Does anyone else get sleepy when they have to go Christmas shopping? Something about watching random people buying copies of The Simpsons movie to put in their kids' stockings and yuppies at the Apple store buying 5 nanos at one time makes me want to go back to bed. So now I am blogging and drinking a McDonald's iced coffee to stay awake. After Aaron's biscuits finish baking, we will probably finish watching Tristram Shandy. Winter couch cuddling is great.

This past weekend we went to Austin and stayed with my sister, and then drove down to New Ulm where Elissa's mom's house is. It was a pretty awesome weekend. We took the backseat out of the Element for the first time, and were able to fit the futon mattress, and Dwight's crate, and all our bags for the weekend pretty easily. Seriously, it's the coolest car ever.
My sister's apt is cozy in a riff-raff, college way, which is one of the best cozies there are. I miss fitting all my stuff in a 15 x 15 space. It adds challenge and character to living.


Elissa's mom's house is in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of land surrounding, and I felt like I was in a country music video. We got there around sunset, and went walking with Elissa, Aaron B., and of course Dwight, down the huge expanse of open space behind the house, complete with two rows of hay bales and a lone tree. Dwight got a kick out of running way far out and then jackrabitting back when we called him, I think. Once we got him home, he slept for basically two days straight, only stopping to eat and take walks. It was a preview of how he will be when he is an old man dog.



Totally off topic, but I'm watching John Mayer is on Austin City Limits right now, and his tryptich tattoo is showing a bit. It makes me want to get tattooed.

Dwight is sleeping upstairs with us tonight, we are bedding down on the extra futon mattress we kept for just such an occasion when we gave away our futon frame on Craigslist. It feels like a campout. (Typically Dwight sleeps in his crate downstairs, and wears one of my hoodies that I modified for him when winter came and it got freaking cold downstairs.)
It reminds me of last winter, when we had just gotten him...we were potty training him, and so would have to get him to go outside every two hours or so in 30 degree weather, and leave him until he went potty. He was also fairly sick for most of that time, so he would stand out there with his tail between his legs, hacking a lung out before he would go. It was very sad. Needless to say, he was potty trained in no time!

I got my rebate from cingular today, and am very excited contemplating what I shall spend some of it on, before I have to relinquish the rest to grocery money. It will probably end up being a book or something, but the funnest part is deciding.

Two more weeks of school, and then Austin, where I will get to see Elissa and Aaron B.! and stay at my sister's new apartment. Exciting. Very.

Anyways, I am wearing lightning bolt earrings that my sister very kindly gave me from her collection because I asked for them, and am about to go read a little before sleeping. Have a bueno night!

These days, I feel like one big potbelly. Last night it was made up of fruit loops and ramen, and tonight it is made up of equal parts canned peaches, cheesy grits, and part of Aaron's tuna melt that he made at 4:30 in the morning and let me share a little of. What are we doing up at this hour? well, I promised myself I wouldn't go to sleep till I finished today's (yesterday's) studying, but you can only stay up so late before today's studying starts infringing on tomorrow's studying, whether you actually go to sleep or not. Does that make sense? Ehn. Neither does the male pelvic organs and perineum. Which is what I'm studying now. You would think it would be pretty useful sexually for a girl to know these things. But it doesn't. If anything, it is the opposite, as everytime I see a guy now, my mind flashes back to cutting a penis in half or de-skinning a scrotum. Ewww. Say it with me.

I have been having serious puppy fever, again, and thus, am annoying Dwight a lot more, especially while he is sleeping, to ask him for more attention! I began wondering today whether this recent obsession with dogs is due to a misplaced maternal instinct. I hope it continues to be "mis"placed until I can get over the sick, claustrophobic feeling the idea of kids gives me.
I am very soon going to use this website (www.strapworks.com) (too tired to look up how to link) to make a Dwight a white collar with candy apple red metal parts, and a matching leash. Can you believe this website? It is so specific--nylon webbing, metal O-rings, etc. Everything you need to make yourself any sort of strap/collar/leash/belt known to mankind. If you end up wanting to order something from there, I will hopefully soon have the 10% off hookup. I am so tempted to Order Now! though, seeing as 10% off will equal about a dollar. If not less.
In any case, we've been looking for a white collar ever since we got Dwight, and still haven't come across one.

Aaron just figured out that some dude has favorited one of my pics on the flickr site, which would be quite flattering, except that when you look at his pictures and his other favorites, you find out it's some 50 year old guy whose favorites are all girls in shorts or skirts. Yeah. That photo (me in crappy clothes hoeing the lawn to be seeded with grass) has 48 views. Which is quadruple the amount of views any other photo on my little-traveled flickr page has ever gotten. Sick, right? One of his other photos features what looks like an 11 year old girl with her back to the camera, in shorts. (He likes to take pictures of people unawares)

Ok, I am starting to feel nauseous. Bedtime.

lately: kitteh hideaway, ant massacre, meeting stray dogs, mushroom chair, guitar hero

Aaron describes the first two better than I could ever hope to on his blog.
Basically, I came up with the idea of making a shelter for the stray cat that we feed, because I found myself lying awake at night thinking about how cold it was going to get. But it had to be really well hidden because our HOA lady is really strict. Luckily, in the last couple of months, our neighbors have started putting out potted plants by their doors. Like, really ugly things, in my opinion--large clay pots that are faux-fancy. But! it gave me the idea to camouflage the hideout as a large potted plant, by having a false bottom to the pot. The finished result can be seen on the flickr site. Now we just have to wait and see whether the cat uses it or not.

Oh, and we massacred some ants with Terro traps. There are corpses floating in the liquid poison, still. We leave it as a warning to the others.

The stray dogs we met looked like dingos, and were hanging out in a Carnival grocery store parking lot near the condo. I sent Aaron into Carnival to buy some cans of dog food and the dollar store next to it for some leashes to capture them with. (Does this remind you of our kitten pervert days, Lis? As you can see, I am expanding my repertoire to dogs.)
We did manage to get one of them, but then it threw a fit. It was insane how crazy that dog got. And it broke the leash. And then this Hispanic family walked out of the store and to a house on the same street, and the dogs followed them to the house. So I walked over to the house and asked if the dogs were theirs, but they said the dogs were "calle" dogs. Which I don't know if I believe. But anyway, we left them because 1) we couldn't catch them 2) I had no idea what to do with them after I caught them 3) maybe they were being fed pretty regularly by that family, because they looked really healthy.

