Rogers A-Hoy

Emily: "Can't you just drop it?"
Josh: "Never. I'm gonna ride this horse into space."

I never needed siblings. I had Rogers.
(P.S. My mother found a squishy kitten behind the barn.)

A, A, A, B, A

I got four A's and a B (in French), which essentially makes me happy because even though Dr. Kress is trying to kill because I didn't like France, I'm still in the running for Summa Cum Laude.

Also, this just proves that I am capable of more than I thought because in my mind, The Conglomerate(+)The Bookstore(+)Senior Sem(+)Reading Until My Face Imploded(-) Time to go A'TKEing= Suicide. Only for the meek, my friend. Only for the meek.

I'm reading Jarhead. Any good hippy you should read it. Ohh-rah.

Labor Omnia Vincit

So, the other day in the midst of absentmindedly searching the internet for something to *ahem* do with my life after I graduate, I remembered why I came to college in the first place. When I graduated from highschool I had noooooooooooooo idea what I wanted to do. At graduation I told the Principal to say "Roxie is going travel the world before attending culinary school," which as we all know is a lie, but it kept him from saying "Roxie is entering THE WORLD OF WORK" which they always say like they're announcing to the whole school that you have terminal cancer.

Anyway, I spent hours in high school reading the websites for Americorps and the Peace Corps (I also spent hours in chat rooms about japanese cartoons, but that's beside the point). Anyway the other day I remembered that the half the reason I went to college is that you can get a better job in the Peace Corps if you have a degree. The other half of the reason is that I looooove being around smart people. Seriously, nerds make me so happy.

I'm nervous now though because I've realized that if I want to do what *I* want to do in the Peace Corps, which would be digging holes, playing in the dirt, talking to plants and talking to people about plants, if I want to do that I have to have a) a degree in something botany or ag management or b) about three years experience in the park service.

Here's the problem: I'm graduating with a genius degree in English and French which means that they're going to place me in some former french colony teaching little kids to count in English, which would still be cool but it isn't ideal. (That is if the peace corps would take me.)

Can I go to grad school for dirt studies if I gruduated in Moby Dick studies? Someday I want my PhD in English, and I want to write, but you have to know about cool things if you want to write about cool things. Right, Jack London? Right? (Write?)

Oh yeah. And just when I was in the middle of a nearly six-month mix tape slump I got a whole package of mix tapes from my friend Alexis in San Fransisco. Talk about having crazy awesome friends: Alexis is one of those relaxed, ecclectic, wise, intellectual people who just totally grabs the attention of everyone around him. And he sent me about four hours worth of music, most of which he made himself. I have no idea what to send to him in return. All I have are paint-by-numbers.

I read a book about eggs today at the library where Tim used to work. Snails eat their own eggshells after they hatch. Turtles hatch by breaking out of their shells like sumo wrestlers. Baby owls look like aliens. Libraries are amazing.

Yessssssss.

Finally, yesterday, I finished my finals/final papers.

Things I love:
1) Kim Van Hossier-Carrey (Because she gave me an A before I even completed my paper)
2) My Women's Lit paper (Because it's sheer genius)
3) Anything that has nothing to do with last semester's classes.

Things I don't love so much:
1) French, and everything associated with it.
2) Being too broke to buy Christmas presents
3) Sexism. ("I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me," said John)

I've finally decided that I'm going to that pesky (in that it requires me to return to Shreveport prematurely) Lerchie wedding--everyone at home is going to be mad because I'll only be there for two weeks, but this is sort of my last chance to be here for anything my friends do "in the off-season." I do wish I could spend the whole break at home though. Everyone who lives close to home seems to be tired of their parents, but I've done this split-christmas thing for 14 years and it's a little old, I just want to see everyone. In a perfect world, everyone comes to my house for the holidays.

(PS. Tim just tried to call his mom in the livingroom and called me instead (I'm in the bedroom), and then couldn't figure out why "she" (i.e. me) was listening to the same music that I am. Meanwhile I'm wondering why he's so lazy that he can't walk down the hall to talk to me.)

Otherwise, I'm relatively certain that I massacred every class but French, in which I'm pretty sure he's giving me an arbitrary "B." To that I say "merde" and move on with my life.

I can't believe how many novels I read this semester for my literature classes. Somewhere in the range of a million. And, joy of all joys, they were all good except one. That makes 99,999,999 novels that were awesome and hopefully equal A's.

Meanwhile, I'm hungry and I have to head to my own house to pack for the break. Kacie and Sarah and I never decorated our house, but I put my advent calendar by the front door so that we look at least somewhat involved. Though I think that those advent calendars that have chocolate in each window, despite how awesome they are, are kind of funny because I think technically you're supposed to fast during Advent just like Lent. Meh.

Happy Holidaying. Let's all get as fat as possible and be happy in it!

Whereas: Idaho is still worthless

1. haven't read The Best Page in the Universe for a while- was excited to see that someone else thinks that Idaho is Hell. Idahell, in fact.
2. think this: http://www3.state.id.us/oasis/HCR029.html is the funniest/saddest thing I've seen all day.
3. want a burrito. No matter how many burritos I eat I want another.
4. Convinced burrito means "little donkey" in spanish. (Burro= donkey, ito=little, burro+ito= little donkey.)
5. mortified that internet search for images of burritos results in equal parts pictures of donkeys/food/babies/babies/cats.

Oh yeah, go see Shop Girl, too.

I've frequently heard people who "work out" and "exercise" say things like "that worked muscles I didn't know I had!"

As a testiment to what appears to be the fact that I'm utterly lazy and completely spoiled: Swedish massages are the most wonderful thing on earth and I plan to get one every day for the rest of my life as soon as I sell a few of my unneeded organ on Ebay.

Typically the (non-company) perks of living with your Grandmother for a week include (not necessarily in this order): dishes of candy sitting around the house, enough cookies to cause blood sugar poisoning, new socks (always new socks), vanished responsibilities (ie: when you try to do something responsible you find it's already been done) and now: Swedish massages in your own house, first thing in the morning.

I was going to rake the lawn today but my messeuse told me to "take it easy." I'm currently laughing with self-indulgent glee-- even if it only lasts for one day.

Tomorrow it's back to Shreveport and all that responsibility crap. Oh. My. God. I'm so exctited about buying people Christmas presents. Tell me what you want.

I'm in the High-Fidelity, First Class Traveling Section...

I love flying. I love airplanes. I love the simultanious order and chaos of airports.

This is my 12th flight this year and for some reason this time I was N.E.R.V.O.U.S. I thought perhaps that I was nervous because, oh, say, the plane was going to go down in flames-- turns out I was mostly just nervous about having to wear the same underwear for a week and a half.

My luggage has never gotten lost before so I didn't know what when your luggage doesn't show up the best explaination they will be able to give you for the following 13 hours is: "we're sure it's on one of the planes," and "we really have no idea where it is; it never showed up."

neat.

My underwear (and everything else) did arrive finally but I think between that and my five hour layover in Minnapolis I'm not going to mess with Northwestern again.

Being home is nice. I wasn't sure what I would do. Every trip has a purpose. We say: "I'm going home for the Holiday," or, "I'm going home for a funeral." It was both this time and it's sort of hard to reconcile the two.

You couldn't have picked a clearer, brighter, more beautiful day to say goodbye to my grandfather. It's true, I see, that he knew most everyone in this town and was loved by all of them. The hardest part is just the space that is no longer filled. This enormous gap where a lot of laughter used to be. Grandma is still funny and brite, but this house is a half-house. Just not whole. Just too quiet: not enough country western.

Anyway I'm tired of saying goodbyes so if you're planning on passing away, forget it. It's time for showing up and not for leaving.

What you missed

So, what I meant to tell you about the week before is that Sunday night my advisor called me and asked if I wanted to give a speech and present the award-winning author Bobbie Anne Mason with Centenary's award for literary excellence, the Corrington award. After about fifteen minutes of freaking out and thinking "why did they ask me of all people? I can't give an introduction in front of the entire freshman class!" Then I remembered that the freshman class is entirely too lazy to come to manditory award ceremonies for famous authors and that it would make me feel totally rightous in my egotism if I said yes. Oh yeah, and the speech only had to be 4-minutes long. So I said yes. Go here for cute pictures.

