Awkward moments with my dad.

Why do the gross commercials with gyrating women selling something always show up when I'm watching TV with my dad? Or that one with the guy grinning from ear to ear because some pill is giving him a bigger wang? It's just uncomfortable. I don't want to acknowledge the presence of sex in the presence of my dad. I just wanna watch VH1 recap Saturday Night Live in the 2000s. I'm starting to think there's an evil little man living in my TV who makes these horrible commercials come on whenever my dad is in the room. Never when I'm alone.

But my dad is, thankfully, cool as a cucumber when this happens. This completely suggestive and cheesy Trojan ad for a "personal massager" showed up when we were watching the SNL retrospective, and while I promptly hid in my sweater, he just says "Jesus, I thought this was an SNL skit."

Go dads.

Up to Speed

A lot has happened since I last wrote here. Let's break it down.

Don't Ask Don't Tell got repealed! This coincided with the day I returned home for break, and the night that Titanic was shown commercial-free on USA Network. I obviously watched the whole thing. It's only been one of my all time favorite, would-take-this-to-a-desert-island movies since I was thirteen. Why would I pass up a chance to watch it uninterrupted by peppy people trying to make be buy cat food and moderately priced electronics?

I had just gotten to the part where Leo was showing Kate his drawings of the one-legged prostitute from Paris, when my dad emerges from his office and says, all matter-of-factly, "Leo was pretty adorable in this movie."

I like to think this was his way of celebrating the DADT repeal.

Then of course was the obligatory "I'm back in New York let's go to Manhattan and shop" day. I had tea with my sister and a friend from school, then we wandered around the Union Square holiday market getting gifts for people including ourselves. It was very cold. But we found refuge in a nearby coffee shop that also sold frozen yogurt. That sounds like a dream one would have after bad takeout but it really happened. There was an attractive Scandinavian-looking fellow sitting at the counter who totally saw us checking him out in the reflection in the window.

Five minutes later it was Christmas. I spent it eating way too much food and opening boxes with sweaters in them and trying not to flinch when my poor grandmother examined my nose ring. I hate to admit it, but I was kind of thankful the blizzard forced us home early. I was all too happy to collapse into the couch and watch The Daily Show OnDemand for hours.

As for today, I'm trying to be productive but all I want to do is nap. My dad and I are thinking of seeing a movie tonight, but I can't decide if I want to go highbrow or lowbrow. I know I should see "The King's Speech" so I have something to say during the Oscar broadcast and I can only gush about "Black Swan" for so long, but I've always had this lingering thing for Barbara Streisand and Dustin Hoffman as The Fockers. Maybe I'll ditch both those ideas and see "True Grit" because it'll still give me something to talk about during the Oscar broadcast and I've always had a lingering thing for Matt Damon. Any leading man who goes for a recurring guest spot on 30 Rock is a keeper in my book. Even better if they're from Boston. Hooh-rah.

I'm the worst college student ever?

LolCats are funny only when you haven't slept enough.

I can't pull an all nighter. I tried. I really did. I had to write a fifteen page paper and do some research for it too. But at around 5am I decided to take a two hour power nap. I would snooze for two hours, let dances of Northern Irish youth dance in my head (that's what my paper was on), wake up feeling great at 7am, crank out fifteen pages by 5pm and that that would be that. So I collapsed onto my bed, woke up at 7am as planned, hit the snooze because it was still dark out (thanks a lot, winter), and trudged downstairs, where I promptly fell asleep on the couch for THREE HOURS.

I felt really lame because I thought this was finally my night to be a hardcore college student and stay up all night like the boss I am. But I'm clearly an old person who needs sleep.

I wrote the paper in about seven hours. It ended up being 11 pages instead of 15. But that's okay, I hope so.

Tonight is my last night before winter break. I'm taking myself to see Black Swan, because no one is here anymore. Then I might delete some of the weird Pandora stations I made during finals, because I get cravings for music I don't normally listen to when I'm writing finals. This semester, it was 80s power ballads. My modmate was blasting them while we pounded out our last papers. It was kind of great. So monumental. Eventually I made a Pandora station based on "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams and "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" came on while I was writing my last few paragraphs on Northern Ireland. It was weird and made too much sense for my life.

Charlie Brown, you get me.

Whew. I finally feel like a human being after feeling like less than one for a while. A lot of his has to do with getting an extension on one of my finals, which really balanced my work out a lot more than it was before. Also, I kicked ass on my presentation for one of my classes. It was on Northern Ireland's peace lines. I'm getting really fascinated with that conflict, probably because it seems like no one in the US really talks about it. Most of the books I've found on the subject are from the UK or Ireland, and you don't see anyone throwing benefit concerts here for Ulster or making "Save Belfast" t-shirts. I still wonder why that is.

Anyways, I'm surviving finals with the help of coffee and peppy music. I'm loving Girl Talk's new album and my Ting Tings radio station. Also, I have an appropriate finals week desktop background:
Charlie Brown, you get me.

Whiplash

Thanksgiving break is basically over. I have to be on a train back to my second home in about ten hours, and it feels like just yesterday I was getting off that damn thing. I had plans to get everything done while I was here. I was going to do work on my big bed, see Harry Potter with the family again, maybe see some friends, run all my errands like a boss, and generally feel on top of shit.

But I spent it watching Youtube, getting into fights with the family members I live with, crying about said fights and also about dead pets (Our parakeet died and left the other one without a buddy, and I'm still torn up about my darling Penny) and eating way too much food. Well maybe that last one isn't so bad. But I got no work done and I'm just exhausted. Emotionally and physically. I don't feel like me vs. finals will be a fair match. But maybe I'll pull a miracle out from somewhere. I do have four hours on a train tomorrow. Those will hopefully be cozy and productive. I'll try and nab a seat by the window so I can see what the world looks like from Stamford to Amherst. That would be nice.

Why I am raising my future offspring on Harry Potter

In three hours, I'll be sitting in a movie theater with popcorn and caffeine in hand, having heart palpitations as the lights dim and the first installment of Deathly Hallows begins. The beginning to the end of an era.

I've been a Harry Potter fan since I was about ten years old. So basically for half my life. My mom and I used to take turns reading pages of The Sorcerer's Stone, which started out slow but ended up being something neither of us could put down no matter how long past my bedtime it was getting. Even at that young an age, I knew how special this book was. Beneath all the fantasy and magic (which was fantastic as well) there was something undeniably real. These kids had real problems and personalities. I thought they were a lot like me and I was honestly a little bit surprised and devastated when I didn't get a Hogwarts letter delivered to my house.

Harry Potter and I grew up together, in a way. As I got older, so did the books. Harry and Ron got into fights about things just like my friends and I did. I had teachers who didn't like me just like Professor Snape had it out for all the Gryffindors. On days when I fought with my parents, I prayed that the Weasleys would adopt me into their house and Molly would knit me a sweater with an "L" on it. As I applied to colleges in junior year, I felt pangs of sadness because I knew, no matter how much I wanted it to be real, Hogwarts would never exist in the world I lived in and I couldn't just delete my Common App account and go there to double major in Charms and Divination and minor in flirting with attractive wizard boys.

