que veux-tu

today's title comes from the yelle song of the same name:

warning: i have absolutely no idea what's going on in this video, but i love the song anyway.

other things which i'm listening to:

it's taken me forever, but i finally have studio-quality mp3s of this and every other song they haven't released, which, as you may imagine, makes me pretty happy. 

i got a new phone yesterday! it's just an update of my old phone, and also the same phone that both of my parents have (so telling them apart? basically impossible), but it's still somewhat exciting. 

other than that, nothing too exciting has happened lately. i'm catching up on all the homework/reading i put off this week, so i spent all day reading maigret stories in french, medieval italian poetry (it's growing on me), and a ton of news articles on the wisconsin budget situation/unions. who knew spring break could be so boring? 

oh, and this? this is awesome. go watch it. the end. 

there is a ukelele

she's sixteen and british and makes me feel unaccomplished. listen anyway - the song isn't too long and it's oddly upbeat.

if i had a boat

today's title comes from the song of the same name by james vincent mcmorrow. it's one of those mellow, lush, bon iver-soundalikes and i'm in love with it, so listen to it right away:

other things i've been listening to lately include: 

and this, which is one of the rare instances of me liking the remix of a song better than the (admittedly awesome original):

and, of course, a cover:

oh, and i finally changed my desktop background:

i'm volunteering at the blood drive later and i feel kind of incredibly sick right now (i know, i know, you're so surprised) so i'm just going to nap and put off the real post which is all about poetry and modernism and brit lit (my professor is insane. no, really. she makes the momster look normal) til tomorrow. 

it's a nice to start again

today's title comes from white wedding by billy idol. i've been on a kick lately, don't even ask me to explain it:

other music i've been listening to lately?

this just made me laugh:

and this is just awesome. as is this:

nothing much happened today. i worked on my organ trafficking presentation with some friends. oh, and then i rewatched persepolis with the hall-es. it's still good. i mostly just napped today. i had my 9 a.m. lab today, so i basically just rolled out of bed (it was so hard - the new duvet is like sleeping on a cloud) and wandered to class in my pajamas. we went on a mini field trip in bio today. we went around campus collecting samples of dirt from different habitats and testing for organisms. the things we were looking for were invariably gross. the lab partner and i were hoping not to find anything, so of course a spider fell out of our bags as soon as we got back to the lab. it was horrifying. thankfully, class let out early today. i had a nice long brunch and then napped from noon until four. it was wonderful. sleep really is a girl's best friend.

don't forget - it's international football soccer time, starting tomorrow: usa v. south africa (2 p.m.), germany vs. sweden (2:30), and spain vs. portugal (3:55). celebrate with me by watching this (alternately wonderful and horrifying) ad for spain's new jersey:

walk on, walk on

i'm separating these posts since i don't want to make all of you who aren't interested in liverpool skim your way through pages and pages of music and football soccer blogging since i haven't had a lot of blogging time lately and i've got a lot of things i want to fit in. that said, you should totally read this anyway. oh, and stay tuned for a real post soon.

...especially since this particular post is basically reduced to pointless blubbering and pointing at the screen and gibbering things with too many exclamation points and capital letters because:

WE WON. WON. WON WON WON WON WON.

and as for you, roy hodgson:

even though you are a spineless, finger-pointing, player-blaming, torres-giving, tactically inept jackass, i'm...oh, who am i kidding, one win changes nothing for you. i hope the new owners fire you before i have to return to writing protest letters.

which, by the way, we have new owners. as in, we went from this to this. oh and wayne rooney signed a new contract with manchester united to earn twice as much money for scoring the same zero goals he's had for the next five years. and that means they'll have even more debt (and we have none! none!) and less money to buy players and we can win more and fire roy and....

i've been rendered incoherent from joy. good work, liverpool. the next game is on sunday at 11 against bolton, which means all the usmnt fans can admire stu holden, too (as long as they lose - any admiration of Serious Opponents ends our friendship).

in closing:

a newly orphaned refugee

today's title should come from a very familiar source - four winds by bright eyes. it came up on shuffle late last night and once i heard it again, i couldn't stop listening. so you can listen to it again, too:

and here's the killers version, too:

this is basically a music post, since i've got another rachel post in the works. so here's what i've been listening to lately:

hands down, my favorite thing to listen to in october. it's kind of like my ultimate halloween song. well, besides this:

and here's some of the new stuff i've been listening to. it's been a while since i've posted, so a lot of this isn't new (and some of it was only ever new to me):

one of my favorites. stand out tracks? bang bang bang and the bicycle song. it's just a really fun, dance-y album.