So last Wednesday I got to hang out with Bobbie Anne Mason (who was a finalist for the pulitzer prize- cha CHING!) and eat free care of the English department all day, then dress up and give a speech and do that "pose holding the medal" thing. It was neat, basically.

Last weekend was also Rhapsody in View, the Choir's big concert. I've been four years in a row and this was the best yet. The choir is MASSIVE and well, they're singin' fools. Banquet afterwards was good too except that Tim's parents are so nice and sociable and almost everyone elses are so... not.

After that "Hell Week" started for the TKEs which means the pledges sang to me and Blaine recited the poem he composed for me:

When we, the pledges, think of beauty,
We think of you.
You,
The one who walks this campus
With a heart so full of the right kind of passion,
TKE passion.
The one who is devoted to best brotherhood around.
Tau Kappa Epislon
This fine model of feminine appeal
Pumps TKE blood.
She is a TKE girl, tried and true.

We love you, you see, because
As us pledges walked upon this campus,
For the past few Wednesdays,
You never hesitated to say,
“My look at those pretty pledges on pretty pledge day.”
Your soul lies in the memorable mud pit,
Which became our memorable horse race.
Your memory will be framed with our brothers and us,
So as to never forget who are first sweetheart was.

You see,
We are the fortunate ones,
O yea we pledges are,
Because come Valentine’s Day,
You will be ours.
Tim will have to deal with it,
You are not just for him,
Because honestly,
Would rather have just 1 senior
Or two sophomores plus fourteen freshmen?

So in professing our love,
To our one and only,
We wish you the best TKE year of your life,
And soon,
You will no longer have sixteen loyal pledge followers,
But you’ll have 46 brothers,
All hailing,
The sweetheart so foxy,
That she can only be called one thing…Roxie.

Normally I wouldn't brag and post the whole thing but really, who wouldn't be thrilled to have a poem composed for them that wasn't written by a stalker or, well, no, I think stalkers are the only people who write creepy poems about other people. Anyway, Blaine isn't a stalker, he's just totally hot fot TKE, as we all should be.

I'd write more if this headache I've had since Sunday would go away, but that doesn't look probable so I'll go to bed. Vive la weekend. Just one more week before I get to go home.

The sun will come out

This is stupid. I'm supposed to journal here and write some sort of dissertation about what's going on. Here's the deal: if you have grandparents still, call them today. I'm not kidding.

I naively thought that my Grandpa Smitty would be able to hold out two weeks for Thanksgiving. But he was tired. He passed away this morning at home.

I'm so lost and confused and, well, almost panicky that anything I say here doesn't matter and doesn't serve much more of a purpose than to let you know what's happened.

I can't tell you how I feel right now and I can't tell you what kind of a person he was except to say that there wasn't a single thing I disliked about my Gramps. I liked the way he buttered his bread. I liked his stupid jokes and the way he laughed at them. I like that he remembered how may inches of snow fell on January 7th, 1975 or any other day, for that matter. We should all be so lucky to have these things in our lives.

He always said as we were walking out the door: "come back when you can't stay so long!" Which was his way of saying you never stay long enough.

Zombie Survival Kit

H-A-Double-L-O-W-Double-E-N.

I've slacked on reporting an entire week of Halloween free-for-all. Sarah and I had a blast decorating our awesome house with purple lights and spider webs. We spent an entire evening carving pumpkins and baking the scariest damn cake that anyone has ever seen.
Halloween is indisputably the greatest holiday ever (besides my birthday) but no one can argue with a solid week of Halloween. It hasn't even come yet and we're all still freaking out to the best of our ability.

Friday the TKEs had Graveyard, their annual Halloween party. There's nothing like falling in love with your friends all over again when you realize how shamelessly creative they are. (And the ones who aren't creative, well, at least their still shameless.) The boys work so, so hard every year to make thier house look like a place you wouldn't go into EVER, unless you were a dumb teenager in a horror film.

However it may seem, it was more fun than even pictures can convey. I went as France, complete with Eiffel Towers hanging from my ears, a tattoo of the french motto (Egalite, Liberte, Fraternite), ballet shoes and a button with "J'aime TKE" on it. I'll admit that from the shoulders up I looked more like a girl-scout, well past her age group, but I felt cute and french-ish. <--- That's me with Amber, who was Hermione Granger. Tim was Lance Armstong and anytime anyone asked what he was he would turn around and point to the seven on his back, flexing: "LANCE ARMSTRONG, SEVEN-TIME WINNER!" He was very excited, despite the fact that neither of us are particularly interested in Lance Armstrong for any reason whatsoever. It was a good time to be had by all.


I went to Faust last night with Carrie and Ashley. We got to be French nerds together without baing made fun of. Yes, Faust is an opera in French, even though the most famous Faust is in German. Get off my back, I didn't write it. Anyway, I was unaware that an opera could have subtitles and that I would have better french skills than someone who was paid to translate subtitles for an opera, but it's true.

It was my first opera and now I know that I like opera even if it is, ahem, sort of, bizarre in this case. (They switched the order of the acts around and, well, danced around a lot.)

Anyway, today is free. I have to enjoy my free day since next weekend Tim's moving into a new place. Someone broke into his other house and it's just the absolute last straw. It's also Rhapsody next weekend. But for now, it's still Halloween weekend. Happy birthday Dad!
And Happy Halloween tomorrow!

(If you're really sadistic you can check out the pictures by clicking here)

Don't Call me Woody

Click here
To learn about the coolest thing ever -->

Two of these birds live in the Pine tree outside of window. This is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. I heard one of them tapping the other day when I walked home from class and today I can hear them talking to each other. If you can get an awesome bird to be your neighbor I totally recommend it.

I like that they sound like they're saying "Cha cha cha."
I wish I knew what to feed them.

Man, I'm glad they're not yellow-bellied sapsuckers. Har har.

Support the bird nerds at Cornell University!

The Bad with the Good

It always happens this way.

Today I got the news that a friend of mine passed away. Sarge was my boss at the Renaissance festival, and I'm sorry if this sounds cheesy but it's true; it's more of a family than you'll ever know if you've never worked there. A large, disfunctional, costume-wearing family, but a family none-the-less.

Sarge worked with his wife, Anna, in the back kitchen in the booth singularly known as "Sarge and Anna's." They traveled all year long so they could work at different festivals around the country. Sarge had large hands like paws, which he would wrap around your own hands in a warm greeting that was entirely his own. He was enormously sweet and absolutely friendly all the time, to everyone. Two summers ago he brought in a box of hand-woven pieces for everyone in the booth (I suspect) based entirely on the fact that Alsn also likes to weave. He was so much like an adopted grandfather and even when he was obstinant he was still funny and good. I just plain liked him. I think everyone did.

Maybe I'm a snob but I don't think I would have liked working anywhere else nearly as much as I enjoyed working at Sarge and Anna's. What's worse is that they're the kind of people you never expect to go away because they're just essential to the whole idea of the "The Ren Faire." I don't know if Anna will do another faire, not without Sarge. I don't know if I want to do another faire without Sarge and Anna, and Alsn, who seems to think she can go to Japan without me.

My heart goes out to Anna and her whole family. I wish there was a way to make it to the service. If my heart hurts, I can't imagine what they're going through.

But I suppose it's standard that while horrible things happen, good ones happen too.

My mom just finished another big part of her school and is that much closer to being an around-the-clock drug abuse/domestic violence councilor. She's been working on this since I was in high school and what she's done for herself is definitly something to be proud of.

More big things have happened this year than I can ever remember happening in such a short amount of time. Death, marriage, travel, natural disasters, and upheaval... slow down, please. Slow down.

icantbackoutcauseiloveyoutoomuchbaby

I'm just going to get this out of my system now:

I LOVE MY NEW COMPUTER.

It's unholy. This is the computer I've wanted since I knew computers existed back when the only colors on our 5"x5" screen were orange and black and the only program I had was a Garfield greeting card maker.

I shouldn't brag because, well, people have computers. It's not like I gave birth to it myself. Also, if I'm rude about it God will take it away from me; I'll spill RC Cola on it, it will get beat up by gang members, a tank will run over it. You know, standard nerd disasters.

Perhaps it's sad that this is all I have to talk about.

