Before finals consume my life.

Tonight marks the start of the library's end-of-semester hours. Otherwise known as the library telling me to crack down on my finals. I imagine that our conversation would go something like this:

Me: "Oh look, cool things on the Internet."
Harold F. Johnson Library: "Internet is bad for you. It doesn't want you to succeed. Come here baby, I'm open until 2am and I'll shine my fluorescent light on you until you have three portfolios plus an independent study paper to hand in."

So yeah, it's crunch time. But at least this time around, the weather is nice. At the end of last semester, it was typical a New England winter-gloomy, gray, and self-absorbed. People seem to come out of hibernation here when the sun comes out. This weekend I looked around and people were frolicking in fingerpaint and swinging on swings and photosynthesizing in the sun. Those tour groups wandering around were lucky to catch us on such a good day. These azaleas are lovely, but they don't last all year round.
I've been thinking a lot about this past year. It's definitely shaped me more than any other academic year I've experienced. But it's also felt very fast and packed, so much so that I've felt disconnected from it sometimes. Last night as I was falling asleep, I likened it to watching a movie from a train window. But now that I'm more lucid I dislike that analogy, because who the hell watches movies from train windows?

Perhaps my year has been more like a series of vignettes that just kind of formed before my eyes and all involved me in some way. I was pretty much the same person all throughout high school, because I was scared of being anyone else. So this whole year I've been trying on different ways to be, and I still haven't got a clue which one fits best. I feel like this year has been so short, but also so packed. When I think back to orientation, with everyone sitting on the asphalt of the quad playing "Wagon Wheel", it feels like five years ago. But I still can't believe it's already almost May.

I think this summer it would do me good to write a ton, drink lots of iced tea, and get a few new freckles and some perspective. I'll go for walks in the reservation behind my house, relearn how to play guitar, make money, travel, visit friends, and come back to school with both feet on the ground. That would be a nice feeling.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Beating the System and Making Some Playlists.

I was in Urban Outfitters the other day and came across a book called "Music Listography." The premise of said book is that each page (or every page that doesn't have some drawing done by some hipster on it) has the title of a list and some lines. The titles were things such as "Favorite Female Vocalists," "Bands you Wish Hadn't Broken Up," and "Couples Slow Dance Playlist." Now I was simply tickled to find this amidst the skinny jeans and pseudo-vintage jewelry. Because I love lists, and I love music. I also coincidentally love making lists of and about music. What I did not love, however, was the $20 price tag.

So I did some investigative work, and I found said book on Amazon.com. It was being sold for a cheaper price than Urban Outfitters wanted to charge me for it (duh) buuuut I also found the Table of Contents available in a FREE preview right then and there. So I screencapped that shit and now I have a complete list of every list topic in that book, and I didn't pay anything. That's what I call flogging the system.

So because I have nothing I'd rather do, I'm going to pull up one (or perhaps two) of those list prompts and write one out now. Then it's back to reality, maybe. When reality involves scheduling headaches and housing worries and papers on The Hungarian Revolution and Irish Abortions, then reality is not a good place to be.

"List the Saddest Songs in the World" (p. 75)

• Crown of Love-Arcade Fire
  
• Brick-Ben Folds Five
  
• The Promise-Tracy Chapman
  
• I Can't Make You Love Me-Bonnie Raitt
• Hallelujah-Jeff Buckley
• Ruby Tuesday-Rolling Stones
• Leaving on a Jet Plane-Peter, Paul, and Mary
  
• Fix You-Coldplay
• Still Fighting It-Ben Folds
• Late-Ben Folds
  
• I Will Follow you Into the Dark-Death Cab for Cutie (Only for the music video though. It involves bunnies falling in tragic love. Heart-wrenching stuff)

"List your Favorite Female Vocalists of all Time" (p. 59)

• Lisa Hannigan
• Billie Holiday
• Grace Slick
• The woman who sings backup on "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones on "Let it Bleed"
  
• Stevie Nicks

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

In which writers' block is a bitch.

