Just Imagine Everyone is Naked

2005-01-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

Is it something special about blogger? Is it something terrible about spaces? You know what - don't answer that, because whatever you say will offend either Susannah or I, and chances are, you know both of us and don't want to do that. The point is, I HAVE moved to spaces. I'm not coming back - so any of you that are holding on to that fantasy (and i know there are several of you because my Spaces Stats page tells me that about half my hits come from people getting here first and then clicking the link) you NEED to let it go.

So take a minute now to update your RSS feed, or change the link in favorites, or cross out and rewrite the link you have on the little yellow sticky. Because i'm going - no, i'm gone - i've already left. So what are you still doing here, all alone, like the one guy alone in the stands at a sports event hours and hours after the team and everyone else have moved on to greener fields?

2004-12-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

BIG NEWS!

I'm moving. Goodbye blogger - you've been good to me. I hope you all follow me to:

http://spaces.msn.com/members/Icarriedawatermelon

2004-12-01T19:32:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: If you think this post might apply to you, you're probably right. With the exception of Ginger, my Parents, and my nephew, Correy "I want to be 5 now, i'm tired of being 4 and 5/12s" pearlman, this post applies to everyone i know. So please don't take it personally.

IF ONE MORE PERSON ASKS ME HOW I LIKE "WORKING FOR THE EVIL EMPIRE", I will take up golf just so i can have a nine-iron with which to hit the offender in the head. And s/he won't get a useful warning, like "FOUR". No, you'll just get smacked upside the head and left sitting in a gutter looking at all the pretty stars - if I didn't hit you hard enough you might have the reasoning capacity left to wonder why there are stars in the middle of the day and how you got so close to them and ow, why does my head hurt.

Ok, let's talk about this people. Do you go up to someone "Hey! How's your evil mother?" Now, i'm not trying to compare my company to my mother (especially since MY mother and computers don't belong in the same dictionary let alone sentence), so perhaps it's more like "you go to what college? Oh my god, that school F*cking sucks. Did you not get in anywhere else? Does a parent work there?" We're talking about a personal part of my life, a decision i've made for various reasons for the time being and applying words like "evil" to something i dedicate 50 hours a week to cold-hearted. Which reminds me of a little diddy from the break away blockbuster, bring it on:

"brrr, it's getting cold in here
there must be some mac-users in the atmosphere"

Maybe those weren't the exact words - but come one, i saw it a couple years ago.

Beyond generally rules of social interaction, why "evil"? That word leaves absolutly NO room for negotiation. Are you THAT hooked on alliteration, people? If so, i have a number of tongue twisters about woodchucks i can refer you to in order to satisfy your fix. Believe it or not, Microsoft actually does a number of very handy little things. I KNOW you all love powerpoint, because what is there not to love? You love using it, you love teachers who use it, you love the big font the animation and the pretty pictures and there's no denying it. Outlook is freakin awesome. I can send out an email with cute little voting buttons and get responses about who is "totally coming" to my Buffy Watching Parties, and who is a "big loser" - and just like that too because i can make the voting buttons say anything i want. And Messenger - i don't want to even get in to how much better it is than AIM - but for starters, you can make your own emoticons. Everytime i type "buffy" in a conversation window the word turns into a picture of buffy.

The reason a lot of people have trouble with Microsoft, is that you spend either too much time with it - so problems are bound to arise - like too much time trapped in a car with your family driving across the country to see even more family and the knowledge that you're actually going to have to drive BACK with these people - it doesn't mean you should stop loving them. OR, you don't spend enough, so all the things you "wish it could do for me" it actually does. You're just not taking the time to learn it. Like ctrl + Z - my dad didn't know about that. How he lives? I don't know.

Ok. I think that's the end of my rant. I suppose i'll have more to say about it after someone thinks it's funny to test me and my trusty 9-iron.

With so much Love - Leah :-)

2004-11-24T16:54:00.000-05:00

Oh! Unfortunate Situational Conflict!

Here i came, www.blogger.com, with keyboard in hand prepared to continue my top ten list of reasons why i haven't been blogging much lately, when i realized what a lie i'd be living if i moved on to number 3. This morning, i sat at home in my pjs - all snuggled up in bed (the new arrangement of my bedroom means the furnace is directly below my head - considered a blessing by the cold-blooded* among us, a fire hazard by others) with my laptop, a Tully's cup of coffee and a blueberry scone doing what so many people enjoy about working at a lax company "working from home."
The reason was not, as it is for many, because i needed the quiet privacy that one cannot find in a crowded office building. I was waiting for the cable guy ("CABLE GUY") to come and fix my internet. Which he did. So i'm now online at home now which invalidates about three of my top ten excuses. Ok, so it doesn't invalidate them, because it's still true that those were reasons i wasn't writing before - but they won't hold up any longer. And what if another week just happens to pass with my blogg left untouched, then what? A whole new list of excuses? I don't think so, this list is stressing me out enough as it is.

How about we do this - if it ever takes me a while to blog again - just assume that my internet may have gone out, and those excuses which involve internet still apply.

Reason i haven't been blogging lately #3. George Bush and his recent election (see justification #6 for why this belongs on this list)

#2. because women really ARE better than men. hahahaha (see justication for #3 for why this belongs on this list)

and the #1 reason i have not been blogging much lately...well - better save that for next time, folks. Not that i want to drag this whole thing out any more than you do, but as you can tell by 3 and 2 my motivatoin for creativity is lacking at present.

So what else is news? Oh, here's a thing. I'm becoming accustomed to the well-paid lifestyle. It happened so fast! it makes me skeptical that I've always been meant to have a lot of money laying around - maybe i was a pimp in a previous lifetime? Doubt it - "Pimp L" doesn't quite have a ring to it (well, it has a ring - just not the kind that anyone would answer) I know a lot of you aren't bringing home the kind of bacon that i am (jewish or not) so i don't mean in anyway to rub this in your face. It's just, I have such big plans of saving up all kinds of cash so when i'm ready to hide out in a cabin eating carrot sticks (we're not talking baby carrots, folks) and putting the finishing touches on my "'hilarious yet provocotive' Says the New York Times" novel, i can actually afford to rent said cabin and purchase said carrot sticks, or at least the wild animal who will hunt and dig them. But lately i've been, you know, buying hats, and ordering appetizers, and art supplies, and the expensive canned soups instead of the discount ones. It's adding up, people, and it worries me that this is something i could get used to. Those of you who are currently nibbling on the table scraps your parents left behind while you read this - and perhaps when the table scraps are gone you keep nibbling your own flesh, half out of hunger and half out of outrage that someone could complain about having too much money - i seriously appologize. Your existance makes me realize this is not a problem worth complaining about, it's a a problem worth fixing quietly by myself with no outside involvement. I just thought you should know, it's easy to say "down with the rich and corporate america! until they fund exciting egg nog lattes where bitter homemade coffee used to be. you know what i'm saying? I'm not complaining - i'm just, evaluating. I'm trying to keep the innerLeah the same as she's always been - it seems just the decorative edges are changing - however, if you notice anything more serious changing in my charachter - PLEASE let me know. I might bite your head off and spit it out in a landfill - but i will consider your advice seriously, so even though your head will be smushed under a thousand tons of trash, it won't be a waste of time.

If i didn't already think this post was too long - i might tell you about the dueling piano bar that i went too on saturday night. They played the hoekey pokey and greece and marguerittaville - i thought of Dave binder. I had a good time inspite of my sobriety which just goes with my theory, German's love david hasslehoff.

Home to D-town tomorrow for thanksgiving - there's no place where i can give thanks and mean it like i can in Colorado.

2004-11-19T15:55:00.000-05:00

I spent the last week on the east coast and here are some of the things i learned:

1) Spending an evening eating food from the meeting street cafe (TWO chocolate cookies included) with Willa Annika and Laura, and then drinking champagne and eating scones and talking about life, love and everything, is like chicken soup for the soul. (there was a time in my life when i was so sick of cliched similies that I was always just going to say "moose." For example, "he was as quiet as a moose"; "trying to talk about love is like dancing about moose"; and "his kisses made me melt like a moose on the fourth of july". But the evening i had in Providence was way too soulful to apply the moose rule. What i'm trying to say is, i'm sorry for the cliche.

2) Meeting street cookies are the best cookies in the world. When i'm rich i'm gonna by the cafe, train my face to stay consistantly surly, and ship cookies all around the world making myself rich and my fellow man fat. Speaking of rich, last night i heard some pop song that had a line that said something about "Would Bill Gates be as rich if he had got laid in high school?" the singer went on to answer his own question: "No, of course not." First of all, it was werid to here my bosses name on the radio. I mean - yeah i've never met the guy, but i have seen an email from time to time, and we talk about him enough around here. I can't explain it but i had in instinctual "you talkin about my mama?" moment. Second, i realized a corollary of the singer's question was "would i be in seattle right now if bill gates had gotten laid in high school?" And it seems weird that my current location in life is dependent on the 1980s sex-life of a middle-adged man that's not my father. And finally, it made me wonder, "would i be rich and successful if i hadn't gotten laid in high school?" They tell you in sex-ed there are a lot of the things you need to take into consideration before taking the plunge - but i don't remember "forfeiting forture and fame" making that list. They bog down the curriculum with STDs and Pregnancy instead of focusing on the important stuff. Where might i be now? Probably distributing Meeting Street cookies worldwide, that's where.

3) Shopping in New York City is just as fun as it sounds. (note: this will mean very different things to different people)

4) There are no lockers in New York City since 9/11. Most people i've mentioned this too have said "duh." but how am i supposed to know? All this talk about "security security security" i just kinda of assumed they would be adding more locks around the city, not removing them. When i was standing in the middle of prot authority looking for the lockers that i would never find, a staff guy came up to me and said "hey darlin, where are you trying to get, new jersey?" what i said was "No. Thanks though." What i thought was "What the hell about me makes you think jersey!?!"

5) Lance and Greg have a cute new apartment with cowboy curtains. Lance has a computer, Greg likes to find things in the gutter and bring them into the apartment. So far it seems he has about a 50/50 success rate for bringing in things worth keeping and things that probably carry a variety of communicable diseases. Lance is doing a little play in New York which is pretty cool and he's going to do this interesting gig that combines many of the things he loves: friends, an audience, a bar, improv, and teen drama. (he loves meeting street cookies too, and i'm sure if they had a franchise in NYC he'd find a way to incorporate them) Greg is using Brown carreer services to get a job. I think he's the only one in the world - so we can all use him as a guinnea pig to find out how it goes. Todd is in a band that is trying to find their "sound" much like a moose! (if anyone has any idea what sound a moose makes, let me know so i can retract this statement)

6) Getting around on the subway is just as hard as it seems (note: this will mean very different things to different people)

7) Twelve year olds know what condoms are and can tell dirty jokes involving them. Of course this isnt' something i thought i had to learn - but once we're talking about my own nephew it became shocking. Also, twelve year olds play a game in gym called Speed ball that does not involve drugs.

8) Four year olds who probably couldn't define "ctrl" "alt" or "del", knows what they mean in combination and when to combine them. The kid can't even read "(not responding)" yet, but a bunch of grayed out windows and a nonresponsive mouse are totally obvious to him. Smart cookie - that one; and creepy industry.

9) My brother is getting a pool built for his kids. I never had a pool. DJ, can i have a pool?

10) Chris Byrnes is working on an "i can tell you what i do but i'd have to kill you" account, but he doesn't carry a breif case. How much sense does that make? Together he and i watched the final two episodes of West Wing season two. That show is really pretty amazing. Shameless plug - both for the show and for myself. i do watch things that aren't buffy people.

11) 1984 is a fan-fucking-tastic book, and everyone should read it for that reason, and not because it's a classic (that generally finds its way to the top of a alphabetical classics list)

12) My knees shake when i speak in public. Even when im talking to a bunch of Brown kids that i know about a job that i understand, my knees go du-du-du-du up and down with this violent vibration i could't imitate if i tried. Next time i keep a presentation i'll were a skirt so you can see what i'm talking about. It's like i'm about to get my first kiss - by EVERYONE in the audience.

13) Brown kids don't know how to spend money even when they're trying. I tried to encourage tim and eric to buy fancy beer and alcohol, and what do they get? "smoked beer" that tasted like it was wrung from the dregs of a burnt bag of popcorn, barely-alcoholic raspberry beer, and malibu coconut flavored rum. it was pretty cute watching them try to play "rich" and failing miserably.

14) Chrisina Agulara's music video "dirty" is really not that dirty considering her dancing is no different than most of the backup dancers for any male-centered music video. Why do we give female artists (janet included) such a hard time and pretend like backup dancers don't exist. It's kinda like how naked people are allowed on the history channel as long as their not white and have some abnormal piercing, but we don't allow them on any other networks.

15) i must be finally making friends, real friends, because not going to work every day made me actually miss a few people. Awww.

2004-11-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

Continuation of previous post - but it was getting heavy. - like giving birth to Dectuplets heavy.

Interesting comments i received on the last post - specifically the RSS thing. I've heard that accronym being thrown around a bit lately - but i feel like i'm in a big game of keep away - RSS keeps whizzing over my head but i can't seem to get ahold of it. Susannah says she's going to check it out and let me know how it works, in which case i can start using it to read blogs, and help you all to check mine out. Of course, if we dont' want to wait for sue to do it, then maybe Mr. Anonymous can post again about how it all works. What do you think Mr. Anonymous? (For the record, Mr. Anonymous is not related to Mr. Incredible. Which is a good thing - if he were he'd have to wear a big red "A" on his costume and we all know how well that has worked out for characters of the past - not to mention that someone who was born anonymous and has super anonymous powers might have a hard time getting a drivers liscence or boarding an airplane for a vacation in rome (or venice!) or voting for our next democratic presidential candidate)

Oh! I almost forgot! so remember how two days ago i was talking about the fire in the kitchen and stuff? GUESS WHAT I DID?!? Like right on command - i make one cheeky comment about not having set anything on fire yet - and suddenly, post omlette but pre-turning-off-stove, my Blockbuster online envelope (which i need in order to return my rental) is in total flames. I wonder if this means i have to keep Sex And the City Season 1 disc two for ever? Anyway...

#4 I've resumed, VERY sparsley, working on my own writing. Like the shit i dream of seeing in print. Not that i can't do both, but there just isn't that much time, and honestly, my inspiration has it's limits. I wake up every day with a very specific alotment and if i use it all up in one blog post, or one REALLY good joke, i'm kind of en empty shell the rest of the day. While this is an excuse for why i haven't been blogging enough, you can also apply it to the fact that i make some really terrible jokes a lot of the time. Next time you hear one - just assume that means that i said something absolutly brilliant earlier that day? (Yes! i've been looking for an excuse for that one for years)

#3....yeah, next time.

Though in answer to Mr. Anonymous' question - i am not going to never get to 1 in order to be clever and "meta" only because you had the idea first and thus sucked all the originality of it - but look for "meta" in the near future - it's generally my specialty, and now that i know there's demand, i'll make it a priority.

2004-11-05T19:06:00.000-05:00

So i think it's become pretty clear that I'm not very good at this blogging thing. Rather than Appologizing a lot, tell you all how much i appreciate you all who take the time to drag the mouse ALL the way up to your "Favorites" folder*, highlight "Leah's Blog", click, wait for the page to load, only to face the bitter disappointment that you've seen all this before, maybe even three times before or ten times before if you check often (if this is the case, please talk to your boss about picking up some extra assignments, or your friends about picking up your social life, or your psychiatrist about your unhealthy obsession with me. Or with Blogs. Or with Any web page that says "Naked" on top) - yes, rather than apologizing for that, i'm going to make up a whole list of excuses. It only takes you believing one for me to be able whistle a sigh of relief, mop my forehead dramatically with the back of my hand, and pat myself on the back for duping another sucker.

Leah's Top Ten Reasons for not blogging Lately.

1o) To avoid talking about the scary event that took place last week. And i'm not talking Holloween people. But now that i'm here, i should commend our dear president on his convincing Texasshole costume. It was so believable! I almost thought for a second there that we asked a slow stubby man with the IQ and general physical makeup of a teddy bear to represent us as the most powerful person in the world.

