What does everyone have against bright colors?

I'm in California now, desperately trying to zip up the dress I'm planning on wearing to Kim's wedding. It goes up half the time, the other half the time it doesn't. I just need it to work ONCE. That's all I need.

Anyway, the flight over from Chicago was pretty unremarkable. For the second leg of my journey I managed to get a full row of seats to myself, which I never use anyway, but it was still there for my convenience. The same music videos were repeated at least 80 times and I listened to the songs once each. On one of them, there was a group of people dancing energetically to what then turned out to be some elevator music type deal. What a let down. Just looking at it, it was almost like a preview to the dancing that will go on in El Cantante.

The amusing part of the journey came when we landed in California. European style, this airplane landed far from the terminal and long, connected buses had to come to take us to our loving families waiting with open arms. What broke out on the airplane with this news was a Stage 5 Panic Alert. The flight attendants were there to direct us with "There will be TWO BUSES. Half the plane will get on ONE BUS, the other half will get on the SECOND BUS. Do not worry if you get on the SECOND BUS. You will be going to the SAME PLACE."

Once we made it on to the bus, there were people there saying "HOLD ON TO THE RAILS. THIS BUS WILL BE MOVING."

It's as if they were saying:

"People, this is what is called public transportation. They use it in places like the Amazon and England. I know, this seems a little snug, your son's soccer team might not be able to fit into this, it definitely wouldn't fit all your groceries, and there is no TV, but it has an amazing turning radius. We will try to make this as painless as possible. We will get through this together."

Modifications

I don't want to cause pain for people without them even having read my posts, so I tweaked a couple of things. I apologize for any previous burning sensations of the eyes, and if you now see everything in a rather pixelated form.

I now have to go to yoga.

Yes, yoga. What you just read is not the hallucinations caused by abrasive colors.

Across the Centuries

For my Spanish class, our first assignment is to read Cristopher Columbus' letters to Santiagel. Christopher Columbus, or Cristóbal Colón, was of Italian origin, and you can totally tell. This letter is littered with remnants of Italian grammar and words. It's comforting, really. I can picture Colón hunkered over a thick piece of parchment paper on a thick wooden table lit by some torches, using his quill pen dipped in ink, muttering:

"Damn! No combined definite articles with prepositions! 'Yo' not 'Io!' No 'andare' in Español! CURSE THESE VILLAINOUS ROMANTIC LANGUAGES!"

I feel your pain, Columbus.

**Edit** Evidently, my pain translated into making a new color scheme. New quarter resolution: do this more often. Even if it makes your eyes shake to look at the page. Especially at that large blue section on the right side. What's going on there?

A Conflict of Interests

Today, I had my first visual arts class since high school. It is called Intervention and Public Practice, which to me sounds more like some sort of a class for law students. Or a class they would offer to inmates on death row and terminally ill patients, because it might make their lives that much shorter.

I went because I need a visual arts class, and because it is also listed under Art History. There was no course description to be had online, and after sitting through a class that was held in an art studio with the teacher describing in detail each class session we will have for the next 9 weeks, I can confidently say I still do not know what the class is about. All I know is that I have no business being in that class, and I am now considering dropping it and taking Problems with Modernism: 1913, instead.

We got into class and the first thing the teacher had us do is a 20 minute freewrite in which we described had to give "light to who you are, your interest in art, your ideas of art in public places and how you fit into art practice." I finished mine in under 7 minutes, but since the teacher explicitly said that we could do ANY FORM we wanted to describe ourselves, be that a poem or to perform an interpretive dance, the other students who actually looked like they might belong on the class (you know...tall boys with infinitely long, skinny legs and hair covering their eyes), other people took a longer time. So after I had finished, I had an ample amount of time to look around at my peers.

They were all older than me. They all looked like they hadn't eaten carbs in a couple of years. And most of them looked pained. Artfully pained. They fit David Sedaris' description of his artsy, cracked out days in Me Talk Pretty One Day to a tee.

We started to read our descriptions aloud. I was the third person to go. The two people before me said things like "I don't want to be opaque...I enjoy the sound of sunsets...I think discussion is irrelevant...I enjoy finding meaning in the systems of the universe...I enjoy holding hands...I like miniature things...I enjoy words on a page...I am interested in my disinterests, like spelling and grammar...". Descriptions like that. Things that I felt like I might have written years ago, before I tried reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Before I recognized the flaws of Garden State. And before I recognized that focusing on the deeper, darker side of your psyche is not going to unconditionally revolutionize art in your lifetime or even in the future. Before I recognized that you just have to get over yourself and move on.

