crosstown traffic

04.08.04 @ 12:13 a.m.

Three days! Seems odd to me to go that long without writing. Admittedly, I intended to write last night and even this morning, but got sidetracked both times.

Mod Boy Nathan from my Italian class is in Folklore of Subcultures with me, I discovered on Monday. I don't think I've ever spoken to him, but I generally am pleased with his presence based on a) his well-dressedness, making him very much a modern day mod b) his mod target pin on his stylish jacket c) the eclectic collection of other pins on his bag. Today I noticed an Oscar Wilde pin. Delightful. I am loving that class, LOVING it. We talk about hippies excessively, though. The three automatic examples of subcultures the prof comes up with are hippies, punks, and skinheads. Several moderate to horrible jokes were told today as examples of lore/folklore, including one about a cannibal restaurant. (A man walks into a cannibal restaurant and looks at the menu. It says "Missionary Meal $3, [Something Else] Meal $3, Hippie Meal $6." The man asks why the hippie meal is so much more expensive. "Have you ever tried to clean a hippie?" the waiter replies.) (See what I mean about moderate to horrible?)

I slept in too long yesterday and had a boring day in Italian. My psych professor decided that he doesn't like us trying to write everything down while he's talking (shouldn't someone who studies the function of the brain know that some of us need to do this to LEARN?) and handed out printouts of his Power Point slides. And, goddamn it, he's so stuck on these stupid, less than hugely helpful slides that he's going to make us do something next week related to printing them out or somehow accessing them. Anyway, doing such a thing has basically given me a license to stop paying attention to anything he says. Yesterday I wrote a page and a half of the post-attack scene of Traveler from a secondary character's point of view (mostly because I couldn't remember where I'd left off the main story) instead of taking notes.

After class I went on a bit of a shopping spree. I seem to go through periods of strictly watching my money and buying nothing but groceries. Then I just go nuts for a couple of days and buy a whole bunch of stuff that is usually ultimately useful/practical. I'm actually not that big on shopping. First I went to the Smith Family used bookstore just off campus. I'd never gone into the bookstore proper, just the area just off the landing (it's on the second floor of the building it's in), and I'd never realized how huge it is. I wandered for a while, hoping to find my prof's Punk and Neo-Tribal Body Art book but having no idea where "Folklore" was. I did managed to find the Music section and ended up buying a cheap paperback biography of the Rolling Stones (Symphony for the Devil) and an equally cheap copy of John Lennon's two mid-sixties books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the Works. It was really obviously an opportunisitic thing printed just after his death. It had his photo on the front and birth and death years, and inside, on the first page, were several quotes from a radio interview done on the morning of the day he died. I also eventually found the folklore section (but not the book I was looking for) and ended up also buying two of the Andrew Lang fairy tale books. There's a huge series from the late 19th century and the volumes are named by color. I bought the Blue and Orange Fairy Books, while I already own the Yellow, Olive, and Cyan books. I intensely love them and have my whole life, or at least my whole life after discovering the books on the shelf. They have really lovely illustrations, too.

I did find my punk book at the University store and bought that, too.

Then, somehow, I talked myself into going to Target, though I forgot to buy anything I had been keeping in mind in case I went there. Instead I bought a couple of Star Wars mini lego sets because I've been collecting them AND they were half price. Also an Obi-Wan Kenobi action figure because Target has an exclusive series they're doing that is an action figure with a retro drinking glass. A new belt and a thin black jacket were my other purchases. And a bottle of Pepsi because I am always dying of thirst when I leave Target.

Plans were made to gather in Corvallis on Friday for an evening of card games and Andrew's turkey burgers, which everyone seems to love and I don't have the heart to tell any of them that I don't think they're so great. For one thing, Andrew makes them GIGANTIC. I guess I'm just not a fan of any ground meat that isn't beef. And it gets annoying to have to structure meals around Miss I-Don't-Eat-Red-Meat. (Amy.) Eh. Fuck it. It could be worse, one of us could be full-on vegetarian. So that'll be fun.

