Saturday, December 31, 2005

Improv Blogging

I had a custom designed story built just for me and I am very much impressed. See it worked like this. I supplied a few random words and specifications and that got stirred around the the brain of an illustrious wordsmith and then congealed in the form of a story. I was very impressed and thoroughly amused. Maybe you could play the game too. You know, I will give you the words and you will make me a story. Then you can go and read Ed's and compare.

These were my speculations:

An over night flight to Belarus (this one came out of my own head...why not)

A badger (This is also a popular drink at the Burton Coffee shop)

A Snorkle

And the words Gelatinous, Fangoriously and Linebacker.

You all have fun with that...

-Jn

Monday, December 26, 2005

But what does it do?

What it does is it goes like this…I fell asleep in the car which I have no recollection of therefore making these dreamed events more real. And when I fell asleep in the car with no recollection of it I also dreamed…

Apparently we were in a booth in a diner not entirely unlike Eppinger’s except much cleaner if comparisons must be made. I was trying to explain to Lz that she was being more than a little ridiculous, but she would have none of it. The others were on my side which made her more sulky than was to be expected of someone abruptly removed from a European choir tour for a perfectly reasonable reason.

The others (I think) included Kt and Shuffles and potentially 5L, but the periphery people matter less as all they happened to be doing was agreeing with me and being overly unconcerned about the fact that I had removed them from a European choir tour and thus Extreme Danger by a bit of travel back in time. I feel as though they should have been relieved about the saved from Extreme Danger bit and shocked by the time travel bit but they were neither of these, only amused. (I think this may be how people frequently feel when dealing with me. Good to have perspective.)

Did I mention that it should be strange that Shuffles was there needing to be saved as he is not in the choir. It wasn’t strange because this was a dream but it should be. He was also the least concerned member of the party when I mentioned time travel which wasn’t strange. I was sure he had done it before at least once or twice and I still don’t think otherwise though he has never told me directly in the dream or out of it.

I know I have mentioned that they were all agreeing with me that Lz was being ridiculous, but what I failed to mention was that while they were not wrong they had very confused reasoning…as did Lz for that matter. They all felt she was ridiculous because she would give up a perfectly good opportunity to travel through time on account of she was supposed to sing a solo that night. They should have felt she was ridiculous because she wanted to stay and sing her solo even when assured that Extreme Danger was there. (By the way, I diverted these particular choir members early enough that they were noticed to be truly missing and a replacement soloist was found before the show. She was, I assure you, not half as good as Lz would have been, but far less dangerous.)

Lz was actually ridiculous for two reasons. The second was that she was still put out about the argument that we would be having in the future, or rather the argument that we did have when I went forward (as my previous place in time had been earlier, earlier in fact than the diner but that is actually irrelevant) in time to retrieve the members and brought them backwards with me into safety and good food. But as the argument had not happened yet it was somewhat petty to still be so sullen about it. The first reason caused the argument in the first place (and for this reason, logically, it is the first reason). When I mentioned that to ferry them to safety I would have to move them backwards in time, she above the others came the closest to understanding what that would mean in terms of memories remembered and fun experienced. Her being the closest also made her the most wrong.

See, I knew about the Extreme Danger long before choir tour and failed to mention it. I waited for them to go off and have all sorts of fun and saved them at the last possible, probable moment before the Extreme Danger struck by shifting them backwards a few weeks and westward (or eastward in this case as that dimension works itself out either way) more than a few miles to a nice little diner where the hostess was not surprised when we appeared rather suddenly in a booth by the window. I waited to remove them from Extreme Danger to maximize the fun quotient. Lz was concerned that the foray backwards had killed the existence of these events though clearly the events had happened (and presumably were presently happening) because she could recall them in detail while she was informing me that I was rude for taking her memories away by negating the happenings of the things. She sort of missed the point on that one but no one else was paying attention. They were having too much fun with the Jukebox at the end of the booth and assuming Lz was mopey because she would not be singing that solo. I suppose they may have been partly right and that this was the underlying cause for her present (past) (future) distress, but I was tired enough that I wanted to deal in logic arguments and not emotional ones.

They were all more than a little ridiculous because they failed to grasp the importance of the fact that after our amazingly delicious, filling, wholesome and surprisingly cheap meal at my favorite stopping place during timespace travel, we would have to be off again with Extreme Danger at our heels. But as I failed to mention that little detail I suppose I can’t judge them too harshly.


I woke up when we got home…

Roadward Rants (actually from Thursday)

We are well on our way and my N key is mostly broken but I am trying to beat that out of it’s system. If you wonder why it’s important just scan the past 2 sentences and think about Wheel of Fortune. Speaking of old-timey talking box game shows from back when TV was less annoying, did anyone ever think of the name Jeopardy and what it actually means (Risk, danger etc.)? Makes Alec seem a little bit scarier eh? Or maybe we just didn’t have a good grasp of what danger really meant back when they named the show.

I am rocking out to Queen’s of the Stone Age thanks to EWal. It’s pouring through these crazy crappy earbuds that came from some airline according to the RQ. I typed earbugs the first time and that is what they remind me of anyways so if I refer to them again I will use that. I am beginning to think that it will be easier to just spell check this beast at the end ad quit worrying about the missing N’s as they come. I have been more or less worthless since I got back from Ct or such is my opinion of the general opinion. Part of this I am going to thank/blame EWal for. See he made 2 amazing fatal errors while I was hanging out.

1. He gave me copious amounts of music. This made my compy a little heavier than normal and a good deal more lethargic. So I burned some pounds off of her and on to CDs. Stuff that I never listen to and thus would not miss. But this took considerable time and I am still not done. I also need to copy some of this good new music into CD form so that it is more easily accessible whilst driving. I don’t know as Dad is going to let me drive at all tonight so it may not come to a point where it matters today.

2. He gave me books in excess. And it isn’t like crappy books that you sorta skim through. No these are good, pull you in, become your entire world books. It’s kinda painful. (See 5L’s page for a bit of a rant on book reading that more or less applies to me) I read one book while I was still in Ct sort of under cover when I was bored and when I mentioned how much I enjoyed myself I got a full stack of books. Oh by the way these are mostly by Kurt Vonnegut who is currently ranking up there with most enjoyed authors. The other is The Hitchhiker;s Guide to the Galaxy which is becoming more fascinating on more levels than I thought possible. Suffice it to say that since break started the world as we know it has ended three times and I am in the middle of 2 books because one was packed when I had a spare 5 minutes turned half hour. At this point it is too dark to read any more and I am very distraught.

Thank God for earbugs. My headphones met an untimely demise in the nether reaches of the rainforest up the Rio Las Piedras when they were trod upon by myself. Some loud and angry words ensued followed by some degree of mouring. I guess it wasn’t all that untimely. I just wasn’t ready for them to go yet. I had them for 3 years which is the longest I have ever managed to keep any pair alive. So the earbugs were an afterthought. After I thought of how miserable a trip listening to only their music would be and questioned the RQ on the location of headphones and a music playing device and after she though she could find a good pair. I can tell I am going deaf because these have to be dangerously close and dangerously loud to more or less block out the stream of commercial free middle aged country slipping in to the magical new box on the dashboard and out through the speakers. I don’t care. Dad got mom Sirius for Christmas and gave it to her early for the trip out. The HGG mentions Sirius (or something very like it anyways) in less than happy terms. My vote is still out and it has me thinking about consumption. Get ready it is about to get deep.

I have heard it said (and as I like the concept I have said) that when you drink in a bar you do not buy the beer, you only rent it. This is true to an extent. You pay to use it for a little while but usually you return the liquid in some form before exiting the bar (though you might wait until you get outside to project it or water your car tires), but as you damage the form of it to the point where it cannot be reused I don’t think it is actually renting. In general the same is true of food and I am finding Sirius Radio too. You purchase something for a price and it is prepared and consumed. If you don’t use it by a set time it becomes unusable garbage…unless you compost. So we have this little box on the dash feeding us music so that we can consume it. We take it in, fire some electrons, and maybe form a memory about something. The rest is lost forever in heat and brain electricity. Kinda like a toilet flush. Sept what you flush can be reprocessed to kill all the bad guys and then used to grow more corn and carrots that you aren’t going to really digest anyways. But what happens to the waste sound waves? And here is another thing, when you buy/rent food or beer you are trading money (granted this is often an imaginary idea stored in computer chips or in value placed on pretty colored pieces of paper but that is another rant I am not prepared for tonight) for a physical commodity. In theory you could trade this with someone else for other goods or services if you felt so inclined. You might even make a little extra imaginary money. When you buy a CD you get a physical object capable of creating music on demand indefinitely (if you take care of it anyways). When you buy the radio you get a stream of sound waves that pour out of a sound wave generating machine. A few bother in the direction of your ears and the rest skitter away to parts unknown. What are you actually purchasing? Can you break it down in to each wave length costs ~0.001 cents if you listen an hour a day? How can you tell if that is worth it? How do you place a value on noise from a box? And how arrogant is the bastard that says my happiness is worth X dollars a month, or an hour, or a minute? If I am one of those cheap and easy types… easily amused with little to no money invested…does that some how make me less valuable than mall worshiping, SUV driving, cable purchasing soccer mom? How does this work?