There was a sculptor, a multimedia artist, a couple of PhD students in a variety of artsy things, and then a couple of other artsy people. And then me, who was sitting in a very isolated part of the circle with several empty chairs next to me, because people just KNEW that if they got too close to me, they would lose their artsy aura.

I've found through a variety of experiences in foreign countries that the only way to communicate with people who don't speak the same language as you is to be gravely blunt. Like the time when I was stuck in Bologna and needed a tampon. Could I say tampon in Italian? No. But what I could do is pull one out of my purse and said "I would like this" *point* Or when I needed deodorant in Portugal. "I would like this" *lift underarm and apply imaginary deodorant* The same held true for trying to communicate with this class. My description was short and sweet, to the point, I am Adrianne from California and what I know about art is this. And I like musuems."

The teacher's description involved how if he were held hostage in a museum, he would probably lock himself in a bathroom instead of remain in the gallery. Excellent. I can tell that we have the same approach to things.

The class also involves "Heated Debates" in the university pub (because, according to the teacher, people say things with alcohol they don't say when they're sober...he got that one right, but in my experience, with alcohol in my system, I have never yet waxed lyrics or revealed insightful commentaries about Intervention and Public Practice) and mysteriously entitled "Happenings" that everyone participates in with groups. The group is supposed to come up with something, a "Happening," that...I have no clue. My comprehension ends there of the "Happening." Something that has to do with the class.

When I was walking out of the class, one of the boys joined me on my speed walk back to my apartment and asked me:

"If you could be a ghost, what would you haunt?"

It was then that I decided that my personal description should have been something like this:

"Hi, my name is Adrianna Klara Gyorfi. I am from California. I do not like the smell of body odor, and I enjoy biting sarcasm and wit. I also like describing people like you in my blog. And as far as my place in the practice of art, the pictures I will paint of you all in it will not be pretty."

Feeling Awful Lucky

This was the first day of classes for spring quarter. By a sort of conscious decision on my part, and also the result of the world out to get me, I did not preregister for classes. I decided I would pink slip my way into the classes I wanted to take the first week, and as a result, I now have all my classes.

Except for one. 19th Century Art.

This is a 15500 survey course. Not a super advanced level class, but one that I am missing to complete my major and, as luck would have it, one that would introduce my BA topic to me, and I NEED TO TAKE IT. Along with what seems to be 17834 other students.

I showed up to class at 2:20, meeting and greeting the students I already knew, and walked into class with Dan. And with 17832 other students.

We sat through the beginning of class listening to logistics and how not everyone could take the class, since at the moment there were only 2 discussion sections open that couldn't be over 25 students each, because then it would morph into a lecture session. And then we started lecture.

I've realized a while ago that Art History majors are vicious people. Example: Britch. You all might not be familiar with her, but I know her more than I want. Most of them are two faced and wicked. Only in it for themselves. And they are ALL out to get me. During class, there was one particular girl who, had she said a few more things, I would have climbed over a few rows and personally taped her mouth shut.

The professor began by discussing the differences between industrial canvases and canvases before the 1860s and while the professor was getting into the finer details of differences, this particular student raised her hand and launched into an explanation that the teacher herself was outlining. Why? I have no clue. But her explanation was long enough for me to turn around and roll my eyes at Dan, who was sitting there was his jaw to the ground as well.

Next, the girl asked what ochre was. As in ochre, the color.

After class, the teacher was rushed with a sea of people waving pink slips and promising first borns if they could only get into the class, along with this girl. After the teacher asked how many of us were Art History majors, this girl, this 2nd year girl, raised her hand saying that she was an Art History major, she just had to declare, and that she was so sorry that she asked such a dumb question in class. What was ochre. What was she thinking? She TOTALLY knew what ochre was, she was certainly smarter than that, and oh my God, she is totally sorry she asked her what ochre is.

Whatever. I am a big fan of a person owning up to being a dumbass, but I am an even bigger fan of not announcing in front of his peers that he totally knew the answer, and that he's so much smarter than that. You asked a dumb question, MOVE ON. This key life skill was taught to me in Geometry, 9th grade, when Mr. Rose would sarcastically inquire what color and orange was or stand up on top of his desk and jump around on it after I asked some of my questions. This taught me what questions to ask, what questions not to ask, and also, if you happen to ask how many sides a triangle has the teacher will like you more if you keep your composure and simply dodge the desk he flings at you while he screams out the answer.

