an example of how i get behind on sleeping

i had every intention of going to bed last night at a decent hour- like, around 11.
at around 10:45, i decide to pick up my harmonica, the one i've been playing around with for several months, trying to teach myself. it suddenly occurred to me that there are very likely some free e-lessons online. since i had been singing "it ain't me babe" all day (not a bad song to have stuck in your head), i decided i MUST find the music for it online.
well, it took me awhile, but i finally found it available for purchase, ebook PDF format, so i bought it. along with 117 other "campfire songs," for $9.95.
so i'm not sure if someone is going to email it to me or what, because i still can't get into it online. POOP.

all that being said, i went to bed close to 2AM, and am consequently exhausted.

but it will all be well worth it, once i master that song. it's a great song- i love june's harmonization. i'm pretty sure that's a word...but realize in my half-rested state it might not be.
then, once i've mastered the harmonies and harmonica interludes, all i'll need is a johnny cash-like singer to play guitar and he and i can tour the country with this one cover song. yessss.

"to be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy,

but to be grateful for all our lives- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections- that requires hard spiritual work. still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. as long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see it in the guiding hand of a loving God."

-henri nouwen

what was the greatest thing BEFORE sliced bread?

well, this is the greatest thing since then: bicycling.

this week i have been bike riding most days- this morning i rode my bike to church and back, which was a total of over 8 miles. that's the great thing about bicycling; before you know it, you've gone two miles. it's become my way of tricking myself into exercising, since the pros significantly outweigh the cons.
to illustrate:
PROS=
-fresh air
-wonderful breeze in your face
-changing scenery
-the occasional downhill slope
-the ability to stop at starbucks, since there are like 5 in a 2 mile radius
-save money not using gas
-exercise
-THE best way to start the day
-stay on the sidewalk and cars are not your enemies
-my bike is amazing (see image below)

CONS=
-the equally occasional uphill slope
-sometimes people stare
-exercise means sweaty work



it's also nice to bring your ipod with you on a bike ride, provided that you remember to charge your ipod, which i never seem to. the eels make good bike riding music. beck is good too.

my new goal is to get all my friends to acquire bicycles so that we can take friend bike rides together. i found mine on ebay, so that's a good place to check.
do it; it will change your life.

summer reading

here is a list of the books i fully intend on completing by the end of the summer:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller
Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen
The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway


plus or minus a few.
keep me accountable.


anyone interested in reading one or more with me? we can start a book club. !!

Bears. Beets. Battle Star Gallactica.

basically the greatest moment of my life in the past month or so.

at lunch yesterday,

someone said this:

"Grape Nuts are like off-roading for your mouth."

someone i love

shannon, you are wonderful.
"do you know that you're beautiful? You arrrre." "Natural beauty."

you have taught me
to be free, to be me. to look at the world and life as a place of beauty.
there is beauty in a blade of grass, a note scribbled on a paint swatch, the subtle smirk of a good friend.

you're an inspiration.















i love you shan.
good luck on your finals this week!

one of my least favorite things.

=attending graduations.
i don't even like them when i'm in them.

this morning i went to my friend Maya's graduation. she finished her business degree in three years with honors. that's my girl.
unfortunately, the business school at cal state fullerton is one of the largest in the state, and i'm pretty sure even the nation. this means it takes eons to read off every single name for the ceremony.
you'd think that, being well aware of this, the commencement organizers would shorten the forgettably meaningless speeches to a minimum.
no such luck. the "key note speaker" spent a good twenty minutes gabbing on and on with various trite tidbits of life advice. after awhile i stopped paying attention, but certain words grabbed my attention: "warlords," "internet," "earthquakes," and "prehistoric"...all of which i have a hard time in figuring out the logical connection to the occasion.

the thing started at 8AM. it went on until 12:30PM. ridiculous.

other observations (or, "other things i hate about graduations"):
-people are really pushy. they want to see their precious son/daughter/niece/godson graduate and will sacrifice your life to make this possible. so stay out of the way, don't think about taking any of their 18 saved seats, and if you stand up during the commencement ceremony, you will be hissed at mercilessly. but the same people who hackled you for standing will undoubtedly be seen standing when their own beloved graduate is on the stage.
-instead of tiered seating, all 2,000 of us audience members were seated on a grass field, only able to see the ceremony by watching a hideously oversized screen a few hundred yards in front of us.
-it's outside. meaning that between 8 and about 10AM, you freeze. then it burns off and you get roasted.

-the amount of love you have for your graduate is directly reflected in the number of balloons you have to present to them


-four hours in uncomfortable chairs.


-it is unbearably crowded.


-people are messy




other non-favorite things that also happened in the last week:
-finals
-car trouble
-dental check ups
-feminine things

people can be stupid.

today i was at the gas station, minding my own business- fully enraptured by my own internal monologue about gas prices and ethanol and calculating my savings if I were to ride my bike everywhere- when I hear a loud pop-smack noise.
i look over and see that the owner of a huge four-door truck at the adjacent gas pump has started to drive away with the gas nozzle still
attached to the tank of the truck. consequently, the gas pump-rope (is there a word for that thing?) has ripped out of the gas pump, smacked to the ground, and has begun to drag away behind the truck, leaving several open-mouthed bystanders, like myself, looking on.
the lady driving the truck quickly realized something was wrong, and brought her tankish vehicle to a halt halfway-in/halfway-out of the gas station. she got out of the truck, marched over to confirm what had happened, and THEN, she proceeded to yell at one of the two or three teenage boys in her truck. instead of going inside the station mart to tell the gas attendant/clerk what had happened, she got back in her truck and just sat. halfway-in/halfway-out of the station.
just then, my gas nozzle made that click noise that signifies it is filled, and so i removed it from my car, replaced it to the pump, and got back in my car. i started to drive away, careful to dodge both the gas pump-rope and the truck.
the woman continued to sit in her car, as if it was not her responsibility to inform anyone about what had happened, and they could come to her if they wanted to. all the while she continued to yell at the boys in her truck.

