Notes from Illinois

2004-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

well, finally another post. i bet no one is reading anymore. i hope so. i hate all of you. :) eh, it's ok if i still have readers because then i'm actually writing to someone. lately i've been trying to adjust to a new phenomenon: talking to people who *respond*. it's like pulling teeth trying to get my friends to talk on the phone. they all have "phone anxiety" or something. and they have *nothing* to say, it's so insipid it's downright rude. today is the first day of my class in modernism and post-modernism (literature). there are 10 books for my 7 week class and one book was cancelled! let's see if i can name them

proust, "swann's way" -- WHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
woolf, "jacob's room" -- i started this one, it's fantastic
freud, "three case histories" -- the "wolf man", the "rat man" and dr. schreber
nabokov, "pale fire"
didion, "play it as it lays"
burt, "popular music" -- it's a collection of poetry
sebald, "austerlitz"
beckett, "molloy"
kafka, "the complete stories"
calvino, "if on a winter's night a traveler" -- i love that title
and bernhard, "concrete" was cancelled since it's out of print.

i'm really excited. i hope to meet more interesting people. since i've already done that, i'm pretty optimistic. i'm going to get so busy with all these books! but if other kids can do it, if other kids have done it and will do it in the future, then i can do it too.

2004-06-06T19:16:00.000-07:00

well, my nervousness subsided. i practiced, and then had a fun 6 hour outing, the details of which are much too exciting to be written here. ;) yeah, you got it. but i think my nervousness stems from one thing: a longing to be in boston. i feel close to those beautiful buildings, gorgeous art museums, that intellectual atmosphere, the better coiffed citizens, everything. i was very very unhealthy today. it just happens sometimes. my blogs will get much more exciting in boston when i really have things to talk about. but maybe i won't. ah, life is dull. ennui consumes me.

2004-06-06T07:41:00.000-07:00

nerves

yesterday i took all three of my sat ii's: writing, french, and literature. no math or science for me! any college that wants a math sat ii isn't worthy of my artistic presence. besides, i'm taking the act next week. i think my sat ii's went well because i'm so good in those subjects, and i got to talk about sartre in my essay! once again, claudine, who helped me read "huis clos", saves the day. my mother is busy exaggerating about how claudine is going to get me into college. my mother loves to make unintentionally insulting, untrue statements, but you can't tell her that you're insulted or she'll get angry at you because she's trying to reach out to you and you're just being rude. *sigh* somehow, i woke up this morning very very very very very very nervous. i have no idea why. i have no tests today. i want to exercise, practice piano, go to a recital at 3, read hamlet, etc. another fun summer day. i woke up nervous yesterday because i had to drive all the way to bloomington to sit in a cold room and take three hours of standardized tests. i guess this is just my personality. it's weird to live in a world that values complacency and happiness above all else when you can never be complacent or happy in the conventional way, and don't even want to be. i get too used to the hedonistic american mentality of doing things just to feel good, when what's truly meaningful to me doesn't always feel good, or doesn't feel good in the superficial way of no worries and all smiles, but feels good in a deep way that requires concentration and dedication. i've been up for awhile, i should do something, but in this strange state, where my heart is racing, i don't know what to do. naturally, talking to my mother did not help me. she just makes me nervous. in a sense, i think i'm growing out of her. i don't agree with her as much and i'm sick hearing about the same shit over and over. lately, i've had at least one thing scheduled every day. i've really enjoyed it, but i'd like the freedom of at least one day entirely to myself. but i have something tomorrow, too. it throws off my whole schedule. i have no idea what to do right now. maybe i should practice this morning and exercise this evening. ugghhh it's so hard living with me.

2004-06-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

relaxing into summer

i'm very excited about tomorrow. wonderful plans. oh, i found out something else great about hamlet today, but i had to do some errands, practice piano, and go to dinner with my mom's former student who is in town for an alexander technique conference. ICK. this taiwanese girl (well, i should say girl, she's 32) is so shy it's offensive. you have to strain to hear her voice, she won't make any conversation, and it takes her forever to answer questions. sometime she just sits there and grins and won't answer. it's downright rude. we're breaking our backs to give her a nice evening and talk and the bitch is just sitting there with a moronic grin on her face. she's trying to undermine me, i can feel it. j/k ;), but it's aggravating as hell! my dad just got back from the grocery store, so he's going to teach me steam ironing 101. this is my second lesson. he went to prep school and they had to do this often. he tells me that his older brother david is the king of ironing. wow, what a manly sport.

2004-06-02T15:39:00.000-07:00

ugh

i think my mother is ruining my mental health. i've been feeling terrible about nothing, and everything is going so well that i really have nothing to worry about, but it just keeps coming, involuntarily. i've thought of some possible reasons for my strange mood, but they're not plausible since i've worked through those problems. i wrote a letter today that is going in a volume of mine and made me feel a lot better. i have nothing to feel bad about. we were with some friends today, and we were just joking and so there was nothing to worry about, i couldn't even relate to the unfounded anxieties i was suffering from earlier, and then i got back in the car with my mother and she was complaining and feeling worried about everything, and it came back. now, i feel more depressed in general instead of about the specific issue, but my activities earlier today related to that issue, so maybe that caused me to transfer my depression to a sensitive subject. that sounds reasonable, i bet that's it, because i have no reason to be upset by it. tonight is my parents' 19th wedding anniversary. they're going to biaggi's and a movie. mom was complaining about how there are no restaurants here and everything sucks here and she didn't know where to go and she kept snapping at my dad. we exchanged a look; he was suffering from the same thing i was. i want to talk to him tonight when mom goes to bed (she always goes to bed early). mom'll just kvetch at dad the whole evening. at least i'm not there. but i feel forlorn and alone and don't know what to do with myself. reading will probably help. myth of sisyphus is in mom's car. but shortly after posting, in the bathroom in fact, i discovered why hamlet sounds so weak in his sililoquies and why everything changes after he returns from england. it really makes a lot of sense. i guess i'll go now, find something to do.

2004-06-01T20:32:00.000-07:00

not addressed to anyone at school

don't be such a coward. can't you guess that i'll embrace it? you can make something beautiful, but it's not my place to do it, you know how these things work. the new address is temps_perdu710@yahoo.com, you should remember the other one. the last thing you want to do is to torture me! didn't you promise june first? you're not going to wait until boston, are you? that's too slow! i've wasted too much of my life being patient for nothing, i need something now. this will be brilliant -- just do what we both know you need to do, you've been planning on doing, just be impetuous. it's ok to regret it, you'll find out that there was no need for you to have ever doubted your actions. i'll regret this forceful, impetuous post tomorrow but i know it's the right thing to do. but there is one reason why today may not be the best day. how about tomorrow? that's my parents' 19th wedding anniversary. i'll wait this week, but don't keep torturing me. you know me so completely, you have nothing to worry about. i would never say something like that to anyone else.

2004-06-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

life hurries on

so, we've made it to june 1st! what a triumph! all those petty months of school are over. and things are going better for me. my fears are allayed. i've been busy getting together with some people and i'm excited about my own projects. i started rereading hamlet last night. it was interesting, but i'm still confused. the main problem is: how can other people see the ghost at the beginning of the play when only hamlet can see the ghost in the middle of the play? the ghost is such an enigmatic character because the play hamlet is *not* a fairy tale. the ghost is symbolic. that's easy enough to work with, but how does the symbol imply his visibility at some times and not at others? if the ghost were always visible to those besides hamlet or always visible only to hamlet, it would be simple enough. it's really shocking how badly people misread this play and underestimate hamlet since shakespeare has so many clues in the first three scenes that prove hamlet's cleverness. however, it takes a knowledge of the play to understand shakespeare's foreshadowing, so it's easy to miss the first time. i missed it the first two times. i want to prove that hamlet is not "indecisive" because he knows that it is morally reprehensible to kill claudius without enough proof that he committed the murder and hamlet never has enough evidence. mr. flesch brilliantly proved this point by emphasizing shakespeare's need to put in claudius' confession speech: if the audience needs to see claudius confess, then we would have been rash to have assumed claudius committed the murder up to that point, so hamlet was right not to kill him. there's the advantage of the mature perspective high school english teachers don't tell you: why does the author have a character act a certain way, or have a scene occur? the character cannot exist independently of the author...except eric cartman, but that's another story. perhaps hamlet's sililoquies really are shakespeare mocking him, the way the underground man feeds liza cliches and she believes them -- he gives hamlet all the dialogue that is so contrary to his insightful nature and incredibly strong consciousness to show the ridiculousness of medieval revenge.

this is so confusing i need to refine my idea. even existentialism isn't hard to swallow compared to shakespeare. it's ashame he's so famous, people try to understand him when they are incapable, so they simplify everything to the point of idiocy. i genuinely think that shakespeare shouldn't be studied in the high school classroom -- what we do to the poor old bard is unforgivable, and i'm ashamed that i couldn't read macbeth in more (i just wrote moor by mistake -- haha! that's so corny!) detail. it's stunning the way shakespeare is really a more modern author than more contemporary authors -- they write within their period and shakespeare transcends his. i'd refine my strange idea to: hamlet is not indecisive in terms of action, he knows the right thing to do the whole time, but the thoughts about revenge of his time, the thoughts his father had, are getting to him. so why doesn't shakespeare show us hamlet putting down those ideas instead of only acquiescing to them in hamlet's sililoquies? uggghhh! is that too obvious maybe? even flaubert isn't this annoying. flaubert's underestimated too. and i'm going to read him in french next year! yes! i must leave now, though, because mom and i are having lunch.

2004-05-31T07:17:00.000-07:00

baudelaire bash!

i've developed some weird neurosis that prevents me from ever being happy with myself. i've decided that no matter what i'm wearing i'm ugly. i can hear the responses from my precious classmates, "you are ugly, gabby." blech. i want to host a big party, but i'm getting tired of human life. do i really wanna see everybody? in a few days, probably. at the moment, i'm not ready. i bought six gorgeous tops in chicago and three pairs of shoes. i got polka dot shoes. wahahahaha. wahahahaha. wahahahaha. and i got really nice flipflops and i ordered a gorgeous pair of nine west sandals, but they might send them in the wrong color. i wanted tan, and they might send white because my mother dealt with it. since mom was with karen, they spent a lot of time in stores that were too old for me, and karen's very impatient since she lives alone and never has to compromise, but i had fun anyway. and i adore karen, she's fun. unlike my mother, i prefer shopping on michigan avenue to shopping at old orchard and northbrook court. we hit all three places! i found a cute hat at coach that cost$108. it wasn't worth it. i don't mind spending an exhorbitant amount of money, but it has to be worth it. i'd definitely spend that much on a pair of pants, and maybe a top if it were really stunning on me. i'm also exercising this summer which brings out my neuroses because i suck at it. badly. i just remember how bad i was in fitness class. my legs are short, and they're also short in proportion to my body, so i think that makes it harder. it's not important, but it's hard being the worst. it doesn't suit me. i'm good at things and that's that. exercising is the one exception i'll make because it's good for me and it's nice enough to do with music on, but it's a little bit painful psychologically. lots of people say they're bad at running, but only i *am*. all these fit guys complain about a 6 minute mile or something, and here i am not even breaking 9. but why should i care? the only reason i care is because of this traumatizing year. i'm sick of spending my life in a meaningless way where i get to be bad at what i don't value. and there's more to it than math, there are all the petty demands of school. so fucking what if i have a few god damn tardies! i'm late sometimes, i lose things, i'm entitled to it. i'm sick of waiting for each agonizing day to pass by, i want days to be special and profound, i want to treasure each one for bringing me closer to the divinity of existence (and i mean that artistically, not religiously), i want to "exhaust the limits of the possible" as pindar puts it, not sit in a classroom and watch idiots lecture me on bullshit. french and english were just as painful as math and fitness, just in a different way. history and anthro were my only pleasures, yet mr. vaughn had a way of being so contrary and philosophical that everything seemed meaningless after awhile. that's the brilliance of existentialism -- its purpose is to analyse and defy that sense of meaninglessness, of nausea, of the absurd. i need to re-read hamlet so i can argue with linder next year. now, that'll be fun. annoying, yet exciting. i just hope everything turns out right in boston. i have certain desires that need to be fulfilled. i need to actually do stuff now, i've been up since 7 messing around, watching only 1/2 hour of tv surprisingly, writing in my lovely new journal. i'm starting to organize my summer, and it feels good. now i'm getting nervous. god, i'm so fucked up. i just have to ignore myself. except, that brings me to a question: is ignoring active or passive? often when people ignore others they are aware of the other's existence and want to pretend they aren't, so ignoring is actually a form of not only hatred but awareness of the other person's presence. so, in that case, since the definition of ignore is the opposite of ignoring, what does it mean to ignore? for example, on a school assignment you might say, "i ignored that detail." to me, that implies that you noticed it and decided not to incorporate it in the paper because you didn't want to. so you were aware of it. if you say, "i didn't notice it" that means that somehow you didn't see it on the page, you were never aware of it to begin with. that is different from ignoring.

A HA! i looked it up in the dictionary, and its formal definition completely supports my hypothesis. it means "to **refuse** to pay attention to." you're actively refusing, so therefore you're really paying attention to it by insisting that you're not, you're aware of its presence because you don't want to be. let me tell you why what is seemingly ridiculous about this argument is important: it changes the meaning of a line of poetry, "un vieux sphinx ignore d'un monde insoucieux." i know that insoucieux, or insoucient, is a passive world -- you don't care. but when you ignore, you *do* care, that's why you do it. sometimes you ignore to convince yourself you don't care when you do, but you are angry about it. besides, people spend too much time "not caring" to really not care about all that. it gets sickening, it's the adolescent way, i'm superior because "i don't care." well, i do care, i care deeply. but this strange way of looking at the word "ignore" creates a fantastic complexity in the poem that enhances its meaning immesurably.

i'm not always this lucky. well, maybe not. when i read another baudelaire poem, i interpretend the lines "en boitant" to mean "while limping" instead of "by limping" since en with the present participle can mean either by or while depending on the context. interpreting the line my way adds complexity because it's a little unclear. he mocked the bird while limping instead of by limping implies that the sailor has a limp, that he gives the great bird an infirmity because he himself is infirm. if he's mocking the bird by limping, then he's just being nasty to the bird who can't fly anymore because he hurt it. that suits the poem well, but isn't as interesting. i guess i should clarify myself further and talk about the poems, but i really have things i must do. i think i'll write one of the two poems i discussed up here. i read the latter, "l'albatros" to my french class. so i'll write the other one. it's longer and harder to remember.

j'ai plus de souvenirs que si j'avais mille ans

un gros meuble a tiroirs encombre de bilans,
de vers, de billets doux, de proces, de romances
avec de lourds cheveux roules dans des quittances (this is the saddest line)
cache moins de secrets que mon triste cerveaux
je suis une pyramide, un immense caveau
qui contient plus de morts que la fosse commune
je suis un cimetiere aborhe de la lume
ou, comme des remords, se trainent de longs vers
qui s'acharnent tourjours sur mes morts les plus chers.
je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fanees
ou git tout un fouillis de modes surannees
ou les pastels plaintifs et les pales Boucher (he's a painter, CB was an art critic)
seuls, respirent l'odeur d'un flacon debouche.

desormais, tu n'es plus, o matiere vivante!
qu'un granit entoure d'un vague epouvante,
assoupi dans le fond d'un sahara brumeux
un vieux sphinx ignore d'un monde insoucieux
oublie sur la carte et dont l'humeur farouche
ne chante qu'aux rayons du soleil qui se couche.

oh, those last two lines just SEND ME!