in a word: disappointing. i don't care how much crap they spout off in interviews about "returning to [their] roots". um, this crap isn't their "roots"- it's them trying to capitalize on their sex on fire/use somebody success with a bad album that all their sheep new fans are going to buy without listening to. i'll stick to this, thank you very much:

my new workout album. it's so much fun to listen to. my favorites right now are: gordita, rabiosa, and her cover of islands by the xx. 

and just for kicks (and because i love it), here's the original:

and a couple of random songs:

we all know how i feel about covers. some of you might remember when odd blood by yeasayer came out earlier this year, and how crazy about this song and mondegreen and ambling alp and every other song by them ever i was. this is almost as good. 

i unashamedly love this cover. it's not that different from the original, but between the lack of useless synths and the changed lyrics it just feels better. 

excited as i am for the new taylor swift album (i'm listening to it right now, actually) in my head, kanye > taytay any day of the week. he can even redeem justin bieber. 

i've been telling myself i can roll with the changes

today's title comes from hard enough by brandon flowers (from the killers) and jenny lewis (from metric). you should check it out:

so, i've officially been in college for a month. that doesn't seem quite right. strangely, i don't feel like i'm in college at all - or, rather, i don't feel the way i thought i would once i got here. i just feel like i'm home, but with busier parents and friends who never leave. i don't really know if that's good or not.

i feel busy, that's for sure. i know i don't like that. i miss being able to hermit in my basement and just read and work out and listen to music for days. i feel so behind on my racheltime. i guess i'll catch up on breaks.

i've been pretty productive today, though. i did some biology prereading and research for my chaucer paper (clucking aside, it's a hard class), and finished reading beasts of no nation for my global issues in lit class. like the painted bird, it was depressing. it's all about child soldiers and war and rape and things. and, okay, it was actually a good read. still, it wasn't exactly cheery, so i'm taking the rest of the night to chill with the hall-es (i'm waiting for them to finish their homework right now) and blog.

nothing very exciting has happened to me lately. i'm sort of getting into a routine, i guess. some of the hall-es and a few other friends and i finally had the genius idea of creating a master class/club schedule so we could stop sending each other mass text messages to the tune of "where are you? do you want to go eat? does anyone want to go shopping? does anyone want to go to the anthropology club meeting? are you in class?" etc. yeah, it only took us a month to come up with this idea - we're smart like that.

so, remember that liverpool game i stayed up all night to wait for? yeah, it broke my heart. it was still awesome to watch, though (well, at least until the 83rd minute - screw you, dimitar berbatov), especially the second half when things got interesting. i'm mostly mentioning this to get you all s-la, you're the only one i have any faith in to watch on saturday at 10 a.m.

i'm getting distracted by music and all of you munchkins on oovoo, now so i'm going to wrap this post up by finally getting to the point i originally logged on to make:

it's strange how many weird habits i never realized i had. there are the obvious ones, like the whole chewing on ice chips thing (i don't care what you say, it's fat free, at least). there are some that people have mentioned that have kind of taken me by surprise, though. here's two examples stolen from my door:

and some of the hall-e's habits are rubbing off on me. like, my study habits are changing. and one of the hall-es is really into spanish music, so i've been listening to a lot of that lately. mostly that, actually. here's some of today's favorites:

fell out of a daydream

today's title comes from low road by grace potter and the nocturnals. she's my latest musical obsession. and, no, ginger, i don't care if you don't like her - watch the video, anyway. here it is:

 

due to my college-bound circumstances, i've been forced to buy her albums on itunes. they were so worth it, though. i'm listening to them right now. other recent itunes purchases (since today turned into a less-awesome version of music day): sharon jones and the dap-kings, tv on the radio's return to cookie mountain (since my less-than-legal version was a little lacking in quality), and a preorder of cutie and the followills' new album. it came with a free download of radioactive, also known as the new single with the ridiculous music video.

