If you think this will be more amusing than my livejournal

Let me know what you think

2009-09-08T21:03:00.000-05:00

Please visit:

http://akgyorfi.wordpress.com/

To see what I am up to. For now.

A distressing event

2009-08-25T16:28:00.002-05:00

Clearly, I am not a web designer. Many things I am, but that I am not.

So for a while now, I've been thinking about starting a new blog. Not because there's anything wrong, but mostly because I feel like I've entered a new phase of my life. I am not in college anymore! I am an employed 20-something! I make next to no money!

Then that annoying little icon popped up in the left hand corner letting me know my photobucket account has been inactive for 90 days, and that it removed my header. Folks, I didn't even remember I have a photobucket account, let alone what my username and password are. So here I am, thinking about jumping ship and finding a new place to post my ideas.

Since I don't have internet at home and I'm in the middle of moving, this is not really the highest priority in the world, but I'm just letting you know.

Perhaps I am not so entitled to this

2009-07-20T16:58:00.002-05:00

Not too long ago I had to go into a tourist store near Times Square. This is the equivalent of going into one of those stores on Hollywood Blvd. near the Walk of Stars. If you’ve been to neither of these places, then you might not fully appreciate what I’m going to describe, but if you have, you know exactly the sort of torture I experienced. At its best, it’s like going to Hell and back again.

Since people have been visiting us in California (so nearly as long as I can remember), one of the pilgrimages we made was to Hollywood Blvd. and to one of the many souvenir stores there. Now, I have to admit that despite how much I abhor these places, I have a sort of fascination with them. Where else in the world can you buy salt and pepper shakers in the shape of Elvis, towels with Marilyn Monroe’s face printed in garish colors on it, flip flops with “BABE” printed all over them, or have shot glasses with unmentionable things in or on them? The answer to that is nowhere. Nowhere in this world can you buy such glorious crap as you find in those stores!!!! And what remains a mystery to me is how even though there are mountains of stuff just everywhere, mugs, cups, key chains, t-shirts, sweaters, etc., EVERYTHING is in order. Everything looks like it was just arranged two minutes before you got there. Absolutely all this stuff is neatly lined up and in order, and it looks like no one has touched anything, even though millions of eager tourists paw through this stuff daily.

So my roommate and I knew for a while we might have to pay a visit to one of these godforsaken places, but I suspect we were holding out actually going to see who would cave first. A battle of wills, in a manner of speaking. Much in the way roommates see who will actually take the initiative and put the toilet paper on the toilet paper dispenser instead of keeping it on top of the toilet. And since Mary Kate had been the one to put the toilet paper on the roller most recently, I decided I could take one for the team and go visit the nearest tourist shop.

I will remind everyone again that we live near Times Square. Lately my mom has frequently been asking me if I’ve been looking for a place to live next year, reminding me that it can’t be in a dangerous part of town and that she has maternal concern for my safety. Now, I know that it seems like a tourist magnet is not the most dangerous part of town (people always around, they try to keep it relatively decent for out of towners) but after living here for close to a year, I can confidently say that I am ready to live in the roughest part of town. I am ready to face any hooligan I may cross. Ladies and gentlemen since living in close proximity to Times Square I have witnessed such frightening things as Very Large Women squeeze themselves in between cars to go pee. I have seen people shoving pizzas as large as beach balls into their mouths while loudly contemplating what time they should go to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. I have seen small children narrowly avoiding certain death dodging between speeding taxis to get to the Sephora or M&M store on the other side of the street. I have had every manner of person shoving flyers, brochures, tickets to the biggest bus tours in the world, to comedy shows, stand up comedy, jazz clubs, Yankees games, to Lord knows what shows, condoms, deodorant, shampoo, trash, EVERYTHING and ANYTHING they could get their hands on in my face. And I’ve seen people sitting on the sidewalk. I have seen girls wearing shorts so short and tank tops so small in the middle of winter that I wonder if they ever had mothers. I’ve seen people trampled to a pulp into the sidewalk. I’ve also seen tourists pick things off of the ground and eat them. I’m pretty sure I have seen people lose their minds in Times Square. This place is, for lack of a more delicate descriptor, the biggest shit show in the world. I am battered and bruised, but I have emerged victorious from the battle and thanks to them, I now doubt that all the excrement found on the sidewalk of my street is strictly canine. And my mother is concerned for my safety in the future. HA. Every day I walk through Times Square I take my life into my own hands, and I pray that if I see a tourist barreling toward me I’ll be the ones to get my hands on him first instead of vice-versa.

My secret to survival? Every time I walk through this cursed place, this armpit of the world, I imagine myself astride my pet rhinoceros, lion, water buffalo, or any other dangerous (usually African, but always fierce) animal-pet, galloping through Times Square wearing nothing but a loincloth and with a sword drawn from its scabbard hanging at my waist (sometimes I have a bow and arrow), my faithful pet dismembering any person who stands in our way to the subway station entrance. The sounds of trumpets blaring is also involved. Because in my short life I have learned a couple of things and one of these is that there is no force of this world that can sway a Midwestern family wearing matching Crocs enroute on their way to Red Lobster from their projected path or a group of high school girls wearing their tightest jeans and highest heels and carrying their newest purses on their way to a club where they MIGHT not be carded. An atom bomb explosion can’t stop these people from altering their projected path. I think the only thing that can stop them is an act of God.

Back to the point, though, I obviously survived my excursion to the tourist shop with minimal damage done to my person. I walked in and was almost bowled over with all the t-shirts hanging on the walls 45 foot high walls! Seven for $10.00! And the cups! And the towels! And the snow globes! Oh God, the snow globes! And look! Hats! And socks! And magnets! And key chains! And shot glasses! The result of all this was that I bought a can of tins with “I <3 NY” and the name “Lori” written on it (incidentally, I know no one named Lori, least of all the person who is getting the tin), socks with the subway map printed on them, and a cup with, once again “I <3 NY” emblazoned on it. When I went to the checkout the clerk smirked at me as if he had once again won. “Another tourist has succumbed!!!” he was probably thinking. I know I would if I were him. I just smiled back because one happy day when I am retired I will come in every day and gleefully mix up the magnets and put the green pencils with the purple ones.

Even scarier than a murder

2009-06-30T09:35:00.009-05:00

I recently rewatched Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. The first time I watched it I was in 9^th grade. I would not say that it left a great mark on my impressionable mind, despite being the tender age of… Lord, I have no idea how old I was in 9^th grade. If you remember, I had watched Leprechaun in kindergarten, and I looked under my bed for the little man until 6^th grade every night. I wish I were kidding. I was scared of leprechauns grabbing my ankles and biting me. I also VIVIDLY remember watching a TV show about extreme encounters with animals, where a boa constrictor slithered out of a toilet and a few rattlesnake bite victims talked about the tremendous pain they experienced after they were bitten. These anecdotes might seem comical in a way (A boa constrictor in the toilet, everyone!) but I remember the people on the tv show were genuinely scarred, looking around as if they expected a rhinoceros to charge out of their bedroom closet next. What I took away from that show was that I had to get to a hospital 11-13 minutes within being bitten by a rattlesnake, and that I should always look in toilets for boa constrictors.

Anyhow, Rear Window did not scar me in this same way. One of the only things I took away from it is that I remember the person I watched it with told me New York was like Alfred had portrayed it: one could see into another’s apartment and just sit around looking at everyone go about their business.

I guess this is sort of true. Let’s take a look at what we can see outside our windows.

Not too much from this window. This happens to be the view out my bedroom window. A couple of inches over to the left is my neighbor’s window, from which I can hear him pushing snooze every 10 minutes from 6 AM on. He, on the other hand, probably didn’t hear my alarm clock this week because I put it on silent. And I wondered why I wasn’t waking up on time. Silly me!

This is the view from our bathroom window. Unfortunately. I feel an apartment has much more character when you can see people outside while you shower. However, let’s move on to the south facing windows.

Nice, no? We have great full sunlight in the afternoon, which brings the temperature in the apartment up to a comfortable 95 degrees upon occasion. At night we can sit around and look at the city lights, and during the day we can look down at the neighbor’s yard and observe bunnies hopping around. Due to its enclosed nature, if someone is having a party with any sort of music involved every note reverberates off the buildings as if it is being played on a timpani.

Let’s return to this same scene at night. Ala Alfred Hitchcock, something sinister takes hole once the sun goes down.

Maybe I have an overactive imagination (I did major in liberal arts. I guess I thought I would be able to support myself with it.) but I think this seems like the perfect setting for murders to take place. What's going on in that lit window in the bottom right corner? Oh, nothing, Ben is just strangling his wife. And in the window with the big lampshade? That's where Joe is dismembering his son Al. And what's going on in the top left corner? A closer look you need? Is that what you said?

My roommates and I have each, on separate occasions, sat down on the couch, looked outside, and jumped up exclaiming something to the effect of "HELPTHEREISANAKEDMANINTHATAPARTMENTIJUSTSAWHISUNMENTIONABLES!" Now that I think of it, this should phase me no more. I walk down the streets here and everyone is nearly as naked as the day he was born. I guess we just weren't bracing ourselves for the sight.

So no, this is NOT a naked man. This is not George, who just can never seem to find his underpants. This just happens to be a mannequin perfectly positioned to give us a full front view whenever we happen to glance outside, sometimes giving us a start, but by now just a normal fixture on the horizon. And something that provides me endless entertainment when we do have visitors come over to see what the world outside our windows is up to.

It's rained here for about 10 days straight

2009-06-22T17:39:00.008-05:00

I will be the first to admit that I am a pretty sub-par interior decorator. This skill has mostly gone unnoticed to the unobservant because I have been lucky enough to live with people who put a lot of thought into surrounding themselves with pretty things arranged in pretty ways.

I wouldn't say that I don't have the eye. I can definitely tell you what colors look good together and what don't, mostly based on my knowledge of the color wheel from 9th grade art class, and I can also tell you what is a piece of junk and what isn't. And I wouldn't say I don't have style. No, the biggest drawback I have with decorating and domesticating a place is that I lack the experience. You see, all my friends and their friends grew up in households where they were allowed to decorate their room within reason. I suspect this is because they all spent a lot of time in their respective bedrooms, either grounded or on the phone talking about boys, perhaps doing the occasional homework, so the parents were all right with them decorating their space with things they wanted to see, since they spent a good chunk of their lives there.

In my home, the situation was very different. After we were old enough to move into separate bedrooms and when my sister and I randomly decided for about 10 minutes what our favorite colors were one month, my mother's deft hand and quick thinking transformed our rooms to reflect our preferences. And so since about 5th grade, my bedroom in California has remained very blue, and Agnes's has remained very yellow. Arranging furniture, buying appropriate colored rugs, and the correct colored comforters all announced to the world what color our favorites were. The fact that we spent very little time in our bedrooms (we were never grounded, punishment was as public as possible and going to hide in our bedrooms was not an option as a method of discipline, as then we would run the risk of not being reminded every 10 seconds what we had done wrong), so it never bothered me that I was not the one who had called the shots with the decor.

To illustrate how little I thought about what went into my bedroom, let me tell you the following: I was in a summer program in St. Louis for 5 weeks. During those 5 weeks, everyone unpacked, decorated, some even put up curtains and posters in their room. I placed my opened suitcase under my raised bed for easy access to clean clothes, and so it stayed until the very last day. Unpacked. Unloved. And unwanted.

When I went away to college was when I started to have problems. The first two years in the dorms were okay, there is only so much you can do with an extra long twin bed and a 4'x8' space, but I viewed moving into apartments with apprehension. My secret would be exposed! And so the first year I moved into a place, I had an air mattress for the whole year, and the second year I got a bed so big there was no way anything else would fit into the room with me.

In New York I've had a rough time. The layout of my room changes with the weather. I've moved things this way and that, dragging furniture out into the common area so I have enough room to maneuver the dresser two inches in one one direction or to shove my bitty bed into one corner. I think I've finally hit on arrangement where the furniture and decor combination isn't completely offensive, and I think this is due in no small part to what I've been surrounded by at work.

Here we have the Avenging Narwhal Play Set brightening someone's day a couple of desks over.

This is a model of an actual exhibition traveling the world.

(just kidding)

Here we move closer to home as we get a shot of my desk. A while back I was sent several broken fish from one of our exhibitions and I decided to take it upon myself to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, comfort the sorrowing, and here they shall remain.

This is the Terminator Pup Sam.

I'm not saying my room is decorated with any or all of these items. But hopefully some of the inspirations stick.

Only the lonely

2009-05-11T16:42:00.002-05:00

Sara and I recently staged a weak attempt to bring a pet into our homes and hearts by buying a fish. We already have three plants, several hidden mice we hear crawling around between the walls at 2 AM, and some pigeons we enjoy feeding crumbs to on our fire escape. Considering our plants are still alive from November, and that we have managed to keep ourselves healthy for this same sustained period of time, Sara felt that it was time to try our hands at raising a fish.

Our apartment building does allow pets. Daily we see our painfully apathetic neighbor take her Pomeranian out for a wee. Without fail she is dressed in a ratty t-shirt and gigantic sweat pants, walking down the street with her enthusiastic pup bounding ten feet after her, eagerly sniffing at anything and everything. She occasionally stops to let the dog catch up with her, then she continues on her slow ramble for the dog to be distracted by the next leaf blowing in the wind. Her indifference to her pet is only paralleled by that one time in Chicago where I saw a mother pulling her baby carriage with the baby in it behind her. We always look after her in astonishment, thinking what better pet owners we would be if we only had one to love and to cherish. If it were a dog, we would be carrying that pet around, putting it down only when it wanted to go to the bathroom, promptly picking it back up again so that its precious little feet would not be sullied by the city’s grime and grit.

We went over to the local pet store, Petland, our hearts in our throats, faces flushed. “Would this be the day?” we thought to ourselves, “when we could bring another life into the apartment?” We walked around the store, looking at this fish and that, examining them for spots of color, strength of teeth, speed, and flipper size. Since we decided we did not want a tank and that we wanted to stick with a plain old bowl, that basically brought it down to one kind of fish: a beta.

I enjoy looking at betas, but they remind me of cats: you can’t really ever tell if they are sweet and loving, or if they are going to jump out at you and bite your head off. We asked an employee to direct us to the betas, and he looked at us dubiously.

“You just want a fish bowl?” he asked, and didn’t believe us when we said yes, we just want a bowl, we don’t want the whole nine yards and take the tank. I’ve seen what it’s like to have a fish tank, and I want no part of it, not while I am still in my 20s, anyway. You have to sit there and scrub the side with a toothbrush, clean the gravel, transfer the fish, worry about losing one of them when you’re draining the water, and so on and so forth.

The employee led us over to a shelf of the saddest looking beta fish I have ever seen, each quarantined in a separate bowl, and demanded we take a good look. Had we ever seen fish this sad? Had we? No, we said, and he declared the reason for this was because they were alone in the world and were not in a tank with other fish swimming happily. We argued we would be getting it a bigger bowl, colorful gravel, a fake treasure chest, MAYBE EVEN FAKE SEAWEED. The salesman, however, argued that the fish would still remain miserable, and that we should not buy the beta fish.

Needless to say, we left Petland empty handed.

What I’m wondering is how on earth did this happen. The salesman was ostensibly there to SELL us the fish, and he actually talked us out of owning a beta fish. Everyone has owned a beta fish at one point in their lives, especially in 3^rd grade I think. And I think everyone was jealous if someone had a prettier beta fish than them. Now that I think of it, I think that still applies today. I imagine if I had a beta fish, I would constantly be comparing it to other beta fish, because really, what else does the fish have to offer besides looks? Affection? Wisdom? Speed? No, I would still be comparing my beta fish to others, worried mine was somehow less colorful or spectacular looking.

So here we remain, Sara, Mary Kate, and I, fishless but definitely not friendless. And I also now know the most dedicated fish salesman in the world.

The Magical and Mysterious

2009-04-23T17:29:00.000-05:00

I’m not sure if you know this, but I am a big fan of mysteries. By the end of 3^rd grade I had read 49 of the 50 Nancy Drew books (incidentally, I never read the last one, The Mystery of the 13^th Pearl), after which I graduated to the local suburban library to bust through all the Agatha Christie books my greedy little hands could get on. I’m ashamed to say my taste in literature hasn’t developed a whole lot further than this. From where I’m sitting on the couch right now, I can see dozens of classics on the shelves my roommates have brought from home to New York, Moby Dick, Anna Karenina, Don Quixote, Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons, The Everlasting Man, well-edified and refined friends they turn to when they desire some intellectual stimulation and high-brow conversation. They virtually spill out of the bookcase demanding attention and praise. I can also see from the couch my half-shelf of my own classics: The Historian, A Perfect Spy, Dirk Gently’s Hollistic Detective Agency. This is not to say that I do not enjoy good literature. In fact, I am a big fan. But when push comes to shove, when I really want to cheer up or to just let my brain stop for a second and run wild, I will most likely grab a tried and true mystery book.

Luckily enough for me, I can be entertained with mysterious things no matter where I go here. For instance, it remains one of the deepest mysteries to me why our trash room in our apartment building does not smell like trash. Every other part in our building has guaranteed smelled like garbage at least once, but the trash room, never. Our foyer regularly reeks of dog slobber, our elevator of rotten take out, BUT WHY DOESN’T THE TRASH ROOM SMELL LIKE THE PUTRID GARBAGE IN IT?!

A few weeks ago I got a membership at the local video store one block away from here. This move was prompted mostly by my unfortunate experiences with the bigger video rental chains instigating my distrust of organized video rentals stores, beginning in high school when my sister and I locked the keys in the running car in front of Hollywood Video at 11:30 at night, and stayed there while our car ran out of batteries. This new place is aptly called Video Café because they have both videos and they also allegedly serve coffee. They also have the largest collection of Hell’s Kitchen paraphernalia I have seen in the area. You can buy hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, visors that all have Hell’s Kitchen emblazoned upon them.

This video store has the largest collection of VHSs I have seen since the 90s. I have no idea if anyone rents them anymore. I have never checked any of them out, and I have never seen anyone else check them out. Whatever time of day you walk in there, some sort of techno or hip hop song is playing as loud as the cheap speakers will go, and it is completely empty. My roommates and I are convinced that if you actually did ask for coffee, you’d be taken into the back room to be shown the latest delivery of coke they got in that day.

Over the store’s awning there is a marquee-type display that proudly announces the latest movies that might possibly be in stock for the intrepid customer. Movies that I never once saw lining their shelves. For instance, one Friday night when my roommates and I felt like watching a movie we could make fun of and that would provide us with a store of ludicrous characters and quotes we could reenact for each other when we got tired of reciting poetry to each other Saturday nights, I went in search of Elegy. You probably never heard of it. It has Penelope Cruz in it, and I watched the trailer for it about 3,235 times solely because there was a catchy tune in it for about 15 seconds. The store owner announced that someone JUST rented that movie seconds before I walked in, and it was out for the following 3 weeks. I might add that it was a new release, and new release rentals are 2 days. And the movie is so phenomenally bad that NO ONE would have wanted to watch it in all of New York. If you’ve seen Autumn in New York with Richard Gere and Winona Rider, you’ve seen this movie.

A member’s account is also appropriately their phone number. So when I am renting a movie, inevitably the city’s freaks materialize out of no where and I imagine they are there flipping through the dog-eared movie encyclopedia feigning interest only because they want to memorize my phone number. Have I become too self-involved and paranoid? I don’t think so. As I said in the beginning, I just like mysteries. So the next time I get a phone call at 4 AM on a Wednesday night and I hear a raspy voice saying something like “You’ve got to come to 145 and Amsterdam right now, they’re waiting for you.” I’ll just know it was the guy with the patch over his eye and the missing ear who was standing behind me in line at the Video Café and that I should bring the latest DVD I rented in exchange for…well, I guess I’d have to find out.

It was very warm yesterday

2009-02-09T22:09:00.002-06:00

I recently joined a gym here, finally. The red lights might be going off in your head right now saying "New! Year! Resolution!" right now, but no. This has been on the agenda for a while now, only there was always something better to do than to go subject myself to a gym representative for a solid hour who would drag me through one miserable facility or the next and talk to me like he's trying to sell me a 1988 Taurus station wagon rather than a gym membership.

Anyway, I am now the esteemed member of the Manhattan Sports and Health Club. No, not the New York Sports Clubs. That place is even more frightening than a Manhattan Whole Foods on a Sunday afternoon. It's always crowded to the point where I begin to fear for the buildings' safety: I doubt a lot of these New York buildings were built to stand up to the constant galloping of Wall Street consultants and ambitious interns who go to these clubs to get the day out of their system with a good 10 miles/minute jog.