2004-05-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

last night i didn't blog because i emailed my cousin. things are finally going well. i've started reading camus' "the myth of sisyphus", the english final was a blast, and i'm wearing gorgeous clothes on my way to the ritz carleton for lunch. yes, i'm spending the weekend in chicago! i'm so happy that i endured those stupid bureaucrats who dare pretend that they are trying to teach *me* and now i can finally live. i'll get my revenge, though, just give me a few years. i've got great plans. we were supposed to leave at 9 and now it's 10:42. mom is very slow to get ready. she got back late from the music building and is taking a long time to pack and get dressed. i packed last night. i was up at 8:15 or so and took a brief bath. we always leave 2 hours later than we're supposed to. weird how that works out. tomorrow we're meeting my mother's shopaholic friend, karen, and we're shopping at old orchard. i remember how misguided everyone was on the confirmation trip; they called old orchard "the mall". it's not a mall, it's OLD ORCHARD! GOD! it looks like we might actually leave soon. thank god. i can't describe how much i deserve this. i could use some bright white summer pants, and just more clothes in general. i know i have a lot of clothes, but i always have trouble finding nice pants and most of my stuff isn't summer-y.

i watched two movies on tcm yesterday (god i love that channel), "lili" and "gigi", both staring leslie caron. now, i admit i've never seen more than little snippets of "an american in paris", but what is so great about this woman? her face is ugly. her body is curvaceous and delicate, yes, and she can dance, but she's not charming, she can't sing, and her face and gawky and harsh and gross. all of her parts should have gone to audrey hepburn. that reminds me of when the educater, beri schwitzer, called aubrey audrey. everyone cracked up. instead of moving on, she obsessed over it. she sounds like a chipmunk, it's hysterical. don't get me wrong, she's very kind, but what a voice! anyway, my mother is actually ready to go, so i can't miss this opportunity!

2004-05-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

i need my stapler

so, the stress of the year is over. the math final is finished, and the history final was watching office space. also, i'm officially a confirmed jew! yay! the trouble was that we had to wear gigantic wrist corsages. i, being an insanely absent-minded human being, forgot to put the rose in the right place and just stood there holding it until a lady in the audience motioned for me to put it away. i also almost sat on my prayer book and my speech fell out of it twice. other than that, the evening was great! it was very hard not laughing during the service. my dad was in ecstasy in his little corner; it was fun looking over at him. i was a little nervous at the beginning of the service, but by the time i got up to the lectern to read my speech, all was right in the world. my speech was fantastic and everyone loved it. dick kaplan especially enjoyed my paragraph about the case for israel in the booklet. those kids are so stupid! the whole point of the book is to make an argument about why israel should exist, to say one side is right and the other is wrong! they call that "biased" and "one-sided"! IT'S A LAWYER MAKING HIS CASE, DAMN IT! WHAT IS HE SUPPOSED TO SAY? IDIOTS! THIS "OPINION" RHETORIC HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HAND! the whole book is his case, as a lawyer, why israel deserves to exist and why the information that leads us to believe otherwise is faulty. he can't give them credit because HIS WHOLE POINT IS TO DISCREDIT THEM! LITTLE IDIOTS, ALL OF THEM! GEEEZZZ! *smoke emanates from nostrils.* :) everyone kept saying that "the speeches showed the personalities of the children" which is code language for "god, these speeches were infantile and moronic." this is such good psychobabble that i've decided to include it in "larghetto vivace." i'll make it fit, that's how funny this is.

2004-05-25T12:08:00.000-07:00

le retour de gabby k

hey everybody, here i am again! phew, it's been a long time. wednesday have been hellish. for the last two wednesdays i've had math tests and tomorrow is my math final, and then i'm done with it forever! wahaha! except maybe "math for poets" in college, but nothing serious. i'm looking forward to going to chicago on friday. i'm so close, and yet so very, very far away! i'm going shopping at old orchard because i need more shoes and i'm going to tea at the ritz carleton. it's incredibly beautiful in there. there's a fountain, glorious large windows, great decor, gourmet food, everything a vain and gluttonous young lady could possibly want. we're going with my mom's friend who is an intense shopper. she has the layout of all chicago department stores memorized. my father told the story of merle schwartz who tried to go shopping with her and is now in a coma. it was a heart-wrenching tale, but i've bought quite a few pairs of shoes in the last few weeks -- my strappy and incredibly uncomfortable prom shoes, my lovely modern art-ish white shoes, my pastel shoes that are too nice to wear to school, even for me -- so i think i'm prepared. i feel too busy though since i've been studying for math for the last eternity. i haven't had time to study shopping. really, i need to go to the mall and just cram for a few hours. i don't know how this is gonna go. i really wish they put me in the easier shopping class, but i hear that teacher is really temperamental, so i didn't go. besides, i thought i was becoming hard-core. i'm really starting to doubt my self-worth. mr. smith (sam, not greg you perverts) has told me that i should be proud of myself for being so tenacious, for sticking with my shopping even though i sometimes have trouble. it's just so many products and so hard to choose which! seeing karen will be a great learning experience for me, but i'm just not sure that in this early stage of my life i can handle so much.

i have so many nice messages in my yearbook! this year, i've discovered that the yearbook is the woman's domain. the girls write charming, funny messages where they tell you what they liked about you and recall specific instances and inside jokes. i had three people all say "apprivoise-moi" and that warmed the cockles of my soul. i've had cold cockles lately, so i'm much relieved. trust me, people, you don't want your cockles to be cold. it's nasty. the boys are either insulting or moronic, or both. tomek couldn't even be grammatical. and i was nice in his! uggggh! most of the guys just write dumb quotes. but, actually, i've gotten a few good ones from guys. par exemple, kris wrote in franglais which was absoluement delightful.

tonite iz my confirmation service. this gives me lots of jew points. i'm excited for my parents to hear the speeches. i'm very happy with mine, but some of them are really bad. rachel's is good, max's is good except for the fact that HE STOLE MY FUCKING TOPIC and other than that, eh. ironically, both larry and "fred" are writing about honoring parents, but their speeches betray the fact that they don't honor their parents, that they're not respectful at all and don't care. i'm really nice to my precious mommy, but i abuse my dad. however, that's our way of loving each other. he calls me bastard and i call him shithead and we laugh and then i talk in my infamous "jimmy voice" and call him a monkey fucker and he cracks up. it's fantastic. we also say racial slurs alone in the car together. it's such wonderful bonding. my speech is about how arguing with god is not "speaking with malice", it's religious. it's kinda funny, and quite sweet, as hard as that is to believe.

i had 24 bobby pins in my hair to hold up my grace kelly inspired french twist. i found out today that hillary had 105 pins in her hair. i've been beaten. by a lot. i was stunned it was 24, but i've never had an updo before. it was fun to feel my crusty hair. hairspray is scary. now i know its full power and that it must be used carefully and for good, not for evil as it was used in the 80s and as it was used in the 90s by a certain crass jewish sitcom star we all know and love. :)

one of my crassest pleasures is watching mtv's "the inferno." i also enjoyed "the gauntlet". i'm looking forward to the reunion next monday. i enjoyed the finale last night, but somehow i wish that real world won. all of the characters -- wait, people -- are too dramatic over nothing, although you could argue that that is my personality. then you'd be wrong. remember: if you contradict me, you suck. and if you take me seriously, you suck even more. i guess you would "double suck". that's a new and interest concept that requires further study. protons, leptons, and the dimension of the double suck by richard feynman, haven't you read it? *sigh* uneducated bastards. that coral is really a bitch, i think she even supercedes me in bitchiness. it's weird to see the similarity between sarah on the gauntlet and katie in the inferno. they're both the weakest players, very emotional, hated by their team, on road rules, winners at the end, and queens of their residence torture chambers. sarah made it out of the gauntlet 4 times and katie was the only person to win the inferno twice. the trouble with the contest is that it favors the men. it's so physical. i'm glad there was a crossword puzzle at the end, but there should be more that's easier for women.

so, i'm planning a big party, sometime next week. it'll be in honor of alex's birthday i guess since i've been promising her a house party for 2 years or something. i'm also not convinced that i'm going to be reading blogs for awhile. it's fun, but i feel like i have to get away from some of my perverse hobbies. writing, however, is a totally different matter. when finals end, i want to stop watching tv except turner classic movies. there's too much shit in my life. after all, "simplicity!" i have to work on "larghetto vivace" and finish "la nausee". i might attempt to set up a comment system, though, but i'm not technologically inclined.

prom was fun. but i really miss the days of strauss waltzes and ballroom dancing. sorry guys, but "dancing queen" and "ymca" are complete and utter shit. it's really weird to wear such elegant outfits to listen to music made by half-naked degenerates. i managed to have fun anyway. i didn't realize people arrive so late! i made sure to be 20 minutes late, but the party didn't really start until 9:30 or so. why isn't society beautiful anymore, people? ugly music and ugly subjects in school and everything is ugly. and we follow mindless rules a lot. it's such a waste!

i was talking to my aunt donnie on the phone. she loves my prom pictures. my prom picture online is probably crappy because i hate photographers. a lot. we had this incredibly demented photographer do our formal confirmation pictures last sunday. he told us to "tushy scoot" and he said "you're a hottie" to all the girls which i found offensive because he's so lying so badly that it just makes me feel ugly, especially because he made me stand in a weird position and my picture was shit. damn asshole photographer. he told us how a tushy scoot is a metric measurement and then used the term "half a tushy scoot". what a freak! he's almost as weird as the uni teachers! but nobody is *that* weird. *shivers* our history and english finals should be very entertaining. i know i've deeply enjoyed the french one. the literature section was unbelievably easy, a real bore -- doesn't everybody know that stuff from the time they can talk? *pares nails* i miss my french manicure. but part of it got ripped off, so i had to take off the whole thing! i don't miss my coral toenail polish though because it was sooooo LOOOUUUUDDD! i was scared to look at my feet! now i recognize my footsies, they're me old friends, and our relationship can begin anew.

some of you may have noticed that i was giggling during the french final which took me a grand total of one hour and five minutes. i rechecked the entire thing, too, and looked up words to make sure i had the gender right. it was exasperating to look words up in the dictionary to find out that i got them correct, so my search was for naught! i put le petit prince in l'armee des ombres and he goes up to a german officer and says "dessine-moi un mouton" and the officer shoots him. yay! damn prince. the prince also wanted to meet bob fosse, but that didn't happen.

i went to tang dynasty for lunch today. there's a great waiter there named john. today i ordered imperial beef lettuce wraps and they were sensational! wow! my parents split some kind of fish that was too spicy.

i have about three hours before i need to dress for confirmation. how should i kill some time? ordinarily, i would read your blogs, but now i don't want to. i'm sick of random tv. i could take a walk, but that requires physical exertion. i'm not hungry. yes, i know that sounds odd. oh wait, my favorite southern asshole is on tv. i'll have to watch him so i can mimic is accent and strange verbal mistakes, like "expectancies" WHICH IS NOT A FUCKING WORD! so, i'll see you tomorrow everybody. this was fun. ciao.

p.s. anyone who guesses what the title of this post is referencing gets 100 jew points.

2004-05-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

so, back again. just thought i'd check in. can you believe i have nothing to report? o, i've been introduced to a wonderful new hobby, looking up random french words in the dictionary. it's really fun and informative. other than that, in french today... i ate. no, i ate before french while talking to mia about the nanny. it's nice to know that other people like the show, too. and charlie does! yay! that's so great, i wouldn't expect it. i was stressing about upcoming events at 6, so i wasn't able to watch this evening, but if i'm up until 11 looking up french words or finishing "the miracle of intervale avenue". the played the pilot, but i've seen it so many times. her face looks different in the earlier episodes. then mia lied to me that she was in a car accident and had plastic surgery and i completely believed her! her lying was really convincing, i commend her, but i'm also very gullible. but there's something about the eyes and forehead that isn't quite the same...

on jeopardy, this week they're doing "power players." today they had kweisi mfume, martia bartiromo and anderson cooper. anderson cooper's really smart! he creamed the competition! the other two kept buzzing in when they didn't know the answer and ran out of time. anderson's clearly a perfectionist, he was pretty upset when he didn't get one right. i saw an add for it in time magazine. i'll have to see who is on tomorrow.

my mom is watching the sopranos because it comes on hbo before deadwood, robin's show. robin and i were talking about great gatsby since i was in the middle of writing my test at the time. but i digress. on the sopranos, this woman beat up another woman because they had an argument about their children's soccer match! it was so funny!
"don't you think she should go into the soccer mom protection program?"