9) I still don't have internet in my apartment there's something about the blank office walls and the incessent buzz from my officemate's earphones that doesn't induce creativity. Don't tell my manager that - i'm supposed to be innovating ground breaking features. I wonder if ground breaking features are officemate-headphone breaking too. (that is nothing personal toward her - i need to get my own headphones - i broke mine last week and i'm bitter)

8) This excuse is similar to 9 in that it is only a problem because i still don't have internet at home. We hate google here, i'm told, and since blogger is google, it's not safe to have their logo sitting up on my work machine for too long. I had no idea when i got here that this job came built-in enemies. I must have missed the part on the contract that said

"Sign here to get a cushy salary, benefits so big their practically benetantrums, and your very own set of microsoft sponsered corporate enemies! Now you can shop at Walmart and Nike guilt-free!...So what if they won't promote women and like to make small children work for stale jelly beans (jelly raisins?), as long as those entry-level women and starving children don't start producing competative software, you needn't bat an eye!"

(Note: The enemy here is google, not specifically anyone who works for google. In fact, i'm quite certain that if i knew anyone who worked for google, anyone at all, we might hit it off quite well and spend 4 years of college fratranizing and a couple summers living and working together and keeping in touch just often enough to send "Happy Binary Day!" messages to one another.)

7) You'll have to check back. I'm going to Van Couver! Hey! that can be excuse number 7.

6) PMS**

5) I don't have fingers anymore and that makes it very difficult to type. Of course that's not true, i have fingers 10 of them - but by my calculations, i'm really tempting fate on this one. I should have lost three trying to tear the insides out of the giant 50's TV i bought for $5 at a garage sale. I've had it for years and years and it's never served me in any positive except driving my mother crazy as a very heavy and immovable eyesore in her stylish home. [My mom and i used to have this routine where i would put my laundry in the laundry room, and she would sneak in there and take out my favorite pair of pants-which she argued had lived well beyond their years-and throw them away. Afterward, i would go in and get my laundry and pluck the pants out of the trash can on the way. It was a ritual between us. Once i forgot and out they went - and my heart with them (just kidding, i don't keep my heart in my pants - i think that storage technique is reserved for Ron Jeremey). Anyway - knowing that the TV was too heavy for her to lift, and too big to fit in the trashcan gave me a secret sense of satisfaction.] But i had this vision to hollow it out and put a smaller working TV instide. The whole process has been grueling and dangerous, wires and scissors and glass oh my!

Another two of my fingers should've been lost in miscelanious kitchen activity. We all know i'm good at throwing knives around and setting things on fire that aren't meant to be set on fire.

One of my fingers belongs in a lockbox at my fancyshmancy health club. Thanks to Microsoft's benefits package, i'm not paying an arm and a leg for the membership - but the subsidization only cover's most of the yearly fee. The rest is my responsibility. (It's really fancy shmancy - i probably owe them more than just a finger - maybe one with a classy ring on it and an elegant finger nail)

That leaves me with four fingers. All of which i should have eliminated if i wanted to be a truly convincing pumpkin for Holloween. That's right, i was a pumpkin***. And how many pumpkins do you know with fingers? I know, gross, right?

So there we go - i should be down to 0 fingers at this point, and using them when they shouldn't even exists is really toying with the powers that be...Stay tuned for excuses 4-1.

*It can hardly be considered presumptusous to think that my blog link might have made it's way into your favorites folder. It seems highly more presumptutuous to assume that you actually memorized the URL (which people around here pronounce "earl"s which annoys me to no end - each time it happens i spend a day trying to rid my head of the dixie twang that says goodbye to earl over and over in my head. If that doesn't make sense to you, you either have narrow musical taste or you're not spending enough time in good ole texas these days.)

**Required element on any list of excuses

***For the visual - i was a cute stripper pumpkin - only stripper in that if you unzipped my orange vest you'd see the construction paper candel taped to my black tank top. Next year I plan to upgrade to a "PIMPkin" but first i gotta find me some bling bling and some "sweet potatHOs".)

2004-10-23T17:56:00.000-04:00

Where are we? Where am I? i'm not asking geographically of course - i couldn't answer that question if i tried (Can you believe that during the four years i lived in providence i NEVER learned the cardinal directions? I'm serious. There was "toward the mall (morse specifially toward charlotte russe and forever 21)," "toward meeting street (and while you're in that direction you should really try one of their chocolate chip cookies - it's like a four dollar orgasm in your mouth without all the 'ew' that a mouth orgasm image elicits), "toward Wickenden (which has just as many syllables as 'purgatory,' has 'wicken' in it, and was mostly downhill, so i always associated that direction with south)," and finally there was "toward Gabe's house- i know you don't know Gabe, that's because there is no Gabe to know. It's not a person. it's a house. Like Villa Villa Coola. Get over it.") What i mean is - where am i in life? Last weekend i went to visit John and Susannah. One minute they were getting out sheets and blankets for Eric and i to sleep comfortably on, and then next they were right alongside us fillign shotglass with beer and downing them in to the tempo of a game of taboo*. They were taking us on a whirlwind tour of Sanfrancisco as any good hosts should do, such as driving us accross the Golden Gate Bridge. Then again, the real purpose of driving accross the world famous bridge was to get to Susannah's house to pick up her good old fashioned NES so we could spend the rest of the evening playing dr. mario. We're not yet adults, but we're obviously getting there and i have to say - the metamorphasis is much more comfortable than i expected. No itchy cacoons, for one thing.

Anyway - Sanfrancisco - we had a great time. Here's what i have to report.

Susannah: can't talk about google without getting a little gigly and shy. They cook her delicious meals three times a day, they don't charge her for it, and they pay her a hefty salery. All in all it's like a brand new sugar-daddy boyfriend.
John: Still makes a mean salad dressing - makes me feel better about my coffee habbit by ordering a large when i order a medium - and if i could produce a painting of john in the style of those old christian renesence styles i would show him standing tall carrying a stick accross his shoulders with pails hanging from either end. One pail would be filled with party, and the other pail would be filled with responsibility. They would balance each other perfectly - he wouldn't even have to use his hands.
Angela: lives in a beautiful house that looks as artsy and eclectic as finlandia should've if it weren't so goddamn dirty.
Jen: Would make a terrible electron. She had a terrible time trying to pick us up from the airport because she couldn't figure out which of the rings of cars to follow.
Judy: She has a beautiful haircut that she thinks looks like a mullet - but i actually really liked - she looked very elegent and mature (don't worry - she's not, thank god - she will forever bring out the kid in all of us) but i couldn't think of no way to convince her that i was not just saying that to be nice except possilby to publish the sentiment to the world.
Alex: we went one and one in dr. Mario. I havne't been able to stop thinking about that playoff game ever since my plane took off.
Adam Avakian: Oh my god was it good to see him - although, he's probably forgotten everything about the weekend behind the blinding happiness of the red socks victory.

I'm sitting in an internet cafe about two miles from my apartement - from which i walked. I just turned to look out the window as people in coffee shops are known to do, and sighed. It's raining very very hard. Welcome to winter in the northwest, Leah Pearlman. You signed up.

*power hour taboo was a game invented accidentally one night at the lovely Nathali Jordi's providence residence. It's brillient. No one has to watch the clock when when a little vile of sand is constantly being flipped. There is something less shallow (not deep, just less shallow) about taking sixty shots of beer when it's the backdrop to some other activity. Word to the wise - when playing power hour taboo, hide that damn buzzer or the least mature person amoung you is likely to some how gain control of it and make your life miserable. If you are the least mature person amoung you, seriously, grow up man.

2004-10-13T17:06:00.000-04:00

I’m taking trips. Next weekend I get to go to San Francisco which is something like going to a giant amusement park only instead of fun rides hat turn you upside down and fill your cheeks with blood (ew!) and impossible games that you can’t possibly win no matter how gently you toss the ring or fire the emasculating little water gun at the teetering ponies, I get awesome friends to play with. John and Susannah there- living as domestic partners. I have this vision of John making salad with eggs and chicken and pasta and raw mushrooms for dinner (that’s right, eggs and chicken, there’s something uncomfortable familial about that) while Susannah comes home from a hard day at the office.

John: Hi, Susannah. How was your day?
Sue: Good. I designed a ‘Happy Binary Day!’ logo for Google to decorate their icon with yesterday.
John: You’re such a nerd. I’m gonna go drink a 40.

That’s misleading, of course John is working hard too. Maybe other days Susannah is sitting at home slaving over a hot Nintendo preparing herself for the FURY I’m going to bring with me next weekend. On these days John comes home from a hard day:

Sue: [deafening silence]
John: Uh, hi sue!
Sue: [grunt]
John: Uh, I said ‘hi sue!”
Sue: [grunt]
John: Dude! Say hi to me, I had a hard day at the ‘Big O’*. Sue: Ah!! F*cking double reds, you f*cking pieces of sh*t. All I needed was a f*cking blue. G*d D*ammit. Play again? D*mn right I’ll play again.”
John: You’re ridiculous. I’m gonna go drink a 40.

*[O is for Oracle, not whatever you were thinking you sicko]

I also get to visit Jen Rosenbaum. Jen is teaching high school children math, and for those of you who don’t know her, she’s very small and compact. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I have a vision of her getting stuffed in a locker (in a playful way) and yelling through her own muffled laughter for the students to let her out. I see the kids getting their fill and then “Do you know the combination?”…”I don’t know the combination, I thought you knew it!” “Ah well, let’s go smoke a bowl.” “Aight.”
“mfmmffm let mfmf me mfmf out!…mfm guys?”

Angela is down there too. She’s a doctor-in-training. Like a little doctor caterpillar not yet ready to soar with her doctor butterfly wings. I was going to make up some tale about Angela walking around her classrooms on the first day and plucking the hearts right our of the chest of every fellow student (in a metaphoric way, not a med school way) and stuffing them in her stylish but affordable bag. Of course they’ll probably demand to have their hearts back when they realize she’s kicking their asses in all things academic (either demand them back or offer their souls to her too). But unfortunately, ever since I made that caterpillar analogy a few sentences back, I can only imagine her frittering across campus with a regular Angela head on a caterpillar body. And there’s probably a stethoscope somewhere in my mental image.

There are other folks I will see too – but they’ll get blogged about once I actually see them – Judy, for instance is bound to do something crazier than whatever I could imagine for her.

2004-10-02T13:36:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I watched Pumping Iron* with Three Brown grads, two canadians and one Texan. I suppose everyone's place of origin is not so important now that we're all sattelites, i just thought to get a clear mental picture of the scene it would be helpful to know who, during the flexing of nasty pulsing bluging inhumane muscley bodies, was saying "fucking a!", who was saying "Fucking eh!" and who was saying "Fuck, y'all!" Seriously, check it out. My favorite part of the movie was the whole arnold dug for himself in the interview he gave in the last couple years that was tacked on to the end of the movie in which he tried to dispell all of the evil character he showed throughout the movie. Either he was lying in his interview to save face, and he really was that much of a creep, or he was telling the truth in that it was all an act to aid the sales of the movie, in which case Pumping Iron is proof that they height of Arnold's acting ability was in his early 20s (because seriously, what a dick) and his performances in small-time flicks such as total recal, true lies, and the terminator pale in comparison.

If i learned anything yesterday it was this: "Never buy clothing out of a vending machine." You may be at high risk for circulation failure and even

I also surprised someone by rasing their awareness to the fact that the word "content" (as in "beware, this movie contains some serioulsy graphic adult content") is spelled the same way as the word "content" (as in "I am only content when i'm watching movies that contain some serioulsy graphic adult content"). OH MY GOD how many more people would curl up with a dictionary at night if they let me do the example sentences. And no. that was not a question.

Happy birthday to Lance Rubin and Dan Santiago. you're both very old.

*Documentary of Arnold Swartzenager and his rise to body builder stardom made in the late 70s

2004-09-28T22:28:00.000-04:00

I live in seattle in a one room apartment. Yellow curtains in the living room, and Red ones in the bedroom. Red carpet. The table tops are orange and pink and the tables legs are yellow. Orange. Red. Yellow. Pink.* My bed is all four. The place is small and dense - when you walk in from the aging hallway (the indoor counterpart to an innercity ally) it feels like you've pushed your way through the soil into a garden of lilies and poppies and sunflowers, oh my. I love it. I come home from work and i sit on the black couch (which isn't actually black yet, but will be, and if i tell you what it is, it'll take away from the entire picture i'm trying to paint for you) and look at my home. MY home. my first home sweet home with bills that i pay and thermostates that break and require the maintenance that I have to call for. The walls are empty with a few obvious exceptions. There is the piece of artwork that i purched from a fancy schmancy art show in denver at the begining of the summer. The first purchase i've made that made me feel like i'm not the eight-year-old i often think i am. (Ok, there are a few others, but we'll strike Miko's from the record) It's beautiful, but you'll have to see it to understand - and knowing me - you can except something more gimicky than your picosso or your rembrandt. There is also my college diploma. it's in Latin, it means nothing to me. But my mom bought a nice frame and it does signify my membership into an elite snobbish group (other than the Buffy fanclub) so i think i'll keep it up. The last two items are not "on" my walls per se, but they stand tall enough to occupy space on the wall where pictures might hang, so they make the cut. My roommates: Buffy and Spike.

I have a big yellow (you expect me to say taxi, don't you? ) TV that was made in the 50s or something rediculously long ago and came into my possesstion in exchange for a $5 bill. It doesn't work - hasn't been plugged into the wall in five years, but i have big plans for it. I'm going to hollow out it's rusting aluminum intestines and it's dimly clouded screen and put in my little target TV. That one goes into the wall (if only to get power, i'm not getting cable for now) Think of those staking Russian dolls and you'll get the idea. To add to the mix, i will also throw in my brand new sears-brand (no, it's toshiba, but it's priced like it's sears brand!) dvd player. My first ever. I can finally open the copy of Waiting for Guffman i bought Lance for his birthday 3 years ago but had to take back in the face of parent-versus-friend-present-acceptance-hierarchy. I've already watched Much Ado about nothing (Beatrice: I'd rather hear a dog bark at a crow than hear a man swear he loves me. Benedict:Aye! The better for him to escape a predestinate scratched face. Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse t'were a face such as yours...or something like that) and believe it or not, i don't have Dirty Dancing on DVD and i actually debated about whether to buy it, or to buy a VCR on which to play my VHS. (Whoa! Slow down with the acronyms, pearlman) So i watched the cutting edge instead.

My box of Kashi advertises "Tastier Twigs" W-T-F, my friends, W-T-F.

*bright pink - not like a virginal blush - but a scandelous-caught-in-the-act blush.

2004-09-13T03:14:00.000-04:00

I know.
I know.
I knowiknowiknow. How the hell can i expect to keep up a readership if i don't actually publish anything. But really, if you think about it, by not updating my blog i'm making an IMPLIED comment about my life, and the shortage of freetime it affords me. That's like a blog entry in an of itself, no? No, i know. And i swear - i will not tolerate any such delinquence as you have just seen ever again. I'm going to make like Jack Black and start posting regularly (everyday?) starting tomorrow . This post isn't actually a post - meerly a tribute.

2004-09-13T03:13:00.000-04:00

Who needs a crystal ball when you can see your future on weather.com?

2004-09-08T16:43:00.000-04:00

You know what is so frustrating to me? Fulfilling my potential. It took me a while to find a sussinct way to say that because it affects me in two different ways:

1. Knowing what i am capable of and not being able to execute. Ok, that's the obvious one right - like, i know i can be a writer, and with the right string pulling and dedication i could probably make it happen by the time i'm 24 - i could probably get something (book length, even if it's for children) published by age 24 if i really focused. I could probably be the kind of person that never talks shit about anyone ever, but that takes so much effort, and appearing holier-than-thou in some conversatoins and worst of all, forgoing opportunities for very funny jokes. I could also be politically active, i could learn a little bit about geography, i could handwrite letters, i could go out and meet people and make friends or even (god forbid!) date , every now and then. I could cook more. There's just so much stuff i could be, but i'm just not a lot of it because i don't have the efficiency - which is another thing i'm not - efficient. Ok, but blah blah blah i've rattled on about this before.

2. Making sure other people know how great i am. I have confidence (see number 1 above), i know i'm smart, and can be fun, and funny and helpful and generous and all that crap (most characteristics i can attribute to a specific person who inspired me to pursue those qualities. I.e. my dad is funny, mike lane is fun, dan kp is smart, willa is generous, john is helpful don't worry, if you didn't make the cut, the list goes on and on to just about anyone i've been close to- why else do you think i keep you around if not to help better myself? So if you're curious - please, just ask i'll happily tell you, and i won't make anything up either. I swear, honesty i got from Corey) but sometimes i can see people not getting it - not understanding me. It makes me feel like they're reading me in another language and i have no idea how to translate to them. After a while - if i get really stuck, i start blaming the other person for not paying enough attention or not having a sense of humor or enough humility, or whatever- but that's lame, i mean, people are allowed to not click.