So anyway, then the girl went on to say how sorry she was that there were so many people vying for the class, and that she felt SO BAD for the professor, and really, the professor looked like she needed a hug. A hug? She JUST MET the professor, and I'm sure that she could handle the pressure of a few dozen Art History majors breathing down her neck and threatening to follow her home with sharpened machetes if she didn't let them into her class.

Which brings me to my final point: I am so happy with the students my year majoring in Art History. I took an Art History class with only Art History majors last quarter, and it was by far the best time I had in a discussion, and I met some really nice people. Completely unpretentious and willing to help each other out with suggestions or just laughing at dumb jokes and offering to scratch your back where you can't reach. This was also pointed out by a 4th year majoring in Art History this year that really, we're just a bunch of nice people. We are not burdened with the knowledge that we are indeed the best people walking the world because we just NATURALLY assume this and go about our own business helping each other out, since we are confident that no one can surpass us, even after we kindly bestow another competitor with our invaluable advice.

Which is why I am sure I will get into this 19th century art class over this girl. Because I'm just better than her. And I mean this in a completely unpretentious and modest way.

Back to School

I've come back from a very enjoyable spring break, and now I'm back in Chicago ready to complain for another full quarter about classes and school work.

Enjoy!

Gentlemen, you might find this boring

The main mission I had this spring break, aside from sleeping loads (sort of check) and wearing the same clothes as much as possible (double check) was to find a pair of shoes for Stacy's sister's (Kim's) wedding. Note: not the PERFECT pair of shoes, but just "a pair of shoes." I am not reaching for the stars here.

Why I entered the search with this attitude is because years of withering disappointment and teeth grinding frustration have left me with the realization that I, Adrianna Klara Gyorfi, cannot possibly wear anything remotely trendy, sexy, or stylish without:

1. popping (inappropriately) out of places
2. looking like a fool
3. breathing

This realization came sometime in elementary school. I remember the day also when I discovered this law applied to shoes when I was standing around shopping with my mom, sulking over the fact that I could not fit into anything at the Limited Too, when I was all "Well, at least I can wear ANY PAIR OF SHOE I WANT, because ANYONE can fit into shoes." Then I went over, picked up the strappiest sandals I could find, and discovered that lo, I could not fit into the shoes.

That was a very dark day.

Since that time, I have realized that life does go on without a pair of jeans from the Limited Too, and actually, the Limited Too TOTALLY SUX. Although those large flowers with the smiley faces were TOTALLY KOOL. However, years of wisdom and trial-and-error have only very slowly conditioned me to realize that shoes, they are just meant to take many years off a girl's life, and to cause her very serious pain.

Granted, my feet have never been the most cooperative part of my body. They whine in protest each time I put on a different pair, and it takes many, many, MANY weeks to break in a new pair of shoes. And during those many weeks, there are many hours of absolutely crippling pain to look forward to when walking. There were 3 times in Rome when I experienced this. This pain where I was all "Either I start crawling right now, start to cry, or just walk barefoot through the streets of one of the dirtiest streets in Europe." Two times I stuck it out. The third time I decided the pain was not worth it, and walked barefoot home. The soles of my feet never looked better.

Needless to say, my feet crave pampering. They do not care to come in contact with things with straps, or with things that have less than an inch of padding in them. This, however, means that it's impossible to shop for a shoe for a wedding, or to look good by modern-day, normal people standards. Because the most stylish I can get now are house slippers or rain boots. Sandals have to fulfill certain requirements, like:

1. Cannot have a supporting strap right at the pinky bone
2. Has to have the inner foot area covered
3. Should preferably have a strap in the bag, as I hate the slapping sound in formal footwear
4. There should be a supporting strap right in the middle that sort of squeezes all the extra skin in around the midsection of my foot

Try to picture what a sandal like this would look like. It would be horrendous looking. And most likely come in the ugliest colors ever.