2004-05-10T08:09:00.000-07:00

somehow i accidentally deleted my post. i just said that history was ok and i'm not studying right now because i'm tired. i'll do it tonight. i was pretty productive this weekend. on saturday i studied for the history test and did math. fun. and on sunday i did the great gatsby take-home test! that's done! i'm so glad i don't have to worry about that tonight because i need to do a lot of history. actually, i'm very tempted to go to the library and look at another old yearbook. it's nice to have a chance to take a break. suddenly i saw kinzie enter the other side of the mac lab. i became worried and was about to minimize this window when suddenly she rushed in and begged me once more to find out the address of this blog. but she shall not know, no one shall ever know...

sunday was great, but first i had a three hour confirmation rehearsal. that wasn't too terrible, a bit of a pain by the end, but i got to recite my speech again and that's always fun. rachel's speech is good, but other than that they're pretty miserable. max may have written about the first commandment, but he forgot about the one, "thou shall not steal." he stole my premise about arguing with god, and he gives his speech right before me! grrr! it doesn't really matter, but it's a little aggravating. pam is going to write about how women should be promiscuous because men are allowed to be. hmmm, that's fun. dawn's speech is so poorly thought out. she contradicts herself, "all killing is wrong except..." there. i don't need to go on. if all killing is wrong, how can one kind of killing not be wrong? she goes on to say, "except when it is done in self-defense." but there are so many gray areas to that! what is self defense? what if someone claims it's self defense when it's murder? what if someone could have defended himself by running away, but he was frightened and shot the gun instead? she doesn't even care. how can you not care when you're giving a representation of your values and abilities in front of a large portion of the congregation? can you really have no higher opinion of yourself? and yet it is i who copes with self-esteem issues.

speaking of that, i do think that some of my problems stem from those wild adolescent hormones. of course i have feelings and concerns and a mediocre environment, but i'm often upset for no reason. the feeling just comes. i can't control my life, not even my own feelings about it! that's really prison. i get upset because i don't look like a certain type of person when i don't want to be that type anyway! i think my posting is a little more ambiguous since i know someone could come along and read it. i'll just have to write more at home tonight.

so, conf. speeches. aubrey's alludes to some issues about stealing, but never really gets there, and ends up being pretty pathetic. shira's is sappy. larry's is really rude to his parents even though he does the commandment "honor thy father and mther." he's writign about how he didn't want to go to confirmation class at the confirmation class service! leah's is even worse. she's the most goyish jew i've ever seen. blond, too. dorothy's is decent, a cut above most of them, but the first two sentences are so obnoxious, arrogant, and contrived that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth for the rest of the speech. alexa has missed both rehearsals! oy! i'm also sick of dorothy's vibrato-enhanced singing and chanting of the torah. that thick vibrato is weird. she can actually sing, something i really can't do even though i don't humiliate myself when i sing like max does -- there's this thing called "pitch" he hasn't found yet -- but i guess since she just annoys me in general, i don't want to hear her sing, or recite her stupid speech.

so, then i went to the mother's day brunch at kennedy's. they had some excellent fish, and i love the view of the artificial lake and the golfers in their little cars driving around instead of getting mild exercise by walking from hole to hole. i finally got to wear my paisley skirt! i wore a white top and flipflops with a black rim because my white flipflops werent' suitable. so, mom and i decided to go shopping for some lovely white shoes that are slightly elegant, but not high and i can wear them to school. we finally found them at the newly re-opened jc penny's. both bergner's and famous barr didn't have what i was looking for. i also got two gorgeous skirts at the gap. i've never been shopping there before. robin got me that nice grey sweater there for christmas and donna got me the blue sweater there that's nice with my dark purple/red pants, but i had never been inside. at first i thought the tube tops were mini skirts. :) those things are tiny! i'd never be caught dead in one of those! i saw some horrible looking people at the mall, one always does. i also ran into casey there and robert who apparently works at caramel corn. mom and i needed ice cream to have the endurance to look for her keys. then we found them! phew, what an adventure! we headed home and i got to watch more carol burnett. all in all, an excellent day. most of satuday, until about 7, was pretty dull and i had some panicky moments in the morning, but i told myself that the time would pass and it did, it's already third period on monday. if i don't stress about the ugly time remaining, it passes by quickly and painlessly, unless there's ennui i delude myself into not noticing, which is invariably the case. i had a great time on friday memorizing one of the baudelaire spleen, 76 i believe, "j'ai plus de souvenirs si j'avais mills ans" and i spoke to.. the walls about it. i read words so differently than normal people. that's why i can't understand math books. no one else would find "ignore" and "insoucieux" to be contradictory. if you're insouciant, you don't care, and if you don't care you don't care enough about anyone to actively ignore them. ignoring is an active form of hatred, "i want to pretend you don't exist, so i will purposely hurt you by ignoring you." it's strong. if you're insouciant you notice people but forget you noticed them. the poem goes on to say "oublie sur la carte", forgotton on the map, forgotten by accident and not purposely left out. there is great meaning in all of this, but the bell rang so i have to sit through my pathetic infantile french class and cope with this excuse for a teacher. uggg!

2004-05-10T05:51:00.000-07:00

god, i'm really confused by the new blogger system. i think i prefer the old one, but as the new american idol judge *snicker* would say, "these times, they are a-changin'." i read about this incredibly arrogant (and these are *my* standards of arrogance, so she's really a spoiled bitch here) socialite who just wrote a book called "bergdorf blondes" or something. when asked if it resembled the great gatsby, she replied "yes, and all the other works of truman capote." way to go!

so, my weekend turned out to be really exciting, but it had a slow start. on saturday i studied history and did math most of the day. then i *finally* received the call! what a pleasant surprise! but since i'm at school right now, waiting for the first period bell to ring as i try not to think about the upcoming weeks (they pass more quickly that way), i'll go on to sunday. on saturday, though, i did watch the beginning of "duel in the sun" (1946) with jennifer jones as the sweet yet fiery mulatto pearl chavez, gregory peck as the lazy, evil, seranading son lewton 'lewt' mccanles and joseph cotton as the goody-goody progressive homely son jesse mccanles. i think the ultimate form of torture is to name your son lewt. everyone would call him newt. well, there's the bell. on sunday i went to confirmation rehearsal, mother's day brunch, lots of shopping, and wrote my english take-home test. i'm so glad that's overwith. i didn't even do a bad job or have trouble as i predicted. even when you're not working at optimum effort, gabs, you're pretty good. you just can't be beat when it comes to books. that's that. my strange yet adorable mother decided i looked beautiful this morning and took pictures of me on the digital camera. it was really funny, and flattering. must i cannot be late to class because they're petty.

2004-05-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

mon ame est mon sang

isn't it weird that americans can manage to be workaholic hedonists? well, you've heard enough about that. today is my 3 1/2 hour schoolday. i feel really annoyed that i have to be here since i got 4 hours of sleep. i guess i should lay of the lime diet coke. ;) god, that lime flavor's great! i felt paranoid this morning, just like yesterday, but i recognized that it was "morning jitters" so to speak and i shouldn't take it seriously. so i didn't. i just talked to dad about stuff in the car. i don't think i'm going to flunk math or that any of the teachers are going to hurt me wit their cat-o-ninetails that have chards of glass at the end of each tip, compliments of mel gibson. i've got some music, so i'm relaxed. the bell rang. the title is part of alex's poem, but i changed "et" to "est" for comic effect. everyone is wondering about this address.... they'll never know!

2004-05-07T00:01:00.000-07:00

demain, des l'aube, a l'heure ou blanchit le campagne, je partirai.

so, today's been good. in english, we read dialogue the whole time. we didn't analyze a fucking thing, we just read dialogue. but it passed the time. god, that's fucking pathetic. in anthro we had a guest speaker who was busy using bullshit language, as pregnant graduate students tend to do. ;) first, she called herself a "sociocultural anthropologist" instead of just cultural, so i ask her the difference. first she starts telling me about how american anthro developed by franz boas was cultural and british was sociology, all sorts of bullshit not related to my fucking question, so i ask something similar to what i originally asked and she tells me how people usually think of an anthropologist as biological and how she could also call herself an ethnologist and then i ask how that's different from an ethnography, and her direct answer to that question was the only legitimate thing she said to me that made sense, had meaning, and wasn't bullshit. so then i kept pushing -- why not just say you're a cultural anthropologist instead of sociocultural? so then she says something about how they're the same thing and somehow won't distinguish between sociocultural and cultural, so basically she likes to sound fancy to be pompous and not to convey meaning, so she's bullshitting. grrrr. it sounds like i was being confrontational and nagging her, but if you were there, i was actually reasonably polite about it and my questions followed naturally from what she was saying instead of sounding like i was pestering her. so later in the discussion she's talking about laminal space and how mardi gras can be considered a laminal ritual, but she was talking about it previously as a religious thing where your life changes afterwards as a result of the ritual, like a bar mitzvah. so instead of answering my question she tells me everything she just said as if i were stupid and didn't understand. she did say it in a mean way, i could just tell that she thought she needed to clarify her point just for me. but then mr. vaughn, always perceptive, says to me after she finishes her shebang, "a laminal transition doesn't have to be a life-changing event." and that was all i needed to know! voila!

so at home... i didn't do much at first. had some food, dad yelled at the laptop really violently, and was apalled at dr. phil for being such an asshole. i think he should lighten up on chris. yeah, chris is a coward and a slacker, but he's a sweet guy with good intentions and a crappy wife who breaks all the important tenants in her religion and then goes on about how guilty she feels about it and how chris is the one who doesn't appreciate her religion and who doesn't treat her right. it really enrages me because this stacey is mormon and my friend theresia is mormon, and all of my experience with mormons shows how, even though the religion part is spooky and they don't like homosexuality, they're so kind and upright and just want to cause good. stacey's giving them a bad name, being hypocritical about something that can be so noble. if i were a mormon i would lay into her. i'm mad enough as a sweet little jewish goil. so then i go to claudine, not very well-dressed, and it wasn't as nice as usual. we were talking about "le petit prince" since my god damn class fucked it up so bad, and there's so much symbolism i missed and questions i couldn't answer, and she didn't blame me because it's lopez's fault, but i felt so wronged that i couldn't have a good french class at school, that someone as bright as i am has to read books in a horrible way because of some ignorant lowlife fat bitch who can't fucking manage a fucking classroom. yeah, i'm pissed. forgive the vulgarity. tis caused by the environment. then mom came in and just **had** to talk about how great the french was at brookline high and she gets so fucking annoying about that! jesus fucking christ! and when we were talking about the pettiness i encountered in french class today (see previous post) and she had another example of that with a pianist, she said that it's specific to our area and that people in boston don't do that! HOW MUCH FUCKING DUMBER CAN YOU FUCKING GET?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
I JUST REALLY THINK THAT'S OUTRAGEOUS. it's embedded in our culture, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH REGION! only people in urbana, illinois get defensive? I DON'T FUCKING THINK SO! i talked her out of it, and stunningly kept my cool (since she yelled at me yesterday) but how annoying! MUSICIANS ARE SO SIMPLISTIC. *sigh*

but i did have a nice night. after watching the nanny and have some spaghetti leftovers, i watched "goodbye, mr. chips" on tcm. it was nice to sit and watch a whole movie. it was sweet, but certainly simplistic. i'm getting tired. i'm going to go to bed soon, so i might post about that another day. after that i thought about my new philsophy, almost finished "skinny women are evil" and then suddenly remembered i have to memorize "demain des l'aube" for tomorrow, which i did. i realized how fun it was to practice memorization, to go over stanzas ten times in a row and get upset when i can't pronounce words and forget complicated lines over and over. you see, it's all wonderful. in my musing, i've learned that the reason it's difficult to articulate my ideas is because society teaches us to speak in mediocre terms of always wanting to be happy and to feel fine and to tolerate anger to get to calm. it's hard to distinguish happiness from fulfillment since happiness is contained in fulfillment. but ultimately the point is the fulfillment and *all* the emotions that come with it. that doesn't mean we want to avoid happiness or shouldn't care about it, but it's a significantly lower priority. go shopping or to a light comedy in the afternoon, memorize baudelaire at night. since i've had such a great time memorizing the hugo and thinking about the baudelaire i know and the one i want to learn, i really want to revive memorizing poetry. it's well-suited to the hardships of the environment: i can do it at school, i can be active because i speak and walk around, and i can always keep it with me and think about it. i should really do it more. there's nothing more satisfying than being able to recite "l'albatros" at will and speaking about why the last line, "ses ailes de geant l'empechent de marcher", is beyond brilliant. i also pretended that someone was arguing me that the last line showed the tragic flaw of the albatros, but i countered. so i think i'll go now. school is brief tomorrow. i need to start being healthier, so i need to think about where to go to lunch when daddy picks me up. i'm a little upset that charlie didn't call me tonight. i know positively that he still likes me, i just want to go out and have some "happiness" that people value excessively. but this is really nice. last friday was great. i'm looking forward to our second confirmation rehearsal to see if pam's written her pro-adultery speech!! so, tomorrow looks good. i wanna see "laws of attraction" and if i do that in the evening i'll have motivation to study history and practice piano before that. the history test is tuesday, so i'm not at all behind in my studying, if i am conscientious this weekend -- and i know i can't avoid it anymore because the weekend before a test is always a precious, precious time -- things will be completely smooth. history has been going well. my best quarter in history was my worst in math. guess that means i'm smarter!

2004-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

disillusionment

well, i'm back, just to see if you're still reading and are worried about me. i'm feeling a lot better now. today has been and looks like it will be a pretty decent day. i emailed kovacs about finishing my tardy service because i don't want her to think i'm cutting. i'm sick of teachers accusing me of being a horrible kid when i work so damn hard. you could say that this is their plan and i'm giving in. but, the way you can see contradictory things in nature (some animals tend to their young for a long time, some die when they're born, stuff like that), there's always a way that you're giving in. i think my statement is important enough for this to be worth it. ultimately i want to be a person of artistic integrity, and i am dignified when i do this, when i send an conscientious email she's not expecting. will "fuhrer", let's call her (since that's what piotr -- i think he's coming to plymouth! -- called jeannie at castleton), always finds a way for me to be a negligent piece of shit. so, nothing i can do there, except write a mean letter after the grades are in, so i'll get the last laugh, and that's all that's important. i prefer crying over smiling, so you could say i'm giving in to them by letting them upset me, but if i smile i'm ignoring the injustice, and i think that's worse. if you're not against them, you're with them. you could say that life is just a series of chosing in what ways you'd rather sell out. and, strangely, that's not pessimistic. the real point of everything is to transcend pettiness and grow and create artistically, or scientifically if you're trying to understand nature like my lovable phycisit daddy and not push numbers around ray or mr bergrandine or dumb uni teachers and u of i engineering professors. so, if you're able to do that, you've won. but the hardest part of this deal is thta you can't transcend it all the time, that's stoicism, that defeats art, and therefore by transcending all the time you're not actually transcending anything, you just can't see the pain of the environment. that's how most people are and they think that's noble. god, i'm so glad i've articulated this. perhaps i'm not at my most eloquent, i'm only blogging, but this is the beginning of my continuing to perfect and express these ideas and use them forever. nothing could be more valuable than this knowledge because it allows me to live. and it helps make this year worth it. but what really helps make this year worth it is the novels and screenplay and poetry i'm going to write and the literary group i'm going to form in college and the fun i'll having studying modernism and post-modernism at harvard this summer!!!

i'm really exhausted. i've been pleasantly tired, excited yet fatigued, today. it's a really odd sensation, like my soul is moving inside my body and won't stop. it's not pounding as it does when it's inspired or depressed, it just... wiggles. my throat feels funny, but not sore. i can swallow fine. my cold's almost gone, my nose is doing very well. occasionally i cough. i could even quote my confirmation speech -- i knew these things all the time! "some people value happiness and calm all the time, but i think that gets boring; i like to feel the fire inside me and express it loudly." god, that's practically verbatim. gabby, don't practice so much! it's fun to practice because i like my speech and i want to make eye contact often and without stumbling. i did an excellent job in my first rehearsal last sunday. i've written my speech in a larger size as the rabbi suggested so it's easier to see when i'm on the bima and need to make eye contact. no one else did that and you can that they'll lose their place if they look up even once. so not all obedience is bad. depends on the authority.