Anyway, it makes me nostalgic for a land where i already have people around me that trust that i'm an ok person (like John and Judy and Sue and Jen and Ange...) so i don't feel like i have to act all the time - not act, but perform, you know the difference.

2004-09-01T20:53:00.000-04:00

I found an apartment and I'm going to spend my first official holiday as a fulltime employee moving into it. It's this ghetto little thing on the 7th floor of an old brick building. For some idea as to the pizzazz of this place, the next cheapest one bedroom i could find in the immediate downtown seattle area was $400 more. I'm not trying to be modest in anyway though, i'm pretty excited about it, assuming that i don't get mugged on the street (and the chances of that would be equally good no matter which downtown building i lived it, and by equally good i mean equally bad, because this city is safe, i swear, mom and dad) i am looking at it as a project. I'm gonna make something out of nothing. And, like Emily said, now anytime there's something i want to buy i can just say "well, i do have that extra $400 this month that i coulda spent on an apartment!" Which is always a nice way to talk oneself into buying more stuff. I feel like the girl in coyote ugly except that i'm a software developer and she is a slutty bar dancer, but we don't need to get into details, you know? I'm sure i'd look just as good on the arm of some australian stud anyway.

So my job. I started work on monday and i'm all around happy about everything. The group i was in last summer got reorganized so now i'm actually working on a bunch of MSN Messenger stuff (which is actually a lot more fun that AIM, and i'd convince you all to make the switch if had powers of mind control or even a lot more popularity) But even if you all don't use it, lots of people do - and it's pretty fun to sit around all day saying "well, when i use IM i'd like my buddies to be sorted based on frequency of use" and someone says "good idea - go make it happen." My team is also incharge of hotmail. Last night my dad was complaining because he was passing out some of his gmail invites to people, and those with hotmail accounts didn't get them because they were being filtered out by the spam blocker. it was cool that i could say "oh, a guy down the hall is in charge of mail, i'll talk to him about it." (by the way, that is a bug, not microsoft trying to be all monopolistic - i swear! don't kill me susannah, i love gmail. (susannah is going to work for google, for those of you that don't know))

I share an office with a girl named Jasmine - she's young and smart and super nice. We share a boss who also a chick and super nice - the three of us form a little team. Yesterday my boss was saying that she was all about the team morale events - fancy lunches, shopping, site-seeing. I think i will feel pretty comfortable here.

Mr. J, I'd like to publically thank you for calling me after reading my "i'm lonely post" I swear i didn't write it to draw that kind of response at all - especiallly since i told most people my phone number would be disconnected after i left for scotland - so it was a nice surprise.

I talk to my parents every single day which is very new for me, but kinda nice - i find we actually have a lot to talk about. I also talk to emily every single day. She's starting a budding relationship which is awesome since emily and I have always allowed ourselves to live vicariously (do you think that word comes from the fact that vicars weren't alowed to have extensive private lives and only had to hear about other people's? or vice versa? did i even spell vicariously right?) through one another. I still remember her 16th birthday when "we got our driver's license" and her 21st when "we got to vote!"

yesterday i was in such a good mood i bought bubble tape to celebrate. who's jealous?

And for the cs nerds out there - guess what login i got stuck with here? leahpear. that's right. i'm half fruit. this will take some getting used to.

2004-08-27T20:39:00.000-04:00

Seattle = Home. I can say it - i can type it, but it still isn't real to me. It's like when Mr. Walton told me that .99999(forever) = 1, and, I knew it was true because Mr. Walton was like God and everything he said was true and holy. But still, i wanted him to prove it. Not in a snotty fifteen year old kid "oh yeah? prove it!" kind of way, but in an intelligent student of mathematics "Is that so? I would love to study the derivation and proof of that equation" kind of way. I remember when I was 14 and Anne Drabkin told me she thought i was a good fit for Brown. I remember having panic attacks about my grades throughout high school and taking the SATs a few times. I remember reading the article that said Brown University was trying desperately to grow its physics department and subsequently implying on my Brown Application that i was very interested in being a physicist. I DEFINITELY remember getting the acceptance letter to Brown (though the decision to go there is blury). I remember never taking a single physics course at Brown, but rather following Andre to a Computer Science class on the first day because i had empty slot to shop. I remember hating computer science. Then of course Jason Sobel suggested i be a TA which fanned the flame of my ego so intensely that four years later i graduated with a degree in Computer Science having spent my past three summers working in the field and a signed contract that said (in short) i was to begin a career at Microsoft on August 30th, 2004. Microsoft is in Redmond Washington. Seattle is near Redmond, and much cooler than it. Therefore, Seattle is now my home. It's an easy enough line of reasoning to follow - but i still feel totally scared, totally lost, and not in the least bit, at home.

Denver, certainly. Providence maybe. Even Edinburgh more than this crazy place. If i need an ATM, or french fries that i have to race to finish before the grease soaks a hole in the paper wrapping, or a prime seat for people watching, or a huge block of gourmet cheese, i know where to go in Edinburgh. Here though, I'm lost. I bounce from starbucks to starbucks, from Pike street to Lenora, no, this is Broad, I've gone too far; it takes me 8 blocks to get from 9th street to 11th which I'd understand if i weren't too shy to pull out a map and see the way in which downtown's numbering is different than capitol hill's. But i didn't need a map in Scotland, i'm not going to use one in my own country. "Wanna help defeat Bush??" Someone asks me on the street. What kind of question is that? Of course i do, especially if by "defeat" You mean squash like a cockroach under a high heal. I walk on, apparently i need to be a registered voter to help with the burning of Bush, and I dont' even have an address, a library car, a bank account. I don't know what state borders washington to the east (but i do know where oregon is! And Canada too! And the Pacific! and Italy, but that's only because it looks like a boot) and I'm not even confident i know the state's capital. So i haven't started work yet. I haven't found an apartment. I'm still excited, but a little lonely, and i'm ready to start feeling at home.

2004-08-21T12:21:00.000-04:00

You know what sometimes makes me teary? Thinking of the games i used to play as a child. Like, connect the dots (la-la-la-la) for example. You know what makes me even more teary? When there are a hundred and fifty of those dots, and rather that being made of ink and on paper, they're made of little bug poison and they're on my skin. So that was camping in the scottish highlands. In theory it was awesome, swimming in a freshwater river/waterfall thing - diving off 20 foot rocks (ok, anyone who knows me knows that's bullshit - but i took pictures of the boys doing it!) - running away (go! go! go!) from the swarms of midgies that we could brush aside like a curtain and spending most of the evening in a scotish pub in glencoe listening to live music drinking beer (ok ok, i had a rum and coke) and taking pictures of ourselves. When we got back to our campsite we tried to destroy the bugs by starting a fire, but they were still all up in our grill, so we escaped into the tent for the rest of the evening playing a backpacking guitar and sharing a bottle of red wine, getting sleepier one swig at a time.

That was one thing. I did. I'm in denver now, by the way. Leaving scotland was pretty sad, but not for the reasons i expected it to be. I've done a lot of leaving in my life (i mean, not an unusual amount, but leaving high school, camps, college, vacations, you know, typical stuff) and i've come to the realization that the sadest part about leaving a place is knowing that it's not gotta stick as much as i want it too. That i want to say i'll remember everything for ever, but honestly, given a couple years the whole thing will be reduced to a few key memories. a few people, a few inside jokes, a few events. If i'm lucky, in five years i'll be able to walk around the city with a remote degree of orientation rather than the near back-of-my-hand-edness i feel right now.

Don't get me wrong - leaving the people is terrible. i'm really sad about the people i left - i made some wonderful super friends - we're already planning a reunion - and of course i was sad to end the month spent on the arm of a lovely scottish boy named Sean (which i have left out mentioning because my blog tends to avoid those sorts of facts, but now that it's over, i can mention it with the nostalgia it deserves rather than the gossipy tone it might have taken on while i was living it) So yeah, a few tears were shed in leaving. But! i have a crazy busy next week - moving to seattle on tuesday and all, so i have no choice but to look forward, which is helpful. (yes, i have pictures if anyone is curious)

Here's a little ode to scotland i started writing yesterday in my delerium:

I fly home from Scotland wearing a delicate celtic ring on my pinky. "A constant reminder" i told myself when i bought. I had this vision that a cheep ring exchanged for fake money (fake to me) from under the flap of a street vendor's "jewelry hut" would help me recall all the memories and all the emotions, just by glancing down at it's thinly laced design. Maybe i thought the whole experience could rise up between the bands of overlaying circles, like steam, i could close my eyes and inhale - transport myself instantly back there. Right in Pollock Halls, running up on Arthur's seat, dancing to cheesey American Pop at The Three Sisters, drinking overpriced coffee on the couches of The Bean Scene, i'd be there singing with Justin, linking arms with Cassie, Laughing with Kate, gossiping with Britt, teasing and being teased by steven, being told i was gorgeaous, but hearing it pronounced gahrgeous by sean. (yes, i admit, that was all a little aside for anyone there with me, but now everyone else knows the important players) But when i fan out my fingers to look at the ring, nothing is triggered. No emotion eminating, nothing to inhale but the stuffy recycled airplane air. If anything I cringe at the diconnect: this ring is so small, so delicate, it reminds me of nothing i saw while i was there. Nothing about Scotland is small except perhaps the size of the country and nothing is delicate except its ego regarding football. If anything, Scotland is a small country filled with giants. Giant rolling hills, big thick fried potatos and plates of haggis and mugs of beer. Big thundering accented voices, large stone buildings and ruins, vast animosity toward the Brits (americans are actually much safer there than and englishman) huge hospitality, large groups of stumbling serenaders down the streets ad 3 am, 5 am, a big fat nightlife.

that's where i stopped...i think they started playing Mean Girls on my plane and i had to pay attention, you know?

There's more i want to say - just to tie up the whole experience, but i'll save it for the next couple days so i don't end up with a whole week off again - that was just a total slackhead move, and i'm sorry for that.

2004-08-12T10:15:00.000-04:00

As susannah in Germany and Judy and Alex and Korea have all said - abroad is way fun, but it's time to get home. It's like that sensation where you don't really have to pee until you get close to the bathroom, something about nearing the end of a long vacation makes home suddenly sound very attractive. For me, i think it's because i don't like feeling in transit. I like to be able to make plans for "some other time" i like to take a night off and read in my room, which is hard to do when people keep with the "Only ten days left!...Only nine days left!...Only eight d" whack. Thump. Waaahhh. That's kinda how i feel. So heading toward semi-permanency sounds nice. The workshops here are quite interesting - hearing professionals is quite inspiring. One of the first workshoppers we had (AL Kennedy - check her out if you're looking for a good book) said her favourite thing to do is just listen to people. The things they say will inspire you like no other. So I’ve tried to do that, and here's what's come of it
1) the man with no arms and no legs. I wrote a little poem (you'll recognize where the idea started) about him that starts with "keeping warm, no leg no arm, all tucked in a tee, only a head exploding from a cotton volcano "cock-a-doo'le dee!" he yells down to me, i throw my gaze back at him. "cock-a-doo'le doo, i warren' you, I've the most g-ah-rgeous face in sco'land! Look pub and flat, lands low and high, ne'er better looking man than I."
2) A man from Lebanon who sat down next to me in a coffee shop. He said he didn't want to interrupt my writing, but he was so bad at staying quite. Every fifteen minutes or so he's start "you know..." and I’d listen for bit, and eventually start writing again and he'd trail off. I wrote a poemy thing about him that starts like this:
Lebanon and on and on,
the stranger at my side drones.
"drawer, are you? Artist, are you"
"Writer am i." Or
Was i, before you sat down.
3) a very drunk high man in a coffee shop. He asked me for a cigarette like brad pitt in snatch, Here's how the conversation started.
"kjaskjlnkaf"
"excuse me?"
"lskjklnsefn"
"what?"
"akjsdhfadks aksjdf!"
"what?"
"!^"^*"£^(*!^!%!!!!!"
"what?" "Doyouhaveacigarette??"
"oh!...no."
"JESUSCHRIST!NOTLIKEIWASASKINGFORAFUCK"
He sat down and talked for a while. i got gems like: "My girlfriend left me!" "oh yeah? what was her name?" "IDONTFUCKINKNOW" and "that girl, out the window, she's hot, hair pulled back like she's Asian or something. But you could never get a boyfriend. well, maybe an american one, but here you'd really have to whore yourself around to find someone to take you." All I could think was - oh man, this guy is that wasted and he can still tell i'm American? that's embarrassing.

Anyway - I’m gonna keep my ears open, good times, good stories.

2004-08-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

I know i know - so long it's been.

A Quick hello, and i promise a more detailed entry very soon.

I went running the other day through the green hill (arthur's seat) right near my dorm. On top the mist was so think that i stood on top and could see nothing, not even the dog barking within 10 feet of me. On my way down, i passed a man in a kilt playing his bagpipe. Remember that scene in Mary Poppins when they jump into the chalk drawings? Well, apparently i did something similar, but of course as there are too few chalk drawings in scotland (too much rain - then again, Mary Poppins took place in England - and i believe that scene did end with them having to leave the imaginary world because it began to rain) I jumped into a postcard, or a travel agents brochure. The only thing that could've made it more cliche is if Mel Gibson awaited me at the bottom of the hill and served me Haggis in a little travel tin. Did you know that they actually altered the face of the William Wallace monument to look like Mel Gibson?

Yesterday i was standing next to a pay phone at about 2 in the morning and a man slightly reminicent of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the carribean was sitting on a roof right next to me. His arms and legs were tucked into his shirt so he looked like a head expoloding from a little cotton volcano. "hello!" he said. "Am i not the best looking man you've ever seen? better than any man woman cat or dog? I've been looking high and low and i cannot possible find anyone better looking than me." remember, this was all in a scottish accent. We chatted for a while, he was very drunk but very funny. I asked him if he had any arms. He asked me if I would change my mind about him being the most attractive man i'd ever seen if his answer was no. I told him the "why did the girl with no legs fall off the swing" joke (because she had no arms is the answer) He laughed and nearly fell off the roof. I also went dancing, walked on the beach with some nice scottish gentlemen and ate a fancy scottish dinner. But the man with no arms was the highlight.

2004-07-29T09:44:00.000-04:00

response to comments:

1) No worries Chris - haggis was tried (and even tolerated) by me at the very first meal i had off campus. But the fact is, it's intestines, it's mushy, it's not to be repeated as far as i'm concerned. And hell, i've got to be one of the only americans ever that's eaten haggis but not a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich.

2)Mr J, and Baby Eu. It pleases me greatly to know that you're reading my posts with such close attention.

As i was walking along the pavement (scotish for sidewalk) yesterday, i was noting the nervous way in which the pigeons ducked and darted around. Then, as i approached, and had to pick and peck my way through them, i realized i had basically been reduced to a pigeon myself. I probably wouldn't have remembered this fleeting thought if later i hadn't seen a pigeon walking confidently down the street until a wheelchair came near by and it flinched and flew away. The only reason i know it flew away is because i self-consciously watched it to avoid staring at the woman in the wheelchair. I don't see much difference between the dodging of the bird and the averting of my eyes. Ok, i wrote another poem during lecture yesterday. Hopefully it's one we can all relate to :-) (and if anyone is in any going to try and link this poem to current events, don't bother - this thought has been bumping around in my head since i was about 12)

A Change of Face

I wish i had an extra body
hanging on a hook
Not because (although this to)
I want a differenet look,
But rather a disguise
for those moments I despies
Seeting him who looks at me
With pity in his eyes.
"You're an awesome girl
Just not the girl for me
I'm glad you told me how you felt
really, don't feel guilty."
But i don't think I'd care
if i had another pair
Of arms and legs and eyes and ears
For "morning after" wear.

