Gracias

Happy Thanksgiving!

In spirit of the holiday today's post is all about the things that I am truly and deeply thankful for. I think it is nice to have a day to seriously sit and ponder that which makes our life worth living and to give thanks for those things. So here (in a dancing-turkeyed list) are the things I'm most thankful for this morning:

First would have to be my family. Especially my parents. I'm not only thankful that I have them, but also that they are so awesome. I've run into a few examples lately of really overbearing, controlling parents and I'm so glad my parents are not like that. They've always been supportive, but they've also (almost always) let me live my own life and do my own thing. Thanks, Mom and Dad!



I have, I would say, three friends that I am particularly thankful for. Arrakis, Aaron and Cheng have been there for me when I'm been slobbery and stupid. They've helped me through some really tough times and have been there when I need them. I hope I've done the same for them. If I haven't I hope they know that I will be. They are all amazing people and I'm so glad I know them



Of course, I'm thankful for all my old friends too. They make me laugh every time I see them and I think that's really important. I'm glad a have a group of people I can be really happy with.





I'm also specifically thankful for my new friends too (Not everything on my list is going to be friends/family, I promise. But those are pretty freekin' important so they get a few turkeys). Since I started dancing again (it's only been about a year, can you believe it?) I've met all sorts of new people. I feel like the community has really embraced me and I think that's awesome. Many of my new friends are really awesome and I'm very glad to know them.



One more friend one. I am very grateful that my roommate is not crazy, or super uptight, or strung out, or passive-aggressive. I hardly ever see her these days. We're both so busy that we are pretty much just at the apartment to sleep, and if we're both there at the same time, we tend to be doing homework. But we still get along and any squabbles we've had we've been able to talk about them like rational people. She's pretty much awesome.



I went over to my Grandmother's house today to bake pie (mmmm pie). I walked in and she had the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on. Two seconds in the door and I heard "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down." I ran to the living room and there was Rick Fucking Astley! Yes, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was Rick Roll'd! I am wicked thankful for that.





Thank Baby Dinosaur Jesus we elected a democrat and Bush is no longer in charge.





I am super grateful that I am still healthy. Without modern medicine I would be dead several times over by now. Thanks to whatever it is that keeps me from getting really really sick again.





I am also thankful for all sorts of material things that make my life more fun/interesting/easy: my books, poetry, my computer, my car (which still works miraculously), duct tape, good beer, comfy shoes, not comfy shoes that make my legs look freekin' hot, lamp, good music, bad puns, etc etc etc



That's a pretty good list, I think. I still have my cold, but I'm battling furiously. Camping is still the plan. I'm not going to sick out on that until I absolutely have to. Here's to leaving things to the last minute! So hopefully I wont be blogging again until Monday because I'll be in the middle of the Utah desert running around having a good time.

Oh Noes!

I feel like crap today.

My entire head feels stuffy and my nose is running. I've been sneezing a lot. Everything feels slower and fuzzy because of the yuck that has taken over. It feels like a nasty little cold. It smells like a nasty little cold. I refuse to acknowledge that it is a nasty little cold.

This is not a good thing.

Camping is still the plan for this weekend. I can't be sick! I'm going anyway. But I need to kick this head cold/gunk A.S.A.P. because camping in November with a cold = not fun.

Blegh.

I am self medicating with tea and Airborne. Hope it works.

Google, You Crazy!

Yesterday I was playing with the webstats for this little blog o' mine. I have a thingy set up that tells me how many hits I get, where they come from, if they come from a search engine what keywords were searched, that sort of thing. I know those things aren't exactly the most accurate things, but it's kind of fun to look at once in a while.

I discovered something really freaky yesterday though. When you ask google: taoism and existentialism the very first result is This Post I did last year. That is kind of creepy, I think. That post was pretty much me just talking out of my ass. It's probably one of the best blogs I've done, but that doesn't mean that it's the first thing people should see when they're trying to figure those philosophies out.

