Toy for Wordies

I found a super cool new toy on the internets. Rather than try to explain it, I will just share some of the things I created with it:

This is part of "Not I" - a short play by Samuel Beckett



This is one of my favourite poems: "i carry your heart with me" by e.e. cummings



This is a short story about ducks that I wrote a while ago. It's just a bit of sillyness really.




And this is a sestina I wrote. I think that kind of poem really lends itself to this sort of thing.



Another sestina. I really like how they work with this. This one is "The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina" by Miller Williams

Hey Kids

My legs hate me right now. I've been running around all weekend; dancing(I learned Balboa... tres awesome), swimming and riding my bike. I can barely stand my legs are so tired right now. Good thing I'm going to bed soon.

I want to end the weekend on a high note here, so I'm just going to post a video that will make you laugh so hard egg salad will come out your nose (regardless whether you've actually eaten egg salad). Enjoy!

I Guess It's About Time

I meant to blog about stuff earlier this week, just didn't get around to it. So here's a quick catch up.

Last weekend I went camping with my dear ol' dad. We went down to Grand Staircase... somewhere a few miles outside Escalante. I could show you on a map if I really concentrated, but I really don't know where exactly we were. It was really nice to get out of the city and into the desert. I've been wanting to go for a while.

The reason we went where we did was that Dad stumbled upon this spot in March. Just a short way below our campsite is a spot of sandstone kind of simiar to The Wave in Coyote Buttes... near the UT/AZ border. Or at least that's what I've been told. I've never been to The Wave myself. But the stuff we had was pretty neat. Here, look at some pictures:
















Kinda neat, eh?

We hiked about 8 miles on Saturday- went past the pseudo-wave thing down into Phipps Wash to Phipps Arch. It was lovely, but we were hiking in deep sand the whole time. That's not really the most fun thing to do. I figured out why about half way through. When you're hiking in sand like that, it makes you feel like your legs are shorter than they are. Your stride gets super short and with each step you move considerably less far than you're used to. It's frustrating.

Speaking of sand, Dad managed to get the car stuck. We tried just about everything we could to get it out. Eventually we had to call a tow truck (I should thank Verizon for actually having service out in the middle of nowhere... kind of. And AAA for sending a truck out to the middle of nowhere) to get pulled out of the sand. Here's a video of that:



It's not nearly as fun as I hoped it would be. But you can see it was quite the endeavor to get the car out of the sand.

Sunday we packed up camp and drove to Bicknell to do a little bike ride. The plan was to get 35 miles in, but we took a wrong turn and ended up only going 20.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good weekend.

Bikes and Dykes

What a weekend!

Friday I worked all day and then shot off to Logan with my parents.

Saturday I spent all morning and a good chunk of the afternoon in Logan riding my bike. It was the first sponsored ride of the season. I already wrote all about it here, on my bike blog.

I got home from Logan around 4, took a shower and passed out until 5:30 when my friend Nick showed up. It was a planned showing up. We went to the Roller Derby that night, Nick and I... and Alessa and another Nick and Jimmy. After the Derby we decided to play mini-golf (why the hell not?).

I got home, completely exhausted, around 11:30 only to discover that Roommie had a few people over. That's not a big deal, they were friends, and it was Saturday night, and I was going to pass out and be dead to the world anyway. I really was going to go to bed right away and sleep a long time. But then I started talking to them. I didn't make it to bed until they left... around 2:30.

Today I woke up at 8. I meant to wake up at 8:30. Was planning on an early morning because of the Pride Parade, which started at 10. I magically woke up half-an-hour early and didn't feel like it was worth it to go back to sleep at that point. Around 9:15, I met up with some friends and we walked down town to see the parade.

After the parade we had to go to the festival, of course. For those who don't already know, the Pride Parade and especially the Pride Festival is pretty much a big gay party. It's a celebration of all the homos, trannies, and miscellaneous queers. I'm as straight as they come, but I have wonderful friends who speak fluent fag, so I go in support of them.

I was at the festival pretty much all day. It was a lot of walking around, checking out booths and checking out people. Pride really brings out the more interesting side of Salt Lake. It was a lot of fun, but I'm pretty sure that after my bike ride and then walking around all day today, my legs are about to fall off.