We got the mushroom chair from craigslist and it is officially the most cozy nap chair ever. I think it looks like a mushroom, Aaron thinks it looks like a bird's nest...it's also sort of an eyesore, but makes up for it with cozy-ness. My idea of a perfect day is curling up on it, with Dwight (on a non-anal-gland-juice day) and reading a book. And it's raining outside.

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Guess what my favorite part of this preview is! Ze puppeh that turns into a badass german shepherd. A boy's idea of comaraderie is war. Mine is surviving apocalypse with a dog at my side.

Or writing a book at a deserted farmhouse with a pack of wild dogs to roam with, which is what Thomas Harris did while writing Red Dragon...

"In the fall of 1979, I returned home to the Mississippi Delta and remained there eighteen months. I was working on Red Dragon. My neighbor...kindly gave me the use of a shotgun house in the center of a vast cotton field, and there I worked....Sometimes at night I would leave the lights on in my little house and walk across the flat fields. When I looked back from a distance, the house looked like a boat at sea, and all around me the vast Delta night.
I soon became acquainted with the semi-feral dogs who roamed free across the fields in what was more or less a pack. Some of them had casual arrangements with the families of farm workers, but much of the time they had to forage for themselves. In the hard winter months with the ground frozen and dry, I started giving them dog food and soon they were going through fifty pounds of dog food a week. They followed me around, and they were a lot of company--tall dogs, short ones, relatively friendly dogs and big rough ones you could not touch. They walked with me in the fields at night and when I couldn't see them, I could hear them all around me, breathing and snuffling along in the dark. When I was working in the cabin, they waited on the front porch, and when the moon was full they would sing."
from "Foreward to a Fatal Interview" Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris

Lately, I have been totally obsessed with cuteoverload.com. I was going to make some self-deprecating comment here, but you know what? If Jason Schwartzman (who is undeniably, a dude) can like it, so can I.
Really, try it out. Soon, you too will be obsessed. In fact, I envy you. Because as of now, you have not even begun to delve into the many many pages of archives of cuteoverload, and I am almost halfway done with them, and after I am done, I will only have the daily uploads to look forward to.

Lately, I have been making a lot of meals at home with Aaron. Really eccentric meals, like pancakes and tuna fish sandwiches. And then we make them twice in a row, for lunch and dinner, because they are so good they need to be repeated. It's all because of Bisquick, the all purpose baking stuff. I first got it because someone gave us a waffle maker for the wedding, and then realized it can be used for so many things--baked chicken, biscuits, waffles, pancakes. So simple! So easy!

Ok, cuteoverload has totally invaded my brain. There's this whole language that the girl who runs the site uses--and the rhythm has invaded my thinking and everything I write sounds like her!

Soft kronsche to you, my friends!

Ack! I just found out a friend might be moving to Dallas soon! I don't make friends easily so I just have to wait till ones from the past reappear in whatever city I live in.

Here is a video of Dwight being scared of a statue. There are certain things that are uncanny to all species--terra cotta statues of little old men that are just slightly shorter than a normal human is one of them, disembodied legs coming in and out of the wall of a strip club on Bourbon St. is another (but that's another story).

Me and Aaron just discovered something really bizarre. Do this experiment if you have a laptop and have someone handy who is willing to touch your bare skin. lol.
Sit on the couch with your laptop resting on your bare legs. After a minute or so, have someone touch the skin on your arm with the backs of their fingers. Do they feel a fuzzy static electric charge on your skin? It was so wierd. Aaron just happened to touch my arm while I was on the computer and started freaking out about electricity passing through the computer to my body. If you're the one holding the computer, you can also touch the skin on the other person's arm with the backs of your fingers and feel the static on their skin too.
I wonder if this works with all laptops, or only certain ones. The laptop I was using when this happened was Aaron's powerbook, which is metal. It might not happen with plastic ones. I will try it sometime with my macbook and let you know.
Seriously, if I become telekinetic or something, I'm blaming it on Apple.

I took my anatomy lab test on Friday. It was hell. I couldn't figure out which door to use to get into the lab, so I was late and everyone laughed when I got in. Like, literally, it was that nightmaric moment in dreams where you're standing in a brightly lit room full of people all laughing at you, and their laughs echo forever in your head. It didn't help that right before the test I couldn't find my clipboard so I ended up taking this random wooden board I had sitting around the house. And then the test itself was hell. In elementary school, I could never understand how some people could have problems with spelling tests. I was always really good at spelling, and so really loved these tests because they were fun challenges that I knew I could do well at. And so when I would see a kid (all flustered, of course) turn in his spelling paper all wrinkled from the excessive erasing, with maybe even a couple of wrinkled holes caused by the sharp metal edge of an almost-finished eraser on the end of their pencil, it just never made any sense to me. Most likely, this was also the kid whose parents were going through a divorce, and so they also come to school with the suckiest lunches and ragged, dirty clothes, and just generally have a really bad time of it. Well, that was me on Friday. I was wearing some jeans and one of Aaron's undershirts because I figured I'd just have to change into scrubs for the test anyway, and then when I got to school, I realized I had left my pencil in the car and in a panic, just took one from the desk of the girl who sits next to me, who wasn't taking her test till later.
And then after the terrible test, I went back to the carrels to change back into my crappy outfit (I was not even wearing a bra...and Aaron tells me that the undershirt I decided to wear was so old it was almost transparent and the collar was all ragged because Aaron has a tendency of chewing on the edges of fabric.), and then this guy in my carrel wanted to thank me for a cd I made him, and so I had to talk to him a little bit, and this girl that was sitting there next to him also, who was just a little too smug about obviously doing well on her test. I mean, basically, this girl was me in elementary school. And I had become sad little latchkey kid. Anyways, as I was talking to them I did try to cover my front with my makeshift clipboard. Which I don't know if that made it any better, or just made me look more hilariously ridiculous and pathetic.