The reason I did that search was because that page is the one with the most hits, besides my home page. I thought maybe I'd be in the first couple pages or something. It would make sense if someone who was really interested in the subject and wanted to read everything they could stumbled across my blog somewhere in their browsing. But no, I'm the very first result. What is Google thinking? It's not even a totally obscure and weird thing to ask about, really. It just goes to show you have to be very careful when you ask the internet questions.

What if there's some kid out there who, because they haven't been taught how to analyze sources or, you know, think, is using my blog as a source in a paper or something. Doesn't that just give you the heebie-jeebies? It does me. That hypothetical kid gets whatever he deserves for using me as a source because he'd have to be pretty dumb to do it. Still, the fact that it's possible is bizzar.

On the other hand, it's totally flattering. I get to pretend that I'm just a little famous on the internet. Go me.

Blah Blah Blah

I'm not in the mood today. But blah blah blah NaBloPoMo... freeking November.

Remember Monsterpiece Theater? That was fun. Don't? Oh, well, here's one. Watch it.



I figure since I posted the clip from Waiting for Godot earlier this month that the "Waiting for Elmo" M.T. was appropriate.

Holy War

I spent the afternoon at my parent's house watching the "big game." The BYU vs UofU football game is the event of the year here in my fair state. It's more than just a stand off between two rival schools, but it's symbolic of the faith divide that is more prominent in Utah than any other state in the US (I think. I don't really know). BYU represents the Mormons who dominate the population here and pretty much control the politics. Utah represents all us liberal nutcakes who hang out in Salt Lake.

Utah won. w00t. Actually, Utah more than won. We dominated. The final score was 24-48.

During time outs and boring bits, I flipped channels. I haven't watched TV in ages and I was relishing in the mindless glow of that silly little brain eater. I was accosted with Christmas on almost every channel. Some stations were already playing Christmas movies. Others just had millions of Buy-Your-X-Mas-Present-Here ads. It made me glad I don't have a set. Remember when Christmas season didn't really start until after Thanksgiving? Next thing you know, they'll start running x-mas ads right after the 4th of July.

Absolute Bull Crap

ABC and I are no longer friends. I don't have a TV but I do occasionally watch shows online. It's nice that way. No commercials.

Anyway, one of the shows I like to watch (and I'm way behind on this season because I haven't had time to zone out in front of the computer lately) is Pushing Daisies. It's a fun little show. I like it.

ABC has canceled it. We're now officially fighting. Daisies was one of the few original and interesting shows on television. Ok, well, it wasn't particularly deep or anything. It's a little (maybe a lot) cheesy and over the top, but I like it. *sigh* I guess it was bound to happen sometime. I was kind of surprised that it even got a second season, truth be told.

Oooooo Sparkly

I was going to go see Twilight on Tuesday. I had two of those little promotional sneak-preview passes that you can pick up around town. They always have more passes than seats available, so it's always a good idea to get to the theater early to get tickets. The movie started at 7. I got there around 4. The actual tickets had been sold out since 11:30. So I missed my chance. Darn.

Twilight is kind of a strange phenomenon. The books (I have read all of them) are mediocre at best, terrible at their worst. I'm not sure I understand why they are so popular. They are not well written at all. The story is kind of awful - the first book all of the action takes place in the very end. Edward is a creepy, possessive, moody, stalker, sparkly vampire. Jacob is better, but still not exactly a great romantic hero. Bella is kind of insipid.

I guess I can't expect too much from a YA novel. But there's really no reason why I shouldn't. The Book Thief, for example, is a YA book that was absolutely brilliant. But it's not nearly as popular as Twilight. I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. In a world where Dan Brown is a best selling author over and over again, it's no shock that another mediocre writer should be just as popular.

I have to say though, Dan Brown may have an atrocious writing style, but his stories are fun and he knows how to tell a story. Stephanie Meyer's vampire saga has a pretty weak story as well as poor execution. I don't get it.

On the other hand, I did read them. All four books. I guess I was suckered in just as much as anyone else. And the books were very engaging. I burned through them very quickly and was entertained the whole time. So I guess there is something to them. Of course, I am also going to see the movie (though I may wait until it hits the dollar theater) because, well, I read the books. Maybe it will actually work better as a movie. Probably not, judging by the trailer. We'll see.

