4.30.2007

it's pretty much over.

Thank you, Patricia Cohen and The New York Times. Finally, some sense in all of it. Not to say it's a complete reversal of myths, but I think it might finally be time to patch over the fault line between the North and South:

"When you look at suburbs and middle class, then you start getting a national story. ... White suburbs outside Charlotte are reacting the same as white suburbs outside Los Angeles or New Jersey."

So shut up about it, Hollywood. And all the people who have made snide comments to me here, thinking they know things they don't.

I recommend reading all of it.



4.29.2007

repeat. repeat. repeat.

Stereotypical blog entry, with moments of deep personal significance:

Lately, I've been feeling between things. And I've also been feeling over things. And behind things. So, basically, I am feeling things. Of all sorts. And trying to stop myself from feeling the thing that I vaguely mentioned last week, but mainly am only perpetuating the feeling of the thing that I know I shouldn't feel or ever act upon or ever imagine ever again.

4.25.2007

always whining.

Lately, I have been so sleep-deprived that my ears have started ringing. Okay, maybe that's not sleep deprivation, but rather my screwed up body doing screwed up things to punish me for being a bad person.

Also, I wrote a review for the paper on Monday! It was super dorky, so I'm a little reserved about posting a link to it. I just thought it was a pretty cool to have my work published.

In other news, I can feel another school year winding down. Things are so hectic lately that I can't even imagine the flurry of activities settling down and flopping onto my living room couch to read James Joyce (which is my goal this summer). Last year at this time, I was on the edge of my seat just waiting, waiting, waiting for the quarter to end. But now, I am scared of entering the second half of my college career and leaving everything I depend on behind. I know I have a lot to look forward to (a publishing internship [which I got by the way], tutoring, literary mag editing, my own column, a car, a kitchen). It's just that all of it makes me feel way too grown up. I want to be eight when Disneyland was still exciting and they still made new episodes of Boy Meets World.

And I have feelings about something I know I'm not supposed to feel. And the word might be getting out because I've never been good at hiding things. Even really huge things that could ruin everything -- for the better.

4.22.2007

a brief synopsis.

The cheapest studio apartment in Lower Manhattan costs $950,000, according to a census reported in today's New York Times. On the other hand, there are 126 men per 100 women in said location.

So, in my wildest and richest dreams, I still want to live here:



Speaking of which, that is a picture taken this afternoon in New York City. Why is it so pretty there, while L.A. - rumored to have some of the best weather in the world - has been spread over with a thick layer of gray. Take away the peanut butter, dammit. I just want the jelly.

4.21.2007

lots and lotsa.

I have purchased my plane ticket to London on British Airways. This means I'll be spending the 4 weeks in England for the program, and then 3 weeks after that in Dublin, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, and Nice.

I am so poor.

Also, it just seems wrong that I never wrote anything about the Virginia Tech shootings, especially since I was really emotionally affected by them. I just want to say that the whole situation - from the preventativeness of it to the logistics of the situation to the interactive graphics on the New York Times - is frustrating. America learned nothing from Columbine. In order to learn that we had learned nothing, we had to witness the exact same situation, this time with higher tolls. It makes me sick to my stomach. The news will cover it a few more days, return to it again in a few weeks for a story or two, and then forget about it for another year. Nothing more will happen. Nothing will change.

4.20.2007

simple and neat.

I watch her as she dives under water. I sink below the surface, opening my eyes to see her legs shimmering a peachy green, barely deflected by the murky water. She twists her body towards me - just five feet away - and in that distance, I see her wave through the water, treating the molecules of hydrogen and oxygen as if the hydrogen didn't exist. Her laugh bubbles up into the water, bubbles up in the center of my stomach, sends bubbles through the summer.

I come up for air. I smell wisteria.

4.17.2007

minus the raspberries.

I don't understand how you can try to be friends with someone and then lie right to their face when they ask you a direct question. How do you expect to build back trust if you aren't even honest about stupid little things? I don't even care about what happened-- not in the least/as I shouldn't; Being lied to about it, however, pisses me off. I deserve more respect than that.

4.14.2007

general happenings.

Does anyone else find it cool that you can now blog in Hindi?

I think that's absolutely amazing.

Also, I am very content right now. I love that I can live with one of my best friends and go shopping with her on Saturday afternoon. :)

And, I think I might actually be becoming smart(ish)! Fantastic news for me, anyway.

Finally, Brett suggested to me that I start practicing my column-writing skills through using my blog constructively. I am kind of dreading taking this seriously, but I don't want to let anyone down next year.

4.13.2007

i like your girlfriend.