I love that Harry Potter exists in this world and is such a major part of culture. I think a lot of fantasy books geared towards young people today tend to be either wildly unbelievable or just poorly written (I'm looking at you, Stephanie Meyer. But I'll save my Twilight rant for another blog post.) Harry Potter books are neither of those things. The characters are so developed and the world they live in so intricately detailed that you'd believe it was nonfiction. This is probably why all the deaths have hit me so hard. I was legitimately depressed for a long time after she killed Fred in book 7 (This may have also had something to do with my literary crush on him.)

Now we get to the part where I address the title of this post. Yes, I am saving my Harry Potter books so I can read them with my kids. I plan to start when they're eleven and keep going until they're seventeen, just like those little chaps at Hogwarts. I want my kids to know things that these books talk about. Like how you can be happy without having a lot of money (If I make a living from writing books, they're going to have to learn this for sure), how when people die, they can't ever come back but you can still keep them in your memory, how you don't have to go into dark rooms by yourself to be brave (Looking at you, Neville Longbottom.) If I have a daughter, I want her to know that like Hermione Granger, you can be smart and pretty at the same time and as long as you just be yourself the guy of your dreams will eventually come around.

I'm getting a bit sentimental, I know. But these books mean a lot to me, and I've got them on the brain now because I'm going to my first Harry Potter midnight showing tonight. It'll be an excellent night and I can't even stand how excited I am right now. But I'll probably have to look away when Hedwig dies, because that is going to make me cry hard.

The perks of staying in.

That's me, stumbling around with a case of the giggles. Just another Thursday night at 51, thank goodness. Sometimes, living here is more than alright.

I didn't realize until this year that when you go out and try to find a decent party to crash, you miss things like a rerun of Hugh Jackman hosting SNL with musical guest Mick Jagger. Heaven on earth, people.

OH MY GOD THE JARRET'S ROOM SKETCH IS STARTING. It's supposed to take place at Hampshire, you know? After ignoring a few factual details, I realized that Horatio Sanz's character looks like every single lovable stoner here. So basically everyone here.

In other Hampshire-y news, one of my professors played a video montage of World War One doctor W.H.R. Rivers set to that Sarah McLachlan song from the ASPCA ads that I always have to change the channel during. Yup. My professor is a fangirl for a World War One doctor, and so I had to sit through a montage of pictures and video clips from the biopic set to a song that usually accompanies sick kittens. I have a Pavlovian response to it. It makes me reach for a remote. But there was no remote. So I just had to sit uncomfortably while stifling a case of inappropriate giggles. You can't make this shit up. Even if you're a creative writing concentrator.

Payday

That's right folks. A- on my first graded paper since high school. I forgot what it's like to get grades, because my college doesn't give them. But thanks to the Five College Consortium that makes Western Mass such an academic paradise, I've remembered what it's like to skim the professor's comments while holding your breath until you see that letter. I like getting written evals, but sometimes it's nice to see everything all wrapped up in one character.

Also, I'm getting my paycheck today! Thanks, Phonathon. You kicked my ass this semester and now I'm gonna get what I deserve. That being mixers for the party my house is throwing tonight. It's kind of a preshow for the Hampshire Halloween debauchery that will take place later on. We plan on playing games and sipping neon colored drinks (New Amsterdam Gin and Mountain Dew for me) in addition to making jokes and showing off our costumes. I have a pretty killer one. There will be pictures soon. But here's the general idea:

There will be a blonde wig and possibly some hot ham water. No word on whether or not I'll find someone dressed as Tobias to take pictures with. But I did a test run last night and it all looks pretty good. Here's to another Hampshire Halloween.

Mismatched socks

I've been a most neglectful blog owner. Things have gotten overwhelming and sometimes when that happens I just want to let them happen and pass instead of writing about them. I've had a lot of work and my house is a mess and it's been hard to just find time to sit and be. I couldn't even find matching socks this morning.

I'm taking this blustery Friday off to get pumpkin milkshakes in town and go to a glowstick party tonight. Hopefully autumnal treats and neon booty shaking will be just what the doctor ordered, because I'm feeling a little less than on top of my game right now. I wish I could make this blog entry longer, but I'm groggy and I just want things to slow down.

Boston and Nostalgia.

I have an absurd amount of things to look forward to. Also a lot of work, but I figure that'll get done some way or another. I got up a little earlier than expected this morning, so I'm listening to Regina Spektor and blogging until I decide to get on with the day. I've got last-minute shopping, a meeting with a professor about serving on my Divison 2 committee, and packing. I'm escaping to Boston in the early evening, and I couldn't be more excited. I've talked a lot about my love for New York City before, and I do love it, but my love for Boston is a different kind of love.

I did a lot of my growing up in Wellesley, Mass. It's about 40 or so minutes outside of Boston, so I spent a lot of time there as a kid. The penguins at the Aquarium were some of my closest friends, I knew how to expertly navigate the Museum of Science and The Children's Museum, and Christmastime meant The Nutcracker at The Wang Theater. Boston is always served with a heavy dose of nostalgia for me. I can't walk past The Four Seasons without remembering the time my parents took me to The Bristol Lounge and I went straight for the dish of M&Ms. If cities were boyfriends, Boston would be the one that got away. We'll always have something, even if I've got a good thing going with New York now. Every time Ben Affleck makes a movie about Boston, my heart swells a little because my lovely little city is in a big time movie. Even if said movies are always about kidnappings or bank robberies.

As much as I love the home I've made for myself at Hampshire in the month I've been here, I think seeing another place will be good. I'm staying with a good friend from high school who always makes me laugh and always gets where I'm coming from, and my dad and sister are driving up from New York to see me as well. I love it when paths cross, even if someone is meaning to cross them.

Haymarket stressings.

I'm trying to pound out a personal essay at the Haymartket in Northampton. It's a lovely place with antique everything and old wood. Also they have Virgil's soda and really good coffee. I figured it would be helpful to be in a ridiculously pleasant environment while I write this essay that might be the definition of triggering.

It's for my Therapeutic Writing class. I have to write my Writing Autobiography. I tried to write it the other night for the class workshop but I ended up in tears at 2am in my living room. So I went to class without an essay, and realized that one of the most wonderful things about Hampshire is that there's not only always someone weirder than you, but there's also always someone less prepared for class than you. So while everyone else was workshopping their pieces, I met with three other ladies who didn't have essays to workshop. We had a really nice talk about writing and why we do it and why it's so hard to write about why we do it.

I've been writing for my whole life, because it's basically the only thing I feel I both love and am good at. So why wouldn't I write? It's my refuge at this point. I'm really at my happiest when I'm writing something I love. It's also tied up in pretty much every painful experience of my life, so it's really, really hard to write about my history with writing without remembering those experiences. It's also really stressful when, in order to hand this essay in on time, I have to write it regardless of what it triggers.