After the test, I took a really great bath to try to make myself forget that I'm a failure. It worked, to some extent. Then, me and Aaron went to the Hilton to cash in the free dinner our really nice neighbor who works there as a night manager got us for letting him use our internet for like, two days. It ended up being really fun, but sorta awkward because the food was so expensive I was embarassed to order. The waiter talked me into having a lobster tail with my steak, too. He was like, "You're not paying for it, anyways, right?"
So we got about an $80 meal for just the cost of a tip.

Finally, I have been obsessed with Guitar Hero ever since I went to Best Buy and this little kid challenged me to a game of it. It was really fun. So the next time I have $70 to blow for the game and two controllers, I'm going to get it.

Gogol Bordello is coming to Dallas!!! I can die happy. After another 5 Killers concerts, that is.

Today I bought a serial bowl (get it? get it??) with Jeffrey Dahmer's face at the bottom of it. There were three others featuring Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy, and David Berkowitz. The guy who checked me out said, "So what made you choose him and not the others?" And I had to say, "He was the most attractive one."

Actually, it was also because Aaron had just shown me Jeffrey Dahmer's wikipedia page a couple days ago, which said one of his victims who was 14 years old escaped from his house naked and was brought back by the police, who left the kid with him after Dahmer said they were lovers, and had drank too much...And my sister just recently compared me to Jeffrey Dahmer.
So I basically had him on the mind. But it was too long of a story to explain to the checkout guy so now he just thinks I'm attracted to cannibals.

Tonight around midnight the dog next door, Jammer (a black lab mix) was barking up a storm in the backyard, causing Dwight to freak out and bark back, so we took Dwight out to tire him out. We walked him over to the pool, and took his tire toy for him to fetch. (he fetches but doesn't like to give it back. He likes to take it to an out of the place area and leave it there for safekeeping.)
So anyways, we ended up getting him to carry his own toy home. Which was awesomely cute! Here's a video of it.



On a related note, me and Aaron rented some Cesar Milan on our Blockbuster queue. It's definitely helping us teach Dwight to heel.

Also, nicest compliment ever: "You look really cute today. Do you want a flower to go with your dress?" (while walking into the grocery store)

My sister quit her blog, and now some wierdo has taken over the URL. Go read it...it's ultra strange.
Who would be friends with this guy?!

Here it is.

With the recent advent of my obsession with my new cd player (yellow and as small as possible for a cd player, the perfect replacement for the ipod, which is now one of my most hated enemies...or apple is, at least), I have been thinking about something I read somewhere...that Americans have replaced individualism with consumerism--we've confused being an individual with buying things that we think show us as an individual.
And although I don't know if this theory really relates to, say, my mom, or your mom, I really think it defines a certain subset of people under the age of 25.

Something that relates to this, is that I've had multiple conversations with Aaron about how "our generation" doesn't seem to buy into the 9-5 bullshit that a lot of our parents did. After all, what did the 9-5 ever do to benefit the lives of our parents? A couple extra bucks, and a wasteland of all the hours they wasted away from the people they enjoyed, and the things they found interesting. Of course, this is coming from a fairly spoiled view of having enough money, or the knowledge of having enough ability to obtain money to live without putting 100% behind it.
These conversations were always self-congratulatory, and I really felt like a lot of the people I know have transcended the false belief that life must be 80% work, whatever's left is time to sleep, eat, and watch a bit of tv.
But today, when I was thinking about how awesome it would be to take a year off and actually come up with a novel that someone thought was worth something, or at least that I thought was worth something, or whatever--some accomplishment, I simultaneously thought how unlikely any of it was.
And that brought me to thinking about how a lot of people that have graduated with college degrees lately have just ended up doing random retail jobs (the same 9-5, though perhaps without the single-minded intensity that I saw my parents do it with) and trying to define themselves as individuals by "buying into" the newest indie band, the newest intellectual movie, or...a yellow cd player that makes everyday life feel different, even if just for a little while.
And it occurred to me how pointless it all was--our parents bought into the 9-5, believed that if they succeeded at that, it would make them successful at life. We (or some of us) don't. But what do we buy into? Do we believe in anything with as much intensity as all that? I don't think so...and I think we fill that void of belief and hope by trying to make ourselves into someone we can respect by defining ourselves through consumerism, veiled in some sort of feigned artistic sensibility.
Or maybe that's just how I am, and I'm making myself feel better by creating some companions in consumerism.

That said, I'm going to the Killers concert next week and you better respect my individualism for realizing the genius of Brandon Flowers.

My new favorite girl: chloe sevigny. Especially in Boys Don't Cry.

What has really been bothering me lately is this prejudice that certain people (usually boys) have about girlfriends and esp. wives (oh how i hate that word, it just sounds old and matronly...just like "husband" sounds quite daunting and overbearing), that they ruin guys' fun, prevent them from hanging out with their friends, and are generally ball and chains.
I'd just like to know when this idea came about. 'Cause in my experience, more often than not, it's the guys being ball & chains. I mean, what's the case against women: we ruin poker night?? And usually, it's the guy who's too lazy to go out and see their friends and because he's married, the friends assume it's the girl screwing them over.
And (much more convincingly) the case against men: I've seen countless examples of women giving up their careers, and bodies (pregnancy screws you over!) for their husbands. And you don't see women's friends making "dead woman walking" jokes when someone gets engaged.

I've never seen a guy who's trying to get a higher education degree give it up because "Suzy wants to have kids."

And I'm not saying it's wrong for people to do that, I'm just saying Ease Up on the chauvinistic bull. I don't like being seen as a ball and chain. I'm the same person I was before I got married, and that's not going to change.

Barf.

This is the cat that I own in an alternate universe, in which I am not allergic to cats...and haven't got Dwight.


His name is Warpaint. (in my alternate universe.)
Doesn't he just look like he belongs in my life?

Personality tests are rarely complimentary. This one is no exception. I wonder why I like them so much.

