Tuesday, March 30, 2010

the part you didn't need to say

i have this dvd i have been thinking about watching and it says on the back that the special features include 'the making of you didn't see on tv.' so basically they just revealed that this movie, which i hadn't heard much about, went direct to tv. is that really a way to sell more copies?

Monday, March 29, 2010

best worst dinner

orange juice, diet soda, nachos, and chocolate cake.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

no ice cream

i would like to thank myself, circa 2001, for acquiring around a dozen yo la tengo albums while the monthly fee covered unlimited mp3 downloads. thanks indeed past self, whose musical taste was somewhat different than mine today, for going out on a limb and assuming there was something to pay attention to in this band you couldn't understand. i'm not sure how many other rock music downloads you even tried at the time, and so your forward thinking on this matter is all the more impressive. i would take you out for an ice cream, but obviously the temporal challenge is significant. having recently purchased a watch, however, i am one step closer to covering the gap.

read

i had a reading last night, so of course i had to write something new. or not exactly new, but re-visit something old. it's interesting actually to look back at work from a long time before. this particular story was one i wrote during the summer but had not finished. so i took the premise, the characters, and began writing new material that came before it. eventually i kept about two or three paragraphs of the original and they were sort of sandwiched between everything else.
i covered territory: relationships; contemporary music; fantasy sports that i normally avoid, which was a nice diversion. i had wanted to read something that i could essentially scream, which i felt like i did successfully. there were a few places where i slowed down for emphasis, but i read a short piece and read it emphatically and quickly. of course, now i can't envision enjoying any other way of reading publicly. that's just going to have me struggling to figure out a way to be excited about reading something methodical and dull.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

i bought a watch today

i've been using my phone as a watch for years, even though the current cheap phone doesn't even display the time in sleep mode. as freedom from watches seems to have become a lifestyle choice, i have still thought of them as decent accessories. the problem, of course, is finding one that is worth owning. i used to love a certain modern-leaning brand sold by a japanese company better known for their conservative, underwhelming designs. i bought two of their watches, both cleverly designed, equally horrid in durability. the one would work only if i didn't carry it anywhere; the jostling of being strapped to my wrist would render it incapable of telling time. they were digital, with reverse grey-on-black readouts. they were definitely my favorite watches i have ever owned, working for only a brief stretch but so perfectly in line with my aesthetic sensibility at the time. after the second one proved equally poor in durability, i had to break the habit. even though i was purchasing them at the factory outlet at a shockingly low price, it was over. i was given a digital and an analog watch a few years later, both of which are now out of commission. the analog had a shockingly loud tick, which probably hastened the reality of its drained battery. i lost the last digital watch i had about a year and a half ago, and i do wish it was still around. once i had entered the mobile phone timetelling era, i used to carry watches in an unusual fashion; each of these two were attached to a particular bag. they served me well while they lasted.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

West coast bias

it's a little strange to me that i am at grad school and it's not out west somewhere. i applied to one school in what could accurately be described as a western state, despite the fact that i have been interested in heading west for some time. unfortunately for me and my non-western life, there is a ten-year mission reunion that i'll almost definitely miss. it's in the 'tah of course.

i first heard about this five days ago, or something like that. it's in two weeks. i think the problem is that my parents moved and the email address i was giving out ten years ago is lying dormant thanks to the annoying policies of a large software corporation and mmy reluctance to renew it after all my data had been deleted.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

five things i would like

a larger refrigerator
the tigers hat i lost a few years ago
my newest shoes to fit better
a hat that isn't pre-faded
a drink of water

Monday, March 15, 2010

not the route i wanted

i was going to make this whole joke about how the easy thing to do if you are unsmart and wish to make yourself ill is to eat nothing but donuts and go to sleep late. unfortunately, i can't remember eating much of anything today although there was some cake and chips and other chips with queso dip and then another slice of cake that my roommate ate.

but i supposie on some subconscious level, i programmed myself to avoid nutrition and sleep, and thus i am stuck here wondering how to salvage my week. i struggle at times to process the exact sequence of how these events come to pass, but in this case i have figured some things out.

first, don't shout through a closed door at midnight about french electronic artists. second, be sure not to add all the liquid ingredients to your german chocolate cake filling mixture first, and certainly not without checking how think the stuff is. i suppose we had better pick up the pace here, as it continues to get later. don't cook wearing a white shirt. don't drop german chocolate cake filling on your phone. don't let your roommate that lost three hours of sleep to your french band shouting near the last piece of cake. don't forget to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the same day. don't wink at people on the subway. don't listen to your own humorously bad advice, even subconsciously. lesson learned.

Thursday, March 04, 2010

roommate recipes return

food isn't always about what's desirable so much as what is available. consider the following items:

squash
mushroom soup
cheese

while inevitably the combination of these came because of necessity, their keeping company in the same dish is remarkable. one brave adventurer chose to walk that path. the squash became the bowl. the soup filled the squash, hiding beneath the cheese.

other adventures beckon.

then melting is inevitable

drop. fallen bead and a collision. spreading slowly filling out to all corners at once. i can't picture the depths to which all of these droplets have sunk. sinking or tumbling. lost. ignorant of who isn't who they are.

Monday, March 01, 2010

shared a smile

what better way to celebrate share a smile day than balloons. plus a white elephant. plus a cake. plus cookies. plus ridiculous white elephant shopping. plus aluminum cookware browsing. plus my roommate making fun of my share a smile day music choice. technically, he was absolutely right. it doesn't matter if jennifer o'connor makes me smile despite the somber tone of many of her songs, because the music wasn't making him smile.

i didn't have a lot of smile-sharing music queued up, but i did what i could.