I look for things mostly with concrete specifications in mind, and I had a selection of the ugliest shoes conceivable to man kind. I already have the dress (which, currently, I can zip up. Improvement! Breathing is totally an optional recreational activity in it) so the shoe was the only variable in the equation. Which did not allow much wiggle room. The shoes out there, some of them had parts thinner than hair strands! And less straps than the frayed thread hanging off my sleeve! And there is a proportion in price: the less shoe there is, the more it costs.

So this post is basically bemoaning my sad situation. And now I'm exhausted from all that hard work I had to do this quarter and must lie down for a while. I need a foot rub.

Update

This is letting you all know that I am going to be in sunny California from March 17th to March 22nd. On the 22nd I am going all the way across the country to Boston, and then returning to Chicago on the 25th. And then I'm going back to California on the 29th for a wedding, and coming back to Chicago on April 2nd. So I've got a couple of of 2 hour-ish plane trips coming up.

I've got to leave the apartment in an hour or so. Since this morning I've been organizing and cleaning up my bedroom for Julie so she wouldn't collapse in a twitching heap when she walks into the apartment on Tuesday. Some of the solutions are rather...creative, as far as space use goes. However, the transformation has been nothing short of miraculous.

Behold:


I regret I did not take any before pictures, but it was more disorganized.

In other words, you couldn't see that Julie's desk was Julie's desk. And um. Some areas of the room were entirely unusable. The following picture of my dresser might give you an idea of what it was like before:



I knew this transformation could be possible. After all, I wake up every morning with a face something like this:


Taken at the height of finals

To turn it into something more presentable, like this:


So here's to a really relaxing break that will let me catch up on all the sleep I lost last week, to sun, and to eating something other than omelettes.

Look forward to a post ranting about O'Hare inefficiency.

So close

I'm onto the 8th page of my Spanish essay, and for the life of me I cannot think of anything else to write. That is, I theoretically have 8 pages of Spanish. I have an idea that what I have is so poorly worded that it will make Cervantes turn over in his grave, and my teacher will not even know it's Spanish. But in case she has any doubts, I will be serving my essay with some tortilla chips and guacamole, while wearing a sombrero.

I have 3 hours and 50 minutes, and counting, to write 2 more pages. I CAN do this, I just don't know with what.

I really resent fixed, bam, 10 page essays. Or 5 pages essays. Or 2 page essays. What I much prefer to hear is "8-10 page essay" or "5-8 page essay" or "2-15 sentence essay." Then you don't get a whole group of kids scrambling to dilute their 7 page essays with, ahem, shit so they reach 10 pages. Because "African elephants TOTALLY have something to do with my topic!" or "What I ate for dinner last night is TOTALLY pertinent to Spanish literature!" While I might think that way, my teacher might not. And no one wants to read 3 pages of the runs. And no one wants to write it either.

Ahhhh, such a beautiful comparison. Maybe I can somehow use it in the last 2 pages of my essay, yes?

I guess I technically only have 1 more page to write. You know what I said about introductions? It holds the same for conclusions. Sometimes even more so for conclusions, because you have to say how even if you had 10 more pages to write on the topic, you would not be able to get to the bottom of the problem, and how the previous research to this topic did not do it justice, and if you could only just once and for all get all the information out there about your topic together, you could find the cure for breast cancer or discover the key to world peace.

And here I introduce you to something good. Very good.

Adrianna's Law of Technicalities

Just remember, you heard it here first.

So say you see something that costs $69.99. That technically means that it costs $69 which is technically just about $65, which technically means that it's $60 which really means that it's about $50 because, come on, you can't even buy a decent appetizer for $10 anymore at a restaurant. And there you have it. Your $69.99 item now costs $50. And you can keep on lowering the price until you feel justified in making the purchase, because you just can't pass up such a deal.

This Law of Technicalities can be flawlessly applied to most everything in life. Late with paying a bill? Technically, June 14th is August 28th, so no problem! Made out with your best friend's boyfriend? You both have brown hair, so technically you're the same person. Got a C+ on an essay? That's technically an A-, so nothing to worry about!

Got a 10 page paper due? That's technically a 7 page essay. 12 point font? That technically is 21 point font.

Just remember that you have to emphasize/italicize "technically" to make it work. Life gets so much simpler with it!

All right, onward ho!

2/3 done

I just finished writing the world's most boring essay ever. It was so boring, in fact, that I can't thing of a single thing to write here. It sucked all juices out of me, and what's left is not ready to write a Spanish essay.

This stinks.

