oh, but the fire went wild

if you don't know the song today's title came from...well, shame on you. go fetch your ipods right now and start listening to ring of fire by johnny cash, who is awesome and deserves to be remembered by our generation for something other than that joaquin pheonix biopic and his cover of hurt (which, okay, was still pretty amazing).

i spent today in an ecstasy of hermitatude. which is another self-invented word, it's true, but there previously existed no word in the english language which could accurately convey the levels of hermitness to which i had sunk and so i was forced to invent one. also i've consumed indecent levels of sugar and caffeine today and really can't be held responsible for anything i type.

basically all i've done today is read and snack and listen to music. also i spent a lot of time playing with the internet and youtubing silly things and interviews with pretty boys serious musicians and actors. oh, and i replenished my stockpile of gifs. they mostly all feature this wonderful person:

anyway, i'm almost done rereading the return of sherlock holmes. i stopped reading towards the end of the adventure of the six napoleons mostly because i was overcome with a most undignified urge to giggle at watson and inspector lestrade spontaneously standing and applauding at holmes's explanation of the mystery.

i thought i'd let holmes robert downey jr. illustrate my expression during that story for you. phase one: the initial and proper hilarity. phase two was a little more complicated and mostly consisted of feeling guilty at sir arthur's tendencies toward theatrics and purple prose. not included in the gif is phase three, which was when i remembered that clearly arthur conan doyle had no dignity to speak of. proof? the lost world. it was a book about surprise dinosaur adventures. trust me - i reread it today and had heaps of fun with it. i mean, it is a book about surprise dinosaur adventures, but at least they're entertaining surprise dinosaur adventures and not, say, jurassic park which was an utter bastardization and if sir arthur conan doyle had some shortcomings as a writer he at least was better than that idiot film made him out to be i'm sure he rolled over in his grave when it came out and screamed british swear words at the filmmakers.

in keeping with the general boring trend of this blog, i spent the rest of my day enjoying the spoils of the momster's grocery shopping raids trips. among them: java chip and mocha starbucks ice cream. i have a horrible presentiment that i'll come out of spring break bearing a strong resemblance to a hobbit, though hopefully without hairy toes.

i'm pretty sure i've blogged about both of these songs before (and if i haven't, i've just been a horrible Rachel and will have to change my name to something awful like Lola or Afghanistan until such time as my actions have returned to a proper state of Rachelism) but i love them to itty bitty pieces i've been playing them both all day so i thought i'd share them anyway:

and:

the diogenes club

"There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Stranger's Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion." 

- The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Greek Interpreter

today's title is, surprisingly, not from a song. rather, it's from sherlock holmes and perfectly describes my idea of heaven right now. does anyone else want to join the lansdowne chapter of the diogenes club? i promise it's fun.

it's been a while since i've blogged (or, you know, actually been on the internet). i have a valid excuse, i promise! remember that seven school days i missed? yeah, i just made up all of my work, including two calc tests, in four days.

i am fully expecting congratulations and applause. i might not be able to hear that applause, but you better be clapping your hands at the computer screen anyway.

speaking of computer screens, i had a bad few minutes of it today when i finally looked at mine today. in the half an hour i had to wait for UVA to post its admission decision online i realized that i'd accidentally deleted my R2D2 icon for safari. it's okay, though, he's back. see?

 

hmm, maybe when i'm bored i'll just post a picture of one of the weird icons i've replaced my applications with. 

anyway, i've decided that i'm going to be a hermit this spring break. i'm tired and sick of people. so i think i'll just sit around and eat mint chocolate chip ice cream and read books for fun and enjoy having front teeth. you know, the important things in life. well, perhaps i'll occasionally venture forth from my den of iniquity lameness to spend time with people and shop and frolic in parks and take pictures and relearn how not to talk in run-on sentences and polysyndeton. perhaps. i make no guarantees, though. 

for example, i've promised jenibean that i'd come to her house bearing a duffel bag of junk food so we can music day and be silly together. also i need to escape the momster, who upon hearing of my various college acceptances alternates between states of happiness and my-only-pumpkin-is-leaving-me-what-are-we-going-to-do? and, yes, that last one really is a state of being. anyone who has met her will agree with me. she's very...emotive. however, upon reflection i've decided i will stay home and continue to hermit with my bag of goodies unless jenibean watches skins. 

who could resist a show that gives you scenes like this?

it really is the perfect show. also the soundtrack/the music editor's blog has introduced me to a lot of new music.

ah, music. you thought you'd get away from it, didn't you? well, too bad because i finally cracked the 13,000 song mark. currently i have this many songs: thirteen thousand and two. 

and, in no particular order, here are three of the thirteen thousand (and two) songs which i listened to today. 

to begin with, i'm listening to this right now. because death cab is timeless and appropriate hermit music:

i was listening to this earlier, since i was reading sherlock holmes and it seemed appropriate:

and, finally, a song which i blogged about a few posts ago:

show me your teeth

the title of today's post comes from lady gaga's teeth and is for once highly appropriate. mostly because i didn't actually have a full set of teeth this morning. worse - i was missing half (read it like this: half!) of one of my front teeth.

yes, morgan freeman, i agree. this doesn't make any sense.

i suppose i should splainy then (hey, if banana can make up words, so can i). as we all remember, i had very excited plans to return to school today. to that end, i woke up (early, for once, i even got meggo's seven-something-in-the-morning text but was too busy bleeding all over the bathroom to reply to it), brushed my teeth (oh, my teeth), and took a shower. to borrow from jenibean's third person blogging style, Shi(h)t(zu) Happened Like This:

7:20 - Rachel shampoos her hair. 