This place, since it doesn't take from the main pool of gym goers, I think is left with mostly the stranger demographic of people who frequent gyms. Not strange as in what I was used to when I was still going to school, this is a different sort of crazy. In Chicago, it was a normal sight to see girls with long, stringy hair hit the treadmill in long flowy skirts and with bare feet, guys with thick glasses slipping down their sweaty noses while using the elliptical reciting Greek verbs aloud and making sure their feet reached the bottom of the stride right on the downbeat of the classical music piece they were listening to. We were just a bunch of nerdy students who, after a full day curled up in uncomfortable positions in the library to stay awake while reading our Derrida and Smith, needed to get the blood circulating through our bodies once again.

The other night when I went to the gym here, there was a young Broadway hopeful with the score to a show open in front of her, singing the tune while simultaneously using the elliptical. I have seen a man in a button up shirt and dress slack hit the treadmill. And tonight in a class, while an older woman twisted her legs behind her head to get a deep stretch, the older man sitting in front of her started talking about how she has to go to a certain psychologist because of some great connection she has with DNA.

The people at this gym also come in all different shapes and ages. At school, the overwhelming majority of the people were thin, malnourished, weak students. Here, the age group of gym goers ranges from 20-95, scarily thin to gigantic, sculpted like a body builder to wiggly like a bowl of pudding. Which brings me to the belly dancing teacher. The first time I went to the class, I asked someone else there who the teacher was. Without my glasses, a third grade boy jump roping at the front of the class could can easily pass for a belly dancing teacher. The other student said I'd know when I saw her, she was hard to miss. Just as she said this, a formidable Russian woman came busting into the room with her gigantic chests squeezed into a sports bra and her bottom half jiggling like it had its own mind in a pair of baggy gaucho pants. The student was right: it was really hard to miss her.

And you might wonder why, just as why I'm taking French, why I would be attending a belly dancing class. I'm not a creature of grace, the closest I come to being graceful is threading a sewing needle, nor am I incredibly coy and seductive. At least not in belly dancing. It's a different story when I'm peeling an orange. It's mostly because why not? and because I live with 2 girls who complain about not being able to fit into size 0s anymore at stores, and because I haven't been able to laugh at myself at no one's expense for a long time. It's been "Ahhhh, you mean the final is in an hour and NOT 3 days from now?" and "OH! I was supposed to write that addendum a month ago and not today?" for a while now, and just every time I screwed up, there was always a consequence. Here, I can suck at shimmying across the room with absolutely no adverse consequences aside from making a fool of myself, and it looks every so much more interesting when I do it because you never know what part will unpredictably jiggle next. This might be the only place where it's acceptable to have a little extra. So perhaps I am one of the crazy people who goes to the gym here now, on second thought. The biggest exercise I do is not only to run 5 miles on the treadmill, but to just be able to laugh healthily at myself when I make a mistake that doesn't matter.

All around goodness

2009-02-05T07:14:00.001-06:00

I very recently started taking a French class. You might be wondering why I'd do this at all, considering what a hard time I had with speaking, nay, life in general when I was taking Spanish and Italian class. Do you know what it's like carrying around two "pocket sized" dictionaries the size and weight of bricks every day? It's really terrible. Malo. Cattivo. What would be worse, though, would be not being able to express just how terrible life is in 4 different language. Or asking where the bathroom is when you really really have to go in any country where these languages are spoken.

From my short time getting acquainted with French, I can already tell we're not going to be good friends. On speaking terms, if you will. You see, with Hungarian, Spanish, Italian, what they all have in common is that the speaker rolls his R's. In fact, I sometimes maintain that the only reason I passed Spanish and Italian was because if all else failed, I could sit there and roll my R through class, thereby tricking the teacher into believing that why yes, I AM a pro at the past subjunctive! I could also roll every r that showed up in a word for 3 minutes at a time if they liked, demonstrating to everyone how to do so.

In French, though, I can't even pronounce my name correctly. Whereas in the past I could purr my name, "Adrianna" starting out as a soft aria crescendoe-ing after the "r" into a loud fortissimo, leaving no doubt in the listeners mind that the speakers name IS Adrianna, and it DOES have at least one r somewhere in there, in French it sounds like I'm trying to hack something out of my throat when I try to pronounce my name the "right" way. And all the letters you don't even bother pronouncing! Where I come from every letter is enunciated, even if not clearly, usually not giving preference to a b over an f, the speaker realizing that every letter there is for a reason, and should be pronounced. (Okay, maybe in English this isn't supposed to be the case. I do bother saying "-ing"s for instance. Yes, when I say "ganging" you can here EVERY g) In French, I think half of the alphabet figures in every word, and you pronounce about 2 of the letters. And I stink at this. Every letter has a job and damnit, they are going to do it even if the word ends up being slaughtered by the time I reach the end of it!

The class is an assorted group of young, old, tolerable, intolerable people. But coming together in one room like this asking each other politely what nationality they are and where they are from really pulls everyone together. As I have experienced in the past, even if I suck at this French thing, I am looking forward to the class ditz and the old ladies role play as Cristophe and Florence at the bus stop who meet up with their old friend Brigitte on her way to the Louvre, struggling through expressions like "tres bien" and "je mapelle." And there is nothing more entertaining than talking about relationships and all the frommage you like in languages you haven't mastered yet. You know, I don't even know if I spelled any of those French words correctly right there.

So in closing, I think a lot of the world's problems would be solved if major political leaders just sat together and took a foreign language class. Maybe they wouldn't solve any problems, maybe they'd still hate each other at the end, but during the class they would both be humbled at one point, and recognize that one or the other can order a coffee or ask the butcher for 3 pounds of meat like a FIEND. And they would be forced to ask each other what they did that weekend.v

Ring out the old year, ring in the new. Ring a ding ding.

2009-01-02T23:26:00.023-06:00

December

June

April

March

January

February

September

July

November

August

October

November

I'm sure you wish those were in order.

I've deliberated about what sort of an entry I should write. The normal one describing how I never make New Year's resolutions? One reviewing the sort of year I had? One talking about how happy I am December is over?

Given my current mood is to not write a cohesive entry at all, I don't think so.

When I was coming back from California to New York December 27, I got to the airport anticipating my plane would be delayed. And it was. I had already come to terms with the fact that every airline is informed in advance that I am going to be on the flight and then just delay departure by 4 hours, this time because the wind was whistling through a door, and instead of arriving at 1 am in New York, we would be landing at 4:30 AM.

Since I had already come to terms with this and am pretty complacent about the whole spending the night at the airport thing, I decided to get to know the traveling companion sitting next to me. I have a huge penchant for talking to people at airports. It is the easiest thing in the world: chances are slim to none that you will ever see the person again, and you don't even need to introduce yourself. When I was stuck at an airport for 5 hours once in Canada, I ended up having dinner with a man who was deliberating what to do with the girlfriend he was living with who wanted to get married, but who he thought was too old for him. My eloquent advice for him was to shit or get off the pot. And no, I don't think being surrounded by people who don't speak the same language as me would stop me.

Anyhow, given the sort of year I had and the sort of month I had ended it with, I found myself being on the receiving end for advice and a friendly ear. For four hours we analyzed what happened over the course of the year you see depicted above, which admittedly excludes extremely important events. The prognosis for all of this was that I'm going to be fine. That who knows what is going to happen this year, but that I'm tired of starting everything off expecting the worst. Does that sound like a New Year's resolution? Maybe.

And no, I don't know where May went. Evidently, that was spent in a happy post thesis stupor without a camera.

Talk that talk

2008-12-14T21:59:00.003-06:00

In recent years, I wouldn't have considered describing myself as a gullible sort of person. Growing up in suburbia did away with pretty much any sort of tendency I may have had to naively believe in anything that came my way. At this point you might be saying that if anything, that sort of setting should have made me more likely to accept anything without question, that under those circumstances if someone came up to me and told me there was nothing better in the world than the Santa Clarita Valley, I would have been brainwashed enough to believe this, but no, four years in high school and shopping at the local mall with a Charlotte Russe store in there showed me otherwise. Because it seemed impossible to believe that anyone would subject themselves to these things and still remain sane in the world, so I went through these formative years refusing to believe that these were the only things I had to look forward to in the world: peaking in high school and wearing a dress from Windsor Fashion to prom.

Then college was that time when, you know, the eye-opening education you're receiving is either supposed to shake your beliefs to their very core, or strengthen them, and then you emerge from this experience An Adult ready to face The World with a renewed Sense of Self and a self-assuredness in your step that wasn't there before, and a great interest in non-fiction books, e.e. cummings, and great French novels.

So ostensibly this is the state I find myself in now. A recent college graduate ready to tackle the world and show it who's boss. Which is why I'm so confused as to why I find myself accidentally believing things I really shouldn't be thinking twice about. Such as mistaking The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova for a piece of literary non-fiction writing.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with this book, but let me tell you what it's about: Dracula. And the point of the book is to let you know that Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, who died sometime in the 15th century, is still alive today. The author starts out the 909 page book describing research she did in the subject, which I mistook to mean that everything she is writing is non-fiction. After all, research = fact, right? So even after I read the following passage:

"The man had vanished; he had seen me see him. His face, between the awkward beard and new cap, had been indisputably a face from my university at home. I'd last looked at it just before it was covered by a sheet. It was the face of the dead library."

Even after I read that, that description of how the narrator saw a recently dead man walking around alive and well a few pages later, EVEN THEN, I just sat there nodding my head vigorously saying to myself "Yes! Completely likely! This man didn't actually die! He is still alive! I thought I saw someone like Thomas Jefferson walking down the street today, now I know how likely it is that he's still around!"

So it came as a big blow to learn that this piece of literature isn't actually non-fiction. It is about as fictional as Santa Claus and Charlotte's Web. Although the way things are going now, I get the feeling that this year is the year I will start believing in Santa Claus. I didn't when I was two, but now seems to be the time to start putting cookies out for him December 24th. So now I am left with reading 300 more pages of this book, and I am angry. I am angry because ever since learning this book is non-fiction, its writing has become significantly cheesier, and I have less patience than ever with the narrator's adventures waltzing through the south of France and Istanbul looking for a blood-sucking demon. And even though Hungary figures largely in the setting, the romanticized description of the people and the food nearly bring me to tears.

I am hell-bent on finishing this book now. I have dedicated too much time and effort to it. What I am left wondering, though, is HOW I could believe this was a piece of non-fiction writing. Has the ice-skating rink music I am subjected to every hour I am at work finally taking its toll? Does Sheryl Crow, Maroon 5, and Celine Dion on loop have this sort of effect on everyone, not just me? Because then I find this to be particularly disturbing. The museum would then be run by a group of people who would be looking for living dinosaurs in Central Park to put into cages, and would dedicate all their scientists to look for the Loch Ness monster.

Or is this recent character flaw simply a product of living in a city where I see insane things every day? A necessary lesson I have to learn to remember to keep my guard up at all times? This and other recent unfortunate events have taught me that perhaps it is best to be as skeptical about everyone and everything as I was in high school. The moral of the story is: be wary! Even if there are no vampires around to attack you.

Made in Vietnam

2008-12-01T21:59:00.002-06:00

There are some days where I'd like to think I can rely sheerly on my instincts to get around. There are those days, in fact. Days where I can stumble across Broadway and 47th without opening my bleary eyes, clutching my cup of coffee as taxis zoom by and horse carriages graze the tip of my nose, days where I can just make a run for the empty C subway track, trusting my gut that by the time I reach the edge of the platform, a train will have pulled up to the edge, the doors will have opened, and an empty seat will be waiting for me to occupy. Today was really not one of those days.

I got back from work today with a package awaiting me in the middle of our living room. The middle of the living room is still a wide expanse of nothing, with a couch and a table meekly lining the edge of the space, waiting for something to pull them together. So this package looked like something special, which, in fact, it was. It was the brand new coat tree I had ordered on amazon. This product was meant to be the missing link, THE household item that would scream "YOU'RE HOME" as soon as you walked in to the apartment. Nevermind that we have no microwave or toaster, that just a few weeks ago we were using the air mattress inflator to blow dry our hair, this furniture was going to pull the assorted collection of items in our apartment together to make it a cohesive whole. So I tackled the task of putting together this coat tree with gusto, relying on, what else, but my gut to put together the 5 pieces of coat rack.

I have put together Ikea furniture before without too much grief. Okay, I take that back. Now that I think of it, I think I remember infinitely preferring sticking the wooden pegs holding my bed together into my eyeballs than actually trying to put them in the designated holes, but the long and short of this is that I am now the proud owner of The World's Crookedest Coat Tree. Yes, I managed to foible on the most idiot-proof coat tree in the world. It even came with instructions, which I gave nary a glance to until it was too late. I wish I had my camera here to show you how crooked it is, using my perfect posture as a reference. Only now, I suspect that what with the weight of the world and day, and just of utter defeat, on my shoulders, I would appear just as slumped and tired looking as my brand new coat rack.

However, I am not giving up on this thing. I'm welcoming the new coat rack into this apartment as if it were my own flesh and blood, and I'm going to shower it with so many coats you won't even be able to tell it's crooked.

Today was a long day.

I need to go to Duane Reade

2008-10-07T22:05:00.002-05:00

I am no stranger to late night trips over to friends' homes or to big shopping centers where I can get everything from wrenches to cereal in one trip. In fact, I just waltzed home from Duane Reade right now at 11:32 PM because I realized I was on the dregs of my Listerine. My sporadic sort of life style lends itself well to the tendency of New York City stores staying open late. Living here means that I will always be able to buy those mystery packets of woman health pills that are the size of sardines and fig newtons whenever I feel like it. And I won't even need to get into the car.

So Saturday night, after deciding to make brownies at 10:30 at night, dragging ourselves all the way over to the corner convenience store 50 feet away, then all the way back, Mary Kate, Sara J., and I realized we only had one solitary egg. The recipe called for two. My tendency with these box pastries is to just call it a day and use one egg. If I would have had no oil, I most likely would have forged ahead anyway. Those box pastries were designed for pastry chefs with the absolutely lowest level of concentration and talent. I'm pretty sure I have made those funfetti cakes before without adding the water. However, this is one of the few instances in life I can think of where quality does not suffer despite the ease and low price of the ingredients. I have watched with horrified eyes before as Sara Lee fudgie brownies stuck into the oven at 500 degrees for about 2 minutes with goo still oozing out the middle have disappeared far before people even noticed the little chocolate cranberry biscotti I labored over for 6 solid hours the night before, fretting that the walnuts weren't chopped just right and that maybe the shape of that one cookie really was a little bit unseemly.

Since Mary Kate and Sara J. are a little boring and huge squares, however, one egg would not do. Nor would one egg with a substitution of a few tomatoes suffice. All they would take would be two eggs or none at all, we might as well could use the brownie mix to make chocolate milk. So around 11:30 at night, we decided there was no better time to get to know our neighbors than the present.

We have seen our neighbors in the elevators mostly. One time I was riding down in the elevator, and older man pointed out it was a good day that day because we were alive. He set the standard pretty low for ourselves, and the rest of the building seems to be following suit. In addition to the people who always seem to be wearing suits, who are mostly seen in passing storming through the front door, our apartment building is also home to people who look like they only decided to leave their apartments because they ran out of deodorant five months ago and they still really don't feel like taking a shower. They are the people I have branded the untouchables, the women dragging themselves around different hallways with the stringy hair, without a bra, wilted lettuce hanging out between their teeth and old tissues stuck into their armpits for later use, telling us they have bed bugs and that we're only a prayer away from having them ourselves. We're not entirely sure how they afford rent, but here they are and probably here they are to stay.

At about 11:30:57 PM, after Mary Kate and Sara J. had knocked on the door 3 seconds before, they came scampering back in to our own apartment. After the initial realization that actually it was sort of late (not too late to go to Duane Reade, but maybe too late to knock on a stranger's door), we also realized that the chance the neighbor could have been one of the bad seeds was larger than the chance it was a well-groomed young business man.

The long and short of this is that we have yet to meet our neighbors. And that it's still a good thing that the stores never close, because then we still had to go get eggs.

Apple Muffins

2008-09-28T22:45:00.000-05:00

I know I said I would write stories to accompany Natural History Museum dioramas. I know maybe this would have provided you with more entertaining reading than everyday details. I understand. After all, where else would you get to learn about the African grasslands people? Or about Armenian wedding ceremonies?

However, a more important issue has come up recently. That of grocery stores. This summer I read The United States of Arugula, a book about the development of restaurants in the US that led me to believe that New York would have gourmet food on every corner. All those convenience stores, located side by side, would be bursting at the seams with exotic vegetables, fruits, spices, and lots and lots of nutty, thick breads with crunch crusts. However, I got here and the grocery stores seemed to me to be like deserts. Here and there a few straggly tomatoes dotted the horizon, some overpriced cereal boxes shading their yellowed leaves, and bad spaghetti packets standing at attention.

On Saturday, Mary Kate, Jennie, and I went to an art show at Red Hook. The kind where you stand around and look pretentious. But if that's what it takes to get around the city, so be it. It's a small price to pay. After about an hour, however, although we had filled our souls with beautiful art, we still found ourselves desirous of more substantial fare than weird installation art and lots of watercolor panels with one syllable titles.

Jennie, Mary Kate, and I wandered across the street where we had seen large signs advertising a market. We delightedly examined the fruits and vegetables we found outside, deciding this was strictly a vegetable sort of place. We went inside the first room, where we continued to stroke and caress the ever-expanding selection of fruits and vegetables we encountered. (Yes, going to the grocery store is a very sensual experience for me). Then we rounded a corner, and lo and behold, paradise opened up before our eyes. It was Trader Joes on steroids. I have never seen such a selection of good food, far better than Costco or Whole Foods or any of those stores that call themselves superstores or whatever. I don't even properly remember their names anymore. This store put them all to shame. Such cheeses! Such huge sides of beef! Such preserves!

We left Brooklyn completely overwhelmed, which probably doesn't happen too often among real New Yorkers. I can see how one would be overwhelmed leaving Manhattan. The colors of this island no longer seem so bright, nor as beckoning. I left my heart in Brooklyn, in the olive oil aisle of that warehouse of a grocery store.

I'm Hungry!

2008-09-06T16:32:00.003-05:00

In every place I've worked before this, bugs have always been a BIG DEAL. The ants, the long ones that crawl in peoples' ears at night, the small ones that sort of just meander from dark corner to dark corner, if anyone ever saw one of those, it was akin to the apocalypse. Exterminators were called in, food was eradicated, every single crumb on the ground was lasered into nothingness, and no one could eat for 5 hours before entering the workplace. One of the most noticeable differences I've experienced this week at my new job is that there are bugs. There are also tons of plants littering every nook and cranny, and then when I walk up the stairs to the 4th floor, I am greeted by a sky-blue colored sheep, and a small model of a humpback whale in a forest of greenery.

Wednesday, after arriving in to Islip late at night and after a full day of spiriting over boxes to Fedex to have them shipped out Tuesday night, I started my job at the American Museum of Natural History. While I can't securely pass judgment yet about every aspect of my job, I do love where I work. Since it was my first week at work, I could spend quite a bit of time wandering through the museum and the different displays.

My favorite African mammal: the bongo.

And my least favorite part about the museum: all the cultural displays with the different ethnicity mannequins. They all look so sad. And unattractive. And so infernally bored with their surroundings that I would sit in front of the cases and just wonder "What did you DO in your past life for someone to design you so miserable and bored? So completely disconnected from your fishing/wedding/bread breaking?"

And so, what the readers can look forward to each week, I hope, is a different display case with my narration accompanying it.

I am really, really hungry now. I'm going to go look for a bite to eat.

Filling in gaps

2008-09-01T01:06:00.001-05:00

After the most harrowing experience I've had in a while, far worse than that time I was going to New Orleans and barely made it, almost as bad as that night when I had to write a 20 page paper in 12 hours and then do my hieroglyphs midterm, my friend Sara and I found an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. I never imagined I would live in a place called this, I always figured I'd end up there after I died, the maître pâtissier in a huge kitchen where lava bubbles underfoot and the faucets spew fire, barking orders at my lizard and dragon helpers, making sure the slugs are massaging the dough well enough and the rats are grinding the walnuts fine enough. Instead, here I am right out of college, starting life in Hell's Kitchen in a city I never though I'd ever inhabit.