My brain is not as it used to be

As I've made it painfully apparent to mostly everyone who crosses my path, I have a 10 page Spanish paper due for Wednesday. Last year I also had a 10 page Spanish paper due at the end of spring quarter. I'll bet that I did not complain this much about it though, and that is mostly because I believe at that point in my life I was at the height of my spanish-ization. I was taking 2 classes of Spanish simultaneously, and making sure that everything around me was Spanish. Including the detergent I washed my clothes in and I would refer to Julie as "Julia," Mary Kate as "Gorda," and Kat as "Tonta."

This quarter, however, the situation is significantly different. I did not take Spanish last quarter. The Spanish-est I got was bemoaning the fact that Rome did NOT have Chipotle, and then I would say "guac...a...mobe? mote? mole? Yeah, I quiero some of questa." Gloria Estefan figured nowhere into my daily routine as ravioli and spaghetti became my toilet paper and currency.

I have a Spanish paper due on Wednesday which currently has a one. page. introductory paragraph. Excessive? Mayhaps. But my theory is that there is a proportion between all those hoo-ha long books and the large intros they have. The more the hoo-ha, the longer the intro. Which would explain why my essays on Marx and Adams had a page and a half intro: that much bullshit needs that much bullshit to explain it.

Anyway, this Spanish essay has created many an interesting vision in the past day, one of which was this afternoon as Mary Kate and I sat at the library longingly gazing out of the windows. One thing that remains constant about Chicago is that there is always beautiful weather for finals week. The week before it sucks, and then suddenly during finals week heaven spirits its way down to earth and when everyone is at their lowest, the angels who are sitting on the branches of every tree sticking leaving onto twigs with glitter glue sticks and perfuming budding flowers with their sweet breaths are crooning in harmony "ALLLLLLLLLLELOSERS"

So we were sitting there when Mary Kate said something to the effect if "If we run fast enough against the windows, we could get out of here." And we both automatically envisioned this:



That is bellowed in a Mel Gibson Braveheart voice.

I then had a mini breakdown and bought jam. This is the first jar of jam I bought the entire quarter, and it's nearly gone now. It didn't even last 12 hours. I'm telling you, this brain that normally has cutting edge concentration and focus, it's losing its grip! I thought caribou lived in Africa! I might even be tricked into thinking that I can really leave my essay titles as they are!



Oh, oops. You mean I've done that before?

Correction

I guess I offended 2 people with my irreverent nickname of PTL for Pedro the Lion. I am sorry. I guess I just got it confused with all those other bands like AFI or the IRA, CIA and FBI. So, in the spirit of J.Lo, I rechristen the band P. to the Leo and now I'm calling it a day.

Essays eat away at the very essence of your being. Especially Spanish essays.

Wanted: A Personal Chef

Variation #835 on Scrambled Eggs: With Balsamic Vinager




Truly, a Really Bad Idea.

You know it's a bad sign when your food starts to look like/look less appetizing than pet food.



After last night's failure, I am forced to reluctantly accept my bleak fate: It appears I will never replace Giada as Adriana on The Food Network.

R.I.P. Gimpy Lamp

Last night, after arriving home at around 10:45 PM , Mary Kate and I thought it would be a brilliant idea to clean the entire apartment before we started working on our finals. Which, for me, makes no difference, since I work most productively in the library (as you can tell...here I am with half a page written of a 10 page essay and I decided that I need something stimulating right now), but for Mary Kate, it makes a huge difference.

Our working styles are significantly different. While we both crave quiet, she craves organization as well. Me, on the other hand...well, I like organization, but if it's not there sometimes, then I'm not going to fret too much about it initially. This lead to a rather unfortunate situation in which for a while I was doing most of my reading in a certain chair in one corner. Then it came upon me to work at the end end of the room in a different chair on a different subject, which meant that my art history stuff was in one corner while my Spanish plays was in another, and eventually my Prints and Drawings stuff was just everywhere. During this time, ten years was taken off Mary Kate's life, and she regularly went into her room to have some alone time and scream as loudly as she could into pillows.

Sorry Mary Kate.

But anyway, at 10:45 PM, it seemed like a good idea to clean. Which, I hate to confess, our apartment really needed. Not the toilet (I still clean that) or the kitchen, it was just...everything else. It needed some good old fashioned down-on-your-hands-and-knees-Cinderella-scrubbing, which it got, and the common areas were finished around 12:10 AM. I will not even START my bedroom until next week.

