Day Blog ~ Aug 27, 07:07 AM
Anyone else watch two hipsters in skinny jeans with fauxhawks talking to each other and starting singing The Dandy Warhols Bohemian Like You to yourself?
Yeah, I figured.
Today’s experiment? blogging from work between doing other things. Sort of like a to do list, keep the blog opened on a tab in the background and keep a running commentary.
So it finally happened that my financial aid got fucked up a wee bit.
My financial counselor at the school called to tell me they screwed up during the summer and bill my tuition benefits for more than available, so even though it looked like I didn’t have a bill I owe over $1,300.
Okay. . .
They want me to pay it.
Ummmm. . . yes. First I will whip out my magical check book reserved for just this occasion. Oh wait, I left it in my unicorn.
Look, don’t I have loans for the summer?
Doesn’t look like it.
(Not really trusting them at this point), well don’t I have a loan surplus for fall? Don’t you owe me more than $1,300?
Yes.
Well than you have more than I owe, so it’s not a problem.
Well, no, we can’t do that.
You can’t take money I have to cover a bill?
Well we can’t take it from there.
Okay send it to me, and I’ll send it to you.
Okay but that won’t be for over a month.
Well then that’s when you’ll get your money, in over a month.
But if you do that you won’t be able to use the internet until it’s paid.
. . .
{this goes on like this, in a very abbott and costello way for a while longer}
but what if I need the internet?
you could pay it.
Well by your logic, you could pay it for me if it’s that easy.
I don’t have that money either, I go to night school too.
Well then you realize that’s not an option. So I guess I won’t have internet.
I guess not.
ta da. We’ll see how this works.
No pictures because I’m at work, so you get:
more animals
yeah, I’m three steps from being the crazy cat/zombie lady but it’s fabulous none the less.
My gchat away message while I’ve been at work all week have been from songs with Chicago in the title. This will continue at least until I am back. So far we’ve had Train to Chicago (Mike Doughty covering a New York band I can’t recall the name of right now, so I’m listing him. P.S. just discovered my spell check finally recognizes his name. I have to kill myself soon.) Today’s in Wilco’s Via Chicago. the trick is not to ever have a lyric with the name of the city, so it’s a largely obscure theme. Yeah, about that killing myself thing . . .
I leave tomorrow evening, and return Monday at Midnight.
I have plans to eat non-stop. Plus there will be much walking and photograph taking.
And I think some writing and reading for fun. Don’t be too shocked I hear people do it all the time.
Speaking of which, finally reading Michael Chabon’s Yiddish policeman’s Union. Took me longer to get into than I anticipated, largely because of the consistently impressive reviews it received and the excellent Fresh Air Interview with him I heard last year when it came out. But now that I’m in, I’m thrilled with it.
Picked up trashy fantasy Terry brooks novel Mass market to read on the plane too for after I finish the China Mielville book I’ve been trying to pick up for months.
Homework ~ Jul 12, 09:20 PM
So wikipedia is telling me that it’s never been confirmed that Walt Whitman ever had sex with a man. Did they see the picture of him with the open shirt and the jaunty hat ? You are telling me he was running around like a 19th century gondola operator and in a war afflicted America because of his intense heterosexuality?
Look, I know it’s a negative stereotype, but they are destroying my belief system and I just want them to consider it in a logical fashion.
You get Byron, we get Whitman.
Probably the only reason you are getting a post is that Battlestar Galactica season 2 has not finished downloading, and I’m not quite ready to curl back up with Joyce and fall asleep.
It’s nothing against you, it’s just that BG is my new addiction. I don’t know if it’ll warrant enough discussion to get it’s own category to the left; only time will tell I suppose.
But I know I’m the last person on this planet or any other to get into the show, and really it’s no one’s fault but my own. Anytime Joss Whedon tells you something is the best show on tv, stop what you are doing no matter what it is, and watch that fraking show. Joss knows. Joss wrote two of the best shows ever on tv.
Been thinking a lot about my life as an artist on my walks around Phila for a couple reasons. It’s nice to have a camera in my hands again. I never had much of an eye, but I always enjoyed shooting, enjoyed trying to capture a visual haiku. I’ve always been a terrible visual artist, which is why writing became such a huge part of my life. If I could paint, even with mediocre skill, I doubt I ever would have refined my words.
But I see now with a great ability in my writing, that photography especially is horribly limited. One sense is not nearly enough.