Everyone else: "How are you, Roxie?"
Me: "I LOVE MATERIAL OBJECTS!!!"
Everyone else: "I remember when you were an actual human-being with a soul."
Me: "I LOVE MY SHINY MATERIAL OBJECTS!!!"

I also love pictures of kittens. I hope that's enough to save me.

There's Beauty in the Breakdown

Funny story: I sign up for a committee to help out my friend Patrick. It's the Administrative Planning Committee, which sounds boring and has been for about two years now. But this year they're stepping it up a notch or three, meaning that my tiny favor to a friend has become a serious commitment to the future of Centenary. This is what happens when you can't say no to an accolade. I need to learn to stop puffing up my resume and let myself have a life.

The worst part is when I complain about the added responibility and another friend, who doesn't get asked to be on "things like this" says: "that sounds awesome! That's the kind of awesome thing no one ever asks me to do." What channels do I go through to give it up? What do I have to do to stop being a postergirl for things like this and let someone else have a chance? If I sound like I'm complaining: I am. The grass is always greener.

There's one thing I can't complain about and wouldn't dare to. I just bought a new computer (an iBook) and I feel a little like that writer who scrimps and saves to buy a new typewriter, not another used one with a missing "k" or some piece of junk that won't write on the last lines of the page: a shiny new Underwood with a nice, new black ink ribbon. Except that this is a typewriter I can load all my CD's onto and edit my photographs on and pay off for the rest of my young life. It's supposed to be here within the next two weeks and I'm positively beaming. I can work on the newspaper at home! I can turn papers in on time! I can... waste hours playing Scrabble online and ditching work! Wait, not that last one.

Suffice it to say that I've never bought something this big new and I've never bought something this big for myself. I'm pleased to know that there will be a place for my stories to live where the files won't corrupt themselves or implode while I'm asleep.

In other news: I love fall break. I love the new bookstore. I love that people like to feed me (I love you Jared, ChristopherBen, and Tim). I've been getting a spree of emails from long-losts lately that reinforces my idea that I'm actually the center of the universe, so that's nice.

I hope everyone else's weekend is long and full of cat naps and dog walks. I'm going to go eat a tub of icecream and continue to not write my paper, because it's vacation and that's what vacationers do.

Failure is Imminent

Here's a fun exercise:

1) Go to www.google.com

2) Type in "failure"

3) Hit "I'm feeling lucky" (below the google search field)

3 1/2) Don't assume anything about Google, it's not their doing (but they're not doing anything to change it either).

Novelty Items: On Sale

What's black and white and red all over? The Conglomerate, covered with my blood and anguish from laying it out and making it readable for 13-straight hours every Wednesday.

I walked into my advisors office the other day to make some changes to my schedule and before I could sit down she says: "Something has to change. You can't go on like this." Was that really what she said? Did I hear her correctly? I took a quiz that said I was a candidate for heart disease because of my stress level. Can that be right?

The past six weeks have been a never-ending rollercoaster of commitment. I can count on the fingers of one hand the things I've done that didn't have a deadline: TKE Bid-week, Pirate party, hanging out with my Dad, seeing the Penguin movie, eating sushi with Sarah and Kacie.

But I think (hope, pray, wish, rejoice) that that may be changing. Last night I laid out THE PAPER in the Conglomerate office and lo-and-behold!!! 4:30!! It was done at 4:30 a.m.! I was in bed by five a.m.! What a relief to have a photographer who can modify pictures, an editor who can edit and an assistant who... assists. I've been terrified that the level to which the newspaper has risen is going to plummet into despair and degradation, but after last night, I really think that every thing is going to be okay. Why does cutting layout time down by an hour and a half matter?

When I left the office I felt great. Thanks to Erin, Curt, Ashley and Tim I felt less alienated by the whole thing and more like I can handle everything else. Oh yeah- and I dropped my Medieval Lit class, which was more of an Evil Lit class than anything else.

Fall break is coming up and all I want to do is clean my beautiful house, work on my women's lit paper (which I love, love, love, love with all my heart) and cook gumbo.

Red River Revelation

I've crossed over from tired into the zone of incoherence. Regardless, newsworthy things are happening. So.

Rita didn't destroy Centenary after all. It got Centenary rather damp, but was actually quite refreshing for those of us who just needed one day without electricity to force us into a state os pseudo-relaxation.

One pleasant byproduct was that Friday, at work in the bookstore (which is just so damned beautiful these days), lo-and-behold, who walks in but my old, old friends Ginger and Tammi. They're characters from back in the days when I lived with my Dad. Ginger was that awesome highschool friend I had in middleschool. Ginger, Tammi and their mom, Barb, were the ones who lat me stay at their house watching movies and eating Tamales all night when I came to close to forgetting that I'm a girl.

Anyway, they're all grown-up like and forced out of their homes by inclement weather. Ginger has a beautiful baby who drew on my coffee table with a red crayon and was adorable. Wait... B.A.B.Y. It makes me feel at once old and also somehow like that radical kid who has dirt of her face from falling out of trees. It was the nicest of all nice surprises to see them.

Unlike Jason and saul showing up at my house in their underwear, in the rain, which wasn't so much nice as just funny.

Anyhoo. My first day of work at the Revel was... long. I had a meagre 8-hour shift while Kacie had to work a full 12 hours at that funny farm. Selling turkey legs to people dressed like storm troopers in the Colorado summer is nothing, I mean nothing, like bartering with shreveport festival-goers for eight straight hours without a break and not getting paid. I thought Wal-Mart was where you go it you want to see people hit their kids. Oh no. No no no no no.

Working the coupon booth is where the Red River Revel is no longer an arts and music festival and becomes a beer and learning-how-to-count festival. I will be glad when the day comes that I can go back to being a patron. It's not that I don't enjoy volunteering: it's that I don't enjoy having to wait on a woman who hits her child, one child among four who are all covered with burn scars, while she breathes smoke in my face and trys to figure out what 50-cents plus 50-cents is. I want to kidnap her children, bake them a plate of cookies, give them a bath, read them a story and tell them that if anyone ever hits them again... to call. the. cops. Period.

I shouldn't complain about three more days when these people will have to live with it for the rest of their lives. But I miss selling hot meat to happy people.

You don't see that everyday...

So. This is Mardi Gras, freshman year. This is how I remember New Orleans. The general consensus among Louisiana-natives seems to be that some day, New Orleans will show the same old colors and come back full force. Now that the levies have broken for a second time, when that will occur is a matter of debate.

The past month just goes to show that the phrase "Everyone said..." is a dangerous phrase. Everyone said that New Orleans would never flood. Everyone said that a Hurricane would never get as far inland as Sheveport. Everyone said...

Here's a basic rundown of the past three days:

Wednesday- I spend 12 hours laying out the paper by myself (though with the moral support of Curt and Erin), renounce the unjust gods of journalism who are ruining my social and academic life. I was unaware that you could love something with the core of your being (I love you, Conglomerate!) and hate it in the depths of your soul (but quit leeching the life-blood out of everything I do!).

Thursday- Dad arrives for Parents and family weekend. We bond by cleaning Tim's carpet and going to an intramural football game between TKE A and TKE B. TKE A wins, but only after Tim breaks one of the fingers in his right hand. BREAKS HIS FINGER. Goodwin may be small, but apparently he's a TANK if you're tackling him. We spent the next four hours in the Emergency room. Dislocation. No fracture. Potential sprain. Neither of us watched the doctor pop his joint back into place... but we both heard it. TKE A wins. Tim wins, if you know what I mean.

Today- Ribbon cutting ceremony in the SUB. The new bookstore actually looks like a respectable establishment at a 20K per year private college instead of a Circle K that sells notebooks. I wish I had time to work. I'd be proud to work there. Not that there will be much chance:

Centenary College closes no later than 4:30 pm today, because Hurricane Rita is expected to drop 6 to 25 inches of rain on Shreveport. 6 to 25? If that seems like a vague interval and you're having trouble grasping the difference between half a foot of rain and more than two feet of water... well then you have a pretty good idea of how those of us who have no idea what's coming at us feel.

Classes are canceled Monday and Tuesday. Whether or not the school reopens Wednesday depends on Nature, with a capital "N."

Pioneer Days

I feel like the pioneer who declares to her secret love upon departure: "I'll write everyday." Who then, in the immediacy of disease, food scavaging and inclement weather leaves her Beau to wonder what has become of her. A live journal is a sort of promise that one will unfold the daily churnings of one's life in plain language for all to see. I am, however, preoccupied with wagon ruts and the like.

