music video monday #2.

i’d never listened to the dead weather before watching this (on recommendation from a friendly kexp dj), but i’m in love with this video. allison mosshart is pure sex, and jack white, though usually too odd for my taste, is pretty sexy too. it also seems like a decent visual metaphor for a relationship, which is my way of justifying my intrigue of such glorified violence, i guess.

back 2 skool.

senior year. who would have thought i would ever make it? it’s strange to know that i’m one of the elders on campus, and even more strange are the lightyears of difference i perceive between myself and the incoming freshies. you can always tell who the freshmen are (and this is especially true of freshmen girls) by their social uneasiness, like every interaction with every person could alter the cumulative value of their college careers depending on the words, tone, mannerisms etc., that they use. very strange.

and, as strange as this may sound, i feel like i’ve outgrown college. like i’m too old to be there, and am thus glaringly out of place. maybe that feeling stems from the fact that i didn’t spend the summer at home and that i worked full time and had to play the part of the adult (for the most part) in my own life, or maybe because i’m two quarters away from being done, but the feeling has been overwhelmingly present all day and it’s kind of throwing me for a loop. regimented schooling has ruled my life for as long as i can remember, and now that the summer has shown me what else is out there and given me time to grow accustomed to it, i’m left in a weird place.

i had three classes, one of which i dropped. it was a printmaking class, and i decided that i would rather have free time to be creative at my own pace (among other things) than be on deadlines to produce forced and rushed art. it will be much better that way, and i’ll have more time to focus on getting an a in shakespeare. best story ever: my capstone professor, who was also the professor of my very first college class and who i’ve remained close with throughout my years at spu, told a story in class tonight about a career project he had to do when he was in 8th grade. the assignment was to decide what you wanted to be when you grew up, and then find someone who had made a career of what you wanted to do and to ask them what an average day of work looked like for them. dr. thorpe wanted to be a writer, and since he was a big fan of john steinbeck’s, he wrote to steinbeck and asked him if he could write him back and tell him what a day in the life of a writer was like. and steinback sent him back a postcard that said something to the effect of ‘thank you for your letter. if i replied to every letter like yours, i wouldn’t have enough to time to write the books that you enjoy so much, but you should show this postcard to your teacher anyway.” he got a postcard from john steinbeck, great american writer and nobel prize winner! incredible. and i believe it, because from what i know of steinbeck, that sounds like something he would write to a fan. but what an amazing thing to possess!

i found those adventures i was looking for.

music video monday #1.

i appreciate good music videos, and i’d like to start sharing them. on mondays.

vagabonding.

i watched into the wild yesterday, and it made me yearn for an adventure.

there have been a lot of times where i’ve wanted to pack a backpack with the bare necessities and just hoof it around the country, with no itinerary and no one to be accountable to. traveling in the wild with a group would be fun and all, but i think doing it alone would make the experience more pure, in a sense; like because you’re experiencing it alone and don’t have other people to share it with, the intensity and profundity is at its maximum height. but i would even be content (nay, happy) to just train-hop around the country like kerouac did back in the day.

photo by philip scott andrews

every once in a while, i like to daydream about living that kind of life, exploring the alaskan wilderness in the spring or stealthily jumping onto moving trains in the middle of the night, but i come crashing back to reality when i remember how different the world is now, and how my sex has an effect on everything i do, or even dream of doing. kerouac jumped on trains in the 40’s when a dollar could go a lot further and trains were fairly safe, and chris mccandless didn’t deal with people very often in his travels. and of course, they were both men. on top of the fear i would feel (maybe constantly) if i were completely alone in my travels, my mother would never let go to any location remote or un-remote by myself, no matter how old i was. because she knows how unsafe it is for a woman alone. and i hate to admit that there are things i can’t do, but i don’t even know if my weak arms could pull me onto a train without help, let alone survive a flash flood or kill and skin an animal for food. and that depresses me, that my life experiences are always going to be limited by my biology.

it’s an obsession.

i can’t stop buying books. i bought 12 new books in the past 5 days.

i will never give into kindle. it may be the “wave of the future,” but books are so tangible. there is nothing like holding a book in your own hands, being able to physically touch a beautiful untouchable piece of literature and set it on a shelf to be admired. maybe i’m just old-fashioned that way.

four walls and a room to call my own.

q: how thrilled am i that i have a real room?
a: a trillion percent.

it’s taken me nearly the full two weeks that i’ve lived here to unpack my mountain of material possessions and fashion my little room to my liking. the arduous task is behind me now, and i can, at long last, simply revel at the wondrousness of my room.

i love my duvet cover so much. if i could manifest myself in a cotton form, i would do it in the form of this duvet.

the closet. large enough to fit half of my clothes, which is better than most. and my bookcase that i’ve had forever, that will forever house the books on my to-read list.

my other, very tall bookshelf, with my treasure box full of letters and the old-as-time globe that josh’s grandma’s boyfriend gave to me. i think that globe has been my favorite acquisition of the summer.

i bordered my ceilings with 4×6 photos, and hung up my favorite old map, three of my favorite photos that i took in south africa, and three of my favorite photos that i took when i was in high school. a happy combination of past, present, and future.

and my favorite part: my reading nook. i foresee this chair, an incredibly comfortable inheritance from my old house, being a great companion to me throughout the year.

i made a pineapple upside-down cake.

(and my new apron is totally bitchin’, too.)

for-eva, for-eva-eva, for-EVA-EVA.

i think it has been at least two weeks since i’ve been on the ole blog. i can’t help it; my boyfriend is back, and i’ve been out living life and loving life with him.

nutshell updates: josh and i went to my cousin’s wedding in longview, where everyone on my mom’s side of the family told josh how cute he was and what great teeth he had, and asked me whether josh and i would be the next ones getting married. they don’t beat around the bush, those mcphersons. we also went to yakima to visit josh’s family, and spent a lot of time with his grandma and her boyfriend (highlights include getting cherry limeades at sonic and taking $300 worth of coins to the coin counter at the bank). josh’s bestie, drew, is back from alaska, and the three of us have been going on lots of dates together. and what’s sad is that i often feel like their third wheel.

we went to the mercer island thrift store today, and i got four books for under $10.

so pleased.

one thing that does not please me, however, and in fact distresses me to no end, is how unprofessional professionals often are. i emailed the hiring manager of pasta & co., where my roommate works, and sent my resume and a cover letter and asked her to let me know either way. several weeks later i still hadn’t heard anything, and when i mentioned it to my roommate, she told me they weren’t hiring anymore. i think it seriously would have taken the hiring manager a minute or less to just write me an email to say they weren’t hiring, instead of letting put all of my eggs in one basket and not pursue other jobs because i was waiting to hear back from her. another much more depressing story: the family that i nanny for was on vacation all last week, and i had told them before they left that the week after they got back would be my last week. so i called the mom on sunday night to ask if she needed me on monday (because i had forgotten it was labor day) and she told me she thought it would be a smoother transition for the kids if i just didn’t come back, instead of working for one week and being done. and that makes sense to me, but what doesn’t make sense is why she wouldn’t call me and tell me that in advance, instead of waiting until the night i was supposed to come back to work. and was she even planning on telling me beforehand, or was she going to wait until i showed up at their house at 6:30am on monday morning to tell me? seriously. i was counting on the $100 i would make this week nannying, and now i have nothing, and i didn’t even get to say goodbye the girls. oh well. at least i have the chance at a real job now.