2004-07-26T08:52:00.000-04:00

It's so easy to go through emotional upheaval when one is stranded in a foreign country by oneself. There is so much time here for self-reflection, self-recreation, (and of course a little self-intoxication.) Yesterday i was running up Aurthor's Seat - the giant hill behind my dorm, from the top of which all of edinburgh is visible on a clear day. It was a sunday and beautifully sunny (which is pretty rare for scotland) and the seat was crawling with people - ants on a crumb, you know?. Just when i reached the top, about to begin my decent, i stopped, sat on a rock, and lost myself for nearly an hour looking out over the city and the "firth" (which is another term for an actuary, it's been explained to me, though i'm not exactly sure what that is - this particular one is named "forth" and if you cross if from edinburgh, you will find yourself in the Kingdom of Fife. I couldn't help but laugh outloud when a tour guide said, in his adorable scotish accent "And on your right you can see over the firth of forth to fife. heh heh.) I had my headphones on which helped to give me the illusion that I was alone desipte the couple making out on the rock below me, the teenage boys playing tag next to me, and the parents with their gaggles of children running up and down all around me. I could see other lone contemplaters off in the distance and picnickers down below, and bikers disappearing and reappearing on the hills out in front of me--the whole thing was pretty beautiful. Sometimes in nature it's wonderful to have the sense of aloness, to be one tiny person dwarfed and ugly compared to the expansive complexity of the natural world, but this sunday i was happy to be amoungst so many happy people celebrating the sun and their relationships with one another. It was pretty awesome. I also had some time to appreciate my exciting place in the world - tied to nothing - no specific plans - seriously ANYTHING could happen for me and to me, and as long as that's true, i can imagine for myself the best possible existance. In that moment i had no nostalgia for my past disappointments, guilt, or sadness, i could only see what is ahead, i could start over, i could look forward.

2004-07-21T06:22:00.000-04:00

I know i've been slacking - but the thing is, there is something about edinburgh (the rolling green hills!) that inpires creativity in me, apparently of the private variety. My Journal has never received more attention it it's short sparadic life, my fingers are worn down to the nubs from my incessant plucking of my backpacker guitar, and for the first time every, i find myself writing poetry and trying to take fancy pictures. Today i was late to class because my mind was wandering in the shower - i looked at the bump on the back of a razor and wondered for a moment what it would do. The razor's bump and my curiosity of it reminded me of the story of the girl with the green ribbon (or red or yellow depending on how faded your memory has become, ah hem, leg and danny) because after just a few seconds i realized it wasn't a bump, but a button that would cause the blade to tumble away if i pressed it. Wow, i thought to myself, that's deep. Then wow, i thought to myself again, no, it really isn't. But that is the state of mind i am in here. Everything seems symbolic or metaphoric or inspiring and it's awesome. I am scared of the time when this excitment dries up - or microsoft sucks it out of me.  #

But i do feel guilty about neglecting the blog (even though Judy has informed me that blogs are not checkable in Korea for some reason, and if i'm not writing for Judy then really, who am i writing for?) so i decided to move a poem i jotted down in lecture today into my blog, mostly just to give it some attention. I don't think i'm a poem writer, i've decided that, but maybe with a little practice i could be.

Eponine's Lament

"Open your eyes! Open your eyes!" I cried.
But suddenly I realized
That his eyes were open wide
              They just weren't looking at me.
My cheeks in flame,
This stupid game,
I stumbled back the way i came
              Humiliation from my own presumption.
Like a dog crawled away to die,
I hid my face so i could cry
cliched words like "why, oh why?"
              Though the answer to that, i knew.
But there was no need for me to flee.
I always had my privacy;
He had never looked at me.

The end!

2004-07-14T08:57:00.000-04:00

Scotland. Things have started off quite well here. After 14 hours of travel i arrived in the middle of the city with two large pieces of luggage a backpack and no clue as to the direction of my hostel. I watched the scary foreign people bustle about until i saw the most inviting face of an mom-aged redhaired woman who turned out to be named Annie (like in my novel!) I asked her to point me the way, and she said "rubbish" and picked up her cell phone. As a result 'round the corner came her son and his friend in car prepared to drive me wherever i needed to go - which i thought was my hostel, but that turned out to only be a minor stop as they all insisted that i come to their flat for tea. So in the car i was, as a passenger seated where I'd expect a driver to sit, but alas or fortunetly, there was no wheel in front of me. Ali T. (the son's friend; Ali short for Alasdair; and while not as funny as Ali G. infintitly more appealing to my teenage girl-like sensabilities) and Andre (the son of Annie, and yes i was aware of my uniquness both in that I was an American amoung Scots, but also that my name did not begin with 'A') carried my bags up to the room in the hostal. Then we continued on to the flat that the boys were just moving out of as they too have just graduated from university, and Annie was scolding them about their mouse problem just as my mother had done not so many months ago.

That was the first nice thing. The second was the discovory upon my arrival at the university the following day, that the building they had planned to put us in, in which all students would have their own room but a bathroom for six, was out of order for some reason, and instead we were moved to a building in which we all have our own rooms AND our own bathrooms (shower and all.)

The third nice thing was that there is a mountian (heh, heh) directly behind our dorms, just about the tallest point in edinburgh, and it takes about 30 minutes to scale. It's no elbert or la plata, i can say that, but it might provide me with a nice morning jog now that "elipticalling" is out of my life.

The fourth nice thing is that I am going to see Ali again today

And finally, i have friends, a little group of five of us have formed an alliance which i am quite pleased with. Amoung us is the only boy in 40 that the program accepted (and perhaps applied)so gentelmen, if you're having trouble meeting the ladies, may i suggest british literature?

What i have learned so far:
a fortnight is equal to two weeks
a loch is the same as a lake
it is quite possible to find men on the streets and bars of scotland wearing kilts (and apparently nothing below)
And that british writers from the 20th century have a difficult time making any sort of sense.

2004-07-08T20:17:00.000-04:00

An official apology to those of you with 'p' names. But you must understand that I, as a Pearlman also have to suffer the embarrassment of a lame initial. Leah P? There is no beauty in that. You know what has even less beauty? Leah Pea (pee-ah), i suppose short for Leah Pearlman, which so many people insist on calling me as a an affectionate nickname. But it's ok, p-people, because you know what this mean? This means we have to rise above our sorry letter and become respected in spite of it, and then respected all the more because we were able to conquer.

By the way, i have a little confession to make regarding my post about umbrellas. I wouldn't bring it up because it was so long ago, but it is the post that people comment on more than any other, so i know for some reason it had staying power. Well, maybe it was el nino, maybe the ozone, maybe "God" thought it would be funny to play "name that climate!" in Denver this year. Who knows? All i know is it has rained so-so-so much since i have been home. Although, i've found that it's still pretty impractical to bring my umbrella along with me because denver rain has had this funny little habit of turning into hail and denting my new car (note: if i didn't have one more thing to say on the matter of weather in denver, i would have segued into a description of said car, as I promised baby Eu. Just know that when you begin reading the next paragraph, the inspiration for it started here, at this very moment). Actually, i thought to post about the rain a few days ago, and since then it hasn't rained a speck. A friend (he was promoted from acquaintance status just two days ago! Congratulations Charles!) from Brown, Charles Bethea, is living in boulder, and he and I climbed a mountain the other day (the tallest one in colorado, second tallest in the continental us: Mount Elbert. Luckily it's too big to be picked on by the other mountains, because my god! is that a stupid name. Mount Massive is the second tallest, and i have to say that if i were a mountain, i think i'd opt for the 11 ft deficit and the cooler name)Anyway, we were about a mile into the hike when this guy coming down was like "uh oh, you guys better hurry up so you don't get caught in the storm!" Charles and I just slowly looked up toward the clearest bluest sky in the whole world and shrugged our shoulders. More than 5 hours we spent hiking and there was ne'er a scary cloud to be seen. I wonder if that guy had a little thunder cloud just above his angry little head that we didn't notice. Anyway, since then it's been skimpy dress weather in colorado. Amen. Probably nothing like Scotland - where i'm going in 2 DAYS! Who's excited? Oooh! Oooh! Me. But first back to the car...

So yeah! I got a new car. New to me, of course. It's a 2002 (they call it "pre-owned" in the biz) silver honda civic with not one, not two, not three, but FOUR doors. I am sad that it's an automatic, because my stick shift was a source of much pride (you boys know what i mean) but the price was right, you know what i'm saying?

2004-07-01T22:56:00.000-04:00

I'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry. I know i've been slacking, but believe it or not, i've been busy! Lots of writing, lots of hiking and even a little drinking (that's right, detox is done and done)

Anyway, today Emily and I took a nice 6 hour hike plus a 6 hour car ride and we had a lot of time to talk about stuff. Throughout our discussions, i learned a lot about myself and i would like to share that all here:

1. I live way too far in the future. I told emily that i was trying to live more in the "now" by keeping a list of lifetime goals (writing a novel is one, knitting a sweater is another) and if i'm always activly working on one of those things, then I can feel like my life is my own. I remember i left my list out once while i went to the bathroom, and when i came back MR. J (or was it eugene?) was sitting there reading it outloud "Learn stairway to heavan? adopt a child? learn french? What the hell is wrong with you?" Anyway, i thought i was being all "live for the now" but we decided that's still too longterm, and the best plan is to go to bed every night and dedicate one hour of the following day to something worth looking forward to, and once a week, it had to be something we've never done before. Emily's gonna start by flirting with the * at her new *, for example.

2. Man is destroying the earth, but perhaps we overestimate man. Look at aids, look at cancer. It's quite possible that nature is actually a stronger force and will destroy us first - or at least put us in our place. But sometimes we do feel like giving up - why the hell should I recycle my yogurt container when the world will be covered with landfills either way? - it's just a question of how soon, and the difference is prolly a speck in the grand scheme. But then again, we're optemistic, emily and I - except enough with the plastic surgurgy, jesus.

3. A is cool when there are two in a row (aaron), c is awesome because it's hard and soft - sometimes in the same word (circle) and sometimes right in a row (access), d is the strongest sturdiest letter. e is like the strong woman behind every good man or whatever, it doesn't get credit, but it controls what other vowels in the word are up to, and we think it's less strong because it isn't a letter grade. F is scary, g is totally wussy, specially when it's soft (garage). h is awesome because it's so versitle - think th, ph, sh, ch, and you can sound it, or you can not - and then it's the best (Nathalie, Rhoda, Leah!). i is spunky, j is hot because it starts off so many hot boy's names (jake, justin, Jodan (specifically catalano), jesse, Joe, Josh). L is pretty lame except when it's capital and written in cursive. emily likes M because it's so reliable and stands for important words, but i think of marital, and mrs. and moore, and manogomy, and i feel like it's a very controling and churchy letter, also it's hard to write nicely in caps, N we both like but we can't figure out why. P, we both agreed is the lamest letter in the world (pee, penis, puke, puss, pill, piss, pussy, punany, prude, plastic) but it's SLIGHTLY forgiven when followed by an s or and h. Q is just difficult, R S and T go without saying, and we didnt' really talk about the end of the alphabet except that x is cool, but going out of style with the rest of the 90s, and Z is a cross between that bad-assness of X and the solidness of D. Y isn't that special, but i personally like words it's in (hybrid, dysfunctional, hypnotize, rythm) and Emily likes it because it makes everything into an adjective. Anything i didn't mention we didn't talk about. And this conversation was not to kill time on a strenuous hike - it happened in the car on the way home. Can you see why i keep her around?

4. Emily is scared that we've been friends so long that we've had every conversation possible, and she's wondering what the hell she's gonna talk about when she's dating someone, and they're like "hey, i wanna talk about the letters" and she has to say "sorry, did that." And then they say "Hey, i want to talk about the number 57" and she has to say "Sorry, already did that." It's a legit fear - em and i have talked about most things. I think we have only 7 or 8 left prolly.

5. Emily has very good friends in her life, but she's frustrated because she hasn't dated much. Often I'm jealous of how close she is with her friends, not that they have her (because deep down i know who the real best friend is), but that she has them. But i think emily deserves close friends because she puts a lot of time and effort in to all of her friendships (think Willa, for anyone at brown) And i decided my problem, is that i'm kind of in and out of relationships, and i tend to put a lot into those, so that i have less energy or time for my friendships, but since relationships end, i end up with short term investments while she has lifelong friends. I've spent all these years thinking i was just a really shitty friend to people - but i think i just misallocate my attentions, so i'm gonna make a concsious effort to stop doing that. Maybe it started last week with alex and the cookies.

Ok, that should do it for a while. I'm gonna go camping.

2004-06-22T22:35:00.000-04:00

Apparently, thanks to the large increase in older women taking estrogen when they reach menapause, they are starting to find traces of it in the drinking water. (that's not an elusive "they" it's the sewage people, one of which, is my father) This is actually true of a number of ppcp's (p. personal care products) including caffine. They don't know the effects of most of these products, except the estrogen, which is apparently turning boy fish into girl fish. My dad announced at dinner how glad he is that he's not a fish because he would feel very torn between wanting there to be more girl fish and not wanting to become one himself. Although, for anyone who knows how many Alanis, Sarah McLaughlin, and Dixie Chicks c.d.s my dad has, and knows the number of times he watched (and cried during) the final scene of dirty dancing, the cutting edge, and Some Kind of Wonderful, would know that my dad is saturated with estrogen, and hasn't turned yet, so if he ever has the unfortunate luck to be turned into a fish living in the colorado water supply, he'll probably get to keep his little fishy manhood. But it's interesting that he says he likes the idea of there being more female fish - cause i doubt the newly female fish get much attention from the boy fish. Which brings me to SheMales and the fact that Mark R. Johnson, a.k.a. Mr. J just got the email address "TheSheMale@gmail.com" with the sole intent of one-uping me. Which i believe he did.

In other funny news, my mom was showing her best friend pictures from graduation, one of which was me and francis at the gala. She mentioned that his family was chinese, and i think her little son Alex overheard this conversation. The next night we were at dinner and he had this vegatable on his plate he didn't recognize. My mom said "oh, i forget the name of it, but i know it's chinese" and Alex put in on my plate and said "Oh, well then leah should like it." (James, or anyone from TKD, i HOPE you're reading this)

2004-06-21T01:08:00.000-04:00

See, the way it works for me, is while i'm in denver I call Emily when i want to go out. She organizes something, and then we go do it. But for some absurd reason, emily's family thought it would be a good idea to take her to the mountains for the weekend, leaving me with no social outlet. But i mean, that was fine, I have no problem staying in on a saturday night, i certainly did it enough at school. There's so much opportunity when you stay in on a saturday. You can watch tv. you can, you know, watch tv. All sorts of crazy things basically. Ok, i'm being unfair, obviously there are plenty of things a person can do by themselves, but i just wasn't feeling creative because i really felt like getting out and going dancing. After watching four hours of cop shows on USA, i stood up, i stamped my foot on the ground, and I said "beware dark night here i commeth!" And then i did something i've never done before: I got all dressed up (even lipstick!) and I went dancing in downtown denver, sober, and alone. The first place i went to was a little weird, it was "free cover for the ladies, and guys, if you get there before 10 it's only $5" so when i showed up around 11 there were lots of women and NO men there - which was fine, because all the woman were on the dance floor. I sat for a while bopping my head, and then eventually slipped in with the flock of women to dance. But then, like, five minutes later a song ended and i was TOTALLY alone out there. Apperently all the women in the club were part of the same bachelorette party, and they decided to leave. So yeah, that was my cue to leave. Anyway, as i'm walking down the street looking for another club to go to, i see this dude from high school. "hey leah! Where are you headed?" since i had no plans and no friends, i said the obvious answer "Oh, i'm just heading up to Market street to meet some friends." haha. I'm bold enough to go out alone, and then i lie about it. ah well. So i walk past a bar and i here britney singing about the most common quality of Toxins, so i go in. Within two minutes I meet pete from the air force, who seemed to be the friendliest person i've ever met ever, and we ended up spending about two hours chatting and dancing and nursing a beer, and it was totally fun (note that our interaction was completely non-sexual, if i could have a little brother, it would be pete from the air force) especailly because we managed to keep our discussion of politics to a minimum. Anyway, the night could have been a total flop, but for some reason it worked out beautifully, i made a two-hour friend, and i slept much more soundly than if I'd stayed home watching infomercials (not that i don't like infomercials, mind you, i'm SO gonna get that magic bullet thing when i get my own appartment)

The second strange thing i did last night was search for people from my high school on TheFacebook.com because they have that as a feature now. (wait, the strange part is coming) Well only about ten people from my high school filled that out on their profiles, but one of them was chauncy billups of NBA MVP fame. The photo he has on TheFaceBook is of him holding the trophy, you should check it out. Anyway, i couldn't resist, i sent him a little facebook message telling him he's awesome. So now i'm waiting anxiously to see if he replies - and you can all wait with me.