In a fitting turn of events, I rediscovered my livejournal in the recent past. The one I kept in high school. The one where I started every blessed entry with something self-derogatory or negative. Behold:

05 April 2004 12:33 AM: this entry is very watery.
21 Mar 2004 09:10 PM: Look! Something more boring than reading my livejournal! (I proceed to provide the reader with pictures)
22 Feb 2004 12:02 AM: hello, one (or all). The week was remarkably unremarkable.

11 Jan 2004 09:50AM: I hate sunday mornings.

There is plenty more where that came from, not only restricted to the opening of every entry. In fact, at one point in my chronicling, I seem to realize that all I ever do is complain, decide I should fix that, and then go right back on complaining. It's like watching an accident happen. I cannot imagine how I did not get bored of wallowing in self-pity and low self-confidence. On an up note, though, even though my mother might not agree with me, she really could have done worse with a teenage daughter. If she was ever wondering where I was on a Friday or Saturday night, without fail I could have been found in Barnes and Noble, apparently. Or playing board games with the neighbors.

Oh, or updating livejournal.

I would be embarrassed if I didn't know that all that angst is just a natural part of growing up, evidently. I was tame compared to scores of other soul-searching entries written by kids the same age as I was, and I am happy that I can read at this and laugh now. Sometimes I worried that coming to college didn't change me an awful lot, that I still predominantly recognized the 15 year old me more often than some sort of a young lady who graduated college with a degree having read Adam Smith and Derrida. However, luckily, this is not the case. I no longer think I am the most awkward or unaccomplished person in the world, and no matter how many doubts I may have about what my skills are, I know I can learn what I do not know just as well as anyone else.

I'm sure if I ever come back to this entry in 5 years, I'll laugh. I'll most likely think that at this point in my life I thought I knew something, and that I did not know what was in store for me. That I never saw what was coming next. This is true, I don't know what's coming next at all, but I just want to write to my 28 year old self that at this point in my life, at 1:03 AM, September 1st, 2008, I am happy with something I have accomplished.

She also needs to know that she should do a better job packing next time around.

Anyone want some roommates?

2008-08-13T17:31:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I went to New York. A few weeks before that, I went to Costco. The two experiences were remarkably similar. When I walked into Costco, my initial reaction was "WhoooaaaAAaa JESUS CHRIST." It was very big, I was very small, there were a million things demanding to be held, eaten, shaken, smelled, bounced, thrown. It was a sensory overload. And I walked through the aisles, wondering WHY I would want a lifetime supply of Caprisuns or eggs. Or egg beaters. Until, of course, I found the GIGANTIC boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats and Nature Valley cereal bars, and suddenly it all made sense. YES, I NEED these large boxes big enough to move into filled to the brim with delicious cereal! Life is good now that I have these big boxes of food!

Going to New York was kind like this. Upon getting on the bus I noticed fat on ladies jiggles in a different way than in Chicago: in Chicago, my experience has been that I nearly bite my tongue off my chest bounces so dangerously close to my chin, whereas in New York I felt like my love handles were really anxious to jiggle. ANYHOW, I get to the city and everything is big, there are a million people, and I am very, very, very small. Chicago is a big city as well, but I feel like it's divided up into neighborhoods designed to still make you feel like you're in just that: a neighborhood. New York didn't really seem to try to hide the fact that it's a big city with millions of people, and that there is always something going on and if you're not doing them all at once then you're not worthy of living there. Chicago's more accepting like that.

The first evening I got there I set out to meet my friend in Battery Park. I don't know who's been to Battery Park, but it was the most confusing place ever. The streets just seem to change names on a whim, West Ave. or whatever it was just feels like changing to Prince St. or something, so it does. And getting to a guide book wasn't as easy as just walking into a Barnes and Noble, since I couldn't find the entrance to the store after 10 minutes of dedicated scanning and wandering.

Armed with a guide book and a water bottle, I started walking around the park to the HUGE office building my friend works in, and noticed that well, fine, everything DID look nice with the sun going down and all the people walking home in the suits and the rest of them just hanging out in restaurants very conspicuously checking out the few ladies in skirts there and oh look, there are all those people walking around the park and jogging with their dogs, and then ah! there's the Statue of Liberty and FINE this is actually kind of nice, and maybe I like it.

So, well, maybe it was just because I had been walking around for such a long time that I was delirious, or something did genuinely click with me, even if it was for just a second, but I thought I could like a few things about New York. I had a feeling I could find my humongous logs of discounted mozzarella cheese and Honey Bunches of Oats cereal, if you will. And so, I am moving there. By September 2nd, which is in around 2 seconds, so even though I want to, I don't have much time to flip out.

I do not think New York is the be all, end all of all cities. I do think it will be an interesting experiment. I'll let you know how it goes.

I just finished making a pie crust

2008-07-12T00:22:00.002-05:00

Three people in the past day have asked why I don't update this anymore. And what better time to answer their question than the present?

The answer is simple: I suppose I haven't felt like it.

I graduated. At the time, this in and of itself may have generated a long, windy entry about what I learned at college, a misty-eyed entry about ending a chapter of life and beginning another. Which all might be very true, but with graduation about, oh, exactly a month ago, I guess I gained a tiny bit of perspective.

That ceremony was not for me, as is the case with most big to-dos, I feel. It was for everyone who didn't get to be a part of my four year college career, and I don't like this because what I went through was not all about graduating. Yes, it was nice to end something formally and with capes that will later come in handy when I decide to make a fashion statement and wear it to a job I don't have yet, but overall, it did not bring me enlightenment, direction, A Purpose. Not that I was expecting it to, and yes, I KNOW that everyone is disappointed with their graduation. I'm perfectly content with mine. I was not expecting bells and whistles, and I did not get them. It ended with a pat on the back, a dinner at Potbelly's, and a stern lecture from The Mother about not having lived up to my potential. Which is always uplifting.

I went to DC last week to visit a friend. My flight back to Chicago was delayed a day (what I surprise), so the end of the day found me back in Lacey's twin size bed, the both of us holding on to the square inch of blanket and mattress we had by the skins of our teeth, which is oddly like the way I feel right now in life.

When it rains it pours

2008-06-01T22:27:00.002-05:00

In the past week, I have been entirely soaked with my clothes on 3 times. Let me count the ways how.

Sunday: After a jog in the middle of the day, it was decided that really, it was entirely too hot to exist in this world. And so with a hop, skip, and a jump, I was in the icy depths of Lake Michigan. Then to dry off, it was necessary to stand on the sandy beach with the hot wind whipping the trash and sand onto me. That part was barely pleasant.

Monday: You know how in My Fair Lady there is a big horse race? With a lot of women in big hats and men in tails? I went to a horse race in Arlington. Without a large hat, but with big dreams of winning lots of money betting instead to go toward a speeding ticket that had recently been acquired by a friend. After betting $10 that Moment of Repent, 9-5, would win 1st place and instead placing second, my hopes of dropping out of college 3 weeks before school was out to become a full time, professional horse better and wiling away the hours at off-track betting stations in knock-off Chanel or Very Tight Jeans were soon dashed and I comforted myself with the fact that while I might not belong at a horse track, at least I would never fit in with a group of people I hope I never fit with.

After the horse races, we all jumped into the lake once again. Apropos of nothing.

Friday: Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing got rained upon. I helped put away chairs while it was raining buckets.

And this is what it's been like recently. Trying to fit things of college into the last bit before I leave it. All of a sudden all the fun things are coming at once and I wish that it had been like this before.

Long Time Gone

2008-05-07T20:12:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks ago it was Earth Day. Or Earth Week. Because days have a habit of turning into weeks in some cases, except for when you really want it to. Like Halloween. Why can't Halloween be a week?

During Earth Week, greening everything was everywhere. There were seminars on how to green apartments, offices, attics, pots, pans, socks, and shoes. There were seminars on how to green anything in the world. And the one I went to was how to grow your own herbs.

Before I entered the seminar, I knew it was a bad idea. There is a small, but strong part of me that wonders every time I buy prepared food if it would have been better if I would have made it, if I could really just sew that skirt, or if I could really make my own spaghetti sauce with tomatoes I grew myself. It is the part of me that I'm scared will one day show up to some corporate firm wearing an apron and wiping her floured hands all over herself.

(Why I would be in a high rise office is beyond me, but there we are)

So I went to this herb workshop with my boss, and upon entering was greeted with the fresh smell of plants of all sorts. Edible ones, ones that sang, ones that would make a turkey dinner and serve it up to 25 guests. It was a veritable rainforest in the classroom, and we were allowed to take the sprig of one plant to start our own garden.

Since I hemmed and hawed about it far too long, and didn't get first choice, I ended up with Cuban oregano. Which I had no idea what to use for, but it is a start. The most beautiful Cuban oregano plant was mine, and I left the seminar glowing. And the glow lasted until I went back to work, where I was told that my oregano plant looked a little...frail. This is because they are not visionaries like I am. I see in the future a place where I will spin my own clothes from the wool of the sheep I have out in the back, where I will milk my own cows and bake everything in the world. And then my Cuban oregano plant will look like this:

2008-04-17T19:55:00.002-05:00

When I was home for winter break, I mentioned here that I saw a car bedecked with "I just got into the University of Chicago!" written all over it. While it was a little bit sad to see that I would no longer be the only Santa Clarita native here at this school (I suppose I am a little bit exclusive), I left a note on the car and restrained myself from writing "You'll be mighty sorry."

In any case, I met up with this girl last week when she was here for prospie day. This is a day all the Ras, RHs, tour guide leaders, and all manner of University-affiliated fanatics dream about throughout the year: the day they get to influence someone's decision to attend this school, whether it be to confirm that they are indeed fit material for this school, or whether it is to make them feel like an outsider.

(Getting in off the wait-list here, I never got the chance to prospie. Which I wouldn't have done anyhow. Adventure is my middle name.)

I remember first year we got stuck with some prospies. I say stuck because the RAs on each floor had to make the rounds begging students to house these prospective people for a night. I remember that the two girls we had were blond, and that's it. I have no idea if they came to this school, if they were tall or short, had big or small ears, or if they had little button noses. They came and they left, life went on, we never hosted prospective students again.

Perhaps to assuage some latent guilt I felt about not being more hands on with these blond girls, I went out to eat with this young lady and two other prospective students she had with her. And as I sat across the table from them eating my grilled portabella mushrooms with them munching on some garlic bread, I decided that I, Adrianna Klara Gyorfi, would try to impart some invaluable insight to these young people ready to set out on their own, something that would begin an informative and critical part of their life. And when I announced this to them, and they turned their bright eyes upon me, eager to soak up each piece of wisdom I was willing to impart (at least, I'd like to think they were looking at me because they were interested. Not because the portabella mushroom was stuck to my nose), the only thing that came to my mind was that there was only 5 mere years separating me from these three people across the table from me, but man. Are those 5 years ever critical.

And I had no idea what to say. Not that I would say anything, I guess, now that I think about it. It was fun coming here without prospie-ing, without knowing what to expect. That was just my style, I suppose I'll let the prospies develop their own.

(I almost went on an end of college reflection post, but not yet. Not today.)

A Nagging Thought

2008-04-01T19:50:00.002-05:00

I was always in denial about being reluctant to accepting change. In fact, I think I went out of my way to assert to people how open I was to change: on several occasions I said that instead of ordering a salad, I would take their recommendation and get the soup, and I was a vegetarian for AN ENTIRE MONTH, everyone. If those are not examples of someone who embraces change, then I don't know what is.

However, I always knew in the back of my mind that the whole thing was an act. A farce. There were examples abundant successfully stripping me of my facade: my unwillingness to wash certain articles of clothing, to change my glasses, to get a cell phone with a camera, or to pick out the three day old piece of apple wedged in between my back molars, for instance. A recent trip to the grocery store solidified the ugly truth.

Our over-priced grocery store, the Coop, was recently replaced with another overpriced grocery store: Treasure Island. I have no shame in admitting that I went at 8 AM the first day it opened to check it out. Lots of people I know camp out in front of shoe stores to be the first people to get dunks or high-tops or whathaveyou. I would do the same with grocery stores.

The store has the same decor as the old one, due to the rushed turnover period, which still took a painfully long time. This was a time with my section of the fridge was embarrassingly unstocked. I was reminded of rationing during WWII. It has the same prices, basically the same articles of food, and many of the same people.

One thing that did change was the location of foods. While the font, size, and color remain the same above each aisle, nothing is where it was originally. The pasta is a full 3 aisles away from where I am used to seeing it, the spices are 2 aisles to the right of where they should be, and the baking stuff is...I can't even recall. Not where it's supposed to be, though.

And I can't even begin on the produce.

This situation led me to become very disgruntled and impatient while shopping, while desperately having to go to the bathroom. So I wandered down the aisles doing the I-am-nearly-incapacitated-with-my-desire-to-use-the-loo walk, trying to find where the thick spaghetti strands were. Not with the Cecco pasta in aisle one, nor with the Barilla in aisle three, and since I was by now aware that different pastas were spread out in different parts of the store, that thick pasta could be anywhere. With the frozen food. With the beef. With the dried fruit. Wherever the fancy so struck the stocker, because it was not with the other pastas.

Treasure Island's catch phrase is "The most European grocery store." Such a hoity-toity claim is completely unnecessary at this point in the game, as it is the only grocery store in the area, and I would go to it even if it claimed it catered to extraterrestrial beings. Or if it said it was smelliest store around. I have no choice. I feel like I can control the interior organization of it, though. From now on, every time I go shopping there, I will move one food group to where it was in the Coop. After all, in Europe they're keeping all those old ruins sticking around that are everywhere. Like them, I'm reluctant to change some things.

Just a small aside

2008-03-17T11:38:00.001-05:00

This is why I think if something were meant to be somewhere, it would have been there already.

(I don't want to do my essay, can you tell?)

One Month Ago, I Ate Meat

2008-03-15T15:08:00.002-05:00

Continuing our adventures together in cuisine and in our relationship, Yennie and I decided a month ago to be vegetarians for a month together. Since some friendly boys made Yennie meaty dinners, Yennie's vegetarianism took a more carnivorous turn upon occasion, whereas, since my month proved to be a lonelier one, my vegetarian diet was easier to stick to as I faced my nights alone and hungry in front of my near-bare pantry and fridge.

While I didn't particularly mind I wasn't eating meat at all, I did mind being a HEALTHY vegetarian at times. Since I was determined to be a healthy vegetarian (none of this eating a half jar of peanut butter to get protein for me, thankyouverymuch), I had to enter the wonderful and weird world of eating grains, wheats, potatoes, legumes, and all manner of different vegetables so I wouldn't get bored with the classics. Several times I faced the dry foods section thinking"OH! This is what I'm eating tonight? Barley? The thing that that horse in the Thoroughbred book series ate everyday? PERFECT!", and since my strategy was to make food en-masse and eat it for a week, if I really screwed something up I was sort of stuck, but overall I sincerely enjoyed the experience. I feel I grew as a person as I can now say things like "Are those lentils you're eating? That plant belonging to the legume family? That provides 37% of your daily iron intake with one serving? Why, how delectable!"

And so, tonight, I am celebrating with making chicken curry and consuming it with friends, with my nose turned up at the salads and the veggies. Tonight, chicken, it's just you and me.

Yet another soap box

2008-03-10T21:40:00.002-05:00

Today the entirety of my Italian class turned against me.

(Except for Emerson Easley. This might be because she was afraid daily poking would turn into punches.)

This happened because of the following:

The teacher walked in and informed us that one of his other students had been held up at gun point on the red line the night before. And I DARED asked who the student was.

This instigated a whole torrent of "THAT'S PRIVATE!" and "HOW DARE YOU!" and "EVERYONE HAS A RIGHT TO PRIVACY!" and "YOU'RE SURELY GOING TO HELL FOR WANTING TO KNOW!" Mostly from the two most self-righteous girls in the class who think that talking back to the teacher/giving attitude/being godawful annoying is a witty thing to do in class. Since we had to explain everything in Italian, I didn't express "I've got a point and Lord in Heaven, please shut up" quite as eloquently as I could have. So before I do some more homework tonight, I am going to take the opportunity to blow off some steam.

I grow weary of this culture of anonymity that seems to be quite popular. Everyone's concerned with keeping their business to themselves, which is quite fine. I've got plenty of business that is mine and no one else's, but then I don't go around TELLING people about it. If that person who got mugged wanted that to be his business, then he should not have told anyone about it. Or he should have told my Italian teacher to not share the event. Because as far as I'm concerned, the minute he told someone this happened to him, he made it someone else's business.

And what's wrong with people knowing who he is? I understand that there are crimes out there where the person would not want others to know he was a victim. I GET ALL THIS. But not in the case of muggings, especially in a place where it's more or less becoming commonplace. The perpetrator remains anonymous, and so does the victim. And the more emails I get saying the following:

"Tall white male in his twenties got mugged at such and such a street at such and such a time by a young man in a hoodie."

The less I am going to care. Generalities have a way of doing that. But when a specific student was killed at the beginning of the year and a name was provided, everyone cared a lot more. Granted, that was a very serious crime, but I could look up the name on facebook and see if I had seen this person around, who his friends were, etc. And this isn't being a busy body, this is being part of a community of people, and unfortunately that sometimes means that you need to know names and other people's business, because that's how you can help them. This is especially applicable to colleges, where the school is sort of intent on building an intellectual/friendly/strong community. It's hard to make one when you don't know the names of people in it, especially the names of people to whom bad things happen, because you can't even support them when they need it most. It will sounds something like "The entire student body stands behind this one certain person whose name we won't tell you in this difficult time." Both parties involved remain remarkably anonymous, no? I can basically feel the love.

And when every day Star and the Enquirer are releasing censored pictures of Britney's lady business and information about Angelina Jolie's alleged phone conversations and tiffs and everything else I unfortunately do like to read, and we don't even know our neighbors' names, it all seems rather odd that I can't even know the name of a person who want some help.

This, in short, is why I talk to people and why I talk about people. There is a sign put out in a window of some alternate religious group near my old dorm that says the following:

Small people talk about people, average people talk about things, great people talk about ideas.

I think that is a rather hasty statement. Because it's easy to talk about ideas when you don't know how to relate it back to people. And where in that statement is the part about talking TO people?

Ah. It's nice up here. Time for something else.

And those two girls don't roll their R's nearly as elegantly as Emerson and I do.

YO!

2008-03-04T22:16:00.002-06:00

So I am updating from home. On my computer. This means two people listened to me at Dell and DHL, and made something happen.

And I'll just go ahead and say that the two people who listened to me were women, which is why anything happened at all. Men just notoriously suck at customer service, especially when dealing with ladies, because I think they automatically assume that we made a mistake somewhere along the line, and so of COURSE everything is going wrong! You just messed with the order of the universe, woman! The DHL woman went ahead and filed a formal complaint for me, and the woman at Dell understood that I needed a tracking number not for an empty box, but one with my computer in it.

Lord. I can't wait until it's Friday.

Why I don't like Whole Foods

2008-02-23T16:40:00.001-06:00

On Thursday I had a major breakthrough while writing my BA. I now know why I become inexplicably annoyed whenever I open up my pantry: because of all the organic food in it. (And because I have no food in it)

I might raise a few eyebrows with that statement, but it’s not the idea of organic food I hate (I took Global Warming, I know we have to make some changes in food production), it’s all the stupid labels Whole Foods sticks on every…blessed…item…in the store. Like they’re saying “Our food is TOTALLY BETTER than your food.” Whenever I open up the fridge or pantry, a herald of angelic voices starts crooning “ooooor-gaaaaaa-nic” and my roommate’s organic pinto beans, organic whole wheat flour pastry, organic quinoa flour, organic albacore tuna cans, and organic mayonnaise start doing pirouettes, while my cereals hides shamefacedly in the back.

I’m not saying I have never bought organic foods. When the price is reasonable, I will not turn my nose up at organic things, but I just can’t bring myself to buy $9.00 butter or $6.00 organic chocolate. I could take the $4.00 I save with un-organic butter and do something better with it like, I don’t know, bribing DHL customer service or using it as floss. I usually just check to make sure my food labels don’t say “lethal” or “toxic” on them, then stick them in the basket and call it a day.

I feel like Organic Foods is just the latest craze, like Atkins. I wouldn’t care if it were organic if only it didn’t have the label on it so prominently. EVERYONE who shops at Whole Foods knows that about 97% of the stuff in there is organic, probably even the paper towels and toothbrushes they sell are organic, or if they aren’t, they shoot out rainbows if they decompose in a trash heap somewhere, so I wouldn’t like to see a label telling me that it’s organic. Because I feel like a great majority of people only go there to show off, saying that they are good people because they shop healthy things, and they buy things they would NEVER EAT simply because it says “organic.” Like organic chicken claws or “organic white wine” that is made somewhere weird, somewhere you wouldn’t think wine should be created because, guess what, it probably SHOULDN’T be put there but by virtue of its being organic they can put the crop into the weirdest places and say it’s good farming, when really, they’re just introducing a foreign species into a place it was never supposed to be. And we all know how well the rabbits worked out in Australia.