Scale (%) results:

Enneagram Test Results Type 1 Perfectionism |||||||||||| 42% Type 2 Helpfulness |||||||||| 38% Type 3 Image Focus |||||| 26% Type 4 Hypersensitivity |||||||||| 38% Type 5 Detachment |||||||||||||||| 70% Type 6 Anxiety |||||||||||| 46% Type 7 Adventurousness |||||||||||||| 54% Type 8 Aggressiveness |||||||||||| 50% Type 9 Calmness |||||||||||| 42% Your main type is 5 Your variant is self pres

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Main Type	Overall Self

Take Free Enneagram Personality Test

Two articles on MSN today seemed to apply to me almost exactly.
The first, Aaron says, describes the way I act about Dwight perfectly. I think it does too, except I don't have an asshole husband who hates dogs and thinks it's only okay to spay girl dogs and not to neuter boy dogs (GRRR!) because of his own misplaced masculinity. It also addresses the --will I love my kids as much as my dog-- question (which I thought only I was crazy enough to think).
The second article is about this new game on Nintendo DS that Japan has made to help people refine their smiles and make them more natural looking. My entire life, I've been looking for this game! I've always thought that my facial expressions seem unnatural and I walk around quite stoic most of the time. I think it's a very Asian thing to not be in the habit of showing very much emotion, despite feeling a normal range. There've been lots of times when I've been feeling just fine and other people ask me if I'm alright since I look quite suicidal.
I think it's also a very Asian thing to want to --practice and get better!!-- at showing emotion, so as to assimilate better into Western culture. How strange.

I have used a lot of random dashes, etc. in this post to try to explain what I mean...I don't know if they work, or whether they are just confusing and wierd.

The past three days have been really fun!

1. I won an ebay auction for the new Harry Potter book, so I finally get to read it! It was only $10. Also, I found an instructable that teaches you how to make a magic wand, so I'm doing that as I read the book, too. Instead of a dragon heartstring core, I have an Aaron-hair core in my wand.
2. Me and Aaron have gone on a chinese food kick, so I am learning to make all sorts of things I used to eat as a kid. We went to the grocery store to buy cabbage and ground pork to make dumplings (urg I hate that word) with, and we both realized we didn't know what a raw cabbage looked like. Ridiculous, right?
3. While taking Dwight on a walk, we found a red eared slider turtle, and had to go down to the creek in the dark to release it.

I am dreading school. I guess it's only fair since I looked forward to it so much from K-12-college. A person can only have so much of their share of good school days. I am making up for it all now. For every inch of misery that I didn't feel on the last day of summer in my first 22 years of life, I am feeling it now.
Though there may be a trip to Graceland before the summer is entirely over...though part of me just wants to lounge with my boy and my dog for as long as possible.

I got my ears pierced! It felt like it was meant to be because as I was sitting there waiting for the needle, they were playing Rancid over the speakers. I feel like I've regressed to about 5 yrs old, as I'm now obsessed with all sorts of cute earrings.

I've been worrying lately that when I have kids, they won't be as loveable as Dwight. It would be very sad not to love your own kids as much as you love a dog. But I really worry about it. Because animals are inherently better than people. And though I hope to not feel so cynical about my own kids, I worry that I will.

That said, Dwight was very bad today. Me and Aaron took him to White Rock Lake and he got so excited about the swing set that he broke out of his collar and then ran away to start chasing some bikes. We chased him and got him back, but it was quite embarassing. Now we have to get him a metal buckle collar that he can't break out of, and then I'm going to take him back to the park for some flooding therapy (make him look at bikes and swings till he doesn't care anymore).

Ew, sick, I just caught a mosquito out of thin air (one of my many talents) and it pooped mosquito eggs out onto my hand.

I am one of those insecure pet owners...if there are others out there, that is. "Dwighter-babies, I love you! Do you love me??" is a sentence that can be heard quite often here, sometimes multiple times a day. And really, I'd feel a lot better about myself if Dwight could answer out loud in human talk. I am a big fan of reassurance.

I went to the Social Security office today, and changed my name. It was super easy, and the wierd thing is, they have a policy where they will only give you 3 replacement cards a year and only 10 in a lifetime. So technically, I could change my name 9 more times in my lifetime, twice of those times before next year. I wonder if anyone ever gets up to that limit. Other than losing the card and having to get it replaced, that is...

So next week, driver's license and passport. And then bank accounts, which will be less fun. I hate banks, and I hate dealing with money. Unless it's a paycheck, and then I want to hold that shit in my hand. No direct deposit here. But seriously, I don't know how people handle money markets and bonds, and all that stuff. It's the immigrant in me, I guess--as a first-generation American, the extent of my knowledge revolves around checking and savings accounts, as my parents did not have a stock broker or financial consultant. I guess that's something I'll have to acquire in my lifetime so my second-generation kids can be good Middle-Class Americans.

I currently feel very cynical, as I have just finished watching Arlington Rd with Aaron. I knew sometime near the end that something frustrating was going to happen in the end of the movie, and I was right. Damn that Tim Robbins who always plays a creepy freakshow.
Other movies I'm looking forward to seeing all have to do with kids: Joshua, Rocket Science, and This is England. And maybe Charlie Bartlett.

Dwight is falling asleep with his nose pressed up against my foot right now. I guess that's reassurance enough.

We've been having a fly problem. It started yesterday. I made Aaron go after them all with a magazine--I pointed them out, and he would go after them. It was like having a mercenary. A lot of the flies like to convene on the back door, because it's sort of like a huge window, and I guess they are attracted to the light. We spent so much time hovered by the backdoor with a rolled up magazine spearing at the cracks between the blinds that last night, Dwight started standing by the back door thumping at flies with his nose. So today, we got one of those tennis racket-shaped bug zappers, and it's been quite satisfying massacreing those dirt worshipping heathens. (We've also been watching Deadwood.)

Hmm...if you've been wondering, I have felt a great lack of creativity lately, and no flow in my writing. So I've been blogging less. Too much tv watching, I guess. And by TV I mean HBO miniseries that we get on DVD from Blockbuster. We've gone through Big Love and Entourage, and now we're working on Deadwood. I think Deadwood is my favorite by far, but each created it's own little obsession for a while.