And finally, today i went to see Varekai, the newest Cirque du Soleil. I'm not gonna try to tell any of you that you have to go see one of those shows, because that's obviously your business and your money, but i'm telling you: GO SEE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL. seriously i think it's the most beautiful, impressive, awesome form of entertainment there is. I seriously watched the whole thing with my jaw hanging open. The underlying theme was abuot Ickarus (sp?), so there was a lot of greek and roman looking things, including some awesome homoertoicsm - that made me think about greg's thesis presentation; and there were these guys that were swinging from ropes all around the tent and it made me think about Tim's skydiving, and then there was this juggler, and he would've made me think about eric rachlin, except that at one point he was juggling three little pingpong balls WITH HIS TONGUE, and i'm pretty sure eric can't do that, so i didn't think about him. Anyway, i left feeling hypnotized and impressed and most of all, extremely inadequate. There was this one guy whose had polio his whole life, whiche means basically no funcitonality in his legs, so he walked with those crutches that kinda wrap around your wris (like in something about mary, i think). Anyway, he did all this amazing dancing on his crutches and that one man made me believe that anybody is capable of anything, because he was deformed and crippled and one of the most beautiful people i've ever seen.

Finally, we ended the day by watching two episodes of the family guy (season 1) because that's what i got my dad for father's day. The antics of peter, lois, stewie, chris, meg, and brian were a nice juxtaposition to cirque du soleil.

That was sarcastic. I just wanted to say juxtaposition.

2004-06-16T17:37:00.000-04:00

In musical news, britney's new song sure sounds a lot like Dawn's song from Buffy the Musical before she gets cut off by the pinochio(sp?) guys - you know what i mean buffyheads? Not to mention she uses at least two adjectives where she need pronouns. Poetic lisence is fine, sweetheart, but you don't even have your poetic driver's permit.

And there's this other song that makes me feel like my knees turn to water everytime they they sing this part of the song. It's like "and i-i-i-y-i-i feel like..." but i don't know the rest of the words. If any of you know what i'm talking about please tell me what the song is and let me know if it makes your knees water too (not turn to spagheti like classic first-kiss knees, but water, like a lazy fall-apart kinda deal, it's different).

Finally, how about that new eminem song, eh? eh? I love it as much as i've loved all the others. That man can do no wrong in my eyes.

2004-06-14T12:01:00.000-04:00

Thom's (pronounced "Tom", but like me, he has love for the silent 'h' and isn't as willing, as most Thomas's are, to just disregard its artistic presence) hair got too long. He said the only way he'd cut it is if I did it. "Thom," I said, "I've never cut hair without using clippers."
"Well we're gonna use scissors."
Two days later after a few beers and a few glasses of wine, i had scissors in my hand, and i had Thom sitting on a step ladder with a sheet spread beneath him in the middle of Kazia's kitchen.
"Remember Leah," he said, "The key is hillarious."
"This is gonna be fun."
"Yeah it is," he said, "i'm right at breast level."
Oh, Moht.
So i patted down his long curly hair, and i just started cutting from ear to ear until he had a bonified colorado grown mullet. Every now and then, Thom would go into the bathroom to look at it, and say "More! cut more!" A brave soul that one, and now i'm guessing his mother hates me, except for the fact that he actually looks remarkably adorable. When we were all done, and it didn't look nearly as stupid as i was aiming for, Thom put his arm around me and said "It's not your fault that I happen to be the only person in the entire world who actually looks alright with a mullet." It was nice of him to say. I would've gone home feeling pretty bad about myself. No one wants to think they're a bad mullet-cutter.

2004-06-11T22:24:00.000-04:00

So, i wanted to respond to the comment Mr/Ms/Dr anonymous made on my last post. I toyed with putting my response in the comments section of that post, but (a)to comment on my own blog, that seemed silly, (b) i was afraid no one would read it there, and as you all know, i write for an audience, and (c) i felt like blogging, but had nothing new to write about, so i'm using that comment for "fodder" (as John "you know what they say about the size of a guy's vocabulary" Goodwin would say).

But you're NOT spying on me. Even the fact that you found my blog on TheFacebook proves that i wanted people who looked me up in there to have access to it. I might not know your name, but i practically sent you an invitation. If you really like the idea that you're sitting in your room with dark glasses peering through my metaphoric blinds with a pair of opera glasses, i don't want to ruin the illusion for you, so by all means, spy away. I'm just saying, you reading my blog is like me reading "Boy" (Roald Dahl's autobiography - i'm not educated enough to have read any other autobiographies) or listening to "Jamie and Danny in the morning on 95.7 Denver's new hit station" You know? I do appreciate your comment though, because it confirms that there is at least one anonymous reader, so i now have the freedom to refer to "anonymous reader" without being presumptuous. And finally, and everyone else should listen to this too, if you ever call me your "Hero" in a comment, i'm very likely to tune out the rest of what you wrote - so you should think about putting that part last. .

Moving on...

As most of you know, i'm writing a novel. As no one knows, today i got to my first sex scene (it's in chapter 8 if any of you want to flip directly to it when the book comes out). I highly recommend that if any of you plan to write a sex scene ever, that you do it in a very public place. I, of course, was sitting at my little coffee shop surrounded by all kinds of people. Next to me there were three men, one was pitching his "services" to the other two (i think it was some kind of real estate thinging, he kept saying cliches like "now, here's what I'm gonna do for you...") On the other side of me, there was a pair of young professionals studying for some GRE-like exam, they guy kept saying very pretentious things and didn't notice the patronizing little smile the woman had when she was pretending to listen. In front of me was a woman with her three children. The oldest two were about 3 and 4. The boy was drinking his hot chocolate and the whipped cream kept getting on his nose, and the little girl kept yelling "cheater! yer a cheater" cause the boy was eating too much of the chocolate chip cookie they were sharing. And there was me, in the middle of them all writing words like "pounding" and "sweat" and "throbbing" and "thigh" It was a pretty exhilirating experience.

At trivia night at the College Inn, i learned that the crew members of Appollo 11 had to fill out a US customs form before debarking from the spaceship. I couldn't let a little gem like that go unshared.

2004-06-09T22:43:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder why "self-conscious" has a negative connotation? And what's the difference between that and "self-aware"? why does that have a good connotation. So i was sitting at St. Marks Coffee house today (i like to call it "The office") and this dude kept looking in my direction. Of course, i was sitting right next to the window, outside of which a violent hail storm was underway, so almost everyone in the coffee house was looking in my direction. But this one dude happened to be mildly attractive, so I let my imagination have it's fun, and assumed he was looking at me. So four hours in this coffee shop i spent - i wrote about a quarter of the time, and thought about myself the rest of the time:

Hair up or down. Jacket on or off. Can i really walk past him AGAIN to go to the bathroom? (in four hours a person drinks a lot of coffee). Do i look too serious, should i smile more? smile at your computer? don't be an idiot. who smiles at their computer? Shit, is my fly down? can he even see that from there? I should concentrate, i reread the last sentence I wrote. My phone is ringing (vibrating, of course, i know my coffee shop cell phone ettiquette) should i answer it? Maybe he's one of those beatnik cell phone haters. Do i care what Mr. Random who's staring out the window thinks of my cell phone habbits? yes, but i should just be myself. just be yourself. answer the phone. Well, look at it first, whose calling. Oh, it's my mom, i'm not gonna answer anyway. Write, just write leah. I reread the last sentence i wrote. My phone's ringing again. Shit. should i answer it? Just answer it. It's Emily - I take it outside, now even if he hates cell phones he'll see that i have respect for my fellow coffee shop patrons. Emily and i are just making plans but i smile a lot anyway in case i look too serious before - i want him to know i can smile. I look inside, he's looking at me - or, at least out the window. I go back inside and sit down, i read the last sentence i wrote. I get up to get more coffee, i look at him, he's still looking where i was - out the window, not where i am. God i'm rediculous.

repeat.

Two nights ago i went up to red rocks with emily and tom and a few of Ems friends from Amherst. We drank 40s on giant boulders that looked over the city. We wore teeshirts and flipflops. We told dead baby jokes. Tell me it gets better than that.

Warman responded to my post about The offspring guy having a speech impediment. He couldn't figure out how to use the comments link, so he sent me an email instead. I like how warman talks. It's funny.

Jon Warman: i passed by a mother pushing a young adult with down syndrome around in a wheel chair. i know what youre thinking...'wow jon...youre an idiot'...but wait and see how the plot sickens. after a few seconds i spun and did a double-take (i suppose that spinning WAS the double-take...and a full-body double-take at that...i know this because i almost tripped). it occurred to me that this was the first black person with down syndrome i had ever seen in my life. it only occurred to me because he looked very odd. and he only looked very odd (dont worry...im no biggot) because he was the first id ever seen.

And another thing. Almost everyone who has approached me to tell me they read my blog has done so in the same way, yeah i'm talking about you: "So, i have a confession." I'm not kidding. YOU ALL have done it. Except maybe Jessica, in which case eric said "So, Jessica has a confession..." I want you all to stop feeling like you're spying on me. Don't worry, i keep a journal for the things i don't want you to know about (my torrid love affair with Ryan Phillipe, for example - sorry legally Reece, find yourself a new man). This is a conversation, rather one-sided, i admit, but i am talking TO you all, not inspite of you. And another thing, i like knowing who is reading, those people are more likely to make a guest appearance. Then again, I can write all sorts of nasty things about Eric Rachlin and Tim Conkling cause i know they'd never lower themselves to blog reading.

Ok, enough for today.

PS
Did you know, that one time, Eric and Tim made love to a pair of mermen? I mean, of course they didn't know they were part fish at the time, but seriously. I've seen the scars.

2004-06-07T22:12:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, living in denver with the same routine day after day, seeing no one but my parents and the constantly fluxing patrons of the coffee shop at which i'm writing my novel, leaves me with few sources of inspiration. Although, now that i've typed that, i realize i must not be looking hard enough. [ten minute pause] Oh! I've got something. You know the whole system of urinal etiquette? (If you haven't lived it, you've certainly heard it described...i'll leave it to your imagination which category i fall into) Well, today, at my little coffee shop, i suffered something similar. I sat down at the marble slab table between an asian twenty-somthing; his hair was styled so it sheekly covered one of the frames of his dark rimmed eyeglasses. On the other side of me was a chubby hippy chick with more peircings on her face than epidsodes of buffy i've seen this week. Oh, and a hennah tatoo between her shoulder blades. Anyway, i pulled out my laptop to plug it in, and low and behold, there were three plugs already using the serge protector i was about to plug into. They were arranged so as to use every other outlet, and i actually took a moment pause, feeling it would be rude to squish my plug snuggly in between two others. Then i laughed at myself. outloud. and shoved in my plug.

I know that sounded a dirty, but a girls gotta get her electricity.

2004-06-03T22:56:00.000-04:00

I'm standing at the airport and this elderly scotish lady asks to borrow my phone. Of course i said yes, and my dad and I stand there as the half a conversation we're privvy to reveals to us that she's scotish. When she hangs up. My dad asks (like, duh dad) "Are you by any chance, Scotish?" "Why yes!" she replies. Now i know this story is boring you, as the event itself was boring me. But then i felt like i'd just stepped into a Roald Dahl novel when she added (in a scotish accent), "Actually, i've been living for seventeen years in Arizona. Down in Scotsdale." I smiled to myself "scotsdale. heh." Then she added - "I've just been visitin' my son up in scotsbluff nebraska for a few days." HAHAHAHA. Is this woman kidding? I couldn't resist "Wait, you're from scotland, you live in Scotsdale and you were visiting Scotsbluff?" I asked. blank stare, pause pause pause, confused eye brows, "That's right."

Before this, i'm on an airplane flying from boston to denver listening to The Offspring. Big surprise right? i probably listen to some offspring at least three times a week, maybe more, and this has been true since seventh grade. I've just listened to all of Ixnay on the Hombre, and moved on to Smash, when the song Self Esteem comes on. "La la la la la, La la, la la la." Let me point out that Smash was the first offspring album i owned, and self esteem was my second favorite song off that album, so i've probabaly listened to that song more than just about any other song EVER. I'm not even listening so closly, i'm staring out the window, or maybe flipping though sky mall (they have these light/sound things that you can attach to several things you own (keys, phone, wallet), and when you press a button on a remote control thing, the things will light up and beep so you can find them, and more importantly, the items they're attached to)when my ears prick up. I start the song again and listen more closly. I sit straight up in my narrow airplane seat and hit restart one more time. OH MY GOD. Dexter has a speech impediment. He can't say his L's. I start listening to the rest of the song, song after song i sit erect in my chair confirming and reconfirming my suspision. HOW THE HELL HAVE I NEVER NOTICED THAT DEXTER HOLLAND HAS A SPEECH IMPEDIMENT?!? This is the first question i ask myself. The second question is, "Why am i noticing now?" Here is what i came up with. Turner "eric's little brother" Zamore also talks this way, and i was reminded this past weekend how i have always liked that affect. I think it's because people who talk that way don't say my name the same way as most people, and somehow, the way they do say it, almost feels like a nickname, or something more personal. This was a conscious thought i was having the day before my discovery, and I'm wondering if Dexter Holland never had this condition before, and now, in an effort to comfort me (i am, after all, a super huge fan), he went back and added in that little personal touch. That's the only logical explanation i can come up with anyway.

I'm sorry if this wasn't a big deal to you, but it was astounding to me. I yelled it accross the airplane to my dad who couldnt' give a shit. But i wasn't phased by his disinterest, my jaw still hung open in awe. I thought i knew every lyric, every subtlty of every song, and then this comes along. it makes me feel like i'm floating through the world with my senses totally turned off.

2004-06-02T22:49:00.000-04:00

It wasn't as romantic as the scene in the movie when the little kid who clutches his teaddy bear and stares out the back window of the family station wagon at his best friend who stands in the dirt road growing smaller by each heart breaking second, but that's how i felt as my dad drove me away from vicki, away from brown, away from providence. I haven't cried yet for the end of college - i haven't had my breakdown. I've been walking in an envelope of numbness (alright, everyone take a minute to laugh at the image of a giant walking envelope) where voices are muted, smiles seem weak, and the only thing that seems to pierce its way through is the sting of each "congratulations!"
But don't worry, it'll happen, maybe tonight even as i lay awake unable to sleep after the 6 hour nap i took this afternoon. I'll start thinking about good times,(racing down the stairs as fast as gravity could take me, whenever BrassMonkey went unidle, to tell John about the boy who said "hi" to me in the c.i.t.) i'll think about bad times (our internet pouting for hours on end, refusing to let any of us connect to the outside world. This includes my last night at brown, when i'd just said goodbye to everyone, and seeing them online would've made it all feel much less final), and even the stuff i never gave a shit about (oh sweet mailbox combination! how i long to dial your sweet letters. I was R2, F1, by the way -- now you can all stop wondering). I'll miss them all and a million more, and i'll cry until my face is all red and splotchy like you'd stared directly at the sun before looking at me; I’ll start in a ball and sob and convulse, but when the numbness is gone, and my wells are dry, I’ll lay straight out, face up, fixated on the ceiling; my nose will be so stuffed that my inability to breath through it coupled with my perseverance to do so will be almost as sad as my watery eyes. I know how it will happen, but I have to go through the motions in order to find my closure. This will all be exaggerated by the fact that my 14-year-old dog died on Thursday, just days before I could get home to give her a final hug, kiss, head scratch, anything; and I came home to an empty collar sitting on the kitchen table and the total silence of a house that’s missing it’s most vibrant member…

Even writing that much has made my eyes moisten , my face contort, and my breathing quicken – so I know my purging is not far off.