Y’all are going to find this painful if I actually decide to post this. It is beastly long…but less melancholy than the last…at least in my opinion.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Missouri Bound*

We are leaving in a few hours to head out to the g-rents with a stop at my sisters in Cinci on the way. I would be lying if I told you I was excited about heading west. (I could get excited about north or south but only if it plopped me in the right location like below the equator or near any one of those kids that lives in Ct or the one with the number in the name. East would only be good if it then changed in to going northwards up 84) In general right now I would be lying if I told you I was excited about anything. I am so anti-comercialism as to become more or less anit-Christmas and yes I suppose I could turn to the warm fuzzy see your friends ideas or to church like any good Christian and I am thinking that is where you were about to send me but well that just wont work. See I started out my break ok and hanging out with people I love dearly but it hasn't worked out to see people in PA yet and it doesn't look promising so there isn't much fuzzy to find there. And the fact that I started out having such a good time makes the withdrawl that much worse. Plus I have no money for the giving of gifts when I do see friends even if I decided to support the monsterous gods of comercialism in their shiny temples full of piped in christmas cheer. I was planning on buying a llama or some ducks in honnor of everyone I care about to support starving children instead of spending $5 here or there for something more or less worthless but at this point it looks like I can't even swing that. As for church, well my church is in MA and I am not there so that doesnt help me either. So I am at a loss as to what to do about Christmas. I think I am just going to let it slide on by kinda like a speed bump and then keep on going with break.

On a positive note I've had a lot of time to read so far since I was more or less carless and in a few hours I will be behind the wheel of the trusty beast Bella making the passing telephone poles look more like a picket fence. I am sure I wont post til I get back so don't expect much. -Jn



* This is kind of like being Hell bound only you get to have less fun along the way.

Oh yeah and the turtle is just for kicks because he is pretty and makes me happy. Posted by Picasa

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

What would you like to see then?

I spent the past chunk of days running around in the middle of CT loving life. I was staying with friends and playing with friends and it was weird to have to leave. I had some good quality chunks of writing time too. Sometimes when there wasn't a lot going on or my host was busy I would scribble for a while and one night EWal took me to his drummers house and I got to listen to the band jam for hours on end and I walked out of the house with like 6 pages of scribblings. Mostly one or two lines that still need dressed up before I can take them out of the magic book of colors but some good stuff came out too. That will sort of all follow along here in the next expance of break time. I get the opportunity to bounce around a lot over break so it will be a sporadic bit of posting at best anyways.


The magic book then. . . yes it is real. So some tidbits about where the words all go after they come from my head.

I got the magic book as a Christmas present sometime before Christmas last year which makes it about a year old as far as I am concerned. It's made of all renewable resources by women up in the mountains of Nepal and yes it is fair trade. I was obsessed with the notebooks when I found them in a little shop and a little birdy passed the information along to the gift giver. The pages are good and thick and hearty and I have been told that the outside is covered in rice paper.

The first few lines appeared in it on 1/21/05 in green ink. I have used black, blue, green, red, pink, and maroon pens for my scribblings. I refuse to write with a pencil and I dont use ball points either. Most of the words are in green but I think my favorite pen I have used just might be the water/acid/alcohol/bomb proof pen that I used to use on my field notebook though I am very much a fan of the one Dad gave me at Thanksgiving.

My plan from the begining was to only write on the fronts of the pages and then turn around and work backwards. At this point I am about three quarters of the way through the frontward direction so depending on my propensity towards verbosity I think it should last me at least another year. The cover is starting to show some wear though, especially in the corners and where some of the rice paper was thin and the binding keeps yelling at me for marking my place with a pen and then shutting the book too hard.

The magic book of colors is somewhat of a staple item on any type of trip. It has been to multiple states along the east coast from FL to NH and it will make a midwesternly type voyage in a few days. It has also checked off Haiti, Honduras, and Peru not to mention me scribbling in it in the airport in the Bahamas while we refueled. It has almost been dropped several times into unfortunate death-to-paper places like the Rio Las Piedras. There are flowers pressed in it from the first 3 countries and a few extra snippets that got tucked into the book for safe keeping (Like a copy of the Nicene Creed, my every growing list of words I favor, a Salvavida wrapper and some poem about a chick that usta was from PA)

It gets stuffed full of poetry, prose, single or double lines (which are not developed enought to count as either) and rants (which can take the form of all three but are not refinable and therefor count as none), and when I feel so inclined I pull something out to share. I have only ripped 3 pages out ever. I was morally opposed to it then and I am even more so opposed to in now as a lonely leftover page keeps trying to escape to find its missing half. One page became a letter to a friend in Haiti and two contained scribbles to a pirate of the freshwater sort, the second page created to replace the first which died in a horrible boating mishap that included jumping in the river to unstick the boat and almost loosing the magic book to the electric eels and catfishes.

Two was my maximum number of scribbled on pages in one sitting before this weekend. Six will be hard to beat.

When It Is Tomorrow Again
(A makeshift basement concert hall 12/17/05)

Sometime in these steps
There will be a tomorrow again
If I walk beyond these tired white walls
To a place without imaginary friends
Can the flowers be ever-growing
If I move through this space in time
Tell me which road will carry me there
To Oz, or to Heaven, or to the sublime

-Jn

Monday, December 19, 2005

Did I mention I was home...Oh yeah and Virgil I don't think I am your mother but stranger things have happened. :)

mmm Crack house

So I will admit it, I am easily sucked in to internet quizzes. According to the mother I have to post this one just because it is funny. I don't agree...but I am a sketch ball.




Rowhouse 'Hood
You scored 19 out of 40 on urban-rural and 25 out of 40 land intensity.
People know you as: The Bohemian Gentrifier
Quote: "That crack house just needed a little paint."


Your score indicates that you are a city-dweller of the old-school. You like a dense, finely grained neighborhood with restaurants, churches and brothels all on the same block. Although you've never spoken to him personally, you know that guy Eddie down the street is a pimp and you're sure to tell your lame suburban friends about him at every opportunity, just to freak them out.

The bad news is that as more and more people like you move into your neighborhood it gradually becomes less cool and more expensive. Enjoy things while you can, because in 5 years you're going to have to move to the next 'hood uptown.

Examples of places you should live: Baltimore, Philadelphia

All Categories
Secluded Hideaway / Farm or Ranch / Small Town / Little City / Suburb / Streetcar Suburb / Rowhouse 'Hood / Downtown Loft
Link: The Where Should You Live Test written by TwelveFloorsUp on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

This is your brain on finals

What do I have for you? A lot of dead air. I am scrounging for thought provoking things to write for you and i've got lots but before they reach a point the fizzle and die. Like a half bottle rocket. The fuse sounds cool and sparkles but it fizwerps out before the bang.

So let me tell you these things then starting with reading day:
Friday- I worked and wondered why they canceled schools all over the place. Then the skies opened up and I understood...and had to drive home. I wasted copious amounts of time instead of sleeping and when Kt called to go out I said let me just take a nap. When I woke up the skies opened up again and the was only white. Cancell trip cancel life. Somewhere in this time frame I became consumed by part 2 of my theatre project and went braindead to all other things for pretty much the duration until it was done. Saturday we somehow managed to get a group of people together and got almost lost several times in salem and ended up with drinks and some dinner like substances. Then it sort of all of the sudden became Sunday and we went to church and Berg came with us. It appears that Berg is a new addition to our crew as she has come out with us several times (including saturday) and I dont mind at all. She comes by way of 5L. Works for me. I made a good drive up to NH Sunday afternoon with 104 to the airport and got to listen to radio blather about football for a space in time and then I was consumed anew by the aforementioned project. This includes not pausing to eat or study or do other important things. That should be relatively up to date about life I think.

Monday brought working and projecting and ML making us dinner. He needs a better name than just ML so I will here after refer to him as AFM or the Amazing Food Maker because that is what he is. He is the one that made the pie for thanksgiving...yes that pie. And he bacially continued to make food until I went to bed. It made the home all housey or something like that. I was sort of in an I have been consumed by a project for 3 days and havent been eating and the world save like 2 people annoys me mood at this point in life so I utilized my new hardcore build a bookshelf and have a beer bottle opener (Thank you FriendAdam) and pretended I felt better. I didnt kill anyone though.