The marriage license got here yesterday! So now we can go through the tedious process of figuring out how to change my name on all of the random paperwork that exists in my life. I guess the first step is driver's license and social security card. Also passport for our trip to Taiwan in December. But what about credit cards, bank accounts and school? I have a bad feeling that I'm going to need to be thorough or something's going to happen like getting my med degree in my maiden name and by that time, no one will believe it's me. But wherever possible, I'm going to try to get them to include Tseng as my middle name. It's not quite fair, I think, that white girls' changing their names for marriage is not quite as drastic as all this--at least their last name keeps their race. Oh, unless they marry an Asian guy or Nigerian guy or something...

On the subject of marriage, we got a bed! It was very exciting going to Ikea and dropping a whole wad of money and getting all the different components of a bed--frame, mattress, and we even got a mattress topper! We decided to go mod and get everything white. So now we have a white bed frame, white sheets, etc. Also, we got a really cool gift card to West Elm (somebody tried to buy us some class...lol) and we got a white coffee table to go upstairs and hold a TV. Since we have two now, we put one upstairs. But it's only for video games and DVD watching.
Eek! I love my new room.

Other things: I might try to get a job tutoring a few hours a week, the kitten found a (I think) good new home, and Aaron is almost entirely moved out from his previous residence.

With the wedding coming up and all, I've been trying to not scar or bruise myself anywhere that will be visible with the dress that I am wearing. This is more difficult than I thought it would be, and I have had a lot of near misses. We have to go swimming only after dark because I tan so easily, and just two nights ago at Blockbuster I whacked myself on the forehead with the car door, and it swelled up with a little cut. But it's barely noticeable...really.

I had some really wierd dreams also two nights ago, one was about getting ready to die, and another was that my jaw popped one too many times and I had to get half of my jaw removed. Both of the dreams had the overall theme of saying goodbye--one to my life, and one to my face. It was wierd.

The other day I went with Aaron to get his oil changed and while we were waiting, we walked down the street to a record store and I discovered The Cribs. I am listening to them right now, and they are very good.

What else...I went to Shiseido and got some makeup, and me and Aaron have been prematurely wearing our wedding rings wherever we go.

Dwight is doing well, over the weekend he must've eaten something bad, so he was throwing up and diarrhea-ing all over the place, but he's better now. I ended up just throwing out the futon pad because it was just too gross and we'll be getting a new couch soon anyways.

Also, we found a kitten, for whom we are trying to find a good home. If you are interested, here is the Craigslist post:
http://dallas.craigslist.org/pet/356592964.html

Segue. Awry. Words that I spoke without knowing how to spell them and read without knowing how to pronounce them. In my head, I pronounced them "aw-ree" and "seeg". And I thought when I spoke it that segway was spelled that way.
I call them word doppelgangers. Do you have any?

The wedding's coming up soon, and I realized long ago that I want to be married, not get married. I just want to get it over with so I can get on with my life. Grrr... What doesn't make it any better is people seem to think girls revel in this stuff--"oh, what tiara shall I wear? How exciting!"
At least Aaron is slogging through it with me. If I have to make one more miniscule decision that means absolutely nothing I will hurt myself. Mentally.

Have just finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife, which was good, but sad. Very odd, it changed my perception of reality while I read it. But not to mislead you, it wasn't that great, more like a Nicholas Sparks novel + H.G. Wells or something. (It's the Nicholas Sparks part that sucks.)

Oh, here's something funny and embarassing: I took some clothes to Buffalo Exchange and they refused to take any of it. It's like being told, "nope, sorry, you just don't dress cool enough for us."
Granted, they were like 7 year old clothes bc I can't stand to get rid of anything till they're absolutely useless.

I think 4 more invitations to go? I have made so many midnight trips to the post office these past two weeks.
Also, going to Austin for a day this weekend to look at bridesmaid dresses with my sister and Elissa. I can't decide whether to go with Aaron and thus, bring Dwight to Barton Creek (which has always been quite a dream of mine, bringing my dog to Barton Creek to play with all the other dogs) or just to drive myself.
The thing is, Dwight is afraid of bicycles and water. Hmm...now that I put it that way, why would i bring him to BC?

I made a 90 on my Human Behavior Final. That might be one of three classes I don't have to take over next year. Urg.

I've been trying to find some odd jobs lately. There are a few purchases that I can't quite justify using "real" money on, so I'm trying to scrounge up some money on the side, which doesn't seem to count as much, so I can make those purchases. For example, at Edgefest, when I wasn't swooning over Brandon Flowers, my eyes were trained to the ground, looking for those $20 bills on the ground that Rachel assures me exist. I figured, where better than a rock concert full of drunk, rich yuppies who think they are hardcore?? But alas, no luck.
I have also signed up (with a fake email account) to one of those survey taking websites. Trust me, those don't work unless you are willing to sell your identity.
Finally, there is this News Blogging site that I found on Craigslist that seems fairly legit. I sent them a writing sample just now, and judging from the quality (or lack thereof) of the rest of the articles I've seen on the site, I'll soon be writing for the website. But at an average of 25 cents an article, I will have to write quite a few articles before I can do anything with the money I make. But I don't mind, because I just got to sit here and write something, and it made me feel like a useful human being again. And...every little bit counts.
Oh and Aaron sent in a writing sample too. He wrote on 28 Weeks Later and I wrote on the "California Healthy Pets Act." If you haven't heard of it, look it up. It sucks.

I got some apple flavored bubble bath today. It smells delicious.
(And this was an approved purchase...imagine how frivolous my not-approved purchases must be!)

Pics added on Flickr, finally.

Wedding invites printed and sealed...just collecting addresses now.

I've procrastinated writing bc there's a lot of things I want to mention but didn't feel like I had the energy to describe them as well as they deserved. I still don't but if I wait any longer, it will feel wierd to blog about them.

So, in order from most recent to least recent:

--We sent Dwight to the SPCA to get neutered today. I was a little worried about sending him to a shelter to get neutered (I kept getting flashbacks of that scene in dirty dancing when Patrick Swayze's ex girlfriend gets an abortion from a traveling doctor who uses a dirty knife...), but we are all out of funds due to his other vet visits. Anyways, it turned out fine, and the people there were way nicer than most of the vets I've been to. He's back now sleeping in his crate.