7:21 - Rachel stops shampooing hair and takes a moment to appreciate the oh-so-delectable scent of Herbal Essence's Hello, Hyrdation shampoo. (The reader should note that this shampoo is even more wonderful than its name and scent would suggest owing to the fact that it is not one, but two whole shades of purple)

7:22 - Rachel resumes shampooing. 

7:24 - Rachel gets dizzy. 

7:24 and a half - Rachel thinks "Gee, this isn't good, time to get out of the shower."

7:25 or 11,320-Why-Is-The-Clock-Spinning-Like-That - Rachel hops out of the shower.

7:26 - OMG OMG OMG I CAN'T BREATHE. 

7:27 - Ditto. 

7:27 - AGHHHHHH.

7:28 - Rachel nosedives. Onto the bathroom's exceedingly soft tile floor. Bottom half of front tooth decides to abandon ship. 

7:29 - The Momster, henceforth referred to in all communications as The Momster, begins a single-front offensive on an enemy known as Locked Bathroom Door. 

7:30 - The Momster, despite being approximately a foot tall and twenty two pounds (more or less), is as her name suggests, a formidable figure of fury. The Door surrenders. 

7:31 - Rachel catches sight of tooth. Uncontrollable crying ensues. The Momster calls in Emergency Dental Reserves. 

And then from eight in the morning until a little after noon there ensued a truly horrifying process known by the cheerful name of Tooth Reconstruction. it involved drills, and filing, and compulsive measuring of my teeth. however, throughout this process i was allowed the use of my iPod and was able to more or less ignore the fact that my dentist (who's adorable and asian and yet has a southern accent and is always pleasantly surprised that i can pronounce her last name - nguyen - because of meggo's tagalog newspeak tutelage) was, you know, filing my front teeth into an acceptable shape and size.

i have since been assured by the momster, her assistant, and the entire dentist's office don't judge me they were my front teeth and prom is in like a month a few tooth-experts that the change isn't noticeable. actually, the momster went so far as to say they look better now than before, since i had been (past tense! my poor lost teeth!) in the possession of rather overlarge front teeth and now they're more-or-less normal sized. but she's required to say that, since she's my tiny, scary, psychotic momster. actually, so are the rest of you. i'm not even kidding. if i see you in the next few weeks, there had better not be an honest comment from any of you or i will cry. and, trust me, you don't want to see my cry. it's a messy business, all snot and flapping hands and hiccups and shrieking and things. let's all avoid it, okay?

well, except you, s-la. i'm trusting you to give me your unmitigated opinion on The Tooth Situation. and if, after careful observation, you have concluded that i'm horribly disfigured i'm retiring to my bedroom forevermore and becoming a professional hermit i'm not going to prom.

on a happier note, i discovered that i'm fully capable of texting while having my teeth drilled. also, i used my dentist-time productively by googling facts about the healthcare bill. and then i used that freebooks app jeni was going on about a little while ago to read more sherlock holmes, since my copy was still at home. oh, and the momster has tried to comfort me over my state of probable-exam-takingness by pointing out that when one is a Student In Good Standing and will be handing over no less than eight (highly bloodstained, but that couldn't be helped, i had the great misfortune of landing on my face) notes to the attendance office tomorrow, there's got to be at least one teacher willing to let me off. right? don't shatter my dreams, kids.

oh, and after some prompting, i have concluded that the development of my (dearly departed) front teeth has kept pace with hermione granger - first they were too big and then they got horrifically filed shrunk. so at least i have that to comfort me.

also comforting? these three songs, they were my favorites during the Dentist Trip of Nightmares Future:

because i do have a ton of "bruises and contusions" between Sickville #1, the Great Pancake Incident, and The Holy Union of Floor and Face:

and a classic which now rings sadly true:

jumping jehosaphat (dear god, hope you got the letter)

while bored out of my mind last week, i started a read-through of the bible. and by "read-through" i mean that i've been flicking it open at random and reading a passage or two. it's funny how, in my rash youth (two months ago) i might've found this to be unbearably boring. strangely enough it's now pretty interesting reading. perhaps Operation: Read Instead is working?

i mention this, as you might have guessed, to explain today's title. today's random biblical passage came from 2 Chronicles, specifically the parts detailing that lovely creature jehoshaphat and his dealings with the moabs and the ammonites and then all the tedious bits about him sending forth the messengers and what have you to splainy the law to people. having just come off a weekend-long sherlock holmes bender which encompassed a reread of a study in scarlet, the sign of four, a scandal in bohemia, and the red-headed league i'm afraid that i wasn't able to take much moral or intellectual improvement from 2 Chronicles, beyond observing that jehosaphat must have been one Swell Dude.

however, my literary and biblical adventures did manage to bring the phrase 'jumping jehosaphat' to the forefront of my mind (oh, to live in doyle's london, and have irritable constables uttering such phrases all the time) and, when combined with the fact that my latest musical find has been a collection of sarah mclachlan's b-sides and rarities - including the wonderful 'dear god', which comprises the parenthetical half of this post's title - at least gave me something to snicker at. perhaps i'll improve my mind tomorrow.

correction, i will definitely have to put off any hopes of intellectual improvement. i've used up all of today's allotment of Thinky Thoughts on laughing at this video:

and being blown away by this one. it's tik tok! with a ukulele! and a decent singer! who's an australian japanese/irish person! my mind is so blown all i can do is use exclamation points! like this! !!!