And then I start to think about all the electricity, gas, and money wasted on maintaining a huge warehouse of a store like Whole Foods, and shipping all the food over to it, and really, subtracting out the unsustainable farming, we’re basically right back where we started from. Unnecessarily large grocery stores with a huge, uncanny amount of selection and just overall too much food for people who aren’t too hungry but still eat a ton.

NOW I can get off of my soap box and focus on my thesis.

Short People got Nobody

2008-02-19T17:26:00.000-06:00

I said a while ago that I have a habit of making the mundane very dramatic, which is basically why I carry on this blog. Yesterday, I talked about slipping on ice in such terms that it seemed like I was a hop, skip, and a jump away from breaking my neck, or that this is something that should be a national problem. Which is probably why I got a frantic phone call from my mom yesterday afternoon.

I alluded to the current DHL problem on my hands (or, from where I’m sitting, not on my hands): namely, that my computer is at one of their “facilities,” (it’s in quotations because the word implies “facility,” which is synonymous with “ability,” which they have none of, and uh, SERVICE, which I’m not getting) and I can’t get my hands on it. They tried their obligatory 2-time delivery spiel, then left me high and dry with a delivery notice telling me I should call them to get my stuff.

Which I’ve been trying to do for, oh, a whole week now, but whenever I call it is either busy, rings forever without an answering service, or someone answers and immediately says “Hello, please hold.” Today, I was on hold for a solid hour with my zip code branch before I had to hang up because I had to go to class, yesterday was about 20 minutes, last week half and hour. When I called the 1-800 number to talk to a representative, he told me I was probably on hold because I didn’t have my tracking number with me, and he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that I never got the chance to TELL them my packing number BECAUSE NO ONE WANTED TO TALK TO ME. And I had to walk around with a cheesy version of Vivaldi’s Spring stuck in my head, with an accommodating and able lady’s voice telling me how DHL is connecting the world.

While on the phone I multitasked and I wrote an email to DHL telling them about their really crappy service, likening the “on hold” experience to something as long and as painful as what I imagine it’s like giving birth for the first time, and that I was going to stay on the phone for as long as it took to give me DHL a piece of my mind. Clearly, that didn’t happen, since as it’s going to be getting an education that will allow me to have a few servants who will do this for me in the future. It was a little hard to detach the melted cell phone from my ear, but no harder than massaging out the cramp in my neck and shoulders from shrugging the phone to my ear for a full hour.

The reply I got back from DHL involved 4 different modes of apology, including “It is a candid feedback such as yours that helps us find new ways to improve our service.” With no future plan of action outlined for me. No promises of giving me their first born, no free computer, no firing of all the employees at the 60637 branch who, for all I know, might be using my computer to hammer in posters of scantily clad women onto walls, to hide drugs in, or to use as a food tray to eat chips off of while they’re watching Oprah. They are, in effect, saying, “That sucks, man. Want a fry?”

So today, I am dedicating this to all the little people out there like me who are sick of being ignored by the Big Man. I hear you all.

Today was an ok day

2008-02-18T17:30:00.000-06:00

It’s come to my attention that winter in Chicago is sometimes less than pleasant. Actually, sometimes it downright stinks. And I say “come to my attention” because what makes it so unpleasant, the slipping on the ice continuously, is something that I don’t register immediately. The scenarios usually go something like this:

I’m walking. Suddenly I’m sitting.

On Saturday night this was made doubly unpleasant by rain starting to fall when it was still relatively cold. Chemistry has taught me that water will freeze below a certain degree, but what it never bothered revealing was that it is possible for it to rain, for that to freeze, and to never see a flake of snow in the process. So Saturday night, after taking my glasses off to protect them from the rain and walking home, I realized that lo, I had dropped my glasses somewhere. Which meant that I had to retrace all my steps, on the ice, in the rain, without glasses. And I was walking home on a SATURDAY night from a FRIEND’S apartment, which might have meant that my eye-hand-foot coordination skills weren’t so great to begin with. So bent over in half, looking for my glasses in sludge/ice, I did have a couple of accidents. After a bit, I sat down and in front of cars, darkened buildings, streetlights, and strangers I swore that, with God as my witness, that was the last time I was going to fall this winter.

The next day I went curling, which is a sport on ice, during which I took some really magnificent spills. As in for one of them, 2 other teams stopped what they were doing to make sure I was actually laughing and not crying. Right when I got home I fell getting out of the car, and today I slipped a mere 2 times while trying to get a hold of DHL, which is another story for another time.
The long and short of this is that I don’t care about my dignity anymore. I don’t care that I look like a fool when I’m walking, that the only time I am ever graceful is putting my socks on and off, I just want the pain to stop.

Oh, love

2008-02-17T12:02:00.001-06:00

It’s going on around the 3rd week or so now that I don’t have a computer. Before my sister decided that my computer would look better with soup spilled all over it, 3 weeks without a computer probably would have seemed like a big deal. Now I am sort of living the American dream by not having it. Granted, it does make it a lot more tricky to look at all my naughty websites or to spend hours on end looking at blogs or facebook, but I get by. I am counting this as something I gave up for Lent now.

I am in the process of a superhuman push to make myself finish my BA thesis before spring break so that I can ACTUALLY GET OUT OF HERE for it. Which means that Valentine’s Day came and left before I could do anything about it (do anything about it = write a disillusioned post about love, NOT exchange handwritten notes on heart shaped construction paper with paper lace glue-stuck onto it). Linda and I celebrated the occasion by lying on Yennie’s bed while she cooked an actual meal for not just 1 gentleman, but 2! and eating green M&Ms Linda’s roommate mistakenly bought, thinking it was the red, pink, and white Valentine’s Day mix. Little did she know that when the entire package is green with only green M&ms dancing around on the front, it really does mean that there are only green candies inside. Advertising can be so deceiving these days.

So I think this is an appropriate sort of end to this post, somehow. Something to do with the obvious really being deceptive, everything that you thought you knew isn’t really how it is, blah blah blah. And also, things that seem really bad aren’t so bad after all. Like not having a computer for 3 weeks.

I wouldn't like to think airline employees go home at night and think of ways to screw me over, but I have no choice

2008-02-05T23:11:00.000-06:00

Last Friday, I did not wake up with any intention of yelling at an old man. That just sort of happened. What I did intend to do was get to New Orleans, and this is how I will start this long(ish) tale of woe, and by far, hands down, the worst travel experience I have ever had yet.

As some of you know, I went to Mardi Gras last Friday to celebrate the start of Lent. Because 40 days and nights of self-deprivation calls for some celebration. Since I was leaving from O’Hare, I KNEW I was going to be late. So when I noticed I was dragging myself through 6 inches of snow to get on the train to the airport, I didn’t really worry too much about probably being late, because, guess what! It turned out my plane was delayed a mere 5.5 hours at O’Hare.

I knew I wouldn’t be making my connecting flight at Charlotte, since I left the airport at about the time I was supposed to be getting on that flight. But I was REASSURED that I would be put on stand-by for the next flights out of Charlotte, and that I was number 6 on the stand-by list. And that if I didn’t make one stand-by flight, I would automatically be rolled over to the next flight as a stand-by passenger, but most likely higher on the list because SOME of the stand-by people before me would presumably be able to board the flights I didn’t make.

When I boarded the flight at O’Hare, I was asked to surrender my luggage. Which I was loath to do, since I wouldn’t have time to get my stuff from the baggage claim and try to make the first of the several stand-by flights. So with a jolly “Well then we’ll just send it all the way to New Orleans!” and me saying “But I HAVE NO FLIGHT THERE,” my baggage was cruelly ripped away from me. The only feeling I can compare this to is that scene where Dumbo’s mom is separated from Dumbo in that classic Disney movie. It sucked that badly. I was sure that was the last time I’d ever see that suitcase again.

(Why they didn’t ask people who were only going to Charlotte to move their things from the overhead bins to the hold under the plane is beyond me. The airpline probably didn’t ask them to do this because THAT WOULD BE DOING SOMETHING RIGHT.)

I got to the Charlotte airport just as the first flight I was on stand-by for was rolling out. For the next flight I found out I was number 7 on the stand-by flight. Does this make sense? I was number 6 for the 4:30 flight, and then number 7 for the 6:10 flight. When I found out that I was number 17 for the 9:50 flight, I was absolutely livid.

Customer service was not enlightening. When I went to talk to the old man, all he said was “Someone made a mistake.” Duh. I wouldn’t have been at customer service had everyone done their job like they should have. And upon the suggestion that we find this person to rectify this slight oversight, his only response was, while languidly gazing into space behind me, “I can’t find him. The only confirmed flight to New Orleans I can get you on is on Sunday.”

The long and short of this is that I eventually decided to try to go to Jackson on stand-by so that me and a few other people who weren’t making the New Orleans flight could rent a car and drive to New Orleans. While waiting at customer service to be put on THAT standby flight, three gentlemen just barely holding it together were talking to the old man, explaining how they missed their connecting flight in Charlotte because their first flight took off a few hours late because a plane in front of them broke down on the runway and they had to wait for the plane to be cleared away. The old man was saying that delay was put down as weather related and that the airline didn’t have to do anything for them, and that’s when I started to yell, still completely pissed-off that this man was not willing to help me:

“Don’t expect ANYTHING from ANYONE at this airline. No one is willing to take responsibility for any mistakes, when you should be bending over backwards to help me because you even ADMITTED someone at this airline made a mistake and you’re not DOING anything”

Yadda yadda yadda. Boring. With no reaction from him.

The result was that I didn’t get on the flight to Jackson (SURPRIIIIIISE!), and I ended up waterworking my way onto the 9:50 New Orleans flight because I was lucky enough to end up finding THE ONLY employee with a soul in Charlotte. When I was getting onto the flight I gave her a huge hug and kiss and she said “This is why I love my job!”

I think she might have been the only person there who did.

Sort of like a vet

2008-01-26T10:13:00.000-06:00

This weekend I am dog, fish, and cat sitting for one of my TAs. I've dog and cat sitted before, and so far it's been a pretty no-brainer activity, which makes me think I am not yet ready for kids. Because if couples get a dog to see if they can handle it before a child, then I'd most likely fail at the kid thing when I measure out 1/3 cup of a dog food for the baby.

The cat, Nonsense, has diabetes, which means I have to give it an insulin shot every 12 hours. I have a pretty long history of hating getting shots and while I don't particularly mind administering them, I do mind the 2-3 steps I have to take toward the cat brandishing the shot right before I poke it in the scruff. During these 3 seconds, any number of things could happen that could lead to the needle poking right into my eye: I could hit a patch of ice, slip on a banana peel, be knocked over by the small terrier dog they have, have the ceiling cave in over me, or have to itch my eye and unknowingly use the injection to scratch. I have constructed escape plans for basically each of these situations, so I feel like I have my bases covered. Except for if an alien spaceship lands, I still have no clue what I'd do to prevent a serious injury with the needle in that case.

The dog came from a rescue and her name is Ethel. After Ethel Merman. She's a little bit...jumpy, and scared. And very wee. She sleeps in my TA's bed at night after I put her there, and gets up when I take her out. On her walks I usually end up carrying her for part of the way because she doesn't like the snow and starts feigning a limp half way down the street, or just refuses to walk. But she still has to go to the bathroom so I end up putting her down and telling her to poo and pee. Or rather, since I am in college and now extremely sophisticated, to "defecate," and since I (evidently) talk to dogs while I walk them, I end up telling her a lot more.

When I know I'm not going to come into contact with people for a longer period of time and I have to go outside, I refuse to wear anything less than a pair of tights and 2 pairs of pants, plus my sweatshirt, jacket, and earmuffs. Or 2 pairs of tights and one pair of pants, plus sweater, jacket, and earmuffs. So basically, I am very large and puffy. I never really thought about the sizes of dogs until I went on a walk with my dog-walker friend. He said that people look at him with more respect when he is with bigger dogs, as if he were with a REAL dog instead of a toy. I don't really know if this is true. But I guess I know how I'd look at someone who looks remarkably like the Michelin man towering over a tiny, shivering, limping dog and telling it to poo on command.

The high on Saturday will be 10 degrees Farenheit

2008-01-17T23:14:00.000-06:00

I have never talked about body image issues or the hefty-ish (HA!) problems I had to deal with being a twee bit larger than what I should be and the subsequent self-consciousness stemming from this. Why hadn't I talked about this before? Because they are extremely typical and boring, and because it's personal and no concern of yours. And because no one REALLY cares.

I'm happy to say that I'm getting to a point where I don't feel cripplingly bashful around others or angry about what I see in the mirror. This was facilitated not by a miraculous drop in my weight, but more because I grew up and because of this:

Why yes, that is a fully length mirror in my bathroom. (And yes, that is the toilet paper in the most inconvenient location imaginable). I've never had one before. In addition to being forced to see almost every nook and cranny of my body, clad or unclad, which I have never done before this year, nor have I ever wanted to, I have also had to come to terms with how I look while going to the bathroom.

I'd say elegant and contemplative.

Yennie's latest project has also been a positive influence upon this revamping of my body image. Yennie is a page at Special Collections and I think it would appropriate to liken our friendship to a passionate romance: involved and sudden. And who knows how long. It was at the end of last quarter where we discovered each others' existence and that lo, they were pretty compatible. Within a relatively short amount of time we were revealing our hearts' desires, confessing how hard it is to find some of the books in the "waiting to be reshelved" shelves, and our love for leather binding.

It was her idea to go on the "Special K" diet (which I just christened the "Special Kollections" diet), not necessarily because we need to, but more out of curiosity. In this form of self-induced torture and penitential living, one substitutes 2 bowls of cereal for 2 meals and eats the third meal as one would normally, and can consume fruits and vegetables with abandon. One is also allowed 2 Special K bars per day, which measure about 1"x3" and can keep a very small bird alive for half a day. This actually isn't so bad, aside from the cereal tasting more and more styrofoam-like with each successive bowl. I thought this would be a diet we'd keep from others, something that would let us pass significant glances at each other over the photocopy machine and to smile mysteriously at each other while she passed me at the exhibit cases. That illusion quickly dissolved as she brought the costco sized Special K boxes to work and announced to everyone that she and her girlfriend, Adrianne, were going on the Special K diet. This instigated a whole chain of conversation, which led to people I didn't even know in the department coming up to me to tell me they knew I was on the Special K diet, almost like they were telling me they knew what I ate the night before.

One day after work last week Yennie waited for me to get off my shift so we could shop for our fruits and veggies together. As she saw me walking toward her, she exclaimed "Adrianne, it IS almost like we're dating each other! I'm waiting for you after work!" To which I replied "Want to make out in the stacks?" David, a man sitting at the desk then said "You two don't have enough calories in you to make out."

Some Remarkable Things

2008-01-05T00:09:00.000-06:00

One remarkable thing is I am back in Chicago, in one piece, but not before I put up a valiant fight on the airplane, after which I was dragged kicking and screaming down the narrow aisle and into the terminal.

The other remarkable thing is that my friend Rory Kelly has finally updated a blog. I know that that link on the side no one actually clicks on declares that Rory Kelly occasionally updates his blog, but this is not the case. He actually never really updates it. And this is a new one, maybe for the new year? Huh? Huh? Too good to be true?

This new blog also does something very new: while his old blog provided an endless source of entertainment for me, because it mentioned ME about 30 times every millisecond or so and I realize that I could be the subject of a few dissertations and provide endless inspiration for researchers and bloggers alike, this entry gives me rather scant attention. In fact, it doesn't mention me one blessed time. Which means that the blog automatically loses some appeal for me, but may hold more for you. So there it is: a link. Revel in it.

This year's New Year was rung in at Stacy's sister's house with champagne and cow racing on the wii. Or WII? I have no idea how to correctly write it. To which champagne probably wouldn't provide the answer. And New Year's resolutions? I always say I don't make them. I always make a big deal about not making them, since I'd rather make them on my birthday, or not at all. But I'll let you in on a secret: I made one this year. And this year's resolution is to make it onto Rory's new blog at least once.

I REALLY don't want to go back to Chicago

2008-01-01T16:14:00.000-06:00

I thought I had, at one point, written about the joy of getting new glasses. About eye appointments. About how ecstatic I am when I am at the optometry center, but apparently I talked about this joy in conjunction with dentist appointments, because I love going there as well.

Let me tell you now, then: I love going to the eye doctors. Not just because this usually means new frames, but because of all the out-of-this-world, awesome things they can see in your eyes. Like yesterday, my eye doctor looked at the BACK OF MY RETINA. THROUGH THE FRONT OF IT. WITH A TINY MAGNIFYING GLASS. WHICH MEANS THAT HE COULD SEE PART OF MY BRAIN. This is not an everyday occurrence, everyone! I only wish they would make glasses that would make ME see the backs of everyone's eyes.

Yesterday, though, something weird happened. I didn't get new frames for eyeglasses, I opted to go for prescription sunglasses instead, the wisdom of which I am beginning to question now. I remember during the summer saying a bunch of times "I wish I had prescription sunglasses. I REALLY wish I had prescription sunglasses. Geez, it would be really nice if I had prescription sunglasses," and when I went to the optometrist yesterday, after seeing that none of the glasses really had "ADRIANNE!" written all over them, I said "Man, it would be really nice to have prescription sunglasses."

(On a side note, though, the ones that did appeal to me seemed so outrageous that I began to wonder if just maybe I needed to get a stronger prescription. Gold frames with massive amounts of bling on the side? Was I thinking straight?)

This is beginning to worry me because new glasses meant an entirely new me, since I wear my glasses religiously. And yesterday, I decided that none of the glasses fit me quite as well as the ones I have now. What if this means that from now I am going to be that person who wears the same glasses forever? What if I am stagnating? What if the next step is that I decide that I am entirely happy the way I am right now?

I don't want to go back to Chicago, really

2007-12-28T14:32:00.000-06:00

This Christmas I accidentally wrapped some peoples' presents in wedding wrapping paper. My mom is really into the gold and white Christmas, as opposed to the red and green Christmas or the red and green and gold Christmas, so I just blindly grabbed at whatever was on the wrapping paper shelf. Apparently, my mom also like the white and gold Weddings, so some people were reminded over Christmas in gold cursive writing that "A Wedding is a beautiful fulfillment of love."

This year's Christmas gifts seem to have been overwhelmingly kitchen-themed for my friends and I. Stacy got a vacuum cleaner and a waffle maker, I got knives and a crock-pot, and salt and pepper shakers, there is a picture of my friend Julia lovingly caressing her 7-cup food processor, and some other people got things like a chocolate fountain, a pancake-puff...thing? pan? and a pink spatula with some other mixing things. This is most likely happening because our parents are realizing that we are graduating and are going to have to feed ourselves. On a side note, my mom still thinks I don't eat. More than one of our phone conversations have focused on food, and what I have eaten and what she has eaten, with her giving out a detailed description of how she made the pasta she had for dinner that night and ending with "I'm just telling you because it was good!", translating into "I am just telling you this because you should cook this." So come September we'll all be clueless but at least we'll all have great cooking supplies.

In one week I am going back to Chicago. This year I am positively dreading the return in the face of everything I have to do. I am going to live this week up.

I'm going to forget about this if I don't post it now

2007-12-23T01:41:00.000-06:00

I already talked about how I genuinely enjoy reading the question forums on www.wordreference.com because I a. can learn some more foreign words from there and b. it's pretty funny and revealing.

The same goes for recipes. I love reading recipes when I'm stressed out because there's something really relaxing about reading how to make an orange sauce or that one may instead want to substitute some wheat flour for some of the white flour. The reviews of the recipes on epicurious.com provide an endless source of entertainment for me, with some of the reviewers modifying recipes until basically only one original ingredient called for in the recipe remains, and THEN the reviewer gives the recipe four forks.

This is the following exchange I saw for a recipe for a shortbread base:

nadiat
Usually Gourmet's recipes are quite specific, so I'm surprised that they did not specify the temperature of the butter. Should it be room temperature? Chilled?

12/19/05
buddy7744 from Madison, WI

In response to the review from nadiat, you use the ingredients as they come (in this case cold UNSALTED butter from the refrigerator) and the crust recipe turns out fine. I have made the pecan bars many times with this crust and have always gotten rave reviews. Perhaps you need a bit more cooking experience before you send in a bad review of a good recipe.