Tuesday I took stock of my life and realized Oh Shit I have finals in hours. And so I began the study process sometime around 8 when I got to work and finished (mentally) at around 11ish. I hit Oh-My-God-This-Is-Finals-I-Am-Dead mode around 1pm, and hour before my final. And the final consumed me. Processed me thoroughly. Then reconsumed me...its called coprophagy look it up. I finished the theatre project and let it stop ruining my life. And attended the Bio-major christmas party where I actually ate some food. We had a yankee-swap and 3 wonderful parties brought pretty much the same thing. Annies mac n Cheese with some sort of 'meat' in a can. The other 2 brought spam...at least mine was eatable. I was the proud owner of an ostrich egg for about 10 minutes and ultimately ended up with annies and goya spam...not even the real stuff. I came home to a psychotically immaculate house and almsot crapped my pants. I proceded to consume whatever grey sludge Eric had given me for because I do not eat anymore and locked myself in my room. (By the way the sludge was AMAZING.) Round 2 I finished my theatre project and let it stop ruining my life then i studied for Physics.

Somehow it became wednesday and I had heavy books on my body and then somehow (probably by the same strange powers) I was in BCA taking an exam that I had the mental power to pass with few unhappy red marks and handing it in way before the final period was over. I wandered myself to Emery to last minute cram for Physics. Round 3 I finished my Theatre project and let it stop ruining my life. When I got done trying to fit all of the information in the world on a note card I was at peak stress level and shaking. Then I was taking the test and being slowly devoured mentally such that at various times during the exam I would stop whatever I was doing and turn the page. This was less than helpful and I did not get done in a timely manner. When I was thoroughly chewed and spat back out free and clear from finals I ended up here and DPS and it appears that I am working. The normal mic died and CECS dialing 911 to try to call out of country and the chief is wicked perky...yes..perky. My semester will be over in about an hour when I determine the status of my incomplete in Physics, get a few papers signed, and Round 4 finish my theatre project so it can stop ruining my life.

Tonight features house dinner (which means I will eat) and perchance a visit with campus types and a drive round with 104 and some packing. It will NOT feature round 5. I am done. I swear to you. And sometime tomorrow I drive to CT which is the only thing that indicates to me that there is life outside of this mindless finals ush. It will feature Arox!, EWal, FriendAdam, et. al. and it has no choice but to be amazing.

You came here for deep thoughts. You end up with mental unth instead. I appologize. When I have sleep and maybe some food I will try again. -Jn

Monday, December 12, 2005

Home of the Twin Lobster

This is for 5L and I bet she doesn't even know why.
Just one more task accomplished on my Finals list of things to do.

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Friday, December 09, 2005

Something like words

We (as a collective of the people I frequent including myself) talk a lot about words. I don't know if this is standard in the populace but I don't imagine that it is. Perhaps I am just vain. Myself, I enjoy words. I would consume them alone if they provided my daily recommended calories or marry them if they provided the appropriate tax/tuition/chapel credit breaks. (That statement is more than a little ridiculous and I apologize.) Lately we (the collective of the people who live in the same house as myself including myself) have been discussing the ways Jn phrases things. (Did you know that in english the word Phrase has no F? It shocks me every time. I prefer the frase variety of the word-> fra-say) Let me provide you with an example.

(Let me pause for a moment to think up an appropriate example. I will provide you with some background musica while you wait. Dee deet dee deedeedee Bomp (this would be the tune of the mario brothers for those of you who do not live with me))

Ok as the only real life example I can think of comes from the life of 5L I am going to borrow it. (We share a good deal of life experiences anyways) One of 5L's professors has this idea in her head that 5L is strange/weird for any number of reasons in this case because 5L forgot her lunch and so ate 2 portions of the food provided in the last class session. 5L recounted this story for me and the frase of response was "Pilar is not wrong." Now this is interesting because I use the frase a lot "___ isn't wrong" but I rarely ever use the frase "___ is right" and these mean entirely different things. "You are right" signifies that you are in fact completely correct both in the way you stated the comment or the idea and also in the mental processes that helped you formulate the idea. So Pilar is not wrong because 5L is wierd (we share about the same weirdness quotient but it leaps out in different areas of life), but her taking 2 portions of food does not make her so. This only makes her a college student. Therefore Pilar is not right.

Now this may seem like an easy distinction to make, 2 frases that mean similar but not the same things used in particular ways when they deserve to be. The problem crops up with it hits my subliminal brain filter and gets some scatter. You will almost never hear me say "You were right" even when it is deserved. I may validate you with a you weren't wrong but that is about as far as you get. Especially when it refers to an discussion we were having. Especially especially when you being write either strongly implies or firmly states that I in fact was wrong. That is one of those painful things to admit and while I feel as though I am good at it I think my subliminal consciosness works against that. However, if you do receive a "You're not wrong' from me dont automatically think that means that "You are right." I promise you that most of the time you aren't. I'm not either.

Also to be commented on in this post about words. Jn is working towards a 5L pronunciation of so many things she says especially abreviation words like TV, ATM, and VCR and this is not on purpose or entirely welcome. This does not actually change my practice of shortening words to their lowest pronouncible amount of letters and/or pronoucing abreviations as if they are real words. (DPS = Dippus (NOT EVER EVER EVER Go-Po))

And another note... Lots of things dissolve around finals time. This includes but is not limited to sentence structure, dishwashing, and people skills. Somewhere wrapped up in all of this, foul language rises to the surface and is spewed out exponentially proportional to the level of stress. (This might be one of the laws of physics. I don't know I have not studied yet.) Before the madness kicked in full swing we had a chat between housemates and appologized in advance for the dissolvation of the happy attributes we usually shine and for those unhappy underlyers that come out when things get dark. However, there are always some things that do not float well even when you have been excused ahead of time. There are some words that just have a characteristic bite to them and even if you know they are coming it doesnt exactly help. Therefore I have been taught some new spanish frases because when one has to think about what one is hearing it eases the sting a bit. Our house seems to be functioning rather well right now so this whole idea must have worked.

Time for breakfast- Jn

(Expect a blog in the near future about appearance. It will come out of my head one way or another. I just hope it is coherant enough thoughts to be blog-worthy)

Thursday, December 08, 2005

a selection

of two from e e cummings because i can no longer convey my meaning in proper english when the world gets this complex and no one questioned him and he seems to suit my mood


up into the silence the green
silence with a white earth in it
you will(kiss me)go
out into the morning the young
morning with a warm world in it
(kiss me)you will go
on into the sunlight the fine
sunlight with a firm day in it
you will go(kiss me
down into your memory and
a memory and memory
i)kiss me,(will go)



who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky--filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where
always
it's
Spring)and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

Monday, December 05, 2005

there is a reality in this fake world i live
(i live (( i live!)) i die)
and you are by my side
and one is naked) I (or) you(
and these things that we have done
‘these things that we do’
these things are the things that the Stillness brings
in this peace in this dark together (apart)
and you touch me… or was it? i-you
and the genuine fades with the light in to new
and this dark is consuming all essence of you
((of you) of you (of me))
and -this ‘us’ is- all that i see
the one that i want( the one that wants me) in this world is all
is this such a fall
for me to live ((to live!)(to die)) life alive?


-Jn 12/05/05
P E A C E P E A C E P E A C E P E A C E P E A C E P E A C E
 Posted by Picasa

Friday, December 02, 2005

Did I mention that my cat died? Thats right my surly 19 year old three-legged cat finally died. Damn thing out lived every other animal I have ever owned. I don't exactly know what to think. I have no more childhood pets. It's weird. Posted by Picasa

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

While the cat tries to strangle me

This is sort of that weird interlude between breaks. There is a longish weekend centered around stuffing ones body with L-Tryptophan and getting lots and lots of sleep. Then you somehow end up back at campus for a week and a half of classes and finals. Conveniently this is when all manner of tests, papers, and projects happen on top of regularly scheduled homework. Oh yeah and there are events like choir concerts and winter balls to make things even more stressful.

Last night I got less sleep than I have gotten all year and I still didn't manage to get half of my work done by the time it was due. I also forgot about dinner and missed a talk i wanted to go to because i was being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous theatre project.

Did I mention that I have no housemates. That is right. I live alone and fairies pay the other bits of my rent. I have seen Lz maybe twice since like last sunday. She left monday night for break and came back late monday and campus has eaten her. Me and 5l had dinner together Monday and I randomly see her running to and from things but thats pretty much it. It will be like this until after the Gala but when the Gala is over I will have several projects to work on and will probably start sleeping in Emery, then magically it will be finals time and we will leave for Christmas break.