I would love to show pictures I took that don’t represent what is actually there at all. How my favorite part of my walk home is so beautiful but smells of horse shit in the warm months, a perfect metaphor for parts of this city. How some so-called scary blocks near me, seem inviting and neighborly when the smell of charcoal grills wafts down the street, and the sounds of laughter reverberate between houses.
How there is no wide angle wide enough to capture the amputee vet sitting blocks away from the homes of the richest in the city, begging and smiling.
So I’ve been playing more with a macro setting, which is funny because it’s counter intuitive. You take micro pictures, or intense close ups, with a macro lens. Very odd indeed.
So I’m Reading Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce right now. Just got through the whole of The Dubliners, and I’m still not sure how I feel about Joyce all together. I won’t deny his brilliance. His short stories contain each within them a singular focus which resonates the greater points of the main text, and often the great points of the entire collection. It’s mind boggling in it’s subtlety.
But it’s also like relieving every Christmas of my childhood all at once.
I think his use of alcohol as a simile to paralysis really helped me come to terms with needing to detox my body and my mind right now though. I had never looked at it as an inhibitor, in fact I’d always viewed it to the contrary, believing it was helping me rid my self of some internal inhibitions. Well true enough it does, but not ones I should be getting rid of. And I think in the long run, relying on alcohol as an ice breaker has increased my anxiety. I look at the two most anxious people I know and both are extreme drinkers.
So for the next month I’m staying focused on getting healthy. Then in July I’ll go up to Boston and eat wonderful food that’s no good for me and get tipsy off of one lager. It’ll be a hoot.
So it’s officially becoming summer in Phila, I can tell because my apartment’s internal humidity has reached Indonesian Rainforest proportions. And fair warning to people who think they might want to stop by this summer. This will be the second year in a row where I will likely not have air conditioning.
Especially now without the loft bed to worry about, and since I’ve started giving kitty her own haircuts, I’m not sure I see the point in the spending the money and destroying the environment for my comfort.
Then again who knows, maybe I will.
Not going out has increased blogging it seems as well, so I’m sure I’ll be back soon.
Dobry Vecer, jak se mas?
I’m doing better. Not really but I think I could be doing better any minute, so I’m presumptuously saying I’m doing better.
Yes, I know, I’m a cad.
So bridesmaid dress shopping yesterday. Found a dress that fit well, in a color that made me look like a bumblebee, and ordered it in a nice latte color, so that is one thing off my to do checklist. One down, four billion to go. Very promising.
Made it back home. And played cards and drank beer with the neighbors. Very fun, very raucous. Fell asleep fully dressed, all my lights on, feet hanging off my loveseat. Always a sign of a good time.
Today I faked my way through a Hungarian Pork Chop microwave recipe. All in all it turned out pretty good, but I forgot how rich Hungarian food is. Pleasantly stuffed right now.
Email back from the professor I requested to supervise my independent study for the fall. No final verdict but it looks like she’s leaning towards letting me do it. So now I need your help, I’m looking into Homosexuality in Comic and Graphic Novels. Send me your favorite Homosexual characters in comics, and in return I promise send you a pony*.
Also in my studying I’ve discovered that I hate Robert Herrick’s poetry. His Upon Julia’s Breast actually aggravates my gag reflex. But I am enjoying the Wordsworth and the Blake, so I’ll live. Plus it’s an easy memory tool during the actual exam that if I vomit on my test, it’s probably a Herrick poem.
Been writing a lot of spiraling poetry fragments on everything. Don’t know how to parlay that into actual writing, but I’ll figure it out. I’m extremely bright for a lemur.
*Pony may be more invisible in person than originally anticipated. Batteries not included.
So I’m in the intense February doldrums complete with threatened emotional breakdowns and the appearance of depression.
Still best not to let these things get you down.
Neighbor Jenny came by, she was sick and couldn’t get the controls down on my Twisted Metal Solid. I made pork chops, stocked her up on chicken soups, and we discuss, Life, Love and the Pursuit of Fine Ladies. Sunday is tentatively scheduled for Taco Night. Things at home are good. Imagine have a roommate that you liked, that was never home, and you could lock out. It’s brilliant.
Plus I have the bonus of showing her the best graphic novels and movies, since she is a wee bit younger and hasn’t had anyone offer to do these things yet.
I just joined GoodReads, but until Dave teaches me how to add things to the page itself I’ll just link my account here. It’s super fun.
Galleys just came in on Dinner at Rouge. God, I love typing that. I think I’ll have a link to the issue by the beginning of March.
I guess it’s just a short post today. I’m behind on my homework and my correspondence. I think it’s going to be another weekend in.
Older