12/08/06
cassellie from Philadelphia

Response to Buddy7744 for his/her response to Nadiat's post. Nadiat asked an honest question. The option we have to review or to comment is to help fellow cooks/bakers. There is no need to belittle someone or to somehow elevate yourself as a "more experienced" cook. There was nothing negative about the question, but it is noted that we are invited to post comments, positive or negative... Presumably without being insulted for doing so. Let's keep these reviews in the spirit they were intended to be and let no one ever feel they cannot ask a question for fear of ridicule.

It's very rare that people are at each other's throats on epicurious. But with a little imagination I can picture the be-aproned housewives standing in front of their computers with meat cleaver in hand, narrowing their eyes in suspicion over "Alphamom from Denver"'s half-butter half-lard suggestion instead of their time-tested habit of using only lard.

Should I be worried about this?

2007-12-22T23:20:00.000-06:00

Every year I've been writing in this blog, I think I've written about buying the Christmas tree. I feel like there was always something unique about how the Christmas tree got to be standing in our house, decorated, and in one piece, like I had had to fight rabid monkeys at the Christmas tree lot to get it, or like I had to gnaw it out of the ground with my teeth because I didn't have a saw. Alas, this year the Christmas tree purchase was remarkably smooth. My sister and I went to one lot, found a tree matching my mother's exact requirements in height, weight, breed, and blood-type, put the tree in the car, and went on our way. The only unusual part was when I brought out our Christmas tree stand with last year's tree trunk still on there and the tree man couldn't get it off. So with a broad wink and a demonstration of true Christmas (tree) spirit, he gave us a new stand for free.

In case I don't make it back to this blog before Christmas, Merry Christmas. If things don't start to pick up, I'll just write back here tomorrow to complain about how the butter didn't cream properly or something.

Christmas Spirit

2007-12-21T15:55:00.000-06:00

The washing machine repair man is supposed to come any minute now. The window is 1-5, and it's probably around 2 right now. I am getting to be pretty much an expert at this window business, what with having to have the dishwasher man come in Chicago about 3 different times. Only to discover that we'd been using the wrong sort of soap, but no matter, that has been discussed earlier.

Even though I know this is the only realistic way to schedule such appointments, I am still not a huge fan of time windows. I need specific times. These people are telling someone to wait 4 hours who will probably want to know down to the last second when to expect to go into labor or when the weather will change. During these 4 hours I could be doing something else! Like sleeping! Or going to the mall for the 9th time this break!

This morning I drove some friends to the airport and drove their car back to the SCV. This car is a Cadillac something or other. It doesn't matter what model exactly, the word "Cadillac" should immediately trigger a vision of a huge monster of a car. Cadillac, yacht, rocket, small country, they are all synonymous for me considering my rather petite height. This is the type of car that, ahem, OLDER people generally drive because the usual convertibles EVERY good Californian drives at 85 mph threaten to blow their wigs off and to disarrange their false teeth. And because you never know when you're going to have to use your car as a battering ram or a submarine in California.

I had a hard time reaching the gas pedal because I was basically sitting in the back passenger seat (my friends are quite a bit taller than me), before I realized that everything I ever would need in my life is found on the armrest of the door, including a shower nozzle and a heartbeat monitor, in addition to the seat adjuster. So I was able to drive home without being in a fully reclining position.

On the way home my mom and the owner of the car kept on trying to call me for various reasons, which I can't handle. I am an excellent multitasker: I am able to sing and drive at the same time, I am able to listen to how Macy's has EVERYTHING I might ever need for the holidays and drive, I can dance and drive, I can cough and drive, I can snap and drive, I can breath and drive, I can blink and drive, I can cross-stitch and drive, I can do long division and drive, but I cannot cellphone and drive. I know my limitations. By the end of the drive, when people were calling to ask EXACTLY when I'd be home, I thought I should give them a time window for my arrival: the back of the car would be arriving a half hour after the front of the car reached my town, and I'd be getting there sometime between that.

At Home

2007-12-20T23:06:00.000-06:00

Being at home has been nothing short of exhausting. A long round of eating and sleeping interspersed with some stretching. This is what winter break is for! This is nearly as bad as my first winter break in college, where my schedule went something like this:

Bed: 2 AM
Awake: 10 AM. Eat. Go back to sleep until 3 PM.

As always it's been sort of nostalgic being here, surrounded by stuffed animals and old friends. The screen saver on this computer adds to that, and I have no idea if I've ever posted these pictures on here, I know they were somewhere at some point, but here we go.

Some Baby Adrianne Pictures. With Some Stacy.

I am going to say that these are probably the cutest picture of me ever taken. A minute after the pictures were taken I entered my awkward phase which lasted until...oh...I'm STILL awkward, but I'm in Hungary with my sister and neighbor. The one in the middle is the Hungarian neighbor. You could probably tell this because she isn't smiling, because people do not smile who live in Hungary.

Well, at least Stacy is cute. And the doll. I really like my tie dye shirt.

I don't really know what's going on. It looks like maybe I was constantly smiling and decided that the smile has been on my face too long and I'm trying to pull it down, or that I was frowning and decided that I had to manually put a smile on my face. Oh kids.

I bet when I was singing I was also emitting a weird whistling sound through that HUGE gap where my front tooth used to be.

Stacy is so cute it hurts. And I think that is the fakest smile I have ever seen on my face.

The girl on the left won "Miss Photogenic Santa Clarita Valley" 2 years ago. I think the judges were a little hasty in their choice.

SLEEPOVER! And I look slightly...drunk?

We all wish you a Merry Christmas!

Legitimate Happy Post

2007-12-15T17:55:00.001-06:00

I got back to SUNNY! SO WARM! HOT! California last night. The first thought that entered my mind when I got off the plane was "...it smells so clean and fresh here." This is because in Chicago, I think the air just smells old, as if it remembers the 1871 fire and it hasn't circulated since.

I went to breakfast with the one and only Stacy, and in the parking lot of the place we were eating, I saw a car that had "I got into the University of Chicago!" written all over it. This makes me a little sad. Although this might be a little delusional, I thought the school was a sort of well-kept secret, especially from this suburb. It was a sort of bittersweet moment for me, what with me graduating soon and someone actually genuinely being excited to get in with apparently early action. So the way I handled it was to go over and write a note on the car, and to resist the urge to write "Hope you won't regret it!"

It's odd being home. I've never realized just how suburby this place is. I am going to go outside now. It's 73 degrees outside, WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE IN FRONT OF THIS COMPUTER!?

Give you what you want

2007-12-01T16:30:00.000-06:00

Two different people asked me yesterday why I only write about sad things on my blog (i.e. me eating moldy bread and the really unglorified, mundane minutiae of my life. I guess I'll tell you right now here that I cut my finger with a bread knife and it hurts a lot). This is because I treat this like the news channels on television: I write the news here, and all the news shown on TV is bad.

However, I guess I can update with good news:

Last week, it was discovered that the reason my dishwasher hasn't been working for 2 whole months was because we were using soap that wasn't supposed to go in automatic dishwashers.

Finals

2007-11-30T01:26:00.000-06:00

It's 1:26 AM. I just tried to eat a piece of bread that I noticed was moldy only AFTER I had eaten a portion of the mold. And I just finished eating a frozen piece of pumpkin pie.

My life has hit rock bottom.

Oh my lands

2007-11-28T21:07:00.000-06:00

I have a locker at the library I use regularly, as in once, twice a day. I use this locker to store my ~~drugs~~ books, and, I reiterate, I use it REGULARLY. But when I got to my locker to open it yesterday, I found I had completely forgotten the combination. I tried every number combination that came to mind, and finally gave up and went to go ask someone my locker combination, and the combination they gave to me didn't seem remotely familiar, even though I was well aware this WAS the combination, since it opened my locker.

This is the state of my brain: it has just randomly decided to delete pieces of information in order to store important bits of information, like say, what Paris Hilton was wearing on Tuesday. I am not going to be surprised when it Ctrl - Alt - Delete's EVERYTHING in there, which will most likely come before my Chinese Art Final.

Always Me

2007-11-16T00:49:00.000-06:00

Have you ever had a radiator bust its cap on you? Ever? I have a big presentation coming up on Monday and while this is scary, the radiator blowing up on me was enough to put the fear of God in me.

Where: My bedroom
When: Evening
How: I was sitting around, writing my essay, when I said to myself "You know, I think I would like the heat on a little higher." And so I started to twist the radiator cap and before I knew it, with a magnificent "POP," I was holding the cap in my hand and there was an Old Faithful geyser fountain of hot steam blasting forth from my radiator. And I really do mean Old Faithful when I say it. Within seconds I could not see anything in my room.

This is about the time that I screamed, grabbed my computer, and high-tailed it out of my bedroom.

My bedroom was a bonafide sauna in no time at all, and shortly afterward the fire alarm was set off. After several minutes, Old Faithful exhausted itself and I was able to go back in to open the window and to sit and ponder how I manage to do these things.

I am impressed by the soup I made!

2007-11-06T19:22:00.000-06:00

I used to have this hope that one day I would sit down in front of an empty word document and suddenly fully formed, coherent sentences would be flowing through my finger tips and onto the word document. My fingers would not be able to keep up with my thoughts, everything would be SO in place! I would type, type, type, with a goal in sight and every sentence would just line up to prove a point that would knock everyone's socks off.

Correction: It's not "I used to" it's "I still have," but I only think that before I actually sit down in front of my computer. Once I'm there, it's pretty obvious that I will not have the problem of my typing keeping up with what I'm thinking. Because it's clear I am thinking nothing that could be put into my BA thesis.

One would think the years and years of education would have taught me otherwise. I guess I remain a hopeless optimist, though.

The Birthday Blog

2007-10-30T23:13:00.000-05:00

I'm 22 today. I actually prefer the Spanish or Italian way of saying my age: I have 22 years. Much less an identification by age. It's more like a characteristic, like "I have blond hair" or "I have warts." This year's turning-of-age was marked by a burning desire to dress up as something...anything!...for Halloween. Or rather, the weekend before Halloween. I had:

1. A box
2. An apron

I settled on being:

3. A gypsy. Without the help of the box or apron, but with the fake flowers plucked from the mystery plant with tissue paper flowers tied on its branches on 56th street.

The actual birthday day is marked by birthday essayage. It's occurred to me that since my birthday is around midterms, of course it's going to suck as long as I'm in college. So that is nothing new.

Since writing about 19th century architecture theory is sort of taking the joy out of life right now, I have decided to do something new for my birthday. Something I rarely do: I have decided to list 5 things I am ok with about me because hey, when else would we celebrate this if not on the day I came into this world to share myself with you all? I spend 364 days out of the year critiquing myself, I am going to spend the remaining 3.5 hours writing an essay I don't want to, I am going to spend 5 minutes at least being grateful for being what I am.

Ok, maybe 5 things is too ambitious. Let's make it 3.

1. This might be really obvious and typical, but I am really happy I can find faults in myself. And that as a result I can see progress between turning 18 and turning 22. I've enjoyed, in part, assuming the role of a sort of detached observer at times and taking note of how I think I'm changing.

2. I like that I am not too timid to strike up a conversation with anyone. I have played the part of the third wheel on awkward dates or been invited as the happy medium in between 2 groups of strangers, and sometimes I feel like my calling lies here: in being a buffer between natural and awkward.

3. I like that I can't stand dirty bathrooms. A bedroom can be disorganized, a kitchen have all the cabinets open, but bathrooms must shine, SING, be a harmonious chord of clean and sanitary.

And with that, thanks for the birthday wishes! Happy Halloween!

Yesssss

2007-10-23T00:36:00.000-05:00

Today I finally had the breakdown I knew was long overdue. I knew it was coming soon, since I had some terrible nightmares the past three nights in a row, which were like this in summary:

1. A friend got engaged to his girlfriend who then committed suicide
2. I went to meet with my BA advisor and didn't have any of the readings done. She was less than overjoyed.
3. Someone got a hold of my credit card information and started buying things willy-nilly on ebay

So I have quite a lot on my plate for this week, BA and midterm wise. I have to have 10 pages of my thesis written, which isn't really too much, but when I consider that some other people in different departments haven't even started thinking about theirs I get peeved. That, plus a Chinese art midterm I have to start studying for in earnest 2 weeks ago lead to the following today:

I went to Italian class to find myself completing an activity dealing with imperfect and past tense verbs in which a story was begun ("One day I was in the house and it was very pretty outside...") and a partner and I had to finish up the story with an appropriately exciting ending. Like "...and then we ran into the river filled with alligators while screaming bloody murder and throwing mozzarella balls!" Only the best we could come up with was something like "...and then we went into the house to eat and do homework." And so my partner (another 4 year who has to hand in a huge chunk of her thesis soon) sat for about 5 minutes while other (younger) students came up with fantastical endings for the story, smiling indulgently at their youthful enthusiasm over learning a new language.

It was after 5 minutes my partner and I realized that the characters in the story were already IN the house, so they couldn't possibly run inside again to eat and do their homework. That would call for a rather existential experience. And then we lethargically tried to come up with a different story, but the best it got was "...and then we ran outside. And then we ran back inside to do our homework and to eat." And after we decided that was ok, I realized that I had written about mozzarella cheese for my Italian composition to hand in that day, and that I had just spent 10 minutes modifying the verbs "to go" and "to eat" to create something for an assignment, and the only thing my partner and I had energy for was this. In the face of what I have to do for the rest of the week, this struck my as absolutely, mind-blowingly funny. So that by the time it was time for my partner and I to present the end of our story, my partner and I were laughing so hard we couldn't talk and I had to put my head under the table to compose myself for the rest of the class.

I am past whining on here. Which might be bad, since, as my friend put it once so well "I'll start worrying about you when you stop complaining."

Worst Housewoman Ever

2007-10-18T23:58:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in my previous entry, the kitchen sink seems to be on the blitz. I have dealt with many a sink in my time, from disassembling one to get out a ring this summer to just doing the normal run-of-the-mill unclogging the drain act, but this kitchen sink is determined to make all my efforts to reason with it come to naught.

So in this apartment I'm in now there is this pretty snazzy looking dishwasher. I have never, ever used a dishwasher before. In fact, if you put me in front of some of the newer models, I'd probably think it was a college student's bedroom, that's how alien they are to me. I went through this summer blissfully doing all 3 of my dishes by hand because I had a whole...3!...dishes, and I never saw the point of running the dishwasher for all! 3! of my dishes. (Granted, until a while ago I didn't really see the point in a regular mattress and bed frame, so my taste in lifestyle is definitely dubious. The only glass flatware I owned were 4 wine glasses. I had my priorities straight). And Michal Lynn might have had 2 dishes, so between the 2 of us, we couldn't really even fill the sink if we wanted to.

Then Tina came and along with Tina's big heart was attached about 800 different sized cups, plates, bowls, and mugs. Suddenly our sink was constantly filled with many a mysterious plate. It's around this time that the dishwasher started to look pretty snazzy, and we tried using it. The suds started leaking from the dishwasher really early into the cycle and although I'm not really familiar with dishwashers, I gathered that if I wanted to dishes to get clean inside, those soap suds should stay inside instead of carpeting the kitchen floor.

So we determined there must be a mysterious clog in the sink and the fact that the garbage disposal isn't working is also something that is hindering the progress of our dishwasher. I have poured down 4 whole bottles of Draino. The water from the faucet now leaves the sink at lightning speed, it barely leaves the nozzle before it is sucked down into the drain, yet our dishwasher continues to let suds out like nobody's business. This is why I hate a lot of fancy gadgets.

The only thing I have left to try to get the dishwasher to work is to stick my head down the sink and seeing if maybe the garbage disposal only works if there is a college student's head to grind up. This totally seems worth it.

Who am I kidding?

2007-10-18T00:26:00.000-05:00

The other day I received this email from the library:

Dear Adrianne Gyorfi:

The item you recently recalled - "Standing in the tempest: painters of the Hungarian avant-garde, 1908-1930" - is, according to our records, already charged out to you. Please let me know if you believe this to be incorrect.

Ben Nelson

Customer Service Assistant

Joseph Regenstein Library

bln@uchicago.edu | (773) 702-8701

P.S. How's it going?

My friend, Customer Service Assistant Ben Nelson, assured me that this happens around 3 times a day, and really, I shouldn't worry too much about this, but this nevertheless is but a small window into what is going on in my life. You'll note I did not recall Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix or The Devil Wears Prada. Nooo, this is Standing in the tempest: painters of the Hungarian avant-garde, 1908-1930, a book where "tempest" is only included because the author was sitting at his Microsoft word document at 3 AM the night before he had to hand off the last chapter of his book to his editors and he sat there thinking "HOW can I make this more interesting? There's GOT to be a way for me to spice this up! I KNOW! I'll put the word 'tempest' in! Everyone enjoys a thundering gale from time to time!" I can only hope that this does not happen when I am writing my thesis. Only instead of making the title include the word tempest, I'd just write the story of what actually happened to the Donner party way back in the day.

So yes. Not much going on here. I am staying up to Draino the sink. Such is the stuff life is made of.

meeeeeeh

2007-10-10T23:45:00.000-05:00

Today at work I got electrocuted by fiddling around with the exposed wiring in one of the exhibit cases.

A Decision

2007-09-27T22:16:00.000-05:00

I just decided it would be a shame if I neglected this blog as I have for the past several weeks for the rest of the school year. It's gotten me through 3 years so far, it probably will get me through 1 more, which is more than I can say for some pieces of IKEA furniture. So here it goes: a concerted effort to be more consistent.

Last week I started working at the Special Collections in my library, shoved into the final push of setting up for an exhibition. Which means a lot of caption making. Have you ever thought about what goes into making those labels on walls next to pieces of art? Those small, unassuming, innocuous little pieces of paper most people ignore and tell you what's up about the art? No? I always assumed they were printed directly onto the board and then put up without much to-do about the whole thing. SO WRONG. It involves sweat, blood, sacrifice, x-acto knifes, pins, hot glue guns, and the occasional armed, escaped criminals. After the 3rd day of x-acto knifing I noticed there was something wet all over my hand. Oh! I said to myself, I guess I just popped that blister I got from holding my x-acto for three days straight in the same manner!

And then school started.

So the exhibit is up, school's started, as has Dancing with the Stars. In spite of the massive amount of stuff I have to finish for my BA for Saturday (like, oh, figure out what I will write?), life is looking pretty good for the time being.

A Return

2007-09-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

I always thought that being the proud owner of a busted-looking passport would mean that I had had, at one point, an awesome vacation or that I had lived on "the edge." That the passport had followed me out the hatch of a plane 3,000,000 feet above the ground going at 7,000 mph while headed directly for the summit of some mountain, that it had accompanied me while I jumped out of burning buildings, or that it had been with me while I fought my way out of quicksand. Even though I continued to be the owner of a stubbornly crisp and flat passport, I had amazing vacations which I do not have to describe at this time.

I'm happy to say that since surviving Costa Rica my passport has assumed an entirely new form, due to being soaked through at least 2 times. You see, after getting the world's most ominous talk upon renting a car with Diana from the rental car manager who made it seem as if we wouldn't even be able to drive out of the parking lot without totaling the car and that it was a done deal we'd get something stolen from the car, I decided to carry my passport with me at all times, even ~~when I went on a guided tour through a cloud forest at night~~ when I went diving with at least 75 sharks in pitch blackness with an open, bleeding wound, without a cage or an oxygen tank.

(Beat that, Indiana Jones)

In any case, I can now proudly present a more or less thoroughly wrinkled passport to the officials if I ever have to cross borders. And if any of them ask what happened to it, I'll tell them it fell into the toilet.

In this post, I give away the end of a book

2007-09-04T19:51:00.000-05:00

Before I leave for my travels each summer, my friend Rory and I usually go book shopping where he recommends for me several good books and I try to scare up one good book that I've read that isn't from high school or isn't entitled something like Nancy Drew and the Mystery of Lilac Ranch. I usually leave the bookstore with a magnificent selection of books that I can hardly wait to begin, and he leaves with books he doesn't care about. This is one of the differences between creative writing majors and art history majors.

This year, however, was different. This year, I didn't go home to be sheltered in the literary wing of Rory under the glow of the Barnes and Noble lights. No, I had to be content with a hurried recommendation via phone as Rory hurried off to some concert, and he got no book recommendation at all because my reading material for the summer looked something like Winslow Homer: Artist and Angler, Winslow Homer, Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation, or The Watercolors of Winslow Homer, none of which I believe would appeal to Rory Kelly.

