Where have I been?

People (like, two people) have been asking why I have not been posting any new blog posts. Why? I have been freakin' busy. I have been busy reading Gawker, Jezebel, Buzzfeed, Huffington, and journal articles. I have been busy online shopping. I have been busy writing stuff and editing other things for school. I have been busy thinking about hypotheticals (through this process, I realized that I would definitely eat my cats and boyfriend's severed arm in an apocalypse-type situation). I have been busy engaging in imaginary fights and arguments with people I know and strangers I pass on the streets. I have been busy whispering bitchy class-ist, age-ist, and size-ist comments that embarrass friends and family. I have been busy thinking about my political platform as I consider running for state senator (24 hour trains and buses! Keep bars open until 4am! Let the people have their happy hour! Parental competency exams! Dissolve birth control pills in soda sold at high schools to reduce teen pregnancy! More funding for cats! No more recycling! Ban gratuitous public singing--there will be no unsolicited singing in public!). I have been busy trying to figure out how to use the updated MS paint program. Guess what? It sucks. The new MS paint on my computer sucks. I hate it.

Anyway, I have also been busy with being upset about my mortality--I call this phase two of my existential struggle. The first stage was easy. In the first stage I questioned reality: "Is this real? How do I define real? Is there a real-reality? Who is to say what is the real-reality? What if I am not me but someone else? What if I'm mentally ill and everything I sense is fabricated? Does it really matter that I am the only one who sees that triple-headed falcon? What if I have been possessed by aliens? How will that matter? And how will it affect my summer plans?" I was satisfied with knowing that I can only deal with what I am experiencing in-the-moment, thus rendering all these questions nonsense (my reality is my reality and there is nothing I can do to figure out if it's real or not real or whatever). Now that I am in my late-twenties and my parents and cats are getting old and I am gradually aging and everyone is reproducing and gas prices are just insane and my student loans keep emailing me and AHHHH--with all this going on, I am not even asking existential questions. I am just straight up rejecting the idea of death.

I saw the first twenty minutes of "A Certain Kind of Death" in 2010. Such regret. I am not blaming my second existential crisis on a single documentary, but I am not going to reduce its significance. It scared the shit out of me. Oh my goodness, decomposing bodies are disgusting--no thank you. Death and dying are scary things. I refuse to die and let the rest of society continue on without me. No, if I am not going to be at the party THERE WILL BE NO PARTY. So... in "Fried Green Tomatoes" Ruth dies (oh... spoiler) and the entire town she lived in shut down after her death. First of all, Ruth was not even that great. Ruth was the side-kick and she basically killed Buddy. I still cannot believe that Buddy had to die. I mean, I would totally get it if the town closed because of Idgie but Ruth? RUTH?! Come-on! Where am I going with this? Oh, right, um... so, I am okay with towns closing after I die. They should close. Everyone has to be miserable forever if I ever die.

My sister says that she believes in ghosts and that helps her through existential crises. I know a few people who believe in the Jesus. I know others who are at peace with becoming fertilizer (manfriend is all like, "oh death, whatever."). No. No. No. No. ...No. I am going to live forever, so suck it.

Summertime Adventures

 

Much has happened in the last few months. I learned that my armpits are all screwy and that one perspires more than the other (the left). I learned that pelicans are able to thrive in business parks. I learned that I should not wear high wedges while walking down a steep slope. Declivity is a game reserved only for the advanced perambulator. Central Park has poison ivy. Poison ivy is disgusting--especially if you had my reaction (fluid bubbles!). Cats do not enjoy long car rides.

However, it is important to note that I have moved to Boston. You might be thinking, "didn't she do that already?" The answer is, "sort of," but this time I mean it for realz. I have officially moved to Boston. I got rid of my old studio in the North End and finally moved all of my New York things into a real grown-up apartment with my manfriend and cats.

I felt emotions. Ugh, so many stupid emotions were felt on the day I left--a gallimaufry of inner-happenings: sadness, ambivalence, happiness?, thorns, confusion, stress, warmth (super hot that day), anticipation, dread, hunger... I don't know. At first it felt like I was making a mistake. I was leaving my friends, home, neighborhood, security guard, supermarkets, beloved house-helper, restaurants, bars, subway rats, 24-hour public transit, dog crap-smeared sidewalks, crosswalks that do not require pedestrians to push stupid buttons, Harlem miniature trash tornadoes... so many things! But when we drove up to our new home, Bostonian friends were there to greet us and carry all of our heavy stuff up to the apartment. Some of the Bostonian friends did not even live in Boston but Buffalo! Nothing demonstrates love more than voluntary manual labor. Nice work, New York and Boston Teams! I love all of you too!  I felt much better.