I've recently sold the second-to-lost drop of my soul to the information age. Cell-phone lover I am not. However, when Tim's car ran out of gas in the middle of Kings Highway, I was inwardly pleased to find myself connected with a help network. I can always reach my dad if I have an urgent question about physics; Mom is at my fingertips if I can't remember which side of our family used to be moonshiners.

The cell phone isn't all. I bought a chair. Not a 10-dollar Goodwill, TKE-House sort of chair (though not an Oval Office sort of chair either). A chair nonetheless. Tim and I bought the same chair. I consider this the end of my adolescence. I've had jobs. I've had a credit card. I've traveled in Europe. I have never, until know, purchased a chair. This signifies that I have a place to sit, to be sedentary, and that for the rest of my chair-owning life, I must provide myself with a place to house that chair (and Tim's twin chair too).

Business is a disease among myself and my friends. Little Mable was taken by savages. Our supply of dry beans is running low. I'll write again when Sassy's leg is healed.

Surely the final frontier has nothing to do with a driver's license.

Praying Mantis

This is me rolling over. I'm done.

1. TKE Bid-Weekend was officially the best weekend of my life. 72- hours of undiluted TKE goodness. Knowing full-well that these pref-parties on the lake were my last, I sucked up every last drop of sunshine, boat rides, shiny water and hamburgers through my pores.

Bid day was a TKE fantasy come-true. 16 pledges, none of them with personality defects or attitude problems. Just awesome guys in matching shirts. (Who let me kidnap their President and duct-tape him to the porch, and were totally fine with reading clues written on the huges panties I've ever seen.)

2. The first issue of the Newspaper has been executed. By executed, I mean completed- and is being printed as we speak. Layout was a 12-hour engagement, highly feuled by a box of popcicles, a 12-pack of Pepsi (Western Delight, you Coke Heathens), king-size bags of Skittles, Starbursts and Hershey's Minis and a whole lot of tired. My staff is awesomely dilirious. We sent the paper to the publisher at 6:30 am. It got lost in cyber-space for four hours, resulting in a tiny freakout. All is now well. if you want a copy (so you can read Scott's dating advice) drop me a line.

If you'd like an indicator as to how much I don't want to do my homework: yesterday I found a praying mantis in the Student Union Building, which is being renovated (and is therefor dirty and unpopulated). I spent thirty minutes devising a plan to lure her into a plastic bag, then set her free in the Arboretum without getting eaten myself. She tried to attack me kung-fu style. I refused to be intimidated. She now roams free to live in the bushes and eat spiders again.

Flow

Yes, I'm alive. I've gotten a lot of calls and emails asking whether or not I'm okay. I'm not sure how it is elsewhere but here, in Louisiana, the only thing on the news is what's going on in New Orleans. You'd never guess from the way the storm projects looked on the news but Shreveport didn't even get a breeze. Sure, some of our electricity and phones are messed up, but New Orleans is in DIRE condition.

If you're concerned about my well-being, rest assured that I am fine, but the friends and family members of a lot of people I know need help. If you're able, please donate to the American Red Cross at http://www.redcross.org/ or write a letter to your local government, requesting their help and emphasizing the need for American Troops to help with the situation on our American soil.

Thousands of people are still trapped, looters are making it difficult for police, firefighters, doctors and volunteers to do their jobs. The Red Cross is a trustworthy organization which will send aid to the places which need it most.

Pirates of the world, UNITE!

Funny story: we all know the guys who lived in this house before me were jerks, this much we know is true. Last Spring they stole the fraternity letters from campus and stashed them in the backyard, where they also stashed any dirty dishes they didn't want to clean. This wouldn't have been so ironic (the letters have all been stolen and vandalized before), except that last year... I MADE the TKE letters. Funny I should move into the house previously occupied by the losers who still my handiwork. (note: I didn't make them alone, TKE paid for them, Tim Jr. cut the wood and Nate and Mikey helped me paint.)

Well, last year when I lived on Merrick Street, I, thrower of great parties (it's true), asked Sarah if I could fly her pirate flag on our fifty foot flag pole (instead of the Texas flag) as a banner to the awesomeness of our fiesta.

Within three days, the pirate flag was gone, charmingly replaced... with a sock. Zack's forensic sleuthing determined that the sock was of male orient, previously owned by someone with cats.

Ah, the plot thickens.

This morning when the girls dragged the big trashcan to the curb, what did they find? Sarah's much abused pirate flag daggling out of the trash can. Not only were these guys so awesome that they stole the TKE letters and our pirate flag, they're so awesome that they didn't take out their own trash for more than A YEAR. I wonder if they realize that the dilution in their gene pools will have their genetic lines wiped out within two generations. And the masses cheered.

FYI: They live on Robinson street now. Hide your lawn ornements.

I got friends in low places...

Want an interesting experience? Go back and read your boyfriend/girlfriends yearbooks, especially their pre-highschool yearbooks. It's amazing how people stay the same. Tim's favorite food, as far as I can tell, is still pizza. He was voted most kind, most likely to become president of the united states and basketball allstar (though this may have had something to do with the fact that he was 8-feet tall in fifth grade). His favorite song was "I've Got Friends in Low Places," which explains the loud-singing, dancing spectical from Trina's wedding when the song came on. He predicted that at 25, he would be living on the moon. To him, being a grown up meant finishing college.

I find all of this enthralling, I suppose, because I've read my own fifth-grade year book so many times. I thought that at 25 I'd be living in a studio apartment, selling paintings, probably of myself. I too was 8 feet tall (okay, 5'2"), voted most artistic. In sixth grade I got "The Bohemian Award," probably for creative misbehaviour more than anything. Though this may be because I tried to get my P.E. teacher fired. This really has nothing to do with what's going on in my life at this point, I suppose, except one thing:

Ever since I got to college I always heard this little voice that said: "You don't do things this way... why are you changing?" It was as though I could actually feel my thought process changing. Yesterday I woke up and I realized I don't hear that voice anymore. That's the one thing.

Walking across campus I noticed that, while it used to be common, I no longer point out in what ways Centenary, or Shreveport, is different from home (colorado!). I don't ask questions about it anymore... I just love it. In the sappiest, grossest, wettest kisses sort of way... I sort of just plummeted into Centenary and I couldn't possible love it more.

In "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" the narrator says that it's not the things that are easy, or habitual, those things are moot, it's the things which are only come by after a series of fortuities. Evergreen lost my FAFSA, I went to Centenary, where I didn't want to go because of the proliferation of Greeks on Campus. My best friends turn out to be TKEs, one of whom is a kid (tim) who had no intention of joining a fraternity. I thought he was a republican. He thought I hated him. Now, no thanks to myfifth-grade predictions (thanks a lot fifth grade), entirely due to a string of fortuities (Whooooo! Fortuities!), I'm here.

And we're having a party on Tuesday. And if you read this live journal (still) even after all that exciting france stuff is done... you're invited. Consider this your invitaton. Bring an Hors D'ouvre (i.e. a tiny food).

If all this seems a bit too deep to you: Chris Comeaux has the thought process of a sandwich, wherein he likes penguins. Though if penguins could speak they would say they loved sandwiches.

And

Everytime an Education Major comes in to the bookstore I try to picture them as my teacher and imagine which subjects they want to teach to which grades. None of them look like my P.E. Teacher.

The barefoot Bride's Maid

Between then (see below) and now (see right here), there's been one marriage, four states, two houses and a bookstore's worth of "what's up?"

Before you get excited and start looking through your old mail for a bypassed invitation, the marriage wasn't mine, and I didn't catch the bouquet. I'll leave that for the excitable folks. Rather, my best friend and adopted sister, formerly known as Trina the Bunny, is now one "Mrs. Hobbs." And despite much pre-ceremony calamity and skinny dipping, the wedding was the blast of blasts. Having pretty much already discussed her life plans with God, Trina wanted to focus not-so-much on one of those long, tedious, tear-jerking ceremonies, and went straight for the "pretty decorations, lots o' love, and a big, sexy party" philosophy.