At around 12:22 AM, I got the idea to make some buttermilk biscuits, which requires a rolling pin. And buttermilk. The former which I thought we had, the latter which I knew we had.

However, when it came time to start rolling, I could not find the pin. Which led to this:



The quartering of The Lamp.

The Lamp has been around since first year. I actually don't remember using him at all, but what I remember is knocking him over when I tipped over our couch last year. I don't care to get into the details of how I tipped over the couch, but if you must know, I was recreating gymnast Carly Patterson's winning moves from the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

Since that time, the lamp has never been the same. It's protested every time we've tried to turn it on, and recently it hasn't even wanted to stand up straight. So, in one last desperate attempt to make The Lamp useful, I cut him apart and used his belly midsection as a rolling pin.

Right after I put my astonishingly thin biscuits into the oven, I found my rolling pin hanging out on a rank in plain view, so The Lamp was actually sacrificed needlessly. And my biscuits are way too thin. They are sort of like crackers, actually.

Before the end of the year, I plan on figuring out alternate uses for every single article of furniture in our apartment, and I can hardly wait to see the look on Mary Kate's face when I decide that the fireplace will make a good pantry, our table can double as my bed, her desk can be used as an ironing board, our bookshelves are places to put silverware as well as crumpled up pieces of paper and books, and every inch of ground can be used as a floured rolling/cutting board. And this time, I will not be cleaning up anything.

Spring Cleaning

The other day, I grew 10 feet tall. I spread my wings, exercised my rights, stretched my limbs, if you will. I shed some memories of the past. I became a WOMAN.

I erased ALL Pedro the Lion songs from my itunes library. PTL to the "people in the know."

The very natural question to come from my readers now would be "...why in the world did YOU have THAT group in your library?"



It was not voluntary, I assure you. When I entered college, I knew embarassingly little about the ways of the world and of college students. However, I knew even less about what I really liked. And music. And that's still a work in progress, but this is progress! Anyhow, I got here and there were a couple of people on my floor who I got along with. While never really close friends, we were still close enough that one day I was convinced to go to a show of this particular band in Wrigleyville. We got to the show and I immediately knew that really, this band wasn't my cup of tea. I'm an English Breakfast Tea sort of person. Or Black Tea sort of person. Not a Black Tea with a spoonful of tortured and angsty sugar and bitter lemon juice sort of person. Or a Rooibos Tea flavored with my own sad, sad blood sort of person. Nevertheless, I survived and when I got back home there was the "Oh my GOD you don't have an itunes library on your computer!?" conversation, and so this particular person installed it on my computer and bestowed me with every single Pedro the Lion CD he owned. Oh, and I believe also...Simon and Garfunkel. So when I opened up my itunes library, that's ALL I had. Pedro the Lion and Simon and Garfunkel.

By this point in time, I was wise enough to realize that really, I am not a Pedro the Lion sort of person. Can you really picture me (that down there):



Liking Pedro the Lion? That, up there, likes to eat copious amounts of mozzarella cheese and tomatoes. She likes to laugh so hard she cries, and she also likes to boogie. To some degree.

This person, on the other hand...



doesn't look like she likes to boogie. I'd venture to guess that she doesn't like the idea of El Cantante coming out in the movie theaters either. No, it looks like she enjoys wandering empty parking lots at night on her way to some show in some box-ey theater, and then she likes cutting up and sewing 8 t-shirts together to wear.

And while I like pictures like this:



I do not think it represents my empty, empty soul.

So yes. I kept this group in my itunes library because is... a... memory!... must... listen... to... entire... song... when it comes... up... on... shuffle! THUNK (ears fall off and blood begins streaming out of ears)

But every time ohhhhhh how I cringed! Because the EMO-ist or scene-ist I get is unmatching socks. So I kicked PTL out of the nest. I will now download a million salsa songs.

Speaking of spreading wings and leaving nests, last night I had my sort of weekly reunion with my friend from Rome. She broke the news that instead of continuing school here in Chicago, she will be heading out West to try her luck there. Which got me to thinking about a lot of things.

Best of luck to her.

Cannot be taken out in public anymore

Last night after we had finished giving our presentations, Michal Lynn, Simone, and I went to the Chipotle up the street from The Art Institute to celebrate. Since I had an entire block to think about it, by the time we had reached Chipotle I had a pretty good idea of what my nuanced, refined palette desired.

