candy-flavored candy

i wish it were last summer.

okay, i only kind of wish it were last summer. this summer has its moments. and there are a lot of things about right now that i wouldn't trade for the world. like ben, and the security i feel with him now (seriously, the devoted, committed, domesticated boyfriend you all know and love has been a long time in the making). i also wouldn't want to go back to not knowing the people i now consider vital to my graduate existence. like junior. oh, what a pit of boring my life would be without you. gracias por tu presencia en mi vida. (see, i too am sophisticated enough to use google translator. take that, boyfriend.) 

but last summer was so goddamn awesome. in a lot of ways. for starters, i was still in spokane (where the summers are perfect and humidity-free), spending as much time as possible with all the people i knew i wouldn't see for such a long stretch of time (even longer now, as this summer has not yielded the opportunity of traveling out west). i had just graduated from college and had literally no responsibility whatsoever. i went dancing at prago every weekend, always dressed up and looking fabulous. i also weighed about 10lbs less than i do now (mostly thanks to my old friends, cigarettes and a lack of appetite), which helped with the fabulousness. graduate school still didn't seem real--even in the days before i left washington, madison and grad school were these far away realities that seemed likely to stay that way. 

i was also still dancing, which, for as much as i didn't care for it, was quite fulfilling in its own way. and as poor as i am right now, i can't say that i don't miss being able to leave every night with anywhere from $200-$400 in cash. but more than that, i really just miss the dancing itself. okay, maybe not so much "table dancing" (i don't know why they call it that; there were no tables involved), but stage dancing was so much awesome. it made me feel sexy, sultry, beautiful, amazing--all the feelings that are, for most women, hard to come by. when i was up there it was just me and the song. there's something so right about dancing; it's like it makes the music go straight into my soul, and the beauty i felt from that didn't come from the money or the outfits or the heels (although they might have helped a bit), but from the connection of my body to the music. 

so basically, the thing that sucks most about this summer is that, for whatever reason or combination of reasons, i feel ugly. i'm not sure if reminiscing about times that i felt beautiful makes me feel better or worse about my current self, but i can't really help it.   

loitering on cliffs thinking about stuff like...

oh hey there. haven't seen you in a while. my bad, really. i've been too busy relaxing the shit out of the summer. well, mostly relaxing. i got a job working in the mailroom at the uw foundation (don't ask me what it is, i still don't know). next to reception work, this is possibly the easiest job i've ever had. basically all we do is collect and deliver mail around the building, with the occasional mindless task to break up the day (like putting fancy cards into fancy envelopes). and on any given day there are four or more people on hand to do a job that really only needs about two people. it's seems pretty clutch so far, although i have to admit that despite the awesomeness of such a laid-back job, i really honestly prefer work that keeps me on my toes. but whatever, it's only for the summer. plus, they're pretty easy-going about taking days off (since we're generally overstaffed anyway), which is good 'cause i plan on spending quite a few lazy days drinking in the park with junior.

so basically i've been brain dead since i turned in my last paper a couple of weeks ago. i think i've cleared my system, though, and i'm pretty excited to start french tomorrow to get myself back in the swing of reading and doing things that aren't sitting on my computer watching internet television (not that that's necessarily a bad use of time). i'm also extremely excited to start reading books that i want to read, probably starting with an eggers novel i recently, um, procured from work (seriously, the extra books are stored in the basement. no one will miss it). i'm also excited to start running more. i haven't run more than 10 miles in a week since before finals. speaking of which, i've realized that i've missed having regular running partners. in college i usually ran with someone else at least once a week, and i totally miss that. i ran with rush a couple of times this year, and that was great, but i don't think he runs that often, plus now he's off in wherever the fuck he goes. as for miss m, well, she has a mental block against going long distances. and the only other person i have run with here is so skinny that i want to rip off my skin when i'm around her, not to mention that she's a much better runner than i am. since i've basically met most of the people that i'm going to know for the next 5 or 6 years, my only remaining option is to join a running group. i say that like it's a bad thing. no, i'm actually kind of stoked. there's one that meets on tuesday evenings near my house even, so hopefully i'll get on that soon. assuming, of course, that i get my throat back sometime in the next century (seriously, fuck losing my voice whenever i get sick).

have i mentioned yet that it's summer? and that i have no major obligations other than a month-long french course and a job that is easy as pie?*. because that is the crucial thing here. as far as my brain is concerned, i am totally free. for three months at least. but by the time school starts i'll be practically begging to start doing work again. so far, aside from the birthday sickness, my summer has been kicking ass. i had a birthday that lasted a week, i got to go to the awesomest hip-hop weekend in minneapolis, my boyfriend took me shopping, and i've been drinking more often than not. next weekend i get to go to kentucky with miss m. few weeks after that is music and camping with j & k. at the end of the summer ben and i are staying in a beach house in nc for a week with my family (for free, even the plane tickets). and in-between? just a whole lot of chillaxin.