This evening I went to my parent's for dinner. Now I'm home and have a daunting amount of homework I have to get done. Remember the days when I used to have free time? *sigh* those were the days.

Danke Schoen

I should really be sleeping. But I thought I'd throw a few random thoughts into the blogosphere first. And rather than doing a bulleted list, I think I will mark each separate thought with a Suessical fish.

I went to the dentist today for the first time in 2 years. It's not that I hate the dentist or anything, I just haven't gotten around to going. Anyway, I have two cavities. Boooo!



The Tyger by William Blake is much better in the context of Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. I found that poem mostly annoying before reading the rest. It's still not my favourite, but I like it much better now.



Speaking of Blake, I have to come up with a topic and thesis for a paper for my Lit History class. The paper (it's short, only 5-6 pages) is due a week from Tuesday. I really need to figure out what to write it on. I have a few ideas floating around my head, but nothing really solid.



Remember River? She's gone. Roommie took her back to the pet adoption place today. She was a very defective cat. She peed where she shouldn't have, and she was destroying my couch. Roommie's pretty bummed about the lack of cat we now have. That makes me feel bad about celebrating, but I'm really happy that stupid cat is gone.



Tonight at swing club, I requested Danke Schoen I was excited about the Ferris Bueller-ness of it all (P.S. The link is to a trailer video. The song is at 1:47 and lasts about 3 seconds. It's the best I could do without making much effort). No one else got it. That made me sad. I guess I'm just weird like that; it's astonishing how often I make references that no one gets.



I'm riding Little Red Riding Hood this weekend. The weather looks like suck. Hopefully the forecast is wrong and Saturday will turn out to be really lovely.




Must sleep now. Bye!

Sleep With One Eye Open

I have an irrational terror of Yellow Jacket Wasps. They terrify me. If I find myself in the same room as one, I tend to run screaming toward the exit. I know I am prone to exaggeration, but I am not joking about that. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you and I and a yellow jacket are in the same room, you will hear that scream. If I found myself in Room 101, it would be full of yellow jackets. You have to understand how incredibly horrified I am of this simple insect. That said....

I had this dream last night (I suppose it was really early morning). I am lying in bed and I hear this horrible droning buzzing (What the buzzing? Yes... all the time the buzzing... so called... in the ears). I look up and see what appears to be a large fly zipping around my ceiling. Thanks to amazing dream magic, I suddenly discover in my right hand a rather large flyswatter. I start swatting at this fly and then it dawns on me... That is no fly, it is (ominous revelatory music) a Yellow Jacket! So I wield my flyswatter more ferociously, because I am now fighting for my very life. After an epic battle, the fiend is defeated. As I stand triumphantly over his lifeless, and rather smushed, corpse I realize the buzzing is still there. Fade to black.

Then I felt something crawling on my face. I shot upright in bed (I may have yelped) and there, buzzing around my ceiling, was a big old yellow and black wasp-of-death! I may have screamed. I definitely pulled the cover over my head and cowered. The buzzing grew louder. I peaked out from my quilt and saw the winged evil futilely running into my closed blinds over and over again. I occurred to me that if I can just open the blinds, it's probably not so dumb that it can't make its way through the wider gaps and out the window (which is open, but does not have a screen yet because my landlords are... I don't know why they haven't put a screen in yet. I've asked them to). The buzzing insect seemed to be rather distracted, so I decided to risk bodily harm and tentatively reached my arm out to grab the stick thing that adjusts the blinds. The demon bounced closer to me. I panicked and ducked back under the covers.

After a moment the buzzing seemed to get farther away. I poked my head out of the covers again to see the bug running into the blinds on my other window. Thinking very quickly, I jumped out of bed, opened the blinds (to the first window, not the one he was buzzing at) and ran out of my room, shutting the door behind me. I stayed safely in the kitchen and living room for at least an hour. The evil seems to have made its way back outside in that time. I half expect it to come buzzing out from some cranny or nook, or attack me when I open a drawer or something. Seriously, I am very wary about touching things... anything... that might be harboring a wasp.

I thought I would share the story of how I woke up today because, as terrifying as terror is, I can absolutely see the humor in the way I behaved. Even as I was taking refuge under my covers like some kid hiding from the boogie man, I realized that my behavior was absolutely ridiculous. There was no fucking way I was going to come out and face the beast though.