This is me tonight. Frustrated and tired, to say the least. I have my boyfriend Earl Grey in a lovely new mug and Passion Pit radio playing on Pandora, and I'm hoping both will help me power through this personal essay I need to write for tomorrow. I left it until the last minute, to the surprise of no one who knows me at all, and now I've got to force creativity under a dangerously close deadline. The topic is not an easy one either, and I think I've been somewhat afraid to tackle it. I'm supposed to write an essay on an aspect of my body. Talk about loaded. I have something to write about, but it's a something that happened recently. I feel like I should be wracking my brain for details about five years ago, not five weeks. But despite all my reservations and doubts, some annoying and persistent little voice in my head was like "write about this" and here I am.

I'm writing a blog entry to try and get my creative juices flowing. But the text in this little box sounds so much better than the Word document I've got in another window. My professor tells us that all first drafts are supposed to be shitty, but I hate writing things that are shitty. I hate waiting for my tea to kick in. I want to write for a living and I sometimes wonder how I'll ever do that.

But my life really isn't as dismal as writers' block and exhaustion. For the time being I am employed, and I've got living arrangements for next year. I'm working the Hampshire Fund Telethon, and I had to fill out tax forms and everything. I feel like a legitimate grownup. But this job is way too fun for tax forms. Yeah, I have to ask people for money over the phone, but I also get free dinner and snacks and I get to make jokes with awesome people. It was all worth it when I called my parents and did my whole schpeel (sp?) like "Hi, this is Lisa calling from Hampshire College, how are you doing tonight? I'm calling on behalf of the Hampshire Fund..." They thought it was hilarious that their kid was calling them to solicit them for their money. But they gave generously so it's all good (THANKS GUYS!)

Oh and I have a mod for next year! Because I've got multifaceted friends from all over the place, I'm living in the unofficial "Queer Gamer" mod. My friend who's graduating in May is living with two people who will be in that mod next year, and she told them I needed a place to live, and then they needed a person to live with them, and one thing led to another and now I'm shacking up with the Queer Gamers. I am, by the way, pretty heterosexual and pretty clueless when it comes to any videogame that's not Wii Golf or The Sims. I told my future modmates this, of course. Their general sentiment was "Hey, we're not registered as identity-based and we like you anyway." To which I did a little dance and was like "The feeling is mutual!"

Nothing like a little bit of acceptance to make my cynical old heart all warm and fuzzy. Maybe next year I'll finally learn how to work a video game controller.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Components of my Weekend

I've had a long, eventful few days. The weather finally dropped its nasty attitude and graced us with sunshine. I celebrated by shaving my legs and wearing shorts and dresses all weekend. It's feeling a little like the first days of orientation. The weather is warm and people are friendly and chatty again. Also, my room is clean. Not as clean as when I first moved in, but clean nonetheless.

Thursday I had a meeting with my advisor, Nell, and we talked about what I might study over the next three years here. I want to be a creative writing concentrator, so when she suggested I study anthropology, I was a little skeptical. I had flashbacks to my forensics course in my second semester of senior year, and our forensic anthropology unit. So. Many. Decayed. Bones. I must have made a face, because Nell was all "Well, I'm a little biased because I'm an anthropologist." So of course I was fairly embarrassed (almost as embarrassed as I am when I continuously misspell embarrassed). But just as I was about to stick my foot into my mouth Nell told me exactly what she does as an anthropologist. She went into a village in Africa and lived there for a while, and she talked to the people about love and life and other things I wish I could talk about with everyone. So much cooler than decayed bones. We also now have a working title for my Division 2, aka my concentration: "Stories of Love and Trauma." It feels so legit.