[*i'd just like to point out that from what i understand, making pie is not all that easy. maybe the pie-maker can back me up here, 'cause it seems like the phrase "easy as pie" is a bit misleading. unless it means easy as eating pie, in which case it totally makes sense.]

anyone who doesn't like summer has clearly never been in grad school.

i ate your soul

there is another life that i could be living (would like to be living?). i feel as though there are two contradictory impulses inside of me regarding what path my life takes, and as it stands it is (clearly) the academic impulse that has taken precedence. i want to be in school. i want to learn shit and do something meaningful with my life. that's the life i'm living/heading toward at the moment. so what's this other life look like? well, for starters, i do makeup. i love makeup. not that this is in any way apparent considering that i've only worn the stuff once in the last three months. but right now i don't live in a makeup conducive or makeup necessary life. so makeup. that's what i do in my other life. and of course i wear it all the time and maybe i dabble a bit in hair styling, or at the very least i learn some really sweet ways of doing my own hair (yeeeeah). i also wear sweet-ass clothes and shoes. in this life i spend at least a couple of hours every day getting ready (as opposed to my current m.o. of oh shit the bus is outside in five minutes where are my jeans and oh god this coat doesn't match my shoes but fuck my other coat is dirty and shit i'm out of time 30 seconds ago where the fuck is my backpack?).

i also live somewhere else, probably seattle or portland, maybe los angeles if i landed a job as a celebrity makeup artist, but definitely somewhere with a zipcode that begins in 9. i'd go to all the good clubs and shows and be friends with a bunch of bands and scenesters. and i would dance. i would be dancing all the time. that's what would make me happy. i'd still be working my ass off and probably running myself into the ground to keep shit going (although in a different way than i do here), but i would party equally as hard. and dance. it's not really the partying that's important, it's the dancing. and i'd be cool. not smart, not rich (necessarily), not useful to the world, but cool.

so, makeup and dancing. that's what my life is missing.

teh internets

i wish someone would ban me from the internet. my eyes are blurry from staring at this godforsaken safari screen for i don't know how many hours. and, needless to say, my time here has not been productive. i don't even care about celebrity gossip, for instance, or jenna jameson, but somehow i became sucked into link after link of pictures, articles, videos, etc (videos as in interviews and such, not porn i swear). although this romp into the vast expanse of nothingness that exists online was not in any way, shape, or form enlightening (perhaps even the opposite), it did remind me of a couple of things i have been wondering lately:

1. why do people say that kim kardashian is fat? (i won't even approach the question "why is she famous," considering that more than half of contemporary celebrities are famous for no apparent reason.) i realize that she is not overly skinny and that she does not fit the current ideal of anorexia, but after browsing through many pictures (and i mean many), i cannot really see how anyone could think that she's actually fat. say she's a whore and a slut, okay, i'll buy that. but overweight? i just don't see it.

2. what the fuck happened to jenna jameson? clearly, plastic surgery is what happened. but really? she looks like a robot. or an alien. whatever it is, she doesn't look like herself. and she's not even that old; i'm pretty sure the aging process hadn't set in enough to justify mutilating her face with a surgeon's knife. this of course leads to a long-standing query i have about plastic surgery in general, namely why? boobs are a no-brainer. i get that. not that i'd ever do it myself, but i totally understand wanting bigger boobs, especially for women who have small ones to begin with. but facial reconstruction? unless you're cyrano de bergerac, i can't understand why people would want to change their faces. it never looks good. even lip pumping, which seems similar in concept to boob jobs, always ends up looking awful and unnatural.

i know i'm not the best candidate for saying this, but i wish someone would make some kind of magic reality mirror. it seems like people either think they look way uglier than they actually do, or they think they're hottie mchotterson when they're only marginally attractive. same goes for clothing. i sometimes wish i could stop people on the street and ask them if they actually looked in the mirror before they left the house. this doesn't count for people wearing sweats or other i-slept-through-my-alarm-and-had-10-minutes-to-get-to-class type of clothing, only for those people who clearly put effort into their outfit, but missed the mark by a lot. this is especially prevalent when new trends come into fashion, and everyone is rushing to get on the bandwagon. only they didn't stop to check whether that particular trend looks good on their particular bodies. hence people with a little too much midriff wearing short-ish tops. or people with short legs wearing long shirts. or people with big hips wearing "skinny" jeans.

okay, i'm done hatin'. for now.