Sorry Sorry

The internet gods are conspiring against me. Well, just the ones at my apartment. I don't know if its an issue with my computer or with the wireless, but I haven't been able to get online the last couple days (thus the lack of bog posts). There are several solutions to this problem - if it's not my computer, I could shlep my laptop up to campus or to the library and use the internet there. I can also just use the computers on campus or at the library that are available to whoever. That's what I'm doing now.

Besides the internets thwarting me, the last couple days have been really busy too. The weekend I was home just long enough to sleep. Life is for living, people, not for blogging!

Hit That Jive

I've had a busy last couple days. On Tuesday I conspired with my friend, Jake, to take over the U Swing Club. Yesterday we talked to the current president and... well, Jake is now officially the president of the U of U Swing Kids and I'm the V.P.

Today we took care of all the official stuff. Paperwork and all with people on campus.

We have big plans. It's going to be awesome!

That is all.

You may call me Madame Vice President.

Death Becomes Me

I didn't post yesterday, you might have noticed. I had a good excuse though: I was fighting for my life. Yes, your humble authoress was nearly the victim of really terrible poetry.

Anyone who has read the Hitchhiker's Guide knows that bad poetry can be deadly, or at least very very torturous. Last night I was reading two sets of 5 poems for my creative writing class. They were by two different classmates and I had to read them because we are workshopping. Of course, because we're workshopping, I had to read them carefully, closely and more than once. It was literally painful.

These two writers could give to Vogons a run for their money. It was worse than blog -poetry, though I wouldn't be surprised if they would put it on their blogs if they had them. It wasn't even poetry, really. It was fresh dog-shit dressed up in broken lines and declared "poem." It was an amaturish attempt to take the clay block and sculpt it; resulting in a "brilliant" exhibit titled Block. It was the poetic equivilant of the awkward acne riddled teenager drooling on his desk while sitting behind the hot, blonde, popular cheerleader. It was the prattle of an inarticulate idiot whose vocabulary is limited to the drivel picked up in kitchens and back alleyways (bad use of ordinary language, is to me, more vulgar than any profanities that you could throw at me).

I'm having way too much fun with my metaphores, it's getting out of control.

On an interesting, and completely unrelated note, I saw HotFedExBoy on campus today. I didn't talk to him because he was on one side of a window and I was on the other. It was odd seeing him though.

Put This in Your Pipe and Smoke It

I'm really excited about a couple things today. I'm not going to blog about them though because I don't want to jinx anything.

Instead, I am going to give you something to ponder. It's from the brilliant Beckett play, Waiting For Godot

This is Just To Say

I was discussing with a friend of mine how I'm kind of stuck for things to write about here every single day. I've decided that I don't like posting every day, and I feel like the quality of my posts goes down when I'm posting just to post, not because I have something to say. But that is beside the point. My friend suggested that I post some of my writing (poems or short stories). It's not like I would be the first blogger to put up his/her own poetry, and it would be a easy, little effort thing to do (as long as I did stuff I've already written rather than write something new each day. Which is what I would do, because I would want to post stuff that's been milling for a while and might actually be good).

I'm not going to post my stuff. I am generally against blog poetry. Why? Because it is almost always completely terrible. And people who don't know any better leave comments on it like "zomg wow that was so amazing and deep your like the best poet ever" which only encourages bad poetry. The logical side of my brain says that just the act of putting a poem on a blog doesn't make the poem bad. The other side of my brain sticks its tongue out and says, "you don't know that for sure. What if it does!" I don't like it when my brains fight.

My friend made the argument that, even if the poetry is not very good, it serves a purpose. It conveys a message to people who know the author really well. It exposes the author in a safe, kind of personal level, to those who he is comfortable exposing himself to (hee hee, exposing oneself). To that I say, why not just write your close friends a letter/e-mail/text message. Or, here's a radical idea, call them if you're Feeling enough to write a poem.