So I celebrated that milestone by drinking a whole bottle of mango smoothie, getting my phone fixed, and taking my sister under my wing for a whole weekend. I was a little nervous about this venture. I wanted it to be perfect for her. When I was in high school, I so badly wanted an older sister to visit at college for the weekend. But she was content getting milkshakes and going out for pad thai. Afterwords, we browsed around Newberry Comics and I got a Kurt Cobain poster for my room. I've been crushing on him since eighth grade, when I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and decided that if I had married him before Courtney Love, I would have gotten him off drugs and saved him from his own shotgun. I wrote about him in my senior thesis paper last year on mental illness and rock musicians, and I cried as I took notes from his biography. Maybe someday I'll stop falling for the bad boys. But for now, I'm keeping him above my bed.

Now I feel like I need to swerve back on topic. On Friday, Julia and I wandered around Northampton and drank mint lemonades as we shopped for vintage and pseudo-vintage clothes. I remember when our mom used to pick out all her clothes. Now she buzzes around Urban Outfitters, taking skinny jeans and blouses off the racks. She's finally free of wearing a uniform to school every day. We went to a vintage store and she tried on a wedding dress. It was a hideous, old thing. But it hit me how fast she's growing up. That night, we got dressed up and went out and danced to reggaeton music. She fit in with all the college students effortlessly. As much as I love being able to be with her and talk to her about boys and clothes and naughty things, part of me still thinks of her as a little blonde baby who pulled my hair had an underbite.

The past two days were pretty low-key. We ate in the sun and did some work, then went out for dinner with some of my friends. There wasn't much happening on campus, except for the 12-hour Improv-a-thon. We managed to go to the last hour, and laughed so hard. We woke up the next morning, as the rest of the campus was drunkenly stumbling back from Easter Keg Hunt in the woods, and met our mom, grandpa, and dog for an outdoor Passover picnic. There was lots of food and jokes and stories. We didn't open the Haggadahs once, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. But maybe I would have remembered the sunscreen. I'm looking a little pink now.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Ode to Rainymood.com (also, hot men in wet shirts)

It's raining pretty hard over here. Honestly, I've been hesitant to be outside, it's that bad. There is a puddle by the yurt that's got to be at least three feet deep. So it can be chalked up to incredibly perfect timing that I've discovered Rainymood.com now.

The concept of this site is way too simple, really. It's a thirty minute loop of rainstorm sounds. Kind of like those sound soothers people pay mad money for at Sharper Image when they're not too busy mooching free massages from the chairs (I used to do that before the local Sharper Image became an American Apparel. So no judgments here.) But anyway, what I've found is that this ingenious little thing is perfect for giving my favorite songs a little extra something.
My younger sister has this theory that whenever it rains in a movie, it means there's about to be a new beginning, or some sort of big change in the characters' lives. I can't say I disagree with her, but I will add that sometimes celluloid rain is just really conducive to a couple of hot actors getting it on.
So rain is an important storytelling device. This kind of goes back to a post I wrote earlier about the hypothetical soundtrack to my biopic. Not gonna lie, it's kind of fun to sync up some truly dramatic songs with the sound of falling rain, just to imagine some kind of sappy, melodramatic scene play out on the movie screen inside my head, just behind my eyes. I made a whole playlist of them on my iTunes. I don't think I've loved listening to Dashboard Confessional this much since tenth grade. Seriously, hearing those screaming, angsty ballads against the thunder and patter makes me want to run after someone in an airport or something. Preferably on a rainy night. Playing Iron and Wine with Rainymood, on the other hand, makes me want a pillow and some Earl Grey tea. But Prince's "Purple Rain" and Guns N Roses' "November Rain" make me want a lighter and a packed stadium. "Chocolate Rain," however, is hopeless even with Rainymood's magical powers.

A friend of mine told me today that she put her music on shuffle with Rainymood playing in the background. "'Champagne Supernova' came up on shuffle, and it reminded me of that scene in 'The OC' when Summer went back for Seth in the rain! So I spent like an hour watching OC clips on Youtube."