But I'll do it. As hard as it is, I think it's important to know where you've come from and what tough stuff has made you who you are. If my life were all roses, I'd be the worst, most unrelatable writer in the world.

Living the life of a more fortunate me.

I'm not really that used to getting what I want, so when I woke up this morning to an email from my advisor telling me I had been granted admission into her creative writing workshop that made my head hurt from wanting it so badly, I was hardly able to keep my excitement to a dull roar.

I don't want to jinx things by calling this "my year," but it's hard not to when things are just falling into place all around me. I'm seeing people I like everywhere who listen to me vent about people I don't like. In my classes, I find myself writing things down just because they fascinate me. The other day, I actually went to the gym. I felt like passing out afterwards, but I put in 35 minutes on an elliptical and didn't even feel the need to cancel out all that calorie burning by eating Nutella with a spoon.

Of course, being the neurotic pessimist I usually am, I'm worried that my streak of good fortune will soon be ended with me being hit by a bus somewhere. But I've always been taught to look both ways before crossing a street, so maybe this is for real.

Makeshift incense holders and squash seeds: I think I'm home.

I just made an incense holder. My roommate and I are heavily into making our room smell like a yoga studio, and I decided to give her incense a break and use mine.

I moved in yesterday, and after all the yucky things going on at home it's been one big, long breath of fresh air. Saying hi to people I thought I had forgotten, catching up with lovely old friends, and just living here again. I should say though, that it's not quite the same as last year. So far it's been better. I'm in an on-campus apartment with six others and even though we came together when I answered a roommate ad they put up online, it's worked out great so far. Last year, I missed out on the low-key socializing that happens when you've got a kitchen and living room. We've been sitting in the mismatched chairs a lot, just having real talk. I cooked myself lunch today. I love doing home-y things here. We're going to have a chore wheel soon, and I've already washed a sinkful of dishes and loved it. There's something about cleaning a house you love that just feels fulfilling. As I scrubbed olive oil and squash seeds off an iron skillet, I thought of how good this place already has been to me, and vowed to be just as good in return.

And just like that, she was gone.

This was taken three months ago. Just three months. I pulled her into my lap and she loved the camera and it loved her back (Even though it made me look like I hadn't washed my hair in months.)

We decided to put her to sleep today. If you've been reading past entries you know that she's been sick for a while and was just diagnosed with a tumor in her brain stem. The drugs that were supposed to make the swelling go down didn't work, so radiation wouldn't be possible. Also, the anesthesia would put additional stress on her brain. She's had over three seizures in the past fifteen hours or so, more stress is not okay.

She just doesn't deserve to live like this. She can't even walk on her own. The dog we remember has already died. It just sucks that mean dogs get to live and snarl at people, and Penny who only wanted to share your bed has to get a huge brain tumor and die. She only lived seven years. She had given a lot of joy to a lot of people, but she was only getting started.

Going back to school, I think, will be good. It'll remind me that there is life beyond this, and I'll be surrounded by fall air and foliage and friends. Maybe someday I'll accept that this doesn't just happen in movies and memoirs. It happens to real people too.

In which Lisa gets her hipster war face on.

Well my portfolio is just a paragraph and a half on my computer, and a stack of papers on my nightstand, and I haven't even begun to pack anything I need for the year (or at least until Thanksgiving break) but I know that no matter what, I'm ready for my second year at Hampshire College. I've got my war face on, and I'm equipped to blend right in with all the hipsters who skulk around campus on the regular.

First, I've got a pair of sunglasses with the lenses punched out. My vision is the tops, I don't even wear contacts, but everyone knows that glasses make people look smarter. I'll have much more credibility if I decide to get some fresh air at a party and there's a whole bunch of people debating existential socialism in Palestine or something like that.

Next, I've got my Moleskine. I use it to write down my thought on existential socialism in Palestine.

Finally, a Mason jar. It's so much cooler than a thermos, and holds more coffee. I need my coffee to wax poetic on readings I didn't do. Anyway, this jar is legit because I found it laying around my house, and didn't buy it at Urban Outfitters. When I'm not busy reading Czech philosophy, I'll crochet a cozy for it. When Easter rolls around, I'll rinse out the coffee residue and take it into the woods at 7am to fill it with PBR during Easter Keg Hunt. Later I'll fill it with more coffee to sip while I lay in the sun apathetically hungover.

I love my school to death and if its crippling debt ever forces it to fold I don't know where I'll go, but some of the folks there are serious pieces of work. That being said, I'm so psyched to bring my Mason jar to Keg Hunt. I may even wear the glasses to make my morning drinking seem highbrow and somehow literary.

School-sickness with a side of writers' block

I WANT TO GO BACK TO HAMPSHIRE.

I want foliage and cider donuts, creative minds and packed dance parties in the mods. I want to sit down with my wonderfully kooky advisor and plan my future because it's something worth planning. Being home is not working out right now. I have a constant tension headache and I'm tired all the time. I know I only have five days left here, but it feels like forever. I think I can describe all this as school-sickness, which would be a cousin to the homesickness I felt as summer camp when I was thirteen, but this is kind of a different animal. School-sickness is agitating. The stomach pains of homesickness are all up in my head now.

I'm trying to write my Div 1 essay for my portfolio, so I can move on to Div 2 once school starts. But alas I've come down with writers' block as well. Every time I sit down to write, I either end up writing something that makes me sound like a total spaz, or I can't write anything at all. I have, however, begun to compile some work samples from last year to put into my portfolio. A lot of it is damn good. Weird to think I was productive not so long ago. Hopefully the Pioneer Valley air will still be as motivating as I remember.

Oh and before I go to either take a catnap or get work done, I wanted to say thanks for all the support I've gotten these past few weeks with my dog getting sick. Said support, while somewhat solicited on my part, is much appreciated. A lot is up in the air with her health now, and she still can't walk or stand on her own (sometimes not even with help) but if it is her time to go (which it shouldn't be) she'll at least go at home.

She's Home!

We brought our girl home today, and even though she still can't walk or stand up on her own, her movements are wobbly and floppy, and her breathing is quick and heavy, I know she's supposed to be nowhere but here. All we can do now is give her all the love we have and all the drugs the doctors gave us to keep the swelling by her tumor down, and hope that soon the swelling will go down enough for her to start radiation. No word on when that will happen, but we've been told that the best way to gauge this is by her behavior. Right now, she's by no means in the clear, but by the way she licked my hand when I pet her face I can't help but think it's likely she's on her way.

On the contrary, I've thought of the worst case scenario. How could I not when it's seemed at times like it's staring me in the face? We're not ready to let her go, she's only seven and this escalated so quickly. But if this really is her time, there's at least a small chance that the last place she sees will be the place she loves most. That's how I'm leaving it, but she's such a fighter. She's still here and she's eating and drinking. Her eyes are bright like chestnuts again. Maybe soon she'll be something we can call normal,and the cat will stop sniffing the stuffed dog she had in the hospital, wondering where she's been.