i'm excited about what i'm going to do for my half-birthday tonight. we always go out to dinner. we used to go to a place called carlos o'kelly's -- you heard right, irish mexican, but it was mostly mexican and was very good. but it closed! i thought we could invite donna and peter to miko's. i have claudine today! i want to alter our lesson plan a bit because i want to briefly reread "le petit prince" with her so she can help me understand what's really going on. our lessons in class were pure crap, so i lost all desire to read the book thoroughly and analyze it. in that class it becomes sentimental drivel, but i know claudine likes it a lot, so i want to see why she likes it and either learn something or argue with her, both excellent options. claudine is not only one of the few great adults in my life (it's her, samir, and my parents, and donna sometimes except sometimes my mom's mad at her, so i never really know what's going on) she understands the beauty of arguing. it's fun, not confrontational. i could never get dorothy to understand that when we were friends and had long phone conversations. she would always get offended and i'd be apalled at her conventionality. now she really annoys me. i want to see how my parents react to the corny opening lines of her speech. i wanted to tell dorothy that her explanation of her topic was arrogant shit, you're not supposed to try to confuse people, that's not funny. but i was kind and said that it was hard to understand, so i didnt' really get my point across, but for once in my life i'm genuinely glad i didn't blow up at her. i do well in conf. class and the rabbi was there and we were in the middle of rehearsal and i didn't feel like fighting with her, so it didn't seem worth it. i always regret not standing up to fuhrer, but that might just cause more trouble. school has amazing ways of torturing you.

first, it uses ideology as all movements do. it says, "education is good, if you're smart and studious -- which you want to be -- you love learning and so you love school, your enthusiasm shows what a great person you are. it's your 'duty' to do well and come every day you're not physically ill." i bought into most of this for a long time. kids on tv who hate school are "slackers" and we're against the idiocy of the media. but school is not education and it's certainly not good. it's just a way of exploiting you and making you feel bad. some classes are good, but lots of teachers have ulterior motives. hitler said that jews are bad and made up reasons why and people believed that. people said blacks were happy being slaves and were incapable of doing anything else. teachers say that kids won't study or learn anything if they're not doing homework every minute, so kids conform to that since the media teaches them that learning is not positive. so they're conflicted -- do i like school or not? they joke about how they don't like it because that's "cool", but inside they feel righteous for their earnest participation.

second, school doesn't last forever. if you know you're going to get out in a few months or weeks, you don't want to cause trouble. it will be gone, so don't make confrontation. so while you act sweetly, teachers can torture you for this time period while you can't do anything about it, then they can torture the next class until the end of time. this is actually a specific example of point three:

schools moderate their torture so it doesn't seem like torture. classes are 50 minutes, tests aren't daily (almost), homework assignments should be half an hour but they're not adn complainign won't help, so since you're there every day and they make lectures you're suppposed to pay attention to, teachers can always tell you that you weren't paying attention or you weren't dilligent enough adn tha's why you're having trouble, adn then since they have evidence you can't do anything about it.

fourth: schools have a backup plan. if a teacher forgets to give you homework one day, they can assign twice as much the next day to make up for it. students like having many tests so if they mess up one they can do better next time, supposedly it's "less pressure". that goes back to reason one: ideology.

fifth: schools exploit the insouciance so popular in the adolescent psyche. kids "don't care", so teachers can assign too much and the kids have to pretend that it took them no time so they can brag and show that they dont' care too much about school when they actually do.

this stuff i should really articulate better and type formally. but this is a good draft. i discovered some new things, some subtleties **and** nuances, as ms. linder would say. i have 4 minutes to kill before a rousing french class where we translate three english paragraphs into french. it's a hell of a lot. if i've finished studying history (test moved to tuesday!), editing my anthro paper, doing math, piano, reading, maybe even studying for the math final, i'll consider it. ;)

2004-05-06T05:33:00.000-07:00

mulctuary, mulctuary!

so, i'm just 'checking in'. i'm shocked i didn't do more of this yesterday. when i first started this last summer, i dutifully did this every night to record my exploits of that day. my boston days were so action-packed that if i missed one i'd have no idea how to proceed. that'll happen again, but we're not there yet... errrr....

we're getting kinda close. today is my half-birthday. 6 months of hell, yay. and today i feel bad. i should be home, still recuperating from my cold, but this institution has given me masochistic tendencies. at least i'm chirognostic. what is that, you ask? you'll never guess: ability to distinguish right from left. that was the word i chose when we played dictionary last night at my mom's student party. she has more animated students this year, so it was fun. but i resent having to lead the party so much because when people are being shy at a party that's supposed to be exciting i feel compelled to substitute my personality for their lack of one and then i get too rowdy and vulgar. at first i was consciously trying to avoid it and knowing it would happen. it wasn't as bad as some times because the students were better. there's this one guy who is incredibly tall with a really quiet voice and he's so awkward about talking, he laughs awkwardly at having to talk. how the hell do people get like this? we weren't gonna hurt him! the word labroid refers to some school of fishes. a pleurodira is a turtle with an unretractable neck. ah, what a fun game. i had some particularly good words. oh, my favorite: mulctuary means you're parked illegally.

i also enjoyed reading some of "skinny women are evil". i'm excited to let sarah borrow it when i finish. i read some of it out loud to my mom while she was cooking and it was funny. i have a bad feeling in my stomach. i felt so good yesterday, so the moral of the story, as aesop would put it, is: school makes you sicker. i knew that! the library will open in two minutes, so then i think i'll go. oh god, kovacs is right over there. i still have 2 hrs of community service to do. i should just volunteer monday and tuesday so i don't look like i'm cutting. i don't mind cutting, but i hate the way all these teachers try to turn me into some horrible, negligent person. it hurts my feelings because i work so hard to please these little fuckers. they don't get to think things like that. it hurts me to no end. i'll take my math test 8th, i think i'm well enough to make it through the way today. and even if i'm not, i'll take the damn thing. i'm sure it's not harder, she's lazy, she's bluffing. my dad's gonna complain anyway because she's mean and no stupid idiot gets to treat me like that. i'm a wonderful person. the library has been open for a minute now. anything i didn't cover?

i didn't watch much tcm, but i did sort of watch "strange interlude" with norma shearer and clark gable. oh yeah, i posted about that. grrr...
another minute has gone by. i hate seeing the familiar faces. as the underground man said, this is "the sentence." but, as strange as it is to defy such popular wisdom, i don't want happiness. but that statement isn't as easy to understand as it sounds. i want something deeper that ultimately makes me happy, but i don't have to not feel pain or pressure all the time. and i don't have to think in terms of right and wrong, fault and not fault, good and bad. i can just get some shit overwith and do stuff that i value. "matters" and "important" are stuffy words. i'm too affected by stupid people. god, existence is hard.

i am a starfish: if i'm not in the water, i shrivel up and die.

p.s.: the time on the blog is wrong, i can't adjust it here like at home, so it's actually 7:52

2004-05-06T00:10:00.000-07:00

ce n'est pas ma faute!

i've become emotionally attached to posting each and every thought that comes from my neurotic brain. it's lunch now. french was ok, i did a grammar sheet and worked on this translation. it's not as hard as i thought, but it's still difficult. i finished the first of three paragraphs and started the second, so i thought i'd finish the second one tonight and do the third on monday at school or something. we have to memorize one of two french poems for tomorrow and one of them, luckily, is hugo's "demain des l'aube" a beautiful poem i previously studied, so memorizing it won't be a big deal. it's only three stanzas of four lines each. i started it and i have english and anthro class to finish. but i do have something important to post. i've seen first-hand how right i am, how school is truly consumed by pettiness and false, trivial notions of "fault" and "blame" that i used to be so involved in. two examples from french class:

1) madame lopez gave me a sheet of work to do since i missed school yesterday and i wasn't sure how much of the grammar sheet i was supposed to do since i was only supposed to do part of the translation of this long article. i asked her, and she said the whole thing, studiously pointing out how she was clear in telling me that. when i look back on it, i could have thought of this as her insulting me, but by her tone of voice it seemed to be that she felt threatened by the question, that i was implying she was "bad" and didn't tell me so she had to show that she was "good" and did tell me, she did the "right" thing. she could have just said "do all of it" which i did, but these petty issues came into play.

2) much weirder. kris was finishing the grammar sheet, too, so he asked me how to say a word. i knew how to say it since kinzie had asked lopez previously and i heard the answer. it also sounded familiar. so i told him, and noticed it was on the board, so i told him it was on the board so he could spell it without me having to tell him. even though sometimes i'm so apalled by kris' stunning lack of ability that i get a little angry at him, but i just meant to be informative. so, kris says apologetically, "i didn't see it written on the board because i was back late from p.e. and my toenail came off...." something about his toenail being really injured. but he doesn't have to apologize that he didn't see it! he'll see it now!

kinzie knows about this blog, but doesn't know the url... suspense!

2004-05-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

clark gable is sexy

i've been searching a lot for his blog. i probably did more than ten. i found one really good one, but it's not the one i'm looking for. i wish it could be easier to find. by some stroke of luck i hope he's found this one. i feel tense. mom and i had a fight this morning, but it was nothing and went away. it's nice to be home, but life just generally sucks. i had things to talk about, but now i've forgotten. i was sorta watching the movie version of "strange interlude" with norma shearer and clark gable sans moustache! he's so much sexier. he looks like a clown and a monkey, yet he's also irresistible. norma shearer has eccentric features that i really find to be beautiful, especially because she's such a good actress. bette davis is a magnificent actress with lots of personality, but i wouldn't call her beautiful. she's majestic, though, powerful. and that's good, eh lauri? god, it's such a pain just living. but that's why trips to boson or chicago are nicer. my harvard class is on tuesday and thursday, so i could spend a four day weekend in new york and look at columbia. i will find him, i can sense it, i must to be happy. i'm getting melodramatic like the movies i love so. *sigh* i'm not sure what to do now. i'll probably post one or two more times today. i'm really getting fanatic. yay!

2004-05-05T08:04:00.000-07:00

i won't settle

since society has made itself so unfair, since people insist on being corrupt, in order to find trivial "happiness", we decide it's noble to give in, or "settle". i watched the waltons this morning. i tend to watch it from 6-7. why couldn't corabeth become a ballerina or theatre actress? why does she just have to be an arrogant bitch and dream about it in the general store? it reminds me of my fate, but i refuse to be stuck like this. corabeth is an obnoxious shell of a woman. jimbob's plight is more understandable because he can't see well enough to go into the air core. he ends up building planes. so i guess that's ok. i'm too young to have more control than i do. but this will motivate me to seize power and enjoy my future. since god knows i like to get unpleasant stuff overwith earlier rather than later, he's most of it to me now. next year will be better. some petty annoyances, but more nice things, enough to make me happy. besides, the experience will feel different, summer will change me. it always does just because time passes, but now i've got modernism and post-modernism to pass the time. i actually think the corse will be easier than last summer's shakespeare course in that i can get a lot out of the literature without the teacher's help and i have a special connection to a lot of the authors. however, there will be more reading. instead of 6 plays, we'll read almost that many books, or something along those lines, so i'll be kept busy, but i'm excited! i hope stress doesn't overwhelm me. but since i'm great at this stuff and i have a lot to prove, i think i'll be able to do it. summer goals:

1) stay on top of work without letting it overwhelm you
2) impress the class
3) make college friends you can go to cafes with
4) boyfriend!
5) impress the teacher
6) impress college interviewers
7) diet and exercise to prove your willpower! don't forget about the personal trainer!
8) go to museums and the mfa french film series.

that was in no particular order. that's quite a bit of stuff. but i feel capable. sometimes i feel that i don't deal with things "properly", that i would be happier if i were like everybody else. but that's ridiculous! i'm not everybody else, and i have strong feelings, and i'm going to express them and not hold them in, god damn it! when guys hold their feelings in, they blow up eventually, so i just get my feelings out in a more even stream. i refuse to "adjust" to tyranny. i'm fiercely idealistic and rebellious. and that's how it oughtta be! it's hard, that's all. i guess i should think of my mission as either fighting or pointing out the injustice in the system. i don't know about this "try your best" thing. what's my best? how can i try? as long as one day stops and the other starts until this stuff ends. after this week, and you only have one more day of school because friday goes to 11:30 and then you have two weeks, 10 days before you take a bunch, meaning 3 or 4, of dumb exams. and of those only one is difficult and you can fuck that one up anyway. god, now i'm feeling paranoid i'm going to flunk the math final. no i won't. i'll get a c or d, and it doesn't matter if i get a d. so then you have two weeks to bop around, and then you go to boston! in the meantime you can see lots of movies and read and bike around and even your stupid friends won't be busy. u of i finals are next week. lucky bastards. and i'm going to write her a nasty letter and that way i'll get the last laugh for the entire year, so the whole thing will have been worth it! and my literature will explain why this is crap and why adults are stupid for not appreciating teenagers. but most teens get sucked into it, they get in some horrible "survival mode" and they "deal with it". that's such crap. i'm glad i won't, and even can't do that. i should just do art more. it's hard when you're upset to do anything, that's why the whole thing is so debilitating, that's why hester prynne couldn't leave boston, not because she's noble. she's a victim for puritan cruelty, not a noble woman. she gives in to them completely. of course, what else could she do? so, i have a gorgeous phrase for this: it's not her fault, but she is at fault. ariel and i were arguing about the meaning of "effects of sin". she said since it concentrates on the effects, it doesn't matter if you regard sin as pure sin or as a social construction, but i argue that when you say "effects of sin" you're thinking of hester's horrible "sin" so the effects become moral and not intellectual: hester is repenting, her husband is overcome with revenge, dimmesdale is weak, sin hurts everybody because it's "bad". but if you say "the effects of the puritans having created the construction of 'sin' and being nasty to others for that" then hester is weak and exploited, dimmesdale is even dumber than hester, and hester's husband is a moralizing bastard. so it really changes the way you see it. if you acknowledge sin hester is strong, if you don't she is weak. emma bovary is infinitely stronger than hester prynne. she turns to religion and it doesn't work, she tries to attain happiness. though she uses superficial things, nothing else was available to her. not everyone can read sand and balzac. my classmates certainly can't! she wasn't able to be that kind of housewife, and she didn't have the means to be anything more. that, my friends, is the tragedy, not her longing. her longing was the noblest part of her life, she had the capacity to value something more beautiful than what she had. i know i'm very eccentric in my ideas, but i'm right. i am sisyphus. my suffering is part of everything.