Two nights ago, Eric and Tim picked me up after a teary night at the GCB. (every one in the gcb was sad or crying, and ordering water. The bartender was understandably disgusted by the whole display. “This is a fucking bar, people!”) Eric said that he wasn’t to impressed with my plan of saying final goodbyes to everyone. His philosophy is that we’ve had our times, now lets remember those. I kind of agree. When I was walking down Thayer I saw andy hertz drive by. He yelled out his window with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, that he’d be packing all night, and I should come stop bye. I didn’t see Andy again, but I guess that’s the image that’s gonna stick with me, and I’m alright with that. But now that I’ve said my goodbyes, I’m back to thinking I was right, and he was wrong. Maybe I’m too insecure or something, but some of my goodbyes were more emotional than I expected them to be, and it was physical evidence that I am important to my friends. I know angela likes hanging out with me, but to see her so upset when we had our last hug, somehow solidified the strength of our friendship; Tim also seemed more touched than I expected and even eric too, and that meant a lot to me. Annika and Willa and I could not let go of each other, and even though we haven’t spent as much time together as the good ole days, I became aware that they were there for me now just as much as ever. It was even pretty important for me to cry with lance one more time. If you’re a close friend of mine and didn’t make this list, fear not! These people are those who I have grown away from recently, have only befriended recently, or have had troubled recent history, and my role in their lives was sometimes unclear to me. For those who don’t fit into those categories, I agree with eric, maybe a goodbye isn’t so important. Either way, no matter what, I felt like I left a campus that was full of a lot of love I wasn’t totally aware of, and that makes me very happy, and also of course, very sad.

Brown University, you’ve treated me right, sweetheart. I won’t forget it.

2004-05-27T10:12:00.000-04:00

At this point it's pretty widely understood that time is the fourth dimension. I have always been perfectly willing to put my nose in the air, crinkle my brow, and say "sure, that makes sense to me." But right now i'm having a huge time with putting time in the "dimension" category. It's like putting jerry springing in the same category as Oprah, yes their both talk shows, but they touch me on such different levels, that i can't possibly consider put them in the same genre. Well, same thing with time: width height and depth have never offended me in the way that time has, and it disgusts me to have to put them all under one heading. I realize this is a personal assessment, and that mathematics can't really go about readjusting the system (like deciding that 2 is not actually a prime, which you'd think would offend me in the same way, but common, an even prime number? that's cool.) because time is pissing me off. I'm sure the other dimensions have offended other people at some point, and they're still in the dimension-club. I mean, richard simmons has had a HUGE problem with width, and jen has some issues with height, I think george w. shouldn't like depth much, but none of them came out and said "Enough! Off with 's head!"

So what is my problem. The obvious one is that I don't want to leave brown. Time you bastard, how dare you take my college experience away from be before I'm ready. Next, as i told ange, lately, when i think about boys i'm attracted to, i often think "he'd be an amazing father." Then i hit myself on the head and scold myself "no, check out his biceps, his eyes, his witty sense of humor, ANYTHING but the father-thing." I also hate time because it forces me to do things that i know are going to get done, and the process is inconsequential. I'm about to take a shower, but why must i go through the motions?? I missed alex carps birthday yesterday because i never saw him in the 24 hours i was allotted. I might not finish the 2nd season of westwing because i don't know where i'll find 3 more hours. I don't want to get old. I don't want to work 9-5 (or 6 or 7 or 8...)I don't want to spend an hour getting exercise when there are so many more interesting things for me to do. I don't want the decision to cut my hair short to last 5 seconds, and the decision to grow it long to last 2 years. I don't want to graduate. Oh, and finally, i don't want to graduate.

The only reason i find the idea of time as a dimension remotely appropriate, is that i consider time to be totally, and utterly demented. Screw you time, and your bastardly ways. Don't rush me toward campus dance, don't tell me this is my last Thursday, don't rush me to drink my next shot of beer (i'm just so full!). I shun you, and all that you do to make my life sad.

2004-05-25T01:00:00.000-04:00

I have never felt defeated. I have felt a lot of things, but never that, and i realized it only ten minutes ago. I was walking home tonight from a party i didn't really want to be at, having drunk things i didn't really want to drink, after a conversation i didn't really want to have, to a place i didn't really want to go, thinking thoughts i really wish didn't exist, when the belly of the sky grumbeled and then exploded, shooting fat fucking raindrops down on my head, my coat, my pants, my shoes, my everything.

But it occured to me in that moment (not really that moment, rather a few minutes earlier, but admiting that takes away some dramatic flare)that i have never felt defeated in any area of my life because my self-confidence is absolutely flawless--if i consider it a transient thing. Ok, that was wordy, what i mean is, there is a big difference between me thinking that I'm boring, and me thinking that i will always be boring. I rarly have a knack for the adventerous (like tibet randomly stealing Tim's desk and sledding on it in the middle of winter, or emily buying a keg of soap and some trashbags to construct a giant slip-and-slide, or judy stopping at the man on thayer to buy all of her friends some "bling-bling"), but in my head, someday i will cultivate that adventursome quality, i will be the girl that volunteers to by hypnotized, and while it is a source of frustration now, i do not see it as a source for low self esteem because my inability to be adventurous isn't really who i am, it's just what i do now, while i'm waiting to live up to my potential.

That is just an example, what actually hit me in the few minutes before the rain broke, is that i have total confidence in my ability to be loved. For whatever reason, i know that it is possible for someone to fall madly in love with me, and for me to beleive in that love, and understand why that person feels that way. (I realize that's a pretty immodest sentiment but please see a previous post in early May for why i don't give a fuck.) Anyway, i know that's true even if no one has ever felt that way before, and no one feels that way now, i know the potential exists. And that is true for all of my insecurities. From the little things that i want to change (like my total idocy with regards to geography) to the big things (like the way i neglect my family memebers) i know that i can fix my problems - and thus it would be inaccurate to consider them a source of low self-esteem, because they are purly temporary. The "real" leah knows where lithuania (where her family is from) is on a map, and the "real" leah sends her nephews birthday presents on time and calls her brother and sister more than once a month. I mean, those things are how i see myself, even if they aren't yet true of me, i know that they are in me, and it's just a matter of fishing them out.

There are somethings that i don't think i can (or want to )change. I don't like the shape of my breasts, for example. It is an insecurity, and they won't change (yup, no silicon for me)but i believe that one day it won't bother me. So in this case, the journey i have to take is not about chaning myself to be the person i want to be, but accepting/appreciating the things that won't change (Anne, ever since you told me my nose looked like a ski jump....)

So i do think i'm the perfect me, it's just a matter of making the leah that acts be the same as the leah that thinks. If i slide those two together i may end like a super popular worldwide example of a fine human being, or an egomaniac who can't fit her big head through the doors of the ratty (even if there is free lunch!), but either way, i'll have reached total enlightenment which will make me smarter than any of you.

2004-05-21T18:36:00.000-04:00

This is what we call a speed blog. A speed blog is where a little man in a black and white striped suit stands next to my computer waving a little flag that has some kind of icon on it. Probably the Blogger logo, Or the Google logo, or the KAPA logo (my favorite logo ever) if you really want to thnk outside the box. So he stands there waving his flag for a while while i open up my computer, navigate to the webpage sign in, and then, just when i'm ready to send my musings out into the world he says GO! and down comes the flag. Another little man, about a quarter inch tall is sitting on the ledge on my wall (where all my homies reside, you can barely tell him from all the little plastic miniatures) is holding a stop watch the size of the letter "o" in times new roman size 12 font. He's telling me i only have 20 minutes (though now i'm down to 9) to get all my thoughts down. he's rushing me. I can't think under pressure. oh god! 8! Why the hurry you ask? well, i've felt pretty guilty about my blogging slackerness lately, though i know most of my friends are seniors and have little reason left to procrastinate. And also, i'm going to watch buffy the musical with a whole lot of people maybe for the last time ever, and this thought is very sad, and also very exciting. Because buffy makes me very hyper. like a windup up doll that's all, you know, wound up.

Also, i have a complaint that there is no verb for working out on an eliptical machine. There is nothing that compares to the look of utter disappointment on someone's face when i've told them i'm going running, and they later find out that I actually meant i was going inside a stuffy gym (if you can even call the OMAC that) to run, sort of, in place. Somehow, when they thought i was running, i was a badass athletic healthy person to be admired, then when they realize i'm really elipticalling, they think i'm a prissy, spoiled, lazy misleader. I really am not trying to lie, there's just no good word for it. And if i tell you explicitly that i'm going "ellipticalling" you'll have to ask yourself why i'm giving you such specific information about my workout habbits ("workout" has the same connotation as running, so using that doesn't help).

TIME yells the little timekeeper stting on the ledge on my wall. And down comes the flag again to mark the end of the race, and off i go to watch buffy the musical, and I am happy.

2004-05-17T21:24:00.000-04:00

- Ok, first there was the dark. My fear of the dark can be traced back to a dream i had when i was four in which some kind of evil creatures (people?) were slicing up the head of my gym teacher in my kitchen. They were using giant knives to slice (in 3/4 inch slices) his head in different ways, horizontally, diagonally, vertically. But every time the slices would come back together and the evil things were mad, and angry, and do it again. He was in pain, i was scared, and the kitchen was dark. I've never forgotten that dream, and i know i was four because of the house i lived in at the time i had it.
- In fifth grade, i was scared of being seen in public with food or dirt on my face. I don't know where it came from. But i remember having to give a speech ("elect Leah for class treasurer!") and asking every single person in my class if there was anything on my face. Remember that em?
- In eight grade i broke my tailbone doing a jump on a snowboard, and have never done jumps again.
- Freshman year of high school, i was afraid of Bees. no wait - correction, that would be understandable. I was actually afraid of B's. I used to bet friends money that i'd do better than them on tests because the competitiveness gave me an embarrassing high.
- By my junior year of high school i had been in 9 car accidents. Most of which, as passenger, and this gave me a pretty useless fear of cars.

-I've been in a lot of scary situations, so one would think i'd be pretty prepared to handle something as (elOk, first there was the dark. My fear of the dark can be traced back to a dream i had when i was four in which some kind of evil creatures (people?) were slicing up the head of my gym teacher in my kitchen. They were using giant knives to slice (in 3/4 inch slices) his head in different ways, horizontally, diagonally, vertically. But every time the slices would come back together and the evil things were mad, and angry, and do it again. He was in pain, i was scared, and the kitchen was dark. I've never forgotten that dream, and i know i was four because of the house i lived in at the time i had it.
In fifth grade, i was scared of being seen in public with food or dirt on my face. I don't know where it came from. But i remember having to give a speech ("elect Leah for class treasurer!") and asking every single person in my class if there was anything on my face. Remember that em?
In eight grade i broke my tailbone doing a jump on a snowboard, and have never done jumps again.
Freshman year of high school, i was afraid of Bees. no wait - correction, that would be understandable. I was actually afraid of B's. I used to bet friends money that i'd do better than them on tests because the competativness gave me an embarassing high.
By my junior year of high school i had been in 9 car accidents. Most of which, as passenger, and this gave me a pretty uselss fear of cars.

I've been in a lot of scary situations, so one would think i'd be pretty prepared to handle something as (elitely) universal as graduating from college. But i have no idea how to handle the idea of everything i have known for 4 years instantly disolving with no hope of being able to "go home" to it. Home at brown is something we've all come together to create, the buildings are just fancy amenities used to trick freshman into wanting to come here. The moment all 1000+ of us leave this campus, the home we have created just dissipates, like the bad guy in terminator 2 when he goes from man to floor tile like, instantaneously. (or like watching angel getting staked at the end of season 2.) Today i had lunch with madeleine after she IMed me saying "so i'm afraid i might never see you again." Last night Chris and i had a state-of-chris-and-leah-address about how the hell to ensure that our fledgling freindship is going to survive a distance of way too many longitude lines. Yesterday, lance and i were talking about the five people we were most likely to stay in touch with long term. Neither of us wanted to stop at five, but both acknowledged that that was realistic, if not optemistic. Today, the twins and i had dinner together for the first time in a year. We are all meant to be friends, but knowing that now is totaly useless. So one by one, i'm starting to hug people in a way that feels like i'm trying to leave them dusted with faint essence of "leah" in case it's our last interaction. When i left josh, i hugged him, and he told me to keep using the same shampoo. Ok, josh has said this to me many times, he's a sucker for herbal essences, but this time, it just made me realize that that smell could be the last impression josh ever has of me. I walked away, and felt a part of my self being left behind clinging to his clothes, his memory, his nostrils.

2004-05-12T12:38:00.000-04:00

For anyone who read this post in it's intermediate stages, i'm sorry for that, it's now done, and "yesterday" refers to tuesday:

yesterday i spent an hour giving a presentation to a professor about quantum-dot cellular automata (the most impressive part of which was me pronouncing "automata" correctly) which felt like a really brainy way to end my brown education. I've often thought that the best things brown has done for me is to give me a very libral social awareness. My conservative friends (ok ok, my hypothetical conservative friends) might say that i've been brain-washed by this hippie community. Maybe that's true, and if it is, then i say amen, being brainwashed sure saves me the work of having to figure out these ideals on my own. So what are the things i've learned at Brown? (what i'm about to do here is list some things that I have learned, you know, here at brown. But don't get any ideas that this is an all-encompassing list, i'm quite certain i'll have things to add until i'm wrinkled and toothless, or at least till i'm wavy and unitoothed)
- I learned the true meaning of politically correct. For example, "third world transition program" taught me to not shy away from the term "third world." The Queer** Aliance (and the 102 of my closest friends that identify as queer) taught me the importance of using the word Queer. I also learned that "that which is PC in one region, is strictly PI in another." I think i alienated half my office mates in seattle when i told them i was going to a queer pride parade. It wasn't that they were homophobic, but because no one had bothered to send them the "Queer is OK" memo, they thought i was. Maybe it's the time zone, but i'm guessin Queer is OK in san fran. So maybe Washington State doesn't get memos because people are always sticking it's mail in Washington D.C.s mailbox. Ok, what else.
- I learned that stars are people too. Just kidding, i'd heard that before.
- I learned that chicken fingers are not really made out of fingers (thank you, jessica simpson, for embarassing yourself on national tv, and inspring me to do some research before making my own humiliating blunder)
- I learned that the concept behind pass/fail* is an awesome one; but it's like socialism - great idea in theory, terrible in practice. Raise your hand if you're a senior taking a class pass/fail because you wanted to try something new, but were intimidated by being graded? No one? ok, now raise your hand if you're a senior and you're taking a class pass/fail because it's senior fucking year, and you need more time to sit on rooftops and drink 40s? Everyone? That's what i thought. What i love is that Brown isn't in denile about this state of affairs. Brown does a little PR to make people think pass/fail is working the way it was intended, but that's just for the sake of perspective students & their parents, grad schools, and companies. But we all know when people use pass/fail and why. Why else would we be allowed to take any (or all) courses in our major* pass/fail?The "engcourage students to reach outside their confort zone" montra really starts to fall apart when senior CS majors are taking intro cs class pass/fail to fill out their schedule. But whatever, brown students don't like to compete with each other, we don't appreciate false insentive (doing word for the grade rather than to learn), and we like having a chance to say "I don't need to study, it's pass/fail. We're fucking seniors, let's go out rooftops and drink all 40 oz. to freedom."
- I learned that professors are people too. Just kiddding. That's just crazy.

*Key for brown students: pass/fail = S/NC; major = concentration;
**Key for non-brown students: queer = !(straight && heteronormative)***
***key for non-brown non-cs people: why are we even friends?****
****Just kidding, i use you guys as my beacon of normalcy. *****
*****Except for matt chidley.

2004-05-09T00:54:00.000-04:00

Nathalie Jordie: I know the only other comment you posted was Andy's compliment, but I'd like to add another, which is that your blog is my new favorite way to procrastinate. I'm pulling an all-nighter tomorrow, and I think I might set up a schedule where I'll alternate cigarette breaks with looking-through-Leah's-archive breaks. I'm very excited.

Thank you Nathalie, the person on this campus who wins the most-likely-to-have-been-a-super-close-friend-of-mine(-had-john-thought-to-introduce-us-sooner )award.

Abrafool Young: Abe's blogcomment: Damn Leah you are sure one blogging maniac! Based on the one blog of yours
i just read about your extremely accomplishing and awesome as hell weekend,
you write exceptionally interesting non-stupid blogs, and u hold my
attention like none-otha! Props to your blog, to your weekend, to your
black belt (sober congratulations #2!), and your awesome writing (I still
am waiting to read the rest of ur book; i'm not gonna stop bothering u
about it till i get it!), and much much more but i'll just tell u about it
instead of writing it here cause i got my own writing now to do. Gonna miss
u next year leah!

And thank you to Abe Young. Being that he is the author of a beautiful creative writing capstone - that is an awesome wonderful compliment.

