha! tho' i think that makes it worse.) in any case, i'm better now. not entirely well, but better than i was before. i think people often underestimate the magnitude of my insecurity, and then are surprised when i become miserable.
grad school update: uw gave me not the $10,000 i thought they might, but $28,500 out of an estimated $31,000 cost of attendance. it's mostly loans, though there is also work study. so now i have to decide between taking out $16,000 at almost 8% interest from a bank (which means unsubsidized and no deferred payments if my income is low) and taking out about $24,000 at about 4% interest when $14,000 of that is subsidized and payments are deferred if i don't make enough money.
oh, and, also i have to decide between living in seattle and living in montreal.
mom is mad at me for even considering uw; she says i would get a better job if i went to mcgill. but i want to live in the northwest, and i think it would be a lot easier to find a job in the area if i've gone to school here. at least, several people who should know have told me that. and i guess the information school at uw is pretty well-respected. also, travel expenses would be a lot higher if i lived in montreal.
i'm afraid if i choose seattle (which i think i want to do) i'll be doing it for the wrong reasons -- scared, lazy -- and not for the right reasons. i seem to have convinced myself that the harder thing to do is always the right thing to do. is that true?
in other news, though i guess there isn't much in my life other than grad school decisions: I AM KNITTING A SOCK. it is the coolest thing ever! i'm going to finish it today. i'm so excited. i'm also knitting a bag for katie and a fun hat that i keep having to start over. yesterday i gave my sister the incredibly huge hat that i made to match her scarf. she says she wants it even though it's huge. i haven't been running since ... last tuesday. i kept having to work really early, which is not conducive to running. also was depressed, and though i know exercise makes it better, i couldn't bring myself to even get dressed last weekend, much less go outside. i cleaned my room! i didn't do very well at closet week, but i filled up a big bag of books to take back, so i feel i have accomplished book week and i shall try closet week again now.
mm. want nutella. must go investigate cupboards.

2003-04-30T09:20:00.000-07:00

down on the ground
grump.
serious grump.
so, driving a u-haul to montreal would cost $4,700. bill said it would be expensive but i didn't think he meant it would almost be more than i make in a year. arlie says i should just buy furniture when i get there. but as of right now i don't even have money to buy furniture. i barely even have money to buy food. this is bad because i just got paid today, and i'm already broke.
and uw asked me if i was coming, and i told them only if they gave me $10,000 or more, and they said "well, would you come if we gave you $10,000?" but that doesn't mean they will. i hope so, because i am feeling that montreal is prohibitively expensive right now. and though i am also feeling that seattle is closer and therefore significantly less scary, and there is shan and shelby and it's close to pals in eugene and to mom and sister in portland, i am also feeling that if i don't go to montreal now, i will never go anywhere interesting ever. i mean, i love the pacific northwest, i want to live here, etc. etc., but i've never been to the east coast ever at all, so maybe i just think i want to live here? maybe i'll be stuck for the rest of my life in a place i only think i like, because i've never been anywhere else?
wah. i wish i knew what was going on. i think i'm going to cry.

2003-04-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

elle dit toujours j'veux ça ça ça
today is plant day. i repotted the lemon verbena that i bought at saturday market, and i also planted my tomato upside down. i am very excited about that part. i really hope it works, tho' i realized (after the fact) that it will be a huge pain to move. i also planted some rosemary (again) and some thyme (also again. the last batch of everything either died or didn't grow. i think it was the bad window dirt.) then i also planted a garlic clove. and, not only are the chives not dead yet, my basil has sprouted! it is the cutest little tiny basils! and the bean i planted, just for fun, is growing big and tall, too. i don't know what to do with it now. yay green growing things!
that's all. must clean room. this week is closet week. everything from the closet that i don't actually need is going to go to goodwill. next week is book week. book week is very hard as i want to keep every book i have ever read, and many that i haven't. but i will take books to smith family. then the week after that will be paper week. i have a lot of extraneous papers. i will organize my school papers, and my knitting patterns (of which i just printed many -- yay for hc printing privileges) and my recipes. and i will recycle everything else. i don't know what week will come after paper week. i guess i'll have to see how paper week goes. it may turn out to be two weeks long.

2003-04-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

already run me over
hahaha, misheard song lyrics! i love that page. for some reason i am incredibly amused by things like that and engrish.com (see especially incas and smorking) and wacky typos like on the headlines thing on jay leno, tho' i do not like jay leno. i like conan, and so i try to stay up to watch him, but i always fall asleep in the middle of jay leno. i think they should switch places so i can fall asleep in the middle of conan instead.
today is tangent day, because i actually haven't got anything to say, but i'm bored as usual. let's see, more non sequiturs ... i am really interested in having burrito boy for dinner but i think i am going to force myself to eat at the dining hall. today i ran for almost twice as long as normal. "normal" is not very long. katie has reminded me that ass reduction project is really robin's idea, because the ass expansion project that we all so enthusiastically participated in last winter was robin's idea. i seem to have developed a capacity to make enemies. i didn't know i was interesting enough to have enemies. i am going to see dar in may and i am very excited! also in may, we (students for choice) are going to have a panel discussion about religion and reproductive choice. i am really looking forward to it, actually. we are trying to find a muslim and a buddhist. should any of my four readers know any pro-choice muslim or buddhist religious leaders in the eugene area, please do let me know. uw did not give me an assistantship (the equivalent of a gtf position) so unless they tell me about lots of scholarships within the next couple of days, i am for sure not going there. i am, however, having a crisis of not-wanting-to-move-across-the-country right now, so seattle sounds nice, but i know i really should go to montreal 'cos i'd have fun ... i think ... right? maybe i'll just move in with my mom and get a crappy job. wah. scared.
ok, that is random laurenthoughtjumble for the day. now i am going to be a good person and go to the dining hall and eat big fat salad with kidney beans and garbonzo beans and pine nuts and balsamic vinegar.
today's blog is brought to you by the letter z. z is for zoo and zitella and ... other nice things. =)

2003-04-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

these songs are true these days are ours these tears are free hey
why is the cross in the ballpark? what is it doing there? what does that mean? i don't understand. and is it "child, why deny that which is obvious," or is it "why deny the child who is obvious"? my life is full of mysteries.
a shocking new development: running has actually started to be enjoyable! and even to make me happy!! last time -- thursday -- my great blue heron pal was there again, in the exact same place. it must be a good place for frogs or small fishes or something. katie has started a new thing: the ass reduction project! ass reduction! ass reduction! belly reduction! hooray! thursday i ran a little farther than before, and i paused for less time before turning around to come back, and i did not think i was going to die. it was great!
today is full of exclamation marks, it seems. and it should be! life is good! yesterday i went to see the misanthrope at the robinson. it was a pretty good show. the set was cool. i don't know if i've ever seen/read it in english before. but i always like molière. then we went to pinball corey's house, where there were other math boys -- well, matt, who likes paul simon -- and many, many young girls with eye makeup. well, not young, necessarily, but younger than i am. except the one who ended up staying after all the littler ones took the very drunk one home. she was nice and twenty-two. i am used to being the youngest one at parties (because i mostly hang out with the math boys); it was kind of weird not to be. eric kept suggesting the remaining girl and i take our shirts off (though i admit i did have two dollars in my bra) and corey told me to kiss sebastian so he could take a picture. he also has a picture of two of the little girls kissing, and another of two of them taking their birth control pills at 11:30 at night with beer. it's unclear why.
the phone rings. must answer. more ... some other time.

2003-04-12T13:47:00.000-07:00

let the morning time drop all its petals on me -- life, i love you!
i have nothing to say today except that i am full of happy-and-good-ness, for no reason. well yes, for reason. but i am trying to pretend that i don't have a reason, so that when the previously mentioned uprecedented niceness goes away, i will still be happy&good. i can't quite make myself believe that the niceness is not a trap to lull me into happy-and-good-ness, only to suddenly return to full ignoritude. (shan really liked that word when i used it earlier, and i like it too, so it's now in my vocabulary.) but, if it's not a trap, that's even better!
i am eating all the jelly beans. i wish there weren't a big bag of them sitting here. now there are only coffee, chocolate pudding, juicy pear, margarita, and peanut butter ones left, pretty much. i ate everything else. ugh.
the people at the yarn store are getting nicer to me. the first time i came in they all looked at me like i didn't belong, and they watched me the whole time i was there. then the next time she asked me what i was making and pointed out better needles for me. then yesterday, she was friendly and talky and said they could start a black market in fat needles. i guess a lot of people are using fat needles. anyway, i started making this great afghan. it's super soft yarn, and it's all kinds of fun colors, but i don't know if it'll turn out to be big enough. i'm making it narrower than the recipe calls for, but i also have less yarn. i guess i'll just knit until i run out of yarn.

2003-04-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

half moon on night time sky
o, something is wrong with me and i have turned into a giant puddle of mush. it's the weirdest thing. but a week and a half of consistent (and unprecedented!) niceness, when i'm not used to it, could be expected to have that effect, i guess.
today when i went for a run i saw a great blue heron standing in the river fishing. it didn't move the whole time i watched it, which was sad -- i wanted to see it catch something. but it was so beautiful. i have always liked herons because sometimes if you pay attention you can see them in the mud at low tide as you cross the youngs bay bridge to warrenton, and also sometimes in the ditches by the side of the road on the way to the beach. so i was really excited to see one in the willamette.
i am linky today. my pal bill will prolly like that. they are even bill-y links! not billy links. things about cities and roads and bridges. bill-y.
and speaking of links, my wacky sister has gotten her own blog! hooray! i love my geeky little sea-star. as she would say, hahahaga!
and um. tonight i am going to see rabbit proof fence with bryon and i don't know who else. nothing else of interest. i am starting to like running. gasp! maybe it's the birds i get to see when i'm out by the river in the morning. or, maybe it's because now that i've gone three times in the past week, i don't feel like i'm going to die nearly so much.
grad school update: today was v. stressed because of not being able to find very many american banks interested in loaning to kids going to canada, or canadian banks interested in loaning to non-canadians. but then i found one that pre-approved me (whatever that means) even though i said i would need $16,000 a year. i guess i still have to apply but now i am not so stressed. because of work schedule i haven't been able to go into the financial aid office yet, but i'm going to go in tomorrow and see what else they can tell me. really, really, really want to go to mcgill. . .

2003-04-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

but all i could ever do was fill my time with thoughts of you
can't think of why i wanted to post today. i'm sure there was something ...
i am trying to convince my sister to get a blog. i think she will come join the spinster sisterhood, too. most days at lunch time when she is in her computer place at school, i am online too, here at work, so we email back and forth like crazy emailing freaks. she is the best fourteen-year-old ever. even though she is almost fifteen. eek! how did that happen?
recently i have:

found seth again. (like finding jesus, except really nothing like that at all.)

been to see the oregon mozart players. that was fun. i learned that i like cellos most (which i suspected) and i remembered that i don't really like piano very much. i think it has to do with being at my crazy grandma's house when i was small. she always listened to piano music on the radio, so now it has negative connotations.

put off knitting olly's hat. am lazy. i started twice and had to take it out twice 'cos i screwed it up, so i got tired of starting over. i think i will work on it today.

gone running! woo! legs are sore now but it is good. and if i don't get lazy, i'm going to go tomorrow, too. 'cept i work at eight, and the whole production takes at least an hour because of hair washing, etc. and realistically, i am not going to get up at six thirty tomorrow morning. so. i guess that answers that question.
i'm so bored. it's really hard to get used to this non-school thing. i keep feeling like there's something else i should be doing, like i'm forgetting something really important ... then i remember it's because this is will be the longest i've gone without big scary homeworks since i was about four. i don't have anything to do anymore except knit and read orson scott card books and watch stupid tv shows. sigh. my life is so hard.
update on grad school things: mcgill can't give me any money, which is lame. unc can give me $18,000 worth of loans, but the total estimated expenses are $28,000 a year. uw's tuition is over $15,000, but mcgill's is only about $10,500 CANADIAN! including living expenses, the whole thing would be about $16,000 american. so basically tuition and living expenses at mcgill is barely more than just tuition at uw, and way less than everything at unc. the only problem is that i can't get government loans, so the interest rates on whatever i do get will be higher ... i'll have to figure out if it would be worth it. but i really really really want to go to canada, so i might do it even if it's a little more expensive. because, i mean, canada!

2003-04-01T09:44:00.000-08:00

if you want to write a song about the moon, then do it -- write a song about the moon
my kitchen is So Clean. i love it. except the rest of my house is so messy that now i just want to spend all my time in the kitchen, but there is nowhere to sit in the kitchen, and nothing to do there except cook and/or eat. but i will commence cleaning the rest of the house today. i am going to be super magic clean lauren!
i feel better today, tho' still grumpy. i watched a hard day's night and ate miso soup, both of which are things that make me happy and better. but now i am at work. i had to open, which means eight o'clock, which means i got out of bed at 7:55. so i haven't eaten, but i drank almost a whole jar of iced tea already.
last night i watched huit femmes at courtney's, and since then i have had pour ne pas vivre seul stuck in my head. it was a weird/funny/good movie, though.
i had written more, but blogger wasn't friendly this morning, and now i don't remember what it was. i'm sure it wasn't particularly interesting anyway.

2003-03-30T21:06:00.000-08:00

and i live in a world smaller than anyone's
ugh. i don't know what happened -- well, yes i do -- but in any case i have suddenly been overwhelmed with lauren-is-not-neat-or-smart-or-skinny-enoughness. i want my house to be clean, and i want to get rid of all my extraneous crap (of which there is a lot), and i want to lose weight (when i say how much, people yell at me), but i don't want to go through the processes of doing these things. i want to be instantly clean and skinny without working at it. i mean, i'm supposed to be perfect, after all. but then i get all confused, because part of my definition of perfect is the ability to accept and love oneself, but part of it is to be skinny and neat and blah blah. i want everyone to be happy regardless of whether she needs to lose thirty pounds or clean her house but i can't do it. i can't do the things that would make me "perfect," but i can't accept that i don't have to, either. *sigh* the trials of the insecure feminist. my two strongest impulses are in direct opposition. above all else i feel that i should have the right to be whoever i want to be, and do whatever i want to do ... but i can't let myself do anything at all.
now i'm more depressed than when i started.
if i could run when i got off work, it would be ok, but arlie says i can't run by the river after dark because he'd lay awake worrying. i don't believe him about the laying awake, but he's probably right about the other bit. if i wasn't such a freak about being looked at, i could just run on the street ... except the fact that right now just walking down the street would probably make me uncomfortable. stupid moods. stupid insecure. stupid stupidness.
today's stupid stupidness is brought to you by: thinking about the way i behaved a few years ago, with a nice guy who unfortunately doesn't speak to me any more. thinking about how that situation may or may not be similar to some things i may or may not be doing now. from there, extrapolating to how i am a terrible person. this is so lame! i was doing so well! it's been nice and sunny and i rode my bike and the birds and trees and river were happy and they smiled at me and i smiled and things were good. i was good. now i've gone and made myself stupid again.
but it's time to go home now. i think i will clean my apartment some more. maybe i'll pay the bills. maybe i'll think about how i want my tummy to go away. i seem to spend a lot of time trying to wish things away.