A house isnt the same without people in it. I think that is the moral of the story. Now I am off to research frogs and find pretty pictures.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Shampoo...who knew?

For all of you who figured the great game was over, I feel the need to clarify, specify, notify and addify...

I haven't washed my hair in over 7 weeks now. Some people had this idea in their heads that this was a game of duration 6 weeks and at the 6 week point game equaled over. They clearly misunderstood the purpose of my experiment. The IDEA (which for some reason needs capital letters) was to not wash my hair for 6 weeks and see what happened. If I looked like some sort of caffeteria mop after 6 weeks I would consider the whole shampoo thing again with a new sense of respect. However, if the hypothesis held water then for what reasons would I again subject myself to the social construct known as shampoo. Clearly it seems foolish to readdict myself to a comercialized product when it was not needed in the first place.

It turns out that after 6 weeks I was still mildly greasy but upon completion of week 7 I discovered pantien pro-v quality hair without that silly shampoo. All for the price of wearing hats for 6 weeks...which I would have done anyways as I like hats and dont like cold ears.

However, my partner in crime is not having the same results. She is done on wednesday and according to her she fully intends to wash her hair that day. I can't blame her. She held out and played the game with me just for ja-ja's. I think I will give her my shampoo for a consolation prize.

I guess then the reasults are inconclusive because we have one with amazing results and one with not so much. Therefore I motion that we institute a more broad scale experiment and yall play the game and let me know what happens and the world will be a better place. Let me know if you want to play.

On an unrelated note the past 2 days I have had really BAD coffee. I think I need to clean out the maker or something but I dont really know. Anyone have coffee fixing advice?

Me and my house sort of have adverse feelings about the talking box. It is good for the occasional movie or mindless game or DDR but that is really about it. 5l watches this show that doesnt use it's given name and I pay homage to the gods of football on Sundays and the occasional monday night but thats about it. A lot of people find this hard to believe. I find it hard to believe a lot of people who make it their occupation to know what the talking box wants them to think. Or something like that. Anyways I say all this to say that we are making our fridge comercial. By we I mean me and 5l watching me be ridiculous. All the little icon figures that come off of boxes or lables get cut out and plastered to the eating box. My favorite I think is the shiny woman holding a watermellon with the spanish word for watermellon scrawled beneath her- she came on a spagetti squash. (This would be known as a diversion- We made spagetti squash last night. I have not had so much fun eating in a long time. I highly recomend the gourd if you happen upon one. You have to trust me here its well worth the whatever cents a pound it is. Give your mouth a distraction once and a while its good for it) I have discovered that one of the problems with the happy lable game is that most of our food is either too store brand or too crunchy granola to seek to entertain us. Pretty much all of my food comes in happy white boxes maybe with some grass or flowers or whole grains sprinked on ever so simply just so they can show you how pure and good it is for you. Otherwise it has the word Shawrs scribbled on it with maybe a bowl of peas. And peacans go on the front porch. They even get a song. (On a slightly related note I went shopping before I came home and the RQM got me some stuff just so i wouldnt starve. Now I am the proud keeper of 13 cans of tuna and about 9 cans of peas minus the half can in the eating box- and no peacans are not stored on the front porch they only go out there when more or less empty)

This started out with a point and has since devolved. That means I can degenerate further into pointless lists.

Things that amuse me today at work:
1. 104 is working the day shift which means he amuses me all day (it is cloudy so he can come out during the day)
2. there is a 'large male deer on campus-you know the kind with the horns' which apparently bothers people. Its like they dont know we live next to the woods or something. At least one of the other callers refered to it as a 6 point buck- someone knows what is important.
3. They are here to clean the cameras today which means lots of closeups of the hairs in this guys nose. Classic...and recorded. And his boss has red hair and mutton chops. Excelent
4. The worlds biggest yuppy just drove on to campus. Dude he looked pristine. Perfectly white teeth and plucked eyebrows and an off white magnum sparkly clean with one of those phone ear pieces. I was like 'look man dont come to close our your comercialism might wear off on me I dont wash my hair'
5. Edible arrangements popped in with a yuppy birthday present for the dean of new students and token students.
6. My favorite regular caller is graduating for real this time in December
7. One of the wonderful RA's STILL has not registered his car and is now on probation. Way to be a leader
8. It smells like spring outside.
9. The piano tuner lady was wicked perky today for no apparent reason
10. The truck with the cracked egg on the front-with sunglasses
11. My name is still on Dispatch Info board with hearts and flowers- I didn't write it though.
12. A Cascadia Farms granola bar (part of my lunch- a NEW addition!) pretty much every ingredient says organic. I dont know why they cant lump them or something to save space but oh well. But at any rate they are really really good. They are one of those white box products.

That is all you get cause I am now bored enough to start homework.

-Jn

Beads in her hair
And beats in her head
Flowers spring up
Wherever she treads

Sunday, November 27, 2005

On muses

There ae 2 muses at home. They are lazy little buggers and they call and all around to follow suit. So there was travel and there was food and there was family followed by friends and all the makings of some sort of love song gone wrong but as much as the muses whined there was no inspiration. I had to drive through the night to shuck them off behind me and when the sun was on it's way upwards I found words strewen across the highway like some god awful wreck just waiting to be pieced back together and me without a pen. . . someone by me a tape recorder for Christmas. . . words decompose far too quickly in my head anymore.

Back Pocket Poet0-Jn

Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together

Shine all night (11/27/05 I-80 east)

Maybe you thought it was you that was choosin my comin and my takin leave
But I promise you this time baby, when I walk out that door it's cause of me
See that there road is open wider than your arms will ever be
And there's bluer than your eyes when the sun shines on the sea

And if the sun can shine in the morning then I can shine at night
But if you can't catch a falling star you don't deserve to hold this light
Cause I'm chasing fallen wishes and making old wrongs right

Running headlong far to fast but at least I'll burn out bright
-Jn

Monday, November 21, 2005

A Jump Start

I am supposed to be writing a paper that is due at 1130. This will hopefully easy me into that happy writing process. I like my topic and I have tons of research but that is partly the problem. I have so much to say and so many ways to say it that i end up making circles instead of doing that forward motion thing.

So to update yall on life and love and general interest stories. . .

I am in love with sancho panza- he is the rodent that lives under the fun room at our house. We don't know what flavor of rodent he is but he chews on the house at night.

Lz and I went on a hot date to see Oliver at HW highschool. We got comp tickets which was nice of the bf. She went only to watch him in the orcheststra and I went only to check out the stage/props/costumes. It was a good show inspite of us.

Saturday we had the big t-giving party at the house. A lot of people came and it was madly successful. We also have tons AND TONS of left over food (and some left over booze tambien also) It was a gooed enough party that the three hostesses all passed out at somepoint on Sunday because we could not stay awake any longer.

Sunday marked 6 weeks for the great hair experiment. I don't really know what to tell you. My hair isnt that pantien pro-v comercial grade hair any more but then again it is not all dry and gross either and the grease factor went down considerably. In general I like it a lot and it makes a good story. I tend to enjoy getting wierd looks. I think I will keep it. So to summarize hair experiement 1 was dying it when I went home for the football game, and experiment 2 was the no shampoo challenge. I am working on what comes next. I am thinking its finally time for the blue. SW! was all about doing it for me as she has experience, which might mean waiting till after I get back from home. Who knows. I dont know what comes after that. Dreds maybe? Eventually one does run out of things to do with ones hair that dont involve cutting it. I can't give it another good chop for at least a year if I plan to donate it again. Of course that rules out dreds for a whole year too. Sigh. I might have to pierce something instead. I suppose I should get through the next experiment before I go on worrying about the next on though. Don't worry I will make sure I post so you can continue to live vicariously through me.

One final note. I am headed south on Tuesday evening and driving through the wee hours to get home with my partner in crime shuff-dog. My current plan is to stay up later than normal this evening (I dont actually think I can do it) and sleep for the majority of the day on Tuesday as I have no classes. Hopefully this will translate into an uneventful drive with one or two stretch/obtain fuel breaks but no long term sleeping events. And as traveling gets me in a good thinking sort of mood you can forsee poetry on the horizon. Mmmmm.

Pancho I love you- Jn

Monday, November 14, 2005

A milestone of sorts

I am currently munching on TLC. That would be Tasty Little Crackers made by Kashi. This means they are crunchy in more ways than one and on the whole they are an ok breakfast. And yes they really are called TLC- It says so on the box.