Visiting Hours

It's a little strange how quickly time passes in a spartan exam room with your sick dog. I can't explain it very well. It felt like I checked my phone at 7:10, put it away, then the next thing I knew it was ten minutes to eleven, the end of visiting hours. I'm honestly not sure where my mind went during those six hours. At some level, I just had to disconnect a little bit to avoid completely unraveling. I'm tired of doing that. It's hard enough that instead of the vet calling us with a pickup time, he called with news of another seizure.

As it turns out, whimpering and crying about all this is just as exhausting as disconnecting. The former just makes me feel hopeless, the latter like I'm wasting what could be my last times with her. So much is unknown right now about her health and if she'll even pull through. I'm realizing I know even less than I told myself I did. When I was laying down next to her on her dog bed, I just put my ear near her nose and watched her belly rise and fall. I did my best to believe the vet tech who said her breathing was normal, even though I thought it looked a little bit strained. I watched her breathing, because it was pretty much the only thing that looked anything near healthy on her. The rest was full of Valium and anti-seizure drugs. Her eyes were swollen. Her hair was dirty and matted. She couldn't stand up on her own.

Towards the end of the night, my mom held her up and she (our dog) licked pureed chicken off my fingers. She drank water from a bowl and a syringe. I felt, for the first time all night, like she really knew who we were. She had yet to eat for anyone working at the hospital. I wanted to feed her all the food in the world then. Her eyes opened wide, and it was like shades of her were coming back. Some of my lost hope came back too.

So now I'm home and my suitcase from our tragically shortened vacation is still packed even though I'm not going anywhere for a while. A while, in this case, is ten days. I hope that when I go back to school then I'll have something else to write about besides my sick dog. But for now I need to, because there's a huge part of me that still can't believe it's happening.

The calm after the storm

This blank text box is probably the most calming thing I've seen in what feels like ages. We had to cut our vacation short on both ends, and the short few days we were lounging on the beach were covered with a dark cloud of worry. Our dog was still home and sick with something mysterious and murky. When we left, she had been diagnosed with Lyme Disease and given an antibiotic. But while we were gone, the medicine didn't do anything for her. She had a seizure and was admitted to the animal hospital.

The day after that happened we came back from Martha's Vineyard on the ferry and drove straight to the animal hospital in the pouring rain. I was a wreck. It came in waves, really. Sitting in the standby lane waiting for the next ferry, I was fine. I was shoving a peanut butter chocolate cupcake into my mouth and reading Sloane Crosley. A few hours later, Samskeyti by Sigur Ros came up on my iPod and I started to cry. Then I was okay. Then we got to the hospital and I felt like throwing up I was so miserable.

They were keeping her in a cage. She was so drugged out she couldn't even look at me. All she had was a towel and an IV. There were sick animals everywhere and no one was paying attention to them. Emotionally, I mean. Just because some place has the best animal neurology department somewhere doesn't mean these animals are happy. As I stood in front of my dog, petting her and telling her to hold on, I heard a horrible howling sound behind me. He was a huge German Shepherd with an ugly wound and a big collar to keep him from licking it. I spent about half a minute pondering how weird it would be if I went over to be his friend, then I went over. All it took was a minute of me talking to him and he quieted down. It took all I had to not slap one of those doctors and tell them to give the same time of day to these animals.

So we left and went home and I slept until noon the next day and stayed in bed until two. That was yesterday. A waiting game. Today we finally got news. A tumor on her brainstem. They can't operate on it, but once the swelling goes down they can do radiation. The good news is we can wait for this at home, and there won't be permanent damage after they kill the tumor.

I don't know if the dust has settled yet, I don't know if we're in the clear, but I do know that we'll have our dog at home tomorrow, and that I'm forgetting what it's like to have things be simple.

Guest Entry from Julia

Lisa's dramatic last blog entry kind of made it seem like I was dying. I'm not dying. It wasn't even an infectious tick disease. That was just kind of a misunderstanding. So I'm just chilling out, awkwardly telling Lisa what to write because I felt that her last entry was, for lack of a better word, false.

Cheers!
Julia

This might be what catharsis feels like

It's been a weird few weeks, folks. I don't quite know how to break it down, because some of what made this week so weird has been intangible things. Like the air around me just felt yucky.

I guess I can start by saying my dog got sick. She was throwing up and being very lethargic. Normally when anyone comes home after being gone for a while, she runs up and jumps and barks and wags her tail. We knew she was sick when we'd come home from errands or something and she wouldn't move from wherever she had decided to collapse earlier. My mom took her to the vet and he diagnosed her with a gastro-intestinal illness. He gave us some anti-nausea medicine to give her, but she couldn't keep it down. So we had to wait for her tiny little furry body to heal itself. She's starting to feel better now, but she's still tired a lot.

So that sucked. It was weird seeing the one family member who is always happy suddenly looking and acting like the world was about to end. What was also weird was that around that time, I started to feel really lethargic too. Suddenly I couldn't go for a day without napping, no matter how much sleep I had gotten the night before. I've never been a particularly hyperactive person, but this was weird. I also started to feel very unmotivated. I was living in an anti-depressant commercial. Which was oddly ironic because I'm on an anti-depressant. In fact, I find that I have to change the channel when the ad for my pill comes on TV.

Anyway, I was just kind of on autopilot for a while. I woke up, did some stuff, napped, wasted time, slept, and then did it all again. It sucked. But last night, something weird happened. I had been having an especially crappy day. My sister had been sick for a few days and as we found out yesterday, she has a tickborne infection that can only be cured with an antibiotic that has, in the past, made her extremely sun-sensitive. So not only does it hurt like hell to watch her lie around completely ill, but we might not get to go to Martha's Vineyard for a week on the beach.

So once all this happened, I just kind of snapped. I started crying about my sister and probably not being able to go to the beach and then about my ongoing fatigue and lack of motivation and then all this stuff started coming out of my mouth about my parents' divorce that's going on now, and all this anger I've been keeping under wraps. The floodgates were open from last night to early this afternoon. My eyes are a little raw now, but I don't feel tired like I normally would at this time.

I think I finally get catharsis. I used to think I did, because I've always liked sad movies and music and all, but I never knew what it was like to feel healed from getting all the gunk out of your psyche.

I sound pretty granola now, so I'll stop. But I just kind of felt like writing this out. I promise I'll write something funny soon.

Tea and shoes and bad pickup lines.

This is what I had for lunch yesterday. To the right is my polka-dotted belly, anxious for the sandwiches, cakes, and scones I will soon fill it with. Kelly and I have made Tea and Sympathy on Greenwich Ave. between 11th and 12th streets our haunt. I've written about it here before, as a place where a lady can have a meal by herself and not feel like a loser because the place is so small, but it really is lovelier with a good friend. Most things are. We split the afternoon tea for two by the window, where we people-watched and talked for a long time. People who walked by gawked at our impressive tiers of tea goodies. It made me feel smug. They wish they had that egg and cress.