2003-03-27T16:49:00.000-08:00

the way you treat her, what else can i do?
ha ha ha!
ha!
all my drama since probably october or so has been retroactively cleared of guilt! apparently, not only were suspicions about brian's california ex-girlfriend true, but suspicions about brian's california "she's just one of the guys" pal are also true!! (the "no, she's just one of the guys" conversation was oddly reminiscent of "no, she's like my sister, she's four years older" conversations of days of old, too.)
ah, life is great!
but i can stop feeling like such a bitch for all the things that have happened. i never thought they were very bad in the first place, and now (at least in comparison) i have nothing to worry about at all.
ha.

2003-03-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

home, where my music's playin'
as usual, wil wheaton has the answers. this time, actually, it's his friend, who has finally answered my questions about the peace movement vs the troops, and whether it really has to be that way.
i am at my mom's house in portland, which is fun but tests my patience a little. i am going home today, and i'm very glad. i am worried about my frog, and i think i left food in the fridge that will have made it smelly, and i don't have the right size knitting needles with me so i am antsy to get home and start a new project.
last night i finished ender's game and i cried a lot. i didn't understand shelby & my sister's ranting and raving about this book but now i do. it is stuck in my head now and i can't get it out. i dreamed that i was part of a mission that saved the world by destroying another world, and even though i was the third person on the mission and i didn't really do anything, when i got back i was kidnapped. then the bad kidnapper man cut off my torso and my arms, and laid me out by the side of the road so i looked normal, and when i called 911 (with my severed arms?) they didn't come, even though i tried to explain that i was in four pieces and i needed help. i was very traumatized by being in four pieces, and also by the ambulance not coming, i was mostly upset about having destroyed a whole world.
i am tired of blogging. i might go it away. lately i feel that it assumes a great deal about the world being interested in me. i am not interested in me ... why should the world be?

2003-03-12T19:55:00.000-08:00

i don't know a dream that's not been shattered or driven to its knees
hahaha re: me as a teetotaler. i went to rennie's monday, though i left early ... i am going to rennie's tonight 'cos my new katie-neighbor-co-worker-pal finished her big bad info hell project ... and i am probably going to rennie's friday night 'cos aaron will be back from florida. stupid people in warm sunny places ... gr.
this morning i tried to buy yarn for a big new project but it would have been $200+ for the yarn it wanted me to use. haha. yes, i really said two hundred. needless to say i am NOT spending two hundred dollars on yarn. that's excessive. why can't they make affordable hand-spun and -dyed yarn that's shipped from wales? jesus. some people.
and, i think i got in to mcgill! though unofficially. i was afraid i wouldn't hear from them before i had to tell unc whether i was coming there or not, so i emailed mcgill to ask if they knew when they'd notify me. the email i got back said they were recommending acceptance and i should get an official letter soon. that sounds like i got in, right?? yay!
damn, i had all kinds of things i was going to say and now i've completely forgotten them. oh well, i am sure they are not important anyway. and i'm getting kind of tired of this web page thing. or maybe i'm just still in my crisis of nothingness and conformity. tho' recently i have felt better about that. even when i am having a crisis of conformity i don't change my behavior, i just get depressed about it ... and this time i have gotten all kinds of unasked for input about how i am not stupid, so that helps.
and recently (since yesterday) i am mostly just VERY PISSED OFF, righteously (according to me and the rest of the world, i am sure), so have no time to dwell on trivial lauren-things like being depressed or not being able to buy $200 worth of yarn. the world can be a bad place, and i hate hate hate that there is nothing i can do about it but sit here and try to be helpful. but i guess that is the most important thing.

2003-03-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

insecure ... whatcha gonna do?
it's amazing how sometimes life just gets MORE darned hilarious by the second, isn't it? out of nowhere, sometimes.
i'm at work again. i'm sure it seems like i work all the time; while this is partially true, it's also due to the fact that i only ever post when i'm at work. it's hard to not have internet, but i've been surviving better than i thought i would. the lack of cable is also a hardship. but i am so amazingly broke right now that i guess it's best. i did get my tax return, which is nice, so i will pay the bills, and then i will ... eat a lot of ramen, and not much else.
the other day i was kind of grumpy because i had had to get up really early and work first thing in the morning and then go to class early too, but as i was walking back to work in the rain, i noticed it was just the right kind of rain to make the millrace pretty. i love the circles when the drops fall on the water. even though i could faintly see a traffic cone underneath the water, and the gross algae was everywhere, it was nice. i wish the millrace were still cool like it used to be in the '20s, with canoes and willows ... anyway then i was less grumpy, after watching the rain.
also i forgot to say that one day a couple of weeks ago i saw some duckies asleep on the grass and they were so cute! they were just on the grass by the sidewalk on 12th by the sub shop on the way to roma. they had their beaks under their wings. i walked in a big circle around them quietly so i wouldn't scare them or wake them up. the boy duckie opened his eye and blinked at me, so i left. i didn't want them to have to get up. they were very nice and peaceful. that was a good day, too.
i am so close to being done with school! i can't believe it. this week is dead week, so i have to finish my tutorial for library class, and we have to tape the silly final for dutch class (it includes some dutch swear words, a conversation about chocolate sprinkles, and the words "green bean grower" and "wooden shoe maker"), but other than that, i'm essentially finished! it's a very strange feeling, actually. like ... i have nothing to do. no direction. nothing to think about. sebastian would say i never have anything to do, but that's not true. i do a lot of things. but now school is not one of them, and it always has been, so it's a little disorienting for it to suddenly be gone. i guess i'll just learn to knit really well. and probably try to find another job. and probably continue my trend of going out too much. though i have decided i am a teetotaler and though i may go out, i will not drink anymore ever. no, that's not realistic. i will not drink very much or very often.
i won $4 on a scratch-it today.

2003-03-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

but i tell 'em i don't want no other baby but you
so, i guess i went on a date last night. this is weird to me 'cos i don't generally do that. go on dates, i mean. it was strange. also, he paid for everything, which displeases me greatly. i don't like to be paid for by anyone, particularly big things, which this was. then i argued politics with all his friends and i think i scared them. i can't figure out why it matters. i am having a crisis involving being me vs being quiet and having people like me. stupid crisis. stupid insecure.
it is almost time to close the desk, which makes me very happy. no one is around so i am listening to paul simon loudly. i tried to do the crossword but i think i committed several fatal errors. i didn't get anything done. i barely even got any knitting done -- only about three inches, all day! i've been too tired/lazy to pay much attention to it. mostly i sat around and read newsweek, which had a full page ad about why public transportation is good!, and the onion. have not done my library homework. we are going to have a pretend city council debate about internet filters in public libraries. we had to pick roles at random, and i get to be a mother of two who wants the library to have filters. i have never been good at arguing things i don't believe. this should be an adventure. i have to do some research about it for tomorrow.
the coast is the prettiest song ever. as shan will insist, southern cross is definitely at the top of the list, but "the coast" is just so ... i don't know. it makes me better, always. regardless of what kind of stupid crisis i am having at the time. even if i'm in a good mood it makes me better.
oo, time to go home! but i'll be back in ten hours ... i have to open tomorrow morning (seven o'clock), whee.

2003-03-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

everybody had a good year, everybody had a hard time
today's quote means nothing except that i am currently listening to let it be. yay, beatles!
anyhoo, here's the news: finished my thesis. got into grad school. and defended my thesis. thought i killed my basil sprouts but may have revived them. did kill my chives, for some mysterious reason, though yougrowgirl.com might be able to tell me why. started a new knitting project, for reals. now i have two going. went to brushfire with andi and saw ellie there! which was a big surprise and very good. i love ellie! have been thinking about options for grad schools and options for this summer. i might go to portland for the summer if i can find a job. it also depends on where i go to school. if i go to NC, bill and shan will drive a u-haul across the country with me to get me there. brian is sad at me because i told him i am not even going to apply to san josé state. i don't want to pay $55 to apply to a school i know i'll get into but know i won't go to.
that's the recap. will try to post more often now that i have next to nothing to do.

2003-02-20T18:28:00.000-08:00

down to the riverside, take off our shoes and wash these sins away
my free will astrology horoscope for this week is great:
Many of us indulge frequently in the fantasy that our lives would be wonderful if only they were different from what they are. Here's a corollary to the curse: No matter what the current state of our relationship to love may be, we always imagine that it should be better. If we don't have a romantic partner, we think we should have one. If we do have a romantic partner, we wish he or she would change, or we wonder what it would be like to be with another partner. That's the bad news, Virgo. Here's the good news: In the coming days, I predict you will find a way to feel perfectly at peace with the way your love life actually is.
ha! maybe that's because i'm . . . um, never mind.

2003-02-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

all the money's gone, nowhere to go
i am afraid that the birth of the spinster sisterhood's blog will cause me to update here less frequently. i will try to do both, but since about half of the people who read this are also in the sisterhood, i think i'll be significantly less motivated to write here. but here is for cryptic whining more than the sisterhood is, i think.
that said, i have got nothing to cryptically whine about today! life is good. i have become aware that it is silly for me to freak out, and overreact, and push, and get weird, because really i know what the problem is, and freaking out only makes it worse in the long run. so i am happy and confident and practicing believing things (even considering lack of time) and i think this will make things less silly which will in turn make me more happy and confident. yay!
ok, no cryptic whining, but cryptic jubilation. and here comes the non-cryptic whining:
I HATE THESIS. hate hate hate hate. defense is two weeks from yesterday. hate hate hate HATE!!! gr. but i think i really might have it finished by next monday, when i need to turn in my final draft to my advisors. and i also think i might let people come to the defense, even though i don't want anyone there at all, including my advisors. so anyway email me i guess if you are terribly interested and i'll tell you where it is.
oh, i found the cutest blog!! rawr: lionblog! unfortunately she does not seem to have an email address so i cannot tell her how exciting and fun her lionblog is, or how exciting and fun it is that she wants to be a librarian too! (at least, i am assuming it is a girl. it writes like i do, so it must be a girl.)
thought for today: happiness is a warm, yes it is, gun.

2003-02-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

you delight me
my chives are sprouting!! i am so excited!
also, look what katie and i did today: the spinster sisterhood has a blog!
that is all. now i must go talk about vaginas.

2003-02-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

ah, stay, don't stand around...
forgot what i was going to say. hmmm.
maybe this: i finished my translation!! except for revision. i also have to work on my prospectus a lot, and make it my introduction, but the translation is All Done. yay!!!
or maybe this: i have decided that the one thing i want most in the world -- or maybe the one material thing, since i do want a degree pretty bad -- is a garden. a big garden, with corn and tomatoes and peas and zucchini and cucumber and broccoli and lettuce. and probably other things too. i am starting, for now, by having a baby herb garden in my kitchen. i have planted sage, rosemary, and thyme (tho' no parsley), chives, and basil. also i am attempting to grow alfalfa sprouts in a jar, and i have got some black beans that are sprouting too. when i get bigger pots, i will also plant chamomile, nasturtiums, and something called lion's ear. yay for growing things!
ok, that's all i had to say. life is boring. i work on my thesis and i go to work and sometimes i remember to do my other homework and go to my classes. i still haven't been to aikido since brian was here. i mean to go every day, really i do, but there is always something wrong. sometimes (often) i have a headache, or else i'm angry, i have a meeting, i have too much other stuff to do . . . now i feel so far behind that i'm scared to go. but i might go tomorrow, for reals.
today i did my tax return. soon i will get money back! which is good because i am super broke right now. stupid broke.
oh, and: tee hee. this is my new desktop. tee hee hee. yes, i know i'm about thirteen right now.

2003-02-05T17:13:00.000-08:00

takin' my time, but i don't know where
playboy just gave me a huge papercut on my finger. maybe it's a sign that i should not participate in the exploitation of women through pornography. but probably not.
why is www.simonandgarfunkel.com not taken? fortunately, paulsimon.com includes a link to listen to his new song, "father and daughter," which is the cutest thing ever.
this morning i discovered that all my things were stolen from the bathroom, which is across the hall, not actually in my apartment. i share it with another guy, and we leave it unlocked, though it has a lock, because it's annoying to have to take your keys to the bathroom. i think it's time to start locking it again, though. they took an empty container of (housing) hand soap, my little travel containers of shampoo and conditioner (i'm mad about the containers; what if i want to travel again??), my nice razor and my crappy razor, and some grapefruit-flavored body scrub i got at the body shop in saint-malo. and a crappy old towel, which was all gross and needed to be washed anyway. i'm mostly mad about the good razor. (as if i shaved in the winter anyway.)
i have officially for realsies scheduled my thesis. it's march 3rd at 10am. i don't know where yet, and i prolly won't tell even when i do know, 'cos i don't want anyone to come. (shan.) anyway, march 3rd is in 3.5 weeks, which means i need to turn in my final draft in approximately 2.5 weeks, which means i am very stressed. aaa.
drama doesn't help me be less stressed, either. it's possible i overreacted/overthought yesterday, but i don't think i really did. well, maybe overreacted just a bit, but not overthought. i think my analysis of the situation is exactly correct, but i also think i will not behave accordingly. and now there is drama on other fronts! it's so exciting and scandalous. whee.
oh, i finally made a links page. i am sure i forgot many important things so please tell me if you should be there and aren't. and and and, i have finally remembered to add orlando bloom to my harem. now must go drool.

2003-02-04T11:43:00.000-08:00

i could've been anyone he'd seen
today is a reprise of friday november 8th's rant, i think, only less so. and only myself to blame. i am trying to not be crazy psycho girl but i am angry and so that is what i am writing about today. anyway this time i was well aware of the situation and i did it anyway. maybe now i'll really actually learn, like i said/thought i did before. whatever. doesn't matter.
but also, i am happy. there was a fat grey squirrel today. and dew on the grass. and i have daffodils in my room. and this is a cute poem: why i am in love with librarians. and i finished my scarf!! so i have it and it is nice and bright and it makes people smile at me.
so: whatever. doesn't matter.