Ok ok, i admit it. I've been shy about posting some of the comments you guys have made (thank you leg, meg, and judy). Not cause they're not super awesome, but, well...they make me blush - and i'm afraid that people will read your comments and then start sifting through the older entries on which they are based and expect to see wonderful wonderfulness, and you know what expectation can do. So, i think i'll continue to be selective. If, as Nathalie and Abe did, the comment suggests that it is meant to be published then, by the 1st amendment, i will post it, dammit. Chris B. was kind enough to offer to write me a scathing review for every kind one that i recieve so that i don't have to feel like there's a skewed perspective going up. Isn't that so nice of him? Chris B. you have taught me the meaning of "true friend." (see - that's funny sarcasm because Chris IS actually one of the nicest people in the world (source: discussion between me and Angela F. on the topic of "people we'll miss next year", Vol 2, issue 17, May 8 2004) Ha! now someone else can blush.

Oh, and one quick thing. I was just writing an email that led me to the realization that crow and plow don't rhyme like they should. And this made me think of all the times i've heard someone say (or said myself) "english is so screwed up." and then go on to talk about how the rules are inconsistant or the verbs just don't make sense, or there are too many exceptions - it's all context really. Anyway, i just got to thinking how (rhymes with plow) impressive it is that english actually makes as much sense as it does. I mean, if i were going to go about creating a language, i would probably just make up words as i needed them, without a thought in the world to parts of speech or whatever. And even if i did meticulously plot out some grand underlying architechture, i'm guess thing that hundreds (thousands?) of years of use in all sorts of distant regions of the world (and pre-internet-oh-my-god) should have some massive altering effects--like the straw that you subconsciously chew on and play with long after your drink is gone--it's still basically functional at the end, but it's a little unweildy and looks kinda ghetto. Yeah. Like that.

Two days in a row (rhymes with crow). I think i've attoned for my previous sins. Here, i'll end with a thoughtful comment from Pat S.

Pat Sunday: a blog!?

whoa.

2004-05-08T14:09:00.000-04:00

You know how your mother told you that putting katchup on your ice cream was probably not a good idea? Well, maybe you did it, or maybe you trusted her, but either way i bet you've reached your twenty-somethings (or 50-somethings, mom and dad) with the understanding that somethings just don't mix. Well, apparently, the same is true of blog entries and finals. That is a long-winded way of saying "i'm sorry i've been slacking." A sorry to those of you who count on me for a little procrastination every now and then, a sorry to me for letting a week of my life go by undocumented, and unrelatedly, a sorry to jen for calling her short oh so many times (although, in my defense, i think the amount of jokes i make about her (lack of) height is directly perportionate to the number of inches by which she is deficient)

Yesterday Bryan O. had a party in honor of the pill "The Chaser." Apparently this magic little pill will eliminate all symptoms of hangovers after a night of heavy drinking, or so says the oh-so reliable sounding commercial (and "The Chaser" packaging, which straightforwardly informs the user that "no claims made on the box have been verified by the FDA." Except i imagine that when something goes out on the market that has not been tested, the FDA does make sure that there is a disclaimer on the item informing users that they have not tested it. Which would mean that that the disclaimer itself really would've been verified by the FDA, thus making the sentence itself a little bit false. And since there is no such thing as "a little bit false," it really makes the sentence completely false, therefore, i don't believe that "no claims made on the box have been verified by the FDA," and can safely assume that some claims have. Therefore, the drug is probably safe and effective. Ow, that hurt my head - i feel like i have a hangover just thinking about it.) Anyway, Bryan downed a few of his special drinks, "chased" them, and then proceded to get very very drunk. I saw him fall over a number of times, pick people up a number of times, and basically cause general chaos. I am quite certain that bryan, as well as most people in his close proximity probably hit their heads on something throughout the course of the night, and are going to wake up with headaches. This is unfortunate because we will have no way of knowing if the pill really worked.

My last class was yesterday. It was TA22 in which we all had to give a speech about anything we wanted. I chose to write mine as a typical acceptance speech - what was i accepting? The appointment to the position of "God." I am sorry to those i have already told about this, but i'm bringing it up here for a number of reasons. 1) i think the idea came directly out of my recent post about modesty. Every since writing that, i have done my best to fight a war on modesty and it's silly role in an unpractical set of prescribed social interactions. So thank you little blog-outlet for providing me with that devine inspiration (cough). 2) i want to acknowledge it as a pretty phenomonal way to end my college carrer. I mean, i know a lot of you are still looking for something to do this summer, or next year, and i am sorry for that. It must be pretty intimidating to know that someone took her brown education to get herself chosen as the next God. (I'm just trying to be playful and sarcastic, but it's hard to do knowing that most of you know that i really do have a job, and while it's not God, it is working for the most powerful force in the known universe. Maybe Bill Gates really is a god - "Gates (pronounced gate-ees), God of commercial take-over, begotten by Artemis Goddess of the hunt, and Hades, god of the underworld." and 3) I brought up this subject to give all of you a momment to smile to yourselves, and sight with relief knowing that the speech was not real and thank god (whoever it may be) that I am not the rular of all things great an small. There are certainly worse canditates, but i don't know how many of you would feel comfortable living in a world where all plant life is orange instead of green, where Dirty Dancing is what comes up on your television screen when it's not getting a signal (instead of those black and white ants), and Brown Universtiy is number one on US News' list of college rankings while harvard falls just after The Delaware Junior College of Pig Latin. ("Yeah!" many of you are thinking, "leah for god!" but think again - would that really be worth the dirty dancing thing?)

Thanks for the feedback by the way - it's my favorite email to get.

2004-05-02T15:18:00.000-04:00

This weekend I accomplished the second of my lifetime goals. Some of you might say that "meeting Rhea Pearlman" doesn't really belong on the same list as "becoming a black belt in a martial art." But if you take it from the right perspective than it's ok: I would probably have never met Rhea if i hadn't been sitting in Sayles Hall at Brown Univeristy the night of the Ursa Minor's Fall Concert. I wouldn't have been there had i not met Willa Mamet who i was there to support, and had i not met Willa, i would not have met her mother, who knew Rhea well enough to call her over and introduce us "Rhea Pearlman, this is Leah Pearlman." I would've never met willa or been in Sayles if i hadn't gotten accepted to Brown University, which i couldn't have done without a few A's in high school, a couple hundred+ on my SATs, a smattering of community service, and some lame resume stuffing activities (like a French club that and my best friend and I started and declared ourselves president and vice president - member that em? - We used it as an excuse to spend a lunch period once a week gossiping about our friends, which we did anyway, but since we did it in french we felt legit. Our skill level was pretty low so we'd spend half the time trying to construct euphamisms for gossipy words we didn't know the french for. "Brian smokes too much pot" would come out sounding like "Brian smokes too much 'little tree that makes one be crazy'" Brian did smoke too much pot, by the way.). So taking all that into account as part of the process it took for me to meet Rhea Pearlman, i'd say it's nearly an equal accomplishment.
However, the focus of this entry is really supposed to be my second lifetime acheivement. And that is that on Friday night, at 12:30 x.m., after a grueling four-hour test, I received my Black Belt. So did James Irwin - and he made us all laugh doing it. At one point we were supposed to present these mini self-defense techniques that we had designed. James performed one that was really short, and our master asked "That's it?" "No..." Said James, "Then I run away." Julia Glenday also got a black belt. She had to do a kick that involved her breaking three boards in a combo. She somehow managed to break some combo of two of the boards several times, but had trouble nailing all three. Needless to say she went through a lot of boards, and Adam, who gave out senior awards at our banquet last night, gave her the "environmental scientist (which she is) hypocrite award" for distroying so many trees in pursuit of her black belt. And that brings us to Adam Avakian who also got his blackbelt. His performance should be especially applauded, because he stayed up the ENTIRE night before the test finishing his thesis. Then, while the rest of us practiced taekwondo all day long, Adam was doing his whole thesis presentation. Damn - that was a hell of an accomplishing day for that guy. Bryan Okamoto got a black belt too. We all had to break some boards with these fancy combination kicks we'd been practicing for a while. They were supposed to be our personal specialities. Bryan's awesomeness came from the fact that about five minutes before the test, our Master asked him to do a different one than the one he'd been practicing. (no less tricky, just different) and he broke his boards with fewer attempts than anyone else. Andrew Yeh was the 6th fine member of our little crew to earn his black belt. But the real accomplishment came when he got drunk after TWO beers instead of one at our afterparty. Andrew my son, you have finally become a man. Tony Rocha does not go to brown, but he also tested with us and earned his black belt. So props to him as well. He's a badass and could proabably take all of us on at once.

I want to thank Julia for being the only member of the group to not kick me in the head during our 9 straight rounds of sparring.

Last night we had a really teary end of the year banquet with 60+ people. Theresa Yeh made the most awesomest slide show that showed us all growing freshman to seniors. There were clips of fights and practices and tests, and a million pictures from parties and tournaments and all kinds of things. There was a soundtrack too. I don't know if you all need to know this. But it was so fucking awesome that i have to comment on in publicly in the hopes that word gets back to her. It was a concise way for me to see that my time at brown has really mattered in some specific way. Taekwondo has carried me all the way through and is ending on such a high note, it makes anything else that didn't go right for me here seem trivial.

After the banquet I came home a little tipsy and john sat me down and complimented me.

It was a good weekend. (keg stands that left people passed out all over our house saturday morning aside)

2004-04-29T19:18:00.000-04:00

So i got my first ever offiecial blog-comment! And while i don't think it was intended to be the kind of comment that I post, and it's not the kind that i would voluntarily choose to post (you'll see why when you read it), I did make a promise to post all comments. It'd be weird if i started getting selective already on my first ever comment. Before i go on, i might as well let you read it - make your judgements, and then continue on my analysis.

andrew hertz: This is awesome!

Obviously it looks like shameless self-promotion - but i suppose i did announce in my first entry that the mission statement of this blog was to make you all love me, so it's not like posting andy's lovely little compliment is out of line with my goals. And in light of yesterday's entry i should now be comfortable with the idea that i can post a comment that is less than humble if my reason for posting it is that i promised i would, and not because i think i have to prove something. AND, if you're still reading at this point, you must have formed some attachment to reading this stupid thing, so there is really no reason for me to sit here and sell it. Either that or you have obsessive voyueristic tendencies (ahem, john) and you're going to keep reading whether you're interested or not. This wasn't supposed to be an entry, only a posting of Andy's comment, but then all this crap spilled out - maybe that's because i have work i should be doing. Thanks for getting the ball rolling andy - hopefully others will be inspired by your brave act.

2004-04-27T21:30:00.000-04:00

hi kids! The topic for today is "modesty."

Why i like it: It's a paradox, and who doesn't love a good paradox? It’s so cool that by not telling people how great we are, they actually will think we are much greater. I am not sure there is any other quality that works quite this way. That’s like saying, the more you don’t sleep, the more well-rested you will be. Oh my god how awesome would that be? Here, take a moment to think about that analogy. Feel free to draw diagrams – I did.

The odd thing about it – is I have no idea why it works that way. If I tell you that last semester I won the C.S. networked tetris tournament, you’ll say, “cool…nerd.” (I did win, by the way. Me. I won. No one else. I got a crown). However, if you happen to hear it through the grapevine, you’re more likely to be wildly impressed by this secret talent you never knew I possessed, fall madly in love with me, and eventually go to jail for spying on my cat and stealing my shoes. But why is that? Why is it so much more valuable to discover someone’s qualities ourselves than have them save us the trouble by telling us?
Honestly, I don’t have an answer (but I’m convinced there is one). Well – now that I said that, I guess I can speculate: I suppose one of the problems is that if I were to tell you that that I made out with Angelina Jolie (not true), you would be pressured to react excitedly, and no one likes that pressure. Even if I wrote it in some public forum where I could have no control over who reads it, but know that some people are (does any such invention exist?) I would elicit the same response form you. You would read it, and knowing that I know that you might know, heh, is enough to make you feel that pang of responsibility to then congratulate me for making out with the hottest chick in the world.
So maybe, by never telling people things that require a specific emotional response, we never force them into this awkward position, and they love us more for it. They are then happy to react appropriately when they discover things themselves because they are not being forced too. When I was little I would look forward to cleaning my room so I could live in a neat and organized place. Then – just before I was ready to pull out the broom and the sponge my mom would tell me to clean my room. I would go into instant rebellion-mode and kick and scream and cry about not wanting to clean. It’s the same thing – no one likes to be forced to act a particular way even if they would’ve done it themselves.

How I feel about it: It’s one of my favorite qualities. Anyone who knows Joseph knows just how powerful modesty is. I love discovering something about someone, and being able to show them how perceptive I am when I compliment them on it.

How I really feel about it: I don’t get it. Is it really malicious for me to save someone the effort of discovering stuff that I already know? Why not let them discover the new things? (I should say here that I only support immodesty when it is use for informational purposes and not when it is used specifically to draw out a response) What if I told you with many people (except maybe Lance) have fun watching tv with me? That makes you a little uncomfortable, no? Such blatant self-promotion. But it seems like a useful thing for you to know if you’re deciding whether or not to come join me for an episode of Buffy or QAF or Saved by the Bell. But in reality I would never use this argument while trying to convince you to come watch – which leaves you uninformed, but preserves my modesty.

Where this is coming from: I was recently trying to tell someone about my summer at MS. I was trying to relay the fact that sue and jen and ginger and I got a lot of attention being members of an XX minority. He, and anyone I’ve ever said this too reacts the same way “Oh…so you’re pretty hot stuff then eh?” Or something like that (don’t feel bad if you think I’m talking about you, literally everyone responds the same way – I would too). And I have to say “no no, it’s not that, it’s just that there were no girls and bring-a-date parties and blah blah blah.” Our social requirements are such that I have to defend my modesty when I'm really just trying to talk honestly about my summer.

This is too long, and I have a powerpoint presentation to do. Oh god, I love powerpoint.

2004-04-25T11:58:00.000-04:00

Final Spring Weekend In Review:

1) Adam Mittleman got beat up by blood-thirsty barbaric Yankee fans. The story varies slightly depending on what source you get it from. My favorite variation involves the idea that the assailents were actually just some of the many stairs in 115 hope - but you know, we don't have to worry about the details. I actually don't know the real story because when i saw his bloodied face this morning i thought it was a little too cliche to ask "what the hell happened to you?" so i just gave him a hug and we did the hokey pokey.

2) Dave Binder is nothing if not reliable. I actually get a little freaked out every time I go to see his show, because nothing else gives me such a sense of time warp. I mean - i don't see meg robinson much throughout the year - but she feels like a dave-binder staple. I also must have greg, lance, susannah, todd, and melissa barkin. It wouldn't be the same if i didn't see warmen standing up on the steps of phi psi, Matt with his arms around a different girl every time I look at him, and girls i have never seen in four years at brown up on the stage showing off their crabs. Lobsters, i mean lobsters.

3)It was a morning of Erics on the main green. The fans were few, but the energy was pumping as "the 78" featuring eric rachlin rocked-out. (yeah, i said "rocked-out. what? what??") They were fun and varied, and i was sad more people were still at home cuddling with their hangovers. The band reminded me of a cross between Radiohead and Tenacious d. People like radiohead and tenacious d, right? so that's like a compliment or something? Cause that's what i'm going for. So after that, "Pricecheck," featuring eric zamore, put on a little show. That was also fun - eric's energy is awesome. If I didn't know he was such a computer nerd i would think he was born to be a rock star. Oh, and props to his friends for being such good friends. Of all the groups of friends on this campus - those littlefielders seem the most likely to take a bullet for each other. There are some other tight groups too. i think john/alex/judy/sheila/nat(h)alie/mike are pretty thick too - they might be most likely to take a deadly drug for each other. And bryan okamoto's group might not take a bullet for each other- but they'd probably take a shot.