oh, and i have come to a decision. most of you know that i'm fourteen songs away from having thirteen thousand. actually, i hit the thirteen thousand song mark after lunch with s-la, but then i had to go through and cut the songs i didn't like anymore, so...12,986 it is.

anyway, i've been thinking of instituting some sort of posting format to this blog. i'm not sure how i'd do it, though. i'm torn between having a designated day for everything - like a Music Monday and a There's Nothing Alliterative About Today, Let's Just Post Random Facts Tuesday and a What Is Your Life? Wednesday and so on - or just having a specific format of post and having them alternate for whenever the topic comes up. like when i really want to obsess over an album or artist, then i could do a music post (and only a music post, with none of the random asides that i normally include) or when something really weird happens, i could do a OMG I HATE MY LIFE post or...well. you get the idea. or, you know, i could just keep on posting the way i normally do stream-of-consciousness at its less-than-finest. thoughts? i am a creature of indecision, i need advice.

oh, look. pictures!

somewhat relevant pictures, even!

robert downey jr.'s awful pretty:

anyway, i'm officially No Longer Sick. well, except for the burn but that's an entirely different matter which i'll talk about later. right now i'm just going to revel in the fact that i can run and jump and play and eat in public and without feeling like i'm dying a slow death due to bubonic plague.

gee, that was an oddly specific description, wasn't it?

anyway, i headed out with the momster to the reston town center yesterday. after all, i need shorts. we ended up having lunch at la madeleine, where i had the great misfortune of encountering someone who both hates lettuce and wanted to order a salad without the offending vegetable in it.

i know.

i then had the even greater misfortune of receiving this horrible series of text messages from someone whose latent sense of shame has caused them to ask to remain anonymous. i still hate you.

Note: Text messages transcribed verbatim, except that I wrote out the words for characters since it would've been more than my nerves could handle to seriously type "b4" in place of 'before'.

The Devil: Can I call you strumpet?

Me: BITCH I WILL CUT YOU.

The Devil: :( It's a compliment of your hooker/strumpet legs. 

Me: Hooker legs are not happy things!

The Devil: I'm sure you'd fetch $2000 more in a human trafficking auction. See, they wouldn't want me so then I could sneak in and bust you out after we get the money but before you're raped. 

isn't that just the most awful thing you've ever heard? i was beside myself with :O face. no, really, i cloned myself just so me and my clone-self could make horrified faces at each other and fully convey our horror. (oh, and just in case you didn't get it from my oh-so-convoluted explanation above, under new blog format #1, this, and related events would all have to wait to be posted until What Is Your Life? Wednesday, and in new blog format #2, the texts and other weird things would be one post and a little bit later there would be another post for the pictures and youtube videos, so you'd be looking at multiple - but shorter - posts a day, i guess)

today i had another mini-adventure when having lunch with s-la, travis, jason, and patrick. we had a nazi waitress and played apples-to-apples, but if you want details you're going to have to harass s-la since i'm all blogged out.

anyway, i'll leave you with one last video. s, in case you couldn't tell, this is one you should watch. it's vampire weekend's song ottoman (aka the song currently playing on my itunes):

every single one's got a story to tell

today's titles is from seven nation army by the white stripes. they really should've just used this for the quantum of solace title track instead of the alicia keys/jack white mess masquerading as a duet that they ended up going with. still bitter? who, me? never.

so remember my great plan to beg, borrow, and steal cry my way into going to school today? yeah, that pretty much failed miserably. actually, it prompted a call to dr. emperor-from-mulan who nearly made me stay home on monday, too. which - well, let's just wee little baby potter explain my reaction to this:

so i stayed home. again. this time with a lovely little burn on my hand that actually isn't my fault. really, it isn't - it's the momster's fault.

most of you probably know that the momster's culinary skills are...questionable, at best. well, she tried to make pancakes for me yesterday to distract me from the Let Rachel Go Back To School offensive. in the process she set the entire pan of batter, the overhead fan, and parts of our kitchen on fire.

i know. 


anyway, i managed to put the fire out - hence the burn, which is actually quite tiny even if it does sting like you wouldn't believe - with our handy dandy fire extinguisher and now we're going to have to vacate the house saturday while some construction-type people replace the overhead fan and surrounding tiles and things.

also, the pan is completely unsalvageable. it's the real loss in this whole mess. well, that and my poor dogs' peace of mind since they both took off to hide behind the washing machine at the first shrieks of the smoke alarm and refused to come out until three hours after everything had calmed down. is it possible for animals to acquire their owners' neuroses? because i think mine have.

never mind, i have proof that it is possible. i went a-googling and came across this picture:

clearly the sensible cat's owner is an english teacher. blahbedy blah blah learned proper kitty grammar from its owner blah blah blah some more and - i'm right.

yes, i know. i was wonderful at proofs, i can assure you.

so last night was the season finale of skins. since you're all mentally deranged none of you have watched the show, i'll give you a brief overview. the show follows a group of friends through the british version of high school, known to those crazy people as college. the characters get more or less equal screen time since they all get one episode titled and devoted to them per season. oh, and the cast completely changes every two seasons since by the end of the second season they're all ready to head off to university or the real world or something. with me so far?

good.

anyway, the season four finale was last night. i had to practically sell my remaining good hand to find a live stream of it, but find one i did. and it was - well. i can't accurately describe it. so instead i'll continue wasting your time by blathering on about it until one of you watches the show so i can obsess over it with someone. also, it gives you scenes like this:

and this:

and this:

but s-la, you're still never, ever allowed to watch, okay? actually, you, too, banana. you'd both probably hate it anyway and that'd make me sad.