first of all, i have always been petrified that this would happen to me. i'm even afraid of driving away without my gas cap. so my first reaction was mortification for this poor woman to whom it did happen. but my sympathy came to an abrupt end when the woman reacted the way she did.
is it necessary to yell at your son (i presume it was her son) for an error that you should have checked up on anyway? also, who's the parent here? pump your own gas. then you wouldn't have to yell at your son for making a dumb mistake that could happen to anyone. OR, if you're going to get mad about it, at least go talk to the gas station people first. don't squat in your car and pridefully refuse to walk in and alert them of the situation. what if it caused a leak? what if, as you're sitting bitterly in your car waiting for someone to come to you, the place is just minutes away from exploding? i guessi'm being a little extreme. but really. at least take what is left of the gas pump out of your truck, move your truck to a parking spot, and go inside and talk to someone.


orange county. you test my patience every day.

pictures from cathi's birthday

because some idiot demonic woman told cathi as a teenager she would die before turning 25. in.your.face.


HO SUM!





mmmmm!

loisa, you are a gem.

annie loved the peanut butter ganache. meee tooo !!



and josh had fun with annie's camera. and zak had fun with that pail for awhile.

english majors work with numbers too

8= the number of classes i took
22= the number of units i enrolled in
20= novels i was supposed to have read this semester
16= novels i actually read this semester
13= restoration plays i was supposed to have read
7= plays i actually read
1= presentation
4= in-class readings of my writing
15= papers written
12= exams
3= finals left

countless headaches.

mentos, the explosion-maker.

last thursday there were several people walking around the quad at my school handing out free mentos*
my friend nancy i and were walking together when we were offered some free mentos, and gladly accepted. she then told me that if you put a mentos into a bottle of coke it will explode. she recently sent me this video via email to confirm her story.



so what happens if you drink diet coke while eating a mentos?


*Question: what is the plural form of mentos?
"mentoses"?
"mentosis"?

this is the week that awaits me

monday- Life History Narratives Final
tuesday- Restoration Drama final & paper due
wednesday- Grammar final & Contemporary Novels paper due
thursday- Milton final & Personality Psych final

so please don't be angry with me if you don't see or hear from me this week.
if i survive, let's hang out next weekend.

remember when

i was so set on proving the flaws of wikipedia that i changed the information for the History of Moral Relativism?

for about two glorious minutes, the revised History was: Moral Relativism is a flavor of ice cream.





some might say the fact that it changed back to the original schpeel after a few minutes was proof that wikipedia is credible; it's regulated, people are held accountable for what they write, etc.
BUT
i still disagree. i mean, imagine the poor sucker who, in those two
minutes, came across the altered history and was subsequently
(tragically) misled.

blythe: 1
wikipedia: 0

...

"every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important
today and when you say of a thing that 'nothing hangs on it' it sounds
like blasphemy. there's never any knowing- how am i to put it?- which
of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for ever."

e.m. forster, where angels fear to tread

insomnia spelled backward is ainmosni.

i can't sleep. i've been trying to for the past two and a half hours. i'm exhausted.
i think my insomnia is due to many factors at work:
-stress of final projects, presentations, and papers this week
-stress of final exams next week
-emotional drain of family drama
-how hot it is in my room right now
-i hear a ringing in my ears

as i've been lying here, cursing each waking breath that i take for not being a non-waking breath (a sleeping breath?), i began to think about how lucky i am to have my own room. my own space, to decorate how i chose, to mess up or clean up as the times allow, to sleep or not sleep in. not many people in the world have that luxury.
so here is my tribute to my room.









thank you room, for being you. i think you're a wonderful and faithful friend. we've been through a lot together. sorry i'll be leaving you in the next couple of years. i'll try to write.

goodnight.

suggestion

avoid wearing a flouncy knee-length skirt on a windy day. even if it is unbearably hot outside. even if it is a really cute skirt.

unless you wish to emulate marilyn monroe a la seven year itch



which i unwittingly did.

i am a rubik's cube.

i was hesitant to post any pictures of my costume for greg's 80's themed birthday party since i might re-use it as a halloween costume next year.
just forget about the whole thing over the next five months and i'll be set.


Have you seen any of the other members of the Rubik's family? Like Rubik's Revenge, the 4x4 version? Or the 5x5 beast, the Rubik's Professor cube? Click here for the video of Frank Morris (Mr. I eat/sleep/live Rubik's cubes) solving a 7x7 cube in less than 7 minutes.
there was even a short-lived cartoon based on the Rubik's cube! please watch at least part of it, it's amazing.
also, i bet you didn't know they made a braille version of the Rubik's cube.
i found a digital rubik's cube, which is pretty cool.
if i've inspired some curiosity, go learn more!

pizza dinner and how to cure a sore throat

mmmm! feta and chevre and artichoke hearts. and other things.

todd being an italian chef.


the lines are always crossed.

how to cure a sore throat?
easy, gargle hot salt water.

"it's not so bad...here, i'll prove it by doing it with you"

tip: do NOT swallow salt water.




i haven't shaved my legs in about a month.
it's quite liberating, actually.
i bought a pair of shorts today, which is pretty REVOLUTIONARY considering i hate shorts and it's been about two years since i bought a pair. i prefer "long shorts," but am anticipating a hot summer.
and they were on sale.
i'll keep the tags on, just in case i back down.