2004-05-04T19:59:00.000-07:00

talk to me!

i noticed on a friend's blog he wrote people messages, so i thought it might be fun, even if they don't get them.

michelle -- talk to me! i don't see you any more! let's be open, find stuff to talk about with me!
sarah -- you're hurting yourself, it saddens me, try to enjoy the work, you'll be happier if you do it earlier, and more in control, too. then you can watch lots of shitty tv.
tiff -- you need nicer outfits that flatter your thick frame. it emphasizes all the wrong spots. but i love you, thanks for backing me up today.
betsy -- you know you love it when i fondle you. yum yum...
lauri -- yes, yes, we shall take over the world! i get massachusetts, you get new york, and i'll steal all your territory... after i buy some new shoes, of course.
rachel daughter -- boys are stupid, who cares?
rachel other -- i can't wait to watch pam tell the entire congregation why adultery is good!
hugh -- god damn goody-goody asshole, shut up.
nate -- you smell and you're annoying. but somehow more tolerable than previously...
antoine -- i know there's a human being inside of you, talk to me, i'll be kind!
eric -- don't stumble so much when you speak, you lose credibility.
kinzie -- same as with eric, but in french! it's ok to not have perfect pronunciation, if you read faster it'll be better and you'll improve more because you won't be stopping yourself.
hillary -- you're ass is big. really big. whoa.
dawn -- if murder is unacceptable, why do you say war is necessary? why can't you understand the rabbi's logic here?
abe -- shave god damn it! your face is disgusting! just shave off all that fucking hair before you take tiff to prom!
ellen -- why does nate like you, you're funny-looking. i guess he can identify. but don't wear sneakers to prom, that's gross.
dorothy -- you are so not witty. you're arrogant, stupid and annoying. your "dead fish" joke is pathetically lame. i'm really apalled we were friends.
guy i haven't met yet -- where the hell are you? email me (gkogut@uni.uiuc.edu), im me (proustiansnob), find me, i'll love you for it! i need you so badly!
josie -- why did you say that i'm bad at describing my dress? i was just describing it, that's all. it's coral with black lace on top and some silver sparkle things.

my parents are at the grocery store. i miss them because i'm upset and lonely. i can't escape. i just want the feeling to go away.

2004-05-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

le temps perdu

i'm so god damn angry at the way people think they can treat me. i know i'm so much better than they are, i'm so much better than anything, no one has any right to continually hurt me by yelling at me or degrading me or making me put up with boring bullshit. HOW DARE THEY? WHY IS THIS MY LIFE? i have no idea what to do, i don't want to just be at home, i want to go somewhere and do something! i imagine this guy that i will meet this summer, and he's not here yet, and i feel like i almost know him, and then he isn't here. why can't he contact me? i have no way of contacting him! he's the guy, guys figure this stuff out, girls wait. i want something nice in my stupid life! i don't want to be bored at home all the fucking time! what the hell do i do? there's no where to go. i'm so jealous of my friend. she always goes to new york because her dad is there and all her classes are so fucking easy for her and she's never upset and everything's always fine for her! she's quite "made up" in a preppy way, so she always looks conventionally nice and never has to worry about her appearance. everything is fine for her. and why should things be better for her? i'm not inferior, and she knows it, and everyone knows it! i'm the one who is great at french, who understands literature and art and film and who writes, i'm the one who understands! why do they get to make me live this way? this is the most horrible, unjust thing in the world and all these stupid people take it so calmly! i have no idea what to do! i don't want to be here! but where the hell can i go?! i want some guy i can just cry to and we'll go to a bustling city and we'll sit on the bench and kiss and then things will be ok. i can't talk to any of my stupid friends. sarah's more dysfunctional than i am and the rest of them are completely out of touch. i notice, though, as i get more upset or nervous or some extreme emotion my typing gets even faster. can you imagine? i'm really damn fast to begin with, but now i'm just on fire, although i'm having a little more trouble because i'm thinking about it, and being self-conscious always ruins action, look at dostoevsky's (that's a hard word to type) underground man. i love him, and antoine (roquentin, people, not that other one!) and comus especially! i want to date comus, even if he does ask me for money, i don't care! maybe we'd break up, but am i even his type? he might want a more conventional beauty, he's like that. god, now i even feel snubbed by a literary character. life is sad. english class is sad, too.

so this is my stupid pathetic life. what do i do? what do i do? i want to go somewhere! for french homework we had to describe what the images made us think of in this dumb moreas poem, so i made up a bunch of random images, like a pig eating a bath tub. it was so damn funny. it was great. that was the best fucking part of my fucking day. the art exhibit was fucking boring as fucking hell. where do i go from here? should i just wander around? i could go see "laws of attraction" tonight. what the hell, i'm just some depressed teen like the rest of them. can't talk to robin. god damn it! why do they all do this to me? and people pay dr. phil just to humiliate them on national tv, it's a disgrace. and oprah was even humiliating the nutter family. now, that duncan nutter is a real nutter-case haha, but she shouldn't have him on her show just to criticize him, that's low. why does everyone want to do that to each other? i yell at people if they upset me, but that's natural, that's retaliation, i wouldn't abuse power like that. life is just shit. where can i go?

2004-05-04T05:31:00.000-07:00

hey, don't rush too slowly! let's take it larghetto vivace!

i've got a little time. not much has happened since my last post except that i slept. my cold has officially movied from the awkward throat-nose transition stage to the nose, and it feels a lot better. however, this doesn't have to stop me from missing school on wednesday. i'm seriously worried about missing school two days in a row. i might get annoyed at being home so much since often when i'm home i have to choose whether to do this stupid work or that stupid work. how knows, maybe i won't even miss a day. claudine called me. she was excited about me winning the national french exam for downstate illinois and being 5th in the nation. no, i'm not bragging. ;) i never did the assignment about garcin and his cowardice. well, i have time tonight. i really should study history or i'll get panicked this weekend; i haven't made any notecards yet. god, saying that makes me panicky already. i could even work during my free period. too many tests all the time. errrgg!

on a more positive note, i'm wearing the green striped shoes i got at marshall fields during spring break. i haven't found an appropriate occasion until now. i have to take my math test eighth which is a real pain. we're going on a fieldtrip to the art museum again to see some peruvian art. well, this time i have no high expectations. that last exhibit was shit. that was back in march before spring break. ah, so long ago! i can't believe i've made it so far. i'll the days have faded and i'm magically into may. i can't understand how i made it from september to now. time, that good friend, just let it happen. i was getting annoyed at sarah last night on aim because she's such a procrastinator. i was being nice about it, giving her advice, but inside i was really feeling pissed off. i do my work on time, if not early, so she refuses to get anything done and then gets stressed and watches tv. that's so self-destructive. it's so stupid. that gives more motivation to study history tonight, and at school. i think we have sports today. dull, but i'll live. i'm pretty good at basketball, so i hope we play that again, but we played it last time. all the nerdy guys want to play hockey and that's so dull. premise of all sports: you have a ball or puck or something and hit it a lot to get it into the other goal. what could be dumber? i'm sick of having to be bad at everything all the time. i'm so fucking smart. it's weird having both a superiority and inferiority complex at the same time. damn high school institution.

lately i've been worrying about my writing plan, the "underground girl" plan, if you will. at first i was stunned at how good it was, how persuasive the style is and how truly interesting it is, what kind of sick, amazing character i've created through my gruesome experiences. but watching all these assholes "coping" makes it feel meaningless. if this is just some big impediment you gradually get through, who cares what i have to say? i know how they'd all react to this, "gabby, you're just being melodramatic. it's not such a big deal." but it is! sometimes i just have to convince myself of that. i have expressing serious frustration at having to act like a FUCKING SERVANT by having to run around the fucking school and look for inept teachers to sign my fucking form and she said, "that's life." no, you idiot, no it isn't. i'll never let it come to that. i better put that in my piece. the people i'm around can't appreciate this, but there are other souls...

so, my tv plans. i did watch an hour of the nanny last night. hysterical! there was actually an episode i had never seen! mom and i were in stitches. niles posed as maxwell to impress fran's relatives and then maxwell came back from the museum with the kids and had to be the butler. here is my absolute favorite quote:
"today is 'bring your own butler day' at the museum. bring a butler, get a free beverage."
the new season of the restaurant is pretty boring. the first season was stunningly exciting, but now rocco just acts like a baby and gets angry at jeffrey chodorow. though i don't like financiers or anything relating to numbers and money, the restaurant needs to be making more since chodorow is the partner and so rocco should help him do it. i really don't think chodorow wants to be confrontational. also, rocco needs to spend more time at the restaurant. but dad's nagging me. i have to suffer today. au revoir!

2004-05-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

nausea of the hands

school was so aggravating. i've developed a cold and it's at the horrible stage of, after having started in my throat, being both in the nose and throat. it'll go out the nose. they always do. i wanted to get sick, but not till next week. i've decided i better get to miss some school out of this, god damn it. math test tomorrow, but i'll cut wednesday and, unbeknownst to my father, mommy and i may arrange me missing thursday, too. since i'm genuinely sick and people know it (though i will have to inform jockusch) i can miss more than one day. they can't say i'm not sick the second day when they know i'm sick the first. i really don't even think jockusch is that anal. she is anal enough to want you to be a calculator which is the dumbest thing in the world. i emailed mom during 3rd and she sent me a nice email in reply. but now she's home and she's ranting about all her stupid music school stuff. i'm really getting a headache. i need to study math now because i want to watch lots of tv. the new season of the restaurant is playing on bravo, thank god, because i don't get nbc. i really don't. the cable guy told me it was channel 8, but that's wicd, whatever that is. i couldn't find it anywhere. but bravo is channel 35, so i can enjoy it for two hours tonight, after the nanny. so all that's from 6-9 and then the secret life of walter mitty is on till 11 and then the nanny's on till 12. so that's 6 hours of joy and history studying. i did the french at school, thank god. so full of shit. my french assignment is shit, but at least it's done. i spend so much time getting shit overwith, it's nauseating. it's such a triumph to get home and watch a little tv, knowing that's one fewer day of shit. i'm worrying about missing too much school. one day is nothing, but i'm thinking of doing two and that might be scary. so, i'll definitely do wednesday, and then see what i want. i often dread school when i'm not there, so i don't want to cause extra stress for myself. catch 22. after either wednesday or thursday i won't miss for the rest of the year, so that'll be easy. i read "nausea" during all of english class. it went by really fast. such a wonderful novel, my god, sartre's such a genius. i can feel all of it, i feel it all every day. such alienated majesty! i think i know most of my math shit, and i don't care anyway. damn bullshit. we'll only have one test after this besides the final. i'm sick of uni kids obsessing over exams. ap's don't mean anything to the good schools and my classes aren't ap, so i'm not taking them. i'm taking a bunch of shit in june before we leave on the 15th. i suck shit at tests. i had to run around at lunch today like a little beggar getting signatures for my independent study form. next year should be fun. all the teachers are trying to tell me they don't sign it and sending me to talk to some other piece of shit. it's so fucking degrading. and running is stupid and i can't do it, especially when i'm sick. and french is such bullshit. i hate everything, god damn it. i'm so fucking fucking smart. should the girl who is 5th best at french in the nation have to suffer so?!? i ask you! you say i'm arrogant? WELL DAMN STRAIGHT! i've every reason to be. i'm entitled to some freedom in my fucking life, that's all. i really miss claudine. i gotta go study math. i think mom's on the phone, so it's a good time. i've been daydreaming about "larghetto vivace" today and the actors i'm gonna get. i have to see laws of attraction because parker posey is in it. supporting role my ass, this is the indomitable ms. posey we're talking about. god damn it, fucking shit. forgive that, i'm just thinking about my little "scavenger hunt" for signatures at lunch. all i have are my stupid dreams and some french carribean music. it's pretty sexy, though. some day i'll make out to this, you just wait. i can't do anything now, but i've got big plans. i should go suffer now because my life is stupid, but hopefully i'll be able to watch lots of tcm when i'm sick. let's see what's playing that i like on wednesday and thursday, and tuesday night.
TCM:

tuesday 5.4.04
3:30 PM wait until dark (1967), audrey hepburn
1:15 AM golddiggers of 1933 (1986) ruby keeler, dick powell

wednesday 5.5.04
12:00 PM barretts of winpole street (1934), norma shearer
4:30 PM marie antoinette (1938), norma shearer

thursday 5.6.04 -- my half birthday!! 16 1/2, now you know my age, oh how horrible!
12:00 PM rancho notorious (1952), marlene dietrich
7:00 PM goodbye, mr. chips (1939), robert donat, greer garson

saturday 5.8.04 -- perhaps i'll be out with you-know-who...
9:00 AM duel in the sun (1946), jennifer jones, gregory peck, joseph cotton -- i adore this movie! must see!
5:00 PM notorious (1946), ingrid bergman, cary grant

so, a few good things on the horizon. it's almost 5:30, i really gotta study. i can't miss too much of the nanny at six! god, fran's horrible voice is the nicest thing i have in my stupid little life. *sigh*. well, that and existentialism. good match, no? :) *see gabby basking in the sun, content

2004-05-01T23:47:00.000-07:00

happy may day

i feel so weird. today is may day so i ate a tuna sandwich at bread company. yay. one can't really celebrate anything around here. always so bored. i actually did my ethnography. it's 6 pages, but the conclusion isn't really finished. i put most of the conclusion in "editing" which will occur this week or next weekend. the paper's not due till may 17th, so no rush. i wanna study history tomorrow at the first confirmation rehearsal. three hours... i have to wake up at eight and be there, on time, at nine. normally i'm late when it's ten. i should be asleep, but i can't. i've felt strange all day. it's cold and rainy and it's making me sick. i wish it were a week later. i don't want to miss school this week, but next week is perfect. short day next friday. my parents are back from mom's concert. my throat's been annoying me. mom's concert was good. then i watched tv and ate too much and vegged out and i want something and don't know what i want and so i'm just living in a strange stupor where i feel horrible and am dysfunctional. i can hardly think about it. it makes me really bored. sorta frantic, but it's too cold and too late to go walking. i should be in bed. i enjoy my french carribean music. makes me think of beautiful things... too many weekends when i'm just stuck home. i could have gone to the concert, but i wanted to finish the anthro and i'm *really* glad i did. that's a nice accomplishment. i have a history journal that isn't coming up till the week after next since it covers two units and our test for the first unit it covers isn't until a week from monday. need to study math for my test tuesday, shit, she gives too many too often, and i wanna start studying history. i work so much harder than everyone else for nothing. but at least i won the national french exam for all of downstate illinois. pretty good! that's 5th in the entire nation. yeah, french is my thing. i'm feeling the love, or should i say, l'amour. hahaha, that was dumb.