anyway, since the momster and i are both afraid of the kitchen, tonight's pizza night. in other words, i'm going to pull a hamtaro on some cheese sticks. and, yes, i'm fully aware that i just outed myself as an irredeemable nerd with that reference. it's okay. i've got a pikachu gif to make up for it:

okay, that's all for now. time to go attack the food.

in the blackest of rooms

today's title comes from - okay, seriously? if you don't know this song, i honestly don't know how we're friends. everyone knows this song. i'm pretty sure it's been covered on american idol, even. but i'll give you a hint anyway:

it's been a pretty ben gibbard sort of day, actually - lot's of complaining and a whole three bands playing on my ipod. and since two of those bands include him and the other one has his wife, i'm not even sure they should be counted separately.

in other words, i'm listening to brand new colony (acoustic) by the postal service right now. all i've been listening to today is volume two of she & him (zooey deschanel's and m. ward's band), a bunch of random death cab, and the forty song compilation of ben gibbard's various acoustic performances i got on tumblr. that last one's my favorite. he covers thriller. and avril lavigne.

just to get all the music news out of the way before i launch into my epic tale of doctorly madness and pain and suffering and things, i thought i'd address something banana brought up in a comment to my last post. the end of the boombox video? totally disgusting. old people are supposed to be asexual. just focus on the Important Parts. like this:

and this:

and this:

and how much i wish julian casablancas was ten years younger so i could stalk/obsess over him with a clear conscience, it's not fair that the last generation got him and all of the followills and all we got is stupid justin bieber and, like, the jonas brothers. ahem.

now, onto the doctor story...

you've all probably figured out that i'm sick. what else is new? however, a change is gonna come has already come. dr. cray cray has been replaced. the momster finally got around to switching our general practitioner to dr. omg-it's-the-emperor-from-mulan.

i'm not kidding, either. he looks, acts, and talks like the emperor from mulan. like, i was sitting their babbling on about muscle spasms and migraines and fevers and malfunctioning pain killers and he started talking about my freaking chi.

at first i thought that meant he was even crazier than the last doctor (and the momster definitely thought so, i wish i could've snapped a picture of her face), but then he wrapped it back to actual medical terminology and managed to work in the usual bout of drink-less-coffee-have-a-few-more-calories-stop-staying-up-so-late-and-for-christ's-sake-turn-your-brain-off-you're-probably-not-going-to-die-yet-you-crazy-bitch. anyway, the gist of it is that i'm supposed to stay heavily medicated (just the painkiller kind this time and not the "sing me a song about pineapples, mr. squirrel" kind) and at home all week.

this was my reaction:

since if i miss the entire week i'm going to have to take exams in all my b day classes - calc, lit, and physics. it's just not going to happen, okay? i'd rather go to school all "HI GUYS, I'M DOPED UP ON PAINKILLERS LIKE YEAH, ENOUGH TO SING MILEY CYRUS LIKE YEAH" than take those three exams. so thursday night i'm going to institute a campaign of whining, crying, and screaming "think of my education!" and "think of all the starving kids in Africa who don't have any education at all!" at the momster so i can go to school friday.

reread that last paragraph. that horrified "why would you want to go to school?" face you're making at the screen right now? yeah, that was basically my reaction. sacrifices must be made, though.

this really is the worst time for Operation: Read Instead, though. my fingers have been twitching toward the remote all day, especially since i'm still too blegh to run/work out. i've been reading and listening to music nonstop to make up for my lack of television. i just started villette by charlotte bronte.

oh, and i've been writing. it's been weird trying to get back into it after a few months of nonstop homework. i miss february. this month just seems so long, you know?

anyway, this post has gotten pretty long. i'm just going to stop here, especially since the painkillers have made my fingers sort of numb and typing kind of crazy. that is my defense for all the typos: the meds made me do it, OKAY?

i'll just leave you with this, it made me laugh:

rhymes with ick

so my day was pretty awful. random muscle cramps and a fever last night lead to me being knocked out (who knew the dr. cray cray pills would come in handy after all?) until...five o'clock, actually. let me clarify  that: five p.m.

so i missed school today. surprisingly, that's a really, really bad thing. now i have to go in super early to make up that stupid calc test and i can only miss one more b day unless i want to take exams (i don't). life: it's depressing. luckily i had this to cheer me up:

oh, julian casablancas, don't ever change, okay? i'm not even kidding. just stay exactly the same forever and ever - dorian gray managed it, why can't you? oh, you don't want to enshrine your soul in a painting? well too bad.

that's the other thing i've been doing for the whole four hours i've been awake: rereading the picture of dorian gray. i really want to see the movie version with silly prince caspian ben barnes as dorian.

for those of you still undecided about watching skins (jeni), here's yet another reason why you should get over british televisions' unique definition of censorship and watch anyway:

this is from season two. chris is basically the best character on the show. besides cassie. and maxxie. and tony. and effy (oh my god, effy. her last episode just about killed me). besides the episode this is from is all about the school's attempt to put on a show...called Osama: The Musical. i know.

anyway, i'm still feeling pretty awful (and have to continue studying for calc since the makeups are usually a billion times worse than the regular tests) so i'm going to cut this post short. goodnight, moon all you cray crays.

two posts in one day? inconceivable!

don't worry, though - this is more of a drive-by post. expect the lapd to show up any second now wielding baseball bats and machetes and...who am i kidding? like i know anything about drive-bys.