For those of you not familiar with Chipotle, it is the Mexican version of Subway. You go there, tell them that you want a burrito, or a taco, what have you, then you go on to tell them what you want on it (rice, beans, type of meat, spicy stuff, no spicy stuff, and so on and so forth). I am not too sure why anyone would not be familiar with it, but there you are.

I see these eateries as someone just working in my kitchen. Which means that EXACTLY what I want is EXACTLY what I want to get.

Admittedly, my range of edible things have significantly expanded this quarter. My dinner Sunday night was this:


I call this Adrianne's Wondrous Plate of Sauteed Things

This dish contains onions, bananas, apples, tomatoes, and avocados with some lemon-pepper seasoning, pepper, and salt on top. Because that's what I had lying around, and all those things I felt like eating, so into one pan they went. And then I shredded the books you see lying in the corner in lieu of cheese and ate that too. I cannot wait until the very far, distant, most likely never attainable day of when I will be pregnant and I have weird cravings. I will fully exploit this opportunity to say things like "Husband, I am desirous of a large plate full of Honey Bunches of Oats mixed with some grilled zucchini and avocado, drizzled with 1/4 cup of honey, and then sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. But for the love of God, do not let the zucchini and the avocado mix. And I want this within 5 minutes."

Anyhow, so I got to Chipotle and in loud, assertive tone I told the man I wanted chips, guacamole, with some of the shredded steak stuff underneath the guacamole. Which isn't too weird, only he was a little confused and the following exchange went something like:

man: You want meat?
me: No, no beans. Meat.
man: With meat?
me: No beans please.
man turns to co-worker with a questioning look
coworker: You want chips, with guacamole and the meat?
me: NO BEANS.
coworker: Yes, no beans. With meat?
me: Please, no beans. Meat.
coworker: Meat
me: NO BEANS

By this time Simone and Michal Lynn were looking at me like "God, are we going to have to change her diaper as well?" and I had a raged, crazed glint in my eye because I thought someone DARED to want to put beans on my creation when I specifically told them just MEAT.

At the cash register, Michal Lynn then told the cashier to NOT wrap up her burrito, just put it in one of those bowls with paper underneath because she wanted to eat it with a fork, and Simone just turned to the cashier and said she would not give her a hard time, and that no, she didn't want to think about what our personal assistants would have to go through if we wanted to go to a party at 7:04 PM instead of 6:59 PM, or if we wanted a salad with BBQ chicken instead of honey-roasted turkey.

Daylight savings time starts early? What's this? An unscheduled event?

Book Worm

Poem (Way to go slant rhyme!)

Have a million different books on this wee desk
Have 8000 little butterflies in my chest
Have read many pages of each little book
Have realized their insides aren't as fun as the covers look

Adrianne will soon fall with a resounding thud
The sound of her fall muffled by the library rug
Everyone will continue working away
They will all think that everything is okay

No one will notice that Adrianne is gone
Because this mountain of books will hide what is wrong
But if they would peer behind the enormous pile
They would encounter a sight indeed very vile

For they would find Adrianne, all pale and sleepy
They would find Adrianne, looking all creepy
Adrianne would have large bags under her eyes
She would be heaving her last dying sighs

"Don't worry about me!" she would faintly say
"I'm in a better place now, all those dancers have gone away!"
"No more contradictory scholars saying different things,
No more words making my brain like the knots on a string!"

"Just tell my teacher, please, if it's the last thing you do,
that Adrianne went down trying, she was true blue!"
Then she would close her eyes and die with a smile
She'd go content, completing her final trial.

This is a warning to everyone out there behind my pile of books
If you never see Adrianne, you'll know where to look.
I'm that small wasted figure with that large coffee cup
Come by sometime and ask me "Wassup?"

Best last line of a poem EVER.

Absolute Perfection

As I'm sitting here in the library, having just written the first sentence of what will most likely be the absolutely, most perfectly insightful essay EVER written on the evolution of drawings of theater and performance between the 16th-18th centuries in Italy and France, it's occurred to me that two recent incidents signalled the perfect endings and beginnings to my school week and weekend.