Hey, I'm listening to "Champagne Supernova" plus Rainymood right now, and kissing some pseudo-nerdy boy (I say that only because if Seth Cohen went to Hampshire, he would be The Big Man on Campus with a revolving door on his bed) upside down in a Spiderman mask is pretty much all it makes me want to do. Either that or stay up ridiculously late watching OC clips on Youtube. But "November Rain" just came up on my Rainymood playlist, so I think I'll just take that in for a bit. I almost got chills when the thunder kicked in during the intro. Good thing it's not really raining inside, otherwise my lighter would go out.

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Sunday musings in a sweater.

It's a Sunday afternoon in the Airport Lounge. Otherwise known as homework central. It's a bit of a Hampshire institution, spending the weekend here, making up for the lack of productivity over the previous few days we all thought we'd spend working. I'm so tired. Sleep was not something that happened in large quantities this weekend. I've been lucky enough to spend at least part of every day this weekend with friends though, and that makes me so happy. I also may have a living arrangement for the fall, and even though it will likely involve me having a roommate, I'm going to go with it. Maybe having a roommate would be fun. We can stay up late having heart-to-hearts in our beds, clear out the room and have intimate-but-rocking parties, and write on each others' Facebook walls when we're both in our room.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about next year. I'm meeting with my advisor next week to talk about what I want my concentration to be. But it's more complicated than that too. I was all ready to go into her office, and proudly declare that I wanted to study "Writing About Trauma" and then talk about it and have her tell me what professors to talk to. But Nell (my advisor) has bigger plans for me. She sent me an email of an intense questionnaire, asking what sorts of questions I wanted to spend the next three years answering, what I was interested in but haven't studies yet, what world problem I most want to solve, etc. Here I was thinking simplifying my interests was doing me a favor. I have so much more to think about, and I'm no longer so sure of myself. Did I overlook things, or am I just one step ahead of the system?

Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa

Hello old friend.

Wow, if this blog was a person, it would be pissed that I didn't call and worry that I had joined a cult or something. Wait...that doesn't make much sense, but you get it. Do you?

Anyway, I've been a little lax on the blogging because I've been really busy. I also fail at thinking of a more interesting way to put that. The week before Spring Break I was up to my corneas in my paper on East Central European identities, which turned out alright I think. The footnotes and such added to the length, and so did the block quotes. I've always liked writing papers with footnotes, they feel so scholarly. Like it doesn't matter what kind of bullshit I'm spitting out onto my blank document, as long as there's a footnote it's fucking insightful. Seriously, I'm getting warm fuzzies just thinking about it and looking at that picture of the footnote prompt.

So once I stopped all that, I went home and after making some minor adjustments to my suitcase I was on a plane to Miami with the mother for the week. We had a day of total air travel hell. The plane was delayed five times without warning, when other planes were taking off just fine. Then we had to wait on the tarmac for an hour and everyone was tired and cranky. Some lady in front of us took the overhead space of some guy further up, and he confronted her about it. I'm wicked uncomfortable with confrontation, but when his last words to her were "I bet you have foot fungus" I could have passed out from trying not to laugh. Seriously, third grade insults are the bestest.

Once we got to Miami, everything was good except for a few spats brought on by too much togetherness and my mother's contradicting desires to feed me and to tell me to lose weight. But we did bond a lot over the week. We went shopping, went to the spa, ate together every night, and talked a whole lot. Now that we're both single we can even check out men on the beach together. But we'll never go clubbing together. That's just creepy. PS Miami does not look like that picture. Although the whole time I was here I felt a Herculean urge to start singing that Will Smith song, and I felt I could tell who the locals were based on who had the most tattoos and fakest hair. So maybe some of my preconceptions were accurate? Who knows.

Either way, I have to go back up north tomorrow, and even further north on Sunday. School calls, and I have to answer with a 5-10 page paper on various perspectives on the emotion of disgust. But for now, I'm making the most of this complimentary hotel bathrobe and trying not to think about school. That paper will get at least partially done on the plane tomorrow. I promise not to buy any tabloids at the airport. Or get lost in the Skymall catalog. That shit is a black hole of awesome things I don't need yet can't live without. Like this gem I'll leave you with:












Peace, Love, and Semicolons,
Lisa