This year the book title I was able to weasel out of Rory was As She Climbed Across the Table, which I went and bought the other day and finished in about 24 hours, not because it was good but because, ala The Perks of Being a Wallflower, it was that bad and I figured it should be like ripping off a bandaid. Just do it in one fell swoop. The book was littered with obvious metaphors that would drive the point home without a shadow of a doubt (which I hate) and with nearly every sentence I felt like I could see the author sitting at his computer thinking "This sentence is going to be beautiful because I am going to create a beautiful image in it using beautiful words." It felt like it was being written for high school students whose sole purpose in being in a literature class (and therefore, their goal in life) is to find the allusions, alliterations, imagery, metonymy, and so on and so forth, in a book.

To spare everyone the time, the book is about a physicist who falls in love with a man-made universe called Lack. Her boyfriend tries to win her back, but in the end what happens is he crawls into Lack, becoming Lack itself, and the physicist girlfriend ends up crawling into Lack because she's still in love with Lack. The boyfriend BECOMES Lack, ironically becoming what he lacks and what the girlfriend wanted in him! DO YOU GET IT? The metaphors and messages can unfortunately be carried in such a fashion to no end. And I know bad plotlines shouldn't bother me, but what bothers me is that someone can publish a book and then have the back filled with reviews reading "An oddball tour de force" - Entertainment Weekly and "Lethem is opening blue sky for American fiction... He is rapidly evolving into his own previously uncataloged species" - Village Voice Literary Supplement. How did Lethem open up American fiction? Can we now expect books to be published where all the literary techniques will be included in captions after the period in a sentence or hints like "Now think about this with the big picture in mind" will be peppered throughout a page? Where the reader will not have to think at all? I suppose since people are getting lazier in general and maybe since Cliff's Notes doesn't do EVERYTHING, yes, Lethem did open up new, bluer skies for American fiction.

With that said, the basic idea of the book is interesting because it does have a new universe. And with THAT said, NOW go and read the book.

I am going to Costa Rica in the morning, armed with a different book that unfortunately has scenes from a Major! Motion! Picture! plastered across its cover. I won't even bother going into what I hate about books like that.

The Life of the Temporarily Unemployed

2007-08-31T17:15:00.001-05:00

This past week I've only gone back to visit where I used to work twice, and have only baked for those people once. The latter was only accomplished by superhuman restraint, as you can tell from the contents of my refrigerator that it took effort to actually get normal food in there and not just use up the ingredients I had to make a million batches of muffins or blueberry cheesecake. It is hard to be a woman and a baker, but it's even harder to be a woman and not a baker.

During one of those days at around 9 PM it dawned on me that I had not yet talked to a human that day. That is when I decided it would be the perfect time to call up Dell technical support and order a new keyboard to replace the one that's been broken for over a year, a phone call which required me to be on hold longer than I talked to an actually person. Which means that my spacebar no longer has to be pounded with a hammer to do its job, and my "Ctrl" and "Alt" keys each have designated coverings.

I think it was about one year ago where I was stuck on my island and dealing with a similar situation: namely, being entirely alone after daily being surrounded by people. It's odd. But definitely welcome.

My roommate left me for Nashville

2007-08-24T09:31:00.000-05:00

Within the past 2 days I have been entirely soaked in the rain 3 times. Only one of those times I didn't really mind because I could go home right away, and ironically that was the only time I should have minded, as that was when I went out to run a quick errand without a bag and an exposed cell phone. I don't think I need to finish that story.

This past Wednesday was my last day working at the Art Institute. I have until next Monday to figure out a way to deal with all this extra time on my hands. I guess with all the extra time on my hands I should go grocery shopping, seeing as I had a serious, almost deadly baking bug in me for the past 2 weeks during which I actually spent parts of the night on the kitchen floor, and the edibles in my apartment consist of remarkably sustaining things like powdered sugar and cake flour. And LOTS of blueberries. However, I did not realize this until I was actually in my apartment for more than 3 waking hours and I wanted to eat something. I opened the fridge and was confronted with this:

Promising, yes? But then I decided to clean it, along with a spill that has been there since the very first day I moved in, and was left with this:

There are three boxes of blueberries and three different jams there. 2.5 packs of cream cheese, and different things. And after cleaning, I didn't even have the stain anymore. Dinner, yes. And it took me about 10 weeks to realize that I did not have food, and that Michal Lynn evidently subsists on air as well.

Interning at the Art Institute has been a bit like my fridge, only the opposite. I've realized I've been left a bunch of great things, like some pasta or chicken, instead of bare bones, or rather, cream cheese. Excellent! I have carried over the metaphor! There were those days I felt like I was wading, where I wondered what it was that I was doing, but that comes with every job I think. So overall, it's been an entirely different summer from what I normally have done, but it's been enjoyable nonetheless. I learned a lot more than I did in sosc, that's certain.

And pictures:

The west vault. You pull drawings from here, but on occasion it's nice to just go in there and sit in the dark.

One of the cakes I made for Prints and Drawings. I was going to reproduce a Degas pastel with blueberries on there, but one can only do so much with blueberries.
The study room, where all the action happens

View.

I can't really make a proper, coherent review of my time at the Art Institute, because right now all that goes through me when I try to talk about it is "wowireallymissitthere" but one day it will come.

That might also be the day when my spacebar gets fixed.

A matter of odds and evens

2007-08-17T21:17:00.000-05:00

I don't normally get excited over music concerts. I rarely plan on going to one months in advance, I have no clue what the actions of the bands are out there, what venues they play in, or they will play in. I do not own a single shirt with the name of some band written across it, nor do I own posters of bands. This is due in large part to growing up in a household where one could not listen to anything but classical music, and even Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald were frowned upon.

(By the way, what is hip-hop? Rock and roll?)

So this is why it was an absolutely new sensation for me to realize I was hankering after going to a Gipsy Kings concert. My version of rock and roll. They are playing at Ravinia, the outdoor theater, as we speak, and will be playing tomorrow as well.

Because this is such a new feeling, I didn't know how to deal with it. My first instinct was to go online to see how much tickets were. Do you realize what the situation is? Because my love for them runs quite deep, my pocket might as well, but the tickets that are reasonably priced are only sold in pairs. While I would possibly consider paying an exorbitant amount for the tickets, how much fun would I really have? The point of going to Ravinia is to sit on the lawn with friends and a few bottles of wine and snacks while talking or, once the bottles get emptier, wild dancing. And who do you know you likes the Gipsy Kings who would pay for tickets? (That actually might not be a rhetorical question, because I still really want to go.) Since I have no unconditional love of a significant other who would follow me around anywhere my heart desired, saying "I wouldn't normally do this, but since it makes you happy, I will do it for you," and since I also do not I have a friend who would turn a blind eye to the ticket price, even the lower priced ones, I am left to contemplate the hard life of solitary fans. Maybe this means I am friends with the wrong people. Which would definitely not make my previous inquiry of who knows Gipsy Kings fans merely rhetorical, because maybe I should do a serious end-of-the-season cleaning out of the figurative closet of my friends so that I'm not stuck in meaning-of-life-questioning dilemmas like this.

This afternoon I went to Trader Joe's and my cashier asked if I had any big plans for the weekend. After a moment's deliberation I launched into this story. At the end, he just asked "Dixie Kings?" Which, I suppose, means I should nix the plan of striking up friendships with complete strangers in the hopes they also have an unadvertised love for the Gipsy Kings.

I finally went to Hollywood Video

2007-08-12T10:34:00.000-05:00

My recent life can be divided into a series of failures and successes. Not that my life in the past years couldn't be, but it just so happens that lately it lends itself to this sort of analysis particularly well. So here's a short rundown:

Success: getting ALL the lights on the upright wireless device to work. Nay, actually getting the upright wireless thing in the mail at all is considered a paramount accomplishment.

Failure: not getting the 4th box with the midbeam at IKEA on the first trip because of extremely poor prioritizing on the part of IKEA directions.

Success: Putting together the bed after a late-night visit to IKEA and getting a brand! new! mattress! The novelty of the mattress affected me in such a way that I was 45 minutes late to work the morning after I slept on it for the first time.

Success: putting together a nightstand

Failure: what in God's name are all those pictures suggesting?

So as you can see, life is sort of putting itself together despite the failures while continuing to be rather haphazard in spite of the successes. This upcoming week is my last week at work. A major success or failure is in order.

Let's all welcome someone new

2007-07-22T17:25:00.000-05:00

7 lbs. 9 oz. = the size of Stacy's new nephew, who was delivered after what seemed to me to be an epically long labor.

I cannot wait to ~~munch on the little adorable thing~~ see him. Congratulations!

Just one of the perks

2007-07-21T12:12:00.000-05:00

Working at the Art Institute, occasionally you come across stuff like this when you're reading through the archives:

Friday morning some vandal knocked the nipples off the breast of your nude,
Americana, and slashed the belly with a knife.
Fortunately the nipples were found in the trash in the floor and can easily
be put back in place.

Sometimes, there just isn't a delicate way to phrase things.

Let's just call this untitled, shall we?

2007-07-20T13:05:00.000-05:00

This week I had to write blurbs about Jasper Johns. The artist. I didn't really know too much about him until about the first week when I got here, when the following occurred:

Mark Pascale, Mr. Modern Prints Man: (while sprinting up to the second floor, clearly super excited about something) Anyone want to see the new Johns?
Me: We got new bathrooms upstairs?

In any other context, this could have been slightly less embarrassing. However, in a room full of people with phds in Art History and where they regularly say things like: "...and in this print here you can tell that the artist used tusche wash to smudge, and then used a tusche-dipped cheesecloth to stamp the linen, and with this it's clear that the artist is exploring the dark side of human nature," you learn real fast.

I finally ordered internet for the new apartment, which means that internet life might return to something that it was before. I make no promises, however. I promised myself about 5 months ago that I'd get a real mattress, yet I still find myself getting read to plop down on my air mattress every night. So promises? I can promise you that I will continue to make myself look like an ass.

I am, in fact, still hanging in there

2007-07-13T13:18:00.001-05:00

Considering my present state of health and mentality (very poor and overwhelmingly disillusioned, in that order, and, in fact, interchangeable), I probably shouldn't update. What I should do is sit back and let this page remain blissfully blank, but the two people who read this were worried about the great big silence that has overtaken this very small corner of the web.

I'm busy. I feel incredibly uncreative. The last opportunity I had to be creative was Tuesday when I was faced with the following conundrum: how to squeeze a full sized mattress into the narrow opening of a car. The answer is to fold it.

So, for now: work. This weekend: stay tuned for the creativity to unfold.

Where in the world is Adrianna?

2007-06-23T20:28:00.000-05:00

I hope you all realize that whenever you read my complaints on blog, you have to take it with a grain of salt. I enjoy a bit of theatricality. My mother and sister do not understand this, even though they are way more theatrical than me. After not calling my mom back the day she left a message, I got several frantic messages from her varying from the very angry/"SO HELP ME GOD I WILL DISOWN YOU" to concerned/frantic to wondering what clothes I would like to wear in my casket. And my sister echoed these messages, only adding at the very end "Oh, and mom wants you to call her." So it runs in the family.

I'm living in my friend's apartment until I can move into mine. My friend moved into her parents' place for the summer. This might come as a high price to pay for air conditioning, but then again I did stand on the bus on the way home last week and realized that it looked as if I had peed in my pants. And I had to walk home like this. Maybe my priorities are switched around after all, but I have no reason to complain about the heat. Two summers of mindblowingly sweltering heat without any air conditioned buildings in the vicinity has toughened me.

I've got several roommates in this apartment, insect and human. As I've said before, I don't really mind insects. However, the situation in this apartment lead me at the start to go to the bathroom clutching a can of Raid and multitasking while performing various other duties. By the second day I had a small little battlefield of dead/dying roaches, one of which was dying for over 12 hours. And did I do anything to put it out of its long, agonizing torture? NO! In fact, before I got Raid I was pouring anything over the buggers with the "Keep out of reach of children" label on it, and entertaining the idea of setting them afire after they were sufficiently coated with rubbing alcohol. Unnecessary? Maybe. Theatrical? Definitely.

To further illustrate my point that college students, that sometimes put up with a couple of unnatural phenomena, let's turn to my friend Michal Lynn. She lives in what could potentially be an adorable apartment with two boys, one of whom is quite odd. When over there one night, I heard him asking in a voice bordering on irritation where is drying fish bones were. The bones of that small fish that had died in his fish tank. I mentioned potentially adorable, because it's things like drying fish bones lying around the apartment that keep it from achieving its full potential.

Oh, and also mouse patties. Mouse patties are definitely a hindrance.

Returning to theatricality, it would be interesting to develop a few theories as to how it became so immensely flattened. Did someone try to have a mouse patty in his hamburger? Did a person stomp on him? Maybe it was dropped from a great distance. I am clearly not the only person who at one point entertained alternate methods of disposing with unwanted roommates.

Shaking Things Up

2007-06-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

This week has been long. Loooooong. That “long” should be read during the span of an entire week, 9-5, for you to get a feeling of just how long this week has been. I like what I’m doing at The Art Institute, even if some of it does fall under the category of “seemingly minute yet oh-so-important” work, like cataloging artwork in the database. Which involves the occasional research, like today when I had to find information about an art dealer whose name wasn’t even established, and reading through French (why is French so important? Why doesn’t anyone care about ravioli? What is it with the brie?) books to figure out states and editions of prints.

The other side of it is helping out with recreating lost colors in Winslow Homer watercolors. I would tell you more, but I would have to kill you.

The other shaking occurred in housing. I had to move this week, which happened in the space of about 2 hours on Wednesday.

Moving also means that I will have to somehow have to say bye to Mary Kate and Julie as roommates. They have been the most constant people in my lives for the past 3 years. They’ve seen me at my very worst, at my better times, with my head in the toilet, out of the toilet, when I purr, when I’m too moody to purr, when I’m happy, sad, mad, sleeping, awake. I can confidently say they are the only two people in existence who know the true content of my iTunes music library. Within the first week of living together first year, our RA wondered if we knew each other before college. Nope. We just had personalities in which our humor would build on each other until sometimes it nearly spiraled out of control. We just clicked. Plus, we were all almost the same size. I’m a wee bit taller.

However…

HowEVER…

(there is always a “however”)

Not everything was perfect all the time. Yup, we were that 00.0001% of college students in the world who had problems as roommates. I still don’t know exactly why there was always tension at the end of the school years, but I think it has to do with limits. You seem, first year I entered college too eager to make sure that people liked me. Which means that as a roommate, I tried initially to be very accommodating and doing things I would not normally do, and then you try to go and turn things around after months of pretending to like something differently. It’s hard. It makes you feel like a fraud. So then instead of talking I would sulk which, as everyone knows, solves all ills. And get increasingly frustrated.

I’m not shouldering the fault all onto me. I already blame myself for enough. I am convinced that my existence is responsible for chemistry, but I recognize I am a difficult long-term roommate. I get along with strangers and friends well, because limits are clearly defined, but how do you combine friendship with people you want to do their own dishes and take turns taking out the trash? Where you want everything to be fairly divided in close quarters and you can’t help but keep score in really, really meaningless things?

This blog post, I suppose, is to say what I don’t know how to say to Mary Kate and Julie in person, because I’m very, very bad with saying how I feel with people I’m close with and who mean a lot to me. Public display of affection has always come easier to me than sitting down and saying “Look, so this is how I REALLY feel…” And even if they never read this, maybe someone will and tell them how Adrianne is crazy about her old roommates, Mary Kate and Julie. Because at the end of the day, despite artistic differences and all, there were no other people I would have preferred to go home to at the end of the day to let them see my deep and burning passion for Dancing with the Stars and to just sit in the Armenian chair at the eating table with my feet on the chair, spinning around, complaining about every living creature on earth while sarcastically holding a running commentary during Queer as Folk. Or with whom I would have talked about the complications in my life I did actually choose to share with people, or done the floppy man or Center Stage moves for.. Sorry about the snags that came with being my roommate. But when all’s said and done, I remember more the times when you guys would make me laugh so hard I’d cry instead of the times I’d get annoyed over the head hairs hanging on the wall of the shower. For better or worse these young ladies have changed me, I've done a lot of growing up with them, and I don’t know how to properly thank them.

So just in case you see them around, tell them that Adrianne might seem a little distant now, but has something really important to tell them that she just doesn't know how to say in person. You tell them that, I'll take care of the hugs. Thanks.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

2007-06-10T10:03:00.001-05:00

I haven't updated for what would qualify as A Very Long Time. This is because Finals happened. I know this happened from my powerful deduction skills.

Proof:
1. The kitchen sink looked like this most of the time

2. By the third straight 8 hour+ day in the library I thought it was appropriate to pop one of the blisters on my feet, and then to actually describe the consistency of the pus and show off my sore to Michal Lynn. So really, not updating was to protect you all, because I probably would have ended up talking about something gloriously inappropriate, like boogers.

So school's ended. That means I can't complain about homework anymore, but I can complain about a myriad other things. Like moving. I am starting my job tomorrow at The Art Institute, and I would give you more details about the job, except when I went in for training then the lady explaining everything to me was sitting at the far end of the table and I felt embarrassed to keep on asking her what exactly I was going to do because I couldn't hear what she was saying.

That's it!

Marine Machine

2007-06-02T16:03:00.001-05:00

Last night I went over to my friend Linda's house to help her put her stuff in storage before she left for Marine bootcamp today. When I had called at noon to see if she was ready to perform the grand move, she had said that no, she still had to finish her paper and do a million other things. At 8 PM, the situation was exactly the same, only she had ordered dinner. Whoever says college students aren't productive is a liar.

I got there and immediately I felt like whatever I said was The Thing to Do. Linda, get your stuff out for bootcamp. Linda, throw away all your papers. Linda, stand on your head. Linda would submissively comply with all these things while our arms churned like windmills through clothes, papers, books, bedding, boxes, and lotions. I thought it was absolutely hilarious she was relying on me to motivate her into moving, since my current tactic to moving is to not unpack from the previous time you moved. Which is why I still have a ton of my stuff in boxes and why they're all on top of my desk, which has probably been opened a total of ten times this year.

By 11:30 we had basically finished putting everything into storage, and sat down with a bottle of champagne to figure out what 4 unarmed liberal arts majors could do to get rid of a bed. Without the correct tools, we didn't have the option of disassembling it and without a chainsaw or an axe, we weren't (yet) sure how we could break it apart. Carrying it down the narrow hall and even narrower stairwell wasn't an option. So as the champagne bottles got emptier, the solutions became increasingly creative, such as pushing it out the window, burning it, breaking down the wall to get it out, or eating it. Finally, brute strength was the answer as we started twisting it like clothes being wrung out. Only since Linda's room is only slightly larger than a matchbox, the whole process was conducted by us contorting ourselves into increasingly odd positions to actually break the wood that was holding everything together. Making a bed to be broken the way that we broke it was truly the apex of IKEA design and ergonomics.

This morning in the lobby of the library I ran into Linda looking extremely disheveled, panicked, saying that she was supposed to have left a half hour ago but still had to print something out. She left with "What am I thinking! What am I doing!" That's not really an easy question to answer. But after seeing her rip into her bed last night to break it apart like a gladiator, I think I can safely say that the Marines had no idea either what they got themselves into when they accepted her into the program. I fully anticipate that by the end of the summer the Marines will be called Linda's Legion and she will come back to school in September with their anthem being a remix of Justin Timberlake and all members being required to own one pair of spandex glittery shorts. Semper Fidelis? Sexy Forever.

A Moving Day

2007-05-31T00:55:00.000-05:00

Reviewing today, these were some of the things that inspired me to do some things:

This picture inspired me to
1. WASH my hair and to TRIM IT SOON because it looks like ONE HOT MESS right there. And it also smelled like one. Do you see Michal Lynn's face? It's like "I smell something...I don't know what it is...but I think I'll lean a little bit away from the stench..."
2. Not be friends with petite people anymore.
3. Wear my island pants outside, since she wants a pair and she's a talented seamstress and designer, so if she likes them, then hmph, I don't care what everyone else says

1. Continue taking Italian
2. Turn off the flash in outdoor settings
3. Not to ask complete jerks to take my picture who would understand that a car is not an appropriate backdrop in any picture
4. Once again, to not like petite people. Ever. Under any circumstances.

1. To slam my head repeatedly into a brick wall

Very Short Post

2007-05-27T10:56:00.001-05:00

My dream last night involved criticizing someone's eating habits at a business casual dinner. The business casual packet has evidently backfired.