so...what's been happening in my life? not much, actually. college feels a lot like home, but not as nice. and isn't that weird to realize? like, it's more fun and there are always people to hang out with and things to do but...i want my dogs. and my bed. and my mommy coffee maker. speaking of the momster, she's on vacation with husband number three right now and keeps texting me pictures of dolphins and restaurants and food that i can't eat. it's highly depressing, especially since - surprise surprise - i'm sick. again. oh immune system, why must you hate me? at least michelle the hall-e/neighbor has vitamin c and cough drops and orange juice and managed to turn me into a semi-functioning person today.

class was actually fun, today. my chaucer class - aka the 300-level class that my advisor warned me was really hard - was hilarious. all we talked about was rocky and bullwinkle, dante, and chickens. well, chickens and roosters. and then to illustrate how hilarious the nun's priest's tale was, the professor made us all cluck and crow like chickens and roosters...for ten full minutes. and since our auditorium is right by the building's entrance and the door was open, we got a lot of weird looks. also, since i was still a little doped up on dayquil/cough drops/vitamin c, my clucking was...enthusiastic. let's go with that word. enthusiastic enough to get me singled out with other dozen or so "champion cluckers". why do these things always happen to me?

after that, we celebrated one of the hall-e's birthdays by surprising her with sherbet and ice cream and cake. oh, and we got her a balloon and nail polish. it was fun, since we surprised her with all of this - and singing - at 12:01 in the morning.

so, in case you couldn't tell, this post was actually started on tuesday. a lot has happened since then, so i'm just going to keep typing in this draft instead of posting the beginning of this separately. let's see...

i had my stats and bio tests on thursday and friday. they were both easy. disappointingly so, actually, since (as the oovoo munchkins probably saw) i stayed up forever on thursday night rereading the six chapters covered on my bio test just in case i forgot something. i didn't. it was possibly the easiest test i've taken in any science class since elementary schools. one of the questions asked where one goes in the event of a fire (one of the answer choices involved standing in a corner). i'm a little bitter.

to cheer ourselves up, the hall-es and i went to see toy story 3. we showed up a little late after dinner so we got to see it for free, even. it was awesome, and all of the hall-es who hadn't seen it before had the decency to tear up (take that, ginger). after that, michelle and i went to our round of club meetings. the last one ended around 11:30. so, walking back to our dorm in the dark, we're a little surprised to see a huge crowd of people sitting on the ground in a circle in the middle of campus walk. oh, i think. there must be a hippie club on campus.

...and then three of the hippies turn around and wave at us, and we realize we know some of them. it turns out that after our epic halloween idea thursday afternoon (we're being the disney princess ensemble - i'm jasmine!) the hall-es who didn't have club meetings decide to wander around campus. and somehow or the other they ran into friends and friends of friends and started a disney song hippie circle. one of the hall-es even has the disney treasury songbook with sheet music and lyrics for all of the songs from every movie. we made our way through a ton of them, scared a few passersby, and talked a few more into joining us. and then someone started singing airplanes and one of the new friends mentioned that if you look at the sky for eleven minutes, supposedly you'll see a shooting star. so, being sensible people, we all lay flat on the ground in the middle of campus walk at 1 in the morning to look for shooting stars...but all we saw was airplanes. and then lauren the hall-e had the bright idea to take us on a field trip to the old amphitheater (it's in this out of the way corner of campus on a hill backing the woods, and the back of it is crumbling off the hill so they decided to stop using it and let it just turn into creepy ruins) where we...were creeps, actually. it's good to know that i'll never have normal friends.

after that, we drew inappropriate chalk people outside the auditorium and hung out a little longer, before finishing a knight's tale (where i had the incredible brainwave that ginger could be the ginger in the movie. well, if he was angrier and cooler. maybe our goal should be to turn him into the ginger from the movie?) and watched get smart. oh, anne hathaway. your bangs are such an inspiration to me.

today we woke up in time for brunch. i broke a flip flop (that's the third pair since june. what's going on here? it's like karmic retribution since lulu isn't here to eat my headphones) and left my starbucks mug on a bench (it's okay - it was still there when i went back for it). mornings suck. we're doing homework now (or i'm supposed to be, but i figured i'd take time to finish this post since i've been such a lazy blogger) while we wait for our laundry to be done. and then we're going downtown to get stuff to make t-shirts for our glee watching party (next week! i'm so excited i'm just going to use a few more exclamation points! like this! !!!!!) and stationery (so i can write you all letters/send you postcards, etc.) and random things.

