trogdor!!

it's the end of year survey!

01. What did you do in 2016 that you’d never done before?
participated in a grand slam! visited oregon and minnesota!

( Read more... )

52. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

You're not real, but you're something
You're not real, but you're everything

- JANK, "caitlyn"

i'm a little cranky right now because i'm sore still. my face is ready to declare mutiny and secede from the rest of my body, and i think i have a suture sticking out. sorry. i'll try not to be gross for the rest of this post.

i just went to my last poli sci class for this quarter. my prof was a former lieutenant governor of ohio, which made for some unique inside knowledge of the overall topic - campaigns and elections. we've been talking a lot a lot about the '08 election. i'm trying to reserve judgment on the candidates so far, although i pretty much already know the people i don't like. i'm just trying not to like anyone too much this early in the game. it's not working very well :) but the class was great. it was a 430/630, which meant we had a couple of grad students in class and the rest were undergrad but almost all majors. so that made for some good classroom discussion. the entire thing was conducted more or less like a group discussion class. and even though i didn't have to watch because i'm done with class now, i actually want to go back and watch this past sunday's meet the press. we had to watch it every week for class and now it feels kinda cool to have that habit. not that tim russert has a monopoly on truth around here, but he asks a question and lets whatever talking head or politician is on for the week actually answer the question. or inexpertly dodge it, whatever.

anyway. in about 45 minutes i have my last geology class of the quarter, followed only by our final exam on wednesday. i have to say, i wish i could take the next class in this series next quarter. unfortunately, it coincides exactly with a class i promised another professor i'd take. that one is an am lit class on writings during reconstruction, more or less, up to about the turn of the century - mark twain and henry james and shit like that. i'd taken his class on am lit 1820-1865 in the fall and he'd asked me to come back and write another paper for him. how could i say no? so i'd already planned my schedule around that one class, and that happened to be the only time geology 106 is offered in the spring. but the am lit class comes around once a year, if that, and gl 106 is offered every stinkin' quarter, so i knew my choice. too bad, though, because my geology professor keeps things interesting. he'll go off onto some tangent about chemistry or astrophysics and how they relate to, say, plate tectonics, and he'll be all erudite and interesting, and just then he'll somehow bring in the smurfs or buttcracks or something. totally my kind of class. (my prof is early 30's, barely older than i am, so just in case you were picturing some 70-year-old dude talking about buttcracks, i'm here to clear things up for you.)

i want to be able to eat real food! i liked my broccoli cheddar soup for lunch but really, how much soup can i consume? i have jello at home, though. mmmmmmm jello. and pudding. i have never felt so much like a 4-year-old. well, other than when i *was* 4. but i digress.

rosie perez was amazing last monday. she has so much to say about the condition of puerto rico and about the horrifying things that have been done to the women on that island. one in every three women in puerto rico has been surgically sterilized, and my government did this, ostensibly in an effort to reduce poverty, which of course has risen since the sterilization program was put in place. just another excuse to continue absconding with resources while blaming the citizens. ms. perez made a documentary - watch it if you haven't yet. it's called yo soy boricua, pa' que tu lo sepas! and it traces the history of puerto rico and vieques and their colonization and exploitation. (and i need an upside-down exclamation point in there somewhere, but i don't remember how to do it and i'm too tired to look it up right now. i can do ñ all day long but not that one. ññññ.) i caught it on bravo a couple of months ago and was simply transfixed.

my sweetie and i went to noho over presidents day weekend. once again, we ate our way through town. this time i got him to spoleto, which was amazing, of course, because it is spoleto. we had to get a poppyseed bagel with scallion spread from hayfield (which to me will always be the vermont deli), and we had to get scallion pancakes from taipei and tokyo, and we had to get anything at all from the haymarket, and we had to get bath beads from the cedar chest. and we spent much of the rest of our time addicted to hgtv. i don't know what it is about watching shows about flipping houses, but we could not turn it off. so not interesting when we're at home but it just grabbed us this time. we both came away convinced that we are *not* ready to own a house.

past that, we spent just a few hours at a time in town because it was so cold. this was right after aaaaaall that snow came through. paradise pond was frozen over and everyone was out skating on it. i'd never seen that before. it was what people imagine new england to be in the winter. it was like a norman rockwell painting. we finally did something i'd never done, which was to go sledding on hospital hill. the whole thing was one big block of ice, so each bump that i hit knocked the wind out of me a little bit. i ended up chickening out on the top of the hill and went down about halfway downslope. my sweetie went from the top of the hill and slide probably a quarter mile. i should mention we did this at night, which made the whole endeavor that much scarier. and then i got upset with myself for chickening out and burst into tears. but i dried my eyes and we drove around holyoke for a while and eventually found our way back to chicopee falls, where we were staying, and got hot chocolate at dunkin donuts and watched hgtv until we fell asleep.

oh, my hair has bled out to green. just in time for st. patrick's day, as everyone has reminded me. part of me wants to research the history of my irish and scots-irish and welsh ancestors on that day, sort of as a primer on the persecution they endured at the hands of the british, and make it about more than green beer and kiss-me shirts. and the rest of me right now just wishes i could have some green beer but for my mouth and its missing teeth.

so the ani concert in columbus thursday night was awesome. ("like a hot dog?" never mind.) the vibe was great. i went with my sweetie and a friend from spanish class, and we walked around downtown for a bit before the show. nice downtown, except who knew there was a chipotle that closed at 4pm? the look on my sweetie's face...he's an addict. bd's stood in as a good substitute, though.

it was an outdoor show, which was inconvenient for us when it rained in the pre-show hour, but fortunately it trickled off as hammell on trial started. and oh dude. i will never look at ann coulter the same way again. instead of being exhausted with anger i will now laugh. this is the power of this man. you should hear him and laugh and laugh and learn, and he does a mean muddy waters.

and of course ani. this is concert #7! nothing particularly outstandingly special, just a really good evening. she and todd were obviously having an enormous amount of fun. hammell had said something about the evening being recorded, so i'm hoping they were recording her show and not just his - objectively speaking, i think it'd make a good boot to add to the series. not that i'm at all selfish. ;) she played a fair amount of stuff off reprieve and a song she said is so new she's still getting it dialed in, so i doubt it's coming out with this album. wish i could remember enough about it to say for sure. she played some old stuff too, including "done wrong," which i'm not sure i'd ever heard her perform live, except possibly she might have played it at the colorado springs show i went to in 2000. and that was a super-intense show, about the time she was probably going through a lot of the stuff she sang about on revelling/reckoning, so there was a lot of stuff from dilate being hauled out at that one and it was obvious that she was not in a good place that night.

but anyway. this version of "done wrong" was free of all that weight, free to be deep, rich, shimmering. it took up extra space, warmed up to a deep auburn hue from the slate it had always been in my mind, which was unexpected and beautiful. and one of the new songs she played - i don't know, possibly "millennium theater"? maybe not - felt as though it had been resonating in me all my life and i finally got to hear it out loud. her music is just, i don't know, perfect. in its imperfection it is perfect. that makes no sense. let's try again. every time i hear it, strings are plucked in me that can only be plucked by that music, and it's like coming home. the feel of the west, the sheer america of it, is just me. i don't know how she does it.

i also suspect that there are many people out there who like her, who listen to her, but who do not get her at all. she made several jokes that were completely lost on the crowd when i laughed out loud. not to say this as "i get her! we're LIKETHIS" or anything, because obviously this is someone i do not know. but i think she's fucking hysterical and i do not understand how people can not get her.

so yes, i said concerts, plural. i unfortunately missed my little brother's show at the bitter end in new york this week. he's going to try to get me a tape of it, which would be wonderful, because that's a historic moment and there was no way i could be there for it.

i also missed my stepbrother's band's show in columbus, but it was the night before ani and i just couldn't make the drive twice in two days. however, they're playing tonight at the beachland ballroom in cleveland, and it's the late show, which means i could make it if i leave soon. but that means getting a hotel and coming back here tomorrow. (or staying with my mom, but a) the show will be late and i'll want to see my stepbrother (the one in my user icon) afterward, and b) if my sweetie comes with me that is just NOT HAPPENING.) and i was away last weekend at my dad's house, and i'll be away next weekend camping and whitewater rafting in north carolina, and i was working this morning at the gospel mission (long and not particularly interesting story, though it was a good time and i'm glad i did it). so i'd kind of like a chance to just lie around the house for a day. but if i don't see jimmy's band tonight, i have to drive a ways to see him next, and the closest he's getting is morgantown, west virginia. also, we'd like to travel to see another ani show or two this summer, and this is going to get expensive quickly. :)

ok. i have half an hour to make my decision. the show starts at 9:30 and it will take me that entire time to get there. hmmmmmmm.

quick update. i am coming down with a cold. all day i've had a sore throat and my ears have been stuffed up. perfect day to go to best buy orientation. oh well, it's only four hours and most of that will be paperwork and stupid videos. i just detest getting dressed when i'm not feeling well. all i want to do is sit around in a bathrobe and drink grapefruit juice.

i had a marvelous time in the tri-state area with my delicious aliyaskie! and i will have to journal about it later. but we had enormous fun, and we got to hang out with my brother, and good times were had. so thank you, chicky. *hugemous hugs*

i'm on tenterhooks (nobody ever uses that word anymore) waiting to find out whether i got into school. i don't think there'll be a problem, but i did have to petition to get in because of the way i left smith. of course, that's been six years, and i told them it's been six years and i've sorta lived since then. but i wanna know nooooowowwwwwwowowow dammit.