2003-01-31T12:05:00.000-08:00

and your bird is green!
am at work, as usual, and taking a break from thesising. which means i have been doing it!! amazing. but anyway, i was looking at librarian.net, as i often do, and then i was looking at jessamyn.com, which is also fun, and i found that she had linked to what kabalarians.com had to say about her name. so i put in my names, and i got things that were interesting:

Your name of Lauren has brought you enjoyment in working with people in circumstances in which you can organize and direct their efforts, preferably in an executive position. You are self-expressive, philanthropic, clever, and ambitious. You like to specialize in whatever you undertake. This name gives you an optimistic outlook on life. You appreciate good quality in all things and want the best money can buy. You have big ideals and dreams about the things you would like but you are not always willing to put forth the necessary effort, particularly if it means being subservient to others or having to work in an unimportant, menial capacity. Position and means are important to you and, in order to create this impression of affluence, you will spend even when it is not prudent to do so. You like to give the impression that you have everything under control. You must learn to be tolerant of the weaknesses of others and be fair in your judgment, not measuring from your standard of practical thinking but recognizing the needs of others. You are generally good-natured, but may suffer with feelings of self-pity, particularly if your financial success is limited. Use of this name would cause any health weaknesses to centre in the female generative organs.

Your name Meredith has given you tenacity of purpose and has made you extremely independent. Whatever you undertake, you approach from your own point of view, and others either have to conform to your ideas or go their own way and leave you to work things out for yourself. You are so narrowly focused in your pursuits that you frequently overlook the little personal considerations and attentions that create a bond of understanding and sense of companionship. Thus it is difficult for you to merge your efforts harmoniously with others. In the home, you can inadvertently be offhand and abrupt when you would really like to show your affection. In circumstances that require a little finesse, you find that you are inclined to be too direct and straight to the point and suffer frustration in your personal relationships as a result. Tension could affect the eyes, ears, teeth, or sinuses. Frequent head colds or severe headaches are potential problems.
i try to be skeptical, y'know, but these sound like me, don't they? anyway it's entertaining. see also: shannon, katie, marika, brian (tho' i think this one is slightly off), sebastian, olly, chris.

2003-01-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

as she beheld it, she said i misspelled it
A Cheknov: you should change you screen name to "DEFIANTSUNSHINE!"
jubilantsunshine: DEFINATAUSNSHING
A Cheknov: SEFAINTDOWNSHINE!

2003-01-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

well i'm all messed up, that's nothing new
today is the state of the union address. it is at six o'clock our time. please watch it. also, please don't forget to turn in your ballots (which i hope say yes on measure 28) by eight o'clock tonight.
this weekend i went to seattle to see shan. i went up on friday afternoon and we had a dinner party! i met noella and anne who are small and cute, and nic (who has no k), and a betsy who is also libraryish, and i saw eric wagner and josh and met josh's small cute girlfriend emily. then we went out to the monkey pub tho' shan felt ill so she went home. saturday we went shopping and i bought some gigantic red corduroys for $10. we tried to go out to a place with martinis, but it was busy, so we walked around for a while and ended up taking the bus back over to the u district and going to a brewery there. uneventful. sunday i felt ill, probably due to a v. buttery cheesy baked (not basked) potato the night before, and not sleeping enough all week, and not drinking enough water. i lounged all day with shan and her lovely pal kristen, who i may or may not have previously met, and then in the afternoon we went to see real women have curves, which i loved, but which may have overwhelmed eric just a tad. it was a fabulous beautiful movie, though. then we lounged some more, and i took a nap until shelby got into town, and we went out again with her and jana. later josh and shan took me to the bus station in the middle of the night so that i could get back to eugene in time for the rally yesterday at noon.
i am supposed to go to aikido class but i really don't want to. i haven't been in two weeks. but i am so tired and there is the state of the union and i have to watch it. i suppose i can skip if i promise to go on thursday and on both days next week. so i promise. hold me to that, everyone.
i wonder what else it was that i had to say? i can't remember. it must not have been important. as if any of these things ever are, particularly. ha. i will just say, perhaps, that though i had made up my own mind about my knitting needles and my purple house, the rest of the world seems to have other ideas about whether i should be left alone. this causes me trouble because i am queen second-guesser of the universe, and now i am not sure that i meant what i had decided, although i think i do. it'll be an adventure to figure out how to make them -- and myself -- believe it, though.

2003-01-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

when lights close their tired eyes
i dreamed, funnily enough, that richard the cute french boy i met at soriah (the one i was so proud of myself for actually going to talk to!!) came to my house in portland to bring me an umbrella and a lot of other weird things -- samples of makeup, purple nail polish, popcorn, undeveloped rolls of film? -- and then when i asked for his email address he said he might be moving to texas and he was very sorry but he didn't want to leave without giving me these things.
hm.
anyway, i would like everyone to read this lovely update at librarian.net and be as pissed off as i am about the stupid usa patriot act and the stupid justice department. also, please revel in the fabulousness of jessamyn west.
today i go to salem to say yay to nice governor kulongoski, who is being v. supportive of roe v wade, even though he made some idiotic comment about not really entirely supporting measure 28. (incidentally, everyone needs to VOTE YES on measure 28!!) yesterday was the big fat party at the wild duck for the 30th anniversary of roe v wade. it turned out a lot better than i expected! there were at least 300 people, i would say. i expected about 100, maybe. so i was happy.
i have to be busy thesis girl a lot soon. gr.

2003-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

and i say, it's all right
the small green growing things are getting bigger! there is a tiny baby daffodil on the way to school, and an iris too, and lots and lots of daffodils- and crocuses-to-be. i am happy!

2003-01-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

mattheedxd potato omelet
today's quote is not a song yet, but it will be one soon, as soon as shan and i can get together and set her fabulous lyrics to music. i am so thrilled. it will be released under the title "mattheedxd potato omelet, the hot new single from shan and lauren." we are very excited. many record companies have already expressed interest in signing us.
so. after a brief period of WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH MY WEB PAGE i have returned in my full glory. thanks to chris brunner, who knows things about .htaccess files that i do not, and who also knows things about .shtml that i do not. anyway now it is working and it is good!
tuesday the 21st is roe v. wade day, and i have been busybusy getting publicity, calling (and not being called back by) bands, doing more publicity, calling other people, calling some more bands, and generally freaking out about all that on top of thesis-writing, stressing about how the people at gettysburg college are going to hate my translations, and running back and forth around campus to classes and work and dems meetings and things. in the midst of all this, brian called me on monday to say that tuesday and thursday are his days off and he was coming up. after some discussion with myself about whether this was a good idea, i warned him that i would be stressed and pissed and grumpy, and he said ok, and he drove up here monday night. he got here at 8:30 in the morning on tuesday. i, of course, had to be on campus at 9:30 and then wasn't free until seven, but we met up before going to aikido, which was interesting. i have never been in a class he's been teaching before. it was ok, though. he's a good teacher, i discovered. and then afterwards we went to dinner with charles and steve and a girl named makita (??) who's in aikido, and then brian and i went to see about schmidt, which was terribly depressing but good. brian was sad because it reminded him of his dad. i was sad because it was sad and crying.
and what else? i had things to say but i have forgotten them, now. the boy that tried to kiss me from the party the other day called me yesterday. i didn't remember giving him my number. i told him to call me in a week when i will be less stressed. i think he thought i was blowing him off, and i felt bad. and then i thought, if he called me, does that mean i should call the girl with the pigtails? hmm . . .

2003-01-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

i could let this bridge wash out and never make amends
i have just found out that lovely dar is coming out with a lovely new album in february! yay! please click on the link below to hear some of the songs from the album. and, isn't "the beauty of the rain" a great title?
today i got an email from a professor at gettysburg college, who is a uo alum and former ph.d student under my thesis advisor. she is organizing a visit to her college from marie-célie agnant, the author of the book i'm translating. and, her colleagues in departments other than french (women's studies, african american studies) want to teach her writings, but need to do it in english . . . so they will use my translations! yikes!
i am excited but nervous . . . i hope they like it.

2003-01-11T23:15:00.000-08:00

nothin' much to say, i guess; just the same as all the rest
today i saw bowling for columbine which was amazing and good and everyone should watch it! yay. i have been wanting to see it for a long time, but courtney and i can't seem to arrange our schedules, so i went with sebastian this afternoon when he called. i will gladly see it again, though. and, of course, true to everyone's ranting and raving, it was fabulous. chris, of course, wants to be michael moore, so loved it. but everyone i've talked to has loved it. so i now join the ranks of the endorsers of the movie. please go see it now. i also hope to see adaptation soon, now that it has finally come to eugene.
today i am working 7-12, which is kind of lame, because just after i got to work, kilian called to see if i wanted to come over, which was random and nice, as i haven't hung out with him in years. of course, though, i am stuck here until godawful midnight, so that was out. then morgan called and we made plans for monday, though not specific ones, so i have no idea what we're doing. and yes i think it's a date. (!) i am the most popular girl in school! ha. and tomorrow i am going to the new car show at the fairgrounds with chris. yay? it was my idea so i can't complain. i was hoping to see the 2005 mustang, but i doubt it'll be there. that's ok. cars are fun in moderation. plus, lovely chris is not on graveyard shift anymore, so maybe we can resume my driving lessons.
went to a party with olly the other night. i met a lot of commentator people, one of whom, who is also a co-worker of sorts, i paid $4 for two swigs of jack daniel's from the bottle he was hiding in his coat pocket. (and for the beer he gave me earlier.) a drunk hippie who looked kind of like dylan tried to kiss me, and i tried to put the aikido moves on him, but it didn't work with a beer in my hand. also, i haven't really got any aikido moves. that could be part of the problem. i tried to hit on a girl with pigtails named jennie, and she gave me her number and insisted i call her, but i don't know if i will/should/can. anyway, she was sitting in the lap of a cute boy who works at trader joe's. oh, and i made the dude with the drum kit in the garage show me some things, and then he let me bang on them a little, but i didn't for very long because the guitar boys came back and wanted to jam. all in all it was a pretty eventful evening.
and today i have written extensive epistles to shannon, shan&shelby (as an entity), and my darling sister. oh, and david beugli, who once brought me a frog in a pickle jar on st. patrick's day. that was about the cutest thing ever. i just found him again, and we haven't really talked since high school, so i am excited to get back in touch with him.
wow, this got a lot longer than i intended it to be. i am in a good mood today, amazingly. could have to do with eating meals. and drinking too much chai.

2003-01-10T12:42:00.000-08:00

i didn't know what i would find there
i have installed a magical new thing! yay comments! many thanks to enetation.co.uk for providing a lovely free comment service. whee!
i went to aikido weapons yesterday and it was Good and Fun. for once i had a decent partner, tho' he prolly thought i was totally stupid, as he has ten years of martial arts experience, and i just was excited about swinging a stick around. and, afterwards, i was in a good mood! it was amazing! that is, i was in a good mood until i got home and watched ER, which made me sad because of miscarriages and sad men. and today i had to work at eight, which was a fun adventure, but now someone is here to take over so i shall go home and eat soup.

2003-01-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

what brings me down now is love ('cos i can never get enough)
i have nothing to say but i felt like blogging. which i guess is therefore totally pointless. but that's ok. i only write about nothing even when i do have something write about.
i started school yesterday. i don't have class on mondays, which is good, but it means i think monday is sunday and tuesday is monday. my only academic class is the modern information environment, which seems interesting. (yay library classes!!) i am also taking aikido 1 again, as well as aikido weapons, which should be interesting. i get to learn about bokken! other than that, i have my six french thesis credits so i can finish my thesis. as usual, i haven't been working on it as much as i should, but i'm sure i'll be able to finish it by the time of my scheduled defense, which is the first week of march. (eep!!)
i have been asked, both directly and indirectly, about the meaning of the content of my past few blogs. (it's interesting that 'blog' can mean both the individual entry and the entire journal itself. hmm.) anyway, as shan and i discussed, i am not sure if it is "yay look i am strong and motivated and good at being lauren!" or if it is "i am resigned to being a terrible person, and have become so accustomed to being alone with my terribleness that i almost enjoy it." i think it might be both at the same time . . . like it's one and i'm talking myself into believing it's the other.
i can't think of anything else to say that isn't totally pessimistic and depressing, and i know i'll get in trouble with my loyal readership of three (or maybe four or five) if i get any worse, so i'd better stop now. if only i were as uninhibited about my blogs as katiel. (i will spare the uninitiated by not linking to her.) anyway it's important for all to remember, i think, that these things are always in my head, so don't freak out that i'm all upset. it only takes a tiny bit more upset than usual for me to talk about it. and anyway, it's seasonal affective stupidness.

2003-01-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

before the night is through i'm gonna steal my heart back

i love this woman's art. please look at more, and buy her things, at annetaintor.com.

2002-12-28T11:42:00.000-08:00

if that's all you will be, you'll be a waste of time
i was going to title this blog something along the lines of so i'm leaving; you can find out how much better things can get . . . and if it helps i'd say i feel a little worse than i did when we met (dar, "as cool as i am"), but then i realized that's not true. well, maybe a little tiny bit worse, sometimes, but not enough that it's really worth mentioning.
anyway, i realized that the idea of being sad(/angry/upset) because someone you (may or may not) like doesn't like you is a very silly one. why should liking someone mean you want that person to like you? if you don't stand to lose or gain anything from the situation, what does it matter? and right now i don't stand to gain anything, and only stand to lose my newfound and cherished living-and-being-aloneness. so that solves that problem, i guess.
(by the btw, this "what does it matter? i'm me" attitude also applies to random people making strange comments about my choice of subject matter of my blogs; please see the 5/20/02 entry, to which i will link when gladstone decides to stop being a poopyhead, about how this blog is about ME because i write it. yes, i guess that can be considered selfish, but i think the whole blog phenomenon is pretty much inherently self-centered. end rant.)
i think i have been an amazing idiot this past term. i don't believe in regret, but i believe in learning. which i would be doing even if i had a choice in the matter. though i don't think i can do anything but learn right now -- about me, and about other people, and about stupidity. i learned (again) that being alone in my purple house with my frog and my candles and my knitting needles is better. that what, i don't know. most things, i guess.
so, to end the philosofickle silliness and move on to the requisite recap of the past twenty days, nothing much has happened. i saw harry potter. i saw the two towers. i took one final. i got an a- in the class. i passed aikido and yoga. i worked a lot. on the 21st i went to reno. (next time i am planning a trip, someone please remind me NOT to be in the midst of travelling on solstice? thanks.) i saw brian, which was good, though very short; we watched the two towers again, and we went to circus circus and launched chickens into pots with mallets. it was fun. then there was the magical christmas adventure of Darkness and Doom. the power went out at peggy's on christmas eve. this is bad because everyone comes over there for christmas eve dinner. so we got to transport all the dinner and all the presents over to my aunt's house, where there was power, to do it over there. it worked out fine in the end. i got pajamas, which my grandma makes every year for everyone, a nice jacket from the gap, and some books about knitting. then i went home on the 26th and saw mom briefly before taking the bus back to eugene. i was so glad to be home and find my door and windows un-broken-into. then yesterday i went up to corvallis for carmen and leo's wedding, which was nice, though extremely lavish, and basically the antithesis of how i want mine -- if there is one -- to be. but very pretty. and now i am back in eugene at work. thinking about working on my letter of professional intent to unc - chapel hill and thinking about knitting. progress in that field is slow but it's fun. soon i'll make a square. then maybe next i'll make a scarf. we'll see how that goes.

