So...

I was walking home from school today totally beating myself up and in a pretty low mood when I got home and checked my email. This picture was waiting for me and completely changed my attitude:


Ezra is one cute little goober and I'd like to thank him for making me snap out of it.

sheer genius

this two second scene was one of the coolest i've ever laid eyes on. sally draper, i'm sorry that i didn't love you as much as i should have from the beginning.

welcome to the soft parade

this day began pretty badly. i'd been awake about twenty minutes and already wanted to crawl back into bed never to see the sun again! okay, i'm being dramatic, but i really did want to sleep the day away. but alas i have many a thing to do and i will not wallow in my menstrually motivated melodrama. i'm going to be happy and enjoy the fact that as of 1:45 PM I am no longer behind in my reading (because 1:45 marks the last discussion we will have about a book i failed to complete teehee) and, in fact, i have the opportunity to get ahead in some work.

you know, i'm also going to make a better effort to savor this time i have to myself (all day, that is). i'm going to show you, blog, more attention. i'm going to show myself more attention as well. i don't necessarily deserve it, but i certainly need it right now.

i need to put forth more effort in recognizing that this situation i am in shouldn't be so stressful. i've been given a gift (quite literally, as i am attending school for free and living off of more free money) and i should have fun with it, just like i would any other gift i've been given (with the exception of that gift card for a free massage that i have yet to cash in; i haven't really enjoyed that gift quite yet).

plus, i can get free therapy at the university health services. can't beat that, man. perhaps i'll get a therapist that can finally rid me of my codependent ways so that i might become so content with solitude that i take to walden to write my philosophies in the absolute silence of nature. this is hilarious if you know that i hate that book. now you do know that i hate that book... hilarious, right?

is there some point in life where you become mature and realize what you truly want in life? i currently feel like i'm regressing. or maybe it's actually maturing? cryptic cryptic cryptic.

one more thing.

this is super cheesy of me, but I have to...

patrick swayze died yesterday and i was quite sad. i didn't have much of a childhood. i didn't spend a lot of time watching cartoons and playing with dolls; i wanted to grow up and hang out with my brothers, so I abandoned these things pretty early on in life. there were a couple of things that i held onto no matter how much my brothers teased me, though, and one of those was "dirty dancing." in fact, when i did play with barbies, they were forced to reenact scenes from the movie. dirty dancing is terribly cheesy and a bad, bad movie, but i loved it as a kid so it has a place in my wicked little heart. so much so that my brother jokingly texted me this morning asking how i was handling swayze's death.

johnny castle, if i still had my barbies i'd totally dedicate a final reenactment to you.

stay gold.

if i have time to blog...

...i have time to read the 300 pages that await me in A Hazard of New Fortunes. I mean, really, where is all of my free time going? Answer: Facebook (don't ask), Mad Men (1 hr/wk), True Blood (2 hrs/wk), Savage Love (1 hr/wk), This American Life (1 hr/wk), making food (combined? eh 5 hrs/wk and that's generous), consuming food (5 hrs/wk again, generous), partying (generally takes place on Friday and Saturday from the hours of 8 or 9 PM until, oh, I'd say 3 am so... 10 hrs/wk... still not enough).

I don't watch much tv, honestly, but it seems that my nights just disappear. There really ISN'T enough time in the damned day. Reading is my life. I read and read and read and read and read... you get the point. And it isn't always fun stuff. It's not one exciting novel after another. It's literary theory. It's critiques. It's genre-related babbling. Oy fucking vey.

I honestly understand now why The University of Texas gives us money to attend school: BECAUSE ADDING ANYTHING ELSE TO YOUR SCHEDULE WOULD BE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Every minute I am not reading I feel guilty. I feel guilty for writing this blog! I need my party time, though. THEY MAY TAKE MY FREEDOM, BUT THEY'LL NEVER TAKE MY BEER! I'm pretty sure that's what Mel Gibson said in Braveheart.

Okay, I'm not really as sad as I'm pretending. I'm learning, yo. Yesterday I was a substitute TA for two discussion sections and had a classroom of 20somethings staring at me as though I was the source of all Early American literature knowledge. 'Twas brilliant! I could do this for life, stand up there and act like I know everything there is to know about Puritans and their writings. Hooray for American Literature!

I love to talk about those moments where I'm sitting in one of my grad school classes (again, that I'm paid to attend) and I float above the room, looking down on the six of us (professor included) as we try to resolve why James chose to describe Catherine as "soft" in Washington Square. Floating Yvette looks down at real Yvette and says "Who the fuck do you think you are? Look at you, you little pansy." Floating Yvette goes on mockingly, "'I'm Yvette, I'm a grad student, I think "soft" means marshmallows and pillows.' Get a real job, bitch." Floating Yvette quite obviously thinks real Yvette is a PHONY. Real Yvette is worried that floating Yvette is sometimes right.

That's right. I've reached internal struggle #1 in grad school and for once I'd like to say it out loud...

WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING HERE?