After the moved I immediately flew to California for one of my best friend's wedding. I was a bridesmaid (and soon my cats will have shiny new vests fashioned from a dress that looked great on camera... just kidding, Monique). In addition to wedding festivities, I got to visit dear friends (HI VANS!) and hang out with fabulous cousins. Although the overall California climate disagrees with me, there is place that melts my heart--in a good way. A place where the air smells like churros, nacho cheese, and Crocs plastic. A place where a person can show off hand-crafted family-matching T-shirts. A place where animals wear clothes and do not have disgusting butt-holes. A place where nature is carefully landscaped. A place where waffles are made in the shape of rodent heads--and you can eat as much of it as you want! A place where you can buy a bucket of popcorn. A BUCKET.

Toward the end of my trip, study buddy Olivia flew in for some fun! 

We lost...

but won in quality friendship time.

When I got back to Boston it was time for another wedding, so we drove to New York to pick up three friends--Kavita, Celeste, and Marcus--and headed out to Washington D.C. On the way to D.C. we stopped in New Jersey for lunch, prom jewelry, and lady socks. Aside from my friend John and his wife, New Jersey has little to offer. Correction--not only does Jersey have little to offer it TAKES. New Jersey is the land of poor city planning (what the hell is wrong with all of the roads?), suburbs, those orange people from the TV, sneaky behavior, and thievery. While paying a visit to one of Jersey's many shopping malls, a little panda-eating fart nugget that fell out of one of Jersey's poop ducts and his mother stole one of our friends' super important camera!

To make matters worse, the imbeciles that "secure" the mall were all like "uh, whatever, our job is to eat boogers... so... your business is out of our jurisdiction or whatever... whatever... I can blow thick Jolly Ranchers spit bubbles while watching Maury at the same time! That's how I got this job. What were you looking for again?" The gormless security idiots left us with few options... so we took justice into our own hands. Unfortunately, it resulted in Celeste harassing random people with fat children.

I suppose I covered the highlights for this summer so far...

Oh, I recently turned...

Yup.

Making Better Choices: Just kidding! It just looks that way.

I have been trying to make better life decisions, so I started eating Greek yogurt. However, I stopped eating real fruits and vegetables. Whatever, there are bits of fruit at the bottom of each Chobani yogurt-thing. The situation is pretty much a solid diet of yogurt, Luna bars, cheese, meat, and pasta. My bowels are like, "seriously?" And in response, I say, "look, I drink enough coffee to make up for all the fiber I am not eating."

Fine, nutrition still needs to be tamed. Despite my poor food choices, I am still exercising! I might not go to the gym as much as I used to, but I am taking a Zumba class once a week with my friend Julian. I did not go this week though... Anyway, Julian and I are going to be Zumba masters one day. I cannot follow along with all the moves, but if I flap my arms and spin around when feeling lost I look Zumbatic enough. While humiliating 40-60% of the time, Zumba is a great deal of fun. Our instructor even plays songs that have the word "zumba" in it; just in case someone forgets why she is there (a lot of old ladies in this class, by the way).

My body is not the only thing getting into awesome shape. My brain is doing okay as well. Olivia and I have been throwing a lot of ratchet parties... Yes, it is true. She and I party almost every single weekend. Sometimes we party during the week. We will often party for hours... like seven. Seven hours of partying sometimes. "What kind of parties?" you ask.

Study Parties!!! Olivia, who is obviously French from the accurate picture above, is a terrific study party buddy. We like to sit across from each other and work. We also like to sit across from each other and eat lunch in between morning work and afternoon work. For extra fun, we like to go to the movies and watch films that you probably have never heard of before because these films do not believe in advertising. Seriously, why don't any of these producers believe in posters? Still, they are usually majorly super nice and magical. I know that if left to my own devices I would only watch romantic comedies and romantic comedies in 3D.

Sometimes we need more than great friends, exercise, study parties, and yogurt. I needed to take care of my "spiritual self". My spiritual self was just screaming for a serious make-over. Just kidding, I really did not know that I had a "spiritual self" until James and I made a pilgrimage seventy blocks south to Radio City where Oprah is kept. Yes, James and I consulted Oprah for some life advice and a self-esteem boost.