2002-12-08T17:00:00.000-08:00

you're an accident waiting to happen
i think my conscious effort to vary the source of my blog titles has been successful. i haven't used counting crows twice in a row in over a month!
am at work, as usual. talking to justin and david christensen (who wants to be a librarian!!!) and simon online. debating reading the comics and going through the coupons in the sunday register-guard. i don't have a final until friday so i don't have to do anything except work before thursday. probably won't have to do much of anything on thursday, either, as it's a silly class. i haven't done the reading since about the third week of class, and i have an a. so i'm not too worried about it.
i don't know how i got myself mixed up in this. one day i was going along fine just being lauren, and i was totally thrilled with living alone and doing my own thing and not worrying about anyone else. then everything changed suddenly and now i'm worrying about things (probably all in my head) and people (both those that aren't even aware of the possibility of my worrying about them, and those who know i'm worrying) and i don't like it.

2002-12-06T09:27:00.000-08:00

the crumbling difference between wrong and right
i am feeling very apathetic today. about everything. school, and work, and thesis, and grad school, and life. and me. mostly me. it's bad to be apathetic about oneself, i think? maybe i have seasonal affective disorder. or maybe i'm just dumb.

2002-12-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

j'ai pas toute ma raison tu sais
oy. so many things to say. have been writing blogs in my head but never write them down, and by the time i get to the computer to actually write, i can never remember all the lovely articulate things i had. oh well. i'll just make it up as i go along, i guess, which isn't so different from what i do normally, anyway.
a couple of weeks ago -- last time i posted -- i was having a few of those "i need validation" days. my favorite game to play on those days is called "let's compare lauren to everyone else in the world, and list the ways in which she is not as good as everyone else." it always ends with a nice big list, and me plagued by self-doubt. unfortunately, sometimes on my validation-seeking days i attempt to go fishing with people who are (apparently) not inclined to assist me in my fishing, which turns into a vicious (not viscous) circle, with teeth. so i worry and i fret and i feel worse about myself. i know it's really my own problem to deal with, and that i shouldn't need to seek validation from anyone, anyway. really, i'm getting better at that; it was just that couple of days. i don't know what inspired it. but anyway, i fretted for a couple of days, and then i went back to astoria so was paying more attention to fretting about my mother's drama, and the stupid GRE.
oh yes, in other news, i took the GRE yesterday. i got 85th percentile on the verbal, which was not as good as i could've, and 75th on the math, which is better than i expected, so that's nice. also, it's finished, which is VERY nice, and i am excited about it. i celebrated this fact by going to rennie's with the boys and drinking Too Much. i was not happy about getting out of bed this morning, though i was allowed to skip work to go back to sleep. (also, would like to state, just in case there is any confusion, which i'm sure there's not, that in some matters i am A Phenomenal Idiot. particulary in matters involving girls.)
astoria was ok. not as depressing as i thought it would be. went out with hannah and leslie and then the next night with hannah and eric wagner, who i had not seen in years. so that was fun. also i went to fred meyer's about five times. and, since hanukkah started on friday, i got to go to the hanukkah party and see people in the community that i hadn't seen in about five years. i discovered i was ok with not seeing most of them, except fyllis lobe, who is the best. i love fyllis. all in all the trip went relatively well, though somewhat boring. not that i expected anything different.
and today is wednesday of dead week, and since i have no class on thursday, this means i have only one more day of class this term. i have got only one final, and it's friday of finals week, so i have the whole week, pretty much, to sit around and do nothing, since the boys are leaving again this weekend or so. i plan to work on my thesis a LOT over break, hooray! also, grad school applications! yippee! ha.

2002-11-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

they're knockin' on the door, they're ringin' on the bell
bill got mad at me because i promised him another post on thursday (yesterday), and i didn't deliver. but here i am; two posts in a week is, after all, unusual, so all y'all (what, three of you?) should be happy about it.
but anyway, am at work now, till midnight, which is laaame. though, it does give me lots of time to blog, talk on AIM to my darling katiebird, email people, mope about not being in seattle to hang out with shan and shelby (who has let her web page fall into oblivion), think too much, listen to counting crows, and under no circumstances study for the GRE! mostly, think too much, and not study. these have been my main activities lately. also, drink too much coffee (due to people who i have to go to roma to find! lousy people) and not sleep. the two may be related . . .
and what else? boys are silly. though this is hardly worth mentioning anymore, as it has been this way since the beginning of time (or at least since the beginning of the aforementioned sophomore year of high school) and will be this way forever, i am sure. so i may just not even bother to bring it up anymore. but then, what will i have to post about? such a dilemma.

2002-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there
the best part about fog is the way the little water droplets stick to spiderwebs. i already had some spiderfriends on the railing where patterson crosses the millrace -- a couple weeks ago there was the biggest, prettiest spider ever, but she's gone now -- and today all their abandoned webs, which i didn't even know were there, are all covered in silvery water drops. if only the millrace were pretty; i would take pictures with it as a background, except it's full of beer bottles.
actually, the other best part about fog is that in astoria, when it's foggy in the morning, and you live up on the hill with a window that faces the river, you hear the foghorns when you wake up and you know without looking that it's a good grey day.
the day after my last blog i went up to longview to see My Girls! it was the first time we'd all been together since last june, and it was just like old times -- which means there was a lot of sitting around, a lot of eating, some trading spaces, and a trip to target. katie has a much more informative post about it here. but anyway, as it turned out, my being absent from eugene that weekend was especially useful in resolving my wrath of that friday night. even though i got a little repentant, and i shouldn't have. it's worked out, though, so i don't feel too bad about giving in a little bit. compromise is important in life.
recently i have seen: igby goes down, which i enjoyed very much. the littler culkin is, pleasingly, a very much better actor than the first. also funnier. then saw 24 hour party people, at olly's insistence; it was also good, though slightly confusing; i think i started off confused because of the way they did the opening credits, and i just kind of stayed that way the whole time. and then yesterday i saw bloody sunday which was, as one could guess, about bloody sunday. sad/angry movie. but good.
last friday -- this cracks me up! i don't know why -- i spent the evening with five (5) math boys, playing nintendo. isn't that great? it was a lot of fun, though. i realized yesterday why i like the math boys so much: they are geeks too! nice pete dolan even pointed out that librarians get invited to parties more than mathematicians do, though (as sebastian said) that's probably because librarians are mostly girls. but anyway, i think i like them because i have recently embraced my geekiness, and they seem to be used to geekiness.
oh, mail is here. time to go work. more update soon, i promise.

2002-11-08T22:47:00.000-08:00

. . . and boys who can't tell one girl from another
sometimes i forget how nice it is to be just lauren, with no complications and no drama. just lauren. but then i am reminded! and i am happy to be just lauren now.
i have even been good efficient lauren, kind of. i went to the eye doctor and i went to the dentist and i went to the grocery store and i did my students for choice budget and i made posters for movie night. and i am listening to recovering the satellites because it is good and angry. like me. good and angry.

2002-11-04T19:21:00.000-08:00

twice as cloudy as i'd been the night before - and i went in seeking clarity
my sophomore year of high school, i had a motto: "life is just darned hilarious." i went around saying that, totally thrilled-confused that suddenly boys wanted to talk to me, trying to figure out what in the world i was supposed to do with this strange unasked-for power to make these people unhappy. i got better at figuring out how to handle it, but mostly that consists of trying to avoid it in the first place, now. it's just so much easier that way. but something has been wrong with my avoidance strategies, it seems, and now . . . well, life is just darned hilarious.
which is not to say that i totally mind. i mean, i am not the world's best compliment-acceptrix (as heath would say), but still, it's nice to at least know i'm not totally repulsive. (dunno what the poems are all about, but i like the title.)
so anyway, this week i: got nothing done. on sunday i watched adult swim as usual with the boys. then monday . . . did nothing. tuesday . . . did nothing. oh, went to max's with the boys. ("the boys" = olly&sebastian, or chris&chris, as determined by context.) wednesday . . . met with my advisor, talked about publishing possibilities (!), sat around a little bit. thursday was halloween. we went to a poli sci gtf party with courtney, who is awesome, and then we went to ben, etc.'s house. friday i worked, and shan and shelby came down! so after work shan and i went over to sebastian's house for a math gtf party and then we went to max's where the cute bouncer bought shan and me beer. saturday we got up early(ish) and went to the bagel place to see the Cute Bagel Boy, then to saturday market to have a tamale and a crêpe. then to the mall to purchase crickets for froglet (who was nearly dead; i'm a terrible frog mommy). then went home sat around n took naps. in the evening shan & i met sebastian and olly at sakura for dinner, though olly just bummed food off the rest of us. then we all met up with marissa and aaron, who were in eugene to see a movie (is it really that financially worthwhile to drive from corvallis to eugene to go to the dollar-fifty movie theater??) and we went to the cheerful tortoise, and then to soriah where we met up with shelby, ben, david, sarah, and i don't remember who else. i did an amazing thing (!) and actually said hello to a person at a bar!! i am so proud of myself. i have never done such a thing. and of course he turned out to be from france so i got to speak (alcoholized) french . . . which i apparently do with a belgian accent, according to richard-not-charles.
(shan has THE BEST new nickname but she will beat me up if i put it here. so anyone who wants to call her a fun new nickname should email me and i'll tell you! and you can make her angry.)
my web page is not nearly as interesting or well-written as katie's, but, as chris wells says, "god is omnipizza." and life is good.

2002-11-01T12:46:00.000-08:00

if you wanna kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel
amazing, isn't it? life?

2002-10-26T19:20:00.000-07:00

but if you've not fallen quite asleep, i might call tonight . . .
and i was doing so well at not using counting crows songs for my blog titles! oh well. it's just that yesterday was a recovering the satellites day and today is a hard candy day. especially since i'm at work again, gr.
anyway, i found my journal, and i am v. happy about this. except it means now i'm all introspective and thinky about things i didn't want to write about here, 'cos i finally got to put them in my journal. (shh, no, i couldn't just write it down on a piece of paper.) i hadn't written in my journal since i was in salisbury. i'm a terrible journal writer. there are always huge gaps of time so nothing makes any sense. but, i am pleased to note, regardless of the yet-to-be-decided apropriateness of some decisions i've made, i am doing so well at not worrying about them! things will be what they are and i am getting better at accepting that.
yesterday i was about to post at gaelic storm's website but then i realized that then the nice boy whose spoon playing i was about to compliment would then be able to read my web page about how he's my future husband. the website is stupid, though, so it wouldn't let me post it anyway.
i accidentally scheduled myself to work ALL weekend again. well, really i think i did it on purpose at the time, but now i wish i had a free day. it's ok, though, since it means i'll have to work fewer weekends towards the end of the term. and i found someone to take my shift on veteran's day weekend, so i get to go to the reunion with the girls! hooray! longview! uh . . . yeah. and anyway it gives me all this time at the desk doing nothing to be studying for the GRE. right. i got stuck about three pages into the math section. i'm really not looking forward to the whole process at all.

2002-10-25T15:03:00.000-07:00

where'd you come from, where'm i going, why'd you leave me till i'm only good for waiting for you
i have discovered that brian is not dead, which is v. good, i think. it's just that their power was shut off and then he was evicted and now he has no internet and i can't call him at home so i basically just have to wait for him to call me. it's quite sad, as it would have been good for me to be able to talk to him more often these past few weeks.
i've been busylauren this week with college dems stuff. 'cos clinton's coming, and other such minor details. also have been spending too much time with olly and sebastian, who has no web page, sillily. i'm not quite sure why i'm suddenly hanging out with international math students all the time but they are goofy and i like them. i'm sure either shan or shelby would have all kinds of funny things to insert right there. but anyway. on sunday we watched adult swim as usual. on monday i think we watched this silly movie. on tuesday we drank too much and olly skipped go club again. on wednesday we watched another silly movie, which olly was reminded of because of the creepy dude from the first movie. he was less creepy in the second movie. then on thursday, which was yesterday, we went to see a pirate musical written by my former resident, brian boone. his web page is lame. it has only broken image links so i have not linked to it. one of the guys in the play, which, incidentally, was called "the sea is a restless whore," was another former resident, brandon, whose last name i do not remember for some reason. anyway it was pretty entertaining even though they stared at me at the fart joke bit. also, eric was there! yay. then after that i went to dinner with chris at red robin. as usual. today i have only seen olly & sebastian for about two minutes after i walked past olly's office and saw that they were there. contrary to popular belief, though, i was not walking past the office on purpose; i had run into bryon (this is bryon's non-helpful web page) on the street so we had some miso soup and sat on the bench outside deady under the nice tree.
and tonight i am working until midnight. lousy work. especially lousy since both evy and karen&emily are having parties tonight, and after the midnight shift at the area desk i don't usually want to do anything but scream.
but this week i fixed all the stupid problems -- cell phone company trying to kill me, computer not working (thanks ben, even though your web page doesn't seem to work), confusion in head, worrying about brian, etc. and then, on top of fixing of bad things, there was much positivity (?), such as seeing my future husband, meeting another future husband (see especially this bit), seeing shelby who is not my future husband, having a new skirt to wear, finding my green converse low-tops, getting an email from my pal julia who i met this summer in angers and who lives in hamburg, and currently talking to my pal andy who is also german (where did all these germans come from just now?) and who i met in glasgow.
so.
life is good.
and now i am going to a peace rally. yay for peace. and miso soup.

2002-10-15T12:13:00.000-07:00

yes i'm blue, but from holding my breath
it is important to always remember that even when things seem like The Most Important Things In The World, if you leave them alone for a week and then come back to check on them, you will find they are, in fact, Silly. you can even leave them alone for just an afternoon, if that afternoon involves shopping and cynicism. unprecedented staring from third parties helps too.
in related news, i went shopping this weekend. =) shopping has been known to not actually make me feel better, but this time it did, suprisingly; perhaps because old navy has a style of jeans called "curvy," or because the skirt i wanted fit me in a smaller size than i expected, or because the v.nice boy at trader joe's flirted with me. (i really hope he'll put an i saw you in the eugene weekly for me. i want an i saw you. no one ever sees me. shelby says if i go out i'll meet people. i don't know if i want to meet people; i just want an i saw you . . .) i guess the previously mentioned unprecedented staring could be part of it too, if only because i think it's so funny.
i had written a much bigger blog but the stupid computer ate it, and now i don't remember what else i said.
this week: i got sick on wednesday. i did nothing. i sat around and painted my toes and watched stupid movies, like this and this. the first was just as stupid as i expected, and the other was actually less so. (specially since she was cute and her name was lauren.) shelby came to visit and we went to soriah with all the other kids. annd . . . i took a nap. that's my weekend.