--The Killers were amazing in concert. Brandon Flowers is 20% matador, 20% magician. I am totally in love, one of those infatuations that makes me never want to actually meet him in person, bc there's no way he would ever live up to the image. And I think he knows that, and uses it to his advantage, because in concert, he says very little in the way of normal conversational things that lead singers typically say...like, "Dallas, you are awesome!!" Which, is not only lame, but wholly untrue.
In any case, seeing the killers in concert was everything I'd hoped it would be, and more. Aaron had to let me stand on his toes the whole time, though, bc I was too short to see. I sometimes wonder if he thinks fondly back to the days when he didn't have to do things like that, and could just enjoy concerts without worrying whether someone else can see what's going on.
The rest of Edgefest was just mediocre. Muse just wasn't good enough to distract me from all the crowd surfers threatening to kick me in the head. We also saw the Kaiser Chiefs who Aaron liked, but I didn't especially. And we had to sit through Blue October in order to get a good spot for Muse. I saw a boy who looked hardcore playing an imaginary tambourine to them, and it made me laugh.

--Boston! I rode the subway a lot, a few times by myself, which was cool. I noticed that girls in Boston tend to wear long coats, carry large bags, and use a lot of lip gloss. I think the large bags are to hold entertainment for the subway rides, and the long coats and lip gloss are because of the cold.
Rachel's house will forever be engrained as my mental image of the quintessential Boston house--wood floors, brick, and slightly old-ish with strange linoleum in the kitchen. I was sorta freaked out at night, bc it seemed sorta creepy in the living room, but I got over it, and also quite enjoyed sharing a bed with Rachel!!
Also Rachel and her roomates have an incredibly comfortable chair that they got free from Craigslist that I am totally jealous of.
As for the convention, I did a lot of studying there, lost and found my computer charger, presented mediocrely (knowing me and my public speaking, it's the best that I could do), and had dinner with some of the other Vampire/Stephen King presenters. I was unsure about the dinner thing, but I ended up enjoying it, and met some nice people--only of whom was an incredibly beautiful scottish girl that was quite intimidating at first but turned out to be nice. I also learned that people from Glasgow are called Glaswegians. I think.
On my last day there, me and Rachel took the train to Salem to see the witch museum and drink coffee and shop a lot. There was a bookstore there that was amazing--stacks of books everywhere, so much so that to check out, you had to slide your book and money through a five-inch opening between stacks of books on the counter, and they would slide your change back through the opening. It was called the Derby Square Book Store, but it's going out of business soon, in a couple of months. There's more about it that makes it amazing, but I will have to wait to write about it later, so as to do it justice.
In any case, I flew home on Easter morning, which was fun bc I got empty rows all to myself both flights back.

I have been trying to set up a Blockbuster online account, but I keep getting an error message! What will I do with all my free time if I do not have a steady supply of rental movies?? Ha, just kidding. But I have been craving to watch Shiloh. Which is ridiculous, I know, but I can't help it.
By the way, Bridge to Terabithia was nowhere as ridiculous as its chronicles-of-narnia preview made it out to be. It actually followed the book quite closely and was pretty good, despite it being a bit heavy on the goody-two-shoes-ish morals.
And Zoey Deschanel (sp?) was in it, which always is a plus.
I also am quite in love with the bond girl from the new bond movie. But I don't think most people would agree, as she is a bit awkward looking sometimes, but that's what I like about her.

Here is a great video of a very cute hamster.

Incidentally, I am feeling quite guilty about not spending enough time with the gerbils.

I leave for Boston on Tuesday! Apparently, it is about 40 degrees there now. Stephen King/Gothic nerds, here I come!!! I am excited about hanging out with people who share interests with me again. And of course, hanging with Rachel!!!!!!!!! who I haven't seen since the summer.

Oh, here is the link to the conference program. I am area chair for my presentation time! Which probably just means I get to announce the others before their presentations, but it sounds pretty cool, right?

This is the funniest five minutes of TV I've ever seen. I remembered it from a few years ago after watching some Frasier tonight and luckily found it on YouTube.



Also, we've taught our dog to fetch!

I got a dog! for all of you who don't know yet...

I got it at a shelter and at the time, he was the epitome of what I didn't want in a dog--a boy, black and white, who might grow up to be big. I don't know what I was looking for exactly, but probably somewhere along the lines of a brindle boxer or pug mix, around 30 lbs, and a girl.
We went to so many shelters, and didn't find any dogs that seemed to click. I thought it would be easy when I first started looking, and that I would immediately find a cute dog that I would fall in love with. But the more I looked, the more every dog started looking the same to me. But then, we ended up going out to Irving, and found this sad, super skinny little dog that when we opened up the gate, he crawled right into my lap and hid his face in the crook of my arm and wouldn't get off when I had to leave.
He's finally gained some weight--up to 20 lbs from 13 when we got him, and is potty trained (pretty much) and knows how to come and sit. I wish I'd taken some pictures of him at the shelter so I would have more of a comparison.
Anyways, we're hoping he doesn't get any bigger than 40 lbs, which seems like it might be possible since he's not too big and he's already 5 months, I think.

Anyways, other news: My ipod is losing charge on its battery, so I'm kicking it old school and going back to walkmans and tapes. I never did like portable cd players much, bc they're too bulky and cds are hard to carry around. Also I was young and impressionable when I listened to walkmans constantly on the bus in middle school, so I like them better.

Also, here's something I've been wanting to write about for a while, but kept forgetting. This summer, when I went to L.A., I had pink streaks in my hair, and visited Aaron on the WB lot, and had lunch with him at the cafeteria there. A few months later, Aaron noticed that a Gilmore Girls episode came out where the girl (the younger one who looks like Rachel) had pink hair. His theory is that since Gilmore Girls films on the lot, one of the writers, or whatever, saw my hair and thought it was cool, so used it in the show. When he first told me that, I was really excited. But now, it's sorta worn off, and it ended up being in just one episode, and so this is really just to document it, because I'm sure in 10 years I won't remember.

I'm having a Sam & Cindy moment from Freaks and Geeks. Remember, she doesn't like The Jerk, and so Sam breaks up with her?
So, Aaron and I were talking about how it's sad when favorite movies seem dated when you watch them now. His example was Heat, and my example was While You Were Sleeping (which I watched every night for a whole summer back in 6th grade.) And I happened to mention Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping. Which prompted Aaron to say, "May the Schwartz be with you!"
And then he went on to say that Spaceballs is the movie that Bill Pullman is most known for.
Which I disagree with.