Seriously, I went to go see Oprah. She told me that I needed to feed my spiritual self and not just my hungry self. Oprah said a lot of things that day. I know she was speaking English, but I was pretty much lost for all 2.5 hours. Many of these things just ended up jumbling together--"transcendence", "energy", "karma", "meditation", something about the past and the future and how neither is now, "judgement", etc. Regardless of how little I learned about my spiritual self that day, there was one thing I did gain...

Oprah Friendship. Oprah and I are best friends now. She learned how cool I was and wanted to read my autobiography. I didn't have a copy on me that day, so she was all like, "yeah, no worries, maybe I can pick it up from you one day when we go shopping together and do girl stuff together, like facials and whatever. I will put your book on the book club reading list and you will become famous and I will scream your name like, Caaaattthhhhheeeeerrrrrinnnnnnnneeeee!" Yes, I am awesome... Eh, well, not really. Oprah and I are not really friends. I mean, in my heart she is my friend, but that is not a real place because two people cannot sit down inside my heart and have tea. These people would have to kill me first or something, but if I am one of the people then it really is impossible. So, yeah, Oprah is not really my friend. I did not get to hold her hand as depicted in the image above. No one is allowed to touch Oprah anyway. She is made of Phoenix feathers, angel nail clippings, and that warm feeling you get when you step into Saks--mortals cannot handle that kind of tactile experience.

Before I end this post, I have one more thing to share. Here is a fun game...

Guess!

Guess!

Guess!

I might be getting...

My Winter Break: a good time.

My last post was kind of half-assed, yeah? Yeah, I thought so. Anyway, I just got back from my vacation a month ago! I am going to talk about it now. I flew out to California and Boyfriend Josh joined me... this was December. For the first time ever, our kin-worlds collided. I have never had a boyfriend's family meet my family before, mainly because most of my relationships prior to this one ended within the first few months. You are probably wondering: "who would not want to date this piece of awesome? She drools, does not know how to take care of herself, eats garbage, currently rocks a mullet, and everything." (Bow-shaka-bow-wow--sexy music).

While having the worlds collide sounds interesting, it was in actuality like fine-whatever-no-big-deal. I seriously thought there was going to be more drama for me to blog about, but... it was the most normal experience I have ever had in my life. Ever. Geez, talk about killing a potential story.

The most drama happened at Knott's Berry Farm (a Peanuts themed amusement park) with Aaron, Holly, and Daniel. Holly and I got what I think is whiplash while on the "Ghost Riding the Whip" roller-coaster. I have participated in Ghost Riding the Whip for realz back in 2008 with Monique, Peter, and Omnilust... that roller-coaster was certainly not it. First of all, you need a car. Secondly, you need to be in one of La Jolla's slightly sloped residential neighborhoods. Third, you need to be hungry... hungry for adventure! And pizza. Most importantly pizza, because that is what you eat afterwards. Yeah, I got whiplash at Knott's Berry Farm, but it was totally worth the fun we all had that day. I ate something called nachos fries out of a box with a fork.

Anyway, over the break, I realized that being treated like an adult by my parents is completely contingent on Boyfriend Josh's presence. After he left, my mom felt completely free to unleash all the mom-comments she had been holding back:

I guess some things do not change no matter how old you get... did not floss then, not going to floss now. Much like recycling, I only floss when people are watching. 

I returned to school about three or four weeks ago and immediately became swamped with work. Balancing out the work situation is the return of Tuesday Happy Hour at Sligos (and Durty Nelly's once)!

Here is something amazing--no new centipede sightings! Wikipedia and various insect annihilation websites say that centipedes are most plentiful during fall and spring, which makes me believe that I will not see any for awhile. But... where did they all go? The ones that were in my apartment are definitely dead thanks to Josh and my neighbor. Where are the other centipedes? Where are they partying this winter? Probably in that area of my pantry I never go into because it looks disgusting. There is so much yellow insulation goop in there. Does anyone know what asbestos looks like? Oh wait, I just looked it up. Yeah, the goop is not asbestos.

Okay, I really have to go some reading for class now. Bye.

Suck it, finals! Suck it!

In the weeks leading up to winter break I have be way super busy with writing papers and school stuffs.

After I completed my research proposal, I had to write a paper for theory. I considered throwing myself down a flight of stairs.