From Kelly's photography skills with her Blackberry, I segue to mine with my webcam. Here are the shoes I got at the Salvation Army on for $10. I'm a little obsessed.




Purple suede, a few extra inches of height, and toe cleavage should be worth more than an Alexander Hamilton, but I'm just glad I snatched these puppies up before someone else did.

To close, I leave you with a theory I've recently thought up on pickup lines. They're kind of irrelevant to me, because if you're attracted to the person delivering them it really doesn't matter what line they use, you're probably going to give them your number or Facebook name or blog URL or whatever else floats your boat.

Case in point, my current celebrity crush by the name of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He can currently be seen looking suave in three piece suits while wielding machine guns in "Inception." You should go see it. But without further ado here he is winning me over with a bad pickup line.

I'm sure it would, darling. But if anyone else tried this on me I would run fast in the other direction.

Lists make me feel better about the direction of my life

I'm trying a new technique that will hopefully result in a dramatic increase in my overall productivity. Every night before I go to bed, I'm going to write a list of what I need to do the next day and put it on my nightstand. My Youtube crush Alex Day does it, and he seems pretty productive and well adjusted. Or maybe he just appears to be like that because he has a British accent.

Anyways, I've been finding it remarkably easy to get lost in the lazy days of summer. Freelancing does that to people I guess. So does Netflix Instant Play. But I think a little bit of structure and direction is good, so I have a list on some graph paper by my bed. Tomorrow I need to finish compressing boxes in the garage so they can be recycled, sweep said garage, call someone back for an interview for an article I'm working on and hope I don't get their voicemail again, leave for a doctor's appointment at 3:30, and if I have any time at all in between these things, I'll work on my Division 1 essay. This is basically something that my granola artsy crunchy school has us do to evaluate our first year at school and discuss what we want to do in the future. I have about a sentence so far, and I'll probably scrap it in favor of something else that makes me sound like less of a spaz.

I hope that my grandparents who read this blog are still with me after I dropped that slang bomb just then.

So hopefully by tomorrow I'll have a semi-clean garage, pages full of interview notes, and a new arm attached to my side so I can dangle things in front of my cat, drink tea, and flip through my mom's "Oprah" magazine at the same time (that's what the doctor's appointment is for.)

Oy vey that was not a good joke.

Laundry and movies.

I just put in a GIANT load of laundry and there's plenty more where that came from. I have a weird habit of waiting way too long to wash my clothes. It's not like I wear dirty clothes or anything, but I just let my hamper get fuller and fuller and then I finally have to carve some time out of doing nothing all day and get them downstairs to the laundry room. This is probably done out of pure laziness on my part, but when I don't do laundry for weeks at a time I get the chance to get a little more creative with my outfits. When my old standbys are out of commission, I get to dig around for things I haven't worn in ages and break them in all over again. Also, it's so much more satisfying to do more laundry than less laundry.

I'm kind of in freak-out mode now because I'm leaving in a few hours to go to the North Shore in Mass to visit some family, and I haven't packed yet. I can't pack until my laundry is done, really. So for now I'm eating and blogging and having this strange urge to go to the movies. I love seeing movies in the summer. It's always pleasantly freezing in movie theaters, I like having popcorn for dinner, and I just plain like watching movies.

The last movie I saw in theaters was "Toy Story 3" and everything people have said about it thus far is the truth: it's awesome, and it will make you cry. My entire face was wet by the end of it, and when I got home and talked about it with my sister who had already seen it, I started getting choked up all over again. But even though it made me really sad, it's a gem of a movie. I love that Pixar made it for the people that have grown up with "Toy Story." It's all about growing up and being torn between holding onto parts of your childhood and leaving them all in the dust. Fitting, considering this is the last "Toy Story" movie. Maybe someday the kid sitting behind me will understand why I was sniffling nonstop at the end.

Also, folks at Pixar, those were some seriously sneaky innuendos. Thanks for not following the typical Disney fashion of putting phallic things everywhere and calling it edgy.

My cat is passive-aggressive

I don't really ever do two posts in two days, but I'm in a bloggy mood lately so here we go. Normally I do my work from my bed, but today I decided to move to the kitchen table. Mostly because of its prime location near the coffee maker.

But my cat is distracting me. He's being very passive-aggressive about it, too. He crawled into my lap earlier, and I was all "awwwww" but then he jumped back onto the table and sat on my notepad, trying to stop be from working. When he realized I'm working on my laptop, he assumed the position at right and proceeded to swat at my hands as I typed.

I've noticed that a lot of times, writer types have cats as pets. It sort of makes sense, because cats don't need to go out ever and they generally keep to themselves. Therefore said writer/owner can spend their whole day drinking coffee, chain smoking, and writing about things while the cat only occasionally bothers them for some petting.

Considering my cat's affinity for meowing at me and swatting my hand when I'm not scratching him behind the ears, I'd say he probably thinks he's a dog. Dogs are only good for accomplished writers who get paid in advance and have time to take their pets outside for walks.

Octopus can be wrong!

I woke up today singing Nina Simone's "Feeling Good" in my head. Because today, unlike last night, I am feeling good. I have a new assignment for a paper I write for, and I squared away payment for something I wrote for another paper. This something, once my check is in my hands, will be my first paid piece of writing. Last night feels like a blip; now I've got a belly full of nectarines and Chinese food, the World Cup is on TV, and I feel content.

I really regret not getting into the World Cup sooner. I guess I was never home, and I could never get the TV to myself. No one else I live with is so into it. I caught part of the Netherlands vs. Uruguay match yesterday and was riveted. Soccer is just so easy to watch. The rules are simple and the ball stays visible on the ground, unlike American football where the ball gets tucked under huge arms and a lot of it seems like a bunch of big dudes body slamming each other without reason.

So I love watching the game, and I love the international aspect of it, but living in the middle of nowhere in a house full of women, I also love gawking at hot men in soccer shorts. There's a certain je ne sais quoi about these guys. They're athletes with godly bodies, but they're also emotional and expressive. They're not afraid to cheer, cry, or do flips of joy on the field, nor to hug-tackle their teammates after a goal. In fact, I just heard a commentator say of one of Germany's players: "He needs a hug. He responds well to positive reinforcement." I just can't get over the fact that saying that about him doesn't make him any less manly to anyone. I bet if Tom Brady or Reggie Bush were told they needed a hug, they'd be told to grow a pair.

I only know who those two guys are because sometimes I read Us Weekly at the doctor's office.

So I'm just waiting for this game to start now. There's just pregame commentary now. But some of it is interesting. Apparently some people use an octopus to predict the outcome of the matches. They take two boxes and put a playing country's flag on each one, then put a clam in each box. Whichever box the octopus takes a clam out of represents the winning team. It hasn't been wrong yet, and just picked Spain. The German's held up a sign in return saying "Octopus can be wrong." I just love this game.

