2005-03-08 - 10:00 p.m.

SPRIIINNNNGGG BREEEAAAK... two days and counting

I just spent over FOUR HOURS in the library studying for German with Cutter and De Sade. Believe it or not, we actually got a substantial amount done. The sad part is that I still feel underprepared for the test tomorrow.

But the big news of the day is (of course) that I saw John Collins. I blew off all my classes just to see him. It was awsome. Oh, for the last several months Dr. Raphael and I have been hatching a most diabloical scheme to trick Jason into a meeting with Collins. Jason was hesitant to meet such a prominent scholar, so he had to be tricked. Oh the silly backwards world we live in! After the meeting Jason said it was a train-wreck and he sounded stupid, but Raphael said it was wonderful and Jason sounded brilliant. My dude always assumes the worst, but I think he was in an extra weird mood becuase he had been up the entire night before. He really hasn't been sleeping lately, but then neither have I. The only difference is that I've been sleeping 5 or 6 hours a night and Jason's been genuinely, literally not sleeping. Like staying awake for 36 hours and then sleeping for a few and then doing it again. None of my friends are sleeping right now. Maybe it's midterms, maybe it's the buildup to spring-break, maybe it's just the change in the weather. Really, the coming of spring has a most unique effect on young people. Maybe it does the same to adult-types and they just don't show it....
Well, one way or another, I'm very aware of spring in my own body, in my own world. I suddenly feel 16 again. I want to dance and drink and be stupid. I want to make out and make a fool of myself. Of course this is not presently on the agenda, but perhaps the agenda could be modified.
Speak of the agenda-
I only have to get through tomorrow and the next day, and then it will be spring break. Who invented spring break? Whoever he was, he deserves a billion free shots, a ticket to Mexico, a harem of girls in bikinis and all else that is sacred within his institution.
The funniest thing about all of this is that I will not be leaving early on Friday to get my hedonistic party on, but rather to attend a scholarly conference. That will be a blast too, don't get me wrong, but my spring break (unlike that celebrated by most of my peers) will not be filled with senseless indulgences.

2005-03-07 - 7:12 p.m.

JOHN COLLINS!!!

What is it about Spring that makes all boys horny and all girls stupid?
Speaking of which, I have no desire to exert any effort on anything worthwhile. I think I should just start skipping class tomorrow and declare my spring break begun-3 days early. Haha- of course I won't. I have another test this week. It's on Wednesday... right after my gyno appointment. You know, because I like to cram as many unpleasant experiences into a short period of time as possible. And tomorrow I will be skippping a class or two, but only to do something even nerdier.
Now brace yourself-
Tomorrow I'm going to go see JOHN COLLINS!!!
What? You haven't heard of him? He only has a PhD from Harvard, has taught at Notre Dame, the University of Chicago and Yale, and is one of the most prominent Biblical scholars in the whole COUNTRY! Geez people- I might as well be meeting Brittney Spears.
No, wait, this is way cooler than meeting Brittney Spears could ever be. I'm a super nerd. Pop stars are mostly useless in my world, but people who have written things that I've read? They're gods. So yeah, if you write one of the blogs I check with undue frequency (and you know who you are) you are a demigod in my pantheon. Scary, huh? Use your power wisely because (insert Spider-Man quote here).

2005-03-07 - 9:55 a.m.

computers don't do Deutsch

My parents were/are children of The Age of Aquarius. They turned to nature and drugs to solve all of their unsolvable problems. I, on the other hand am a child of a very different age. I was born in '83, so I didn't so much grow up with computers as they grew up with me. When I was 6 I was using a green-screen Mac in my elementary school. Then there were colors on the screen. Then there were more colors. And there was more you could do too. Just as I went from an awkward child to a badass adult, computers went from being smart paper-weights to- well, you know- the thing you're reading this on. Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah- just as my ever-so-Aquarian parents expected expanded conciousness to solve all problems, I expect the same of computers. Thus, it made a fucking lot of sense to me to waste an hour not doing my German homework, but instead trying to find a way to make my computer do it for me. I'm on the internet... looking for answers- it seems so logical. Why can my computer not answer these simple Deutsch questions? Then I realize that there is no panacea. Nothing- neither Ganja nor Google- will reveal all the answers. Not for my German homework, not for life, not for anything. This is something I have to do for myself- I cannot rely on the crutch of my generation.
And you see how I got a moral out of that?
And it wasn't even a little moral! It was like, a far reaching one with great implications and everything! That makes me feel good... and very philosophical about the way I'm still not doing my German homework...

