Here are two of my favorite paintings for you to enjoy

Organs, Lungs, and other Instruments

I think I'm about to enter the gothic era of my life.  Why am I suddenly obsessed with song lyrics?  And harps and blues organs and tuney pianos?

Even I'm judging me, so I wouldn't expect anything less of YOU

You know those sad 35-year-old chicks who show up to ComiCon dressed as a fat Slave Leia (chains, and nudity, and weird little British accent, and everything)?  This is how it starts.

Say you get bored and decide to watch Serenity, because it's on HBO and it's free and what the hell nobody's gonna tell YOU what to watch so it might as well be science fiction.  And then you fucking love it.  So you say you know, I think I heard somewhere that this was based on a tv show... maybe I should look THAT thing up.  Oh, it's on Netflix watch instantly, FANTASTIC.  You probably chew through that entire series in what?  A week?  10 days?  But, wait.  It's only 1 season... there's nothing left.  WHAT DO YOU DO NOW?

So you probably start to hint to close friends that you've developed a tiny appetite (lies, it's huge) for science fiction, but only the good stuff.  Like anyone will believe that you're not a total freak just because you have standards.  And let's say, at a party, someone mentions that you should probably watch Battlestar Galactica just cuz.  And 5 days later you find yourself googling shit like this and finishing all of season 1... all FIFTEEN HOURS of season 1.

Ya, that's probably how it starts.

Remember the last time you had that kind of look of awe on your face that didn't come from someone setting an enormous margarita in front of you? Me either.

Yessir, Capt'n Tightpants

Mal: Okay, help me look for our guy Harrow..  He's supposed to be older, kinda stocky, wears a red sash..

Kaylee: Is that him?

Mal: ... that's the buffet table.

Kaylee: Well how can we be sure... unless we question it.

Happy Place

It started off as bragging, but ended up as me needing to read more.

Meme I saw of fb, but I don't really want to post this there.  Mostly because I want to write notes about all of the books which I'm sure no one will read.  And because I'm procrastinating on writing my personal statement for grad school.

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (favorite.  book.  ofalltime.)

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien 

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling 

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (sometimes I feel like I need to read the bible, but I never get past Genesis)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (recommended for any person of any age. If you think kids shouldn't be reading this series - or you want them to read the CS Lewis stuff instead - you're wrong.) 

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens 

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (I thought I was Jo, and I hated Amy with a passion.)

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (nightmares.  oh and whatever you do don't watch the Polanski film.)

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller 

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (this is kind of misleading... there are what?  36 plays?  I haven't read them all, but I certainly have my favorites... As You Like It, Much Ado, Macbeth, Lear, Twelfth Night is a particular fav)

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier 

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien 

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk 

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (am I the only one who thinks Holden is a total ass?)

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (ugh.  just... don't.)

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot 

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ("...so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.")

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky 

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (I always think of the Harry Connick Jr. song where he sings about an old jalopy)

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll  

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (I can't even name how many times I've started this book.)

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens 

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis 

34 Emma -Jane Austen 

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (does it count if I'm reading it now?)

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis 

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (bought this along with another de Bernieres book, but I haven't finished it.)

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden 

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne 

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell 

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (looove.)

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (still reading, but I'm about 400 pages in, so I think it counts.  this book SO reminds me of my grandmother's family.)

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins 

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery 

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood 

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach is fantastic, too. McEwan is phenomenal.)

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 

52 Dune - Frank Herbert 

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons 

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (interesting that they left out Northanger Abby and Mansfield Park.)

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth 

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon 

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (I just remember the alleged musical - omg I just found it - that Jen told me about in high school)

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (this book changed the way that I think about science fiction.)

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon 

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck 

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov 

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt 

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy (no.  don't.  don't ever read Hardy.)

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding 

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (been meaning to read something by Rushdie forever.)

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville 

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson 

75 Ulysses - James Joyce ("... I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.")

76 The Inferno - Dante  

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 

78 Germinal - Emile Zola 

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray 

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens 

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell 

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker 

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro (working on another Ishiguro book right now, but this one's next.)

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert 

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry 

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White 

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom 

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton 

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks 

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole 

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute 

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas 

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (does it count if I listen to the musical, like, religiously?)

...and then I looked at the date.

Netflix knows me better than I know myself

I probably never would have picked any of these up on my own, but they were fantastic, all of them.

Looking back, 2001 was actually pretty bomb. Just not for me.