I'm relatively certain that in the four days preceeding 4:00 p.m. on August 8th, everyone was just hoping the tents wouldn't fall over, simultaniously crushing the pastor and the cake, or some other equally horrible mishap, but then we bride's maids saw that Trina was more stunning than she has probably ever looked in her entire life, not because of the hair and the dress, but because she was so utterly overjoyed. The general expression of "meh, we're totally fine" that followed was the relief of a lifetime.

And then we got in the car and drove to Shreveport. Anti-climactic, yes? Not too much so. In all honestly, living in one's own house, within walking distance of one's own friends, at a school like Centenary... well, that might as well be the new American Dream.

Moving in was a disaster, finding enough money to pay the bills is a distaster, modifying schedules is a disaster, praying that I won't destroy the college newspaper beyond belief is a disaster, the bookstore (in all its disoriented glory) is its own disaster of biblical proportions... but in all honesty, I'd rather be here than anywhere else on earth right now.

We're having a Tiny Foods Party; you should come.

Mita: The Angry Squirrel

I like it when lots of things are going on, but nothing's happening. For example: we went horseback-riding Friday, but we're not being audited, or some other such tomfoolery. The human condition is such that people always have some stupid thing on their minds... but I don't really. It's neat. I feel like I'm defying convention.

I'm glad Tim's got nerve. Riding my family's horses can be a practice in monk-like, Zen self-centering techniques because they like to do things like scraping you off on bushes, kicking fenceposts and stopping, mid-canter, to pee (the horses, that is, not my family). Tim did amazingly well for someone who's never ridden a horse past a walking pace, which is to say he didn't freak out and he didn't fall off. And even though my cousin Amanda got stung on the forehead by a wasp, and my saddle nearly slipped off sideways... it was a great ride that ended without any major catastrophies. I also got a free spaghetti dinner, and my cousins and I picked gooseberries for the first time since Amber and I were wee.

Yesterday went much the same way... a whole of doin' stuff but nothing really happening. The Hotchkiss pool (where Trina was a lifeguard for a million and a half years) was as exciting as ever. My cousin Sam, who is the only little kid I ever babysat (because he's the only little kid I never wanted to throttle) is eleven years old. That means I'm like 80 and need to retire. I'm glad that my cousins are finally old enough to swim because I can do cool things like throwing them across the pool and swimming along the bottom while they sit on my back. I like not having to worry about accidently killing people I love.

Gooseberry Pie

3 Cups Black Gooseberries (Grandma's rolling over right now, she always used green ones)
1 Cup Sour Cream
1 Heaping Cup Sugar
3 Tbsp Flour
pinch salt

Combine, place in nine-inch pie crust and cover with second crust. Cut slits to ventilate and place in 350 degree oven for about one hour. Voila.

We Don't Need No Water

This has been a week of heat. Thursday night the mesa caught on fire. Tim had never seen a forest fire before (oh, you city folk)... and so, along with the rest of the sleepy hamlet known as Crawford, we went down to the lake to see whose house was burning down. Fortunately, no one's house was burning down (despite rumors) but Jed was still out there "whacking" the fire with a shovel until well after nightfall. Crawford isn't large enough to have a proper fire station so they depend on Volunteer Firefighters to put out the fires in the Valley. Everything from field-burns gone awry, kids starting fires out of boredom, lightening strikes, concentrated heat from the sun on broken glass/in car mirrors, to exploding meth-labs (or meth-lab cover-ups). Not that Jed is even a volunteer firefighter; like a number of people, he wasn't there in a fancy helmet-- just average people in shorts and sandals, trying to fight the fire and not get arrested by the cops for doing so.

All of this explains Crawford pretty well. Talk about an interesting mixture of regular ranchers, a youth population challenged only by the sheer lack of anything to do, and a serious case of nature having its own way with a place.
The best reason to live in a small town (besides the sudden appearance of a couple thousand more visible stars) is that everyone makes there own rules, firefighting protocol be-damned.

Saturday was our annual Crawdad party (yes, Louisianians, crawdads. Deal with it). Every year we go to the lake and sit under the full moon, with a string in the muddy water, like idiots, just to catch a cooler full of Crawdads. They're disgusting, they make wierd noises, and do this thing we call "the moon dance:" coming almost to the edge of the water and waving their claws in the air... Still, every year we catch them at the dam and the next day we party. This year was not only our first year in a new house, but Tim's first year of the explain-your-life-plans ritual while the little kids "organized" (read: destroyed) a bunch of stuff in the barn. I made my margaritas, which everyone underestimated (as usual) and my Grandpa told me that all I need to know in life is this:

The world will end when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.

I'm not sure who said it first, but I can tell you who said it last.

My senior year of highschool we raised funds all year for our senior trip and then spent the last month of school convincing people it wouldn't be that cool. Our logic was that if fewer people came, the people who did go would have more money to spend per person. I'm convinced we could have wittled the list down to myself and my two best friends and gone to Vegas, but we were too young to get into the casinos at the time anyway. Instead we went to Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, where I fell in love with the Mormon State. I haven't been back since then, until yesterday.
The park is full of places with names like "the Devil's Garden" and "the Fiery Furnace" because, in all honesty, if it wasn't so strangely beautiful, you could imagine that this is what the nicer parts of hell might look like. Even though Edward Abbey might roll in his grave every time someone opts for the "scenic drive," the park is still marvelously lax on safety measures (one trail goes along a six-foot wide rock fin with a thirty-foot drop on one side), and that should make a mountainier proud.

The rock formations are absolutely beyond words (unless you've ever seen that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk gets stranded on a desert planet).

That brings us to today, wherein I sat around and did nothing. If anyone can tell me where Trina is, I'd be much obliged. I hear tell she gets married in two weeks and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her yet. Maybe that has something to do with the whole "making of one's own rules" thing.

Tanya and her damn insects.

Look. Look at this. This is what happens when my auntie gets a new camera and plays with it around the yard.




Am I jealous of her photographic abilities? Yes.

Listen, for those of you who plan to be born into a family of geniuses, prepair yourself for a lifetime of never getting to sit down and relax or else your own genius (and I am a genius, I must confess) will be outdone by your aunts/cousins/parents.

How am I supposed to be a prodigy when this is what I have to deal with?

Conversation Starters

Going home after such a ridiculously long time is an exercise in re-adjustment, like readjusting to free public toilets.

for Instance, I had forgotten that my mom's boyfriend (who shall henceforth be refered to as "Jed," because that is his name) greatly disapproves of small talk, instead opting for such conversation starters as:

"What was that one about the diaper?" (To my mom, instead of "hello.")
"All you gotta do is give that sucker a shove and we can roll it across the road!" (Trying to recruit Tim and me into acts of hay-bale vandalism)
"Just eat some horny-goat-weed, Bob, and get it over with." (Commenting on a TV commercial)

and my favorite recent conversation:

Jed (out of nowhere): "I just wanted to look at the freakin' toys but the clowns kept harrasing me?"
Mom: "What?"
Jed: "Oh, I was going into the toystore and they wouldn't let me get past unless I put on this freakin' balloon hat."
Mom: "Well did you?"
Jed: "Well, yeah."
Mom: "So where's the balloon hat?"
Jed: "It popped. So now I'm a dollar short and all these freakin' kids are looking at me like I'm the crazy man. (Makes a crazy face) 'Check me out, man!'"
Mom: "You paid the clowns a dollar for a balloon hat?"
Jed: "Well, yeah... everyone can tell I'm a pushover"

This, this, is why I love coming home.

Another example of Jed's brilliance is the natural progression of our pet names. For instance, our dog, Dixie, AKA "Silly Smells," watch:

Dixie
Dixie Loo
(or Stiffy Loo, or Whackin' Loo)
Loo Loo Belle
Looley Belle
Wooley Belle
(or Whackin' Belle)
Silly Smells

I know it's a bit of a leap from "Wooley Belle" to "Silly Smells," but it fits. Our dog is a melange of silly smells.

In short, anything I learned about French in France is dwarfed by what I learn about the English Language in my own household.

"You buy 'em books and buy 'em books,

you buy 'em a mule to ride to school

and what do they do?

Stand on the books and eat the teacher."

-Jed Hart

You must be this tall to ride this blog

Former and current movie-theater-employees will agree that "upsizing,"has never gotten them anywhere. "Upsizing" is the constant repetition of the words: "Well Sir, if you buy a large drink instead of a medium, you can add a large popcorn for only $4.75, blah blah blah candy blah blah nachos, etc etc," until the customer either gets annoyed and snaps at you or buys enough junkfood to stock a bunker. I always thought that mystery shoppers, those mythical people who patronize businesses in the guise of normal customers, but who are really monitoring your every move as an employee, where a fiction made up by bosses (ie: adults) to scare their adolescent employees into giving correct change.

As it turns out, unlike other fictitious beings such as King Arthur and Elvis, Mystery Shoppers do exist. I know because while working at Colorado Cinemas Arapahoe Village 4 (Feb 2002-Aug 2002) I upsized two shady characters and won two free passes to Six Flags Elitch Gardens as a reward for my excellent salesmanship (read: fear of being fired).

I used them to take my friend Mike to the amusement park for his 20th birthday; that was the last time I went to Six Flags.

Since then both Six Flags and I have grown a little older, a little wiser. For instance, I now know that the "six flags" are the six flags that have flown over Texas (where the franchise originated) they are: Texas, The U.S, Mexico, France, Spain, and the Confederacy. Though of course, in Denver, the confederate flag has been replaced by the Colorado flag. I'm not sure why we have to have a Six Flags Over Texas in Colorado, since, by nature, Colorado is not Texas. I prefered the days when it was just Elitch Gardens, and the park was, honestly, mosly just gardens with a few stomach-turning, rickety old rides like the octopus and the tilt-o-whirl. (Oh yeah, and the trees by the Wild Cat that were covered with 100 years worth of chewing gum.)

Anyway, those days are gone but that doesn't mean the rides aren't just as likely to make you lose your funnel cakes on the log ride. I love a place where people pay to endanger their lives, get drenched with filth-infested pond water and vomit every ounce of their overly-priced, deep fried lunch. And parking only costs $9 (US) these days.

Yesterday was a day of discoveries:
Alsn especially likes to watch the ugly people.
Tim gets motion sickness, but wants to go on every ride, hands-up, anyway. (This is remedied by going, "ughhhhhh, ughhhhhh" over every bump instead of screaming your head off, like me)
"My Sharona" is not a song about a car.
You're just as likely to scrape your face on the bottom of a wavepool as you are in the ocean (sand not included).
Tim's cell phone falls out of his pocket no matter how tame the ride is.
People will pay any amount of money to play any unwinable game if the stuffed monkey is big enough.
Alsn is still the uncontested winner of any and all Diet Coke-drinking constests.

And most importantly: I'm still 12 years old and not above running from one ride to the next. The rides only get better when the sun goes down.

Train Dreams Everlasting

This is us pre-sunburn in Park Guell, Barcelona; home of RCB 2006

There are nights when you work a full day: answering phones, making copies, selling turkey legs (or whatever you happen to do) , until the alarm goes off and you wake up exhausted. You then realize that you're entire day was just a dream, and that you now face a genuinely full day of work. I've been dreaming about time tables.

Every night I go to sleep and chase trains for hours and hours, I look for museums, backtrack across bridges and try to remember which steeple belongs to which cathedral until I wake up exhausted (Instead of ready to label and identify our several hundred photographs, which is an effort in near futility).

Tim and I have been home (in Plano) for five days now, trying to fit in a million hellos and drink a million free-refills. I've been trying to come up with a reasonable way to talk about our trip without boring the holy living daylights out of everyone. There are too many photos to show at once and too many stories to fit in one bite. I've decided to keep it to anecdotes and to publish links to my pictures one city at a time, in the column on the right hand side of this page. That way, if you care: excellent. If you don't care: go eat a sandwich or catch a movie instead, I don't mind.

For now, I'm just glad to be home, though I hate that not every path ends with a priceless work of art or a thousand-plus year-old monument. Tim and I leave for Colorado on Thursday (because we just can't stay in one place), so I'm sure there will be little to tell, unless you find hammocks and iced-tea absolutely riveting.

I AMsterdam

Sorry it's been so long. My great and mighty plan to update this blog with rousing stories of far-off-lands sort of faded when Tim and I realized just how little time we have here. It's our last night in Amsterdam. We head to Paris tomorrow for the long haul back to Texas. If you want any tacky, touristy crap speak now or forever hold your peace.

I'll think of some way to fill you in without being a bore... I swear.

I want you to want me

Today we go from Vienna to Budapest. Yesterday we watched fireworks on the danube. More to follow.

The Worst Reporter Ever

Are Forums cool or what?

So here I am in my fourth European city in less than two weeks and I realize that I am the worst journalist (one who keeps a journal) ever. All of these exciting things are happening and it takes Tim and me five days just to find a place where it costs less than 6 Euro an hour just to get online.

If I were home right now it would be the first day of ren fest. Lighting up the grills, stealing cake from Anna in the kitchen, checking out the return rennies and the newbies, gearing up our insults and best of all, walking the beat with Alsn, dolling out scathing wit, free of charge.

But instead (sigh) I took a train from Rome to Florence (From the current capital of Italia to the former one). Man, my life is hard.

There are so many little things that have happened that I simply haven't had the time to tell you about. It's sad really.

Barcelona was a blast. Our sunburns are just now starting to peel but the memories of all the topless old ladies and their dogs will never fade. On the beach, asian women walked around selling massages and men of unknown origin sold BEBIDAS, COCA, CERVEZAS FRIAS. Really loudly. We took the openair tour bus so that we could see the city above ground, since we have a tendancy to enjoy the metro system a little too much.

We had to leave too early to catch our INSANE Ryanair flight to Rome. It's always reasuring if the plane can just manage to touch the ground upon landing instead of digging a trench.

Rome is, as ever, eternal. There is so much to see that no matter how much time you spend there it will never be enough. We visited countless churches and passed more than five hours in the Vatican Museums alone. Roman food, while excellent purely because it's italian, is being replaced as the favorite by Florentine food. There's just something about Tuscany.

I'd be a horrible friend if I didn't mention that my best friend, Trina, actually got to live here in Firenze for an entire semester about three years ago. I have to admit that I'm jealous that she got to cross the Ponte Vecchio (the only bridge to survive the bombings in WWII) on her way to class everyday. Granted, it's covered with hideous gold and silver jewelers, but it's captivating none the less.

Mostly, it's just difficult that once Tim and I get our bearings we have to pack up everything and move again. I had finally gotten a little used to the five-mile hike to the Seven Hills Villiage (For Fun-Loving People!) and after that, to the perpetually wet floors of the Stargate Hotel (across the street from the Anakin Stargate Hotel), to the crazy naked Scandinavians in Hostel Gaudi. Now Tim and I have one night in Locanda Daniel before we have to move across the street. Ahhhhhhh, I'm glad my backpack only weighs 900lbs.

It's hard to conserve money, even though we try. You can't really say no to paying the entrance fees to the greatest museums in the world when this is your one chance. Granted, we could save about 40 Euro a day if we just spent all our money on pub crawls but it's hard to see the city that way.

There's no way to describe how tired we both are but there's also no way to really describe everything that we've seen.

Today, I ate, literally, the most perfect strawberries I have ever seen in my entire life. I couldn't have believed that Strawberries that fine even existed. That's totally priceless. Totally.

this is what tired looks like

a) Tim and I ran out of conditioner three days ago. The hairdo is still going strong.
b) Any hostel that says it's a "stone's throw away from the city center" means you have to take the metro, the train and then a 30 minute walk down a one-lane country road in the dark, past a sheep farm.
c) Everything in Europe closes at seven, get up early.
d) The Euro-mullet is NOT attractive.
e) Everything costs money except tiny hidden churches full of secret art. They're also naturally air conditioned.

f) If you make it there, you've already won.

waxing moon in Gemini

I've had my five minute internet warning... Rome is kicking me off the computer, telling me it's time for dinner.

Being in the eternal city on your 22nd birthday is an excellent exercise in perspective; yeah, I'm older but thos collumns were around before Jesus. I can't beat that.

The adventures we've had in the past three days cannot possibly be explianed in less than one minute but I'll be back. Thanks for the birthday wishes.

ROMAN LOVE TO ALL.

Bienvenudos

The water is twenty feet deep and you can see the bottom. You're feet are silvery blue beneath you and suddenly you're tanner than you've ever been in your whole life. Breakfast was three donuts and a huge box of orange juice. You have nothing to do but throw a tennis ball around and look at sea glass. Black dogs are rolling in the sand. You don't even have to take pictures because it's that beautiful.

Welcome to spain. Have a Sangria or three.

BAR-celona (sung to the tune of My Sharona)

So, if you ever have the chance to take a tiny, rattling, regional train through the french and spanish Pyrannies: do it.

BUT if you ever asked whether you want a "sleeperette" or a "reclining chair" on an overnight train: stay as far away from the reclining chair as possible.

Barcelona is SO worth 16.5 hours of time spent on a train (minus the amount of time we spent wandering around the border looking for anything to put into our grieving stomachs).

So we've been here for a day and a half and, like last time, this city is absolutely beautiful and incredible. But unlike last time, it's summer now, and the high season, meaning that I've heard so many languages spoken in just this one day that it's a veritable tower of Babel. Oh yeah, and this time I get my revenge on Europe because for five months I've watched other people hold hands and whisper and look meaningfully into each others' eyes: well this time TIM'S HERE.

We spent all day enjoying the architectural genius of Antoni Gaudi. Somehow, because things always work out for us, not only did we not get charged for our train tickets here (Spain's not included in our Eurail) but we managed to show up at Sagrada Familia on the one day of the year that it's free and open to the public, annually.

If I wasn't paying by the second, I'd tell you a million more things but as it is, you'll just have to wait and satisfy yourself by looking at Tim's newly posted pictures.

Also, I beat Tim in Scrabble by a million points. After he won the first game... with my help.

This post is brought to you by the color azul.

People Aren't Wearing Enough Hats

If only one thing goes wrong in every city, we're gravy and this is going to be the greatest trip ever taken by mere human beings. So far we've had one train problem and one hostel problem, so this is good so far.

Tim and I take the night train for Paris to Toulouse tonight and then go on to Barcelona from there. Actually, the train problem allowed Tim and I to stay in Paris an extra day, giving us a chance to spend 4 hours in the Musée D'Orsay, weeping over brushstrokes yesterday. Then today was passed in the Halls of Versailles. Even blind people are offended by that much gold.

The things that get forgotten, unfortunately, are sometimes the neatest though. Like how I probably won't remember going to Sacre Coeur in Montmartre because I didn't get to go in. Apparently, Jesus doesn't like tank tops. Lies.

I will, however, remember the way we devoured an entire roasted chicken on the steps of a church and how I've missed about three trains so far because the french take vacations and call them "strikes."

Tim keeps saying "Let's cancel everything and just stay in Paris for a month." I have a feeling this sentiment will be felt in every city we go to, making leaving Europe a near impossibility. Fortunately the excitement of visiting a new city/country outweighs the pain of leaving somewhere like Paris behind.

Crèpes Salées

The first experience of seeing one's friends after many long months without them, in a normal case, might be a hug and possibly a kiss, maybe a handshake... But when you're friends are Jared... A HURRICANE OF LOVE WILL BEFALL YOU.

I swear... if you've never literally been swept off of your feet...

And that was how Paris and my trip with Tim began. I covered Jared's eyes by means of sneaking up on him and suddenly I was being picked up and carried to "FIND YOUR BOYFRIEND, WHERE IS HE? GET OUT OF THE WAY! NO!" It was great, he's so helpful.

Now we're in Lille, cleaning out the room and taking a last look at the city. Already we've had a hitch in our train plans that meant we have to (as if it's a challenge) stay an extra day in Paris before heading to Barcelona on the night train next friday.

The pile of belongings on my floor, waiting to be packed into our backpacks, doesn't look particularly daunting or particularly skimpy... In fact, it looks just right-- but then, we haven't tried to get it into the back packs yet and we have yet to find out if five pairs of socks is enough.

This is the last access to free internet I'll have for a while, but I'll try like crazy to update this whenever I can, just so you know that we're still alive and kicking.

This is Captain Madness, over and out.

Last Dance for Mary Jane

I'm not sure whether or not I believe that this is my last night in Lille. Packing for this next trip has been so incredibly complicated that there's no way to adjust to the idea that after tomorrow morning, realistically, I'll never see any of my friends here again. I think Alexis put it best when he said "so, you and I probably won't ever talk again but... I'll think about you." I concur.

For some reason the friendships made in the past few days seem to have been moulded in bronze, or some sich material, fired by the realization that we just finished this, and we finished it all together. It's more than a bit of shock.

It feels like someone should throw a party for us but instead, everyone's just disappearing one by one, as if the tide is pulling them out to sea, sitting on a suitcase.

This is why they say it's hard to go back Home, because there's no way to explain this to someone who's never done it. And there's a 98% chance that if they haven't done it, they won't care what you've discovered anyway.

now, if I could somehow fit every single possession that I've had with me into that one tiny suitcase and that little dufflebag... maybe I could move on.

Maybe not.

My Actor Roommate is ugly and Untalented

Honestly, click on Other Peoples Secrets Are Fascinating.

Je vous salut...

Lille on a summer day, no class, no worries, just wandering about in a short skirt looking at all of the wonderful things I could put in my mouth, which include (but are not limited to) puffy desserts, fresh flowers, beautiful dresses and Gulliver's Travels (which I didn't buy but strongly considered).

The unanimous conscensous seems to be that we all should have come for the first semester as to reap the benefits of the sun and then think warmly upon them in the winter of our discontent. Let that be a lesson to you whippersnappers.

Basically, the best thing about being in another country is being in it. It's been so cold and gloomy that my bed held more appeal for me that the entirety of France and all it had to offer (even the cheese, if you can believe it), but the freeing element of sunlight and lack of responsibility has allowed me to finally have a conversation or two in relative comfort with the people I live with.

"You, me, good conversation" Ethan Hawke says in that movie where he has ugly hair (backup, that's nearly all of them), in Reality Bites. Somehow I can't get over how redeemed everything is by a sprinkling of sunlight.

Here is my Potato Soup recipe for Laura:

To a pot add:
3-4 Cups Chopped Potatoes
2-3 Finely chopped Carrots
lots o' salt, black pepper and herbs as you like them
water to cover it all

Boil

In a frying pan brown:
1 Yellow Onion
1/2 Red Onion
2 cloves Garlic
Lots o' Mushrooms
A chunk of Butter
(if you're into that kind of thing you can add a little wine at this point, it makes the mushrooms fancy-like)

Add this to the boiling water along with:
3 Cubes Chicken Bullion
1/2 cup Cream
1 Cup Sour Cream
Milk and Water 'til your happy

Boil until the potatoes are the desired consistancy. Eat with a big, fresh, baguette. Eat some more.

I like cold beverages

Since I have no desire to drink but everyone else seems to, my solution is to manipulte them in their drunkenness into participating in my artistic experiments.
Last night I decided to take close ups of well, obviously, their eyes. The funniest part is watching people try to guess who they belong too. If you can guess which one is mine you get a french cookie.

Last night was Carrie's last night as my roomie so in honor of that I took a few normal pictures while we all hung out in Alexis's room last night and, realizing that shortly, I won't live in my room anymore, posted pictures here of the place I live. Not having Carrie here is the weirdest thing, like losing an arm or a finger, only less painful. As long as there are no phantom pains and I don't here her voice at night and whatnot, this shouldn't be too bad.

Huzzah!

You're a nut. You're crazy in the coconut!

This is one of the greatest things about French poetic truth.

In case you can't read that it says:

Franchement vous exagerez
la vie en communaute demande qu'on se respecte des uns des autres_
Alohrs S.V.P pensez à ceux qui passent derriere vous et prenez
la peine de tirer la chasse d'eau en sortant.

Il y a aussi une brosse W.C. qui ne demande qu'a être utilise.
Je tire la chasse et je nettoie les W.C si je les ai salis, POUR QUOI PAS VOUS?
MERCI

And for those of you who upon whom the humor is lost here is a loose translation:

Really, you complicate things
Community life demands that we respect one another_
so PLEASE think of those who pass behind you and take
the trouble to flush the toilet upon leaving.

There is also a toilet brush which asks nothing but to be used.
I flush the toilet and clean the bowl if I besmirch it, WHY NOT YOU?
THANKS.

This is posted in the upstairs toilet. And it's not exceptional among the number of colorful signs and warnings which are posted about our residence. But this one really is my favorite of all. It's something of a found poem. Hurrah!

Take on me

Take on me
(take on me)
Take me on
(take on me)
I'll be gone
de de de de deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I have one final left. This has been the longest finals-week of my life. Probably because it's been a month long.

I'm excited by the fact that Tim is touring with the choir right now even though he doesn't know the words and the songs are in other languages (read: un-lip-sync-able). That's gutsy.

Now I get to spend the next week looking at train schedules and arguing with the crazy cleaning lady about the things that were broken in my room before I got there, that I should therefore not have to pay for.

Phrase du Jour: J'aime être un personnage dans un bande dessinée. (I like being a comic book character.) (Thanks Alsn)

Once, Twice, Three times a lady...

Alright, look, I got the whole "Lille-will-do-whatever-it-can-to-screw-up-your-life-thing" already. Think again, France, think again. It's actually getting more and more comical at this point, and not like, tragical comical, more like shakespearian comical comical.

Last night, as I'm sitting on the cement floor in the basement, at one in the morning, in Tim's gymshorts, not having showered for two days, trying to pry open the washing machine with a butter knife (which lives in the basement for just that purpose), so that it might relinquish every single pair of pants that Carrie and I own, I thought to myself: ha. Ha. hee hee hee. what?

And then I realized that this place is beyond the twilite zone.

This morning I woke and walked to the showers. But when I noticed that they were both locked though no water was running, I knocked on both doors. Nothing. Apparently, the showers flooded the other day and they have since been locked. Which means trecking up to the second floor to bath. Which I LOVE, especially since most people on the first floor will just hold out because they'd rather be dirty than walk up the stairs.

Mostly I spent the whole day studying (called revising by Europeans) for my British Civilization Oral Exam. It was actually quite nice because I learned everything there is to know about the Tudor and Stewart dynasties (success!) and the only thing I was asked about was William III and the problem of the Catholic Pretenders. This is what I like, lots o' knowledge and then a ten minute quiz. I'll take two, please. With fries and a coke.

I still have three finals, a paper and a makeup assignment which, I'm afraid, will be thwarted by the discovery that, for some reason, my computer saved every AIM conversation that I had between November 28th, 2004 and March 7, 2005. If I currently had access to AIM that wouldn't be a problem, but since I've been deprived of witty banter I have to settle for nostalgia.... ahhhhhhhhhhhh.

I have to say, reading my conversations with Tim from the pre-dating era is an exericize in hind-sight. I was totally retarded for him, and the two of us are an intellectual force to be reckoned with. Although, I have to admit, evidence suggests I might also be partially retarded for Kacie, but who isn't?

Anyway- that was the first oral exam I've ever taken and I'm going to pretend that it was like a tiny practice round for someday defending my thesis. Tiny the way that watching Wimbledon on TV is practice for the olympic swim team, but still, practice makes perfect.

Phrase du jour: Vive Charles De Gaulle! Sauf qu'il est mort. -Yannick (Long live Charles de Gaulle! Except that he's dead.)

Ok folks, this is the end of the line

Just because I can, I think I'm going to go ahead and let the pictures do the talking for this weekend. There has never in the history of time been a more irreverent trip to Paris. This is not to say that we didn't see things and fully appreciate them On the contrary, I think we have soaked in more of the good life than can possibly be imagined. The following picture reflects only a small part of the good times that were had.

This is Kakie's new image. I, personally, think it's hot. I believe this should be the new face of the "we're in Paris" group on facebook.

We managed to see, in five short days, nearly everything that I had ever dreamed of seeing in Paris (except Tim). We made it to the Louvre twice, the Musée d'Orsay, the Pompidou, Versaille, the Arc de Triomph, the Champs Elysee, the Musée Rodin, Notre Dame, Le Madeline, the cemetary Père Lachaise and many, many others. It was grand to just sit on the banks of the Seinne, under Notre Dame (two blocks from the hostel) and talk to people who walked by. There were a number of times that I suspected Kakie might flash the bateaux mouches (tour boats) as they went by, but she resisted.

Kakie and me in the Gardens of Versaille.

It's big and gaudy and well, frankly kind of ugly. The famous "hall of mirrors" was built only as a piece of propaganda, asserting the kings wealth. I love rich people. They're awesome. The gardens on the other hand, are quite lovely and amazing even though the flowers haven't been planted yet and the fountains are not yet on.

Shannon feeds pidgeons like the "tuppens a bag" lady in Mary Poppins.

My favorite thing about Shannon is that, well, he's awesome in every concievable way. This is why there's nothing like taking a trip with near-perfect strangers. They cease to be strangers in away you hadn't before imagined. The whole time I've been here I've been trying to think of a symbol that represents everything about Europe and all I can think of is the pidgeon. Nothing, I think, represents travel in general like pidgeons. Pidgeons are universal. If people liked to eat them, the world would be a different place.

For those of you who have yet to live in a hostel, I can guarantee that you'll sleep better if you can push the beds together and spoon.

Technically we didn't sleep this way. It was Erin, Kakie, Myself and Megan. Kakie talks in here sleep. Megan hits me. Erin mutters and I snore. Though it could be much worse. You know you're loved when people are willing to split beds with you. The hostel we stayed in is directly behind the Cluny museum, besides the thermal bath that is the oldest structure in Paris, dating from even before the Jesus.

This is us, the A-Team. Mr. T is behind the camera.

Paris is a completely interesting city in every moment. This sculpture garden has I'm not sure what significance, but we did a good job of standing/sitting on pillars. It was quite nice. There really is no part of Paris bordering the river that is not interesting. I say that if we ever communicate with Aliens we tell them Paris is the capital.

In case you're wondering, that sign says that the Pompidou has the largest collection of modern art in the world. Which is a lie unless they mention also that their collection is not there right now and that if you pay the fee and go in you won't see Matisse, Polluck or anything else but you will see a video of a woman gargling milk and some other crap that really, I'm sorry, is not art. The only cool thing was an entire soundproof room which you had to duck to get into, and it it was a piano and a feather. I wanted to hear the piano SO bad. I think (though I can't be sure) that that was the point.

In general, I have no quarrel with modern art. I have to say though that will the fine art in the Louvre moved me, and the sculptures in Pomidou confused/bothered me, the impressionist art in the Musée d'Orsay brought me to my knees. The impressionist artists seem to have more of a grasp on life than any other movement. There's just something so intrensically beautiful about the way they break away from realism like a dancer who leaves not only the other dancers but the music behind for his own steps. I. Love. It.

These are my Paris buddies in the height of their cuteness. unfortunately no one told me that I should not have worn the tourist-suit that day, thereby ruining the pictures.

Essentially, because I was too busy doing things to write down all the things I ws doing, this will have to suffice for the story of Paris. Though I will say that I haven't laughed that hard all semester. There is absolutely no substitute for a Centenary person, or if possible, a large group of them.

And don't let the fondue tear you apart.

For the rest of the pics, click here.

50 Euros

This pay-by-the-minute blog entry brought to you by: Paris

Today's sights:
The Rodin museum, The Kiss and The Thinker (both incredibly cool, it's hard to soak in that you're actually looking at something you've seen lampooned a million times)
Napoleon's Tomb at l'Hôtel des Invalides (wow, he's nice and dead)
The inside of my eyelids (we're plum tuckered out from spending a million hours in the Louvre yesterday and then hanging out by the Seinne, looking at Notre Dame last night)

Having a hotel in the Latin Quarter is way cooler than staying anywhere else in Paris.

Spooning with Erin, Megan and Kakie after four months with no Centenary is way cooler than exploring Europe with strangers.

Just a note

The Louvre is the coolest thing ever created.

When you're happy and you know it...

This is for JStrange, who says my french life-story made her frown.

This is one of the greatest things that Europe has to offer, besides an international rail system and more culture than you can shake a stick at; this is Mont Blanc pudding in a can. There is seriously nother better after a hard day's worth of sleeping than to wake up and pop the tab on a cool, creamy can of vanilla, chocolate, caramel, grand marnier, hazelnut or pistachio pudding. It really can't be beaten.

Today we get the results of the one final we've already taken and then I get to pack for a weekend in Paris with the module from Centenary. This means I get to go to Versaille, which I didn't think I was going to be able to do. Ah, 'tis a good day indeed.