2005-03-07 - 1:57 a.m.

-

I would like to apologize for my most recent apology. It was bracketed by flippancy on both sides and as such did not sound particularly apologetic. And wait- am I even spelling 'apology' right? If not, I'm sorry for that too. Crap- I just screwed up again! Must. Not. Use. Sarcasm. In. Apologies! Lemme try again. I'm gonna say it and not say anything else after, okay? Here goes:

I'm sorry.

2005-03-07 - 1:30 a.m.

apologizing again

What, me? Big mouth? Nooo!
or,
What, me? Senselesly offending and alienating friends? Nooo!
and while I'm on a sarcastic roll-
What, me? engaging in highly questionable behavior?!?! NOOOOO!
Now that that's all out of my system, I'd like to note that it's 1:30 and I have no intention of sleeping any time soon. It's just one of those nights, you know? That, and I had some late afternoon coffee that has yet to run its course. Oh, and by late afternoon I mean 7 p.m.
But on a more serious note, I think I've offended someone again. If not, I might as well appologize again before said someone becomes offended. Right now Denae has an away message up that says "stress=bed. why can't ppl be happy for a person." Now this could of course mean many things, but since I'm neurotic I assume it means that she's upset by my earlier revelation that I don't think she should marry Casey. I don't know why my friends bother talking to me anymore- they can just read my blog and know everything I'm doing/thinking-- but that's off topic. What would be on topic would be another apology.

So here goes:
I'm sorry. I am happy for you in that I know you're happy. I'm just thinking that in the long run you shouldn't do this. I still would like to come to the wedding (if I'm still invited) and I promise I will not jump up and gesture wildly when the priest says "if anyone has a reason why these two should not be joined..." I am sorry for hurting feelings, but not for the sentiment. I still don't think this wedding is a good idea. I hope I don't lose your friendship becuase of this.

That said, it dawns on me that I've been doing more apologizing than usual lately. Am I screwing up more? Getting caught more? Or just more willing to own up to it and less willing to leave people hurt? I dunno- it's hard to think about such things at quarter-to-one, especially when I still have a full night of german homework smiling at me from my other desk.

Oooo! reason to get distracted! I'll tell a story about my other desk! Yes! Time wasting! German avoidance! You see, I have a desk. It has my computer on it. Yippee. And it was the cheapest one Wal-mart had. Double yippee. Anyway, as I was moving into this apartment I saw my desk by the dumpster. Well, not my desk, but the same discount Wally World particle-board wonder. I took it to my apartment, thinking that the original desk would be the one I keep my computer on (it is) and that the other would be for homework and drawing. The later quickly turned into the place I dump stuff when I don't know what to do with it. It's covered in months of supermarket circulars, bits of plastic that I'm sure are neccessary to the functioning of some device around here, a couple boxes of markers, three headbands and a hat. So now I have two identical desks but nowhere to write. Very funny.

2005-03-06 - 10:53 p.m.

new entries

Is it just me, or do I post new entries more than makes any kind of sense?

2005-03-06 - 8:56 p.m.

God at a party, Julia and gossip, wedding=stupid

Time for my Sunday night post-Mass reflection:
So I go to church.
And I'm distinctly aware of God being there-
but not... how to explain this? Let me work out a crass extended metaphor-
It's like you're at a party, and there's this really hot guy across the room. He's so so so very hot that you can't notice anything else, but he's talking to all his friends. He has a whole lot of friends and you've been trying to meet him all night but somehow you can't break through that circle of friends. You really want him to come over and be like "hey, what's up?" but he doesn't. So you go to a party at that same house the next weekend. And the next. You go every weekend for years. And every single time you're just trying to hook up with that guy, and every time he's with his friends.