I think the problem is that most people think that poems are all about feeling and/or things that happen. It's an easy mistake to make. Poetry, if it's done right, can be overwhelmingly emotional and can often capture very poignant moments. But, in the words of Stephane Mallarme: "you do not make a poem with ideas, but with words." Poetry is all about the language, the constuction, the process itself. All poetry is, in some ways, just about the poem itself. The subject matter of the poem is irrelevant. True poetry can stand alone without all the background information about the author and what he's been through. I know there are many literary critics who may disagree with that. But a good poem is still a good poem if you take the author out of it. You may not be able to interpret it exactly without some biographical information, but it is still a good poem.

I have never read a blog-poem that was good.

I've read some blog-poems that would make interesting songs for some hipster, obscure indy-band. And that has some merit, but it's a whole different thing. If any of my readers really want to read my stuff... well, let me know. I'm not above sharing my work, and it's always nice to get feedback. I'm just not posting it here.

Oh Weekend

I was really looking forward to this weekend. I didn't have anything going on Friday and was really excited to sit around and do nothing for once. It was really nice. I spent most of my time reading and drinking tea. Friday night I went dancing at the Golden Skillet- I've been trying to get out there (some AMAZING dancers go there, so it's a great opportunity to dance above my level) for months and haven't been able to. All in all it was a very relaxing day.

I made up for it yesterday. I got up fairly early, for a Saturday, to go shopping for a bridesmaid dress. Exciting, right. My best friend is getting hitched in August. It may seem kind of early to be shopping for dresses, but it's better to do it now than to wait to the very last minute. I was kind of dreading the whole thing, but it ended up being really fun. There are four of us bridesmaids, we're all wearing different dresses. I think it would have been impossible to get us all in the same dress and had us all look not-hideous. All the dresses will be the same color, and our flowers will match, so it's all going to mesh. I'm strangely actually looking forward to this wedding. Click Here if you want to see the dress I ended up with.

I went straight from shopping to work and then straight from work to my friend, Val's house where I quickly changed clothes and then set off for the Symphony. I have to say that last night was one of the most amazing symphony performances I've been to. They started out kind of weak, with Brahms. Brahms is lovely, but doesn't do anything for me. I find him kind of pretty, but boring. The last two pieces were incredible! The second was Elgar's Cello Concerto with a guest soloist... I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was. For her encore she played an arrangement of a Piazzolla (I think) that was written literally two days before last night special for her by a composer she met on the plane here from Argentina. How cool is that? The final piece was Ginastera, some Argintine dude. It was incredibly exciting. The piece made me want to stand up and cheer. It was awesome.

After the symphony we went to an after party. I didn't get home until about 2 am. Good times. Today I don't have much going on. I'm going to laze around with friends this afternoon, then it's off to Grandma's for dinner with the family.

Let There Be Light

I (apparently) like florescent lights. That was a comment made in my writing journal (yes, we're back to my Creative Writing class). I do like florescent lights though. They have much more personality than regular lights. They flicker when they come on, they slowly gain luminosity, they hum and buzz once they're fully lit. It's odd, I never thought I would be a florescent liking person.

There is a down side too. Florescent lights tend to make people look washed out and occasionally cast a greenish tint on one's skin. To be honest, I do enjoy the personality to be found in them, but I seem to vilify them too. Any wholesome environment ought to have, at the very least, boring, normal bulbs. At best it would have sunlight. Ah sunlight.

Here We Go Again

Sorry about yesterday. I was really not in the mood to blog anything. But, since it's nablopomo (still really fun to say!) I felt like I had to do something. That, of course, begs the question: Is it really worth posting if there is nothing to post about?

I guess for the purposes of this month, the answer would be yes. I promise not to do any more like yesterday though. That was a pretty serious cop-out. And, to be fair, I have often posted when there has been nothing to post about. I just usually do it more eloquently than I did yesterday.

So today... what wants to be blogged?

Yesterday my fair city got a decent dusting of snow. It feels kind of early to be starting winter. But I guess it is November, so it was bound to happen sometime soon. Last week the weather was lovely though - in the 70s, perfect fall days - so it's kind of sad to go away from that to snow already. I do love snow though. Watching it fall is a very calming activity. I love the way it makes everything silent and clean.

