tis the season

oh, thanksgiving. a time when, traditionally, one is supposed to give thanks (or plot future land theft from the indians, whichever works out better). so, in no particular order, here are some of the things i'm thankful for this year: stuffing, my family, music, sweater coats, my annual reread of poisonwood, my friends, cookie and lulu, this picture:

and xabi alonso, disney movies, and the internet:

and now i'm going to sleep. hope you all had great thanksgivings!

we're older now, the light is dim

today's title comes from o children by nick cave and the bad seeds as used to wonderful effect in harry potter and the deathly hallows part one.

other than posting that wonderful song, i'm refraining from posting anything about the movie until everyone has seen it. seeing as the urge to babble about it is almost uncontrollable, this is going to be a very short post. instead, watch this video that joanna the hall-e sent me. it is so much better than the original song:

i left campus last night. this morning husband number three and i accompanied the momster to the hospital to get an iron transfusion. it took six hours. six! all went well, though. the momster beat my tap tap score (annoying) and requested cookies, which lead husband number three to pick up gingerbread men. they're yummy. i still have one left. and then we went to see harry potter! again! (the first of many, many times over thanksgiving break, i hope)

leaving campus early had an unforeseen benefit, too. apparently i've missed a total of six fire drills since i left. this is wonderful. 

we live half at night

today's title comes from vcr by the xx.

i know i've posted this song before. it's just that good. listen to it again, okay?

i went on an adventure to central park and the mall with some of the hall-es. our main goal was chipotle for the burritos (successfully acquired), but we got distracted by other things. i discovered the wonders of the dollar store today! we played in there for a while - christmas decorations are already out. i was a little mystified. whatever happened to thanksgiving? does no one appreciate the turkey anymore? or wearing politically incorrect pilgrim and indian costumes? this is the backbone of our country, people! okay, nor really. whatever. it's still a time honored tradition. they were still fun, though. i'm debating whether or not i should decorate my dorm room for the holidays. i really want to (you all know by now how i feel about holidays - i'm already trying to organize a gingerbread house for the hall), but i'm not sure if it'd be worth it when we leave campus on december ninth. decisions, decisions (you all know how i feel about those, too).

after that, we went to target and played in the toy section. there's so many cool ones now! i don't know what it is about the holidays, but i always feel about five years old the second the weather starts turning cold. like, i have to bundle up in the puffiest, warmest clothes i own and the christmas socks come out...and so does the christmas list. would it be silly if i asked for this for christmas?

i mean, yes, it is a toy. but - it's buzz lightyear! and we played with it at target and it talks and turns toward you and has a spanish mode and everything. it's pretty much the coolest thing i've ever seen.

oh, and don't forget: chelsea v. liverpool tomorrow at 11 a.m. you should watch it. here's why:

listen to didier. it'd be a fucking disgrace if you missed it. tune in for the atletico madrid-real madrid derby tomorrow, too. it's always fun to watch.

oh, and you might have noticed that i finally changed my 'currently reading' book. i'm rereading extremely loud and incredibly close by jonathan safran foer for three reasons: 1. it's awesome. 2. i finally bought a copy of it and can see all the pretty pictures and word circling and the flip book at the back. 3. he's releasing a new book in just nine days and i want to get used to his crazy multimedia style again.

this new book is the real reason i'm mentioning it. i just preordered it (since barnes and noble is offering free shipping and if you preorder it online you get a much-needed discount, considering the downright cray cray original price of the book) and it looks amazing. see for yourself:

to explain what you're looking at, i'll just include the interview that first clued me into this book:

An enormous last day of life.

“Jonathan Safran Foer, deftly deploys sculptural means to craft a truly compelling story. In our world of screens, he welds narrative, materiality, and our reading experience into a book that remembers that it actually has a body.”
–Olafur Eliasson

Our early conversations with Jonathan Safran Foer aboutTree of Codes started when Jonathan said he was curious to explore and experiment with the die-cut technique. With that as our mutual starting point, we spent many months of emails and phone calls, exploring the idea of the pages’ physical relationship to one another and how this could somehow be developed to work with a meaningful narrative. This led to Jonathan deciding to use an existing piece of text and cut a new story out of it. Having considered working with various texts, Jonathan decided to cut into and out of what he calls his “favourite book”: The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.

As Jonathan began to carve out his story, we started doing our production homework and literally got turned down by every printer we approached – their stock line being “the book you want to make just cannot be made”. Thankfully, we found Die Keure in Belgium who relished the challenge of making a book with a different die-cut on every page.