Now substitute God for that hot guy and a church service for a party, and you know how I feel. Now I'm back to my earlier thoughts on Waiting for Godot and Waiting for the Great Pumpkin. I'm waiting for that guy to notice me. I might be on that street corner or in that pumpkin patch or at that party forever and nothing will ever happen. And yet I still believe. Why? Dunno. Would atheism be easier? I've tried it- it's much harder- for me at least. I'm not hating on my slews of atheistic friends, I just suffer from an obsessive streak that keeps me from ignoring that guy at the party.

And while I'm thinking about Mass- note to self: Ask Cyrus about that thing he said. He leaned over in the middle of the service and said something cryptic about him speaking to the dead. Normalacy and my friends are like oil and water.

And speaking of my friends, I formally met Julia for the first time tonight. We kind of knew each other, but not really. She said "hi, I'm Julia," I said "hi, I'm Emma," and we shook hands. Cyrus said "so wait- you two haven't met!?" And then he turned to me and said "so all that stuff you told me about her was just gossip?!"
At which point I crawled into a little hole and died.
No, actually I tried to execute a complicated save that only made things worse. I said "It wasn't gossip! Casey told me-"
Julia looked humiliated.
I did too.
So I extended a really, really formal apology for telling the whole school that she fucked Casey. I feel bad on a lot of levels here. First because Casey's original reports were skewed (as young men's so often are) and it turns out no actual coitus occured. Second because as I get to know her I realize she's a cool chick. She accepted my ever-so-sincere repentance and we agreed we should hang out sometime.

And this brings me to my final topic of the night: Casey. More specifically, the Casey and Denae unit. I keep expecting the wedding plans to combust, but no such luck yet. I really do believe this is the worst thing both of them will ever do. Here's a thought- maybe if you're 19, don't believe in divorce, feel kinda "bleh" about the girl you're marrying, and have said that if things turn sour your escape plan is suicide, maybe, JUST MAYBE you shouldn't get married. Hear that, Casey? Yeah, I don't see any other neurotic goth dudes in the room, so I must be talking to you... Oh, and on a related note, neither one of you can say any more that the other one is necessary for you to be saved from yourself. You BOTH need help- together it's the blind leading the blind. Being married will not result in a sudden moment of clarity where all is revealed and makes sense and from that day forward no one is ever hysterical/suicidal/the usual ever again. I don't know if that's what you two are expecting- Hell, I'm still not quite sure what either one of you has to gain from this- only what you have to lose. Yes, I got a bit into it when Denae was showing me her dress and potential reception hall, but the more I think about it, the more wrong it seems. I don't know if either one of you still read my blog, and if so, I'm sorry if I offended you. I think I've already expressed to your faces (on about a billion occasions) that I think this is a kinda bad idea- I'm just worried I might shock you with the revelation that I THINK THIS IS THE WORST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND!!! Worse than fish flavored ice cream, worse than the war in Iraq- yeah, it's that bad an idea.

2005-03-06 - 6:34 p.m.

rascism

To review: I suffer from chronic brokeness.
Thus, I love the shopping cart full of discontinued/soon to expire merchandise at the grocery store accross the street from my apartment. Today I got a package of Harry Potter Valentines for a nickel. I think I may hand them out to strangers on campus this week. And don't you even try to tell me it's a bit late for that.