2002-10-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

but tomorrow may rain
tomorrow probably will rain, actually. it's winter here all of a sudden! it is real shoes and wool coat and stripey hat weather already. i'm sad. i was hoping to be able to continue wearing my birkenstocks for a while.
i am at work but now it is time to go home. i will post more soon, and someday i'll finish talking about scotland. but for now i am cold and hungry and it will soon be time for adult swim, or, at least, home movies, "the best show on television," according to olly. then it will be home to bed, because i was up too late last night.

2002-10-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

i know this room, i've walked this floor
chris may have settled the age-old (well, since we met, so three-years-old) dispute about the A(')s. of course, i insist that the apostrope is improper as it would indicate possession. but yesterday while we were at outback steakhouse he said "what if the apostrophe is a contraction? and it stands for 'thletic'?"
so. the question has been answered. A's is ok to say because the apostrophe represents the missing "thletic."

2002-09-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

something told me it's all happenin at the zoo -- i do believe it, i do believe it's true
someday i'll finish the tales of my scottish exploits. but! for now i shall talk instead about: seattle, and events leading up to seattle.
although . . . i guess events leading up to seattle were pretty much like this: sit around. read a book. drive around with chris. drink some beer with olly. sit around some more. work on a new web page that will be up someday. sit around some more. start DA training and then start work.
but on sunday (the 22nd?) chris and i went to seattle! yay. we got there at about 9 sunday night, which was pretty good time, considering CHRIS was late leaving, though he thought i would be the not-ready-to-go-at-one-o'clock one! ahem. we stayed at a lovely hotel in downtown seattle, which i remembered from the infamous arlie-erin-robin-lauren-tequila trip. anyway, it was in a great location, because it was only about three blocks from pike place market and about six blocks from the hotel that shan was staying in. (and yes, she finally has a web page, small though it may be!) so on sunday night we found shan, and we went down to another place i remembered from before, kells. they got drunk and i got less drunk than they were and then we walked home. it was a good night, even though shan wouldn't let me leave her email address for the cuteish bartender.
the next morning chris and i kind of succeeded in getting up early to go to the experience music project, the big cool high-tech museum about jimi hendrix and other various forms of mostly-american music. it was way neat and i had a really good time, even though it was super expensive ($20). then that night we went out to a place called the cheesecake factory (chris and i were VERY hard to convince about the appropriateness of this restaurant, haha) with shelby and JOSH! the (in)famous josh! who is exactly the same as he used to be, except with shorter hair, down to the very last raised eybrow. i had forgotten about the cute eyebrow thing. anyway, it was weird to see him again after 4+ years, but really good. i had an mmmmm eggplant sammich and then cheesecake, of course. afterwards we went on a new apartment tour, to shelby's gigantic and super cute place, and then to shan's little studio which is actually bigger than mine, though less purple.
and tuesday was for walking around downtown and for the zoo! at the zoo we saw: froggies! and then some other things in the dark. it was a spiffy day & night exhibit, so there were frogs and lizards and snakes and crocodiles in the day one, and then in the night one there was an ARMADILLO! and also a loris, and some other fuzzy things with big big eyes. and then, the very best part -- there were some huge fruit bats! like probably at least a foot long. one was hanginaround right by the window, opening up its wings and showing off. it did a couple pullups for us, and then another one came over to bug it. it moved like a monkey across the vines and the wire roof. i didn't know they moved like that. anyway the two had a kind of little dominance fight involving beating wings and thrashing around. then the usurper monkeyed away and the first one went back to where it had been and swung around some more. we watched for a long time. it was really cool. they are neat critters. after the bats we found the lions, but they were just sitting showing off and being all regal. then we looked for the monkeys, and found some gorilla groups. it was great! the first group had a couple teenagers who chased each other, did acrobatics, drummed on logs and danced, and jumped off things and rolled around. and there was a big fat mama lying on the ground with a tiny baby, just born august 30! baby was sleeping and mama was patting her with big fingers. the second group of gorillas was around the corner in a different enclosure, i guess. when we got there, that one had just a punk teenager and a mama and toddler. the teenager and the toddler played for a while, and mama sat and stared with her tongue hanging out, looking kind of unwell. the teenager banged on her head until she got mad and got up and left, with the little one sticking really close to her side. then he bugged them some more until he startled the little one and it screamed. about ten seconds later, a big papa gorilla and another mama and toddler came around the corner. the punk kid went off and hid in the bushes, clearly scared of big papa gorilla. it was so funny. then there were screaming children so we left there and went back to see the tiny baby again for a few minutes before we had to leave.
after much parking hassle, we made it to the baseball game, finally. the mariners were playing the As, which were, of course, the reason we were there. the mariners won, which was good for seattle but bad for chris. right after the game we took shan and her jojo-dad home to their hotel and then we left town. on the way home we stopped at a casino that was soooo lame that i don't even remember what it was called. it was silly. we spent $10 on nothingness. not even roulette. just pushing buttons on a stupid machine. you don't even get to stick the quarters in it anymore. you just get a card with money on it, and you stick the card in the machine and push the buttons. it was really boring. i don't see the point.
so today is sunday now and i have been working all week since we got back. it is good to be working; it means i will get a nice big fat paycheck at the end of october. i'm also working for disabilities services, reading textbooks for books on tape, which is kind of fun, though i'm very scared of doing wrong and making some poor kid flunk. such a high pressure job, that sitting in a room reading to oneself . . .
then this weekend shan and shelby came to visit. i didn't get to see shelby so much 'cos she was trying to resolve some things, but i did get to see shan, which was really fun! we went to saturday market with olly and ate yummy food, and we . . . sat around, i guess. that's about it. oh, we saw our old pal kent, which was good. and we ate a lot. and we slept. very exciting weekend. i am at the area desk right now and i don't have to be, so i think i'll go home and make a grilled cheese sammich. and school starts tomorrow!!

2002-09-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

you're everybody's satellite -- i wish that you were mine
ancient history aside, here's a little update anyway. i am currently at the HC working on my thesis. the author of the book i'm translating is going to be doing a reading in english and she wants to use my translations instead of having to do it herself. yay! also, eek! so i'm finishing one story and cleaning up another to get to her by the 24th. yikes!
i went camping this weekend with shelby, her pal travis, karen&emily, chris brunner and megs, dylan and his pal mary, matt and his girlfriend, and jen and bill. it was fun but WAAAAY too cold!! but i had a good time. i haven't been camping in a long time. but next time it'll really be summer . . .

2002-08-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

you need a girl with electrical hair
so. here i am back in eugene. yes, i've been back for a couple weeks, but i haven't got internet at home (and may never! eep!) so it's harder for me to get to a computer. yay for the honors college and the emu.
so where to start? maybe where i left off. oh boy, that was a long time ago.
bastille day fireworks were on saturday july 13th, instead of the 14th, which is actually bastille day. this happened only in angers, as far as i can tell, and is apparently because they didn't want all the state employees to have to work on sunday. or something. it wasn't really clear. but anyway, it was good 'cos we were on a field trip all the next day. the firework display was interesting -- again, apparently only in angers, though i didn't really talk to anyone from anywhere else, it was a 'yay for united europe' display, not a 'yay for france' display, which i thought was quite strange. then came field trip #4, sunday july 14: mont-saint-michel and saint-malo. mont-saint-michel, as you may or may not know, is a little island with a big abbey on it. well, sometimes it's an island, and sometimes it's not, because of the tides. it's quite pretty, as you can see from the photos on the site i just gave you, but it's extremely toursity. also it contains a lot of steps. too many steps, in my opinion. after that we went to saint malo, which is a town not too far from mt-st-michel. the point of saint malo is that the old town (now the tourist part) is a walled city. it's cool. you can walk all the way around the old town on the wall, but it gets boring after a while 'cos there's not much new to see except roofs (rooves?) and people on the beach, but if you get off the wall you're in a different part of the city and you can't find your way back. at st-malo i bought caramels au beurre salé, which means 'salty butter caramel.' it sounds weird but it was quite good. then sometime around there we went to the château d'angers -- the castle of angers. it was the coolest one, in my opinion, because it's a real castle. they use the word 'château' to mean castle, like functional war castle, as well as really big spiffy mansion that a lot of rich people hung out in. most of the othes we saw were of the latter variety, but angers was a functional castle. it had big thick walls and towers to shoot at people from. from which to shoot at people. it was used up through WWII -- the germans occupied it and used it as a military base during the war. and in it lives the biggest tapestry in the world. (sorry i couldn't find a better site about it; lots of places have posters of some of the panels, but no one has a very good informative one, except this one in french.)
well, in the last blog i said i'd talk about future travel plans, but future travel plans have since become past travel plans, so i shall just continue in a somewhat chronological fashion with what i did after that.
i finished school on july 27. i got a 'bien' on my diplôme, which means B+ or A- or so. it's hard to tell. but anyway it was ok, and i passed. (which is really great, because it means i don't have to take french 416 here! woo!) the last day of the term, there's a big thing called the soirée internationale -- international night -- and all the different groups do a little presentation. most of them involved a traditional song or dance. all the african students did some dances, which were way cool. the polish nuns waltzed or something. the japanese kids taught us 'head, shoulders, knees and toes' in japanese. then the americans went, and it was terrible. first of all, only about 9 out of the 100-some-odd americans were participating. it was ok at first, 'cos a cute girl with cute sneakers and cute glasses and a guitar sang 'ain't misbehavin,' so that was all right. then this middle-aged-ish southern woman karaoked 'love can build a bridge,' and it was awful. she sang relatively well, fortunately, but she said 'everyone should get up and find a new friend and hold their hand! because we need to build bridges!' and yeah, i'm all for being friends and not bombing people, but i do not like cheesiness, and it was quite full of cheese. tiffany and i did not stand up, but the WHOLE rest of the room did. anyway, i survived.
then the next morning erica, christina and i got on the train to paris, where we got on another train which took us to london. there, we found our way to the proper station to get to edinburgh!! yaayyy scotland!! it was a day of too much train -- we left at 8 am and we got to where we were staying at about 9 pm i think, with an hour time change -- but we were so excited to be in scotland! we stayed in a three star hotel the first night. we had originally be planning to stay in liverpool that night and then come to edinburgh, so we had reservations at the hostel starting the next night, but we didn't have anything for the night we actually did arrive. the hostels were all booked up, and the cheapest thing we could find was 29 pounds, and this three-star hotel was 30 pounds/person. so we stayed at the apex hotel. it was pretty spiffy. that night we just ate and went to bed. then the next day we went on this hop-on, hop-off bus tour around edinburgh. i can't remember the name, though, so i haven't got a link for you. in any case, it took us all around the city, to the gardens and to see big cathedrals and things. then that evening (i think?) we went on a ghost tour which was not as cool as it could've been. we went under the city in the vaults and things, but the guide was cheesy. then the next night we went on another tour, which was way better! and not only because it involved literature and alcohol. the tour guide sang. and i won the prize -- a cd of the tour! -- at the end 'cos i knew the trivia question. anyway, i think we were in edinburgh for three nights, and i think i've accounted for all of them. so then the next day christina had to stay behind to get her visa to russia, and erica and i got on the bus to do our lovely tour! we didn't go very far, though; we looked at some stuff, we went to scotland's smallest distillery, and then erica and i got off in pitlochry and we stayed there for a couple of days. the first night, it started raining really hard, and then after it had stopped a little we tried to go to the grocery store. a block away from the hostel, we discovered that the street to the grocery store was flooded! we went back and around the other way and discovered that the parking lot to the store was full of about a foot and a half of water. so we went out to dinner that night instead. the next day we went to the fish hatchery, then for a nice 7 mile hike up around the town. the book said there were standing stones somewhere off the path, but i couldn't find them. i was quite disappointed but it was a nice walk.
now i am tired of typing so i will leave us in pitlochry. soon you will meet willie the kilted bus driver, and other interesting people! like stevie the loch ness monster man!

2002-08-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

carry the lad who was born to be king over the sea to skye
soon is relative, ok? be nice to me. as soon as i get back to a real computer -- not a hostel computer, that is -- i'll write a big post. but for now: i'm in scotland, and it's incredibly beautiful, even when flooded. i shouldn't be allowed in a country that looks like this AND is full of men in kilts with scottish accents. i think i might not come home.

2002-07-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

but did you ever see me? me, absolutely? me, but all you, but still me?
sorry if i disappointed anyone last week. i had been planning to write a big fat post, so i emailed everyone saying to go read it, and then when i was about halfway through writing it, the computer got angry and i lost it all, and i was too frustrated to start over. the only one who noticed was bill -- or at least, he was the only one who commented. in any case, here it is.
where to start? i'm in angers now, where i am going to school at a catholic university!! ack. but the program is not catholic, so no one makes me go to mass, like they did in belgium. mostly all we do is talk about stuff. sometimes we watch the news, and then we talk about that too. i placed into the highest level, thirteen out of thirteen, and i think it's hard to teach us because there's nothing definite that we need. we all understand 'most everything, if not all. we all have pretty good grammar. all we really need is vocabulary and idiomatic expressions that we couldn't get unless someone told us. so that's what we do. it's ok but can get kind of boring. but all the people in my class have very different levels of speaking ability, so in our conversation classes it gets kind of entertaining sometimes. we also have to do a kind of a research kind of project-y thing, the point of which is to get us to go out into the community and talk to people. i'm doing mine on the jewish community in angers, which means i'm going to services on friday night at the synagogue. my pal naomi from ?pennsylvania? is going to come with me, too.
the school organizes several field trips around the nearby areas; they are included in the price of the program i'm in, so i have been to all of them so far. field trip #1, friday july 5: a trip to someplace called puy-du-fou where they have a big show about history. it was pretty hard to follow, and i didn't understand very much of it at all. but it was interesting to watch, and there were little spotted piggies. field trip #2, sunday july 7: les châteaux de la loire, an all-day trip that involved getting up at 6am, but it was very fun. we went to three castles: azay-le-rideau, chenonceau, and chambord. (dunno what the pages are all about – just look at the pretty pictures.) i had a good time, even though was kind of worn out with castles by the end of the day. my favorite was chenonceau, though chambord had a very nice forest around it. of course, i took tons of pictures. i've not developped them yet, because it's way expensive here, so when i get home i'm going to send it all to photoworks and then i'll make a page with the scans they give me. anyway, that was a nice day. field trip #3, friday july 12: an afternoon trip to "l'anjou troglodytique." anjou is the region that anger is in, and troglodytique comes from the greek word for "hole" – basically, we went to look at caves. but fun caves! caves that people lived in! apparently, in this region, during the middle ages it became kind of popular in a functional kind of way to live in holes in the ground. they had the right kind of rock: it was easy to dig, and it wasn't too wet once you got inside; also, they could sell the rock that they dug out, 'cos it was used for fertilizing fields, and then they would actually make money while they were building their houses. they started building them in the middle ages, but they were used up until the beginning of the 20th century. then after that, we went to a winery, also in a cave, where they make champagne-like wine, but they can't call it champagne, 'cos it's not from champagne. that was fun but stinky and moldy inside. then the last stop was at a restaurant, also situated – you guessed it! – in a cave. we ate a lot of mushrooms there, which i enjoyed a great deal.
coming soon: field trip #4, sunday july 14: mont-saint-michel and saint-malo; le château d'angers, bastille day fireworks, future travel plans, and other interesting things.
email me.