What the hell.  Ghost World changed my life.  And now she's a sexy alien.  Whyyy

Read this on /Film earlier:

It looks as though Scarlett Johansson will be playing a big-screen villainess once again. According to Entertainment Weekly, the "Iron Man 2" starlet, who recently earned raves for her performance of The Black Widow in the superhero film, has been tapped to lead "Under the Skin."

The sci-fi comedy, which is set to be helmed by "Sexy Beast" director Jonathan Glazer, will reportedly begin filming in 2011. The news source reports that Johansson will play "a sexy space alien who kidnaps human hitchhikers and sends them back to her home world to be served as exotic hors d'oeuvres."

Fun facts:
Memento, The Royal Tennenbaums, Mulholland Drive, Moulin Rouge!, Waking Life, Donnie Darko, Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone and Amelie also came out in 2001.  Less than 5 sequels for the whole year.  Can you believe it?  Go ahead, go look.  Seriously what the helll

I'd say that a little part of me, the part that's had this expression

on her face since 2001, died when I read this.  But, sadly, that death occurred when I saw The Island.  Ugh.

Passive Me, Aggressive You

The Naked + Famous




Wanna hear the whole album?

Kinda sound like MGMT, Fang Island, and Beach House all had a baby.  A music baby.

Happy Place

It kills me that if I dressed up as Irene Dunne for Halloween nobody would know who I was.  

What's everyone else dressing up as?

Oh and I watched "Penny Serenade" on netflix last night.  It was incredible.

"I like the part where she has her A machines on the table and her B machines on the floor"

I posted a few songs about this band back in May (whoa, why did I think that was like... way more recent??) but here's another one that I heard on the radio today.  Because Nic Harcourt now takes his music listening cues from yours truly.  Just kidding... not really.  But seriously sick beats, it was fun to crank up in the car.  I felt super mexican for like 3 and a half minutes.

The Do

I think I feel shitty?

Is it possible to not be quite sure about whether you're depressed or not?  I used to feel like one day you're fine and then the next you're just laying on the bathroom floor looking at the lint stuck in the showermat.  But I don't think that's how it works.  I think it's gradual.

Is it possible to be underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the same time?  Like, ohmygod I have so much stuff to do... but... does it really matter?

What good will it do?  What difference does it make?  If I'm so far away from my goals how will this one thing help?  How will it even make a dent in the hugeness of everything?

I don't sleep anymore.  At all.  I don't have enough energy to go out, and I'm never really exhausted enough to pass out, so I just lay and think.  Or stare.

I've been trying to read lately but it's been really hard, exceptionally hard, to get through things.  I've picked up so many different books, read 4 chapters, and then put them down again.  What do I want?  It isn't scifi, it isn't mystery, or romance, or political intrigue, or history.  Of everything, I feel like books are the easiest way to gauge a person - how they're feeling, their energy, ambitiousness, diversity.  Literally nothing is appealing to me right now, not even re-reads which can usually get me back into the swing of things.  Right now I'm reading One Hundred Years of Solitude and it's been kind of a struggle.  I'm about halfway through, and I like it - probably not as much s I would in different circumstances, but what can you do?  I feel like I just need this one accomplishment to pull me out of this, just one thing to be able to say "YES.  I started this thing and now I have finished it.  Because I can complete shit when I want to."

Of course, not everything is falling to pieces.  A certain little puppy has been brightening my days and literally taking up 100% of my home time, but it's a job I'm happy to have.

Taken 2 minutes ago:

Use book as a scale, because he really is tiny for what will one day become a giant dog.

Happy Place, but feeling strangely lonely in that place

Happy Place

Betty Draper is, as a rule, generally pretty insane.  

But for a brief moment one insignificant afternoon she was a total BADASS.  And that is why Mad Men is the best show on tv.

I STARTED AN AMAZON.COM SELLER ACCOUNT YESTERDAY AND I ALREADY SOLD TWO THINGS

This is why I love America.  One woman's trash... is another woman's slightly used statistics book.

The only thing that sucks is that I posted the second listing as a Hardcover w/CD and actually there is no CD, so... I emailed the chick (UCSB?) and hopefully she gets back to me soon (as in tomorrow morning) because she wanted a 2 day delivery.  And hopefully she still wants it... I mean, you really don't need a CD for a stats class.  Who uses them anyways?  Especially if you're the kind of person who gets their books off of amazon during the second week of school... right?

The hitch in my second order does not detract from how awesome I feel right now, however.