Also in the Cart O' Markdowns was a Barbie. A little girl and her dad walked up. He was rummaging through the cart and looking really interested in some discontiinued toothpaste when the little girl spotted the Barbie.
(insert little girl sqealing here)
Daddy says no, honey, you already have a million Barbies.
Little girl, now holding doll, furrows her brow and says yeah, but Daddy, I don't have one of the brown ones.
I probably should have mentioned that the doll in the discount bin was Barbie's adopted sister, Black Barbie. Matel doesn't try very hard on Black Barbie. They at least give Redhead Barbie and Asian Barbie different names (if I remember correctly they are Midge and Tia, respectively), but no- Black Barbie is just another girl named Barbie. And it looks like they use the same mold for her head- they just use a different color plastic, but her features are still very... um, un-ethnic.
Anyway, as I'm standing there, contemplating the racial politics of Barbie dolls, the Dad rolls his eyes and tells the little girl that he has markers so they can make a brown Barbie at home.
She gets all excited like "really Daddy?!?! I SOOO want one of those!"
And that would be one of the funnier things I've heard in a while. It was like the little girl didn't think of race as being this intrinsic or insurmountable thing. She just wanted to add on to her collection- like she already had Rock Star Barbie and Swimsuit Fun Barbie, so now she wanted Black Barbie. That's what I love about kids. Then again, I know people who have reached adulthood without ever having to think of race as a "problem." Like last night I was IMing The Senator. He reflected that there are probably still rasicts around here and I was like- wow. In my high school white supremicists were as much a legitamate clique as cheerleaders or punkers. Yes, rasicm is very alive and well in central Texas. I mean, you've probably heard me babble about how I have to keep my Dad's side of the family very, very far away from my Hispanic boyfriend. Shit like that is something I take for granted. Then again, the Senator is very Austin, so he's forgiven for being liberally unaware of how the rural areas are still fighting the Civil War. (Oh, and I mean that literally- did I ever tell you about the guy back in Wimberley who flew Confederate flags from the turrnets of the fortress he built around his trailer? I can't make this stuff up.)

2005-03-06 - 5:31 p.m.

quote of the day

Quote of the day- from the mind of Jason-
"it's like Tiger Woods chopping his arms off, or Pamela Anderson taking out her breast implants- what's an Emma without the ability to talk?"

2005-03-06 - 11:27 a.m.

too much to do

I just realized that I've been wasting the last week with the illness and the never getting offline and all. Now tomorrow is Monday. I have way too much German homework- and a test in that class on Wednesday. And I have a test in Latin American Art History tomorrow night. And I need to really, really once and for all finish that fucking metals project by Tuesday. Then I have to be ready to head up to Dallas by first thing on Friday, so Thursday will be devoted to packing and preparing. Thus, I have a full, busy week. And yet I still can't talk and have no real desire to do anything.

2005-03-06 - 10:20 a.m.

existential despair

Right now I'm listening to Weekend Edition on NPR. The subject is existentialism. The current interview is with a man who sees incredible parrallels with Penuts comics. Aparently Linus is Kirkagaurdian and Charlie Brown is full of Sarte. I never thought so deeply about waiting for the great pumpkin-- the deity Linus never encounters but believes in fully. And now the topic has shifted to Nietzsche (sp?). The more I listen the more I think I should stop. As it is I have laryngitis and no coffee. The last thing I need is exestential despair compounding this. Oh, wait- too late.

2005-03-05 - 11:37 p.m.

cutter's quote of the day

Quote of the day- this time from Cutter-
"Ever notice that if you rearrange the letters in 'shower' you get 'whores'?"

2005-03-05 - 8:27 p.m.

Laryngitis

Sounds like the lady downstairs is fed up. Sounds like the man is screaming. Now there's a slamming and... (going to window) oh, how cute! He's having a "STELLLAA!" moment in the parking lot. It's extra cinematic because it's raining heavily.
Another high-drama Saturday night in the apartment complex. Yipppee.
In other news, I still can't talk. Since my last posting I've gotten a good hour of sleep, read some magazines, and extensively researched laryngitis. In fact, I've researched it so thouroughly that I have no doubt that is the correct spelling of "laryngitis." Spelling is important because when a girl can't talk, writing is all she has. Like if I'm not completely better by churchtime tomorrow, I'll have to take along a little pad and paper and scrawl out things like "Hi, Julia, how have you been?" You never realize how pointless small-talk really is until you have to exert effort to conduct it. Hell, maybe I'll just sequester myself in my apartment until I get over this so I don't have to deal with any of that.

2005-03-05 - 3:33 p.m.