I would like to do an extensive analysis of Avril Lavigne's video for the song Girlfriend. I think it epitomizes the problem women face today, where confidence has become a weapon rather than a tool. But, really, I think the chorus is catchy. Minus Avril's face.

bad news/good news.

So, in some amazing news, I think I have my next year figured out, which could lead to having my life figured out, which could lead to a successful avoidance of grad school!

I have already applied and been told I have a really great chance of getting to be an English tutor next year. Also, I contacted someone from the English department who is currently working at a boutique publishing firm in Los Angeles. She is quitting her internship next year and is looking for someone to take her place. So we have a meeting set up for next week to discuss. So, you see, if both of these things were to work out, my life could be mapped out with the following Emily Dickinson-esque random capitalizations:

This Summer: Home, Last Boring Summer Job Ever/Temping, Study Abroad, Work in L.A.

Next School Year: Tutoring for some Sweet Cash, Publishing Internship, Daily Bruin Columnist, A Person Who Owns a Car

Next Summer: Internship in L.A. or New York in publishing or P.R. or Magazine Editing

Following School Year: Continuing Involvement in Daily Bruin Affairs, Internship, Not taking any more Fill-In-The-Bubbles Tests.

Summer: Columbia Journalism School's Publishing Course (the editor of Jane magazine teaches part of it!)

A job of some sort and proportion. Freedom. New York.

So maybe I do have a life plan after all. Ugh. It kind of makes me hate myself. When am I going to fit in the quintessential Post-College Euro-Trip?

4.12.2007

sunset boulevard.

You might (might) have noticed that I updated the last entry in light of this:

A&E Article of Amazing Proportions.

My friend Devon did the story. John did the photography, which is pretty amazing for his new-ness and his apathy.

In other updates about the scene, I saw her and we were wearing the same sunglasses. Except mine are more subdued because they're tortoiseshell. Blech.

4.11.2007

car dealers.

I am sitting around in my room, watching the Simpson's with my back to the television, hating Cory (that's right, my friend John shot that photo) Kennedy (unfortunately, he did not shoot this one), but still remaining fascinated by the whole scary (isn't this girl, like, 12?) lifestyle. I guess I'm just hopelessly un-hip.

4.10.2007

sunshine rays and honeybees.

Is it just me or is life so much easier in upper division courses?

And, lately, all I can think about is going to Stratford. Britain. Briton. Britania. England. United Kingdom. The UK. Lovely.

I want to sit on a park bench with my close friends, eat cheese and a loaf of fresh bread, and laugh about the ducks circling the ripples in the water. And I don't even like cheese. Or ducks really. Eh, they're okay.

Then, after class and the theater performances and studying or whatever the fuck, I want to go have a drink here:


Yeah, except on a budget. I just know that I need a plane ticket out of America for a while.

4.07.2007

black bird.

I don't normally do "day summaries", but thinking creatively would drain the little life that is left in me.

So yesterday was this thing for the Daily Bruin where we elect next year's editor in chief. Kind of a big deal. A few friends and I from work decided to go to the 5.5-hour hearings trashed, and it was pretty much hilarious. Then I sobered up and it was as boring as I thought it would be.

Then, last night, there was this big party for the occassion, which had the potential to be amazing, but was actually quite tame and blah. I went back to John's apartment afterward and we talked for like an hour and a half. It was really nice.

Now I am just tired and I feel really weird and far away. I feel like I am about to lose all of these things that have been so important to me this year. All of the fourth-years that are graduating from the newspaper, John studying abroad, my decision not to run for Viewpoint Editor (and the implications of that decision, i.e. moving on to a real internship in the real world), Rebecca going abroad all year to France, just... everything. And I feel like next year Ill be starting from square one. Maybe it's a good thing, but it feels like a forced growing up-- a maturity thrown on me by some sort of outside source whose mission is to make me feel like nothing.

4.02.2007

the water of spring.

the ivory bone of her pelvis
moans.
her head spins
and she is lit--
incandescent, as if
a match had been struck
against her inner thighs.
fingers running, jumping, skipping, crawling
across her spinal chord,
shattering the porcelain,
dampening the silk.
and her flesh, it tastes like
sour apple candy
with a kick of vodka that goes straight to
your head.
there in the darkness,
underneath the streetlamps,
where the world wishes to expose you with its
impossibly orange floods of manufactured sunshine,
you hide in the places where light does not--
could never--
reach.
but somehow... she is glowing.
her whole body-- the navel pressed in easily like cookie dough,
the pink of her lower lip, the bottoms of her delicate feet--
is singing
(is begging)
for you to come
one
inch
closer.