Long Day at the Office

2007-05-25T02:09:00.000-05:00

Since several years ago, I have more or less made friends with insects. This happened in Hungarian Scout Camp, where there were enormous, skinny spiders scampering all over the place. After a while, I just didn't even notice when they were crawling all over me in my sleep. If it's true that you eat 8 spiders a year, or your lifetime, or something (it involves the number 8), I must have eaten 15 during this time. Long, skinny spiders. Sort of as a substitute for spaghetti, because when at Hungarian Scout Camp, you don't eat spaghetti. You eat MEAT and EASTERN EUROPEAN THINGS. So MEAT and SAUSAGE. Up to this point in my life, I had an unholy fear of insects in me, to the point where I'd look on the curve of the toilet bowl and in the toilet bowl to see if one of the spiders my mom had flushed down there was not crawling back up to finally get the revenge he dreamed of on his way down the drain.

In any case, since then not many insects have phased me. Spiders? Meh. Bees? Meh. Cockroaches? Me...eh. I can deal with these things, and part of it is that I survived Hungarian Scout Camp. The other is that, well, I'm basically a Grown Up now.

Last week at work, I noticed that there were a few bugs here and there. They weren't cockroaches, but looked remotely related to them. It looked like if you gave them a hamburger, side order of fries, and a milkshake they would baloon into bonafide cockroaches, but they weren't much to worry about. My boss, however, would interrupt phonecalls by running out into his adjoining room and smashing them with his shoe, bellowing "BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG BUG," nearly frothing at the mouth, and then return to the phone with an apologetic "Sorry, there was a bug" to the person on the other end, just in case he hadn't heard the crunching of the exoskeleton.

I had seen a couple of these little things, but hadn't thought it worth the trouble of jumping out of my chair and rabidly run toward them with a newspaper to kill them. They were just there, no big deal. Yesterday, when I was working (with my shoes off) I kept on feeling something tickling my toes. I figured it was just a hair or something until I looked and I saw these little suckers running around my feet. Then I decided that ok, fine, I should just kill the things, and when I went to dispose of the bodies, I rounded the corner of my desk to see that there was a veritable little colony of these guys hanging out, lounging on couches, watching tv, and asking for beers.

My boss has been in Paris for the past 2 weeks, so I didn't have anyone to complain to. I haven't yet performed the mass execution, but I don't know how to go about it yet. Electrocution? Hanging? Use the guillotine? Torture first? Give them a trial? Because if I've learned anything at this job, it's that there is nothing tiny, seemingly insignificant enough to not spend at least an hour on.

Conundrumed

2007-05-22T17:25:00.001-05:00

A quick Google search of "oxymoron business casual" results in around 10 pages of most likely people ranting about the booming business world and all that it entails. I choose not to add to that list, since life is already full of oxymorons that no one seems to rant about. Like nondairy creamer.

As you can probably tell, I had to go to a "business casual" dinner yesterday for the program I'm doing during the summer. At work I quickly googled "business casual" to see exactly what it meant and if it would be throw-on-able in 15 minutes. Khakis - which I no longer have and button-up shirt - all unironed. Which left me with 2 choices: a leotard or a dress/skirt.

I arrived and realized that most everyone had read no further than the "business" in "business casual" and there I was, bright magenta toenails exposed exposed in a sea of suits. It was only when we had broken up into smaller groups that the lowly liberal arts interns came together and I realized that they were the ones who had seen the "casual" in business casual. Ah, HERE were my people! The girl with the patterened Keds shoes and the boy with the cape! And since misery likes to hang together, during the crucial, life-changing "networking" session we had, we just sort of milled around together like farm animals waiting to be called to dinner.

In the meantime, we carefully reviewed a packet we were given about how to be a stellar intern. A large section of this was devoted to dress and to eating at business meals. And while the packet would impart such important, inevident advice like "Do not dunk your food into a beverage" or "Never call attention to the dining mistakes of others or be overly apologetic about your own," it also left us hanging with recommendations such as "dress for the position you want." What if you're working at a bank but really want to be working at Starbucks? Should you still dress like a barrista? Huh? What then Mr. Business Casual?

And so the rest of my "business casual" dinner went without anything else unusual. Aside from the tasteless chicken being served on plastic plates with plastic cuttlery, it was nearly like eating at home with my now-solid "network" of people around me.

So it's now that I think I'll laugh at my 12th grade art teacher's prediction that I would one day work in an office. Maybe. But since I am currently using quotation marks around every word remotely associated with the business world. As if it were a different language. "Deutche Bank" translates into dumplings.

Because we can't bear to be separated

2007-05-16T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ah, spring. That season of flowers, surprise warm rain showers in which I feel perpetually damp and I can't tell if I'm sweating or actually just moist from the rain, and of course, the season of love. Of all sorts. In abundance. Sort of like bugs. Which we have. I decided to substitute love with bugs this year.

And this was a decision. Not a situation forced upon me.

Last year when we moved into this apartment, we had a minor bug problem. By minor, I mean that there were flying ants covering almost absolutely every part of the room, and for lunch I would simply reach out my hand, grab a handful of them, puree them in my hands, and swallow them. But then the pesticide man came, and this situation:

Became a thing of the past.

Bugs, I find, will come no matter what. Even if you do or don't clean the bejeezus out of a place. And while I'm currently using the toilet brush as a toothbrush and I just picked my dinner off the ground and rolled it around in a dust bunny for flavor, I wouldn't particularly say we're living in complete squalor. Nevertheless, the bugs have decided that they might be interested in taking up residence with us, and their giving our apartment a trial visit at the moment. They are still coming in small groups, but I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before word gets out on the street that we've got a pretty *sweet pad* and they'll be arriving with their extended family and lots of baggage.

Which led to the following last night:

No, not that Gwen Stefani is sleeping in our apartment. That we moved Mary Kate's mattress into Julie and my bedroom after Raid-ing her room to high heaven so that we could all huddle together in fear.

(Yes, no need to point out the obvious: I am STILL sleeping on a boat of an air mattress.)

My mattress was actually overlapping Mary Kate's after I reinflated it to its full glory, and that's how we spent the night. Can you feel the love?

And Rita, just say the word. I am ready to lead a revolution of the pants.

BACK

2007-05-14T23:16:00.000-05:00

A few things I did recently while entirely sober:

1. Buy Mortadella thinking it was cheese, when it was clearly listed under the "Specialty Meats" at the grocery store
2. Smash my head against the refrigerator entirely by accident
3. Wear shorts to the gym

All these things could be explained a little easier if I had had a small bit of ~~very cheap~~ the finest caliber wine in me but alas, I have no excuse. Especially for #3. I have not worn shorts since the last time I bought a pair during the summer after 10th grade in St. Louis when Abbie and I anxiously examined our burgeoning waistlines expanding with gooey butter cake and gallons of smoothies from the student center at Wash. U. We went to Target to buy shorts so that we could exercise. The shorts I bought were from the 4th of July blow-out sale. My shorts have a star on them, and has USA proudly printed in red, white, and blue underneath in some glitter crap.

I wore the shorts during that summer once to play tennis. I gained over 10 pounds.

There are few things in the world that belong less together than Adrianna and shorts. Pickles and ice cream is one of them, and me in skinny jeans is another. We just don't fit together, metaphorically and physically. I could go into why we don't, why the ONLY ACCEPTABLE PARTS OF MY BODY ARE MY HANDS, but alas, this isn't a therapy session.

What also didn't fit recently was Looptopia in Chicago. Ala White Night in Paris, Chicago decided it would try to have a "dusk til' dawn" deal, and pretty much failed. Not because it wasn't a good idea, A for effort, but simply because the people and the place are different. What started as a good idea ended in a messy cabal of pushy, frat-like drunken people vying to get into buildings or content with unaffectedly bellowing in the streets. In Paris I think mayhem would consist of well-aimed crepes and berets being shot around, but here it was just drink. And lots of people.

Some things are better kept on Europe. If something doesn't work out, they can just go with the excuse of "Well, we've got thousands of successful years of history behind us, what do YOU have Chicago?" And while Sears Tower and Trump Tower, along with Henry Hobson Richarson, Frank Lloyd Writght, and Louis Henry Sullivan architecture is unbeatable, I'm afraid we don't have Swiss chocolate or REAAAAAAAAAAAAALLY good mozzarella cheese.

(I sound like such a tool right now. Let's see how you'll feel after what you see what I like to wear when I get the chance.)

What else belongs to another world, consequently, are these:

These, ladies and gentlemen, are the infamous "islandwear" pants. Pants I felt entirely comfortable walking around in among hippies, girls whose hair was all shave except for three long, thin tails on various parts of their skull, and who were indiscernable from men when lounging topless on beaches. If I wore this around Chicago, I would either start a major trend, or would not be allowed on public transportation.

These pants are great.

Here they are undone. As you can see, the idea is that you put them on, then fold and tie them over. A one-size-fits-all deal, leaving plenty of room to eat tons and to stick a small child into the pouch on your tummy if you're a marsupial, and then cover him up.

These pants, while wonderful, loose, comfortable, and hide absolutely all flaws you might have on your lower half on account of looking like a large potato sack, do not go with several things.

With high-heels? Formal islandwear outfit? I'm afraid not.

Maybe rainboots? Perhaps if I'm planning on leading some sort of a revolution.

No, these pants belong to a different time and place. With an outrageous tan and flipflops, and where people don't know your name.

Nevertheless, who would still be my friend if I wore these around campus?

Ciao!

2007-05-06T23:24:00.000-05:00

I was extremely close to not setting foot in the library AT ALL this week. Nay, not even just the library. Campus! However the gods (I'll blame them, seeing as I have no one else to blame), sensing an overwhelmingly relaxing and nonchalant attitude emanating from my apartment, decided at 7:30 PM on Sunday afternoon that it was high-time I mosey on over to the A-level to work on a project with Arnaldo Rafael Jose Vera Arroyo.

That is his full name. And he only lets you talk to him if you say that 25 times very quickly before you begin addressing him. You have his permission to be very jealous.

This weekend will definitely not take the prize for Most Eventful Weekend Ever during my Thursday night Pancake Proceeding. You might wonder what the Pancake Proceeding is: it's something I am very reluctant to call a tradition, or anything, but for the past 6 weeks some friends who I don't normally see during the week have been coming over Thursday nights to witness what might be the only time Adrianne uses a stove during the week while she makes sometimes failed, sometimes ok pancakes that aren't American but which aren't Hungarian enough to be called Hungarian. And then we sit around, people politely washing down my creation with copious, rather, miniscule amounts of wine or whatever else is about.

And then we talk. Or gossip. Whathaveyou. With the celebrated Linda Muzere usually taking home the prize for The Most Eventful Weekend of All of Us. You think you had an exciting weekend? Linda had a more exciting one. You think you can dance? Linda can dance better. You think you can breath well? Linda can breath better. The only way I could have a more riveting weekend than her would be if Gumby or a unicorn turned up on my doorstep and we went out together.

Anyway, one of this weekend's major highlights was going to a movie with someone whose name I didn't find out till the next day. Friday evening I went over to a friend's "open house" where A Girl voiced her desire to go to the movies and I invited myself along.

In any case, a new week! New opportunites! Fresh slate! Have a nice Monday!

Almost Over

2007-05-03T19:20:00.000-05:00

Today, after handing in my last essay, I went to my Problems of Modernism: 1913, class. I was pretty tired. This is what I wrote for one of the sentences of my notes:

The artists are attempting to soak some of the others' art through naughty candy

Naughty candy? That came out of NOWHERE. The rest of the sentence might seem stupid to you, only the teacher actually talks that way, and I find him to be so amusing that I write down everything he says. EVERYTHING. Even the sweet jokes he cracks. Even when he ended the lecture with "And next time I will show you MORE pictures of naked men!" Except for the "naughty candy" part, the rest of that sentence makes sense to me, but there was no way he said "naughty candy" at any point in the lecture.

This week has been an absolutely rip-roaring, spine-tingling, rousing, sensational adventure roller coaster ride of a week filled with essays, midterm, essays, essays, essays, midterm, and oh, what the hell, why NOT another essay?

Ok, so maybe that up there is a wee bit of an exaggeration.

Everyone have a really tablecloth evening. I mean nice evening.

Full Circle

2007-05-02T19:08:00.001-05:00

I re-met David today. He is not Ivan.

Day of let downs

2007-05-01T21:33:00.000-05:00

I met Ivan today. He is not David.

Bruce, I tried as hard as I could to use your idea for a thesis statement. The best I could manage to eek out went something like "Even though X appears confident in his writing, he actually isn't." I think it's acceptable.

Way too old for this

2007-04-30T21:33:00.001-05:00

Even though it's 9:33 PM and even though my Spanish midterm is due in a mere 13 hours, I cannot bring myself to rewrite what I already have. I sent my TA a draft on Saturday, a whole 24 hours early, and while still on a literary and latino high for having accomplished this, he wrote me back something to the effect of:

"Well, Adriana *virtual pat, pat, on the back* you'd better sit down for this..."

Because, from what I gather from his comments, he desires me to write something that I haven't done since HIGH SCHOOL. One of those essays I churned out like a machine at the end of 11th grade 3 times a week during our in-class essay writing sessions. One of those essays I'd begin by writing down 3 literary devices and 2 allusions I could make to other celebrated, important literary masterpieces (like Nancy Drew or The Babysitter's Club), and I'd finish with some great conclusion to go out to lunch at Jimmy Dean's with my friends to talk about how mean all those girls are and how weird that one guy is. Is this what he wants? Does he want me to walk in tomorrow several pounds heavier, many degrees shyer, and saying "cat-uh-stofe" instead of "catastrophe?" To write essays that have sentences like "The author incorporates simile to blaaaaaaaaah blaaaaaaaah blaaaaaaaaaaaaah"?

Well, all right. I'm sort of a sucker to get a decent grade anyway. Plus, the TA DOES have very nice skin. I'll just listen to some Bright Eyes, part my hair directly in the middle, and wear my awesome hoodies to get me in the mood.

Taking a Break

2007-04-29T19:17:00.000-05:00

On Friday when I had my Spanish writing session, my TA with the astonishingly flawless skin walked in and, his eyes alighting on my beaming face, said something like "Adriana, you always look so HAPPY! I always see you walking out of the library with a huge smile on your face!"

I'll go through the reasons I've had to wear a huge smile on my face that day

1. The conversation I heard right before that class that went something like this:
"If you put me in the middle of the forest alone, I could survive. I was raised on organic food."

2. Receiving not 1, not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5!!!!!!!! coupons!!! on my receipt from CVS!!!!!!

3. I did laundry on Thursday. Which means I don't have to wake up to the desolate realization that I will indeed have to wear a pair of socks I've worn 5 times before yet again. Gone are the days of pretending my clothes are clean!

4. The very action of leaving the library

Today, I have no reason to smile. I feel like I've been in the library forever and I can't leave. Somehow clean socks just aren't cutting it today.

Hum

2007-04-26T19:30:00.000-05:00

Everyone has at least one relationship like the following: you see someone so often that you just start saying hello to each other because why not? You always make eye contact, you always smile at each other, you might as well do a small little "Hey" along with it.

Well, I have a few relationships like that on campus, except my particular problem is that I always feel like I know them because I have a terrible time remembering faces. Last year when I was riding in the elevator with a redheaded boy and my roommates, I had a pretty long conversation with the guy as if I knew him. After my roommates and I alighted, they asked how I knew him and I told them I had met him last year when I overheard him talking about being on the frisbee team and I asked him a few inane questions. They said no, that was not him and courtesy of Facebook, we were able to confirm their suspicion: redheaded boy in the elevator was indeed NOT redheaded frisbee boy. Which means I had held a pretty long conversation with a complete stranger. Thank God Jake and I are now friends and that there aren't so many redheaded boys at school. So I can now freely go up to any redheaded boy and start talking about my underwear of the day and it would be a pretty good chance that it was Jake.

A similar phenomenon happened to my yesterday. I was walking when I passed by a boy I thought I had met through my friend Arwyn. Someone who I keep on seeing around campus and we keep on smiling at each other, but never actually say anything much because we don't remember each other's names. This time I just stopped and said "OK this is getting ridiculous. I don't remember your name and we keep on saying hi." So we introduced ourselves (Hi, I'm Adrianne, Hi, I'm David) and we went on our merry ways.

Later in the day I greeted Arwyn with the great news that guess what! David and I are practically best friends now! To which she replied with "I don't have a friend named David." To which I said something like "I have PROOF that you have a friend David, lo and behold, here is a picture with you and him." To which she said "That's my friend Ivan."

Which means that yet again I have introduced myself to a bona fide stranger. And I won't know if I'm saying hello to Ivan or hello to David.

Luckiest Day Ever

2007-04-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

As you might be aware, after being in that Art class for about 0.0000000001 seconds, I dropped it and added Problems of Modernism: 1913. This class is taught by the jolly, German, and very intelligent Reinhold Heller, and I like it.

A few weeks ago he mentioned that we were going to have a take-home midterm, and that he was giving it to us Thursday instead of Tuesday, and we'd havea whole week to work on it. So I waited for it.

And waited.

And waited some more.

On the way to class today I decided that we were getting the midterm THIS Thursday, because I enjoy talking myself into things. Like that my final is at thisandthis hour on thisandthis day, and that I'm arriving at thisandthis airport. That's JUST HOW I ROLL, and you've got to love it or hate it for the time being, but I'm planning on changing it. This planned event might be occurring next Wednesday at 2:30, but I think I'll have it Friday, just for the hell of it.

So I got to class, and I wasn't THAT surprised when I heard that the midterm was due THIS Thursday, and that he hoped everyone had received his email last Thursday. I just turned to the girl next to me and tugged at her sleeve with my eyes and mouth wide open, unable to utter a sound. And I spent the entirety of class trying to figure out excuses for why I hadn't gotten the midterm. My computer exploded. I had a major brain fart. I am blind. Because I couldn't just go up to him and tell him "Look, I think I'm not registered for your class, even though I clearly remember handing my pink slip in to the registrar to get into it, and I haven't noticed for the past 5 weeks."

At the end of class I settled on something like "I'm so dumb. I'm really sorry, I didn't have access to the CHALK website, so I assumed you didn't have one, and I didn't get your e-mail because I think there's a problem with my regsitration. Love me, please."

After he calmly listened to my explanation, he benevolently agreed to an extension, and that I go clear up stuff with the registrar. Which I dreaded, because registrar means RED TAPE and ADMINISTRATION and ALL MANNER OF NIT-PICKY PAPERS.

I got there to explain my problem, and was told that if I had the carbon copy of the pink slip, it would be no problem to re-register for the class. That's when my mind went into a tailspin, because this paper is smaller than the standard 8.5"x11". And it's thinner. I asked them if they didn't keep a copy of the pink slip, because I gave that to them, I know I did, and the lady pulled out a huge box of pink slips and said that yes, they're all kept, they just don't happen to be organized, and I should be her guest if I wanted to look through all of them.

I was pulling out my notebook, idly flipping through the pages, telling her "Look, due to the mind-boggling amount of papers I have this quarter, if the sheet is smaller than 8.5"x11" I'm not keeping it unless it's gold plated, has a disco ball and spotlights attached to it, regularly dispenses money, or unless it plays a recording of 'Billy Jean'" when lo and behold, on the very last page, there it was: the hallowed blue slip.

I nearly peed myself. Luckiest day ever.

I stink at titles

2007-04-23T22:30:00.000-05:00

I guess without me even realizing it midterms have come around. Well, I did realize it this morning when I turned in my art history essay and reviewed all the stuff I had to do for this week and for the next, which I'll complain about later. However, I've got no energy for that. I am really tired. I feel like I normally do on Fridays, on whose afternoons I usually just crash with a great thud on my bed (Bed? I mean air mattress) in whatever article of clothing that is nearest to my hand at the moment that is clean and doesn't require too much eye-hand coordination to put on. Which means I emerge sometime later to embarass my roommates in front of their friends because Adrianne, that shirt actually had 12 buttons instead of just one right in the middle of your chest, and yes, we all love your underwear.

So today, what requires the least amount of energy on my part, is contemplating a couple of things.

1. Why are there urinals in the ladies' bathroom in a certain part of the school?

and

2. Why don't I ever have songs stuck in my head anymore?

Number 2 came about when after I seeing Volver Friday night my friend told me how he had a song stuck in his head and he could not get it out. I then tried to remember the last time I had one on repeat in my head and I couldn't find an example from the immediate past.