yesterday was fun. charlie and i went to "les parapluies de cherbourg" at boardman's. what a beautiful movie, and so interesting, too. it's not the cliche it could be. it's cleverly mocking that. it's more subtle that people give it credit for. and nino castelnuovo... serious gorgeousness... aiiieee! so dark... mmmm... i like my men like i like my coffee: stong and black. airplane! i'm surprised he didn't have a career after that since catherine deneuve did. she's beautiful... yet blond. she and grace kelly are the most gorgeous blonds, but since i'm a spicy brunette, i'm better! big dark eyes, you can't beat that, boys...

charlie really liked the movie which made me very happy since i was worried that he would consider it sappy. we joked about the postman who kept delivering letters to the umbrella shop and he appeared three times or so and said less and less each time. when genevieve was dumb enough to leave little francoise in the car alone as she talks to guy, it would have been hysterical if the postman picked up little francoise and carried her off. after the movie the rain was gone but it still smelled beautiful so we walked around, had coffee and talked a lot. it was so nice. he said something so funny, one of the dumbest things ever said, i forget what. it was something obviously u.s. that some idiot thought was russian. i wish i could remember it because it was hysterical, i practically spit out my mocha. fantastic coffee. i looked great, too. we're officially "going out." woohoo. that's supposed to be a big deal, but it's just words to me. i feel that since we're going to prom together that's a much stronger indicator of the same thing.

when i listen to this music i feel that i'm missing out on all sorts of wonderful things, that i'm too pathetic to be doing what i dream of. the music is beautiful, yet dissapointing. i hate it when people say "but yet". that's so damn repetitive, it's incredibly ignorant, and it's gotten pretty common! sometimes i'm tempted to say "as of yet" as in yet + as of late, but that's so dumb that i always stop myself, but sometimes people say that one, too. it doesn't make sense if you think of the words together. hopefully i'll have the time and energy to go to a movie tomorrow. there are so many good ones playing. i'm debating whether or not i should see "parapluies" again. it's so much nicer in the theatre, but that might spoil the memory of having seen in on a date. i guess i should make it "my last priority" to use mediocre school terms. i have no fucking time management skills, but since i'm so compulsive about getting things done early i manage. i just suck. and all these dumb idiots are fine. i hate math, it turns me into a horrible person, yes even more horrible than otherwise. i can't sit there and be dumb, i have to get angry and obnoxious, it's my only form of defense, it's too natural, i can't die naked. it's almost over, but it's not over yet dammit. i don't see why i have to be degraded by a bunch of fucking numbers. it's the biggest piece of fucking crap i've ever fucking seen in my fucking life. yeah, i'm fucking annoyed. that's hella not cool. i was listening to my tape recorder today for companionship. i guess i should have called a friend. i just didn't. i always feel so stuck. this summer will help me, but i don't want to pin everything on this summer like my mother does. she refuses to control herself here, to help herself by not letting herself be so paranoid and upset over NOTHING and eating so much, she just says she "has to get away from this environment" which she has completely made up. she's so full of shit. i adore her, but no one is fucking taping her, no one has. god damn it. i'm so angry. she's such a fucking mental-case, she doesn't even have a right to it. and i'm one, too, and that's just the fucking way it has to be. i can't help things, even if i should. and i keep fucking planning and nothing helps me god damn it. but i don't think i'm as bad as mom. she says all this fucking pathetic bullshit about how she has to get her emotions out, but that's all she fucking does. somehow for being so in love with my mom, we're really close as in proust level, i've had trouble truly comprehending her flaws and trying to fix them in myself. earlier this week she was annoying me before school and i vowed that i would fix this in myself. she's such a mental-case. her mother was worse, but she actually had provocation. my mom's just scarred from her childhood or something. i have to make a more conscious effort not to be like mom. mom gets dysfunctional, mom overeats for no reason, mom is paranoid, mom cries all the time -- NOT ME! but am i even capable? everything is wrong. i don't know how to fix it. i never have. everyone else is fine except me and i'm so much better than all these little shits. but they're deluding themselves. they're not half as happy as they pretend, they're just in "survival mode". i'm afraid to lose myself, to build a walk around myself and my soul is on the wrong side of the wall. only three more weeks, but i don't even care. i'm in a weird mood and i don't even know why. i'm getting tired, thank god. i can quit this and go to bed. i just know that i'm incapable of existing. anna nicole smith is such a disgusting, trashy slut, i can't believe people find her attractive, no matter what she weighs. a trimspa ad is on tv, so that's not as random as it seems. i'm exhausted, but i thought i had something to write here. everything is always ruined. maybe if i do more artistic things my ignoring my feelings won't actually be so serious because i'll be thinking about something meaningful, so i'm not just deluding myself. sounds good. that music is so sensual. but i can't understand the french besides "toute la journee" and "ma cherie" and "maman". funny carribean accent.

2004-04-27T16:53:00.000-07:00

so long, frank lloyd wright

it looks as if i post once every two days. i've started a new post once or twice, but i didn't finish. right now i'm posting because i'm exhausted from two obnoxious days of school and don't feel like working. it's 4:05. so, i could work on my anthro paper which i want to do this week, but normally i have to do papers on the weekend because they're time-consuming and intense (5 pages on afro-brazilians, i've done the research). i won't finish, but i'm not convinced i wanna start. it's not due till the 17th, so i could do it this weekend. i meant to do it last weekend, but i was just doing other things like feeling good, for example, and choosing a prom dress and shoes. i wore my hair on a ponytail today instead of down and wild as i've done every other day of my life and it surprised some people. i think it was effective. i'm frightened to do my math homework because it's very formal and tedious and stupid and time-consuming. the last two days of math class have been really fucking annoying. she completely "grilled" meredith yesterday. meredith (not merdy like on the bachelor, is that the dumbest nickname of what?) was having trouble, so instead of explaining how to do the problem or calling on someone else, she used her pathetic rhetoric as an excuse to torture an innocent child. she asked meredith more and more questions to help her "catch on" and meredith couldn't answer any of them. then jockusch made meredith go up to the chalkboard and draw vectors and then she asked meredith a question that meredith didn't hear or something and jockusch got mad at her for not paying attention and spoke to her after class. but she was paying attention. she just missed the question. it happens. in fact, when i went to see jock itch 8th period, she was showing me how to do a problem and suddenly she asks me, "which problem are we on?" so i could tell her that she's not paying attention. but naturally i'm just too polite for that. i wish someone had the audacity to scream out the answer. i tried to whisper it to her, but she didn't hear me. i can't be so defiant though because i have so much trouble doing that shit and i need her to help me and i'm sick of her blaming me for stuff, so i can't afford it. of course, that makes me a coward. like garcin, i could be fighting with i'm fleeing to mexico. but if i object, i'm screwed. i wish i could just die, like antigone. so i'm completely stuck and i'm ignoble no matter what.

but it is hugh who is the traitor. i was whispering to casey and michelle things like, "this is so mean! how dare she do this!" and hugh, who normally sits behind me, whispers to me something like, "she's trying to help meredith get the material" and i snapped back at him, "no, this is too rude, this isn't fair" or something like that. how can that conservative catholic little ass encourage that kind of behavior? he certainly is woolf's "admirable hugh". isn't that funny? however, the antoine i know doesn't resemble antoine roquentin. i don't think. maybe he feels nausea, but i don't know, i can't tell, he's too fucking quiet. and he's not a redhead, his hair's black. so anyway, i'm also really getting sick of hugh telling me and others to "shhh". i told him, "stop shushing me!" and this instantly reminded me of the episode of the nanny in which maxwell shushes fran when they're trying to have sex and she gets upset. you know you watch the nanny too much when... so anyway, last night i vowed, as louise referring to richard w. lawson that i would remain angry at him and not be swayed by his charismatic appearance. i knew that louise would not hold true to her promise, and i followed suit. when i saw him walk in the side entrance in his sunglasses with those great red formal shoes i completely forgot i was upset at him until he walked away and then i was angry at myself.

mom's over there eating too much, as usual. i had too much for snack. that's just my vulnerable time and school was tedious. i wasn't terrible, but i could have been better. everything in my life is just so damn tedious. but mrs. hedeman will do an independent study with me of art history! woohoo! i'm so excited! and i can't wait for modernism and post-modernism at harvard this summer. why the hell isn't it june? i'm impressed that i survived through two days of school, it ain't easy, but there's more to do. i finished great gatsby in a day and a half. i only got 1 out of 5 questions on our first anthro reading quiz, but i got all 5 on our quiz today. i didn't pretty well on the math quiz, i got every problem right except the word problem that i had to leave blank. today's quiz doesn't seem good. i'm conflicted about what homework i should do tonight. doing my anthro paper never seems to work. that takes time. math is gonna be horrible tonight, i need to warmup and go to piano lesson. maybe afterwards? i could work on next week's anthro reading, i made some good progress today because i finished gatsby at lunch and used english to read "intervale", and i have tomorrow to read it during english class, but that won't finish it. maybe i should do some work on "larghetto vivace". i probably shouldn't watch the nanny tonight, at least not until 11. ;) i'm so addicted. "yetta's letters" is coming on at 6:30 and that's a really funny one. they rhyme meshugah and baluga! i should go and do more shit. but what can i talk about briefly (yeah, right) first?

my prom dress has become quite famous, and no one's seen it yet. i told some people that it cost $2000. when they were angry at my extravagance, i told them the truth: i didn't lie about the price, but i didn't buy it. it's my mom's former concert gown that she wore once a long time ago and has given me. then people were fine. i expected a different reaction, but when i think about it, i was forgetting about their midwest mentality. i thought they'd be ecstatic about the price and would laugh at me for using my mother's dress. i'm very happy to wear mom's dress because it has a legacy, a family tradition. it's exciting somehow. i think i wrote that before. now i have to think about pre-prom plans. alex asked me about post-prom plans, and i'm not there yet! we want to go somewhere nice for dinner. i could talk to him about it on friday. my favorite place is kennedy's, but that might be too far away. biaggi's is nice, and miko's is nice, too. i guess he can choose between the three. prom goes so late, to 11:45, so i didn't think there would be afterprom plans. i'll ask some people what they have in mind. but he'll probably want to go home and sleep, too! he's getting me a wrist corsage because i'm worried that a regular corsage will hurt the chiffon of my dress.

i should probably respond to mrs hedeman's email and then do some piano and then do some math and go to lesson and then... either read anthro or do the paper or finish math if i haven't. god, the torture never ends! i'm just going to my impending doom. fuck this.

2004-04-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

your exu will get you!

i didn't post saturday? how does that work? mmm... well, you probably wouldn't be interested because i've been absorbed in my triviality lately. i was so sure i posted. well, yesterday was lots of fun. i got my brows and lips waxed which was ok, it doesn't hurt that much, and as it was my mother's turn i glanced at o magazine. i would have been curious to read about "body confidence." i can't lose weight this month because my prom dress fits too perfectly. but i can't gain either. i usually don't gain, but i'm going running because i had some fattening stuff today. the pacifica quartet gave my mom a gorgeous care package and as i did my tedious anthro research i munched on carmel corn, some of which had a chocolate coating. mmm. and i had two bites of sausage. but a had a lean cuisine for dinner. salmon teriyaki for lunch at kamakura, not really horrible. i'll be pretty careful this week. i normally am. i'm sick of being at home, so i don't want to use my ltt, but i'm such a poor runner that i'm frightened to go out running, even if my buddy frankie sinatra will comfort me. i'll just have to do it, though, i'm too antsy.

so anyway, yesterday was great, too. i went to both famous barr and bergner's looking for shoes. normally i like bergner's much better, but famous barr has an infinitely superior shoe collection and presentation. so i found my shoes pretty easily even though my searching online didn't help much. they're strappy and black with some silver globules on them. i don't know what to call them. but they're pretty and match the silver on the bodice of the dress. i also found the greatest pair of sandals in the world and my mother just *had* to get them for me. they're light blue and lavender pastel and they're hard to describe but they're so gorgeous. but what would i wear with them? there was only one solution to my overwhelming question: a black skirt. but i don't have a short enough black skirt! and then came the light; the perfect black skirt with the perfect length and flair was on a manikin. it was a size smaller than i normally wear, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up. so, mom and i got the salesladies who got the manager to unscrew the manikin and take the skirt off of it. and lo and behold, the skirt fit perfectly! and now it is mine. i also got a light blue scarf for my neck, a 50s flare. did you know marilyn monroe was a size 16? sarah thinks that translates into a size 12 now, but isn't that fantastic? i miss the era of curvy women! no wonder vogue advises curvy girls to go for a jane russell 50s look, back then you didn't have to be a stick. and then, to quote sarah, "twiggy screwed us over." she didn't even look healthy! however, we have the ultimate rebel now, a proud size 22, Fabulous And Thick Mo'nique. i read part of "skinny people are evil" online and it was hysterical, so i ordered the book. i actually think of it as a diet aid, strange as that may sound. it tells me that i don't have to be pressured to look a certain way, so if i want to improve my body, it's for fun and not for other people's obnoxious expectations. there's nothing wrong with losing or gaining weight if you just want to. and she's not against all skinny people, not the ones with a fat heart, and my heart is very, very fat. but she's not really mainstream. the modelling industry, despite successful plus-size models, will always be screwed and affect the youth of america. besides, plus-size model has a negative connotation. they're not *real* people, they're second tier, cast aside in the eyes of the public. when we see difference, we can't see equality, but that provokes the great philsophical dilemma of racial and religious prejudice: can we see people as different *and* treat them fairly? well, in this case, yes. models should just be models, sizes should be sizes without referring to an arbitrary, larger-numbered group as "plus". what if sizes below 10 were called "minus sizes" and "minus size models" were second tier, below regular models doing sizes 10 and up? see, it's arbitrary and we have to get rid of these pointless distinctions. television shows and advertisements go out of their way to show all races together so they don't look prejudice. that's good, so now they should broaden that and show models of all sizes together. a curvy white one, a skinny black one, a middling asian one, etc. it would make a big difference. at first we'd think "that one's fatter than the others", but eventually we wouldn't care because society would be telling us not to care.

so anyway, i tried on the skirt with almost all my shirts and i found a reasonably sized group that goes. i need two new pairs of sandals: a gorgeous shiny black one with a sizable heel and polka dot shoes to go with my polka dot shirt. i also have a polka dot skirt, but that's too many. i found both shoes there, so all i have to do is get an 'a' on something or a 'c' on a math test (notice that disparity, my friends) and daddy will get me a pair. ah, i'm so vain! and yet so very beautiful!

i really enjoyed confirmation class today, as strange as that may seem. i edited my speech when i was working hysterically last week, so i edited a little bit more (i put in the actual words to the third commandment instead of [insert commandment here] and made a lovely conclusion) and went. i was rather late this time, 10 minutes. i feel that since i'm not naturally punctual and i'm such a good member of the class that i can afford to be a little late. i looked lovely in my red and white skirt with white flipflops and a white shirt. everyone adored my speech. dorothy had hers, oy. she tries too hard. my parents have informed that she's gotten worse as time has progressed because i can't understand how i was ever friends with her and found her witty and fun. she tries so hard and is so full of cynical shit. rachel and i mock her. i hear that she has been in a lesbian relationship for 6 months. i know this because after dorothy told me they're "dating" i asked, "do you kiss?" seemed like a natural question to me, but dorothy laughed hysterically because that was so ignorant -- "of course we kiss!" well, how was i to know? her mother's been cranky lately, extremely out of character, and this may explain it. i know this can come as a big blow to mothers because it was traumatic for my aunt donnie. so anyway, rabbi neuman spoke to us about his book. he complimented my mother because she wrote him a letter about his book and he told me what a great musician she is, and since i'm so fed up with music shit you might think that would bother me, but it actually made me happy because i adore my mom and as i love to be appreciated, i love it when she is appreciated. that doesn't relate to music politics. so i spoke to him and he talked about how judaism is one of the few religions that considers arguing to be a meaningful way of talking to god, and, coincidentally, that's what my confirmation speech was all about, how arguing with god is a way of being close to him and therefore does not count as "speaking with malice"! then the rabbi had me read him my paragraph about his book. he responded, "did you know you write well?" i said "thank you" so as not to brag, but he asked more specifically if i've been told that, so i just had to answer yes, but i laughed and was humble about it. i like confirmation because it *confirms* the fact that i'm not a horrible, weak, disgusting person, i have skills and manners. i lose those at school.