Last night, I went to the movie theaters for the second time since my sojourn in Chicago to see Pan's Labyrinth. The first was to see Be Cool. Why Be Cool? Because it was either that, or The Ring 2 and since both Morganna and I can't handle horror movies, we opted for the former. We were 2 out of about 6 people sitting in the theater, and since neither of us had seen Get Shorty, the inside jokes and references were woefully lost on us as we sat in the theater looking at our watches and picking our noses. I don't remember a single thing from that movie, but I seem to recall liking Uma Thurman's bikini in one of the opening scenes.

Pan's Labyrinth was good, as expected. However, what was even better was the trailer at the very beginning advertising a new! salsa! movie! with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony called El Cantante. Within the first few seconds of the trailer my heart rate jumped to 300 bpm and my eyes grew as big as saucers because oh my gosh, they are having a movie about Hector Lavoe. Who cares that this is probably just a weak attempt to recreate Ray and Walk the Line, who cares that the acting abilities of both these people are dubious at best, and most of all, who cares that this might be a huge flop in the theaters! It's a movie about musica latina! And I will be the first person in Blockbuster to rent it!

The consequence of this trailer is far-reaching and powerful. While watching Pan's Labyrinth and covering my eyes during the scary bits, it wasn't necessarily the knowledge that someone's mouth was getting slit open right then that made my heart race, but the anticipation of a salsa movie coming out the summer of 2007. After getting home, I watched the trailer online enough times to make my mother weep. And then I went to sleep, light-headed with the excitement of all this, turning what was really a terrible week into a beautiful one.

My life had obviously taken a turn for the better.

This morning on my trek to the library, I was hit with the cold, hard (no pun intended) realization that it is MIGHTY icy out on the sidewalks. (See the pun?) I was walking along with a hot cup of coffee in one hand, books in the other, swinging my bag, when I hit a particularly rough spot of sidewalk. I took THE MOST DELICIOUS SMACK EVER onto the sidewalk, and it didn't end there. Valianty trying to avoid spilling my hot beverage, I kept on sliding down that sort of small slope created for cars to turn into driveways and for ants/snails to sled on until I reached the bottom. And I hardly spilled ANY coffee, and NONE on myself.

It's these small victories in life that keep me going, even when facing some of the what might turn out to be some failures in life. Including this awesome essay on, what is it again? Something about theater and drawing? Oh, whatever, who cares about that, I am going to write a 5 page commentary about why I think there should be a law banning tanning salons, and I WILL get an A++ on it.

15 Minutes of Fame

Several weeks ago when I was walking around one of the campus bookstores, a woman came up to me and kindly pressed several Clean and Clear sample sized facial products into my hand, sympathetically gazing at the fist-sized blemishes on my face, and told me that if I wanted a small tote filled with $50 worth of Clean and Clear products, all I'd have to do is go over yonder to that truck and answer a couple of questions.

I take what I can get. "A couple of questions" turned out to be a videotaped ordeal. I sat on a bright green plastic chair waiting for a lady in front of me to finish up answering her questions while she was video taped against a bright green background. Because bright green flatters absolutely everyone.

It turns out that these videos were put on the internet, and for the highest viewed video, that person gets a $50 gift certificate to Starbucks. It would be pretty cool to get a gift certificate like that, but I am a realist. The last thing that I got for free that was cool was 2 tickets to the Shedd Aquarium, and those were stolen along with my wallet. So I'm going to aim low: it would be pretty awesome if maybe this Clean and Clear stuff didn't make my face turn purple.

In any case, the best thing that came with the "small tote" was a small large t-shirt.

I am a big fan of free t-shirts. I've got a slew of them back in California, and the best one that I brought to Chicago is this one:


Clearly, this shirt has been ironed.

This one came from a charity group my mom donated to. I use it when I go to the gym, because I like to think that I look ferocious when I'm on the treadmill. Instead of seeing Adrianne huffing away, you see a heard of at least 11 wild mustangs thundering towards you. That, or I also like to think that it gives me the speed of an 11-horsepower engined truck.

And it's always a special sort of day when I wear my horse shirt.

Now my Clean and Clear shirt has joined the ranks:


Telling Mary Kate that she needs to push the button down half way to focus.


Admiring my green logo.

I like this shirt. I think it's more flattering (doesn't my chest look gigantic?), and it's not like my horse shirt that looks like a large sack. Although I do prefer the unbridled edginess of the horses.

SO, if you like what you see here, visit this site and look for video 620. I encourage you to minimize the window when you start it. That, or just mute it.