The Blue Period

I'm a little bit upset right now, and I have no way to properly vent it because the person (or maybe it's people) I'm upset with read this blog, and writing in a journal seems pointless because no one will ever see that. I know that makes no sense. I'm not trying to be pretentious and vague, I'm just confused and frustrated.

I didn't choose to want to be a writer. It's just the one thing that always comes the easiest to me, the one thing I feel I'm actually good at. So I get pretty protective of that part of my life, and when people tell me I'm not doing it right, I get pretty broken up about it. That's not to say I can't take constructive criticism. I'm getting pretty good at that. But when I get told that I'm not doing the right things to make this into a career, that just makes me pissed enough to run to the Canadian border without stopping. This is coming from a person who never passed the mile run in middle school gym class.

I wish I liked other peoples' kids enough to babysit them, instead of just making faces at them in the line at Whole Foods. Then I would at least have money. But I don't, and therefore I don't. I wish I didn't live in such a boring, white bread part of the country. But I do. This is what it is, and I have to live with it as I plan my exit strategy for next summer.

Of course, people don't seem to believe I can leave this town. But I will. I have to.

I don't even know if I want to publish this. But I feel like I should. Because I'm not all sarcastic comments and poetic clauses.

Also, I'm getting rid of the signoff line, because I was reading through this blog yesterday looking for comments from people (oh man that was passive-aggressive) and I suddenly found it to be rather cheesy. I'm not going to go back and delete every single one, but future entries won't have a signoff.

Maybe tonight is a good night to look for my passport. I mean I do want to leave the country at some point.

Reading Things Without English Teachers

I always do my pleasure reading during the summer. It just works out. I have long stretches of time to dedicate to finishing a book, and Borders is air conditioned. I have yet to find a quaint, local bookstore in Northern Westchester County. Also, people seem to get me Borders gift cards for every gift-giving occasion. The point is, my indie cred is dying here for a reason.

Anyways, while I was on Maui I blitzed through "Love is a Mixtape" by Rob Sheffield. You might have seen him doing commentary about 80s new wave videos on VH1, or read his work in Rolling Stone. Rob Sheffield might have the coolest job ever. He also has quite a story to tell. You see, he met the girl of his dreams because they both liked Big Star (I'd never heard of them before I read this book, they're a folky, 70s group. Kind of Bob Dylan-esque.) He married her, and they loved the heck out of each other until she died five years into it from a pulmonary embolism. I've never been a widower, but I think he describes what it would be like perfectly: a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and songs he'll never be able to listen to again because they remind him too much of her.

Rob Sheffield's whole life is music. Every chapter he writes begins with a mixtape playlist that's related to what he's about to recount. As I read this book, I started thinking about those songs that are forever tied to those moments in my life. I thought about those songs that got shelved because listening to them made me too sad or made me cringe because they reminded me of those types of moments. I couldn't listen to The Decemberists for months because I had gotten into a fight with the friend who got me into them. But on the flip side, I feel giddy and happy whenever I hear "The United States of Pop 2009" because it reminds me of blasting it on New Year's Eve in a hotel room with my best friends, and keeping it on repeat while going to Ireland 3 days later. Basically my entire iTunes library is full of random vignettes and feelings and stories with every little file.

When I finished this book, I had somewhat of an epiphany. Not this whole spiel I've been typing out instead of cleaning my room, but another one. I was thinking about how much this book affected me and touched me as a music lover and a hopeless romantic, and how so many other books I've read haven't. I'm talking about those classics we all have to read in high school while the teacher puts more thought into the words than the actual author did, and then we write an essay on something they tell us. I hated "1984." I hated "Lord of the Flies." I didn't like "To Kill a Mockingbird" either. I dragged my feet through those pages and I'm sure my essays showed it.

But the book that really made me believe we're not meant to read books in school, where someone tells us how to read them, was "The Great Gatsby." I really did love this book. But not for the same reason everyone else seems to. Yeah, I get how it's a commentary on The American Dream and materialism. I get the Green Light metaphor. But I didn't want to talk about those things in my 11th grade English class. I wanted to talk about Gatsby as a romantic character; as someone who pined for someone his whole adult life and then had her right there but didn't know what to do about it. That's what stayed with me throughout the whole thing. But every attempt to bring this up in discussions was futile.

So I sucked it up and talked about that Green Light, but in senior year my English class called for me to write a story re-imagining something we'd read in school. I wrote a modernized version of "The Great Gatsby" and focused on this romantic aspect, of Gatsby pining for Daisy and hoping one night she'll show up for his party. When I got my piece back, my teacher had written in the margins "There's nothing about the American Dream and materialism."

So fine, I didn't read Gatsby the way my teachers wanted me to. But I read it and I loved it, just like I loved "Love is a Mixtape." There's nothing like getting lost in a book, and we don't need open book essays to help us get there.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Live from the Honolulu International Airport

Sorry for the lack of entries over the past few days. Except not at all. I've been in Maui and I have the new skin tone to prove it. It's a distinct mix of red and bronze, somewhere between a burn and a tan. Also my shoulders are peeling, and it's gross and fascinating at the same time. My sister chastised me for trying to sneakily pick at them on the airport shuttle today, and hit me she was so mortified. She's sitting next to me now, telling me that peeling my sunburn will lead to my abduction by a stranger. Apparently some scary man will find my peeled skin (I've toyed around with that phrase for about three minutes and there's no way to make it not sound gross) and scan it for DNA so he can identify and subsequently kidnap me. That just sounds like something one of my mom's friends would forward in a chain email.

This trip has been full of small moments like that one, and bigger moments too. But I prefer the smaller ones because they're not so expected. Like the grandmother on our Zipline tour who was scared out of her mind but jumped off the plank with her harness anyway. Or seeing the sun break the horizon this morning on top of the highest point in Hawaii (It was like that first scene in The Lion King, only real).

Last night one of my favorite moments happened, but it merits a paragraph and not a sentence. Julia, my dad and I went to The Four Seasons for dinner to see how the other half lives, and after some out of this world food we overheard this cute old couple talking to some people working behind the hostess station (I think that's what they're called?) Anyway, they were talking about this young honeymooning couple they had met at the restaurant and how much they liked them and that they wanted to buy them dinner. "Charge their bill to our room" the old man said. I thought that only happened in movies.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Nostalgia and Non-Sequitors

I'm putting The Cranberries into Pandora Radio, in an attempt to make myself less sad about having to miss "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s" on VH1. But it's not the same because I know that once "I Can't Be With You" ends, there is no chance that I'll hear some choice Biggie track. That's why the 90s remain my favorite decade for music. There was just so much variety, but so much emotion. Real emotion, none of that pop-punk crap. Oh damn, I sound like Jack Black in "High Fidelity." I'm not a music snob, I'm just feeling a little nostalgic.

This nostalgia would normally have me on the couch in front of VH1, but I've got packing to do. That's right, I'm taking a little vacation. 10 days in Hawaii with my dad and sister. Later this summer I get a week on Martha's Vineyard with my mom and sister. I suppose that's one good thing about having divorced parents. I am not complaining about two vacations.