Besides the weather... I guess I should write about something more than the weather. After all, this is my blog of awesome, not my blog of small talk.

On second thought. I don't want to sit at the computer anymore. I have a book calling my name, and some homework to do. So I'll wait until tomorrow to go on about something more than the snow.

Ha Ha!

You thought I was going to miss my blog post for today. But you're wrong. I still have, like, 45 minutes until tomorrow. Take that blogosphere!

Happy Election Day!

Guess what, I'm not going to say anything about politics today. At least not anymore than what I just said, which really isn't much.

I feel fuzzy today. My sleep schedule is all sorts of skewed right now. I don't know if it's because of the daylight savings thing or because I went to Rocky Horror Picture Show on Saturday at midnight and so didn't get to bed until like 4, or maybe 3, depending on when you changed your clock. One would think that I would be over a weird night like that, but I'm not. I'm having a hard time sleeping early at night. I'm still getting up early for class and stuff. The result is that my brain feels blurry. Does that even make sense?

I'm working tonight. That's going to be interesting. All the libraries are polling places so... I'm not sure what to expect. (By the way, this is not talking about politics, it's talking about work) I imagine it's going to be kind of nuts. Oh well. I'll manage to survive.

That's all for today.

NaBloPoMo

Say the title out loud. It's fun.

I just discovered that November is National Blog Posting Month (that's where the nablopomo comes from... seriously, say it out loud! nablopomo). All blogger people are supposed to post a blog everyday. And this is supposed to promote... um... blogging?

I will tell you right now that I am not going to post every day. Sorry to disappoint everyone, but it's just not going to happen. For one thing, I already missed the first day in November. For another, I know for certain that I will not be able to post at all during Thanksgiving weekend because Dad and I are doing our annual T-weekend camping trip.

Still, it's an interesting challenge. Maybe I'll try to blog every day and just let the camping trip be the exception. Writing every day is good, right. But do you guys really want to read me going on about nothing Every Single Day? If you do, posting every day in November will spoil you and then I'll have to keep doing it every day in December and January and on and on forever and then there will be just way to much of my pointless rambling out on the interwebs and there's enough pointless rambling already on the interwebs without me contributing to it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: I'm going to just keep on blogging like I always blog. But if you want to read something silly every day, I recommend going over to Bag's blog. He is posting everyday. In fact, he is posting a MUSTACHE every day. Come on, awesomeness ensues.

Unhappy Happenings

I just got some bad news from a friend of mine. I haven't actually met the guy, but he's one of the most important people in my life. I think of him as my Wegener's buddy. He contacted me on Myspace a few years ago. His story with the disease is not entirely dissimilar to mine, though he's had a little more trouble with it than I have. The important thing is that we both kind of have the same attitude about it. It was an absolute godsend for me to find someone around my same age who knew what I was (am) going through.

One of the worst things about getting diagnosed (for both of us, really) was the mental aspect of the whole thing. Neither of us was particularly comfortable asking for help from our friends and family, but it's hard impossible to deal with the thing alone. It's not that we didn't feel like our friends and family would want to help, it's just.... Well, my family was going through the suckiness right along with me so it was hard to burden them with my own issues. And my friends couldn't (most of them... all of them?... still can't) really truly understand what I was going through.

It was awesome to find someone who really Got IT. I don't actually even talk to him all that often, but it's nice to know that someone is out there who understands exactly what it's all like. I am so grateful that he's out there.

I e-mailed him earlier this month with my good news. He wrote back congratulating me and then he told me that he has relapsed.

That absolutely breaks my heart. He'd been in remission for about for, I think, 6 or 7 years. Now he's back on all the awful meds and....

I'm not sure where I wanted to go with this. I'm just really bummed to hear that he's not doing well. If you do the prayer thing, say one for him. Otherwise, cross your fingers, wish on a star, do whatever you do to send him luck. And take a moment to appreciate how incredibly lucky you are to have good health.