2002-06-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

i belong anywhere but in between
i'm back from london now -- back in belgium, that is. i had a good trip, though i wish i'd had more time in england. i arrived at my hostel at about 5:30 on wednesday, and i felt pretty sick, so all i did wednesday night was sleep, take a shower, have some good tofu ramen, and sleep some more. i had crazy fever-dreams, too. i'm glad i didn't get any sicker than i did, but i think it was from the very small amount of salmon i ate at the rotary meeting (it was either that or have only a half-cup of lettuce and a chunk of melon, and then explain to forty old, possibly lecherous, and quickly-becoming-drunk men why i wasn't eating anything, who would be offended and confused anyway. i didn't eat the pâté, though, or the ham, or the weird unidentifiable brown stringy thing. but anyway, the fish wasn't as good as i had remembered it, and plus i've been sick for 5 days now, so i guess that ends my cravings. end tangent.)
thursday morning i got up pretty early and went directly to the hostel i was staying in that night, which was WAY nicer than the one i'd been in the night before, except that the shower wasn't nearly as nice. while there, i got a ticket for one of those bus tours that goes around to the major sights that people want to see, and then you can just get off for however long you want, and get back on when one comes around. it worked out well 'cos i was able to go to the coach station to get my tickets to see olly the next day. then i got back on the bus and rode it around and looked at stuff. there was the tower of london, st. paul's cathedral, westminster abbey, big ben and the houses of parliament, a very famous palace, and all the other things one is supposed to see when one goes to london. having been to most of them before, i didn't go in anywhere -- the only place i wouldn't gone in is the tower, i think, 'cos it's pretty cool, but it's expensive, and i didn't have a whole lot of time. and anyway, the main place i was interested in going was to the tate modern, to see the matisse & picasso exhibit, which i enjoyed very much. unfortunately, i didn't get as much time there as i wanted, either . . . oh well, i guess i'll have to go back someday, that's all!
then the next day i went to see olly in his hometown, which was very nice, prettier than i expected, somehow. it was all green and cool, and there was a beach and stuff. we walked around some, and then went to his house, which is really cool, and where i met his nice fat calico kitty, and his parents, who were also nice, but neither fat nor calico. i made it back to the hostel before too late; that was good 'cos i had to get up early to make my 11:00 flight back to brussels. the flight was delayed, but everything worked out, and here i am again.
tonight i'm going to a japanese restaurant with simon, helen, and her boyfriend sebastien. i'm looking forward to it. today i did laundry, and i'm busy getting ready to go to angers tomorrow. yay! once i get there, i will have to pay for internet, but i'll still post, and certainly will still check email!! i will have a school email address which i'll post here, but will still use gladstone also. i'm going to try to set it up to bounce over to my school address, which will be easier for me to check, i guess. but i'll post again soon.
this post should make bill happy; it has lots of links so he can waste all his time at work clicking them!

2002-06-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

and i could shake this static every time i try to sleep
i thought i was over my jet lag, but i still can't get to sleep before 3 or 4 in the morning, and then i get super tired in the afternoon. it's pretty annoying. i try to keep myself from sleeping in the afternoon, so i can sleep at night, but the past few days there has been nothing else to do but sleep, anyway.
saturday i went into town with nelly, my host mom. at the end of june they do a street faire-ish kind of thing where they close down a lot of the streets, and the stores have booths and stuff out in the streets. there wasn't anything very interesting though. we also went to a fabulous fruit-and-veggie store. i was so happy. then saturday night i went out with simon and his pals. they have this thing that they drink called mazout which is half coke and half beer . . . i was wary but i tried it, and it was ok. i also found a nice brown beer, which was very good. the beer here is mostly light, but even the light beer is pretty good, and i don't usually like it light at all. on sunday we sat around and did nothing. simon had some friends over for lunch, 'cos his parents were gone all day; they ordered pizza and we thought it all had meat on it so they only got one for 3 people, not for 4, 'cos i wasn't going to have any . . . then 20 minutes later one of the guys noticed the one they ordered was not a meat one at all! it was cheese, cheese, cheese, and potatoes. (???) so i had a small piece. it was pretty good, even though it had potatoes on it, which i find incredibly strange.
simon's pals are nice but kind of strange. one of them talks WAAAYY too fast, and a couple hardly talk at all. one, jean-paul, was being a dork on saturday night -- he showed up late, was introduced to me, and then talked to the guys for a long time, then at a pause in the conversation said "so, where are you from?" when i said "uh . . . the US" (no one knows where oregon is), he said "OH, really??" and came and sat next to me and started being totally flirty. it was pretty funny, but mostly for the amusement of the other guys. and myself, too, i guess. it was entertaining.
yesterday (monday) i went to the beach with him, simon, and the one who talks too fast, and his girlfriend. we went first to de panne, and there weren't very many people there, but they really wanted to go to oostende for some reason, which is further north, i think, so we drove around for a while until we found oostende, where there were a LOT of people. then we laid on the beach and got sunburned. i didn't get burned too badly, though, 'cos i'm a good girl. just on my feet and my legs a little. the water was a lot warmer than on the oregon coast, surprisingly. it's about the same latitude, so i thought i'd be about the same temperature, too. it was nice, though. i fell asleep on the beach and in the car on the way home. that's why i couldn't stay awake -- there was nothing else to do but sleep!
i wanted to go to gent or brugge or something with simon today but he wants to sit outside and tan. ever since he went to mexico he's obsessed with being tan. i told him he's going to get skin cancer, but he said that since his skin is used to tanning, he won't. pfft. but tomorrow i'm going to fly to london -- yes, really! it's only 20 euros (about $20) on ryan air, which i think is fabulous! i'll be in london till friday, and then i'll go down to poole, where olly is from, 'cos he'll be there. i was going to take the ferry back from poole, but it's cheaper, i think, to go to back to london and fly back to brussels from there on saturday. then on monday, i leave for angers for school. woo!
other than that . . . uh . . . i don't know. not much is going on. i sit around and read and write in my journal and check my email and wait for brian or shelby to come online on icq. and i think about what colors i should paint my apartment. i'm so excited about my apartment!! i'm also excited about having a room at angers. being at home with parents is hard for me, regardless of whose home and whose parents. but i'm so glad to have this place to stay, and it's really great to see nelly & pierre & helen & simon again. tonight i have to go to rotary, where i will get to see my third host parents, too! yay! i'm worried about seeing people there that i have no desire to see ever again as long as i live, but i'll just . . . deal, i guess. it'll be fine.
keep emailing me! i'm bored!!

2002-06-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

you can never escape, you can only move south down the coast
i hope that the lyric is untrue, and that moving south down the coast can help you escape. or at least help.
i'm in belgium!! at simon's house! well, i guess it's nelly & pierre's house, really, but in any case, here i am. i got in this morning about 24 hours (near as i can figure with all the time changes) after leaving my house in portland. that means 24 hours of nothing but airports and airplanes. woo. the in-flight movie was "the shipping news," and i really wanted to watch it, but the sound didn't work on my side of the plane so i couldn't. i slept instead, and that was ok.
everyone drives very fast and scarily here. but that's ok -- that's why i'm going to take the train! today i got my tickets to take the tgv from lille, close to where i am now, to angers, where i will be going to school. i still don't have an address down there, though. i don't know what the plan is. i guess i'll show up and i'll get a dorm assignment.
i'm still recovering from the last two weeks' stress. i had finals due all week finals week, right up to friday, when my parents arrived for graduation. plus, i found out on thursday that brian was planning to move to california the next monday, so my friday final suffered just a little. then i had to pack up my own stuff and get it moved out (jen and matt and chris wells saved my life!!) and clean up the house, since all the other girls were already gone. moving is so stressful in and of itself -- it's exponentially worse when added to finals and huge amounts of family members and boys who leave. oh well, it's over now, and i'm here. and anyway, i got two As and a B, though, so it turned out ok, in that respect.
simon wants to go to bed so i'm getting kicked off the computer (which is in his room). i'm still using gladstone email -- lmanes@gladstone.uoregon.edu. email me!!

2002-06-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

i'm not talking about your pigtails, but i'm talking 'bout your sex appeal
once again am at work and procrastinating. this week we have some more kyoto dialect, southern paiute, and selkup, which is ostyak-samoyed, apparently. and then for the other class i have to write about relative clauses in manipuri. yippee. i think i have to write a paper about some dystopias, too. i would prefer to write it on a handmaid's tale, which everyone in the world should read, but i can't think of a topic . . . blar. oh well, i like fahrenheit 451 and brave new world too.
yesterday we went to the aquarium in newport. it was fun! my favorites were the jellyfish, especially the tiny ones that look like they sparkle when they wiggle their cilia, and the curly pink sea star!! that was so cool. i liked the passages of the deep part, too, except the part where there was nothing under my feet (well, except glass) and i thought i was going to fall. there was a little shark that swam over the top and we could see a perfect half-circle bite mark on its underside. poor shark!
i have been looking at apartments, too. gr. stressful. shelby might be staying after all . . . so basically i don't know what's going on.
i leave in NINETEEN DAYS!!!

2002-05-26T17:38:00.000-07:00

did she guard her yoko-human heart?
i am at work at the area desk and -- surprise! -- i'm bored. chris is ignoring me on AIM, though not on purpose, i'm sure. i should be doing my homework or my other homework, or even some of my other homeworks involving pitch accent in shuri and kyoto dialects, or tone sandhi in chaozhou, or ogori contraction or arabic broken plurals. doesn't that all sound very exciting?!? but instead i'm sitting here listening to dar and thinking about all the new fun things i got to take to europe with me. they are very exciting things and i want to pack everything up RIGHT NOW and leave. i don't want to do the other things that have to happen before i can leave, though, like take finals, and sell a bunch of clothes and books and things -- i am terrible at getting rid of things -- and pack my other stuff and put it somewhere (storage unit? uck) and find a place to live, without shelby, who is going to school in seattle after all.
yesterday, instead of doing my many homeworks, i played my new game and my other new game. and tonight, instead of doing my homework, we're going to see star wars.
but now it is 5:30 and so i have to go to late slips for the movies.

2002-05-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

you can see a million miles tonight, but you can't get very far
so, i'm back. i wanted to totally redo everything on the page, but i realized i won't have time until next fall, and i would freak everybody out if i left nothing here for that long. more people than i expected commented on my total absence, actually. which was slightly comforting. but anyway, i won't have time to redo this page until fall, because i have NO time this term as it is, and i'll be in france this summer where i'll have to pay for internet. and then i thought, hey! if i put the blog back up, i can post regular things about what i'm doing, and then i won't have to email everyone all the time! so i am putting it back up.
now, some explanation: i made someone angry. i was also having a particularly bad day, but even on normal days i'm always looking for excuses to think i'm less important than everyone else, so i jumped at the chance. i'm sure that by putting this back up, i'll be making that person angry again, especially since i don't think the behavior in question was very wrong, so i'm also going to issue a disclaimer:
this blog is about me. in fact, this website is about me. as such, i write occasionally about things that pertain to my personal life. in doing so, i also tend to write about people that are close and important to me. sometimes i even write about how i feel about those people! although i'm always very careful to not write anything i wouldn't say to the person, because i think finding important things out through web pages is a stupid thing. so if you don't like what i'm writing, i'm sorry, but i don't think i'm out of line with what i write, and so you're going to have to deal with it.
there.
anyway, i'm at work now and i'm supposed to be doing my homework but i am having an academic crisis! i don't know what to do and i don't understand and i can't do it. i want to withdraw from phonology but then i won't be full time, and i don't know when they are offering it again. i just don't know. i can't be up all night every night? that doesn't seem right, does it? but i can't flunk. and i can't drop either one. so what else can i do?
maybe lie on the floor. that might be the right answer.
we went to see "who's afraid of virginia woolf?" last night. it was very good and very depressing. i mean, i was depressed before (well, duh) but it didn't help. now i'm hopeless. the woman in the play lied (? i can never keep my lies and my lays straight, haha) on the tiles in the bathroom. that sounds nice and cool. i wish we had tiles in the bathroom. i would like to lie on them.

2002-04-21T20:44:00.000-07:00

take a sip, see the world through a glass and speculate about the cosmic solution
i only have twenty minutes left at work, and that is not nearly enough time to say all the things i have been not saying for the past month and a half. it has gotten so bad that people other than bill (who apparently is so unbelievably bored in tillamook that he has to resort to talking to me a lot), have been telling me to post. so here i am. but i have to go soon, so i don't get to write the book i've been storing up. actually, there's not that much to say, really. i went to see paul mccartney. i also went to san fransisco and to see the As. now i am going to school, hating my classes (well, two of the three), trying to get all my paperwork and stuff in order for my trip to france this summer, and trying to help my parents find a place to stay at graduation. mine, not theirs. though it's not really my graduation at all, since i'm not finishing school yet. i'm just walking in the stupid dorky ceremony with the stupid dorky hat. i hate that hat. i hate being the center of attention and i hate being looked at and having pictures taken of me, and i hate ceremonies. i am so thrilled about graduation! but i'm going to try not to whine too much. also, today i went to the beach with brian, and we (he) built a fire, and then we built some of a fort that was already there.
that's the past month and a half.
oh, and i'm going to live with shelby next year probably. and we're going to get a kitty!! woo!!