So he has asked me to post a poll on the blog. (Which is pointless because I pretty much know who reads this blog, and who will answer what...) Besides, no one ever answers blog polls, because settling other people's arguments always seems so banal and useless.

In any case, here's the poll:

Who out there has seen Spaceballs, who liked it, and who thinks that it is the movie that Bill Pullman is most known for? In fact, who out there even knows who Bill Pullman is?
To me, Bill Pullman is most likely known for Independence Day, Mr. Wrong, or While You Were Sleeping.

And just to shock all the boys out there, I don't like Mel Brooks movies a whole lot!

Yesterday, the Hispanic gay man at Chipotle hit on Aaron, right in front of me! I was appalled. And strangely jealous.
So here's how it went down:
About a week ago, Aaron went to go pick up burritos for the both of us, and some guacamole. He came home and told me that the Chipotle guy liked his belt. I didn't think much of it...
Then, last night, as Aaron was paying for his burrito, the guy remembered him. And just to get the picture right, this guy is probably 200 pounds or more, and tall. So the guy was like, "Ooh, that belt, I like it so much!" And Aaron was like, "Thanks" and smiled at him and walked to the soda machine to get his drink. The guy follows him over to the soda machine and stands really close to him (at this point, I'm ordering my burrito bol, and wondering whether I should be uncomfortable at how close this guy is standing to my man.) When I end up at the pay register, the guy lets me stand there for a good minute or so while he finishes saying to my boyfriend "You look good. You should be a model or something."
When we walked out of the door, I caught him checking out Aaron's ass. And I don't blame him, 'cause last night Aaron was wearing some really cute striped boxers.

It's hilarious, but wierd. I'm definitely disturbed.


Ok, updates on things I've said before (after all, we wouldn't want this blog to be like Lost, always setting up loose ends and leaving them)
1. I got a record player, but the one from the church didn't work. Aaron somehow got it to work with some screwdrivers and a christmas light (Don't ask me, he's a genius) But then the capacitor exploded. We went out to Radio Shack and bought a new capacitor and a soldering iron and installed a new one, thinking the old one was just too old, but after working for about 5 minutes, it exploded just like the last one. We're assuming that it was a dud record player, and that's why the church never used it. So if anyone out there knows about circuit boards, we could use some help. I have a circuit map for the player, but no knowledge of how to read it. But for now, I think I've taken it at a loss.
The second record player was also $25, and I got it from a guy who posted it on Craigslist.
2. I passed Cell Bio. (thank heavens)
3. Muse is also going to be at Edgefest, which is cool.
4. I'm on Spring Break. It's amazing. Yesterday, I sat outside in the backyard and read a whole book. It was The Education of Little Tree, which is now my favorite young adult lit. book ever. I remember reading as a kid, and I think it might be what caused all of my Native American self-identification.

I found a record player on ebay for $13.00, with $12 shipping. Some guy in Birmingham found it still wrapped in its original packaging in the basement of his church. So it's sorta like I traveled back in time and bought a brand new one, which is pretty cool.

The Killers are coming to Dallas! They're coming to Edge-fest which is the pretty terrible rock radio station they have here. But The Killers and Gogol Bordello are the two bands I've said I wanted to see before I die, so 1 down, 1 to go.

This weekend, here's what I'm going to do:
1. trip to white rock lake
2. look up record stores so I can buy The Killers album
3. studying for physiology.

And then, the record player's supposed to get here on Tuesday!

So lots of things to look forward to, if only I can get through tomorrow afternoon which is my final cell biology test.

Two days ago I won a white vinyl EP from the radio station.
Now I'm looking for a record player to buy, which I'd been planning to do for a while, but this hurries the process up. The first record I will buy for myself is Sam's Town by The Killers, which is the best album that's come out in a while, in my opinion.

I am battling procrastination and apathy.

Tonight, at a McDonald's parking lot, a man caught me delicately sniffing Aaron's armpit. It really was a natural reaction. Aaron said, "I smell like a wet mongoose." And I said, "Really?"
What can you do after that than see for yourself? But just as I was ascertaining that he did not, indeed, smell like a wet mongoose, he said, "There's a guy in the car next to us."
I looked over, and saw that, the guy was not in the car next to us, he was standing next to the car getting ready to get in the car next to us, when he was distracted by the spectacle going on over in our car. When he saw that I'd caught him looking, he smiled at me with genuine good cheer and got into his car.
I found it pretty hilarious.

We drove to Houston this weekend, and found the place where we're probably going to get married. It's called George Ranch, and it's a historical plantation-ish house, complete with a creepily beautiful cemetary surrounded by oaks with Spanish moss on them. It looks straight out of the movie The Others.

When I woke up this morning, I had lunch with my parents and enjoyed the awesome weather--67 degrees, just cold enough to feel a little chilly, but totally sunny. A park day for sure.
Then, I had to drive back to Dallas, which is no longer as freezing as it was when we left, but still pretty f-ing cold. Poor little stray cats outside freezing their arses off and fighting over dry cat food.

This week I've watched 3 movies with Jennifer Connelly in them, and in all three, the image of her standing at the end of a pier is pivotal to the plot. It was wierd.
The three movies were:
-Requiem for a Dream
-House of Sand and Fog (which I've seen before but wanted to show Aaron, and once we started watching it, I started dreading the end immediately.)
-Dark City (which Aaron has seen before, but I hadn't and I really liked it.)

This weekend, we're driving down to Houston once again.

I'm listening to CYHSY and it makes me want to go on a road trip again.

Flickr.

The roadtrip pics are at the very end.