i'm going to go do my homework now. i really don't want to have to spend my whole weekend worrying about it. but, before i go, i'll leave you with a few more songs:

idk, idk. blame the hall-es. 

oh, and this:

that's right - 8:30 tomorrow morning. liverpool v. manchester united. don't forget to watch.

p.s. i'm watching this game right now. you should, too:

praise the lawd

cutie and the followills are back. the new album releases on october 18, just five little days after my (18th!) birthday. best prezzie ever? i think so.

anyway, they have a new music video. watch it.

awesome song, gets its own post, etc.

click the play button. go on, click it. oh, and then youtube all of her amazing covers. there are a ton of them, or i'd post link to those, too.

long as i can see the light

today's title comes from the song of the same name by creedence clearwater revival. it's old and you probably already know it, but i'll post it anyway since i'm bored:

i came home this morning. it's...odd. yeah, that's the best way i can think of describing it. odd and quiet, actually. i guess i got used to always having something to do or someone to talk to or people just randomly popping in to say hi. i almost wish i'd stayed on campus for the weekend, but...air conditioning. and dvr. and a mattress larger than a postage stamp. those are pretty nice things, too. besides, the momster wanted me to visit and...okay, i'm still mad at her and she's still trying to bribe me happy and i don't know if it's going to work this time but...well, i'll give it a chance. at the very least, i have my dogs.

speaking of the lulus, we had a good walk this afternoon. let me correct that - cookie and i had a good walk - lulu sat down in the middle of the sidewalk about five minutes in and had to be carried the rest of the way. i guess that was good for my nonexistent arm muscles. well, it was until she started nibbling on my headphones. then i had to turn off my ipod and put it in my pocket and that was no fun at all. but she is being extra cute to make up for it. i'd take pictures but she's sleeping on my feet and i'm too lazy to get up. maybe there'll be some tomorrow. if there aren't, the only reason she looks cute is because her fur is growing back in so she looks a little less like an alien.

i went out to lunch with all of the parental units. all. you can't begin to imagine how awkward it was. if ever i see any of you in person, you'll get the full story, but until then? well, just picture this:

and then multiply the awkwardness by a thousand. that's pretty much it. i guess there's a reason famiglia sounds like a disease?

anyway, one of the best things about being home is the unrestricted access to music. i've been completely out of the musical loop lately. anyone got any recommendations?

while at school, though, my ipod's been on shuffle 24/7 just so i could have a little variety. i've been rediscovering some old favorites like today's title song and these:

i'm going to go do my laundry (for free! oh joy), grab some ice chips (i've been slowly training the hall-es to remember to pick up a cup or two for me whenever they're near an icemaker, but there's still no replacing my icemaker) and a few snacks, and curl up to my television screen for the night - we've got one in our room, but there's never any time to watch it (and no fios or dvr).

oh, i almost forgot to share the details about my iranian revolution seminar. we're watching a movie about a cow. just about a cow. i don't know either. at least writing the paper will be easy.

look at me updating

let's just get the school stuff out of the way now, okay?

remember how i said stats was stats a few posts back? well, that's still true. it's bearable. i've got stats friends now, and even a walking buddy who's in the chaucer class i have right before, so all is good in the world of math. well, sort of. it's a strange, strange class. for one thing, the professor seems to be terrified of all of us. he's little and he stutters sometimes and he won't make eye contact with anyone. i kind of want to adopt him or take him to an animal shelter or something. but then he gives us a quiz - the bad: we have one every class. the good: they're partner quizzes and you can use your calculator. - and i get over the whole wanting-him-to-be-a-self-actualized-person urge. alas for my fleeting bout of goodwill.

and whan in septembre with his shoores not-so-soote...okay, so that was only 2/3 chaucer and 1/3 rachelism. whatever. you get the general idea. the general idea being that reading chaucer in the original ye olde english is très, très difficile (oh, and sarah and i have been helping stella with french - it's surprisingly fun). luckily, our pronunciation isn't graded, or anything, and we get to use modernizations with our reading. unluckily, we all still had to sound borderline mentally challenged while sounding out all the words as a class yesterday. the teacher is still cray cray, though. so is some of the class, actually. we've figured out that if you mention a random, obscure historical or literary fact in class, sturtz 2.0 will immediately pick up on it and start tangeting. and, yes, tangeting can be a verb if i want it to be. so the chaucer friends and i have decided that if we get stuck in class/forgot to do the reading we're just going to start blurting out random things and hope she goes along with it. i can't wait to try mentioning rasputin next class. i'm hoping for an angry anastasia-related rant, since when one girl mentioned king arthur, sturtz 2.0 went off on all of the bad movie adaptations of the story for a good hour. it was like nap time.