anyway, i'm just stopping by to share this little picture with you:

it's a highly accurate summary of my day. also, if any of you have the great misfortune to see me first thing in the morning, i will henceforth refer you to this very post as an excuse for any half-dead grunting, snapping, or suicidal behavior you may have witnessed.

oh, and just so you all know, i just got back from a quick run to starbucks. The Drink (in venti. venti. but we were the last people there and since i'm still studying for my calc test there won't be any midnight runs to the frederick starbucks tonight) and i were highly amused to find this at the top of our tumblr dashboard.

i'm listening to i gave you all by mumford and sons. the end of this is so shivery and perfect. i'm assuming you've all been good little readers and youtubed them already, so i'm sure you all agree with me, right?

i'm on top of the world, i can see it all around me

today's title comes from hills and valleys by the rocket summer, also known as the reason i didn't blog yesterday.

well, actually, that wasn't completely true. this is the reason i didn't blog yesterday:

i spent yesterday running errands for the momster (did you know that cookie is officially an Old Dog? he can't learn new tricks anymore. but he never learned any tricks to begin with, so does that mean he'll finally start learning tricks?) and struggling through heart of darkness for a second time (this time with audiobook accompaniment). so naturally i rewarded myself at the end of the day by catching up on (and hunting down) new music. let's just take a moment to appreciate this lovely sight, since my iTunes library has been looking a little bare of late:

conclusions reached? jimi hendrix is awesome even when he's dead. the gorillaz are awesome and alive. laura marling isn't exciting enough to be awesome but she's got a pretty voice and prettier songs. the sandinista project is a free compilation of the clash cover songs - in other words, it would've been the best thing on this list (since i had to pay for valleys of neptune) but mgmt was nice enough to release two new songs this week. i'm so excited for their new album that it's beginning to get embarrassing. i even replaced all my ringtones with kids, time to pretend, and electric feel. that's a whole lot of excitement.

oh, and to make up for starting off on music for the hundredth time in a row (also, did anyone else just find out that hundredth has a d in it? just me? well then. thanks for catching my mistake Angry Little Red Line on Safari), here's something for you s-la:

although i really don't know why i'm rewarding you when your demonic blog playlist nearly shattered my eardrum today. there i was, innocently listening to my happy new music and trying to see your prom dress and then - wham. bam. kapow. insert other comic book onomatopoeias here. how do you live with yourself? it was horrible. i had to go soothe my shattered eardrums with mumford and sons' cover of cousins (by some band called vampy saturdays or non-twilight vampires on weekends or something like that) and brownies. i hope you're happy with yourself.

was it love or fear of the cold that led us through the night?

today's title comes from mumford and sons, specifically, this song:

it's not my favorite song of theirs, though. actually, i'm not really sure i have a favorite. it could be this one:

or this one:

but this one is mark hoppus's favorite, so i guess i'll post it, too:

in case you couldn't tell, you're meant to listen to all of these. why else would i go to the trouble of posting all these videos?

i just got back from dinner and starbucks with the momster. i don't know if i've mentioned this already, but the illustrious momster has some odd taste in drinks. her two most common orders at starbucks are a "grande double shot caramel machiatto with no whipped cream, extra foam and no caramel on top" and a "caramel apple spice latte with no caramel". occasionally she likes to change things up a little and get something even more ridiculous sounding. today it was something like a triple shot bold blend latte. i accidentally grabbed her order instead of my own (a relatively tame double shot peppermint mocha) and pulled this face:

it was like drinking petroleum. i had to chug my piping hot drink just to get the taste out of my mouth. seriously, that much espresso is just unhealthy (except after an all nighter - then it's a vital component of staying awake). actually, i ended up with a venti triple shot mocha the morning of the SAT way back in - geez, sophomore year. two whole years ago. wow, i feel old. i'm mostly mentioning this as advice to gina, who's taking that oh-so-wonderful test tomorrow.

you know, it's strange. the juniors in my yearbook class are starting to brainstorm ideas for next year's yearbook theme. cory (the last third of gina's and my amazing design team) already came up with one, actually. it's a pretty good idea, but i was listening to her talk about it today and mostly going, "wow, how are you okay with coming back for another year? i'm so ready to be gone."

because i am. ready to graduate, i mean. you should all know by now that senioritis has hit me hard. i mostly just vegetate in class now except for calc because then driskill would sneak up and kill me and i really, honestly don't see the point of 99.9% of the activities we do (do an egg drop project, you say? take an open note quiz? define the same stupid seven terms on every vocabulary list this quarter. ha, i don't even think the teachers care anymore). it's just strange to take a break from wanting to move on and think, "look how long it's been." nostalgia, it's a fun word. the last four (really, six if you have a paranoid/ocd brain like mine which began chanting 'you've gotta get into a good college' the moment it entered middle school) years have been defined by a set of specific goals and challenges and plans and deadlines and they've all passed, for better or worse. sure, there's a few left - scholarships and prom and beach week and that one last field day - but for all intents and purposes school's already over.

pretty strange, huh?

anyway, this post has gotten too emo, so here's two tiny things to make you laugh. (and if you were wondering, i'm blogging from my phone and posting gifs is easier than pictures on the app i'm using since all i have to do is copy and paste a link to my photobucket instead of actually uploading a picture):

where in the world is carmen sandiego?