I vividly remember times in elementary school when each day I would wake up and decide that I HAD to have a song stuck in my head. That song would be the theme of the day. Beach Boys would be a care-free sort of day, Celine Dion would be a romantic sort of day, and Seal would be a sort of profound day. This would also lead to things like math problems being thought through like "So if there are 13 roses sitting on the grave and you multiply that with 2 kisses, what do you get?" Many hours were also amiably spent with "Hot Cross Buns."

Or I would have church songs stuck in my head. And there is NOTHING WORSE than having "On Angels' Wings" stuck in your head on a Thursday afternoon.

So what happened? Why don't I ever have songs stuck in my head? And what makes a song stay in a head? Whatever I have in my head now is because I put it there, or because I got to it after following a million tangents through my unorganized thought process. Does this mean I am a highly developed creature or is my friend, a math and physics major, still a degree or two more advanced than me, because this guy is a lot smarter than me?

Oops

2007-04-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

Basically we had a grand plan for Julie's birthday: we were going to leave Chicago. We were going to get away for the day and visit Indiana, which, if I were still living in California, I would laugh at the very idea. I would think that it was a super-lame idea. Indiana? But since living in the Midwest for almost 3 years now, it sounds pretty awesome. It sounds grand. It sounds almost like it's the Mecca of the Midwest, like it's the promised land. Obviously, my perspective has changed a lot.

The long and short of it is that we did not go because we got the train schedule wrong. So instead of hanging out at the Indiana sand dunes, we were forced to lug our cooler to a much less awesomer place and look like a typical Midwestern family out enjoying their local park and mispronouncing Gucci and bag. But it was a very nice day nonetheless, but with this nice day came a horrible realization when I was ready to get to bed at around 3:35 AM:

The day was REALLY long. It felt about 4 times longer than any day I spend doing homework in the library. Which is disconcerting because I was having a great time, but then why did it feel so long? It felt like the day was 48 hours long instead of 24. Was it because I was without the computer for so long? Because I saw the light of day? Because I was outside instead of inside?

I also cooked dinner, sort of. And really, that's been it. I was nearly sent over the edge last week, my ears are unplugging more regularly and more frequently, and I'm writing the world's dumbest essay right now about oil paint. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I'm going to finish my essay now. Here are some pictures:

Class Cancelled!

2007-04-17T12:14:00.000-05:00

One of my classes for today has been cancelled. Even though I have a variety of options to fill my newly opened 1.5 hour, for example with plagiarizing books, stealing silverware, breaking windows, or shooting snotty boogers at people, I have chosen to sit down and describe in great length how ill I am, because that is what I did all weekend, and by now I am pretty good at this.

Actually, maybe I should spare you. But just as a reminder, I have given myself free license to do this because I am rarely sick and everyone else who is sick all the time is always talking about it. Like that one girl in my art history class who doesn't hesitate to tell everyone in earshot that she's had a cold for 3 months.

I'll just mention that this particular cold has left my right ear plugged for what seems to be an indefinite amount of time. This is particularly inconvenient in a larger class when we're asked to sign up for something at the front of the room and I'm the only one who doesn't move in the long row of people because I have no idea what's going on. But it is particularly convenient in blocking out the roaring blare of my own ignorant, poorly worded comments in Spanish class, which brings me around to what we were reading over the weekend: an account of a Spaniard in America during the 16th c. who had the unusual ability of healing people by just waving his hand over them. So while I was sitting in the library sniffling through my book, I thought about how nice it would have been to be in one of those natives that Spaniard cured, running wild and naked through a rainforest. Which, actually, is not a far cry from the lifestyle I lead now.

No, let me instead focus on the delicious dinner Kat Scanlon cooked for Julie, Mary Kate, and I, and how all I contributed was a salad, in which I slaved over the cutting of cheese and tomatoes. All I managed to eek up was a salad. No stove or oven required. Thank God I didn't make an omelette.

This momentous realization led me to decide that this Saturday, for Julie's birthday, I will cook up a 19 course meal in which every food will be very French and very impronouncable, and in which every item of food will grow in size. So that means the first course will be about the size of a plate, and we'll slowly increase the scale until the 19th course is the size of a house. This might just mean that Julie will be getting 19 variaties of omelettes, which I CAN DO, or that I will indeed be cooking much.

And it might never happen. And it might just be smores or sandwiches. But if it happens, it will be stupendous! Marvelous! Terrific! Out of this world! It will be...*achoo*...SUBLIME!

An Unfortunate Event

2007-04-12T23:41:00.000-05:00

Last night around 11:00 PM, the toilet in the apartment overflowed.

I always dreamed of this. I dreamed of it because I decided a while ago that having a toilet overflow on me would be one of my last living moments, as I would never want to re-enter a populated world again. It's just about as embarassing as wearing socks with sandals.

(And here I am writing about it on the internet)

Knowing the time would inevitably come, I arrived prepared with several different options for my last living seconds. Should I recite appropriate lines from Heart of Darkness or Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead while dirty toilet water runs in rivulets round my ankles? or should I just stick to Walt Whitman?

Alas, as all my faculties left me in my moment of crisis, all I could do was wail like a very undignified banshee or ambulance siren at the water that was spilling out from under the closed toilet lid

I always knew a toilet would overflow on me. In the past, there have been several instances where it came close. However, I was always in large gatherings so I could leave the toilet suspended in its precarious situation and rejoin the group. No one would ever find out who was the one who last went to the bathroom, and who would therefore be accused of clogging the toilet. However, in an apartment with only 3 people, it's harder to hide from the pointing fingers.

So, this is just to let you all know that closing the toilet lid does not stop anything from coming out. When your time has come, your time has come, and there's no way to reverse the flow.

Artist of the Day

2007-04-11T20:56:00.000-05:00

In every art history class I take there seems to be one artist who

a. completely baffles me.
b. annoys me.
c. intrigues me.
d. makes me laugh.
e. does all of the above

For my 19th Century Art class, I believe Philipp Otto Runge will take the prize. Let's take a look.

Here is his appropriately entitled Birth of the Human Soul (1805). A baby frolicking in what seems to be a valley with many flowers. And then there's this one:

Child in a Meadow (1809), in which a baby is plopped down in a clearing with his arms outstretched toward the sun, marinating in his innocence and childlike naivety.

This is the era of history that makes me crawl up walls. In which authors write stuff like "our heart still feels the love and unity of all contradictions in this world; to contemplate a flower rightly, to enter into its depth...we come to understand ourselves even more," that flowers and children represented "a state of innocence retained from paradise," where people write stuff like "the earth comes to life and stirs beneath me, and everything harmonizes in one great chord: then my soul rejoices and sours in the immeasurable space around me. There is no high or low, no time, no beginning, or end" regularly to their loved ones, probably right before spending his Monday afternoon heaving long, pained sighs.

In the margin of that reading, all I wrote was "barf." Do you know what this reminds me of? DO YOU? THAT AWFUL BOOK I RANT ABOUT PERIODICALLY? Look at this quotation:

After the dance, we left in Sam's pickup. Patrick was driving this time. As we were approaching the Fort Pitt Tunnel, Sam asked Patrick to pull to the side of the road. I didn't know what was going on. Sam climbed in the back of the pickup, wearing nothing but her dance dress. She told Patrick to drive, and he got this smile on his face. I guess they had done this before...Anyway, Patrick started driving really fast, and just before we got to the tunnel, Sam stood up, and the wind turned her dress into ocean waves. When we hit the tunnel, all the sound got scooped up into a vaccuum, and it was replaced by a song on the tape player. A beautiful song called "Landslide." When we got out of the tunnel, Sam screamed this really fun scream, and there it was. Downtown. Lights on buildings and everything that makes you wonder. Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.

This was precisely the moment I put down The Perks of Being a Wallflower and decided that maybe I would be a better person if I didn't finish the book, that maybe by reading this book instead of just tanning the putrefication of my brain would actually be accelarated instead of being reversed.

So there you have it. Philipp Otto Runge, the EMO kid of the 19th century. During class when these slides came up, I believe I was only one of a few people who was laughing/shaking her head for the rest of the lecture.

Jennie Yamartino, those babies are for you.

The Real World

2007-04-10T21:57:00.000-05:00

I now have the unequalled pleasure and honor of working in the basement of Walker Museum as a little computer person. I clean up 3D models of statues like "squatting monster human head," which involves me looking at several different shells of the same area and deciding which one looks the best in which part, and then deleting what doesn't look so hot. It's sort of like a trip to the eye doctor in a 3D photoshop setting. "Tell me which is better...A or B? Now B or C? B or D?"

So I hope you understand the reason for my silence. Not much happens in a basement. In fact, not much is happening above-ground either. I got some new face cleanser, did some laundry, got 3 NEW BLISTERS, and that's about it. A peg-leg is actually sounding pretty appealing at the moment.

Oh wait just a cotton-picking second.

One thing did happen.

I discovered Dancing with the Stars. I'm sort of taking this personally, everyone, that NO ONE has ever recommended this show to me. Every other show under the sun has been rudely thrust apon me with the introduction "You're totally going to love this." And have I? NO. Because there were no elaborate costumes, because they had names like I "heart" New York, but first and foremost, because there was absolutely no ballroom dancing. I suffered through One Tree Hill, through My Sweet 16, and through other shows I don't even remember, but my suffering has ended!

I've always had a soft spot for ballroom dancing. A long time ago, when my dad was buying Hungarian movies as if all the cool kids were doing it in great quantities, a series of do-it-yourself ballroom dancing movies found their way into the collection. (We now own such a large quantity of old, mostly awful Hungarian movies that if our house were to collapse about our ears, we could reconstruct it using solely these movies). This series of movies would be my guilty pleasure for a long time.

In it, there would be a group of teenagers going to dance school who would learn a new dance every day. First a professional couple would come in and show the dance of the day to them, and then the kids would try it out with a teacher helping them out step by step. All the boys and girls dressed and looked the same. It was all delightfully Communist. The boys would have to stand just so and the girls too. For each lesson there would be the desginated dancer who sucked and would do everything wrong: he would ask the girl to dance in a very sloppy manner, his hand would be too far down her er...back...yes, back, his elbow would not be up high enough, or (God forbid) they might even be standing too close together. Because you were supposed to treat this weird creature as if she were a lady and not a WOMAN. Part of me just always wanted a couple to bust loose like 2 very drunken strangers at a frat party who just happen to feel that horrible reggaetone beat in the very fiber of their beings and watch with horrified fascination at the mayhem that would undoubtedly ensue in the class. What would the school m'arm do? Join them? Bring out the trusty ruler or switch? Call in the army?

So these kids would dance, and would never accidentally mess up. Because they were Hungarian and they were all Communist, damnit, and this type of person never makes a mistake! Ever!

The long and short of this is that I really like ballroom dancing. If a man ever asks me to take lessons with him, I would be out the door before the sentence even left his mouth. Because while some people fervently believe that there is a core of good in the cruelest, most barbarous human being in the world, I go for a different angle and persist in believing that everyone has a little bit of Fred and Ginger in them.

You guys all suck at riddles

2007-04-06T00:55:00.000-05:00

There are a few things I will never understand in life:

1. Why people bother cleaning their pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters
2. Why mail never, ever gets delivered to my apartment in my name
3. Why mail regularly gets delivered after 10 PM on our street. Yes, the postman is out there pushing his basket around at the dead of night as merrily as if it were the middle of the afternoon when kindergarteners are being let out of school
4. Out of all the pretty girls out there, why many, many people persist in believing Keira Knightley is REALLY good-looking

Continuing my endless struggle with the post office, yet another thing has not arrived to my apartment (MOM I DO NOT NEED YOUR HELP), and I'm beginning to wonder if I have somehow personally offended the mailman. Did I inadvertently step on his toes? Did I once walk past him without smiling, saying a friendly hello? Does he not like my shoes?

I was talking to my friend Stacy the other day and she brought up that she needs to write an essay for English about an experience that changed her. Not in which she learned something, just an experience that changed her. And she didn't know what to write.

It would be difficult for me to write on this topic as well, considering I can still fit into jeans from 6th grade, and since I sometimes still look around toilets to ascertain there are no spiders nearby. However, reflecting on the reaction of some of the people who I hadn't seen for years at the wedding I attended last weekend ("She speaks!"), I began to think that maybe there had been some change rendered. And I believe I know where it came from.

It came from dealing with too many people who work at the post office. From having to have conversations like the following:

Me: This flight is going to Chicago?
Girl: Yes. I'm going to visit my family I haven't seen in 15 years.
Me: Oh?
Girl: Yeah, it's my graduation present.
Me: Graduation is early this year.
Girl: I went to a special school, because I was in and out of the hospital. What section are you boarding? Yeah, I'm in the back too. Normally I'd have my friend's dad who's a pilot fly me out to Chicago, but he's busy.

You can be unloved, or you can be sickly, or you can be rich, BUT YOU CAN'T BE ALL THREE.

The transformation also came from boys asking me how old I think they are, which I hate because that is just a way to weasel out a compliment from someone. Because if you say an outrageously high number, then the boy will be offended and the girl will afterwards have to be very nice to make it up to him, and if she says a low number, then the boy will be flattered.

Yes, these experiences have transformed me into who I am today: someone who cringes at many parts in Sound of Music, and someone who today, when sitting in the library trying to read with the sound of a large man's snores reverberating throughout the silent floor, filling every corner with thunderous booms and rumblings, left a note for him saying "Please snore elsewhere."

Names Changed to Protect Privacy

2007-04-04T22:25:00.000-05:00

I have a friend here at Chicago. Her name is Happy. One of Happy's many outstanding qualities is that she is, well, generally happy and uncomplicated. Which, being an embittered and cynical person myself, I need from time to time. I need a fresh whiff of unadultered, pure Happy to remind me that some things in life really aren't all about grades and cutting criticism. Plus, it gives me all the more to lambaste when I feel like it.

Happy had a meeting with her advisor today, who we shall call Angry. After Angry commented on how jovial Happy appeared, Happy confirmed that indeed she was happy (or Happy? MAN this blog has so much potential for fun!), and the meeting continued.

Later on, Happy received the following e-mail:

Hi Happy-

I just wanted to touch base after our meeting this morning. I felt
uneasy bringing this up, but it seemed apparent that you had been
drinking. I don't want to sound judgmental, but you may want to think
twice about meeting with administrators, faculty etc.when you are
under the influence.

Regards,

Angry

Drinking? At 11 AM? After she had probably woken up at around 10:30 AM, because NO ONE wakes up 2 hours before their advisor meeting to get dressed and put on make-up? Happy hadn't even had any class at this point! Had she attended a class [particularly a Sosc or Humanities class, in which plenty of students think it is their calling to enlighten everybody of Durkheim's or Marx's teaching (dear God, please do)], then maybe she could have had a reason to turn to the old fire water to numb the pain, but this is not like Happy. Happy is a responsible human being, and I am outraged for her sake.

But if she WAS hell bent on getting drunk by 11 AM then CONGRATULATIONS! Your efforts have not gone unnoticed!

So I wrote a version of the email I would send to this advisor if I would have received an email like this.

Why does everything exciting happen to other people?

Dear Angry,

Since as far back as I can remember, people have always commented on my sunny disposition. I've always felt that by keeping as positive and attitude as possible, I could manage the demanding schedule I have at school in addition to helping my friends and keeping myself from becoming overwhelmed. This simply is who I am, and therefore I find it astonishingly judgmental and out-of-line that you believe I was drunk when we met earlier today. This assumption not only sheds light onto what you thought of me during our short 30 minute meaning, but what you would believe of me when I am outside of your office: that I behave in a drunkenly, insincere manner. Yes, I recognize your job IS to guide me during my stay here at the University, but it is not to make sweeping assessments of what I "apparently" was without the proper methods ( i.e. a breathalyzer) of determining if I indeed was intoxicated when I was in your office. Your email proves you actually have no idea what I am like as a person, and that you only care about what I am like when I present myself as a student, and I feel hesitant to meet with you again in light of your offensive email. I can honestly say I have never been so disappointed, hurt, and offended since entering the University of Chicago as when I received your email, and I hope I will never have to experience such an affront here again. I plan on contacting another person (don't know, someone else higher than her, the custodian?) to discuss this matter with him/her because I feel I cannot ignore your email. I am sorry this happened, since I felt we had an agreeable rapport, and I believed you held me in higher esteem so as to know I would not be so irresponsible as to show up to a meeting intoxicated. I have always taken my schoolwork, my presentation of myself, and my performance here very seriously.

Happy

Sigh. That was energy-releasing. Had this really been my email, I would have also added as a post-script:

P.S. I also know which neighbors keep their snowshovels out on their porch. And I know wear to bury bodies so they're never found again.

But Happy is not Dangerous And Unreasonable. She is Happy. And not Drunk.

I invite everyone for a moment to be Dangerous And Unreasonable, and think what you would do in her situation. I, personally, would head straight for the shovel.

A Very Directed Post

2007-04-03T22:40:00.000-05:00

Agi, the pictures are up on Picasa webalbums. To the right in the side bar. Now you can stop bothering Joe.

Stacy, they are not all up. Because I have to tweak some pictures, but I haven't had time. I MIGHT even put the ones that have people on Facebook up on Facebook, because I am feeling that generous. And because your old roommate has been asking about it.

Bruce, I am so sorry I did not let you know that during finals week I was going insane, so I couldn't read your essay over. But you did a fabulous job, from the bits I read here and there, and I wouldn't have been able to contribute any more, really, since I know very little about technicalities of the language I can speak. Allegedly.

Everyone Else:

I have holes on my top and bottom.
I have holes on my left and my right.
And I have holes in the middle, yet I still hold water.
What am I?

O'Hare is the bane of my existence

2007-04-02T19:08:00.000-05:00

This morning I flew back from California to Chicago at 4 AM Pacific Time. The most entertaining part of the journey was when we were landing and there was a kid a few rows ahead of me mightily screaming "SOMEBODY...ANYBODY...HELP ME! HELP ME! ANYBODY HELP ME! HEEEELP MEEEE PLEEEEEEEEEASE ANYYYYBODYYYYYYYY!" with the mom trying to shut him up. I enjoyed this so much, and I had to go pee so badly, that I didn't even notice what airport I landed in.

I didn't think twice when I ran into the bathroom and the stall doors opened inwards. Not outwards. I didn't think to stop when I started to notice that this airport is really big. Too big for Midway. And I somehow managed to ignore the fact that the SAME MURALS were showing up at Midway AND O'Hare. Because I was ecstatic over landing in Midway and not at O'Hare, and I was floating on Cloud 9 through the airport.

It was only when I got to the regional bus station that I started to suspect something was amiss. Where was my beloved 55 bus that would drop me off basically right at my doorstep? Where was that weird overpass thing to the airport? There are only hotel buses here! And buses to far away places!

It is then that I had an epiphany:

"Wait a second...bathroom doors opening inwards....murals painted on the walls like at O'Hare...the woman next to me had a connecting flight at O'Hare...shit. Damn. Shit."

So then I had to dash to catch the Blue line and sit festering like a contagious cankersore on the train because I was bitter. I was angry. I was ENRAGED. As everything fell into its proper place, 1+1 now equaled 1 hour and 30 minutes instead of a mere 30-45 minutes, and I had a class at 2:30.

The Blue Line, as usual, was slow. Really slow. So slow that my rear actually assumed the shape of the seat I was in, and my skin started to slough off. There were times where the train just plain stopped and did not move for several minutes at a time. It was at these times that I wanted to get onto the platform and scream "For Godssake move, or I will show you what sort of impromptu bomb I can construct with face cream and mascara."

By the time we actually entered the Loop, I noticed that I was clenching my fists and toes as hard as I could, and I was squeezing my jaw shut. This was so that I would not bite the passenger nearest to me. And then I started to think about how I could never, ever be good at yoga.

Last quarter when I was taking weight lifting, this exercise let me release some therapeutic grunts here and there. Not that I grunt. I just snort while I laugh. But at least I had the option. Last Thursday in yoga, we did an exercise where we (ever so silently) clenched ever muscle as tightly as possible and then released. While I was clenching, the following went through my head: funny, this is how I feel for most of the day. I never thought I was a tense sort of person, but I did just sit through 45 minutes imagining how I could rip the El poles out of the train, bend them, and then start shattering windows right and left. Or how I could use the driver as a battering ram to create my own tunnel.

By the way, I had a very nice time at the wedding. A very RELAXING time. During which I could even manage to smile. And it looked like I combed my hair.

What does everyone have against bright colors?

2007-03-30T11:13:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-29T08:07:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-28T19:17:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-27T15:54:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-26T23:46:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-26T01:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-21T03:42:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-17T15:30:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-14T08:10:00.000-05:00

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

2007-03-12T21:30:00.000-05:00

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.