...But then... today... it happened... I finished! SUCK IT, FINALS! SUCK IT! No better way to start my vacation than by going to the Federal Reserve to make gold angels in the vault.

Eh, whatever.

The past few months have been tumultuous. Things were okay and then they were not okay and then they went back to being sort of okay, followed by a brief bit of not okay, and then okay. Being an adult is super majorly difficult at times but not always though sometimes usually. Eh, at least I have my health, right? But because I am a paranoid person I am getting my annual check up three months early just to make sure that "at least I have my health". Even though when I said "at least I have my health" I knocked on wood to prevent jinxes, I still think a blood test is more assuring. Well, since the last post all this happened:

Yes, a lot of stuff went down. These visual representations might seem confusing, but hopefully you will be able to interpret them correctly:

"Was she stabbed by a centipede-dragon? If she is so scared of centipedes turning on her why would she leave swords around the house?  Is that a turd? Gross. Was her tooth really anthropomorphized? Why is it so sad? Does she have an indifferent phaseolus lunatus with a face and arms? If so, shouldn't that be in a Ripley's museum for the rest of the world to enjoy? Did she throw-up turtle? God, this girl has digestion issues. If she has stomach problems she really shouldn't have gotten that cotton candy machine."

Yes! Yes to all of it! As for the why questions: "Eh."

Despite all of my really awesome and questionable adventures with violent ten feet tall centipedes, turtle vomit, and legumes these past few months, the greatest one of all is probably grad school (shut up, I am not lame). I seriously love graduate school and my new friends. Look, we even go out together now:

Just look at how my face is contorted to express happiness! In addition to all of these wonderful people, I befriended my neighbor. Prior to the big centipede incident all I knew was that she and I both replace real people with TV after work/school. As you can guess, that is not enough material to build a friendship. Real friends have more stuff in common. Real friends watch TV together. Well, one day I had an emergency. I came home to find that a centipede had broken into my apartment. When I heard her keys jangling I threw open my door and screamed for help. My heroic neighbor valiantly marched over with a bottle of bleach and destroyed the monster. At that moment we went from being adjacent TV murmurs to face-to-face people friends. Actually, I have not seen her since the centipede incident but I am sure that if I ever wanted to I can ask her to join me for dinner. I can defrost fish sticks and personal pizzas like nobody's business.

My Charmed New England Life: Too Much Nature. Gross.

New England, the birthplace of witches, lobster, Fall-time trees, and deadly animals. I kind of get to live here! yay... Moving beyond the ghosts and rats that live in my walls, there is way too much nature out here and someone should do something about this problem. Nature is freakin' everywhere and I can't seem to get rid of it--there is only so much of it I can eat. While the rats and ghosts may just be ontologically real, the family of centipedes living in my bathroom sink is materially for-realz-for-realz. Centipedes live in my sink tubes and at night they crawl out, staying in the basin until morning. They scare the crap out of me, so before I go to bed I close the bathroom drain to avoid this:

My campus seems to be filled with the nature as well. The other day a gaggle of geese (gaggle, right? Bevy? Eh) landed in front of the athletics center. I wanted to chase them, but I had to save all of my running energy for the elliptical. Prior to the geese encounter, I saw a HAWK! SQUAWK! It was raining out or something and from the graduate lounge window I saw a beautiful hawk the size of a three-year-old human. It was just chillin' on the lawn like, "eh... no big deal. I'm just a hawk chillin'". I tried to exhort my peers to share the enthusiasm, to absorb the glory of this magnificent bird--no, just kidding, I tried to get them to come outside to watch me chase it. Only one friend followed me out. The hawk was even more enchanting without a glass window dividing us. I felt such a connection to it. It was my spirit animal, my Hedwig.

I debated whether or not to chase it. After all, it was a pretty flippin' large bird with talons and a beak. Before I was able to make up my mind

it kind of flew at me and I grabbed a girl with crutches to use her body as a shield (I learned how to do this in Civil War reenactment games during 7th grade). Yup, I am a terrible person. Thankfully, the hawk decided to land in a tree instead of my face. All was well again in my charmed New England life.
Next time I decide to chase a large bird I am going to chase a turkey because... YES there are wild turkeys that roam free around New England! They are bigger than hawks.

I asked one of my new school friends if it would be possible to have her drive me around town so I can hunt turkeys from the passenger seat. She said no. Well, until I can find a gamely person with a car, I am going to enjoy the taste of New England nature the legal way.