ME:

Things I did today:

1.  put all of danielles shit in boxes.
2.  moved all of her furniture into the center of her room.
3.  bought paint at home depot and primered the walls.
4.  opened an amazon.com selling account and listed some books.
5.  SOLD a book.  For 40 bucks!
6.  tried to find another 24x36 poster to hang beside my casablanca one above my bed.  not a lot of options, though.
7.  felt badass because of all the stuff I did!

I just want to get a cat. And be a baby.

"I have friends who had a baby and they sent me pictures and, I don't know if you know this, but you swaddle your baby up so they can't move their arms... and they just lay, like this.  And anyways my friend send me a picture and the kid was laying like this and there was just a cat right there and I'm like, 'I wanna have a fuckin' baby, I do.  I wanna have a baby."  And I was like, oh, my biological clock kicked in!  So I picked up my cell phone, I'd just gone to get a frozen yogurt, and I called my friend and I'm like, 'I think I want a baby..' and he's like, 'well, what are you doing right now?' and I'm like, 'oh, I don't know, I'm just wandering.  I went to get a frozen yogurt,' and he's like, 'well, you can't do that when you have a baby,' and I'm like, 'fuck that'.  Like, I can't get a frozen yogurt??..  Maybe I just wanna be a baby.  I would just love to lay on a couch, and with a cat?  Are you kidding me?  That's like the best thing that I ever heard of."

RIP Patricia Neal

Things I've been thinking about today.

Sorry for being so gone - work, work, work.

1. Luckily my "side" job has improved.  Marginally.  At least I've become a lot better at pretending.  I am now the world's authority on flirting with old men.

2. I wish I had more time to be outside.  I went on a bunch of bike rides with my dad this past week and they were totally fun, but I want to go kayaking or swimming or something.  I was contemplating doing a triathalon, but not until the fall - anyone know about cheap short triathalons?

3.  I spent $100 bucks on cds at Borders 2 days ago.  Because I was having a bad day... and just because I could:

4.  I've played this on loop now for about 20 minutes.  Isn't getting any duller:

5.  Have started to fantasize about getting a Vespa again.  I saw a cute little black one with pink accents parked down the street from me and I almost lost it.  Honestly, one has to draw the line for adorable propaganda somewhere.

6.  Have decided to pick up Ella Enchanted again.  Right on time for my quarterly re-reading of the poor, tattered 1997 edition that I own.  Is it just me, or does everyone love tattered, loved old books?

Things I love today

1. Chanson Beatbox


2. Scented Chapstick

3. Scavenger Hunts

4. Still Waiting for Godot T-Shirts

5. Bevmo 5cent wine sale!  

fuck.

1.  I am a waitress.  I used to have these fantasies where I'd be at work and Sofia Coppola would come in to eat, stop me, gasp, and cry out "you are singlehandedly delivering the greatest performance of any actress of your generation!!"  Tonight Joe told me that a. I'm not doing that great of a job acting and b. customers leave me lower tips because of it.  The sad part - the really, really sad part - is that I was trying - like really TRYING - to be friendly and nice and have a good memory and talk to people and whatever.  Obviously, I'm not cut out for this.  Joe said he got an email from a customer saying that I was snide and that people say I'm sarcastic.  I actually can't say I disagree.  This job is way more work that I thought it would be.

2.  I feel like I'm slacking off so much at the lab all because of this other job.  But it's like... my career... so why do I keep fucking it up??  Damn the money!

3.  I haven't exercised in like 2 months.  I just work and drink.  And sleep because I'm so fucking tired all the time.  Which is so, so bad.  I don't even drink wine anymore, I just drink beer.  God.  Okay, that does it - I'm off the beer, I just decided.

4.  I'm depressed now.

5.  I can't believe Joe said that people think I have an "interesting" personality.  Like "weird", but for adults.  Shit, this is high school all over again.

6.  I'll just stop now.  Here's a song that's been helping to zen me out:

Happy Place

I'm kind of in love with Dexter.

Happy Place

Is this turning into a music blog??

I'd say it's not on loop, but I'd be lying.

One of my favorite Paul Simon songs

I don't understand

Women don't have prostate glands... so... I don't understand.

Reasons why Parenthood is my favorite new show #1

While catering at a poetry reading, Sarah and Amber (her daughter) run across one of Sarah's exes, Jim Kazinsky.  He was previously a coffee barista, but is now a successful author and is, in fact, the guest speaker at the reading.  He stands up to read a poem titled "The Orchid".  As he progresses through the verse it becomes more and more apparent that it's not really about what they think it's about.

Sarah: This is about flowers, right?