Lost my voice

You probably know by now that I've been sick for the last week. Well today it took a turn for the more interesting. I woke up and realized I was out of Halls inustrial strength mentho-lyptus cough drops. This had to be remidied, so I walked accross the street to the store. When it came my turn, the express-lane checker said "and how are you doin' today m'am?"
I opened my mouth to say "fine, thanks," but all that came out was "mmgah."
I was allarmed and started trying to say other things, but it all came out as hoarse mumbles. The cashier looked at me with incredible concern, but I couldn't explain what was happening since I couldn't form complete words.

You see, apparently I have lost my voice.

My response to this?

CRAP!
Crap, crap, crap! I love to talk. Talking makes up a big chunk of my life. How am I going to get by on non-verbal communication? This is preposterously lame.

2005-03-04 - 3:45 p.m.

Harriet the Spy and Ethics

Let's talk about ethics and Harriet the Spy, shall we? Now yes, Harriet the Spy was my favorite book when I was a kid. When the movie version came out I was elated- it wasn't totally true to the original, but whichever one you're familiar with will be perfect for this situation. If you're not familiar with this very coolest of books, I'll fill you in as I expand upon my personal problems of the hour.

First of all, Harriet is a spy. She writes everything in her diaries. EVERYTHING. I started after reading that book at about 11. I have shelves full of spiral notebooks in which I recorded everything from my favorite foods to boys I had crushes on to my plans for suicide (back to exhibit A- Emma is bipolar and was a VERY dark teenager). Now this got me in trouble once or twice, so at about 13 I developed a secret alphabet that only I could read. It was sort of what my learning disablilty already made things look like, so it was very intuitive. There was no capital or lowercase or cursive or print but all this really unique, almost caligraphic looking stuff. It was indecipherable to others, and that was the point.

Anyway, I quit with my secret language when I was about 16 or so, and just started writing "normal" English. This took a further turn in a bad direction when I decided a while back that my handwritten pages were no longer enough and that I needed the approval of others. Thus, I set up my Diaryland account. I was all frolicing along- happy because of all the other cool diaries and the way I get comments from strangers and all that good stuff.

But then there's the reason I never previously set up a blog: Sometimes people will get hurt. Think about in Harriet the Spy when her notebook gets stollen. Then all her friends find out what she really thinks. Now I didn't think this was too big a problem. After all, I'm blunt to a fault. I figured all my friends knew what I thought of them. However, this was not the case. You see, when I found out that Cyrus maybe had the URL to my blog, I was worried he would stop being my church-buddy because I'm such a sinner. Nope. He got upset because he felt the portrait I painted of him was one of a gullible, unpleasant prude. While I think he misinterpreted a bit, I will admit I was a bit brutal, and I really do feel bad.

Which brings us up to the final scene in Harriet the Spy. Where she becomes the editor of the school paper and prints a retraction/correction of the stuff that she had said.

Here goes:
Cyrus, I am sorry. I know I complain about you a lot, but you are a true friend. We have stuck together through all kinds of unpleasant shit (and I'm sorry I assumed you were bothered by my profanity). I now know, after today's conversation, that there is way more to you than meets the eye. More than I even knew, and I consider myself one of your friends. Talking to you about your once and future girlfriend made me feel extra bad. The last thing you need is another woman who you can't make sense of, and I'm sorry for being a bitch. I realize now that you do not think of yourself as a non-sinner. I just always (with my wild and um... wild ways) felt like comparatively you are a saint. And I felt like you knew that and looked down your nose at me. I'm sorry for the assumption, and for the record, I would love to go to Mass with you on Sunday.

And this brings us to sin and ethics. Posting mean things about you is unethical. While I do a lot of things that are unethical, I know they are bad. We all have something keeping us from doing bad things- we call it somthing different. Having a system of personal ethics is like having a concious is like calling upong a higher power for rules. I hold all of these in equal esteem, but none of them really work well for me because I have an extreme tendency to fly in the face of things I know to be right. Now you see why I was TRYING (and failing, but trying nonetheless) to give up gossip for Lent. It gets me in a lot of touble and hurts others.

I know this doesn't sound like much, but I am sorry not only to Cyrus but also to anyone else I've hurt in the course of this diary.

The last thing I wrote before this thing. The next thing I wrote after this.