global issues in literature remains depressing. the book we're reading for that class is horrifying. this is it.  it's so bad that none of the lit friends, or the roomie (who is also in the class) can read it before going to bed. oh, and then we get to class and have to watch this movie:

cheerful, non? as you can imagine, dinner once again required to-go boxes.

after all that came the fun stuff, though. i restarted watching sherlock holmes with the hall-es since we'd put off finishing it for so long that the people who hadn't seen it before couldn't remember anything that had already happened in it. oh, and we did touch ups on the nails for everyone not me, before commencing a three person operation to get joanna to let someone paint her nails. can you believe that a manicure-hating person exists? yeah, i couldn't either. eventually we just sort of held her hands down and got to work - sarah buffed and filed, i painted, and michelle did designs. it turned out pretty well, so if this whole college thing doesn't work out we figure we can open a nail salon. there was a luau off campus after that. details about that aren't really bloggable, but the alchy didn't come back until morning and the creeper story has a sequel. i'll fill you in during breaks. oh, and since i went through all the awkward trouble of introducing all of you via oovoo, i'm expecting news roundups in the form of blogs. i'm still not refriending you on facebook, though.

anyway, i just woke up, so nothing interesting has happened yet. au revoir, mes amis.

just another weird day

today was interesting. it started off with youtubing and brunch in the morning with my roomies and some hall-es. then the momster, who had a real estate errand to run in richmond, showed up so i could go with her since i didn't have class in the afternoon. the drive down was fun. it's strange - she did something cray cray again and then made me even angrier by trying to buy my approval, but i still miss her. go figure. we had a mother-daughter spa day in richmond - manicures, pedicures, and my first ever grown up facial. my face feels funny. oh, and i have no calluses, so running with sarah and lauren tomorrow is going to be oh-so-very fun. we stopped by panera to say hi/have lunch with jenibean and meggo since i wanted to see what their campus looked like/be able to visit them on my own. i'm thinking that probably won't ever happen again. we got lost three times even with gps, and the third time was in a really sketchy area. other than that, it was nice seeing them again, even if it took me like five minutes to recognize jenibean when she was standing right in front of me.

after that we had to speed back to campus since i had my anthropology club meeting (the topic was memes!), photography club meeting, anime club meeting (that's right - i joined it. one of the hall-es forced us all to sign up so she wouldn't be alone, but the anime we watched was actually interesting and about kidnappings and the mafia, so i don't think i mind it much), and dinner plans with the hall-es/random other friends to get to. oh, and then we went to the outdoor movie night in ball circle to watch the sandlot, but i cut out early because the cray crays wanted me to get on oovoo. bad idea, i must say. this is like the third time i've blown off plans with my new friends to say hi to the old ones, and it's starting to get annoying. like, i'm making an effort and all, but i guess it's not really a big deal if we don't talk every day/week/month etc. i mean, there's still breaks. besides, i'm having a horrible week parentally - money aside - and putting up with half an hour of "you're frozen" when i could be making/hanging out with new friends is...yeah, unappealing. actually, it kind of sucked. so i was emo for about five minutes and then me and the hall-es grabbed ice cream/stuck our heads in the freezer because it's just that hot out and started youtubing. somehow we ended up watching gabriel iglesias videos (tangent: michelle was convinced he was called julio iglesias and kept trying to youtube him instead) until...now, actually. we're about halfway through the playlist. i'd post one, but embedding from the phone is hard. if you haven't (and you probably have - everyone has) go watch his stuff.

p.s. i'm trying to blog more often. maybe i'll pick nanoblogmo up again this year.

physician, heal thyself.

alternatively, you could heal me.

i seem to be spontaneously sick again, but for once i'm going to the doctor early and getting it all sorted out before i become debilitatingly ill/loose another tooth. i hear they come in limited supply or something.

there's a real blog in the works, but until i get back from the doctor, here's two things to tide you over:

this is amazing. i kind of hate the original song, but...big band covers! you listen to this one if you know what's good for you (this means you, too, s-la)

soccer football! i'm saving s-la's latest post to read in the car/waiting room so i don't know if she wrote about it or not, but we were in full international friendly-viewing mode. it was relatively good times. well, it was cathartic to be able to yell about the usmnt's poor defending with other people, anyway. for those of you slackers who still aren't watching, bayern munich is playing real madrid (so basically, the german national team's starting 11 and a few dutch players are playing half of the spanish national team) at 2:55 and it's being showed on espn. not espn 2, or 3, or depo-something spanish idk. actual espn. go watch it.

holy roller novocaine

today's title comes from the song of the same name by kings of leon. it's (in my opinion, which is the only one that matters) one of their best songs. at the very least, there is no mention of flaming intercourse or wanting to use somebody like you. this can only be a good thing. also, even s-la likes it, and she is notoriously (again, in my opinion) picky about what she listens to. here, judge it for yourselves:

so today s-la, travis, and jennifer (who are just not cool enough to get code names, sucks for them) went shopping - primarily for travis because, as you all should know, i've been shopping more or less constantly for the last few weeks.

s has already covered this, but shopping for boys is hard. their sizes are weird! they don't have fun styles to choose from. actually, there isn't much in the way of personal style in the world of men's fashion at all. as far as i can tell there is either "well dressed" or "blegh". like, there's no middle ground. it's kind of strange. there isn't "quirky" or "bohemian" or "fancy" or "retro" or "indie" or anything. i don't understand how they deal with it!

schweini doesn't understand, either.

well, we had to cover all of tyson's and the leesburg outlets (and, of course we made it to the outlets just in time for a giant thunderstorm), but we at last managed to get the ginger one the makings of a good wardrobe. we taught him what argyle and sweater vests were! also included in today's lessons: the importance of the long-sleeved collared shirt in layering. i feel so proud, i basically did this when he started showing signs of comprehension:

i also got a few things for myself, which is always good. best of all, i went to barnes & noble! i got the bell jar (sylvia plath), the lacuna (barbara kingsolver), and the alchemist (paulo co-oh fucking hell i have no idea how to spell or pronounce his last name). after my momster-enforced round of real estate tomorrow i think i'll go on a book binge. anything to distract me from hicks and gillet, the liverpool football club owners, trying to sabotage the club's sale to a chinese billionaire. and in case the thread i linked to isn't enough to clarify the matter, we definitely want the sale to go through. the current owners have put the team into a couple hundred million pounds of debt and might do worse if they aren't stopped. and, no, this isn't a shameless ploy to get you all to start following the english premier league/support liverpool. it so is. you should all know better by now.


other things of interest...

this video made me laugh so hard. watch all the way through, okay?

oh, and in keeping with my arcade fire kick, here's my latest love from their new album:

and another song that's been stuck in my head:

anyway, i'm off to start reading/snacking. i'm feeling gouda cheese and the lacuna tonight. what do you think?

eta: in case you couldn't tell, i'm dead tired, so tomorrow i'll probably post actual details/anecdotes/pictures of our mall adventures. highlights include: masks, jennifer eating twice as much as anyone at the table, and ed hardy.

eta #2: screw books and food. real madrid vs. club america is streaming right now. later, gators.

pretty much every fifteen seconds

which is how often i'm going to blog. well, not really. but i'll be making an effort to blog more. it's hard, though, since my life has been so incredibly boring lately. seriously, all i do is shop and read and drive and get into accidents and listen to music and read. it's all so terribly tragic, i don't even know how to begin my lamentations.

...alternatively, today's title comes from worried about by lissie. i'd post it but it isn't on youtube. if you really want to hear it (and you should - she's awesome) comment or email me.

i'm home from my day of slavery work with the momster. it was horrifically boring. i basically spent all my time texting people and googling things for her. oh, and then we did an open house for some of her clients. in case you're unfamiliar with real estate open houses, they basically entail sitting around looking pretty and making awkward small talk with the spouses/children/parents of the potential buyer while the momster talks about things like contracts and mortgages and interest rates to the important people. and, yes, that was a real definition.

my day wasn't all bad, though. i've had a grand total of three frappuccinos, two mochas, and three cups of bold blend coffee today. i'm just so happy about that, you don't even know. if only everyone could have this much caffeine. sometimes i feel like starting a nonprofit organization devoted to just that - sharing the wonders of coffee with the masses. who's in?

oh, and in honor of liverpool winning their europa league qualifier today, here's something from one of their players/champion twitter twatters.

and i know what you're thinking: ew, why is there dutch rap on your blog? well, besides the obvious answer (ryan babel is hilarious and his shenanigans bring me great joy in life) there's the fact of it being...really ridiculously catchy. i've had this on my ipod since march. it's just so earwormy.

i tried something new today, too. do any of your momsters ever tell you to put egg in your hair to make it shiny/thick/less prone to frizzing up like a poodle in july? no? well, mine does. and since my hair was looking extra dry and unfortunate today thanks to all that wonderful humidity, i decided to finally give it a try.

...and it worked. i scrambled up an egg, used an old brush to work it through my hair, washed it out in the shower (that's right - i'm clean. rejoice), and carried on with my usual shampoo/conditioner routine. and when it had all dried - i've been going with the air-dry route lately. i figure it's time for me to embrace the curl - it was actually shiny. and soft. and swishy swooshy.

okay, so that last one wasn't actually an adjective. whatever. swishy swooshy is clearly one of those universal qualities that everyone can recognize. like gumption. or oomph.

besides, if sarah palin can invent words, so can i.

oh, and here's a few more links. don't judge me. i had to spend a lot of time on the internet today. it was horrible.

s-la's already seen this one, but for the rest of you:

oh, and as background, manchester city was a middle of the table team that suddenly hit it big with a billionaire oil sheik buying the club and giving them more or less unlimited funds to buy players. which they've been using... a lot. to the point where signing jesus? wouldn't be all that surprising. except in this case it would be this jesus:

google's related search suggestion? jesus navas eyes

and not the one you were thinking of.

the best goal celebration of all time:

and a song that's been stuck in my head lately:

let's go for a drive, see the town tonight

today's title comes from arcade fire's suburban war. their new album finally leaked and i can't recommend it enough. the live performance is the best version of it i can find on youtube, but don't let the quality put you off - it's amazing:

so, funnily enough, today's post was almost titled "bitch i'm a let you finish in a minute", courtesy of eminem and lil wayne's no love. no, i'm not kidding. sometimes i listen to rap. don't judge me, okay? i don't see how anyone could hate a song that samples what is love. actually, just to prove my point i'll go ahead and post that song, too. it's been a while since i blogged and we need an appropriately angry soundtrack for the remainder of this post:

why an angry song? well, the answer is simple. i got into an accident today. again. and it actually wasn't my fault. but let's rewind a little since i've been absent from this little blog for a while now.

s-la's already blogged about our shopping adventure earlier this week, so i won't bother recapping that. basically i'm only mentioning it so i can post this:

isn't it horrific? i don't know why they exist. the frost-patterned jeggings, obviously, not s-la and travis-with-no-label-because-he's-too-lame-to-have-one. i feel like the very existence of those monstrosities should have been a warning: bad things will happen this week...and they did.

see, after our little shopping excursion, s-la left for her cousin's (i'm assuming it was a cousin, anyway) wedding, i ended up watching/playing with/feeding her ah-dorable animals. she blogs about schweini all the time, so i'll post a picture of dick cheney in kitty form  sugar:

see? cuteness. it even inspired me to try to spend time with my own evil animals (who've been especially horrendous this week...they ate their eighth pair of headphones. at least the new ones are pink), as shown here:

the good one

lucifer in fluffy form

so far so good, right?

...wrong.

while returning from s-la's house to play with my own furballs this morning (that's right! i drove! by myself! voluntarily!) i decided to be ambitious and pull into the garage...and you all know my driving history. this was a huge step for me.

so everything is going fine. i checked my mirrors for passers-by and cars, looked over my shoulder, prayed to jesus/allah/ratatouille/paul the octopus that nothing would go wrong, took a deep breath, and pressed down on the gas pedal.

and then some crazy evil bitch i swear to god i will get her in her sleep jogs right in front of me. as in she cut across the middle (the middle! who does that? we have sidewalks for a reason!) of my driveway to jog in front of my car as i was pulling in.

being as my foot was still on the gas pedal and all of this happened in about .0005 seconds, i did the only sensible thing i could - i swerved...into the side of my house.

don't worry, it wasn't a major accident or anything. i just clipped the corner of the garage. but look what happened:

the momster was, needless to say, not pleased. neither am i. and apparently it's all on us to pay for the damage since the pedestrian has right of way all the time.

now does everyone see the need for angry background music? yeah, i thought so.

don't worry, though. i'm pretty calm now - blame the arcade fire and ice cream i've been indulging in today.

oh, and i'm still on that poetry kick. here's today's. it was comforting:

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don't regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You've walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don't bother remembering
any of it. Let's stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

- dorianne laux 

want to live in a fantasy?

surprisingly enough, my silversun pickups kick hasn't ended in the twelve or so hours since i last posted. this post's title comes from:

so right now i'm midnight munching on one of the two dishes i actually know how to make from scratch - stuffing. yep, glorified bread and seasoning is my specialty. i'm sure you're all surprised. i even got fancy and added broccoli to it. this whole quest i'm on to attain a few basic survival skills seems to be going well.

like s-la, five is my new favorite number. it's nice to see your hard work pay off, you know? or, in my case, it's nice to see my serious dedication to caffeine in all its many forms pay off. it's all the same in the end, right?

i watched the espys on espn for the first time ever. yes, i was only watching for the usmnt. and, yes, i'm aware that the link i just posted leads to stu holden's twitter (look, i'm even linking it again - just click it already) and not the usmnt's website or twitter or blog. the twitter is better, okay? it's got pictures.

i've got a highly shameful confession to make now...i'm in love with the twilight movies' soundtracks.

take a deep breath and reread that sentence. yes, i said the soundtracks. there's no need to worry for my soul/sanity/sudden loss of intelligence. look, i can even form semi-complete sentences! capital letters, sadly, are still beyond my power.

some of you might already know about my sad, sad predilection for indie-but-not-really bands. i try and try to hide it but...well, i figured now was the best time to come out about it. hopefully these two songs will sway you to the Dark Side:

i picked these two songs because they're from bands that i've previously pimped on this blog, but i've actually liked a lot of songs from these movies. just the songs, though. oh, and the unintentional humor. watching kristen stewart try to show emotion is definitely better than 99.9% of the shows on tv right now. however, i would like to recommend recasting taylor lautner and foot-face pattinson with a pair of soccer players. none of them can act, either, but at least their abs look better. feel free to make player suggestions in the comments and make them spanish because the fewer players they have for euro 2012 the more like germany is to win.

and -- oh, fine. i've tortured you with enough horrible twilight-related things. here, have another poem:

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, 'O sea-starved, hungry sea.'

-- yeats

put out the need for guidance

today's title comes from growing old is getting old by silversun pickups. i'm going through one of my phases with them - i just can't stop listening. anyway, here it is:

well, i have officially left cheeseball. our parting was highly distressing. he's just so fluffy! and he gave me such a sad look when i left. i was basically like this the whole time:

on a happier note, while i was there cheeseball and i managed to explore the greater part of Decent Annapolis (aka all the neighborhoods which i wasn't specifically warned off of by cheeseball's mafia/spy owners, their neighbors, my parents, google maps, &c. &c.). it was pretty fun. and by fun i mean that i could get coffee whenever i wanted. in case you hadn't realized it by now, this is basically the embodiment of all my hopes/dreams/life goals. i know, i know - i aim high.

oh, and while i was there i learned how to use a dishwasher! well, okay, i had to call the other parent to get step-by-step instructions on how to use the dishwasher, but i still washed dishes all by myself. i felt so accomplished. and for any of you reading this and going:

well...we can't all be as horribly sensible as you are. this is actually quite worrying to me and ruined all of my plans of being a penniless poet and/or playwright in a french garret.


i went to the outlets today, too. i picked up a few things, but nothing really interesting. you know what was notable? the poor dead raccoon in the middle of the road on the way back home. it was so sad looking. why do people keep running animals over? and why doesn't someone remove them from the road? seeing was so traumatic. like, i was all "lalalala. i really need to take the momster's horrible beegees CDs out of the car. falalalal---DEAD ANIMAL. DEAD ANIMAL IN FRONT OF ME. IS IT LULU?" which is just not a good train of thought to have in a car. i have enough driving neuroses, okay?

in other news, i've been on a bit of a poetry-reading kick lately. here's my favorite from today:

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams. 

-- yeats

and, oh, i give up. i was trying and trying to keep this post soccer-free but...

we need more germans, okay?