2004-04-23T21:22:00.000-07:00

this hs been the best day ever!

everything today has been wonderful. since charlie will take me to the prom, i feel that our casual relationship has much more depth. occasionally he go to a concert or opera together and chat at espresso afterward and we see each other at our family parties. (his grandmother's a scream, i remember how hysterical it was to watch her have to act out "remembrance of things past" for charades. no one got it, by the way.) but this signifies the fact that perhaps we are actually dating. my mother called it dating, but i didn't think so. and when he gets his license, it'll be especially nice. i ain't driving boys around. not my style. i noticed the other day i have a strong feminist instinct because i was supposed to clean the lounge for community service but guys were in there so i refused to clean it because i wouldn't be their maid and i got so angry at kovacs. but that was yesterday. and it's oh so far away. wahaha. so, after consulting dad because he'd know what is too sappy for a guy and what is fine, i've decided to invite him to 'les parapluies de cherbourg' next friday at boardman's. i've seen it before and it's an excellent movie and it has a great ending and the music is understated. it's interesting yet accessible. so i thought that we'd have dinner in the area first since there are lots of cafes around. so after having a lovely walk around my neighborhood and sitting on top of a hill and coming home and reading chapter 3 and part of chapter 4 of "the miracle of intervale avenue' and having a small dinner, i decided that dad should take me to downtown champaign so we could inspect the cafes and find the perfect one. there's lots of great stuff down there, so charlie and i could walk around and browze. we found two cafes that are very nice, pretty good atmosphere, and pretty cheap: aroma and cafe kopi. aroma has a lounge area and is cleaner, so i think we'll go there. it intimidates guys to do a big fancy dinner, so a cute cafe will be perfect and it won't be unreasonable since he's not rolling in doe or anything. cafe bacaro looked nice; i'd love to go there with a friend some time, but i'm not sure if you can go there and be under 21 because they do a lot of wine tasting. it was so fun walking around the area. i looked in the windows of jos. kuhn and co. to see the suits. they had a fantastic tuxedo; white with a red tie! but that's too flashy for most events. hopefully charlie knows that guys should get tuxes at ducky's because they're nice, can be rented, and reasonably priced. my dad rented his wedding tux there and also the tux for grandpa's 90th birthday. hopefully i'll actually have a romantic life. i also read a new blog, someone i know, and really enjoyed it. lots of philosophical ramblings. i enjoyed commenting. there was some kid i didn't know on there who was really obnoxious and against everyone at my school. i disagreed, but was civil, much more civil than he/she was. it'll be nice to branch out because all of my mother dates with charlie have been at krannert and then espresso. so it's nine, the cloud i'm on. tomorrow mom and i are taking my new best friend theresia to the hairdresser. we're going to coax her to get her lip waxed because he mustache is gigantic and horrendous. she's perfectly nice-looking otherwise, so it's a real shame. and she's not a revealing dresser and is really against that, so it's a relief to know someone around your age like that. her big concert is coming up, too. "i hate the barber, i hate it lots!" she's having trouble with a really difficult rhythm in the barber cello sonata and mom was helping her with it, so i added those words and then she got it! mom thanked me. *blushes* after that, mom wants to see if we have time to look for formal, strapped black shoes to go with my prom dress. it just occured to me that i can search for images online and show mom what i'm looking for. technology to the rescue! i hope it'll be warm enough to wear a skirt.

shopping online's been fun, but not really successful. i think i'll go. i hope i have some fun tomorrow even though i have some work to do, too.

2004-04-23T15:06:00.000-07:00

it's official! i have a prom date!

so, when my mom got home i proposed the idea to her and she thought it was great. she told me she suggested i ask charlie at first, but i genuinely don't remember. so anyway, i called him up and he was delighted! it was really pretty easy to ask. he's getting his license soon, so he said he would drive. i was clever and told him that it would be better if he would drive because i don't trust myself driving at night. i did get into an accident a few months ago. so, now he can feel good about driving me. mother insists he stops by the house first so she can get pictures. we went to barbara's alterations and altered my dress. it's $2000!!!!! i'm so excited to be wearing one of my mother's former concert dresses because i'm carrying on her tradition. first mother, then daughter. it just feels right. all we have to do is shorten the straps and press the lace. it cost mommy $2000. i just learned a few things i wasn't sure about. i'm writing them here so i don't forget. i have to make sure charlie knows some of these.

1. guys can wear a suit, but tuxedos are preferable, but they can always be rented.
(by dad rented a tux for his wedding)
2. guys still wear a corsage which they get themselves
3. guys can get a pretty flower or pin for the girl

there we go. for lunch, mom and i met dad at miko's. yum! mom is coaching at allerton so she'll be there overnight. i'm on my own for awhile. the fellini is coming on later. i thought i'd take a walk in the lovely weather and listen to some sulty music. mmm, sounds great. it's nice to feel good and not work all the time. as you can tell, i normally don't get this luxury. i would like to do some work today, but i want to walk while the weather is nice. i feel so triumphant that all of my prom plans are going smoothly. mom and i will buy shoes tomorrow when she gets back.

2004-04-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

promenade

well, here we are again. suddenly the prom has become a big issue. at first i decided not to go because i don't enjoy uni dances. then i decided that i'll be lonely if i don't go because this is special. so, who do i go with? well, i had someone in mind, but that won't work. i could meet tiff there and we'd just chat, but i'm worried i'll feel lonely that way because i won't have a date. so now i'm thinking of taking charlie who takes me to concerts. i know he likes me. i'm worried he'll decline because it will make him feel awkward. but i'll tell my friends to be warm to him so he'll feel comfortable. ariel, tiff, sarah, even alex, casey, etc will make some nice conversation and the two of us will talk, and we don't even have to dance very much. however, i'm not convinced he has a driver's license and i never bothered to get mine. prom isn't until may 22, so i could practice a little and get it. that worries me a little, but i could do it. i'm worried that i'll be lonely if i just stand there and talk to tiff and have no date. and i have such a gorgeous dress. mom wore it once, so it dates from the 80s or something, but trust me, it's timeless. it's coral, salmon-pink, with some black on top and a coral bolero jacket that has a scarf built onto it. i could always take off the bolero jacket; it has spaghetti straps, so the dress functions as a bra. mom thinks i won't take off the jacket, but i might. depends. i need to buy strappy black shoes and i'll definitely do my hair up. cathy at image ii will take care of it. i'm going there tomorrow for cutting and waxing anyway. god, my tomboy days really are over. but to recall that i'm not ditzy, modernism is 197 whereas my shakespeare course was 124. i'm allowed to take a higher level course because of my success at harvard last year. woohoo! i earned it. spiffy. i should be reading great gatsby for wednesday, but i wanted to get online to work on larghetto vivace and then i imed people about prom and go this idea to take charlie. it's also fellini day today! i really should post my poem, it's very sweet. but i'll get to that.

last night was fantastic, absolutely great. can you believe i'm having a good time? i was really upset before school, but school turned out to be pretty good. i got a 92 on my history test, so i didn't have to be so worried! do you know how many times i've used the word 'worred' here? god i'm such a mental case. i ran 18 minutes straight in p.e. and i kept pretty close behind rachel kaplan till the end. i imagined cello music and larghetto vivace, so music and a parody of music kept me alive. then i worked on my self-help guide. i wrote "why it's bad" and "why it doesn't matter" about seven points. i felt really good that i had learned things and was able to help myself like that. then in french class we had a big party because it was mademoiselle's last day teaching us. i brought brie and boursin. nate also brought brie, but i brought a higher quality brand. ha! and we both brought carr's water crackers because they're the best. we ate, made merry, and did our dialogues. mine was very funny because i was the vaniteux and made it gabrielle vaniteuse and described myself. everyone got a kick out of it with lines like, "j'aime vos millions de chaussures et vous lisez proust et baudelaire mieux que le reste du monde!" and i made fun of the apprivoiser thing. the nanny's on again in three minutes. i already watched one episode today. that ginecologist is hysterical. i'll quote stuff...again. haven't done it in a while. mademoiselle and mrs lopez thanked me for bailing them out on wednesday. didn't i tell that story? yes, i did. "our intern had her supervisor there..." etc.

fran: and he's been taking zinc
max: no i haven't?
fran: ya know those tic-tacs you said tasted a little chalky?

fran: i don't wanna go to aspen, they've got babies there!

in english i sat on casey's desk. and wrote junk. in math i... did math. gross. i couldn't do the word problem on the quiz, i've had trouble with word problems since i was at least 7 years old. i never knew if you multiply or divide. it always should have been the opposite. but every other problem seemed ok. it's just a dumb quiz. in anthro we finished watching the movie about the nuer. how dull. they certainly are skinny and tall. jews they're not. haha, the nanny's getting into my blood. then i had to clean desks in the office for community service.

cc: i dont' want to meet the president with any wrinkles
niles: you should have met truman.

fran: we're trying to get pregnant, but nothing seems to be happening.
bill clinton: is there anything i can do to help?
*hillary hits him*

but after that the fun came. theresia came over for dinner and we took a big walk. she's so nice to talk to her. in fact, i can email her so when i feel lonely and want to write to someone i can write to her! i just talked and talked and walked and walked and told her everything on my mind and she understands. she loved larghetto vivace and helped me organize my clothes. it was so nice of her. mom says that judy kaplan wishes rachel was more into shopping, so we thought i could take her shopping.

fran: because of president clinton, i'm pregnant!

that would be so fun! wahahaha! mom is home and it's almost noon and today i've blogged and watched two episodes of the nanny and no homework. but today's a holiday, mid-quarter break! we're officiall halfway! just four more weeks before finals and freedom! one week in april, then we've made it to the last month of the school year! i've wanted may since september and it seemed so far away and now it's so close! i'll make it! i know that when school ends, my neuroses will mostly go away. i won't feel so guilty about things because i made it and have a bright future! i'll just be so grateful i got through it.

fran: this'll be the first thanksgiving i'm eating for two!
niles: you know, silvia, if you stop now it'll be the same for you.

max: i finish eating when i'm full
fran (to silvia): yep, he's foreign.

2004-04-21T17:08:00.000-07:00

i've got the world on a string -- yeah right

i feel a little better. i made it. during french class, our intern had her supervisor there. today was the day of silence, the dumbest thing in the world. how do you fight oppression by not talking? people who do that act like sullen children who didn't win the argument and are trying to convince their mommies to reconsider. you fight oppression by speaking against it, by showing the world that you have a voice that deserves to be heard, not by getting rid of your voice! so during french nate kinzie and kris couldn't speak, so everyone read in 7their dull way and no one talk. i did as much as i could, but it was a horrible situation. i wanted to impress the supervisor, especially with my only competition eliminated! my reading was particularly good, i wasn't nervous. in english we wrote about a bunch of poems. math was annoying and we watched a movie in anthro where the nuer tribe was herding cattle and it was dull. then came my college conference. i hate all those numbers -- grades, gpa, tests. i've got a good test schedule, a good senior year schedule (but i'm deciding between a u of i course or an independent study), and good prospects. apparently i'm so smart that i get brandeis as a safety school. brandeis! i've got legacy there, too, but then again, i have legacy almost everywhere. lisa told me that i don't have to worry at all, that i'm basically in and they'll be ecstatic to get me. and it would suit me perfectly. artistic, not too big, interested in quality above quantity and test scores, mr flesch teaches cinema studies there, in massachusetts the best state ever, perfect! and, though it was pretty sure, i've officially been accepted to harvard summer school for a second year! i'm taking modernism and postmodernism from professor nick halpern. it's so exciting to know the name of the professor because it's official, i'm going to be in this fantastic course with some great professor who has a name! i'm such a giddy little school-girl! *sigh* now i'm thinking of the mikado. my future is secure, at least till i'm 21 or 22 depending on if i spend an extra year getting both degrees. in a stupid, trivial life, i've got some security, and hope for a bright future. another advantage of brandeis is that i can stand out there, i can make myself known better in that kind of environment. hey, if i've made a name for myself in as dumb and mathematical as uni high, brandeis will be easy. i know someone who goes there and she adores it but says the guys aren't great. however, i don't know her well at all, it's more that i know her mother and heard of this, but i don't think we're really similar. besides, i don't agree with iryce about literature, i don't like the hours and i'm not ga-ga about bridget jones' diary. but that's not the point. i know i'm going to keep worrying and being unhappy. i've sort of known all this for awhile, so i'll just get to feel inept again. god damn it, why don't i get anything nice? i've been having a great dream but it hasn't happened yet. it or a variation of it will happen. i need to buy some cheese for the french party tomorrow. i wish there was something to do! the umbrellas of cherbourg is coming to boardman's on april 30th, but that's a week from friday! friday is fellini day! an original documentary, la dolce vita and la strada all in one night!! i just gotta try to keep going... it's a hard life, it's hard to do that, it push yourself onward.