By the way, when you wake up with that much fear, there's no way you can go back to sleep. So I've been kind of sleepy today.

Twenty Four

It's my Birthday again! Yay Me! Let's dance:



(Peanut Butter Jelly Time anyone?)


(Yay Chickens!)

What Do You Want From Me?

I would like to take a brief moment to apologize to my poor neglected readers, one of whom yelled at me for not blogging enough lately. He says I making it hard to cyber stalk me. Srangely, it didn't sound all that creepy when he said it.

The reason I haven't been blogging is that I've been insane busy and the weather has been pretty nice so I've been outside when I haven't been busy. I guess I could take my laptop outside with me, but wouldn't I rather be riding my bike or walking somewhere or just playing about? Yes, yes I would. And if you would rather be sitting under a tree blogging (which actually doesn't sound too bad, but not nearly as fun as everything else) there is something wrong with you.

What have I been so busy doing? Well, nothing new really. Work keeps me busy, and now I have a job where I actually have stuff to do (crazy, right?). I was blogging so frequently for a while because JobofDeath allowed me to dink around on the interwebs all day. Not so much this new job (which I really enjoy).

I'm also doing the class thing, which comes with a lot of reading. Boring reading. Restoration through Victorian literature. Weeeeee. That reminds me, I have to figure out what I want to write my paper on.

Other than that I am... playing outside, dancing, occasionally hanging out with friends when time and energy permits. It's a good life being this occupied, but who knows how long I can keep it up.

Oh, and I turn 24 tomorrow. That means I, and several friends, are going to celebrate ME tonight. I'm excited.

Werd O' Teh Dai

Yes, I'm obsessed with language. After my last post about semantics, I'm now expanding your vocabulary with my new favourite word:


Tautology


It essentially means needless repetition, but it's really much more fun than that. Or at least it's fun if you enjoy being a pain in the ass, and really, who doesn't? Here are some fun tautological instances that have come up in my recent past:

I'm always right, except when I'm not right.

Me: You should ask your fish monger.
Friend: What's a fish monger?
Me: A guy who mongers fish.

What is shit? Well, it's shit!

See, isn't it fun? Of course, it's also a very dangerous concept. Tautology adds nothing to a statement but extra words. I love it when used in jest, just to be a smart ass about things. But it's not always appropriate. For instance, you wouldn't want to use tautology to answer a test question (what is the the square root of the hypotenuse? It is the hypotenuse to the 1/2 power).

In any case, I think it's fun. Go forth and enjoy it. Even when it gets annoying, at least you will know what it's called. Hooray!

All the Pretty Girls Go To the City

The other day a friend of mine told me I am pretty.

It's kinda funny, but I have never considered myself to be pretty. That's not to say that I think I'm unattractive - any of you who actually know me know that's absolutely not true. It's just that pretty is not the way I would choose to describe myself.

Pretty is just a small step above cute, an adjective which I absolutely abhor. Both terms suggest a lack of sophistication. Pretty is pleasing in a simple way, kind of standard. To be pretty is to be attractive, but not in any special way.

Cute should be reserved for puppies, kittens, and shoes. If you want to get on my bad side, tell me I'm cute.

Much better adjectives to describe attractiveness:
Beautiful
Striking
Alluring
Breath-taking
Comely
Gorgeous
Ravishing
Stunning
Pulchritudinous

I'm not saying that all of those apply to me, but I'm not saying they don't either. My point is that I'm certain there is more to my beauty than just prettiness. I'm not a traditional beauty, and that's part of the appeal.

Or maybe I'm giving semantics way too much weight. But, since we have the tools to be precise with our descriptions, why not take advantage of them? There's so much subtlety and art in language (less in English than some others, but it's still there) that most people simply ignore. It makes me sad. I urge everyone to really think about how you articulate your thoughts and utilize all the tools at your disposal.

Something Else to Read!

Dad and I have started a blog specifically about biking. It's just getting started, but it might be interesting to some of you. Plus it's a whole new way you can cyber-stalk me, if that's what you're into.

Chizzeck It Out




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Have You Missed Me?