It is only 730 and I have already had an exciting morning. Actually before 4 am it was an exciting morning. See I was crusing down Miles River road NOT late for work thinking to myself Jenn you are driving way to fast for this curvy crazy road and someday you are gonna die on it. Right about when I decide to slow down a car passes me. I think to myself sh*t that is gonna be a cop. So I make a full and complete stop at the stop sign and procede on then next street at the posted speed. I wasnt wrong. He turned around and caught up to me (cause at this point I was barely moving) blue lights a blazing. Good Jenn good. And this is in Hamilton too which is worse because 104 will know and I wont hear the end of it. For a fleeting instant I thought just maybe it was 104 but it definately wasn't. He runs the plate runs the liscence and inquires as to what on earth I am doing out so late and where I live if not at the college then sends me on my way by saying "just slow down a little ok?" So I scoot myself to campus and pass the Wenham cop on Rubbly going less than the limit and I'm thinking look he is gonna get me too. Gah. But he wasnt interested in a slow car and I got myself safely tucked in to campus and in to RRC where they were awaiting my arrival. Come to find out that someone up there likes me a lot (and he has a Nextel). See it pays to work for DPS. It also pays to not put your foot on the gas peddle to hop over the town line (which just might have crossed my mind for a fleeting instant) because the Wenham Cop will be waiting right there for you. It also might pay to drive the speed limit. Me and Catsby will have a talk about that later today. For now she is just pouting in the Chapel Lot. Then (I swear just for kicks) they run my car again and I hear it over the scanner at work. Now thats not fair hearing about yourself over the scanner like that when you are working and not even doing anything wrong anymore.

I am ok with this for 2 reasons (3 if you count that nothing happened). 1 I am now much more likely to drive slower especially on Miles River where I swear I am going to hit a patch of ice on that curve (you know the one) careen off into the trees and die this winter. 2 apparently there are some sketchy kids from Lynn (Lynn, Lynn the city of sin) running around the north shore breaking in to cars and stealing stuff then snagging a 'free' ride home. So him stopping me was part for speed and part to make sure it was my car. As I said before I am ok with that.

Now begins my monday as my relief is just about ot walk in the door - Jn

Friday, November 11, 2005

Things that make me ill

1. Mildew- I got to work in cave like conditions scrubbing mildew off the bottoms of the theater seats because someone decided storing them outside under a tarp was a good idea. I was fine for the first hour or so but eventually the little beasties and the bleach made it through the face mask and in to my system. I scrubbed as hard as I could when I got home but I still felt like they were crawling all over me (cause mildew crawls apparently). I even almost washed my hair.

2. Water in Ispinach- So they tell us anyways. Of course the little town notification system doesnt work for us for some reason so I had to visit my local Zumi's to play backgammon with the other Jn and hear local chit-chat to figure this out. The story goes along the lines of some idiot busted a pipe at the water cleanin plant and a bunch of extra potasium hydroxide got spewed into our water. Wicked basic- drink it and your skin melts off- something like that anyways. So we arent allowed to do anything but flush and we are told to flush often. Good thing we thought to warn the LL cause she had no clue either.

3. Today is veterans day- Now before you destroy me let me explain the actual illness. No one knows this. I didnt know until I came to work and 104 drilled me. We have class today and while a day off of school is perhas a shtty reason to remember a holiday at least then you thinkg about it for a few minutes. But no- Business as usual. No one knows. No one cares. If they did know they would probably protest war or something. People at my school have no respect for authority and not sense of community or respect for it. I mean hell you might not think war is such a great idea but for God's sake at least respect people for standing up for what they believe in. Can't you at least respect someone even if you think they are wrong. Sometimes when Fr. Lias gives the benediction he includes the phrase 'Honor all persons' Thats right even the idiots. They are still people after all and made in the image of God. I am getting off topic but the point still remains. It is veterans day and no one knows about it.

4. godhatesfags,com- Words cannot describe to you how angry the 'gospel' this site preaches makes me. My organs begin to decompose when I think about it. 104 found it this morning because they picketted the funeral of a kid from his alma matter who was killed in Iraq. According to the site God hates people in the service people who live(d) in Lousianna, people from sweden, and any number of other things. (those are all I can think of off the top of my head and i do not intend to swing by that website again) Need we wonder why people hate Christians? God does not hate people. He may hate actions but NOT people. (see above) And I am pretty sure he is not really amused when people twist scripture all around to suit their purposes. (He will still love them just maybe not what they are doing) Love people. Hate actions. BUT LOVE PEOPLE.

I am gonna end with this cause this was pretty much all I could think of when I was looking at the site...

Luke 6:27-38 But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

I also like the way this comes out in Matthew 5 so you get that too (43-47) You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

It goes round...and round

5 things I plan to do before I die.

1. Visit all continents and play in all oceans. (2 continents and 2 oceans...I have work to do)
2. Publish a real paper in a real journal
3. Run away to the rainforest
4. Own a house (or whatever the culture I am living in calls a house)
5. Get through grad school

5 things I can do.

1. Poetry
2. Make kick ass 'Cosas' (house recipe- includes apples and chicken and whatever else ends up in the pan)
3. Read people
4. Play hostess (The RQ taught me well, the late, Great Grandma Goldie taught her well)
5. Get up at crazy hours for work without a problem

5 thing I can't do.

1. Focus
2. Speak in English (or any other language)
3. Produce adrenaline
4. Tolerate stupidity
5. Get through a school day without some great error (late for class, forget about class, forget the homework, forget about a testm etc.)

5 things I say.

1. Damn (it is really an all purpose word)
2. Varieties of the word Urinate (as in I am Urinated right now, or I have to find a Urination station)
3. Woof (a word for describing the ineffible)
4. Stellar (and everyone I know says it now)
5. Any number of random song fragments, quote board quotes or movie lines that get stuck in mine and my housemates heads daily. (eg It's cheese that makes the world go round, I smell bacon in the air, not the pleasant mother pheasant plucker, explodingo...)

5 things that attract me to the opposite sex

1. Plays in other countries
2. Plays in other languages
3. Plays outside
4. Plays music
5. Plays with cars and power tools

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

stickers stickers stickers


Posted by Picasa

Elephant in the rain (11/07/05- Ipswich)

The saddest dream
You've ever seen
An elephant in the rain
He circles again
And the slickered children
Wait their turn
And reach out as he goes by
This great gray beast
Reduced to chasing hay
Does he make you wonder
Does he make you cry
Can you touch the empty
When he passes by


-Jn

Saturday, November 05, 2005

An essence of goodness

So the way my life works lately when I come home it is exciting if I can say well at least it wasnt a bad day. (By the way the day is more or less considered over when I pull in the drive way even if it is like 1pm. Yeah, bad things and stress happen here but it is mostly safe from the things that beat me up.) If nothing else it just means that right now I dont take goodness for granted. Anything positive needs to be grasped and magnified if at all possible because the plusses are few and far between.

Friday I did not get all of my homework done before it was due because I confused my schedule but I did make it to all of my classes. I got to play in the shop for a good long time and build which is great because 1. it requires thinking but I can still do it well right now 2. my prof tursts me enough with everything to give me basic instruction and say go then she goes nuts over whatever I make because I have a high quality control in my work and she doesnt have to rebuild everythign I do 3. I get to play with power tools. I played with the (now) indoor kite eating tree for a while, climbed into the heights of the black box, and built a happy little table to go with my happy little benches. Oh yeah and I painted turkey butts brown too. Then I got a space of time all to myself in the house to unwind before friends came over. SW!, E and I just sat around and had a drink and talked for ages. It is so nice to know that Gordon kids to not have to get plastered any time there is alcohol around (seems like most do) and also that I have good, thinking friends.

Today it was nice enough to open windows. Kt came over in the afternoon to do homework and homework actually got done. We went into Ispinach to get dinner and walked around for a bit. We got duck (which amuses me to no end) at the Thia place and hit up Zumi's (aka the best coffee shop ever). I decided I love Ispinach and I need to play in town more and maybe live here forever. Sept I also need to live in Peru for forever so I have to negociate how to make that work. I am working on it. Basically it has been a wicked chill weekend with a disproportionate amount of goodness compared to the last few weeks and I am still getting things done. Tomorrow is the All Saints Day service at church and SW! is getting poured on for which I am excited and if I can swing it I will go to the All Souls service tomorrow night before I go to work. Here's hoping.

Maybe the creative juices are flowing tonight with the duck digestive juices. Hmmm...

-Jn

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

A week in my house

Su blog se ha publicado satisfactoriamente.
Your blog was published satisfactorily

This is 5Ls computer and it says things in spanish. It says perty much everything in spanish except for some random programs.
The computer I am typing at belongs to my housemate. She is a spanish major so she likes to keep things interesting and make everything in spanish except for those few programs that don't do spanish. However all things google are in spanish and therefor blogger is too.

Speaking of 5L she is NOT the pleasant mother pheasant plucker. She is not the pleasant mother pheasant pluckers son. And she will Not pluck the pleasant mother pheasants until the pleasant mother pheasant pluckings done.
5L does not actually belong to any tongue twisters though we say them a lot.

Speaking of pheasants there is a rodent living in our floor. To read about the aforementioned Sancho Panza you should follows the pleasant mother pheasants down the rabbit hole. There is even a picture of some astronaught con headlamp and cobwebs.
We were speaking of pheasants but pheasants have nothing to do with rodents. Pheasants are birds. 5L may be confused with a rodent from a popular childrens movie. That is ok. On an unrelated note we have some type of rodent living in our floor. His name is Sancho Panza. The other night we made a voyage into the depths of the basement to try to located him. We located him but still could not make visual contact so we dont know what type of rodent it is. Pictures were taken and 5L has a more extensive version of this story in her live journal which happens be to located under not the plesant mother phesant. This includes a picture.

Don't leave canned peas on the front porch
There are 2 half cans of dehydrate/rehydrated canned peas on our fronts porch. They have been there for several days. My fault.

-Jn
-Jn

Monday, October 31, 2005

The grand shampoo escape

Today (actually more like yesterday morning) marks the midway point in The Great Experiment for me. It goes something like this. Eons ago I heard that if you didnt wash your hair for some extended period of time like 3 months that it would return to its natural happy hair sorta state of mind. Three months seems like a heck of a long time but the idea bounces and rolls around in my head pretty frequently. Me and Kl talked about it at length at least once. It makes yah wonder what they did in the days before shampoo right? I mean kids usta wash their hair with mayonaise or eggs or all kinds of wierd stuff.

I don't know why it came up again in earnest but it did. (Around the time I was debating the blue hair, which I still am but its on hold for this experiment) It probably had something to do with the fact that 2 in our house shower at random intervals, shave less frequently and at least one rarely wears deoderant. Basically we are greaseballs with what would appear to be crunchy hippy tendencies except thats not the ultimate goal. Lazy is a better lable, or maybe cheap but we do not in fact resemble nasty gross middle schoolers. We still look like normal, well adjusted types. And we have conversations in our house about this all the time about how we dont actually NEED these things even though the talking box and popular culture seem to think so.

So I did a google search. I found just about nothing related to anything I wanted to search for which made me urninated. (Apparently about no one does this or at least no one is willing to admit to it) So I kept searching. I have no clue how or where I found them but there are 2 sites and maybe only 2 sites in the whole wide googleable world. One is some living ethically do I buy locally grown produce to support local small business farmers or organic imported fair trade to support less pesticides and fair treatment of other cultures type of news letter and the other is some random guys web site that mentions a daytime tv talk show with a similar experiment coming up during a bar conversation. Both come back with the same ideas 1) if you don't wash your hair eventually it will go back to the way it usta was after an initial grease period 2) upon completion you will swear you never want to use shampoo again and 3) the grease period lasts about 6 weeks.

So you have me the conscious scientist/ impulsive college student pondering this. I say to myself- self I say, neither of these is a very reliable source and they should not be trusted. Yes, I reply , but no one and I mean no one is doing it that means that you should do it. I mean think about it- you could free yourself from the social constructs of shampoo, you would be one step closer to living off the land, you would be dumping fewer chemicals into the world every day, you would be saving money and time... is any of this appealing to you? Clearly not enough...Um...you could supply the missing information in some logical and scientific manner and be famous in your own mind. Do it in the name of truth, of exploring, of finding new things. Well, I suppose so. And 6 weeks isnt that terribly long especially when I already have a 3 day head start from you deciding to sleep in and not to shower.

And so the experiment comenced on Sunday the 9th of October in the year of our Lord 2005, for dubious and sundry reasons. As far as quasi-scientific information goes my hair got progressivly greasier for about a week and a half and is holding pretty steady at it's current level. All signs point to a success with the experiment reaching completion the weekend before Thanksgiving. I have already decided to hold out for at least 8 weeks just incase 6 doesnt do it. My fellow partner in crime in the house is about a week and a half behind me and is reporting the same conditions.

Based on unscientific polls and random surveys most people are facinated (albeit slightly sketched out) with our experiment and are eagerly awaiting our results. A few are very disturbed by us and no one is particularly surprised. We are of the opinion that this generally means that even if our attempt is successful, people will be glad to know it can be done but would never actually try it.

If anything happens worth noting I will be sure to inform you. Otherwise I will write a lengthy scientific diatribe with statistics and graphs included when we come to the end.

So there you have it, whether you wanted it or not- Jn

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Today it snows

A Little Change (Ipswich House, 10/29/05)

I have 36 cents in my pocket
Some lint and a bus ticket stub
It doesn't look to get any warmer
So tonight I will play 21

I'll slide in close beside you
You look more harmless than the rest
Say, 'I haven't seen much cause I'm new to this town,
But what I've seen you must be the best.'

The first drink you buy me will chase off the chill
With the second I'll be feeling alright
When you buy me a third or maybe a fourth
I'll know I have a home for the night

Maybe I'll stay for a few days
Or you'll decide to keep me around
You'll save me from theives
And a world that ain't free
And keep me on the bright side of town

But you can't catch a falling star
They burn to hot, to bright, to fast
And while you might like the decoration
Pretty flowers never last

I'll break your heart when I need to
Leave you a note when I hit the road
With all the food I can pocket
In your old winter coat

I hope my memory doesn't haunt you
I'll try not to leave it behind
I'm just a vagabond
A wayward soul moving on
From a place that has slipped my mind.

-Jn

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

How much wood

would peter piper pick if sally sold sea shells in a rubber baby buggy near unique New York?

This one time I lived in Ipswich. This would not be that time. I live in the Penthouse right now and sleep about as much there as in my sleeping bag in Ispinach. About the only reason to go home for me right now is to change clothes and repack my portable pantry. Oh yeah and to add to my stack of undone dishes. All I really have to say about it is Anh.

The past 2 days when I woke up it was still dark. Now I understand when I wake up at 330 am for work it should be dark. Not an issue. It should not still be dark at 630. The sun should come up at 6ish and set at 6ish regularly. Then the day sorta makes sense. Get up and get ready, eat breakfast, walk some transects come back and eat lunch, walk another transect take a shower and compile your data, eat dinner and go out for a few hours. You can be back under your misquito net by 10 or 11 and get plenty enough sleep to start the cycle over again the next day. Alarm clocks are no good, Electric lights are only sometimes good, 8 hour work days are not bad as long as they are balanced with some ratio of about 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours hang out/live life time.

It has been raining. I have been writing. These are not necessarily related. When I get some time to unwind at home that does not get delegated to housemates and laundry I will polish something and post it since I know thats why you keep coming back anyways. This week doesn't look good. Nor do the next 3. Ha!

I have been told the answer to all unknown math questions is 5 and all unknown geography questions is France. This is not either type of question so the answer still eludes me.

-Jn

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

The monster ate my homework

Sometimes, when I go to type a post and the verification code is really long, I hit refresh so so I get a shorter one.

It is a rainy grey day here in sunny New England. It has been raining for the past 3 weeks. Exept on Sunday when I came in to work there was a bit of sun. I was confused. It was really so strange. So we are in a state or perpetual morning because the morning crisp and greyness never quite goes away. I was a fan week one and maybe even week 2 because i like the rain and grey and whatnot but it is cold in our house and our heat wont get turned on until later this month so I am pretty tired of the rain. Not so much for the rain itself but the fact that i can never get warm and dry.

I carry a plastic grocery bag with me pretty much all of the time with a little mini pantry full of snacky foods. I used to pack a respectable lunch with a sandwich and all that good stuff except it just didnt work for me. I start eating around 1030 with a little snack and end up grazing on various bits and peices all day. I am never hungry enough to eat a sandwich in one sitting when I have time. In fact I never really get hungry even if I dont eat anything for like days- I just get sick and kinda passoutish. Anyways I just start eating in class to give me somethign to do and so I can stay awake- I am less fidgety. I tell you all that to tell you this. I am sitting here in the Chair of Power (COP) grazing on some dry cereal that I procured from my personal portable pantry. It's called Mighty Bites and it is people shaped. And all i keep thinking is geeze its like dog food or something. Yah know like those dog biscuits that are mailman shaped or whatever, Except this is people food and I am eating people. What does that say. What kind of message are we sending to these wee crunchy granola kids whose crunchy granola parents feed then this cereal (It's Kashi cereal). And I mean its such good cereal too. I wouldnt have a problem feeding it to my kids only well it is people shaped. Couldnt it be like tree shaped or stars or something if it cant just be plain old O's. I mean it is kinda fun setting up a little town and then going all Godzilla on it and I am an avocate of playing with your food but do you really want little timmy telling his teacher he eats people for breakfast. You are just asking for trouble. My vote is still out- by that I mean I will still by the cereal but I might not let my kids have it...since I have a horde of kids just begging for cereal...or someting.

Speaking of swamp monsters. Me and 5l were watching football on the talking box and started talking about serial killers and stupid movies and we decided we should make one for the Gordon Globes. We even came up witha decent like plot and everything. The big problem is that the movie can only be 3.5 minutes long. That is not nearly long enough to develop the character of the salt marsh monster. So we are reworking the plot and getting a new ending. We also need a video camera and an editor and a pitchfork. But we are hopeful. This stupid thing has been on m mind for the past 3 days. I cant eat or sleep or do homeowrk. Nothing. Just thinking aout the monster. Any time anything moves out of the corner of my eye it must be the monster. When egg dishes end up in the dishwasher and get the eggs all baked on if was the monster. When I wash the floors and leave footprints everywhere it was the monster. When water comes up through the basement floor you better believe the monster did it. So if we can't have the monster I dont know what I am going to to. I might decompose. I might become the monster and that would just be no good really at all.

I am going to go grade papers for an hour.

Slightly more different than a swamp monster and out
Jn

Tuesday, October 11, 2005


I am posting this 1 Because Kt told me to 2 Because I miss Arox and 3 Because I want to be here now instead of in NE in Dispatch Posted by Picasa

Monday, October 10, 2005

two unlinked thoughts

...which happen to be like unlinked protiens in that they are both unlinked but that is really all...

I haven't posted in a while. Not exactly because there weren't things to talk about in the moment. Just that I never had time in the moment and out of the moment if there was time there wasnt a computer or maybe there weren't words. So tonight I am supposed to be writing a diatribe on a book that I strongly dislike and I am 'talking' here instead.

The good Dr. B. has been talking to me lately about writing opinions for the Tartan (school paper) a prospect that bohers me of oh so many reasons. Apparently I have a lot of opinions and apparently I like to share them, maybe a little too much (indicated by my talking priviledges being revoked). So her goal is to get me out of talking and into doing something productive. But the Tartan scares me because everyone reads it and everyone is always hyper-critical of everything that was written and everyone that wrote. It bothers me less that people will attack my opinions because that rarely happens. What is more likely is that they will attack me and while I do not mind and can hold my own in personal coversations I don't think I fair well nor do I desire to argue about my virtues or the apparent lack in print. So she is trying and I am skirting the issue. Maybe the Wittenburg Window because people rarely use it this early in the year and perchance it will be ignored by the masses and only read by the people who care enough to pay attention. It feels slightly safer. The other aspect that is being worked on is what is my actual point. I can't just wildly disagree with everything I need to have good reasons and stand up for them or alternately choose to agree very much with whatever redeeming qualities are there and try to flesh them out. That is not a normal mindset. Thursday Shuff sorta threw a little light in my direction. He called me a rebel without a cause and said I am just walking around looking for causes to fight for. He isnt really wrong I guess. Just give me something that bothers me even a little and I can make it bigger or catch me on a particular style of day and we can battle. I am just pugnacious. More so lately than I remember formerly. Maybe its cause I feel more sure of myself or care less about looking like a fool or maybe I am just more jaded and easier to bother (though I very rarely every wore rose colored glasses) Maybe its just that I have more energy at my disposal to do the fight picking or that I just needed a break coming out of highschool. But the problem still stands that I can't just be annoyed by everything. I need to work on direction. And maybe writing for some kind of public forum. Maybe.

In other news apparently our house has started a new sort of ministry. We house alcohol for campus types who cannot house it themselves and then have them over for a little stress relief on weekends. I don't know exactly how that one works theologically but I dont exactly mind. Peoples just need a place to get away from what ails them sometimes and for most people of my genre it has something to do with the campus (either THE MAN, classes, a boyfriend or a crappy TA job) so you give them a little corner of the house. Honestly what else does one have a house for if not to share it with other people. In reality what is the point of being a person if its not for other people. I don't mean being used or anything. My current ideas along these lines is that if you surround yourself with enough Good People and pretend you aren't real proud you will end up getting filled up with goodness so you never run out. Thats the idea anyways and I have collected enough good people that it seems to be working. Its nice to have people to give to also because then you dont start to feel stale and crustly. So I have a good job that I like very much which lets me buy food and gas and helps me pay for rent type things and I have a lot of opinions and an open sort of mind when I want to and I like to hear/see/taste people think which means I like to listen. I have a lot to give if people want it and I want to give, but then again I am no gonna force it on anyone. That makes everyone kinda bristly and unpleasant. So send me your wayward and wandering souls, those seeking peace or dinner or bed. I can't promise reform or perfect quiet, but the food should be eatable and the bed nice and warm and I can promise that I will do my best.

In other news I went to the fair, I got really sick, I got better in a step sorta way, 4 helped me change my oil, I went to a Philipians dinner at Dextah compliments of Kt, my computer found itself a virus and is currently residing at the campus computer hospital, the current band of 'us' took shuffles out for his 21 (yay everyone finally being a proper age) I manned the bio room of the science fair (in which my igg's were a highlight) all by myself because the entire departement is a bunch of lazy ass losers (there we go with opinions again. Some people had good excuses. But most people had none other than maybe- I thought someone else would do it. Some people- or everyone since there was no one- decided not to show up. So in reality there are about 10 people I am not actually angry with. There I have become less randomly violent about it.) I went to a kick-bottom concert for in to support a good portion of the 'us', a crazy band of overly stressed persons came over to our house to play and I went to church were I got to meet 4's cats as it is the day of St. Francis and pets get blessed. I didnt bring the igs cause they were stressed out from stardom the day before and it was more than a little chilly for their metabolisms. These are the weeks worth of events that were worth noting and maybe at one point deserved more words but now will get none.

This week we are housing a campus visitor/friend/camper of 5L for I don't know how many days and Quad break starts Thursday. That means everyone sorta scoots to some exotic off campus location and I sit in DPS more often than usual doing (hopefully) less dispatching and more homeworking than usual. The Red Queen is lost in Idaho until further notice and I do not wish that I was there because I am enjoying the misty/rainy/less colorful than it could be NE fall even as much as it is a warning of winter and I am already cold. Sorry queen mum.

Now to find some positive aspect about a book for fairness sake and then procede in describing different methods of employing flame.

-Jn

Saturday, October 01, 2005

dichotomy

Yesterday reaked of goodness but it alsy reaked of badness. I think goodone the day but that bad is still lingering around like badness tends to do so we will see.

I am sick. Not the I have a mandatory cold type of sick though I have that and not like a knock down drag out flu type of thing. This is like the internal working of my body arent working kinda sick. It leads to random food cravings (which is easily fixed) random blood pressure changes, loss of focus, adgetation (How do you spell this word?) and my falling asleep in random places all over campus. Not so stellar. All things a college student has to deal with anyway now magnified beyond belief. Make it go away.

Thusday night I was non-functional by 6 (meaning I was awake and could stare at a wall but there was no chance of coherant conversation or logical action) and I decided to go to bed. The roommates woke me up for dinner but that was like a good dream. Even with all that sleep I was late again for work but not as late this time and progressed to doing nothing at all on my shift but writing down opening times.After work I failed miserably at physics homework and went to go talk to the prof. He unconfused me up a hill and I was standing at the top glorying in the view of amazingness and how wonderful life was and he kept talking and confused me right down the other side of the hill rolling as I went. I was in chapel but I have no clue what was said because my brain was sleeping. Apparently it was good and BB should have heard it. Thats what i got anyways. Then I fell asleep before phys class and woke up supposedly for class but I dont remember it. Finished physics just in time for class and managed to be coherant through class. I bet you are wondering where the goodness is hidden in this day. It starts now.