2002-03-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

she was beautiful as summer skies the night he met her
i want pretty songs too.
!!!! the BEST news !!!!! chris and i probably are going to go see paul after all!! i'm so excited. oh my gosh. i'm going to die.
while we're there (oakland, eep) we're also going to see the oakland As.(i refuse to include the apostrophe when it's clearly grammatically incorrect.) anyway, though, that's chris' team, and it's the first game of the season, so that's what we're going to do. it'll be fun! a road trip. also, chris has never been to san fransisco! so that's exciting too, even though we won't really have time to hang out there much.
and what else? oh yeah: my sister is coming to visit me for spring break!! that'll be fun. we're going to hang out and walk around and prolly go to brushfire again. i'm so excited. =) it will be a fun break.
also, i'm getting another job (either a second job or a third, depending on whether archives finds any money for me. which i hope they do, since that's something i'm seriously interested in - like possible-career serious. but the new job will be coffeemaking at a little hut on the corner of 13th and kincaid. i'm looking forward to it! it won't be very many hours, but i think it'll be fun and a good experience.
brian wants to get a motorcycle. i think this is an awful idea. unfortunately, in a moment of weakness and wanting to make him happy, i talked to my pal taka about his old motorcycle that he's going to be selling, and i got his number, and today brian rode the motorcycle, and he's going to buy it. and now i can't complain about it, since it's my own fault.
i'm supposed to write a prospectus. isn't that silly?

2002-02-23T14:34:00.000-08:00

no one knows the truth
i did it!!

2002-02-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

silly girl, look what you've done
i accidentally posted this at free for all (i object to substituting numerals for words) last friday, and i just discovered it today. silly lauren. oh well . . . here it is.

starin' at this yellow-haired girl
i think there should be songs about laurens. some people, like annas, have two songs, and it's not fair, 'cos laurens deserve songs, too! once chris pratt tried to make the lola song be a lauren song, but i actually really dislike that song, so it didn't work. the closest i get, i feel, is the yellow-haired girl in 'mr. jones.' also i like it 'cos there's a black-haired flamenco dancer, which is shannon, but not 'cos she's a flamenco dancer, only 'cos she's got dark hair.
keep on rockin' in the free world!
boy, i sure am glad to be part of the free world! haha. "free." ha.
so yesterday was the day of reckoning, but no reckoning has taken place. i kinda thought that might happen, since i'm lame and scared of change. but things seem to have gotten marginally better.

2002-02-12T08:56:00.000-08:00

and oh, let me count the ways that i abhor you
but oh, what else can i say? i adore you. this is what i was writing in august 2000. haha. stupid necessity.
i'm a bad student. i need to not ever have gotten diablo.

2002-02-08T21:01:00.000-08:00

i want to be a lion
mm, friday night.
i mostly just wanted to use the lion quote, 'cos i love that part . . . i foresee that this will be a weekend of much stress but little accomplishment. monday i have awful ling homework due and a presentation in french class; tuesday i have a 4-5 page book report due in ASL. and no, of course i haven't read the book.
anyhoo . . . shelby the purple fuzzy leopard is here now. so it's off to rennie's for a carson staff reunion of sorts. plus beer, which makes everything better.

2002-02-05T20:26:00.000-08:00

i've got some real estate here in my bag
oh oh oh oh!! i forgot to say that BILL has a JOB!! i'm so excited! plus, now he'll be in tillamook so i can go visit and eat lots of cheese and ice cream! yay!

2002-02-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

ordinary, just like everyone
my new obsession: CHAI. mmmmmmm chai. it's warm and happy!
actually, i was trying to drink less coffee, so i started drinking chai, and it totally backfired because now i drink BOTH. it's awful. i have to stop. bad lauren.
lots of people said nice things 'cos of my thing yesterday. i was having a bad day, i guess. i'm having kind of a bad couple of weeks. (which only means i let it show . . . it's always there . . . but that's ok.)
another addiction: trading spaces. it is, in fact, the addiction of 3/4 of my household. only katie has managed to resist! but then, she is currently watching buffy, and i often find her watching ER at ungodly hours of the morning (like 10). and, on the topic of tv . . . adult swim is my favorite!! though i still miss cartoon planet greatly . . . space ghost coast to coast is good but not quite the same.
also, today i met my kind-of cousin david's roommate's webpage which i think is great. plus, he likes the beatles!!
this is a totally bizarre and linkful update. maybe it's because i'm too cold. dave says i should get a blanket. he's smart, huh? i'll go do that.

2002-02-04T19:49:00.000-08:00

and no one'll ever know it if i keep my mouth shut tight
today i was told that i'm argumentative. it was the same person who had previously called me pessimistic . . . and now i'm sad. i don't want that to really be how people see me, and i don't know if it is. but then, if it is, what do i do about it? i don't want to just sit there with my mouth shut all the time and never say what i think - i want to think that what i think is important. but i don't want to be argumentative, either, and i don't know which is more important. of course, there are definitely times when i think that all i should do is, in fact, sit there with my mouth shut, and that even that isn't enough, 'cos i can't make my head shut up . . .
last night i dreamed that there was a boy that i liked - not had a crush on, just liked 'cos he was nice - and he was telling me that i was a bad person and i needed to lose weight because i am fat and stupid and bad, and that no one liked me.
i'm not entirely sure that i'm having a good day today.

2002-02-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

throws me like a rubber ball
i did it. so there!

2002-02-02T14:55:00.000-08:00

in one of these dreams, you've forgiven me . . .
though what i need to be forgiven for i don't really know. nothing, i'm sure, other than being me. which, depending on who you ask, is either an ok thing or the worst mistake i ever made.
but anyway.
i have changed: i'm no longer going to translate colette . . . now it's going to be marie-célie agnant (in french, sorry). i started last night. it's not as hard as i thought. her writing is easy to follow, but i'll definitely have to make some serious adjustments to the literal translation. just translated directly, it is missing something stylistically that the french isn't missing. oh well . . . that's why i have three more terms to work on it! it's kind of exciting, really. i decided to switch because: 1) it's a collection of short stories as opposed to a novella or novel, which is inherently easier; 2) she's coming to campus this term (march?) and i will probably be able to interview her? but at least i'll meet her; 3) a translation has never been published . . . hmm . . .
i got a nice note in my guestbook. it made me happy! yay.
i think i might take down everything on this page but the blog. when i suggest taking it ALL down, i get yelled at. so i might just take the rest of it away. we'll see. i want to have a nice pretty shiny page that i won't be embarrassed for people to read, but i have neither the creativity nor the capability of making what i want. partially 'cos i don't know what i want. as usual.
not much has changed since i wrote last. oh well. after all, one never really knows when things will change and one's life will be completely different. maybe it's today.

2002-01-18T19:50:00.000-08:00

there's so much to see through
once again i am lazy and unupdateful. but hark! i have returned. huzzah!!
week two is finished, and that is good. but it means i have only SIX weeks left before i have to defend my prospectus! fortunately professor cogan calls it a "mock oral" and not a prospectus defense, so it sounds MUCH less threatening. anyway, today i officially started reading critically with the intention of preparing for my thesis. ickyblar. i have used up many little sticky post-it flags already. i'm not really excited about this whole process . . .
other class news: french class should be fun, assuming the reading load doesn't increase too much, and linguistics 451 is quite likely to cause severe bruising on my backside through kicking. !!to make up for all that, though, i am taking SIGN LANGUAGE. it is SO much fun. plus, arlie is in the class with me, too. so, yay.
i can't think of anything else. i'm sure there are things, but my nose is too cold to think. not, my nose is too cold for it to think, but my nose is too cold for ME to think.
lousy cold.

2001-12-30T13:08:00.000-08:00

it seems like years since it's been here
this is a picture of simon's ear. simon is very silly.
i like bubbles because she is silly and blonde, and she has no self-esteem, and she speaks lots of languages (like spanish, and squirrel, and kitty) and she likes crayons.
i am back home in eugene now, which is good, even though my house is quite cold. katie came home yesterday, and robin is coming home today. shan is not coming home until friday, but that's ok. brian is also coming home on friday. and we are having a party on saturday. yay!
i went to see amélie last night with erin and jack. it was SO cute. i totally am in love with that girl. in fact, i added her to my harem list, which i realized i have not previously made public here. i also saw lord of the rings twice, which i enjoyed, and the majestic while in reno.
my fingers are too cold to type anymore. i will go take a shower and then find some food. maybe go down to espresso roma. mm coffee.

2001-12-25T21:42:00.000-08:00

houses floating - love is like that - we built on a river
i am a busy reading girl. i have read prodigal summer by barbara kingsolver, who's great; girl with a pearl earring, which was also great; am currently reading walden two by b.f. skinner, a psychologist. it's quite a strange book about a scientifically designed utopia. we talked a lot about skinner in my ling class this last term, so i thought that since he was here i would read him. also am intermittently reading thich nhat hanh as usual. i have decided to go to plum village this summer while in france, whether brian wants to come with me or not.
today my cousin david, who is a funny person, asked me if i was religious. i told him i'm a pagan with buddhist leanings. he thought that was weird. but then, all two of you who read this (hi katie and bill) prolly knew that already. actually, matt might be out there reading too . . . so i have three fans. yay me!
it was christmas and chaos as usual. i did pretty well though. i got nifty socks, nifty dar cds, and lots of nifty money. unfortunately now that i'm semi-grown up (prolly as much as i'll ever be) i have to use it for things like bills and food and schoolbooks, and not on fun things like clothes and shoes and things. though, knowing how i am with money, it'll probably be for both. and movies. lots of movies and cherry coke and dots. yay movies! yay movies with brian! yay brian!

2001-12-23T11:03:00.000-08:00

there's always the sky -- let it hear what you are saying
it snowed here last night. my feeling towards snow these days is generally that it's much cooler if i don't have to deal with it. i don't mind looking at it out the window, but i don't really want to have to wear snow clothes, or drive in the snow. this snow is very small, though, and is melting quickly, and people in reno are used to it, so i s'pose i'll be fine even if i have to get in the car.
the trip down here was vaguely entertaining. there were people with extremely large, unnecessary-looking weapons at the airports. i don't really think it's appropriate. but i got searched three times. well, not really searched -- the bag i checked got a special x-ray, and twice they waved the metal-detecting wand at me. it was less annoying than it could've been, though.
my dad is leaving tomorrow to wine country with paulette, and he won't be back until after i leave, so we're going to go do something today. dunno what, but i'd better go call him.

2001-12-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

i wanted to show you that i was more than the ocean
this show is what made me want to study linguistics. now if only i could do stuff like this without having to do all the work.
yesterday i colored pictures and made candles and sat around. oh, also i got sick. now i have a miserable cold. it's strange because there was a precise instant at which i got sick. i was in the kitchen making candles, and i was fine, and then the next time i swallowed my throat hurt. also i'm sneezing. i never sneeze. so now i am in a constant state of consuming liquid. lots and lots of tea with lemon, and orange juice with lemon, and water, and soup, and more tea . . . that's all well and good except that i won't get any sleep 'cos i'll have to get up every other minute to go to the bathroom.
shelby is having a slumber party tonight. i'm obviously not there. i was for a while. we played cranium and it got really loud and i was overwhelmed and unhappy. plus, i said jackie chan before they did, so we won, so we didn't even HAVE to be yelling. it was quite upsetting, really. so i'm home now, and soon it's bedtime.
i am going to reno on saturday. i have to fly down, which is lame. but i get to take the train back! yay! which also means that i am spending some time in sacramento, which means i get to see brian for an afternoon or so. unfortunately i don't get to see him play at the blues bar where they go, 'cos it's too far away. i'm disappointed, but hopefully i'll be able to someday.
ugh. i'm miserable. my nose hurts. poor me.

2001-12-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

what i feel, i can't say

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also see is it over yet?

i downloaded a new browser: opera. it's fun. it has all sorts of nifty features. it doesn't see some things right sometimes, though. but i still have my other ones so it's ok.
not much to say today.

2001-12-14T23:11:00.000-08:00

you don't know how lucky you are -- you don't know how much i adore you
i'm lonely right now. i was listening to dar, as usual, which makes me sad, as usual. but! look how good i am: i am just missing and not doubting. yay me!
today i cleaned my room and rearranged my furniture. i just moved my bed around a little, but it feels all different now. it's nice. especially the clean bit. and shan brought her tv so i will get to have my tv in my room now. yay! now i can just leave headline news on all the time again. that or cartoon network are all i ever really watch, except the simpsons, x-files, and sometimes er. though they tell me i should watch the west wing.
bought some more books. more thich nhat hanh, a nice veggie cookbook, a collection of short stories by isabel allende, and another one by barry lopez (who was the judge of short fiction contest here a couple years ago in which brian won $1000 with this story [in .doc format]). so, yeah. lots of books. yay books.
today bill b (as opposed to bill h) came over and we watched shrek. you're going the right way for a smackbottom! then shan and her dad came, and mike aka jojo took us all to the olive garden. mm leftovers.
that's all. i'm sleepy. i have to work tomorrow in the morning, so i'll go to bed at a decent hour. plus shan and jojo are here, so i don't have to get so sleepy that i don't worry about noises.
today was a pretty link-ful day.

2001-12-11T14:43:00.000-08:00

and with no seatbelt -- and i’d do it again
so. i have survived finals week! and so far i have two a-minuses and an a, with one more grade yet to be posted. this term was actually probably the easiest finals week i have had in a long time, if not ever. yay!
i had lunch with bill the other day, which was actually a couple weeks ago, i think. but it was good. we went to burrito boy, of course. i worry about bill sometimes, but i think he’s ok, even though his hair is too long. also i have begun communicating with olly again, too. which is good, ‘cos he’s funny. annnnnnnnd . . . today i will go to the mall with chris and to a movie with seth . . . and friday i will do something with bill bankhead. . . so many boys!! but the most important boy has gone to california again for break, but after much difficulty and rehashing of old topics, “trust brian” is on my list of things to do, and it’s going to be ok. really really.
soon i have to decide what i’m going to do for the rest of my life. right now it looks like: 1. graduate next fall. 2. go in the peace corps to west africa for two years. 3. go somewhere (UW, UNC-chapel hill, …) and get my master’s in library science. 4. ???get a job??? that’s about all i know. i like school. i don’t want to have to participate in the real world. and of course, the schedule is subject to change at any given moment according to level of apprehension.
and right now i am reading: love in action: writings on nonviolent social change by thich nhat hanh; the art of happiness by the dalai lama; pagan pathways by a bunch of people; the mists of avalon (yes, still) by marion zimmer bradley; and many things about translation for my thesis. blar.
i’m sure i will update again during break, since otherwise all i’ll do is sit around and read and hang out with boys.

2001-11-26T01:32:00.000-08:00

i have my ship, and all her flags are flying
we finally had a party that i got to come to! yay! it was an eggnog and cider party, and it was good. mmmmmm. "hellamadprops" to my mom for supplying the brandy. (hella. hella. hella.) annnnd . . . my pal mary came to my party! and she brought her brother who is nice and funny. so now i have a new friend. yay!.
today is a day of yays!
(even though chris, karen, and emily didn't come to my party.)
thanksgiving was interesting. we played with the doggies. we played with my sister. we had lots of food. i had some tofurkey (or faux turkey, as my mom likes to call it). i HATE that damn bird. but i like the doggies. and we didn't die on the way there, or on the way back, or even when we stopped at the outlet mall! (i don't know if we would've died because of all the people and traffic, or if god and things would have striken me down because not only was it the outlet mall in woodburn -- ask chris wells for details -- but it was also the gap -- ask chris pratt for details.)
i have put up lights in my room.
this is a very disjointed blog. but it's bedtime now.