Amber: ...I think it might be about your vag

An Assortment

So I've been reading A Room With a View.  Again.  And all I have to say is... will you take me to Italy?  Please?  Pretty please?  Florence, thanks.

And speaking of British things (inadvertently), I watched Lady Jane the other day.  What the hell happened to Cary Elwes?  The poor man did not age well.

I loved this.  Like beyond words.  Kristin Chenoweth was great on the show, but seriously.  Amber Riley.  My god.



I've recently begun to realize an obsession that I have for bookcases.  Like, when I get an apartment they will be everywhere.  Ideally, they'd be built-in, but I'm open.


I went rowing today and my arms hurt.  They will probably hurt more tomorrow.  Also my lips have been incredibly chapped for like a week.  And the palms of my hands and feet have been extra dry.  


I'm going to tutor a teenager tomorrow.  Like an athlete at Mater Dei.  In chemistry.  And english.  Pray for me.

Help Me! Help Me!

Normally I post music on here that interests me, but usually it's temporary.  Okay, that might be an exaggeration.  It always interests me, but I usually listen to it avidly for about 2 weeks and then move on.  Certain songs and albums pop up repeatedly, whether serendipitously or because I want to hear them, and that keeps these people on the brain.  However, when I hear new (i.e. post-initial-infatuation) music by these artists that I really really like, that's when they get put into a different category entirely.

I initially liked Lucy Schwartz because I thought this song was adorable.  I even decided not to be too hasty and I let her percolate for a while before making a decision.

I'm not gonna lie, these songs are still like crack to me.  I literally listened to her entire catalog (which, truthfully, isn't a ton) at least 5 times today.  And now I can add a new song to my list:

Sorry this video is so creepy.

Get it

"Deemed “too urban” by Jive Records, “Get It” was kicked off of Britney Spears’decade defining 2003 album In The Zone. Several low-quality leaks later, we have the full-quality version of “Get It”."

O. M. F. G.

I seriously cannot wait.  Seriously.

I'm just pissed at HBO for letting this one slide; now I have to figure out where I can watch it.

This happens in the morning sometimes

11:32

Brittany

whyy did you tell me there was a sale at gap

that is so evil.

11:32Adrian

well you need the coupon

but its easy and i can give it to you if you want it

11:32Brittany

oh hey, 50% off in banana republic today

11:33Adrian

WHAA?

11:33Brittany

ya

I hope you're happy

11:33Adrian

holy fuccckkk

Conversations with Other Women

If you'd never seen a film, but had read a film review, you'd never guess that it was describing a moving picture.  Subtlety, nuance, idiosyncrasy, faces, dialogue, action, reaction, shape, emotion.  Not a ton of that in the films that speak to us.  Or at least not in the films that I want to watch.  


Why do we watch them anyways?  Because the one thing that I'm missing from my life is a giant explosion?  Or two?  Probably not.  The chance to watch someone feel an emotion not unlike something that you may feel at any given time in your life.  Distant familiarity, maybe longing, maybe regret.  To experience what is happening to them, with them.  


In the film, the man says, "time really can't move in two directions."  But is that really true?


Roger Ebert said: "In our minds, and in our hearts, time is hardly linear or unidirectional. Visit your parents and you're instantly a child again, and if you all live long enough, time begins to curl back on itself and they become your children. Or run into a certain old girlfriend or boyfriend and you may enter a disconcerting time warp between then and now and some shared future you once envisioned, but that never came to pass."


There is a central struggle in the film, between the man and the woman, with each trying to get a grip on who they're with.  And in the process they begin to forget who they are themselves.  When you're with an old friend, do you feel your age?  You might, but don't you also feel that you're the age you were when you met them?  If I met you when I was 15 and we were having a conversation at 40, would you think of me as your 40-year-old friend, or as something else?  How would I think of you?  


"Is the 38-year-old you the same person as the 22-year-old you? Might the 22-year-old and the 38-year-old (and who knows how many others) exist simultaneously inside the same mind and body? And how well can you really know another person -- and for how long, given that people are always changing?" - Roger Ebert


It was not a love story, it was a conversation.  The poster lied, but that didn't matter because I didn't see the poster until after the movie.  


Things both were and weren't happening, because there both was and wasn't action.  It was almost transcendental in it's lack of commitment to plot, but that's how most of my favorite movies are.  I mean, what does it matter anyways, whether they end up together or not?  Will that affect me in some way after I've stopped watching the film?  It'll probably make me cynical if they do, so I actually prefer not to know.