Oh I also got a job. I'm a freelance reporter at a local newspaper. Yeah, I know, the word "freelance" just reeks of hipster. But I'm hoping to make some money and some connections, and I'm pretty much done researching my first assignment. Hopefully I can write the piece before I leave for the airport at 5:30 TOMORROW MORNING. WHAT?!

I don't think I'll sleep tonight. My boyfriend Earl Grey will keep me up. I'll miss whatever dream I would have though. They've been getting very entertaining lately. The other night I had a dream that Arcade Fire came to my school to perform. Only they split into two bands and one half was kind of indie-folky sounding, and the other half was Ciruqe du Soleil-ish. Also it was at Hampshire, but I still had to take a bus from campus to get there? Anyway, the whole time I was really stressed out because I was trying to figure out which band would be playing "Wake Up." So I went to get some food, but the food cart there that looked like a vintage bus was charging me 75 bucks for a hot dog. So I bought a tabbouleh and olive wrap at the suggestion of the cute guy in line next to me. He then gave me his number on a shoelace.

I think I should pitch that to Wes Anderson. Or maybe Spike Jonze. I actually had to look up how to spell the latter's last name. Aaah, my indie cred!

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Dog Days of Summer

One of my favorite things about summer is being able to hang out with my dog all day. Just look at that face. Normally Penny is not the most photogenic of ladies, but I caught her at a good angle. One of these days I'll pull the cat in for a photoshoot. For now, I'm trying to figure out how I should go about turning him into an Internet sensation.

Summer so far has been a lot of lemonade and a lot of job searching. My wallet is grumbling in a "feed-me" sort of way. I'm pretty sure I just scored a freelance reporter gig at a local paper, and my mom is going to be paying me to clean out the basement and garage, but when it comes to making money, I'm afraid I'm becoming a bit addicted to it. I worked the Phonathon at my school this past spring, and getting that check in my mailbox made me feel so euphoric. I want to have that feeling all summer. I think it'll nicely complement the popsicles and books I'll also be savoring.

But I'm also getting in some adventures with other people. This weekend I was in New York City with two old friends from high school and we smoked hookah and ate Asian food and people watched until the wee hours of every morning until it was time to go. Other highlights included gawking at the packs of attractive Marines in town for Fleet Week, and spending an afternoon at The Museum of Sex. It's definitely worth a visit; there's a great exhibit up now about animal sex. Totally ideal for a third date.

So now I'm off to compose a cover letter. But all I really want to do is go on the swings outside and then dance to mashups in my room. Summer, I'm finding, does require some prioritizing.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Home?

This is a photo of St. Vincent's Hospital, located on West 12th st. and 7th Ave. in New York. I was born here, which was weird because my parents lived way up in the West 70s. All their friends were having babies at Lenox Hill and Sloan Kettering, but none of those places had a midwife program like St. Vincent's, and my mother absolutely insisted on having a midwife help deliver my precious little baby self. It sort of makes sense that the downtown hospital would have something as decidedly unconventional as a midwife program, come to think of it. So that's where I was born. My dad likes to make jokes about a Jewish mother pushing her Jewish baby out in a bed with a cross hanging over it.

Anyway, I'm not going to tell the story of how I was born, even though it is a good one. I'm going to tell the story of how I was walking in downtown Manhattan the other day, going to my favorite restaurant, Tea and Sympathy at 108-110 Greenwich Ave. I love this place because not only does it have a wide array of teas and pastries and British foods (because say what you will about British cuisine, I adore a good ham and cream cheese sandwich with sticky toffee pudding for dessert) but it's one of the few places I know where a lady can have a meal by herself and not feel like a complete loser doing so. Also, I have a fond appreciation for the waitstaff, who all have authentic British accents, and the decor, which is a bunch of kitschy, British memorabilia. It makes my Anglophile self just chuffed to bits.

But this is all related. As I was walking to Tea and Sympathy, I walked by St. Vincent's Hospital. Feeling like it was just too big a coincidence for my favorite restaurant to be a stone's throw away from my place of birth, I started to walk a little more slowly. I looked around. There were bodegas with flowers being sold under the awnings, smoke shops, boutiques, pharmacies, and above all these places were apartments. Apartments that I suddenly felt I needed to inhabit. Because my perfect home is one that makes me grow. I want Greenwich Avenue to grab my ankles and West 12th street to take my wrists, and I want them to pull me until I'm ten feet tall.

But with my birthplace and favorite place on either side of me, I felt like where I came from finally felt like a part of me. All the gritty particles surrounded me and made the air fit me like a glove, and even though I didn't hold the keys to any of those apartments, I was home.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Adventures in Packingland.

Tonight I am packing to go home after my first year of college. It's a bit overwhelming, because I totally underestimated the emotional implications of this task. Deciding where everything will go, what to throw away, what to store, recycle, donate, etc. requires me to really look at everything I own and consider its value to me. But not only that, I have such strong associations with everything in here. Putting them away and leaving this room for some other freaked out first year feels like too much too soon. It feels like I was just getting everything together at this place, and now it's over.

But I don't think it'll really hit me until I take everything off my walls: the picture of my eighth grade idol Kurt Cobain, the Bob Dylan picture with the quote I used in my Common App essay, the Birth of Venus done in pop-art style, modern day Venus Christina Hendricks in a corset on the cover of New York Magazine, Washington Square Park where I will live someday even if it rips a hole in my wallet, the playlist of my life written by one of my best friends from high school, the 500 Days of Summer poster that I got for free because of a series of weird circumstances and because I will marry Joseph Gordon-Levitt someday. There's also a drawing from an old friend that he drew for me one of our first nights here when the whole world was like a party. There are the postcards of Swedish fairytales, the pictures from the National Geographic website that wore out my color ink cartridge...

Those things on my walls have been collected for a year and while the rest of my room has changed and the rest of my things have changed positions, they've stayed put. When they come down, it's over. I'm going to cover my walls at home with every picture I can find, because they look like bare bones now.

So that's one thought I've had while packing up my life here. Or one series of collective thoughts that fall under one category. Others are things like:

"Oh damn that's where that was."
"How the hell do I get honey off of imitation wood?"
"Can this be recycled?"
"Do I really, truly, need these unopened staples and index cards in my life?"
"This rug is like a singles bar for dust bunnies."
"Have I really just packed a whole backpack full of BOOKS? That's kind of awesome."
"What's with all this trash lying around? I disgust myself sometimes."
"Having a lot of stuff really makes life difficult sometimes."
"Oh I am so glad I'm not flying home."

Yeah. Adventures in Packingland is definitely more introspective than I thought. Maybe I should pick a soundtrack for it besides "Lady Gaga Radio" on Pandora.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

This isn't my study carrel

But these are all my drinks. From left, we have coffee, orange carrot juice, and water with tangerine flavored Emergen-C added to it. That's me in the background, looking a little worse for wear. You can't tell, but Nelly is blasting through those headphones. Southern gangster rap used to make me more productive, but now it seems to make me nostalgic for those impossibly crowded, sweaty dance parties I used to go to before finals happened.