This morning was warm and fuzzy, probably because I had a surprisingly enjoyable dream about smooching Topher Grace. He was in some kind of minimum security prison at some point as, like, a persecuted political leader. But not politics, more like an activist, I guess. The day went downhill from there.

Somehow I lost my ID card this morning, which as been nothing but trouble for me. I had to sweet talk the bus drivers to get to school and back. And the hugely, hugely maddening thing is that I still can't find it! I put it in my back pocket this morning, which I remember very clearly. But here is the problem. In my rush, I also shoved my iPod back there. Somewhere along the way, I pulled out the iPod to stow it properly for the day and I'm guessing my card went flying out of my pocket at that point. God knows where the fucking thing is. I looked all over the house. I'm going to have to go to absurd lengths like pulling the couches away from the wall or something. I've looked EVERYWHERE. I don't understand. I would expect it to be someplace obvious like the middle of the living room floor. It's not. It's as if someone were going around deliberately trying to make me crazy.

Missing Items: Student ID; new guitar tuner (as opposed to old, crappy tuner); Sims CD. WHAT THE FUCK. I can't find any of these things anywhere, and I've searched and fucking well searched. (Maybe Ena hates me and is sneaking things into her room, hur hur.)

Anyway. After getting chastised for not having the Great Vowel Shift memorized, I killed two of my three hours in the library. I read some of my assigned reading for Folklore, but got distracted by one of the readings for the week after next. It was about Ouija boards and the associated teenage rituals and horror stories. One things fundamentalists and Occulists/Witchcraft leaders agree on, and that is that Ouija boards have the potential to be fucking dangerous. I am personally not a fan. Anyway, it was a fascinating thing to read.

At noon, I took the money that Ena had given me on the bus when I said something about not having my wallet, either, so I would be able to buy food and used it to buy a couple of snacks and the new Rolling Stone. I ran into Ena while I was walking toward the building where I have Italian with the intent of sitting on a bench on the lawn behind the pioneer statue. Instead, Ena and I sat together on the steps of Fenton hall and looked through the Rolling Stone and ate. Not bad, but I don't think Zeppelin deserved to be as high on the list as they were. Ena was all put out that Pink Floyd were not on it. I wasn't surprised.

Eddie Vedder on Live at Leeds

Hi, my name is Eddie. I'm ten years old and I'm getting my fucking mind blown!

Also:

Presumptuously I speak for all Who fans when I say being a fan of the Who has incalculably enriched my life.

Rock and roll.

In Italian, Conor, who was in my Northwest Lit class last term (and Italian, but we only spoke in NW Lit) sat next to me and I showed him some of the Rolling Stone list since I was idly reading it before class. (He's big into music, too, and while I'm not certain, I think he has an independent label as a sideline.) We are somehow on the subject of dating in class (oh lord, is there anything I'm less qualified to talk about, let alone in a foreign language?) and I got to be the joke of the class. We had to go around the room saying what traits would be important to us in a girl/guy. I said "Intelligente e un buon preferenza della musica," deciding to make myself a caricature since Enrico saw fit to draw attention to my love of rock on the first day of class. Well. I didn't know I was stealing Conor's thunder a little, because his qualification was also "love of rock." Can you guess what's coming next? "Bene!" Enrico says. "There's Ellen sitting right next to you." Oh lord. Been in a situation like that? His was differently phrased, so it wasn't like everyone else parroting "buon senso dell'umore" (good sense of humor) down the line once Enrico had told us the proper phrase. Conor's list continued with "love of monster movies." Of course, I was immediately quizzed (by E.) on if I like monster movies. The secret horror of it is that actually, I do. I like MST3K when I actually get to watch it. I live for old Twilight Zones. I vividly remember watching The Day the World ENDED! and loving it. (It followed the old "Meteorological Enclave" plot: Nuclear winter kills everyone but those fortunate enough to be inside a peculiarly sheltered valley.) But I lied. I said "No, not really," because I was not about to go along with insane Italian matchmaking. It was an awkward situation.

The rest of the day has been lousy, except for Folklore. It's beyond late and I need to go to bed, so I'll end here.

[title: Jimi Hendrix]

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Previously

fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05