I've been spending all my free time outside the last few days. The weather here has been completely perfect and so, of course, I had to take advantage. Not that I've really had a lot of free time. The breif respite between spring and summer classes is over so I'm back in teh skules and I'm working as much as I can.

The job is going really well, actually. I'm not quite up to as many hours as I would ultimately like, but I'm pretty close. I really like what I'm doing. As I've mentioned before, I'm kind of floating from library branch to library branch as needed. I have a few branches already that are my favourites, and at some point I would like to get a permanent gig at one of those. The nice thing about that is, even if I'm only working 20hrs a week there, I would get benefits. Benefits are good.

Class also started up again this week. I'm taking two Lit History classes this summer, one at a time. They each go about a month and a half. So there's a lot to cover and not much time in which to cover it. So far I'm pretty impressed with the Prof of class #1. He's really easy to listen to and keeps my attention. That's important because the class is 3 hours long.

Like I said in the beginning, I've been spending all my time outside. Despite that, I haven't really found a lot of time to go biking. I've gone on two really short rides this week - both on my fixed-gear. Yesterday I rode Frankenbike about 6 miles and walked probably 3 or 4 miles. Plus I went dancing last night. By the time I went to bed, I thought my legs were going to fall off, and this morning I woke up to a painful cramp in my calf. It was a good day.

I'm sure you're all very concerned with my exercise routine... I only mention it because it's really nice that I've actually been outside DOING something. I feel like I'm accomplishing something, I guess. Or maybe I'm just writing about it so you who check this blog often will understand why it hasn't been updated in a while.

Thoughts on Gender

I just recently went through an ordeal that has me pondering how you guys think. I wouldn't give it a second thought if it weren't almost exactly like something a few of my friends have experienced recently too. I'm not going to go into great detail in any case, to protect the guilty (they might know who they are anyway). The duration of the ordeal, and the specifics of what it involved varied, but it was, in all cases, basically this:

Boy meets Girl, they hit it off, have wicked chemistry. There is some sloppy make-outs and maybe a date or two. Things seem to be going pretty well for a while, there is potential for a real romance, but they're still in the water-testing stage. Neither party is anywhere close to falling madly in love or anything, or necessarily looking to fall madly in love anytime soon. It's just one of those things, just one of those crazy things, one of those bells that now and then rings.

Then all of a sudden, Boy drops off the face of the planet and starts giving girl the cold shoulder. He stops calling. He'll still answer her calls, but won't be much for conversation. If they are together in person, he'll be distant and cold. Basically, he decides to be a big jerk.

I have a friend who was on the Boy side of this situation once, and I (after kicking him for being an ass) kinda got his side of the story. He said that he felt like she wanted more out of the relationship than he was willing to give. He wasn't looking for anything serious, and he thought that she was. I happen to be friends with Girl in that case too, and she was really not looking for seriousness, just some fun. She was annoyed at Boy for being so dumb about it, but she didn't waste any time crying into her pillow about it or anything like that.

In my case, I don't know what Boy was thinking exactly, but I would bet it was something along those same lines. The thing is, I was so far from being serious about him that I was also dating two other guys at the same time. I'm not sure he knew about it (because it's kind of a jerky thing to flaunt boyfriend#2 in boyfriend#1's face), but we had clearly established that we were not serious at all. Still, he started blowing me off and I have a feeling it's for the same bull-shit reason that "I'm looking for more than he's willing to give right now."

Ok, so... why is it that this happens? Do you guys just automatically assume that we gals are crazy into you and looking to get hitched or something? Gender stereotyping? I don't know. Why can't we be expected to want a regular, non-serious, buddy with whom we occasionally swap spit? It's not fair.

I, of course, have to address the way the situation has been handled. Seriously, how hard is it for you guys to give us the heads up about what's going on? And if you just bothered to talk to us about it, you might find out that we're really not expecting anything more than some no-strings-attached fun. Giving the cold shoulder is kinda childish and really annoying. You guys who do this should know better by now. I believe there is a term for this kind of behaviour... now what is it? Oh yeah! Ass-Hole

Help Me Please

Ok kids, it's time to get serious about this fund raising thing. The MS 150 is a little over a month away and I need you all to help me out a little by contributing. Wanna read the official spiel? Of course you do! So this is what they e-mailed me to forward to my friends to get them to help me:

Dear Friends and Family,

The National MS Society is kicking off Bike MS: Harmons Best Dam Bike Ride campaign. I am planning to be a part of that event in June 2008 and I am asking you to join me in the movement to end MS by making a contribution to support my effort.