4) I ate my first ever *special* brownie. I debated putting this up here for a number of reasons (suprisingly none of which are that my parents read this regularly) but in the end i realized it's an essential fact in understanding my spring weekend, so i decided to stop dancing around the implications of putting it up here, and just get on with my story. But then i actually got nervous again, so i'm going to enumerate the reasons i didn't want to mention it and maybe that exonerates me somehow. So here goes: A) i don't want it to sound like i'm trying to brag about some drug-related behavior B) i don't want my TKD team to to think I'm abusing my body too much before testing (trust me, that brownie kept me too stoned to drink, so i think i ended up better off than many of you) and C) I don't want any pot-smokers to feel bad when i mention that I didn't like it nearly as much as i was hoping to. I was totally boring to talk to all day because of it, and was ready to go to bed by midnight (On the SATURDAY IN THE MIDDLE OF SPRING WEEKEND!). But that is my brain on drugs, not yours. Most of you are quite lovely when you're stoned, i just don't think i'm as fortunate. So in reason C) just then, i think i said what i had planned to say about the experience, so i guess that's the end of this paragraph. Oh, but i'm really sorry to anyone i bored to death on Saturday. Specifically Andre who i physically ran away from when he tried to have an interesting conversation with me. hahaha. I'm like a four-year-old.

5) I watched a westwing that moved it's way into my top five. Granted i haven't seen very many. But there was something so genuine in the the first lady's conflict between having to come accross as composed and reasonable to maintian respect as politician, and the emotional torture she felt at having watched her number one priority get thrown away by a reelection-seeking president/husband.

6) My engine 164 professor announced that anyone taking the class s/nc doesn't have to do the final. I don't think i need to add any comentary if i let you all know that I, trying to be responsibe, took the class for a grade thinking "well, if i'm gonna do the work anyway, i might as well get a grade for it." Grrr. Arrgh.

7) My first ever power hour! It was both a total success and a total disaster in that I got very very drunk. But at least i didn't get in any skirmishes with yankee-loving staircases.

2004-04-21T16:28:00.000-04:00

Now that i'm a few entries in, i feel it's safe to stop and reflect on the nature of blogging. As Barbara Tannenbaum would say, i have to weight my goal and audience. Why do i keep a blog? 1)to keep me honest about updating a journal - if i think people are watching me i'm not gonna be a slacker. 2) to stay connected to this earth - what if everyone starts to forget about me because they don't see me enough because the evil engineering gods(devils) are keeping me locked in a lab with just enough windows so i know what i'm missing, and because i'm being forgotten i start to fade away an out of existance? That happened on Buffy once, the girl was never noticed so she might as well have never been there in the first place. She got all bitter and tried to cut up Cordelia's face with like, dental tools and stuff. In light of these two goals - how important is it that I have readers? If no one reads it, i would fail on both counts thus making this whole experience a big waste of creative energy (and time i could've spent at the GCB) and not to mention a little embarassing - having everyone turn down an invitation to hear the inner workings of my head would make it feel like everyone assumes there isn't anything there to see. Ok, so that being decided - what am i willing to sacrafice? Everyone read Mr. J.s blog - but i think most of us were often scanning for our names. not that we didn't care what Mr. J had to say - but once you make an appearance in someone's blog, especially in some sort of juicy gossipy context, it's hard not to look for your own name. And i don't think i want my blog to put me or anyone else on display (i'm perfectly comfortable with doing THAT in person.) Plus, i don't think i need my 6 boyfriends, 2 girlfriends, and 18 pets (including the stuffed Dog named "aldus") finding out about each other, and that kinda shit is bound to come out once i start heading down that route. On the other hand, if people really wanted to read the casual musings of someone's mind, they could go read a book. Something that's actually been well thought-out, edit, approved and established as actually being worth reading. Why bother reading mine? I'm no emmerson, i'm no isomov, i'm no jack handy.

So i think i'm going to start looking for some happy medium. Everynow and then i'll throw some times in here, like to tell about the time in Portugal that we left susannah alone in a kitchen with a boy she liked for ten minutes, and when she came out and we asked her "how was the kitchen?" she completely missed our sexual innuendo and replied: "It was smaller than i expected." Or perhaps i'll tell you that john is a stupid head for ditching me last night - but i'll forgive him because he let judy play in his hair with a razor. But sometimes i'll just stick to the totally unattached banter, like about how i heard a speach yesterday about becoming a vegetarian and i spent all day pondering how humans are able to disconect themselves so easily from things they find morally wrong given enough distance from it. I'd never kill a cow with my hands because i think it's wrong, but i'll eat one, you know? I don't approve of the queer-bashing that's gone around here lately, but i haven't lifted a finger. I bet there is an equation for calculating whether or not it's worth it to make a change that involves the severity of the act s, the distance from the person anayzing this d, the work/sacrifice involved in order to make a change w, and the emotional reward or prestiege associated with making change r. Someone put that together and let me know.

2004-04-19T13:20:00.000-04:00

2004-04-19T11:28:00.000-04:00

I have to give a speech to my "Persuasive Communication" class next week, convincing them to change their attitude about something. So of course, knowing me, I've chosen to tell them why Buffy is an intelligent, morally valuable, and socially relevant piece of art. This is something i know in my heart, but i'm having a hell of a time writing a speech about it. It kind of feels like I'm trying to convince someone a joke is funny by describing it to them without telling them the joke. I know some of you are buffy fans, so if you could tell me why you believe these things to be true of the show, please let me know. A book Lance gave me called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy" talks about how a main underlying theme is a representation of women fighting back against rape. Vampires define their need for human blood as an "irresistable desire." They often bite someone of the opposite sex, (except the evil willow who later turns out to be gay). Anyway - the book says that buffy practices a sort of reverse rape - penetrating vampires with a phallic object kedra nicknamed "mr. pointy." "You name your stake?" Buffy asks kendra. Jen made me a stake last semester and I carried it around with reckless abandon, had I known it might be interpreted by buffy fans as an attempt to have my own phallice, i might have been less obvious about it. As i told my sister while watching a number of my teammates get kicked in the groin this weekend - i'm sure glad i don't have one of those.

Speaking of which...

I went to Connecticut for a tae kwon do tournament this weekend. It's probably my last ever which is freaky and sad. when I got here freshman year and sign up for any club that offered me candy at the activities fair - i had no idea it would be the one constant in my life at brown (besides the sunlab, my mail box number, and love of meeting street cafe). The sad thing is that i GOT MY ASS KICKED. By a girl from MIT, no less. Couldn't it have been a crazy buff army chick or something? I have bruises on my feet, on my legs, on my arms, and on my face - that is a total body ass-kicking by nerdy science girl.

I have one more comment on umbrellas real quick. Today my BGCP, Big Gay Class Professor, was talking about how "Queer" Is often seen as an umbrella term. (which reminds me, Jen, i think we should start calling the class "BQC"). It struck me as such a funny euphamism - she's trying to fit all gay, lesbian, trans-anything, intersex, pansex, questioning, bi, and pflags under an "umbrella" term and i have never seen an umbrella that can effectively cover more than one person. What about "huge tarp" term or "Event Tent" term. I'm just saying.

By the way - to all my roomates that think they can talk me into opening the door when i know they're with their partners - it's just not gonna happen. You (nearly) walk in on one pair and you're scarred for life.

Shout outs:

1) Alex, Annika, Judy, Meg, Susannah, my brother, his family, my sister, and my parents for coming all the way to connecticut to see my tournament and to tell me "I did good" (see paragraph 3 above for why this was a nice thing to say)

2) To Adam Avakian who threw up during two different matches and went on to kick some ass after "lightening his load"

3) to the medical staff that cleaned up Adam's puke - twice.

2004-04-14T15:04:00.000-04:00

Umbrellas. They have stressed me out today. See, in the land i come from (that land is colorado) we have two relationships with rain that correspond to two different kinds of rain. The first kind is the summer rain that comes around late july and august. Everyday will start off beautiful and sunny, and end that way - but for a few hours in the middle of the afternoon, there will be plesant and steady rain. It's so predictable that people are rarly "caught" in it, and can usually schedule events around it. If we were as Spanish as the name of our state implies we are - we might call this time of day "Siesta." The other kind of rain is the kind of massive torential downpour we all saw last night - only ours always come with constant and intimidating thunder and the kind of lightening that could simultaneously illuminate the illicit acts of evil-doers everywhere if any of them were brave enough to commit a crime during these temper tantrums of mother nature. These occur in the early summer (sometimes spring) and usually mark the end of a drought. Children huddle around the doorways and dare each other to run out and touch the curb. Teenagers roll up there pants and head outside to puddle jump and spin in the steet with their arms flung open and heads tilted toward the sky. Young and old couples wrap each other in blankets and huddle in front of scary movies or cheesey romances, every now and then glancing out the window and reciting automatically, but with a respect and awe, "It's really coming down, isn't it?"

That being said, there isn't really a role for umbrellas in Colorado. Of course that is a great generalization, but compared to Rhode Island, there are certainly a lot fewer of them roaming the streets, gripped by white knuckels, protecting their owners from the elements. So, being the Colorado-Snob that i am (What Leah? You? A Colorado snob? Noooo.) I have been pretty adverse to breaking out the umbrella to fend off a little water*. But yesterday i spent the whole day either getting wet, or drying off, and i was weary of that constant state of flux - so today i put an umbrella in my bag. I held off most of the morning, but then again, the rain was light. Finally, it began raining just hard enough for me to begin to worrying about the various electronic devices i carry in my bag, so, embarassed at my hypocracy, i pulled out the umbrella.

And it was amazing. The sound of the water on the taught material is strikingly similar to the sound of rain pitt-pattering against a window when i'm snug indoors, and i was still getting plenty of misty water on my face and extremities. So i have a new way of thinking about umbrellas that will allow me to accept them as a part of my life. They are not sheilds against the rain; they are enhancers of the experience of rain (though some rain should still be experienced free of intervention - like Dan Stohl expressed after his football game on the roof of the OMAC last night).

The other thing I noticed today, is that umbrellas bring people a lot closer. Friends everywhere hunddle together to keep one another warm and dry. (it's like that theory about people/countries having to have a common enemy in order to form a bond) Strangers have to make friendly eye contact to figure out how to pass each other on narrow streets without clashing. The only thing i regret now is that we call them "Umbrellas" instead of just "Brellas." I think that's a much nicer word.

*I appologize to all wicked witches of the west reading this -i reallize this topic isn't really relavant to you, and i have no desire to be exclusive - i just needed to get this out.

2004-04-13T17:52:00.000-04:00

Random Portuguese friend sent Susannah an Email. In it, he spelled my name correctly despite the fact that he had a very difficult time pronouncing and remembering it while I was there. Susannah suggested that it's possible that he got it right because my name is in the bible.

So now i'm thinking, why is it that we have names in English like "John" and "Matthew," but other languages (spoken in countries that read the bible with a lot more fervor than Americans Brits or Aussies) don't? So spanish has names like Juan and Mateo, does this mean that Mateo and Juan are names in spanish bible? If that is the case - why have we changed the names of these "historical" figures to suit different languages? What were their actual names that people called them? I mean - i agree that Westside Story just wouldn't have been the same with Tony singing "Mary! Mary! I just met a girl named Mary!" But if Mary was her name...or if something else was her name....shouldn't refer to her as that? If that isn't the case, if Spanish bibles actually have the same names we do, John and Matthew and Mary, shouldn't there be little religious spanish babies walking around (uh, or at least peeing in cribs) with those names?

I'm thinking that Languages all modify the names slightly so they are easy to pronounce (like apparently "Spain" is much easier for us to say than "Espana") But who made these choices? Does this mean 2000 years from now famous people are going to be known by different things because their names were hard to say? I can't imagine Brett Favre, Patrick Roi, Cher, or the word "segue" will last very long.

I'm sure there's an easy answer to this question. One I could probably even solve with the help of the internet - but i'd rather solicit repsonses from my knowlegable peers. Teach me friends!

Upon rereading this, i realize this might read like a lame attempt at trying to sound thoughtful, rather than the procrastinatory musings of a girl in an engin lab - so to lighten the load - i'll add a few quick stories about animals:

1) On Iron Chef I watched Octipi try to save their own lives by climbing out of the bowls in which the chefs were methodically filleting their tenticals. This was the first time i have ever been stoned and had absolutely no appitite whatsoever.

2) Today in speech when I asked if anyone knew whether or not Animals Laughed, one girl said "well, dogs wag their tail." I don't think they're analogous, but it gave me an image of a room full of people wagging their tailbones everytime someone said something funny, and that made me want to shake my tailbone.

3) I thought I was random, but the Thayer Street side of the Sci-Li just surpassed me by leaps and bounds. There's a West Wing episode that refers to an anecdote in which God rows by in a boat--I don't know what made me think of that.

2004-04-11T09:46:00.000-04:00

So, after drinking a 40 on friday night i confessed to a room full of people that i have a problem. A lot of people are drunk dialers - Take Susannah for example. That girl gets a few beers in her and she's flipping through her phonebook with reckless abandon. She searches for people she hasn't talked to in a while, which makes things that much funnier, because getting a drunk call from your best friend is one thing, getting on from random girl you met for ten minutes as a microsoft intern - that's weird. So when most people start drinking we try to protect them by taking their keys (not in college life of course, we're all walkers) susannah sometimes has to hand off her phone to stay safe. Anyway, I am also a drunk dialer, but i only ever call the same number: My house. Every time i've been drunk this semester i feel this overwhelming need to talk to my parents. The worst part of it is that my mom inveriably says "Wow! you sound happpy - have you been drinking?" I don't want to be girl-whose-only-happy-when-she's-drunk! But i suppose it's fair because the only other time i seem to call my parents is when i've been working on Engineering too long and i need a break. During these calls my mom says, "Wow! you sound miserable, have you been working on engin?" So i now look at my life like a sine wave - after intoxication, buffy, or a compliment on my new jacket, I'm near the peak of a curve, and while doing, thinking about, or talking about engineering, i'm at the bottom. To give you a little more perspective on just how much i hate engin in my life: PMS, cleaning the bathrooms, or missetting my alarm for PM instead of AM are all pretty close to the top of the curve as well.

I have Some special shoutouts: (I can do that cause i'm gheto with a capital G and from the west-SI-EED)
Jen Rosenbaum will be spending next year teaching 9-12 graders math in the bay area. I assume she will be well-liked and avoid getting stuffed in a locker - but she is very small, and if there were lockers around even i might be tempted

Abrafool Young just finished his creative Writing capstone. that's amazing, I'm jealous, he's a very talented superstar.

Eugene Letuchy just became an American Citizen - i guess that's good, though there's something sexy about the russian identity that probably coulda gotten him a lot of chicks when he stops hanging around a CS department.

2004-04-09T13:24:00.000-04:00

Don't worry, i looked up the Latin, Greek, and techie roots of the word "blog" and apparently there is nothing in the word's meaning that implies "daily." So for those of you who have already claimed that I'm falling behind on my blogging duties, i hereby assert that I am free to post as the mood strikes, and not (as some of you over-acheivers do) everyday.

Mr j., who was the first person to introduce me to the concept of blogs sent me a helpful blogging hint yesterday. He said something like "Leah beautiful," (i don't know if he really said that, but he might have, cause he talks that way, cause he's mr. j) "You need to either decide to capitalize, or not, and stick with it." I took it to heart, and then after writing the first paragraph today, i realized that i had totally ignored his advice, and capitalized according to some crazy random distribution. I started to edit, changing all the "I"s to "i"s, and demoted "Don't" to "dont," (i chose lower case 'cause that's how Emily Crespin writes, and she's pretty cute) and then decided that if i spend time editing, it should be the content; because what journal wouldn't be that much more interesting without a few revisions? If i'd had that freedom in my past hard copy journals, i could really improve the story of my life. I would never gotten stood up by Brian B. in 10th grade (and wouldn't have asked him out in the first place), would never have dumped Charlie K. in 11th grade (because people teased me about dating a freshman), and certainly wouldn't have read the Sound and the Fury without any forum for explanation and discussion. (How many Quentins can one novel have?)

Yesterday at the counter in Meeting Street cafe, i was approached by this guy. I was plesantly surprised and thought "wow, this is brown, guys don't just approach girls." And then he said, "Who is that guy you're sitting with, is he single?" and then i thought, "Duh, this is brown, of course guys don't approach girls."

2004-04-07T14:16:00.000-04:00

Because i don't see myself becoming a famous radio DJ in the near future, i have accepted this forum for spewing the nonesess that is generated in my head. I was about to write that i don't care whether or not the things i write get read, and that, in all honesty i just want some public motivation for keeping track of the things that deserve to be preserved - but that would've been a big lie. I want many many people to read this, and as a result think i'm clever and interesting, want to be my friend, and even potentially abandon their current faith to instead join the Church of Leah. To those I have mocked for thier blogging, this first entry can be seen as a (sheepish and) public apoology. You're all (both) right. I was just jealous.