you probably don't know where carmen sandiego is (unless you're playing the game right now, in which case i congratulate you for managing to play and read this at the same time) but i'll let you know where i am: the ashburn keller williams realty office. that's right, i'm helping the momster with more paperwork since her secretary's still sick. she's still in a meeting so i'm just playing around on the computers now. they're nicer than the school computers but more complicated - i just don't understand windows. i miss my compy. here, in honor of mac owners everywhere let's just take a minute (or ten) to appreciate the wonders of apple computers:

today wasn't very eventful. a Certain Person got my hopes up with hints of a visit today and then never came. i totally felt like the little, let down kid in disney movies whose parent never, ever makes it to the baseball game in time. i was horridly depressed for an entire seven minutes. then i realized i still had a whole box of thin mints in my purse and immediately perked right back up. today's been a snack-filled day, actually. we had goldfish in yearbook and i munched on twix bars during gov. mona and i got to the halfway point in the thin mints while she saved my calculus grade during early release.

s-la might want to look away now. i'm about to share my incredible love of mumford & sons. and after that i'm going to obsess over skins some more. really, steffi, you might just want to stop reading here.

well, now that she's gone, let's talk music. specifically, mumford & sons. they're fairly well known. not on, like, a lady gaga/britney spears/that-devil-child-cyrus level, but they've been building up a decent amount of buzz on blogs (actual music blogs, i mean, not just the random whiny teenage ones like...this one actually. although now that you mention it, this whiny teenager did mention them a few times between december and february, since i put them on at least two playlists i posted. if PCs weren't the most evil things in existence and i could actually use windows i would look the posts up myself, but otherwise you'll have to take my word for it or do your own search of the...oh my giddy aunt, has it really been 177 posts? geez.)

but back to the music. mumford & sons are a british folk/rock band. and that's not one of those weird genres that some music blogger made up just to appeal to hipsters like, i don't know, classic electro indie rock/pop or dubstep. it's actually a fairly accurate label - to me, at least, they really do sound like the love child of, like, the entire cast of skins an orgy really is the only thing left to do on that show it is so ridiculous and i love it the cute british boy from what a girl wants (that movie where amanda bynes realize that she's the embodiment of every romantic comedy aimed at teenage girls ever) and kings of leon when they were still drunk crackheads a bunch of hillbillies. don't ask me how i reached this conclusion. i'm not an actual reviewer (but listen to them anyway so i can send you all loads of text messages filled with nothing but exclamation points and DID YOU LISTEN TO THE LIVE PERFORMANCES YET? and other caps locky text), but i think i more or less formed my opinions from the fact that they use an acoustic guitar and a banjo and in, like, every song ever and still sound awesome. i keep hoping they'll pull out a cowbell on their next album.

wow, that paragraph was terribly rambly. blame the PC. i have to go now, so go youtube them yourselves. or wait about half an hour and when i'm done doing real life things i'll post some more.

"has that window been open the whole time?"

nothing much happened today. i woke up (on time), had breakfast (for once), had lunch packed for me remembered to eat lunch, and then played taboo for an hour during early release. today's title actually came from the game. we, being loud, obnoxious, and occasionally filthy-minded (okay, that last one was mostly confined to tess and i), were a little horrified to realize that one of the classrooms facing into the senior courtyard had its windows open. specifically, the classroom directly behind the table we were sitting at.

you know how i always say i hate life? i'm pretty sure it's made the decision to hate me back.

in slightly related news, buzzer club today was hilarious. i can't really post the story on this blog (well, i could, but it wouldn't be a very good idea), but i thought i'd post about the fact that the story exists so you can all remember to ask me about it. because you're all that interested in my oh-so-boring life.

gina already posted about how awful calculus is, so i won't even bother. someone still needs to come up with a label for her. (i'm looking at you, s-la, you're the best at naming things). here, i'll even present you with an incentive to come up with something (since i can't threaten to hold your books hostage anymore)

isn't he pretty? i love robert downey jr.

i'm listening to wild world by cat stevens, mostly because sarah was listening to it when she borrowed my ipod and i like the song too much to change it. predictably, i have homework to do. in a surprise twist, though, i'm actually going to do it at home. shocker, i know. i'm trying to kick senioritis' butt. wish me luck?

it's been awhile, i know

you'll have to forgive my blogger neglect - i had two giant projects due yesterday. in other words, monday night called for an all nighter and tuesday night called for all night naptime. seriously. i went to bed at like 9:30 yesterday. it was awesome.

you know what else is amazing? this:

mean girls and disney. combined. isn't that just the most wonderful thing you've ever heard of? the only thing that could be top that would be if tina fey wrote a disney princess screenplay. i bet her movie would be even better than mulan.

the weather lately has been messing with my head. it's been relatively warm for the last few days. like, warm enough to head out in the senior courtyard and eat lunch outside, even. in other words, it was sundress-and-shorts warm. which is great. i broke in one of the new sundresses today and i got all my shorts ready and ironed and everything and - oh, what's that? it's supposed to rain tomorrow. well then. 

at least i have good food. i don't know why, but today the momster felt like going grocery shopping. in the middle of the week. even though we haven't actually run out of anything. i don't know either. maybe it was to make up for how she ruined my day and tried to force me to drive home when she picked me up today. it's just not happening, okay? i hate driving. hate hate hate.

where were we? oh, right - food. the midweek snacks she picked up are awesome. i'm thinking of following s-la's advice and just stockpiling them in my locker for when i get hungry or skip lunch and/or breakfast. best of all, we have strawberries again. and they're perfect, which is weird. normally the strawberries you get this time of year taste sort of funny and watery and off, you know? you have to wait for summer or go strawberry picking to get the ones that taste right. this batch is pretty amazing, though. i'm thinking i'm just going to skip dinner and plow through a box or two of them tonight (we have six, so it's not like we'll run out) or maybe just bring those to school tomorrow instead.