National Multiple Sclerosis Society is dedicated to ending the devastating effects of MS. They simultaneously fund research for a cure while also helping people who currently live with MS lead more fulfilling lives. I believe in the work they do, and I invite you to see for yourself all the good they've done for the MS community. More than 400,000 Americans live with MS, and your support can and will make changes in their lives. Please help by making a donation - large or small - to end MS. Or, why not join me at the event? Become a participant and side by side, as teammates, we can work together to raise the funds to make a difference.

Whatever you can give will help! I greatly appreciate your support and will keep you posted on my progress.

Sincerely,
Cassie

Click here to get to my personal page and make a secure, online donation.

To send a donation: Make all checks payable to: "National MS Society" Mail to: Yeah, totally not putting my personal address on my blog.

Not a bad spiel, eh? Anyway, you know you want to donate! If you don't want to do it online, you can give me money in person (if you're someone who sees me) or you can e-mail me (lady_zoz at yahoo dot com) and I'll send you my address so you can mail your check... unless you're someone I don't know at all, because that's creepy. If I don't personally know you, please just donate online.

Anything on Two Wheels

I'm really excited about biking this summer, now that the season is finally here and I'm getting into groove of biking regularly. I've been kicking butt at it too... for the most part. I've always had a problem "tackling" hills, but so far they haven't been much of a problem for me.

Today though, I had a really off day. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I started my ride with 3 miles of pretty steep uphill. That wiped me out for the rest of the ride, I think. But any excuses aside, I wasn't feeling as good as I have on the other rides I've been on. Some days you got it, some days you don't.

I even fetched my fixed-gear from my parents house this week. I haven't really managed to get super into "riding fixed" which is a whole different ball game. But I plan on riding that for shorter jaunts. It's gonna be my commuter bike!

I don't really have a good place to store two bikes though. Roommate has her bike here too. So I have three bikes in my living room, just kind of sitting there, as much out of the way as they can get. It's kind of absurd.


P.S. Speaking of bikes.... go donate for the MS 150. Sidebar. You know you want to!

New Additions

There was a huge pet adoption thing this weekend in my fair city. I didn't go... was pretty busy not-camping (sad... but I had fun anyway). Roommate did go and she couldn't resist the cuteness so she came home with a cat.


This is River Tam (yes, we are that geeky). Before Roommate adopted her she was Charlotte, but we have a dear friend named Charlotte, who is actually very allergic to cats, and that would be weird... having a cat named after Chaye.

Anyway, River is 5 years old but tiny for her age. She's a little blind so her eyes look a little weird. She's super sweet, almost to the point where she is annoying. She's been following me around all morning getting under my feet and purring. Now she's sitting on my lap, which is better than where she was a minute ago- on my keyboard. What a good kitty.

I am a little worried, of course. We don't have a history of being the cleanest humans ever so I'm a little concerned about having gross cat mess all over. Also River is not de-clawed so I'm a little worried about my new couch. Roommate is getting a big scratching post though and neither of us have really seen River do much to shred the furniture.

She really is very sweet. Here's another picture of her doing the cute kitty thing.

Sad Day

I'm kind of disappointed about this weekend. I was supposed to go camping with my Dad. We were going to go to this random place he accidentally stumbled on a while ago out in the middle of nowhere, southern Utah. He can't go now though because he messed up his back and... well he can barely walk for the pain. So he can't go.

Yeah, I can go without my Dad, but I don't want to go by myself. Besides it being more fun to hike/camp with a friend or two, it would be nice to have someone to split gas and fees and to entertain me during the long drive. Unfortunately, I don't have very many friends who are into the camping thing.

No, that's not true. I have tons of friends who are into "camping." That is, sitting around a campsite drinking beer. Good luck getting any of them to spend all day hiking. And that's what I want to do, so there are limited people to ask. All those people are busy this weekend, so I'm stuck with my disappointment.