Nothing To Do But Smile.

Okay, quick rundown of happenings over the last couple of weeks:

- Finished my second thesis chapter. Hopefully it'll be received more positively than the first, on which my thesis reader wrote "This is more than a little disappointing."

- Planned to go to Joshua Tree and shroom for the opening weekend of Spring Break, but cancelled due to high probability of rain. This is a bummer, but made up for by a few great parties. Watched Anchorman with Ayesha; will now make it a point to use the line "Take me to Pleasure Town" more often in daily conversation.

- Charles's beach house in Santa Barbara. Really nice place. Charles's grandmother gives us money to buy a blender and forces me to make her a Kahlua Mudslide. Best grandmother ever. We play ridiculous games on the beach and grill steak and vegetables for dinner. We also play the Big Lebowski drinking game, which Gabe finishes matching the Dude beer for beer and White Russian for White Russian. That's 5 beers and 9 White Russians in 2 hours. He then proceeds to jump out of his seat and slam his head into a wooden rafter, spends the next few minutes in fetal position.

- Drive up to SF with Gabe and Elissa. Spend a night in Oakland with childhood friends of Gabe's. They cook us a great meal. Comfy bed, cute dogs.

- Meet up with Lisa in SF! Woo! Pretty bad fever the whole time I was there, but didn't let that hinder me. Paid for it dearly later.

- Paid for it dearly. Sickness turns out to be mild pneumonia. Coughing up blood. Not good for singing. I start taking antibiotics, which have the side effect of making me feel like a tractor has backed up over my head. Nyquil is the only thing that gets me through the next few days.

- Clara visits! It is great to see her. We eat lunch, chill for a while, see a movie, meet up with Jon, Lawrence, David, James, Stephen, Mike... eventually Kristine and Linda show up. Fun fun fun. We go to Dave & Busters, end up back at Jon's apartment. Don't get back on campus until 4am. Sleepily chat until 6am. Pass out. Clara gets up to leave at 8:30am! I must have been snoring.

- Not feeling too bad anymore. Lungs have stopped bleeding, but the headache hasn't gone away. Hoping that this is a lingering effect of the antibiotics and not some other ailment. Thesis chapter due next week... really need to get to work. No big events to look forward to between now and the end of classes. Time to bite the bullet and work through the home stretch. 6 weekends left of college... frightening. Really wish I'd hear back from the Fulbright or the JET program. For the first time starting to feel like I don't have enough time to spend with everyone I want to see. Sad.

- Sad.

Exoticism.

I think I discovered today that I have a fetish for red-headed Irish girls.

On that note... Happy St. Patty's Day everyone!

Why aren't you out getting drunk?

Retrospective.

11:45pm and I'm sitting in a kitchen with a makeshift curtain drawn in the doorway between this room and the next to keep the light in. My hostess sleeps in preparation for what will likely be another 10 to 12 hour workday tomorrow. Periodically, just when I think everyone is asleep, Tuesday comes in to visit me.

Dessert at Cozmos, modestly priced food for its quality. Elegant decor and hip music combine to form a trendy, but mellow ambiance. We order the butterscotch creme broulet and the brownie smore sundae. I decide to have a cup of peppermint tea, which is the second time I've had it in as many days. Our waitress has a mild southern accent and is very attractive.

Dinner at Cafe Maritime, we order seafood chowder and steamed clams and mussels for appetizers and I have the lobster roll for an entree. Though I'm feeling much better, I decline ordering a drink, thinking that my lingering sickness likely has much to do with my habits as of the last few days. Good conversation compensates for slow service. My entree is large, and I feel too full for dessert, but my friends enthusiastically suggest we make a stop before returning home.

I observe a process that is a daily occurrence in this apartment: narrowing down the list of restaurants by price range, type of food, distance, and availability of a reservation within our hunger tolerance. We decide on seafood, though I'm apprehensive about the price of it here, especially with the spending habits of my hosts. We also decide on a destination for dinner tomorrow night: The House of Prime Rib. Just the name is enough to start me salivating.

Joseph arrives first. It is sincerely good to see him, though I didn't know what to expect prior to the moment. A year apart is long enough to forget how enjoyable spending time with certain people is. Lisa arrives next, a few minutes later, and we have the chance to properly banter like old friends that we didn't get at the subway station.

Awake. What time is it? It's beginning to get dark. The nap did me a lot of good, but I still need a few hacking coughs before my lungs feel like they're working normally again. Tuesday is curled up beside me.. catnapping, heh. I check my email, Lisa's given me some options for dinner tomorrow and Saturday and the names of some old friends we could call up. My excitement level rises noticeably. I am starving to the point of pain, so I help myself to a couple of eggs and a sausage that I find in the fridge.

I feel like shit. The adrenaline from the steep, uphill walk has worn off and now all I can think about it is how my eyes feel like they're a few sizes too large for my head and my throat is practically swollen shut. I see the bed in the corner, but don't want to impose without permission; who knows if I could have made it there in the first place? I grab a stray pillow and drape my coat over myself on the floor. A cat saunters out of the kitchen and watches me. I realize I know her name: Tuesday. I spend several minutes petting her until sleep overcomes me.

I call Lisa at the subway station and she comes down from her office to give me the spare key to her apartment. Our greeting is heartfelt but brief, there's a mean breeze and we both know she has to get back to work. She gives me directions to her place 6 blocks away. My bag is pretty heavy, but it doesn't sound too bad.

I wake up in a bed with 2 other people that happen to be engaged to each other. We're sharing an unzipped, double sleeping bag for a blanket that is almost 10 feet long when laid flat. It's 8am, and Gabe and Elissa have a 4 hour drive ahead of them to visit Gabe's father, who lives north of Oakland. Our hosts (acquaintances of Gabe from his childhood) send us off with hugs and a couple of pieces of toast that will represent all I will eat for the next 10 hours and have eaten for the last 12. Traffic is bad, then lightens up. I get dropped off at a subway station outside of San Francisco. My friends and I reconfirm that I will meet them there on Sunday to be picked up and warmly part ways.

Congratulations Eldy!

"From: Eldy-Wan Kenobi
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2006 6:42 PM
Subject: thus spake the Eldy

... and lo, on the 50th minute of the 18th hour of the 25th day of
the second month of the 2006th year of our Lord, in the year of the
reign of the second son of Bush, was a daughter born of 6 lb 10 oz in
the frigid land of the people of the North. The child was begat of
Eldy, son of See Te, son of "gramps" of the line of the O'Youngs and
of Priscilla, who was called "hey you" by those who did not recognize
her. The child was excellent in the eyes of her father and was named
Global Warming, for the days were filled with the smoldering, heated
air of the earth as it groaned under the yoke of the byproducts of
mankind. Then Priscilla smacketh Eldy, and the child was renamed
Valerie."

Now that is a funny human.

Thesis Malnourishment.

6:14am, posting from Millikan computer lab.

Starving. I guess it's only an hour and 16 minutes until breakfast. I'll live.

But I'm very disappointed in all of you that read my last entry and didn't come through. If I ever find out who you are I'm de-friending you on facebook.

Thesis Munchies.

2:20am, posting from the Millikan computer lab.

I'm hungry. Someone bring me something to eat. I'll give you a hug.

That is all.

BANG! POW!

God, I thought I was done with blogging for the night and could start working on my thesis, but Sonia... you are inspiring.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like just to be a BALL of RAW EMOTION like her. It's like there isn't any sort of social filter, except not in a bad way. It's like the way a firecracker is uninhibited: you don't FAULT it for being loud and abrasive, that's just what it DOES. Like Sonia.

If you're reading this, Sonia, try not to take it the wrong way. I'm actually trying to compliment you in my own twisted way; it's very admirable how expressive you are all the time and that includes both the negative and positive emotions. On top of that, it makes your writing style HILARIOUS. I wish I could emulate even half the energy in one of your posts.

I guess I'll leave all my readers with one of your recent, more colorful, mind-nuggets to illustrate my point:

"like fuck. if you're going to be 2938 feet high at least fucking comb your hair you fucking visual hazard."
-Sonia Fang

Irony.

So I decided not to go to the computer lab to work on my thesis because I was feeling lazy. So what am I going to do? I'm going to WRITE about how being in my room is incredibly distracting and generally a bad idea when I need to get shit done instead of actually getting it done. It's almost like you're floating outside your body watching yourself be RETARDED and are powerless to stop it. That's basically the story of my life.

I think part of it might have to do with the fact that my heater is always on full blast. I know other people have this problem, but this only started for me about 3 weeks ago. The problem is that the temperature is about right for you to feel like you're wrapped in a cozy, soft blanket... if you're naked. So I spend a lot of my time naked. I'm afraid to call maintenance to have them fix it because I'm sure they'll make me put clothes on. Or maybe they'll take theirs off. Either situation is one I'd prefer not to deal with.

Oh, being naked isn't why it's hard to concentrate. It's the fact that at any moment you feel like you could just go to sleep. Unfortunately, as soon as you hit the bed or really come into contact with anything, you've thrown off the delicate equilibrium between body surface-area heat ventilation and comfy, cozy blanket feeling. I frequently wake up in the middle of the night in a pool of sweat and groggily fumble with the window handle until it opens, after which a gust of cool air flows in like some angel of mercy coolly kissing my forehead, delivering me from the blazing inferno of this hellish prison.

But enough about that, I just remembered a pun. For a long time I kept asking Gabe and Elissa if I could borrow their iron, and they said I could if they could find it (read: ever bother looking for it >_<). Well, I finally got fed up and went out and bought my own, and now I iron at my every whim. The other day Gabe calls me up and asks me if he can borrow it:

Gabe: Can I borrow your iron?
Me: Ha! I asked you guys for weeks if I could borrow yours and now you need mine. How... IRONIC.
*long pause*
Gabe: Hello?
Me: IRONIC.

I am a comedic genius.