Hiatus.

If being lazy is a crime then break out the ambrosia salad and Dave Coulier stand-up tapes because I OWN lazy.

My 2 month break from school has been lovely and amazing and completely advertising deficient. I feel partially like a schlub, partially like i'm on parole for good behavior.

Sadly, the sweet, sweet nectar of summer that has been dribbling down my proverbial chin is about to dry up and leave a sticky cesspool of despair in t-minus one month.

sigh. But instead of working myself into an anxiety-ridden Brandcenter tizzy, I think I'll wallow in thoughts of this summer by making one of much-loved lists.

Summer's Highlights
(or the little things that, were I in an internship, I wouldn't have been able to indulge in):
1. Miles
2. SGI, twice
3. Fishing
4. Traveling
5. Cooking
6. Decorating
7. Organizing
8. Cleaning

Simple pleasures.

Doggie-doors. (or, Ways to Entertain Myself)

I crawled through the doggie-door at my brother's house tonight.
Why?

Because, apparently, I could.

Full-body rebellion.

To say that my body is "unamused" with my recent lifestyle would be about as absurd as saying that, when asked about his stance on world peace, Ghandi rolled his eyes and passed a spliff.

Last night, por ejemplo, bedtime was at 4:15 a.m. I had attempted and earlier repose, but due to the months of only 4 hours of sleep a night, my body balked at such a pedantic effort (I yoose Big Gurl werds 'cause I'm in gradumate skool).

So an hour later, when kitty-foo decided to practice her deep-tissue massage (read: flogging) on my shoulder blades, I knew that Fate was a back-stabbing bitch that would dangle the possibility of sleep above me like dripping, ripe fruit. Or a diamond chandelier. Or those damn baby mobiles they put in cribs to amuse babies. Oh, I remember mine. Stupid animals kept smiling down at me. All I wanted to do was pet them, but they were miles away from my piggy little fingers. Objects closer than they appear, indeed.

Anyway, so 5 a.m. comes and kitty gets exiled to the floor (mind you, she's been sleeping on my favorite sweatshirt - on the floor - for a week and a half now, so she was perfectly happy with her banishment).
Awesome. Time to rock Sleep again. Except now Sleep is tainted with bizarro dreams involving toile curtains, mice and those sprinkles made for cakes and ice cream.

6 a.m., cold sweat. I wake up panicked as I try to claw my way out of the noose I have somehow fabricated, in my sleep, out of my comforter. And its all because, in the netherworld of Leslie Dreams, those stupid mice grew sprinkles in place of horns (don't your mice have horns?) and the toile-scenery peasants were trying to poach them for their... well, sprinkles. True dream story.

For the next hour I watch the sun rise over the greyhound bus parked in the church parking lot across the street from my window. Finally, pissed, I get up, shower, and eat a half a banana slathered in Jif (which made the kitty-torture-methods and freakish toile dreams ALMOST acceptable).

And here I am, having endured an entire day of non-productivity, now putting up a half-assed fight against that pompous bastard Sleep (who I swear just scoffed at my Tylenol PM as being merely "a flesh wound.")

Kitty McShreddington better choose her battles wisely tonight.

Christmas 2008. I'm on it.

I just emailed my mom.
Subject line: what i want for christmas.
Body:
"think you can arrange that?
get on it, woman.
xoxo,
moi"


















Thats right.
Conchita the Baby Monkey. I want her.

Late-night snacks.

I just found a stowaway Cheerio in my bra. From breakfast. Yesterday.

I'm not sure which of the following is more disturbing:
1. Changing my clothes (much less, showering) has taken a backseat to grad school.
2. I mistook it for a displaced body part.
3. I ate it.

I wish it had been money instead of a Cheerio. Or a bottle of wine. A wood nymph, perhaps. Those would at least suggest that I lead a more exciting life than that which a lone Cheerio implies.

::sigh::

Ghetto, in thee I live.

I have not mowed my lawn. Ever.

It didn't matter over the course of the late fall and winter, since my backyard looked like a barren field once inhabited by Dog the Digger. But with March came rain, which was immediately followed by it's not-so-popular sibling, torrential downpour, in April. I now have knee-high grass in which I have lost my cat on more than one occasion. She is wee.

My neighbor even knocked on my door today and offered to let me use her lawn mower. I was embarrassed by the condition of my yard, so clearly I decided to launch into some preposterous excuse for my poor lawn care habits. I told her that I'm in the process of procuring a flock of sheep that would not only serve as an environmentally-friendly answer to lawn mowers, but as serious autumn barbeque fare. She finds me not funny. Shocking.

At any rate, if my apartment were a person, it would be homeless. Or a hippie.

Dietary Shortcomings.

Rold Gold Pretzels and Diet Dr. Pepper.

This is what I eat, almost daily, at school. I did the math. Buying just one drink and just one snack from the vending machines at school, every day, I spend almost $60 a month. I've avoided doing the math until now for fear of the impending financial reality that would inevitably come with it. What's worse is that I usually buy TWO Diet Dr. Peppers and a bag of pretzels every day. I'm not calculating that. I need at least one vice during my 16 hour stints at school.

Therefore, I've decided to once again extend my culinary palette and go beyond the boundaries of a 3' x 6' glass case of glut. Starting May 14th-ish (Portfolio Review day), I'm dedicating my diet to those foods which are grown or raised locally and are organic. Ideally, I'll keep it up at least until August, when the Brandcenter vacuum sucks me back into the depths of advertising and $2.10 meals. Realistically, I'll last a week, but they say goal-setting is good.

Thank god for editing.

I have lots of journals.

At least 7 or 8. None of them are full, but all of them are written in. This presents a two-fold dilemma: 1. no re-gifting. At this point, I should receive a government stipend for all the birthday, baby shower, and thank-you gifts that have required me to spend my hard-earned bartending money over the past few years. I mean, I don't understand why I can't just offer free drinks and lovely company in place of gifts. And I don't want to hear about the inappropriate nature of mixing breast feeding and Cable Car shots.

Dilemma 2: Hmmm... I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with my inability to complete any project that isn't educationally or professionally required of me.

Having said that, it would probably behoove you to know that it usually takes me an additional 100 or so words to say what any (relatively) normal person might be able to say in 25. For instance, I could've just said, "I'm an overly verbose person with an inability to form concise sentences or follow through with simple tasks that aren't required of me." I mean, that was only 23 words (contractions not included).

Anyway, all of this is to say that, like cigarettes and tidiness, journaling/blogging is not woven into the fabric of my being. Don't get me wrong - I love writing, but not anything that people will actually READ (that would be preposterous).

So this blog is my little experiment. How long can I stick with this? How tightly can I embrace this absurdly uncomfortable display of myself? How many... er, times... can I... um... hmm. Where was I going with this? Bygones. Moving on.

It has taken me one hour to write three paragraphs. I'm awesome.

First blog posting? Check. Let's hope there's a round two.

Eh.

Yeah, I know. I still haven't written anything.