2001-11-16T12:05:00.000-08:00

i've been following the light across my room
so, is it, "child, why deny the obvious?" or is it "why deny the child which is obvious?"
tonight is YAY harry potter night!! yay. also, school is getting to be almost done! lots and lots of yays! and after that we have a whole MONTH off. very exciting. but next week is thanksgiving, and i am going to astoria, and brian is coming with me so he can play with the puppies. oh! and also, yay for new grey peacoat and stripey hat.
today i am thankful for little helicopter whirligig thingies that come off of trees and fall onto the ground, and i am thankful for nice people who play leaf-catching games in the middle of the sidewalk on 13th and ask me to join them.

2001-11-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

i think magic's in the learning
today is a day of squirrels: baby squirrels, funny jumping squirrels, and squirrels looking at me. yay for squirrels.
not so much yay for school, though. today, in my one good class, we watched a movie called la passion de jeanne d'arc. was interesting. i've never seen a silent film before, except for clips of charlie chaplin things. and i'm reading some really bizarre and un-good poetry for my other french class: lives for example. this is, of course, the english version and not the french one we read in class, but the french version is of comparable stupidness. (i do not like rimbaud. i have taken to calling him "rambo." it doesn't really suit him, but it pleases me.) i had a geology midterm yesterday, which i think went well. it's a class full of trivia, and i am good at trivia, especially meaningless trivia, of which this class is FULL. i don't like this class either. and in linguistics, i think i set the curve on the midterm. i did not get 100%, but i got an a+, which i think prolly means i did set the curve. yay me. now i feel slightly like i know what i'm talking about in linguistics.
i ordered a peacoat. i hope it is the right one. it was way cheaper than the one at express, so even though i know the one at express is the right one, i decided to get the other one, 'cos $80 is better than $120.
i got brian (well, for sharing, actually) the DVD of shrek. my new favorite part of that movie is the fuzzy donkey in the outtakes!! i am in love with the fuzzy donkey. it's the cutest thing ever. he looks like a little stuffed bunny that's all cute and fuzzy, but then he's bouncing around going "i have MASTERED the stairs! i am the stair MASTER!" it's great. i love it.
i'm wearing my glasses. !! out of the house! it's amazing!

2001-10-31T23:27:00.000-08:00

there was no joy, it's just a line i crossed
i ran away today. but i came back.
lauren has new glasses: 1 . 2

2001-10-23T21:56:00.000-07:00

but i push myself up through the dirt and shake my petals free
. . . i'm resolved to being born and so resigned to bravery.
so. let's see. i've been less delinquent than usual about writing; it's only been about 15 days since i last blogged, instead of two months. =) school has continued to be boring, despite the busyness, time-wise. will post my schedule eventually. college dems is going well, with only the minor difficulties brought on by my being a freak. (obviously there's more to it than just freakishness, but i don't think this is the appropriate forum to discuss my deep and intricate psychological mumblings. that's at least book-length, if not several-volume series length.)
anyway.
i was doing some work on the page -- totally redoing it, actually -- but i am tired of my inescapable amateurity (??) so i may just take it all down. i don't know.
i had a geology midterm the other day and i did well. that is to say, including the three free extra credit points, i got 100%. yay me. i'm good at trivia, and this is an EXTREMELY trivial class. i have another midterm tomorrow in linguistics, but the class so far has pretty much been review for me. it's called "linguistic principles and second language acquisition," and is intended for non-majors, so we have so far learned about phonetics, morphology, grammar, and syntax. all of which i have been studying for the past 3 years. but it's ok. review is always good for me. especially since i never actually learn anything anyway. and um . . . i have a french film class in which we are watching the strangest movies ever. right now we are watching something called "perceval le gallois" which seems to be an experimental art thing made while on lots of hard drugs in 1978. the sets are like bad elementary school play backdrops. it's awful. but amusing, in a sort of masochistic way. we also watched "lancelot du lac," the most emotionless portrayal of the lancelot-guenivere (guenièvre!) relationship in the world. the most emotionless relationship anywhere ever, for that matter. even including my own past ones.
i am still reading the feminine mystique, which, despite the fact that it is taking me so long to finish, is really fabulous and i recommend it to everyone. i'm also haphazardly reading the art of happiness by the dalai lama, which is also quite good. today (inspired by all the weird arthurian legend going on in my french class and desiring what i consider to be the real version, the way it should be) i requested the mists of avalon by marion zimmer bradley from the library. it has to come on orbis or the person who has it out past its due date has to bring it back. or both.
robin and shannon and i went to see a band called be good tanyas. they are a girl bluegrass band from canadia. they were fabulous. it was at sam bond's garage, where they serve the beer in mason jars just like we do here at home, and they have veggie and vegan and organic food. it was pleasing. they were really cool. also this past weekend i saw dar in portland!! yay! it was a great show. i am going to marry dar. she's awesome. the quote of the day comes from her. sometimes she makes me cry, and sometimes she makes me think that i can be good and cool and smart and creative too, i just have to stop obscuring my own vision of myself with all my issues. and then i cry. so i guess mostly she makes me cry. but anyway, she's awesome. word of the month: absquatulate: 1. to die. 2. to argue. 3. to go squat somewhere else.

2001-10-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

nicely making way
i am in the computer lab at the EMU right now waiting for a college dems exec board meeting to start. somehow i have managed to be super busy already even though it is only the third week of school. my schedule doesn't help any -- i have lots of half-hour breaks between classes and work and things, which means it's not enough time to run errands or have meetings or do anything worthwhile; also i have class until 5:20 every day of the week except friday, so i feel like i'm out all day. 'cos i basically am.
i haven't updated this page (or even blogged) in a while because of still-limited internet access and also because of work on the dems page. i have most of a whole new site prepared for this page, but it's at home, and that computer doesn't have internet yet . . . someday i will either hook that computer up or bring it all here and upload it. oh, and also, when i do have internet access, my new priority is to read wil wheaton's blog. v. entertaining.
what else? i had lunch at "mcminimum's" (as karen calls it) a few weeks ago with bill. school is going ok so far, though none of my classes are particularly interesting. fortunately ellie is in the most boring ones with me, so we sit in the back and try to be quiet when we goof off.
is time for my meeting now. more later. in a couple months, probably. =)

2001-09-20T18:14:00.000-07:00

she said, "you've taken me for granted because i please you"
not much to say -- i just wanted to use that quote. that's how i've been feeling lately. but i'm not good at change. so here i am.
i have a new area desk at which to work now. it is at barnhart hall. it's pretty much the same as working at other area desks, except right now it is loud; also here i get to work with great fun people like jen and taka and katie and lacey and allison.
nothing else is happening. it's boring. but monday it won't be boring because i will get to go to school.
oh, and also: songs from which i have taken my blog titles.

2001-09-12T23:01:00.000-07:00

i'm out in the jungle i'm hungry to hear you
i have been a slacker. i have been working a lot at the library and at the area desk. i like to work at the library more because they pay me more and it is more interesting and i learn lots of lovely historical things, like about the time the elephants came to town with the circus and when they let them go in the mill race to cool off, they wouldn't come back out. but for the past couple of days i have been doing DA training for fall. i think this is very silly because that is the job that i have been doing all summer. but they are training me for it again. oh well. i am getting lots of hours this week.
also, i have a house. it is big and lovely and i love it. it has a turquoise door and blue carpet and a yard that i need to water tomorrow. right now there is a robin and there would be a katie if she weren't in europe. there is no shannon yet. but soon! on my birthday! shannon is coming. and that is good. because it will be my birthday and i will need lots of friends around because brian is still in california and will not be back by then.
which is difficult. esp when combined with much bad mood, stupidness, etc that is going on right now.
not to mention the whole national/global downness in the past couple days. life is surreal.

2001-07-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

all feathers and coke cans and tv dinners and letters she won't send
adam duritz is my new favorite. (favorite what? who knows. surely not boy, because i know who that is. favorite dreadlocked-yet-balding bespectacled funnydrunk talkative lead singer? definitely.)
sigh.
let's see. been working a lot. brian came home. went to portland last night for counting crows, in case you couldn't tell. we didn't wait outside this time, though i almost wished marissa were there so that i could. =) that's all the interestingness i can think of, though. shan might come down this weekend, yayayayayay!!! katie and i are househunting again. i'm reading the feminine mystique (still). and . . . summer is nice.

2001-07-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

your story to remain untold
quick again, as we have only one phone line. i cleaned frog's house, and now she is a happy frog. and i decided to know some things that are making me a lot more . . . peaceful, i guess is the word. some of them are unarticulateable, but i've got two into words so far so that i can remember them and practice knowing them. because i do need practice.
brian is home in three days!

2001-06-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

have i been blind?
quick update, as i am at library-work and have to start soon. school is out, yay! i did well and made the dean's list again. =) i have moved out, yay! moving is evil but having an apartment is nice. i live with katie for now. next year we will live with shan and robin also. my room does not have internet yet (hence no updates) but i hope that charles will fix that for me soon. i am working almost 40 hours a week at the library and at the area desk. yay money! i have a big list of summer goals and i am currently working on 2 or 3 of them, but i am also going backwards on others so i will have to try a little harder. brian is in california, which is all ok, i suppose, except that he is not calling me, and i have instated a no-call rule because i don't want to be a psycho stalker controlling girlfriend. i hope he has just lost my number, and is not doing it on purpose, but i am not going to call to find out. but i have my fingers crossed. he said he'd come back. i'm supposed to believe him.
the other day i went up to mcminnville and woodburn with chris and chris, respectively. i had dinner at chris w's house with his parents. it was fun =) i got new veggie recipes. (apartment is good because i can burn candles and i can COOK!! yay!)
and now i should go back to work.

2001-05-28T18:56:00.000-07:00

i went running through the screen doors of discretion
today there are more things i like to complement yesterday, because yesterday people were freaking out at me. so today i like peaches and nectarines, and squishees, and dar williams, LOTS, and puppies!!!, and senator jeffords =)
and if i were not limiting myself to song lyrics, today it would say "no, i'm from iowa . . . i only work in outer space."
i still hate school and househunting, though. stupidness.

2001-05-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

days go by i don't know why
today i have a big list of things i hate. among them: school. duty. househunting (so far we have not gotten the 2 houses we have applied for). hot weather (the kind that makes you sweat even just walking around). me, but no more than usual. stress.
however, three day weekend is good.

2001-05-13T23:29:00.000-07:00

i'd say she was an angel but it's stupid and it's obvious
HOUSE!

also: am co-director of students for choice next year. yay! and secretary for dems, but that's nothing new.
also: school is stupid. and duty is stupid.
that is all.

2001-04-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

i've got some real estate here in my bag
short update 'cos i am working on homework, in theory. katie and i went to look at a HOUSE today! a real house!! it's one of the ones i saw in the emerald, and it is really exciting. i'm not sure how much of it is excitement about having any house, as opposed to excitement about this house, but i'm aware of this problem and therefore it won't be a problem. but anyway, it's 4 bedrooms, not too far away -- at 26th & alder, pretty close to spencer view where brian and charles will be living, as well as to some other good stuff like our indian restaurant. it's not too much money, and it has a washer and dryer, and a huge kitchen, although the bedrooms are kind of small. we are going to look inside on thursday, though, and we'll see. i'm excited!!

2001-04-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

it's happy hour again!
i am afraid i have been overcome with lethargy/laziness/depression/boredom/busyness (yes, busy AND bored -- figure that one out) recently and therefore have not updated in 2 weeks or so . . . but the requests for me to do so (bill) have become overwhelming (kinda) so here i am.
school has started. blar. it's dumb as usual. am taking 2 french classes (french theater and baroque&enlightenment lit), geology of oregon and the pacific NW, and language play, which nearly makes up for the others being so blah. drama and issues have continued (i accept full responsibility . . . well, nearly) but seem to have gotten better recently. i need to work on not being so heavy. figuratively, that is. although for various reasons, i haven't been eating much lately, either.
so. let's see. went to see "electra" at the university theatre with chris wells, shelby, david, and scott. brian is running sound for it and kept saying how fantastic it was. and it was quite good. yesterday chris wells and brian and i went to saturday market, which is always fun, and i even wore shorts 'cos it was kind of warmish. then later i went to see a movie (finding forrester) with bryon, kim, and charles. yay! today i answered two ads in the emerald for houses . . . they were both 4 bedrooms, but arlie said he wouldn't mind staying in the apartment, so that works out well. one of the houses sounds nice . . . yard and everything . . . though yard means yardwork, which will be interesting. i'm not buying a lawn mower. and today brian and i went to the library book sale at the fairgrounds and spent $26 on about 15 books. yay! i got susan faludi, and gloria steinem, and betty friedan, and victor hugo, and a book for my mom called "how to live with a neurotic husband." b. got some weird things about being healthy, and some weird sci-fi/fantasy stuff, and some other weird stuff. go figure.
oh! i inspired yet another relatively-often updated journalish-thing with song quotes! katie, though, has taken it one step further (farther?) and has listed which songs her quotes come from . . . i might have to do that. but we'll see.
what else? . . . thinking . . . dunno. i'm bored and procrastinating, but i s'pose i should go be a good little girl and do my reading.

2001-04-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

she's trying to be a good girl, and give them what they want
once again, a break has come and gone without me having updated my web page. at least this time i cleaned my room . . . i had to; mom came to visit yesterday (with marika and stephen, of course). so now there are places to walk in here. it's great.
in other news, i very nearly got a tattoo but then decided that i should wait until i'm really really excited about doing it, as opposed to my current feeling of "yeah i'd like to someday." jen was disappointed because we were going to go together. but it's ok, because it would have been at least $50, and i spent too much money on clothes anyway. shelby and i went to portland and went shopping at the gap outlet store and old navy, and then we met ben at pioneer place and hung out there a little bit. i took the bus home because i was on duty, but shelby stayed the night there. i have worked a lot (this update is severely out of chronological order) so i think i should be fine (financially, at least =P ), and these are the last clothes i get to have for the rest of my life, ever. then brian came home on friday, and there is some minor drama, mostly consisting of my same old stupid issues . . . then mom, marika and stephen came down, and brought the greyhounds, who are neat doggies. and . . . school starts tomorrow . . . blar. starting off with a clean room always helps, though, and classes shouldn't be too bad . . . more on them later, after i've actually been.