actually, today's brought a lot of wonderful things my way. to begin with, gina (who still needs a label, someone come up with one) and i are almost done with our yearbook spread. s-la, in case i forget to ask you in person, email me your hot chocolate and/or crazy smoothie recipes, okay? also, while in the library with helena and alina (really, i'll never get over how much fun their rhyming names are), i found a bunch of fun pictures waiting in my inbox and mgmt's new single, flash delirium (which i'm listening to right now). i can't post the song, so i'll just share the pictures with you:

it's a lot, i know. just think of it as two (or has it been three?) missing blogs worth of pictures. i'm off to meet with an american university alumnus (is that the singular form? darn it, i knew i should've taken latin) and interview for a scholarship. geez, i can't wait til april 1.

i will never have children, or: two tales of bad parenting.

it's been a while since i blogged. sorry about that. these past few days have been eventful. s-la, meggo, jenibean, and i went to see alice friday night. it was awesome. johnny depp was predictably unfortunate looking but the CGI and alice's costuming fully made up for that. helena bonham carter kind of stole the show, but that's to be expected. and i just got home from a birthday party/sleepover at jodie's, so that explains last night's missing blog. i'm not going to elaborate on either of those events, so if you really want details you should badger s-la to blog about them.

because you (all eight of you) are such conscientious followers of my blog, i'm sure you're wondering what prevented me from blogging thursday night or saturday afternoon. surely i was spending all my leisure time cackling away about your rachel-blog-deprivation.

well, if you thought that, you'd be wrong. i now present to you two tales of epic mommery. be warned, they aren't for the faint of heart.

let's begin with thursday, shall we?

on thursday i received a text from the momster asking me to go with her to her office and do real estate things for her since her assistant was out. i, being the wonderful person that i am, agreed. however, instead of going directly to her office her client texted and said she wanted to meet us at a bar. okay, we said. so we went to the bar. and then the momster realized she needed to pick up extra pens and things since, you know, they aren't really supplied in bars and restaurants, so she left me to order some snacks and headed to staples - where her client called, changed her mind, remembered that she had to be at some play for her kid in an hour, and asked the momster to meet at the office after all. crunched for time, the momster left staples and went to the office - leaving me, a platter of the best wings i've ever had, and my annotated copy of the poisonwood bible alone in a bar. alone.

it was traumatic. did you know that people hit on you at bars? even when you're munching on wings and reading your book and clearly projecting the 'i'm underage, go away' vibe. some of those people were old! like mid-twenties old. and buying drinks. and not even the happy, fizzy coca cola-type of drinks. it was horrible.

i'm thinking i shouldn't have yelled at the momster about it, though, since now she's on this 'my one and only child is going to college' bonding kick. we spent all of yesterday shopping. my feet and arms felt like they were going to fall off by the end of it. and then we left the mall too late to come home and still make it to jodie's on time, so i had to buy a new toothbrush and set of pajama bottoms and sleeping bag. that sleeping bag is the silliest thing, it's huge. at least it doesn't resemble my old sleeping bag - that one's shaped like a coffin and 'contours to the body' according to the north face sales people.

anyway, the bonding lead to me basically getting an entire spring wardrobe. here, check out the bounty:

in case you couldn't tell, the rainbow bra was my favorite purchase. getting it was awful, though - it involved seeing a librarian in victoria's secret. buying things. i can't bring myself to elaborate any further.  

we ended up getting manicures, too. the woman who did mine was pretty cray cray - all she did was grunt and move my hand and watch the chinese drama on the television behind me. she did an awesome job, though, so now my nails look like this:

i don't have a weird number-shaped birthmark on my hand, either - i wrote someone's locker combination on my hand in fine-tipped sharpie and now it won't wash off. i scrubbed and scrubbed with the little heated towels and in the shower yesterday and it just wouldn't go. i guess i'll just have to wait for it to fade. 

and just to round out this little trio of grainy iphone photos, here's lulu. i think she looks like a squirrel in this picture, what do you think?

i tried to get cookie to pose, since he's the nice dog, but he doesn't like cameras. oh well.

i'm listening to four winds by bright eyes, mostly because s-la said she didn't like it. clearly s-la is a deranged cat-lover with catastrophic brain damage since all sane people like the song.

things i learned today

1. spill orange juice on your jeans in the car
2. show up at school two minutes late
3. forget what day the juniors have sol testing 

in other words, i woke up half an hour late this morning, rushed through a shower, grabbed a glass of orange juice on the way out the door, and attempted to towel dry my hair with a wash cloth in the car. 

sadly, even with all of these sacrifices to my morning routine i still ended up at school at 9:02, two whole minutes after i was supposed to be in class. so i went to the attendance office for a pass. and found out that, as a result of the stupid juniors and their stupid writing sol, my lit class had been moved to another room, which - of course - no one knew the location of. you see, our lovely main office only kept a record of which stolen classrooms the oh-so-precious baby juniors were supposed to report to, not where the Displaced Seniors were supposed to go. 

so i spent half an hour chilling in the main office only to learn that my lit class had been relocated to the library. 

there's a three word phrase that sums up my reaction to this statement but it's a little profane so i'll stick to the acronym: fml. 

there, i'm done being bitter and whiny. someone sent me this link today and i thought it looked pretty cool:

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

you know what else is pretty cool? 

reverend and the makers. they're a band out of england, they toured with oasis (before the brothers gallagher decided to pull a mean girls and have a girl fight with each other), and spend their time being awesome and making music. see?

other things i liked today? 

also, i'm incredibly thankful for operation: read instead. before giving up the telly (ha, british people have the best words) i used to watch the daily show all the time and now i'm glad i can't anymore since i found out at school today that rpattz (you might know him as eddie c. from Those Crappy Vampire Books, or merely as FootFace for the strange shape of his head on tabloid covers) was on last night's episode. whew, that was a close one. i might actually have been tricked into watching FootFace simply because his interview would've been sandwiched between my two great comedian loves - jon stewart and stephen colbert. 

one definition of senioritis

"In endowing us with memory, nature has revealed to us a truth utterly unimaginable to the unreflective creation, the truth of immortality. The most ideal human passion is love, which is also the most absolute and animal and one of the most ephemeral."

- george santayana

if you ever wonder about the things i love, the things i look at, the things that catch my eye and imagination in the spare half-hours i spend between homework and nighttime, when the sky is still dark and has yet to shade into sunrise and morning - check the tumblr.

someone in buzzer club brought up a really strange point today. he said something along the lines of "while i was playing with legos, you people were all reading old books and watching TCM".

i don't even really know the person who said that, except in that hazy, wavy, "friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend" way. what he said stuck with me anyway.

who dictates what's normal? who has the right to wake up one morning and dictate what we should and should not like or be interested in or think is pretty flipping cool?

we all probably know the answer to those questions - mtv. and, wow, they've done a wonderful job of educating america's youth, haven't they? most people my age can't tell the difference between trotsky and tolstoy, use the words good and well interchangeably, and think that hallelujah is that one song they played on the o.c. and american idol a few times.

in other words: this post? it's basically a summation of all the reasons i hate people.

you know, whenever i say that out loud i never fail to receive at least one startled look from someone. and i understand that, i do, because when i say 'i hate people' i'm hyperbolizing. obviously.

but there are days, like today, where i can't help but wonder what's wrong with the rest of the world. what's wrong with the people spending an entire hour and a half in yearbook looking up prom dresses or the people who never read the (legitimately wonderful) books in english class or...everyone, really. where are the readers? the thinkers? the dreamers?

like the lady of shalott i'm half sick of shadows today. luckily, i have a stack of books waiting for me to return once i've finished this (grammatically incorrect, i'm sure, but this is the internet) post.

i think i'll just curl up with my brownies and my books and my brand new ipod and count down the days until graduation, because i'm tired of waiting for people to develop functioning brains.

before i go, though, i'll leave you with this poem. it's one of my favorites, so i might have blogged about it before. i know steffi, at least, has already seen this since one of the prerequisites of friendship with me is that you both read and like edna st. vincent millay. in other words, if you're reading this and you consider us friends, you better love this poem. or else.

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned. 

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost. 

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world. 

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

it's called "dirge without music" and so this post will also be musicless. and yes, i am perfectly aware that musicless wasn't actually a word, but if shakespeare could conjure up words out of thin air and have them approved by the oxford english dictionary, i can create one measly portmanteau. bon soir mes amis.

ophelia lives!

or, alternatively, ophelia died and was replaced, but that isn't so cheery, is it?

for those of you who are wondering, ophelia is my ipod. you know, the one that broke last friday and whose demise i've been lamenting ever since. well, today the momster dropped by the apple store and figured out that poor ophelia's mysterious illness was fatal...so she surprised me with a new one, which conveniently looks just like the old one only without all the scratches and that one tiny dent on the back of the case.

it's syncing right now (and will be for like the next three hours, geez) but i just thought i'd take a break from jumping up and down in excitement to share the good news.

in slightly related news, while she was out (and i was busily finishing my homework like a good little worker bee), i texted the momster and asked her to pick up tights since most of mine are either faded, holey, or have runs in them. what did she get?

these:

oh, parents. i swear, they're worse than children. although, strangely enough, i actually really want to wear them...with something very long and plain and conservative and otherwise non-hookerish or else it'll just be Too Much. 

i guess that's all for tonight. i'm going to go play with my shiny new toy now, okay?

ETA: OH MY GOD NO.

 

"you have flapper hair"

today's title is courtesy of s-la, in reference to the New Hair which you might remember me mentioning on friday. lately my judge of a good haircut has been based on one factor: what it looks like first thing in the morning. sadly, i was too blegh this morning to snap a picture, but i did take a nap when i got home from school today (why, yes, i am that boring) and had the presence of mind to snap a picture. in other words, here are your before and after shots. form your own opinions on The Hair.

(after school: don't i look cheery? yeah, i didn't think so either)

 (post-nap bedhead)

in other news, my ipod is on its way to the apple store, after days of waiting. i neglected to accompany it since the last time i went in there they greeted me by name. in other words, i've broken one too many gizmos and thingamees to feel comfortable setting foot in an apple store for the next two years.

today was a mixture of boring and horrible. in other words, i went to lit, calc, and physics. lit sans a teacher and calc with a quiz (thankfully it was a partner quiz, though, so thank god for stephanie) were both horrifically boring and physics was an exercise in endurance. you know those classes where you have to pinch yourself to keep from drifting off? that's physics for me.

thankfully things have started looking up. this is mostly because i'm on frappucino number two of the day, but also due to naptime, series four of skins, and fleet foxes. oh, and i finished my homework early for once.

i think i'm going to cut today's post short - i've got some reading to catch up on. top of the list? nightlight, that twilight parody i blogged about way back when.