I went back to the biolibrary after class to do some work and fell asleep on the couch for a good long time while Udy was working on the computer and keeping me safe from scavenging gnomes. I woke up for Bio-Tea and my Kt was there. Apparently she has been coming to tea more than me which is weird because she is a music major. I love her anyways. She told me we (we being her) were making dinner and hanging out and that the Frog was coming as well. So we cleaned up bio-tea together and went to find him. We got lost in his dorm for a while then caught up in the harvest party where we saw at least 2 handfuls of cool people and were fed free fall foodstuffs. When we got to full we went to Dextah to get supplies and again got distracted. Kt played me music (I dont know if she intended it to be for anyone else but it was definately just for me) andI read a book she stuck in my face. Then we went to Frogs house. We got to play with his animals andsee the mini frog and his parents who cannot help but throw food at us because they assume we are starving. We stayed for ever but Kt kept getting sicker so we left by way f CVS and drogas and got to I-spinach at like 8 still needing dinner. Frog found us a pizza shop and we ordered and wandered around I-spinach and I found a better/cheaper packie though we didn't by anything. We came home and found 5L almost falling asleep wanting desperately to be distracted- so we did. We watched the red sox win and ate pizza and played video games and when we got tired I took the campus types home. It was such a good night because I never get to see these people and they are some of my favorites. But I got a whole night full of them and next weekend I might get the same only with more people because we are celebrating the 21st anniversary of the birth of one Shuffles. I am excited. We will see if i can make it through this week first though.

Really the only reason i am posting this is because the RQ seems to think I am dying. I might be but I am not dead yet so there is really no problem. But now she has internet confirmation that I am in fact still around. Now I am going to go play with my car.

Wanna-be Mechanic out-Jn

Monday, September 26, 2005

Better never late than late never

So this was written in the airport but I didnt get to post it till now so here you go...

So I know I have already done this once today, but there wasn’t enough data in yet to make judgement calls on the day. I had a hunch but well hunches aren’t always good. Sometimes people have them removed.

This morning I did not wake up to an alarm clock. Instead I got 104 yackin at me through the talkie on my phone. So from the get-go I knew I was late for work. He has no other reason to call. First thoughts: Damn why didn’t my alarm go off I KNOW I turned it on. 2. At least I set my stuff all out last night because I was fidgety. 3. Do I have time for coffee? YES. Always time for coffee. So I drove myself at break neck speed to campus and made it in 12 minutes. The problem about living off campus is that when I am late I cannot be less that a half hour late. It’s icky. But Babcock got some extra cash and my shift went a little faster. And I didn’t wake up to the alarm making its God-awful indescribable noise which is always a plus. And like a good little student I got all my Friday work done the day before so I could slack off during my shift and chat. Mmmmm good happy unstressedness. (Which happens to be a word with lots of the same letters)

I meandered myself over to the bio library and chilled for a bit and talked to the good Doctor B. and figured proposed the idea of recommended reading lists for al concentrations…or at least for me. It was well received on busy ears, which is to say it was and still is a really good idea but the chances of it happening ain’t that good. And we figured out that there is a potentially stellar class for me next semester hidden within the upper level history classes if you can believe it. So I wandered barefoot (as I lost my shoes someplace in the building that I call home where I am not allowed to walk barefoot if I listen to the people in charge) over to some of my favorite people on campus who live in the bowels of Jenks at the registrar to ask about if the powers that be were being those powers and found out that I need to get my tushy moving if I wanna graduate. Good thing those ladies take care of me. They know me by name. I don’t know if that is a good thing but I love them anyway. A few even go to my church.

Then I proceeded in some sort of shoed fashion to the monstrosity known as AJ GORDON MEMORIAL CHAPEL (I put it in caps to try to replicate the hugeness of the columns but 12 print doesn’t quite do it) and I had the good fortune to bump into 5L on the way. Much to my Joy and the fulfillment of my Happy Warm Fuzzy Bunny feelings I got to listen to freshman class president wannabes sing their own praises and make fools of themselves on stage for my spiritual and moral edification. (We don’t know what we are doing yet but it’s gonna be good. We already have a theme and everything. I have been class president for 4 years. I like the word leader. It has a nice ring to it.- They needed to just say vote for me because I am attractive and popular and look I always have been ::flips hair to the side and giggles::) And chapel got out before 11 which is more than 15 minutes of precious time that I can waste be my own means instead of the means of the powers that be. It needed to end anyways. Those cheerleaders didn’t have many more unused vocabulary words left. Oh you silly freshman, so full of hope and dreams about making Gordon better. Don’t you know there is no money and as soon as it snows all hope dies with the posies planted around the clock. But you will. You will.

So I hung out with Lz and ran errands with her and was happy to just do stupid stuff because I could. And I miss her. But 15 minutes really didn’t last long so that ends that paragraph.

Animal phys was pretty stellar I think by some fluke. We all did article summaries which means you read something really dense and boring (not always) and translate it into layman’s English and share it with the class. This doesn’t sound all that great except its kinda like reading discover magazine. You get tons of little random fascinating tidbits that might not connect to something else at all but they are just cool to know. Like Eastern painted turtles hibernate differently than other turtles and people are doing circulation studies on my little cane toad friends. And the fact that I could translate the scientific name for the class just further indicated to them that I smoke them. And when someone said ‘why would you use cane toads?’ and I kinda chuckled that just cemented it. Come on guys they are huge and they eat anything. What’s not to lick? I mean like. Like is the appropriate word there. Dr. Story talked to me about doing cane toad studies but I think he was being facetious. But hey if he wants me to get interested in bio-chem I am pretty sure that is his only available mode.

And the E of EJ&J invited us J’s over for lunch which I have to say was hands down the most amazing part of my day. He said something this afternoon about the soothing therapeutic effects of his apartment. He’s not wrong. If was the kind of happy where if you don’t bounce or dance or laugh or write you explode, the kind of happy that require physical movement to be fully experienced, that rare kind of happy that stems from ultimate deep seated contentment. My soul was over full. So what happened to make it so amazing you wonder? Well first I got my shift covered by 2 wonderful boys who work before and after me. That way no one is bustin their balls over my little vacation for an 8 hour overnight shift or has to unwillingly sleep through and 8am on my account. Life is good and I have to figure out a way to repay them both. Then Jn came over even though she was sick and we chatted and I started bouncing. Then SB, one of E’s apartment mates handed me a cup of amazing, I have no clue what was in it tea, and we were just talking, and MA (E’s roommate) was baking bread and I was mesmerized by the process. And E hands me this plate of amazingness which was based on rice and probly eggs and had raisins and cinnamon among other things. It was like a party in my mouth only breakfast style for lunch. You could NOT eat it without bouncing and as Jn pointed out later I couldn’t eat it without making odd little happy noises either. Then JD popped in and all of the sudden their were harmonicas and a guitar and drums and they were just playing. I was working on esplode mode and I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself until I jumped up and found a notebook. Mmm notebook. Mmm pen. And I just sorta wrote what they were playing. The story that the harmonica was telling me. The way the river wanted the words to flow on the paper. I popped out 3 poems in well in not that long except for 2 of them I didn’t exactly get finished before the song changed so I am not quite sure how I feel about them. I don’t know. I will get back to you on that one. But then some of them disappeared and the bread was done and since I was in the ‘wrong place’ at the ‘wrong time’ as I was told I had to try the bread. SO good. Words cannot describe. But then my alarm was going off to tell me to go to physics so I left the apartment of goodness and headed to my class.

I did really well on my exam as far as I am concerned. I was pretty far from failing and on the top end of the class and I didn’t bother to study because I am easily distracted. Oh well. And it was painful to watch the clock move and TB was making fun of me every time I turned around (which was like every 30 seconds) But then I was off and the world was a wonderful place.

I got lost trying to find economy parking and had the privilege of paying an extra $3 to turn around via the summner tunnel because Boston is retarded and I ended up parking in the expensive spot but that couldn’t be helped. And now I am sitting in the airport just waiting for my plane to board. It has been a stellar day so far and I know its going to keep on in this way. Mmmmm…

So you get two from the apartment of goodness…

The warm up:

Wordless song

And so this is how the days go by
A flow of in and out
With beats and bare feet
And a long sad tone
But I am not alone
You step in beside me
And we walk through the rain
I love you still
Again and again

And the cool down:

A Bus Stop in Burton

Baby what’s that little trinket
Hangin round your neck?
Is it from your daddy
Or some boy from ‘cross the tracks?

If I sit down here beside you
Will you help me pass the time?
I’m just waitin for my bus to come,
Heading on towards the sublime
They say the coast is pretty
If you can stand the cold
And hell I’ve got some years to waste
Before I get too old

Baby why you sittin here
Waitin lonesome in the sun?
Why don’t you tag along with me
Cause my future has just begun

I like the solemn in your beauty
Reminds me of an early autumn rain
So I’ll help you keep on if you’re runnin
And try to help you fight the pain
Or if you want to turn around
Cause you miss the comforts you call home
I can help you find your way
Before I go off to find my own

Baby what’s that jinglin in your pocket?
The last change that you have left?
Please just slip your cold hands into mine
I’m not a good man but I’ll do my best


Peace-Jn