This weekend:
1. watched Masterpiece Theater's version of Jane Eyre on PBS, which was amazing, and the best version I've seen yet. It's the only one that actually shows some of the sexual tension bt Rochester and Jane Eyre that I've always felt the book conveyed. I'm definitely going to order it when it comes out, even though it's sorta expensive.
2. watched The Descent, which is only the second movie to literally make me cry from fear. And this one did it within the first 30 mins, I think. (The other one was The Ring.) I liked how the scariness wasn't just limited to the cave, but even in the real world, like when the main character is in the hospital and running down the hall.
3. Got a new hoodie, which I plan to wear to pieces.
4. Started reading The Awakening, one of Aaron's books that he had to read for school back in the day. He hated it...I wonder if I will. The beginning is engrossing, at least.

Oh, and, I made a 97 on my Embryology test that I was studying for on Friday night. So it was worth it, but too bad the class is only Pass/Fail so nobody will ever know how well I did on it except you and me. : )

Here I am on a Friday night, studying for another test.
I can't tell you how much I love school. And by love, I mean hate.

This morning I woke up at 8:30, got to school, studied and looked at slides until 1:00 p.m. and then took the Cell Bio test from 1:00 till 5:00. It was physically taxing. For everyone involved, including the testers, who kept having to run back and forth checking people's slide answers. (there was a lab part where we had to identify things on slides.)
I did alright on that part, it's the multiple choice part that scares me. Please God, let me have passed.

Anyways, after tonight, I promise blogs full of fun and action.

This morning I went to the first Human Behaviour/Psychopathology group meeting. I've been looking forward to this class since the beginning of the year as one of the only ones I would have actually voluntarily chosen if I had the choice.
I've already been to the lecture portion of it, which was disappointing, bc of how stereotyped and classified everything was--according to them, there are only three types of families, three levels of people, etc. I'm used to sociological classes being more discussion-based, whereas this was very much a scientific approach to human behaviour--something which I would like to believe is inherently un-scientific.

The prof who is leading my small group is a little old lady who's quite proud of herself for standing up to big, mean psychotic types. She told us lots of stories to show how well her intuition works when it comes to knowing when to be scared of which mental patients.
Also, she had a pharmaceutical rep come in and give us free stuff, which was pretty cool, though the condescending attitude she had towards him was pretty hard to watch.

Is it a coincidence that both of the psychiatrists I have met so far seem pretty conceited and un-self aware? My theory is that they are around deviant types so much that whatever personality flaws they have themselves seem entirely harmless, and therefore they stop trying to fix themselves and only concentrate on fixing others.
It doesn't help that they all become filthy rich anyway.
She has a grandkid going to a private preschool called "creme de la creme."

Anyways, I will enjoy going through my free little reference book of psychiatric disorders. Prepare to be regaled with what disorders I believe I have or am on the verge of having.

Oh, and when the prof was talking about dress code for future meetings, she said, "We are not children anymore, we are professionals," while looking at me. This morning, I had literally rolled out of bed, put on jeans and a hoodie, and drove to school. It's lucky I didn't come wrapped in a blanket.

In other news, after saturday morning, I won't have any tests for a while. What will I do with all the free time?

This week's The Office Episode is online here: http://www.nbc.com/The_Office/
It's amazing, and you should go watch it.

I will pay you a dollar if you watch the whole thing and do not laugh.

Also, I have been watching a lot of Freaks and Geeks lately. Hmmm...what girl can resist Daniel Desario?

Have been clandestinely feeding the stray cats at the condos, only to be rewarded with loud cat sex outside my window at 4 in the morning.
No more milk for the kitties, only straight up kibble. Milk makes them crazy. Crazy horny, that is, apparently.

I wrote my to-do list on my hand today, and got it all done before lunch.

This weekend, me and Aaron are journeying once again to Houston to look at a wedding place near Galveston.

Our last adventurous hamster died yesterday. It was quite sad and frustrating, because we could not figure out why they kept dying. I even called Petco to see if their hamsters were doing ok, but to no avail.

But the gerbils are doing well. I video-ed them doing some pretty awesome things yesterday, I should start a flickr site so I could post it. Does flickr do videos? The one thing stopping me from getting one though, is that instead of fun shots of the city and of me doing cool things like taking walks and such, 70% of the photos would just be of my pets, which frankly, no one is really interested in seeing except me.
I never want to be that girl on myspace whose page is uploaded with videos of her talking baby-talk to her pet hamster: "Oh, Mr. Man, you are aww wet, isn't you? You just got a showeh!"
Oh barf.

Oh, and me and Aaron were having a debate--is Gnarls Barkley's Crazy:
1. actually unique, or
2. merely unique because it is played on rock stations, when it really should just be played on easy listening, pop-y stations like 104 KRBE?

While I was driving this weekend (back from Houston), Aaron read Entertainment Weekly's top 10 lists for 2006 out loud.
I disagreed with so many of the picks (Gnarls Barkley as top album of the year?!) that I decided to make my own top lists.

And here they are:

Top 10 Movies of 2006: (out of the ones I saw)
1. Children of Men
2. Stranger than Fiction
3. Borat
4. Marie Antoinette
5. Casino Royale
6. The Prestige
7. Down in the Valley
8. The Proposition
9. Pursuit of Happyness
10. Little Miss Sunshine

And here's a list of movies that I think would've made this list that I haven't seen yet, from most likely to least likely:

Sherrybaby
Pan's Labrynth
Little Children
The Descent
Perfume: the Story of a Murder
Letters from Iwojima

Now, Worst 5 Movies of 2006:
1. Little Man (I didn't see this, but hands down, it's gotta be #1)
2. Lady in the Water
3. Miami Vice
4. The Holiday
5. Running with Scissors (I thought this would be great. But it was almost as bad as Elizabethtown.)

And: Worst 2 Albums of 2006:
1. Hinder, Extreme Behaviour
2. Gnarls Barkley, St. Elsewhere

Top Albums of 2006:
1. Gogol Bordello, Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike
2. Regina Spektor, Begin to Hope
3. The Killers, Sam's Town (This took a while to grow on me, but it finally did.)
4. The Blow, Love Songs LP, plus the song Parentheses from Paper Television
5. Motion City Soundtrack, Commit this to Memory (Deluxe Edition) --I only say Deluxe Edition bc the non-deluxe edition came out in 2005. But I listened to this in 2006.

Top Show of 2006: The Office!

Worst nightmare of 2006 (and maybe of all time): The one I had this morning. Oh wait, it's 2007.