A week ago, I was drinking wine with Kelly and going on ChatRoulette. Then Peter came over and we talked about Tchaikovsky. Tonight I'm just trying to make this paper exist despite my case of the sniffles and clogged head. That's what the beverages are for. Coffee is pretty basic and expected, though I did have to mix the regular dark roast with the hazelnut light roast, because they were all out of dark roast. The carrot orange juice is for the vitamin C, which will hopefully heal me. Same goes for the Emergen-C, although that probably has more stuff in it as well. The box said it's a natural source of energy. I hope that's not a lie. I highly doubt that powdered stuff I just mixed in my water bottle grows on any trees.

Oh and I'm also hiding in someone else's study carrel. Everywhere else is too loud or has too many people. I've been trying to figure out what this person's concentration is based on the books in here. Something about art and gender, perhaps. I hope they're graduating in a few weeks and don't have use for this thing anymore, because I'm all spread out and moving would be really embarrassing and cumbersome and loud.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

In a Funke.

I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that someone out there thought it was a good idea to have Tobias Funke permanently inked onto his skin for all posterity. If you were a true Tobias fan, I'd say get a pair of jean short shorts tattooed somewhere.

It's certainly hot enough to prance around in nothing but some Tobias Funke cutoffs. The question is, would they effectively hide my thunder?

Okay, done with the Arrested Development references. That show has become my therapy recently. It's like, no matter what weird things my own family does that I'm seeming to become more aware of as I age, at least I've never had to talk my mom into visiting my dad in his prison's conjugal visit trailer (I know I said I was done with the Arrested Development references, but I may have lied a little) I guess that's a perk of having divorced parents? The conjugal visit thing, not the lying thing.

Oh dear, I think the humidity might be going to my head. Or maybe that's the lack of caffeine. Haven't actually felt like making tea yet. All in good time, I suppose.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons
Lisa

Accomplishments

Tonight I will get work done. I'm trying a new trick that my friend Kelly told me about today on the bus back to school from Amherst: "Pretend your essay is due tomorrow, and do it." I replied "That sounds terrifying, but it might be just what I need to finally get something done." So that's the plan. I've got a pretty full plate with finals, and my professors are still assigning work that isn't finals. Also I need to procure a job for the summer. But stressing feels counterproductive now, and I just want to write about things I have accomplished. So here we go, a list of things I've done in recent days that need to be recorded for all posterity.
1. I put on false eyelashes. I went to a party last night as a "Moustached Victorian Pinup" and they seemed essential. At least for the pinup part. Because I've always wondered what it would be like to remotely resemble Brigitte Bardot for a given period of time. As if she needed false eyelashes. Anyway, I picked them up at CVS a while back for a rainy day, and last night was balmy and clear but like I said, they were aesthetically necessary. I stood in front of my mirror for about five minutes, and I kept gluing my eye shut without meaning to and getting white lash glue all up on the fake lashes and beginning to wonder if anyone would even notice if I wore these or not. But I persisted and finally got those buggers to stay on. My level of pride was up there with the time I got into my first choice college. I'm never the girl with all the beauty tricks. I like to play around with makeup but it never goes beyond wearing neon eyeshadow to a dark dance party where no one will see it anyway. I don't even own a hair straightener. So it was nice when I finally made those fake eyelashes stay on my face. I did a little dance after.

2. Crafted a delicious breakfast sandwich that I will very likely crave next year when I'm not on the meal plan. A fried egg, bacon, and Swiss cheese on a croissant. Breakfast sandwiches are the BEST. I will have to be stocked on provisions for them in the mod next year. I will make all the breakfast sandwiches all the time, and will drink coffee with them and read newspapers and be all domestic. Also I will listen to jazz like a proper grownup, and have dinner parties with place cards. But they'll have to be scheduled around VH1 marathons.

3. Discovered a giant used book sale under a tent in Amherst today. Can I just say that I love places that sell books perhaps a little more than I love reading the books themselves? I've always been able to spend inordinate amounts of time in bookstores. This one sucked me in like a literary vacuum cleaner. It had tables with books spread all out over them. Finding ones for me was difficult, because I'm very picky with books. I have such a short attention span, so if something starts slow it ends up collecting dust on my shelf. But the three books I carried home today look like they'll be read by me soon. They passed my test before I bought them. I read the first few pages and wasn't bored. As I walked out from under the tent and into the overwhelming May heat, I chuckled at how incongruous I must have looked buying them. In the crook of my arm, I had "This Side of Paradise" by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Decadent social commentary and run on sentences.), "House of Sand and Fog" by Andre Dubus III (a sad book, not to be read in public or strangers will see me crying like that time I watched "He's Just not that Into You" on a plane...) and "And I Don't Want to Live this Life" by Deborah Spungen (Nancy of Sid and Nancy's mother. Should probably avoid reading this one in public too, but because it will make people think I'm one of those women who watches "Nancy Grace")
I must scamper off now in search of sustenance for the coming hours, which will unfortunately not be spent in that lovely looking bedroom in the Shakespeare Bookstore in Paris. Maybe someday I'll be a wandering writer who crashes there, but for now I'm just a student at a small liberal arts college. So basically the gateway drug to being a wandering writer.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Thoughts as I watch the days change in the library.

-I'm listening to Irish music as I do research for my independent study on women's public health in Ireland. It takes the edge off of reading about The X-Case. For those who don't know, that involved the Irish government preventing a 14-year-old rape victim from traveling to England to get a legal, safe abortion. It's hard for me to believe that such a beautiful place could function in such a totalitarian manner, but listening to penny whistles and fiddles with keening reminds me that the beauty is still there. I should know, I spent two glorious weeks in Galway this past January. It's hard not to taste Guinness with currant in my mouth when I hear "Fields of Athenry." Bittersweet. We spent so many nights in Taaffes Bar, drinking pints and playing games as music we had never heard live filled the room. I miss it there. Oh Ireland, I may not agree with your politics, but we just won't talk about that. Let's count sheep on the side of the road (literally) and eat roasted potatoes with chowder before we dance with strangers in pubs and fall asleep with Guinness on our breaths and wonder in our hearts. I think I'm falling in love with you.

-I like libraries. Especially during finals week. There's a weird sense of camaraderie. Like we're all stuck in the same rickety boat and it's raining on us and it sucks but we're here. We make sure no one steals each others' laptops when they're in the bathroom or getting more coffee. We sit at tables with strangers because we don't want to sit on the floor.

-Maybe I could have read that whole article in the time it's taken me to write this blog post. I'm tired.

-I wrote a dirty poem today. It felt cathartic, perhaps more so than my depressing poems. I like being someone who writes dirty poems. Now if only I could be someone who has the chutzpah to read them to people.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa