Joined the following LJ communties:

• Novice Knitters
• Bake Bake Bake
• Don't Drop the Book (book club, duh)

Have already had overwhelming responses in NK about how to knit this:

Yay :)

Procrastination Station

10:54 PM- I have no need nor want to get into twitter, so I will randomly post updates here instead (remember these?)

On meebo since somebody seems to have removed aim from my father's old laptop (my Thinking Box is still not working).

Current away message: I'm too old to still have papers due and STILL be procrastinating. On the other hand, looking forward to my first all nighter in forever (brings me back to my UMass days).

Wishing I was at the UMass library hopped up on either Dunks or Tab energy drinks and library lobby donuts in one of those damn uncomfortable chairs, sharing the same stressed/determined/tired/hardworking vibes as all the people around me. Watching as people filter in and out and some (myself included at times) falling asleep, taking frantic cat naps that make a world of difference.

11:22 PM- my word of the day remora is not just a clingy fish, but a hindrance or drag. My work is a remora.

11:32 PM- Once I've gotten this paper nonsense out of the way I'm going to contact two of my former writing teachers and get their advice about how to get back into writing again. I hope it proves helpful.

11:38 PM- contemplating life decisions. Must use hyper-focus-ness for school right now.

11:48 PM- oddly enough, the 2% milk string cheese is not as good as the skim. I usually hate anything with skim milk. Sucks that I bought a bag of 24 today.

12:06 AM- I MUST HAVE THIS

This looks like my kind of book

1:10 AM- just purchased it :) after finding a $25 gift card (that actually had the FULL amount despite being old, wtg with good policies B&N!) and Nina Garcia's Guide to Style because, why not? It's free! (well $6.48 after all is said and done...)

1:17 AM- stepping away from computer to do non-electronic work. Computer distracting (as you can see!)

T-minus 36 hours til I need to finish this shtuff

Repsonsiveness

I really need to write this damn response paper for my class, that is in a very short while, but I cannot get my thoughts together. Has it been that long since I wrote my last response paper? It's kind of scary if I try to think about it. I wrote a response paper for Ryne not too long ago, and that was only a few months ago. I never did find out what grade I- he- got. I thought it was pretty damn good for a 2am not very familiar with the work I was writing about paper. This work I am familiar with. I even read up a lot of criticisms, but I just can't quite get my ideas going... I'm hoping this little stream of consciousness will help open up my mind a bit and get me into a writing kind of mood. We'll see...

I went to bed wayyy to late last night. I wanted to work on my paper, but ended up catching up on my TV shows instead. Private Practice sucks. I don't want it to suck. I love Addison. I love her portrayer Kate Walsh. I have an inappropriate crush on Tim Daly who does not look like he's over fifty. That creeps me out. If somebody told me he was in his late thirties I would believe them. Is that stretching it? Well whatever, he must possess some sort of fountain of youth. It surprises me that he didn't do more movies, he's definitely good looking enough to get a bunch of romcoms under his belt. Anyways, back to the show. It's like you can hear Shonda Rhimes's voice saying "this week's theme is family, now let's make sure the audience knows that. Over and over and over again. Make sure they know- family. Family, family, family. You do whatever it takes to protect them. Your family. Protect your family. Got it? Good. Family. Protect 'em." I guess I'll keep watching, but it's definitely moving lower and lower on my list. Btw, does Shonda Rhimes have a thing for SWAT men? That stupid guy never took off his vest, surely they don't always walk around in their SWAT gear, right? And I couldn't stop thinking about the bomb guy from Grey's who she loooved.

Dammit I need to get back to this paper. What a bloody mess. No, I'm not trying to be British, it just seemed to be the proper adjective. Adjective, right? Not adverb. Adverb implies an action, and unless my paper is actually bleeding, I'm pretty sure it's an adjective. I'll have to check my grammar at a later date. Alright, off to be a student.

Comical

I should be working on my Monet paper, or even packing. Instead I'm posting this, because it reminds me very much of my dear kitties- who are currently not available at the moment to distract me from my paper writing like they usually do. Last night Sammy practically sat on my keyboard (so that explains all the cat hair I found under the keys during the last clean-up), and when I read books Gracie is usually there to sit on it before I get a paragraph in. Alas, Gracie is in Millburn, I'm still in Randolph. And Ryne is sound asleep. I guess maybe I should attempt to write this paper since, you know, my grade for the summer depends on it...

Busy Busy

Like most of the important things in my life right now, I've been neglecting the blog. I'm leaving for France on Sunday, although technically my journey begins Saturday, because that's when I'm going up to Boston. Right now the terror is overruling the excitement. I am extremely excited, but at the moment there are several pressing issues I have on my mind...

• The 3000 page, oops, word Monet paper that I've gotten NOTHING done on, it seems that even out of school I have concentration issues, and my body aches for the adrenaline rush that comes with waiting til the last minute
• Finding my missing camera. I cannot leave without it, and it's not where I thought I left it. I haven't searched the trunk of my car yet, so maybe in a half hour or so I'll have something different to report back on
• Packing- I've got basic things ready, but the fact of the matter is that at my father's house there sits about five loads of laundry and one or two unpacked bags that most definitely contain my missing tank tops
• Mani/Pedi, not too big of a deal, but I'd like to clean up my feet a little before wearing flip flops for five weeks and attempting not to scare people away
• Money- as of Friday I will have a paycheck from Oilily that should put me just over the $500 mark I need in spending money, although now people are telling me that I need MORE money to bring, so...umm...
• Train ticket to Boston, I'll probably have that taken care of by the time I get to my dad's house this evening
• Thank you notes for graduation- I want to complete those before I leave
• Writing an annonomous angry letter to the next door neighbors so that their kids might stop terrorizing the rest of my neighborhood while I'm gone. Without my sunshiney appearance brightening up my other neighbor's lives, how will they get through this terrible period with those obnoxious children screaming and running around on our properties?

This sounds like quite the long list, but my goal for today is to get my paper written and hopefully spend some quality time with my mom as well. Wish me luck!

Aahhh, hotness

Perhaps if I stop looking at YouTube for my favorite movie clips I will get some work done and can enjoy going out and perhaps meet a hot dancer like Patrick Swayze (circa '87, not now) who will take me out of the corner of the dugout and dance...

Short story in progress

I want to take English 355 next semester, creative writing. To get in I need to submit 6-10 pages of original fiction to the teacher, soon. Assuming that he's asking for double-spaced papers, I've already got about 4 or 5 pages completed so far, with two short stories. I just wrote this while avoiding studying at club lib. I'm not sure how I feel about the tense or POV, any comments and/or criticisms are welcomed. Please, be harsh, I need to get into this class, and if it takes a massive rewrite of this story (or an entirely new concept all together) then so be it.

Sleep Driving

She’s blasted the music, consumed at least two bottles of water, opened the windows all the way, but her eyelids still have weights attached to them. The car swerves slightly into the left lane, and her body jerks forward a few inches. She reaches for the music dial and turns the volume up louder, attempting to sing along. No matter how hard she tries, it’s a losing battle. Seventeen more miles to the next rest stop. She’s not sure if she can make it that long.

She’s never able to sleep the night before traveling, be it by plane, bus, car, or train. There’s a certain anxiety attached to the idea of travel, what could potentially go wrong plagues her mind and keeps her puttering around the room to avoid letting her mind drift to those ideas. She stays awake until she’s tired enough to pass out as soon as head meets pillow. It’s a terrible system, but she’s afraid of sleeping through her alarm if she takes a sleeping pill.

Instead, she wakes up after what feels like mere moments later, slightly panicked and ready to ship out and leave. A stop at Dunkin Donuts for some sort of hot caffeinated beverage is a must. She has a bad feeling that they slipped her decaf today. Those bastards. Thanks to them there’s no heat coursing through her veins, keeping her body in motion, feeling raw with energy. Instead everything feels heavy, constantly sinking. Sinking into the seat, sinking into herself; her shoulders slumping forward, and her head bobbing back and forth, as if she was vigorously nodding to somebody in approval.

She winces as she slaps her left cheek, and just as quickly and harshly she slaps her right cheek. This alerts her body for all of thirty seconds, but even the sting from her palm seems washed out by the dreariness that is taking over her body. Just ten more miles, at the speed of seventy miles per hour means… she attempts to do the math, but her brain seems to be full of cotton balls at the moment. It’s less than ten minutes, she can at least deduce that much. She attempts to do the algebra in her head. Sixty and seventy both share a common denominator with four-hundred and twenty, which means… which means her brain is too fried to figure out this simple equation at the moment. With a sigh she checks the road for hiding police and speeds up another six miles per hour. The sooner she can pull over, the sooner she’ll be able to close her eyes.

Her heart speeds up as she sees somebody jump into the road out of nowhere. What the hell are they doing crossing the interstate?! As she swerves the car, narrowly missing the station wagon next to her, she blinks and the person is out of sight. No other cars seem to be getting out of the way, and the person was definitely not fast enough to cross the road already. If somebody had hit them there would somewhat of a ruckus going on behind her. It’s not possible that she was seeing things. That would mean she had some serious issues going on. Eight more miles.

The wheel is misaligned, so the car keeps brushing up against the grating on the left side. She supposes it’s doing its job, shaking the car to alert a sleepy driver that they’re falling off of the road. She wonders what would happen if she just surrenders. That’s the sleep talking, keep alert! an angry voice yells in her head. She glances at the stereo, only to see that she’s three songs further into the CD than she last remembers. Part of her is terrified at the possibility that she’s been sleeping for a little while.

As she finally approaches the exit, the car continues to swerve, despite her best efforts. Her head is playing the bobbing game again. One red light is all that holds her back from the McDonald’s parking lot up again. A car beeps behind her, and she realizes that her eyes were closed, and the light has turned green. She drives a few more yards and pulls into the lot. It seems to take an eternity to adjust the seat. One lowered, closes her eyes and can feel her body falling deeper and deeper, the warm arms of sleep engulfing her. One last frantic thought runs through her mind before all of her systems shut down. What if she never made it this far, and the car had careened into the cement guardrail the first time she knew her eyes had been closed longer than necessary?

Adventures at the Lib (long "i") Part I

You'd think being at the library would put me into a more productive mood. But I'm not, so I'm not. Huh? Did that even make sense?

I'm going to keep a time-log of my activities, so you can see how sad it is that it's taking me this long to get anything done.

• 12:12am- cannot concentrate for the life of me. Attempted to write a blog entry, but had nothing interesting to talk about. Taking 21 minutes off to watch an episode of The Office.
• 12:34am- I'm in LOVE with Jim Halpert. In love. Tall, goofy looking guys better watch out, because I'll probably be coming after them
• 1:52am there's a facebook group called "Dammit. Meredith Grey Survived" hahaha. Oops, back to work.
• 2:17am- I'm walking home in the dark. I'm terrified. If I do not show up to class then I am probably stolen. :-O
  

Procrastination... if you add an "f" you've got CRAFTS

Okay, so on Friday night I came home drunk off of not even three drinks and kind of pissed and wrote the LONGEST rant on the blog. Then I watched the season... er series finale of the OC and passed out with all my makeup on. The next day I realized that I couldn't subject anybody to reading this angst-ridden crap. Long story short I hate men, and yet I'm boy-crazy, what to do what to do. Mostly I just hate being treated badly. Is it too much to ask for to be treated nicely? I've become very cynical in my "old age" and yet that's fighting with the part of me that is so much a hopeless romantic that I'm just left ridiculously confused. Okay rant over, it's safe to read now.

My angry Friday night led me to stay in Saturday, and get my craft on. Two weeks ago I purchased two plain white shadowboxes on sale at Target for $1.98 (on sale from $7.99) with the promise that I would make something special. Saturday night I painted the first box pink with white polka dots, and today (Sunday) I printed out all the fun pictures. It is now HANGING on my wall. I'm very proud of myself for not abandoning this project halfway through. This evening I watched the Oscars with my crazy former roommate, now across the hall neighbor, Mindy, and we each painted another shadowbox. My second shadowbox is not as polished as the first, but very Mackenzie Childs inspired. I'm kind of obsessed with Mackenzie Childs, so I'm super proud. I just need to figure out the theme of the pictures for that box. The first box is "Seniors '07" themed. It has pictures of all the girls out at McMurphy's, mostly Guitar Dudes, one from New Years when Dubs visited me, and just a cute picture of my friend Lauren and I. It's kind of funny that my hair color is different in every single picture I'm in. My roommate Courtney says that I'm a chameleon. Hehe. I also put in the picture that is being used for our facebook group "The Loft." That's what all the seniors are calling the right end of the front hallway. We're cute like that. Or just childish like that. Either way, it's fun. I hope that my second box theme will come to me quickly so I don't waste HOURS looking through pictures. I am the WORST procrastinator EVER. Seriously.

The pictures (in order): Box 1, pictures in Box 1, a shot of it with my finger over the flash that looked really cool and artsy, Box 2, and two closeups of Box 2 showing off the Mackenzie Childs-ness of it all.

Speaking of procrastination in the name of "blog research" I have spent a good chunk of the week reading all of the gossip blogs, and I am now a full blown EXPERT on Britney Spears and her breakdown. I even have several personal opinions. Maybe I should rename my blog something witty and start my own celebrity gossip page. Or maybe not. I would just find a reason to spend even more of my time working on a pass/fail course and ignoring all of my graded classes.

I'll probably be procrastinating more this week by posting some sort of Oscars recap and talking about my favorite clothes. I will say for now:

• Nicole Kidman looked like a joke
• Beyonce is getting on my nerves, she definitely tried to steal Jennifer Hudson's thunder when they were singing
• I was extremely happy for Martin Scorsese when he won, and I'm even more annoyed with myself for choosing Legally Blonde to do my crafts to rather than watching The Departed for the first time
• I got very misty eyed during Ennio Morricone's speech, even though I don't understand a word of Italian. I could feel his joy :) And unfortunately I did miss a good chunk of the translation because my ex-roomie was chatting away
• Does Clint Eastwood speak Italian?
• Penelope Cruz looked GORGEOUS
• Who invited Tom Cruise? ick
• Jack Nicholson looked freakin' scary with that big bald head
• The Oscars were kind of a bore this year