Over a year of writing, cutting and proto-typing later, comesTree of Codes, a haunting new story by Jonathan Safran Foer cut from Bruno Schulz’s words.

The book is as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling: here is an “enormous last day of life” that looks like it feels.

doesn't it look amazing? i'm excited.

random fact: i've been listening to the xx while i typed this. itunes is weird, though, so when i type "the xx" into the search bar, i get every song, band, or album artist that features two Xs and/or the word "the". which means i went from nice, muted, good-for-writing, indie techno pop to:

yeah, i don't know either.

blogging via iphone, so don't expect much...

this is epic. and not at all too early because we're officially entering post-turkey hours, aka beginning of ye olde christmas countdown. if you want it, leave a comment or send a text.

also, tennessee thomas/the like are awesome? want proof (besides the fact that they post free songs on their myspace and hang out with ryan ross)? here it is. she has cute clothes. and forever 21 loves her (and we all love forever 21, right?)

so i hear today's a holiday of some sort

i just got back from walking cheeseball. (who is moving! why?) our doggie-walk soundtrack of the day was the titans spirit score from remember the titans. seriously, nothing's better for an early morning walk/run. it's all inspirational and sappy. and i just really love that movie.

it's thanksgiving! i'm actually not doing any work today (and trying to avoid the computer) so have fun (and get off the interwebs, kids, it's a holiday...unless you're canadian, in which case, get off the computer anyway, you're supposed to be in school) and have a happy turkey day.

adventures

so today i discovered the wonder that is this:

in case you didn't know, this is the peppermint mocha frappuccino, aka the combination of my two most-ordered drinks at starbucks (java chip frapps or a peppermint mocha with an extra espresso shot because the original has no caffeine at all). it's my favorite drink of all time. just so you know. and since starbucks is open on thanksgiving (and this year we don't have to visit the indian half of the family in long island because i have cheeseball/project/college application duties) i'm going to beg for an early morning pick-me-up on thursday.

i'm listening to never knew by the rocket summer. it's awesome.

surprisingly, discovering a new drink wasn't the most exciting thing to happen during early release. neither was taking pictures of the cafeteria and watching gina complete her awesome infographic for yearbook. nope, the most memorable event of all came in between those two. specifically, while on the way to starbucks.

let's preface this by explaining that my mom answers her phone and texts while driving. a lot. and she usually reads them out loud to me because she's afraid she'll get distracted and misunderstand something and reply wrong to a client.

so, while on belmont ridge road my mom starts reading me a text. stops. stares at her phone (while on the twistiest, turniest, most median-lacking road in the county...i thought i was going to die). and then starts flipping out...literally. she was flapping her hands everywhere and babbling in indian. it was highly entertaining. and while flapping/driving she dropped her phone between her seat and the gear shift so i fished it out and read the last text.

which, you know, was seriously dirty in an 'i'm going to quote low-quality porn at you' sort of way and from a number not in her contacts or immediately recognizable to either of us. so once she calmed down she took the phone away and replied back with a poorly-spelled variant of "who are you? where did you get this number?" and then we were at starbucks and she got out to go get us coffee.

she left her phone in the car, though, and a few minutes later it started ringing. and since i'm always supposed to answer her phone in case it's a client having another OMG moment, i

picked it up. and it was Dirty Text Guy. here's a rough transcript of our conversation:

Dirty Text Guy (DTG): Hello? Is this Barbara? I just texted you, I'm so sorry if this isn't the wrong number, do you know Barbara?

[DTG speaks really fast. he sounded pretty nervous, too]

me: ...This is Rachel. I got your text. You know I'm 17, right? So you might want to quit quoting porn at me because that's just really creepy.

[and, okay, i know the text wasn't to me, but i just couldn't resist. messing with people is so much fun. besides, it's really better that he got me on the phone and not the madre, because during the flap-her-hands-and-ask-Jesus-why-these-things-happened-to-her routine she was totally squawking about calling the police and tracking down the 'indecent person']

DTG: ...17. I'M SO SORRY PLEASE DON'T CALL THE COPS ON ME I DIDN'T KNOW.

me: ...okay. You might want to go get Barbara's real number now. Is the Barbara you know Barbara [insert-last-name-here], because that's my neighbor and she's married and that's just really creepy.

DTG: ...OH MY GOD.

End Call.

and in honor of my little misadventure in messing with inappropriate texters, have say anything's hilarious new song. the title kind of speaks for itself.