2004-04-21T10:23:00.000-07:00

the conquest of happiness

i guess i should do something, i should read. i feel too bored to read the ethnography. i have to discipline myself to think positively and do stuff. how horrible! i just want excitement, beauty, companionship, o emma you are not alone! i didn't even watch all of madame bovary last night. jennifer jones is incredibly beautiful in that movie. the dresses are gorgeous, very feminine, accentuate all the right parts, and aren't slutty. they have three quarter sleeves adn don't show stomachs adn don't have slits! sometimes they're sleeveless, but that's gorgeous too, it's not cheap with dinky little straps like today. i think we should dress more like we did in the 1850s but we're all too god damn liberated now. well, it's worth it to have more women's rights and less beautiful clothing, but it's hard to have to chose! i keep doing strange things and disappointing myself. i can't figure out what to do! i want to write to someone, like this, but directed to someone, and there's no one! i've decided to break my correspondence with robin. she didn't email me back. i'm not going to l.a. this summer, even if she does have a pool. nothing soothes me. i've lost my will to live. this is nausea. so i should read nausea. but there's something so quiet about intellectual pursuits, you sit there and read adn after i do that i feel passion and have to move and talk and be somewhere that i'm not and i never get that part. will my desires ever be sated? absolutely. i know what i want. i'm not as confined as emma. it reminds me of that episode of the nanny (the second time i've reference the show today) where fran is thinking of having artificial insemination adn then after taking care of monica baker's son she decides not to because he looked so cute when he slept and she wanted someone to share that with her. well, i'm not having any kid, but i want someone who will share things with me. i was having fun on the tcm website and i was so excited i wanted to talk to somebody and there was no one and i couldn't write to anyone and i suddenly became very upset. it's been paralyzing lately. when i was younger i thought i didn't need anybody because my friends can be trivial and annoying, i was the artistic loner, but over the past year particularly i've become frighteningly in touch with my feminine side and i crave more of those things. sometimes i'm worried i'll die of triviality, but my love of literature, art history, film and yes, even music, are too strong. i just want someone that i can tell my literary ideas to and who will know where i'm coming from, the way i know where authors are coming from by the way they talk and then he would talk to me and be animated. i'm so rowdy around other people. sometimes i think i make a fool of myself, but i'm not really sure what else to do. god, i'm gonna be so bored all day. french, then lunch, then english, then math, then anthro, then college conference, then community service, and finally home and dinner a 5. i'll probably watch 2 hours of tv, golden girls then the nanny, and then i ought to practice piano. wait, i have to fit math homework in there. hmmm... maybe i'll practice a little later then. i need to get that math over with early or it's too painful. oh, i watched some of "showbiz moms and dads" on bravo. how perverse! emily tye's mom was really nasty and cold. significant others hasn't been on. *sigh* i'm reduced to all these tv shows. i have to find some sort of inner drive to do better things, but i don't have it. i'll just try or something. god, now i feel even worse. god is really overdue on his promise to me. he did let me read prufrock yesterday, but it wasn't so great. i should just go read, right now. since homework has really lessened considerably, especially after i do my anthro research paper this weekend, i should make a mission for happiness, the fulfillment kind. that could be fun. a little hard to start, but ultimately fun. just, when i read or something, i feel that i'm ignoring my heart because it wants something else. maybe this summer it will get something else. i so desperately want to write to someone! well, there's my new writing piece, which is sort of to someone. doesn't really count, but it's liberating to write. so, everybody, i'm gonna go and try to get happy. ta ta.

2004-04-21T00:12:00.000-07:00

in the room women come and go talking of michelangelo

wow, that was a while ago. about "apprivoise-moi", changing the definition of a word only works when the meaning of the word is similar, a subtler, more insightful way of looking at it and using proof to do it. exupery chooses a meaning that is normally considered the opposite of what he's talking about and only mentions it once and hardly defines it, so he hasn't set you up.

G e O m E 1: i take it your profile is in response to english class today
G e O m E 1: i agree. choosing something just because it rhymes is something that an amateurish high schooler is likely to do, but not a good poet
proustiansnob: thanks, i thought my class trivialized the poem
G e O m E 1: yes, ours rushed through it in five minutes
G e O m E 1: i want to read the waste land sometime
proustiansnob: but i really disagreee with rayburn on one point. i don't think prufrock *is* the modern man because the modern man can't articulate his problems; he is part of the society, that's why he feels trapped, so he can't realize how much it's hurting him, that he is in fact "measuring out life in coffee spoons"
G e O m E 1: or is it wasted land
G e O m E 1: ??
proustiansnob: the waste land
G e O m E 1: could you explain what exactly you mean by modern man, i am familiar with the term but unsure of its connotations
proustiansnob: the modern man feels pain, but doesn't know what it is or where it comes from. the existentialists describe this.
proustiansnob: o, i was just getting to that, great!
proustiansnob: i think rayburn means the Modernist man, from that period in history, but i think eliot means the average guy on the street, a guy who really hasn't changed in the last century.
proustiansnob: a guy who, in fact, has hardly changed in any century
proustiansnob: at least in the us and europe, but the !kung tribe read hamlet differently
proustiansnob: *sigh*
G e O m E 1: i can see that and i think that is a reasonable argument
G e O m E 1: lol
G e O m E 1: i'm not sure if any work of literature can be completely understood outside its culture
G e O m E 1: for example, russian comedies are often very bittersweet
G e O m E 1: this is something that i think can only be fully felt by russians
G e O m E 1: to americans it wouldn't seem like comedy
proustiansnob: take our school for example. lots of people are "tired" and they get lots of sleep. they seem impervious when kids and teachers yell at them. they spend all their time working and "don't care"; i think they don't know how much they hurt. look at benjamin braddock from the graduate. he's the modern prufrock, but at the end he gets decisive. although i don't like to think of prufrock as "indecisive", i think he's "trapped", it's an important difference
proustiansnob: i agree with you
proustiansnob: but certain americans and other people can develop a russian sense of humor
proustiansnob: i'd put it this way: though not all cultures can admire the same literature, great literature can transcend many cultures and periods. the authors soul goes to the readers. culture is there, but i don't think it's all that important. you can take it for granted when you read.
proustiansnob: i've noticed that humans love to study themselves. in history we study how our ideas evolved and how we made a government. in philosophy, we do similar things. and anthropology we do it with cultures. we're so busy studying ourselves nothing as meaning anymore, it just "spoke to its generation" or "epitomizes the values of this period in time" or something. we need fewer academicians and more artists with their own visions, their own fusions of literary styles!
G e O m E 1: yes, but i think even an ability to understand the feeling of another culture's great literature has to be learned somehow, it can't necessarily be natural, maybe it can come about subconsciously
proustiansnob: i think it comes from identifying with the author. you are affected by the same things and you learn that you've seen what he sees all along but couldn't understand it so eloquently (emerson's "alienated majesty"), and so of course culture comes into play. but, in my opinion, who cares?
proustiansnob: :-D
G e O m E 1: lol
proustiansnob: i just don't think culture matters so much when talking about literature. i find philosophical points that affect many different cultures, but also specific humor that is related to one subculture within a culture and it's all great, it's all moving, inspiring, brilliant! and these academicians ruin it with "well, we've be preconditioned to think all that". and with this knowledge of theirs, what are they doing, or, more aptly, what have they been preconditioned to do? they're just lecturing people a lot. i respect mr vaughn immensely, but enough is enough for me

here, this'll enlighten you. i'll prove that i ain't so stupid. besides, i don't want to write it all again! i've been feeling really inept today. in first hour, mr sutton yelled at us about how bad our history tests were, then doug yelled at me in weight lifting, then kovacs and runelle were annoying when i had to do community service (i did a half hour and finished the job, then i read a magazine the rest of the time!) and rayburn's always mocking me and then i forgot all my notes at piano. he says i exaggerate and get too upset about it, but i really feel like a fuck up! i was pretty well-prepared and i learned a lot today. i just can't stand being bad at everything. i have to discipline my mind or something, but i'm always being so god damned disciplined! i haven't been eating all that well lately, or reading enough. i have very little work this week! i might have to do the history readings cuz he's mad at us. :( stupid bastard. i studied for his fucking exam like all the other ones. math quiz thursday, but no school friday, on fellini day! i wrote a great parlor poem parody involving fellini day. it's very sweet, i like it. i got to read prufrock in class today, the last part of it, and people were annoying, but i talked about that. i've gotten really tired now, but i'm always so lonely! and i have to discipline myself! la vie est dure.

2004-04-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

apprivoise-moi!

ha! i *can* post two days in a row! haha! this shall be brief because brevity is the soul of wit -- which it's not -- because i'm about to get in the bath, but it takes some time to fill up... and i type fast. history was fine. we learned about huey long, interesting guy. and guess what? the test was moved from tuesday to friday, and now it's moved to monday! that's not completely good because it gives me more weekend shit, but it diminishes stress tonight. i'm not at all behind on anything, i've done anthro and almost done english, but i want to start my big anthro and history papers. the history will be especially fun, it's our comparison of a movie to the actual event. i'm doing "bonnie and clyde" for three reasons: 1) great movie, 2) it dramatizes and changes the subject matter in interesting ways so there's lots of great stuff to talk about and 3) warren beaty! *melts* yum yum... in p.e. i had to run as many laps as i could in 25 minutes, and that was annoying and i was slow. i thought of a great scene for a movie as i tried to write in my head, but i got exhausted and depressed. it kepted me upset until i reread what i've written and watched the nanny. i had never seen this episode, "the fifth wheel" and it was hysterical! fran wears a dress with lips on it, could you die! such glorious cheapness, such soothing vulgarity! i have some obsession with superficial, glamorous, demented women. i just sat around, depressed during third and talked to casey a little. in french we read some of "le petit prince." apparently monsieur renard thinks that becoming friends with someone is taming them, "apprivoiser." i think that's horrible. he's trying to use the word in a different way, but it's gross. friendship is about mutual love and interests, not about anyone taming anyone. i can't believe everyone else in the class was so anxious to believe in it. i found out nate wasn't, later, but naturally he's toolazy to say anything. that boy sells out every damn minute of his life. but i don't really hate him right now.

so anyway, petit prince says to le renard, "apprivoise-moi!" tame me! that's sexually perverse, serieusement! and then the whole thing sounded sexual and i kept giggling like a stupid little girl, really high-pitched. it really started bothering people, but i couldn't help it! "il y a des rites." there are rituals. i should put up more of the sexual stuff. one moment please.

renard: si tu veux un ami, apprivoise-moi!
petit pr: que fault-il faire?
renard: il faut etre patient. tu t'assoiras d'abord un peu loin de moi, comma ca, dans l'herbe. je te regarderai du coin de l'oeil et tu ne diras rien... mais chaque jour, tu pourras t'asseoir un peu plus pres...

renard: si tu viens, par exemple, a quartre heures de l'apres midi, des trois heures je commencerai d'etre heureux. plus l'heure avancera, plus je me sentirai heureux.

i think there was more but i'm bored of that now. i'll translate for you:

fox: if you want a friend, tame me!
little prince: what do i do?
fox: you must be patient. you sit a ways from me, like this, in the grass. i will look you at you out of the corner of my eye and you don't say anything... but each day, you can sit a little closer...

fox: if you come, for example, at four in the afternoon, around three o'clock i will begin to be happy. as the hour continues, i'll become happier.

god, i know there was funnier stuff. so, at lunch i talked to my baby. we took a quiz in 17 to see how mature we were. she was just right, i, oddly enough, was too mature! yeah right! during english we went outside and it was depressing, so i continued to write my strange "diary". and that gave me a great idea, the thing will clearly take place as i'm in the middle of classes, trying to keep my identity! it's so perfect! and to do this, i'll want to actually write during classes! it's such a great effect, it's marvelous! and my concentration is always broken by the class. i can't describe how well this works. you really see the effect of the strange, hyper sensitive girl in this trivial environment with the coolest, strangest, morbidly poetic style. so that always cheers me up. did the same in math, doing it in math will be especially good because i can show the stupidity of the whole thing and her greatest weakness. ah yes! in anthro we watched a movie about the !kung tribe. then i read rolling stone during eighth. and somehow we've made it to eight o'clock. i really need to take my bath so i can get some stuff done after it. i should technically be in it right now, but i'm havin a good time....

2004-04-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

joyeux anniversaire

i'm so lonely. today is the 10th anniversary of turner classic movies. it's the sort of day where you want to be with someone. mom was in michigan on monday and tuesday. i was upset and called her incessantly, but now that she's back i don't care. now she's just annoying me. now she's being moralizing. in honor of today's momentous occasion, i'm watching "gone with the wind." it was the first movie tcm ever played on april 14, 1994. it's such a fun movie, but melanie hamilton is such an obnoxious goody-goody. she's too brainless to understand scarlett's cruelty, not too kind. people always want "nice" -- senselesss, saccharine, stupid nice. i prefer scarlett, one who possess charisma and charm and cunning and drive, that's so interesting, but melly is just sappy. ashley's character is necessary because, so strangely yet truthfully, it makes complete sense that scarlett would fall for him. i was trying to explain to mom that she likes him more for his shy, noble air than for the fact that she can't get him. it's a subtle, but important distinction: she doesn't only want him because she can't get him, she wants him because of his shy, elegant mannerism, the strangeness of such a person and his handsomeness that he is too modest to even be remotely aware of. rhett should mock melanie, but his admiration of her is understandable. it's excessive, but must be there. it's so beautifully crafted, so wonderful in its celebration of the gentility of the antebellum years, persuasive in proving that the world is gone forever adn that is not completely a good thing. i feel better for writing, but mother keeps ruining it because "i'm mean." i may love her, but i can't share my writing with her. how good is suffering really? does it make you such a fantastic person? mother suffered a lot and it impairs her artistry, she can't appreciate anything with violence in it or isn't morally black-and-white. is that worth it? i want someone to be with on a night like this, to talk to and celebrate with. i'm sick of gwtw, so i'm listening to some sinatra. i read about how vivien leigh loved scarlett o'hara, she called her "lovely, wayward, tempestuous" -- perfect words, such feeling, especially as the quote progresses and she said she instinctly felt the character. she admired scarlett's wonderful evil nature and felt it, like me! i feel that same strange understanding. i've had a pretty nice day. the last two days were unpleasant. since i have some wounds that i need to let heal, i can't address some things, but i've had some great experiences. i've decided to... not blame myself. not live that kind of life. i can't describe it, but it's obvious to me. i feel different. it's not bad, but i'm glad i didn't do this sooner. everything occurs as it must.

after being blamed for a million petty things on monday and tuesday, i went to piano lesson on tuesday night feeling very nervous. but samir couldn't have been nicer. he's always so kind, gentlemanly, but especially tonight. i got very upset because i make stupid mistakes after he corrects me, i can't read or figure out which note he's correcting, and he laughed at me when i got upset! it seemed senseless! he wasn't criticizing me because it's natural to make lots of mistakes again and again, then they go away. it's fine! i'm not to blame, even when i could be blamed! do you know how liberating that is? learning how not to view life in terms of "doing the good or bad thing" and "it's my fault i messed up or it's someone else's fault" became a little easier. it's especially easier with my new writing project. it's the expression of the philosophical enigmas that come from high school life in journal form, like "nausea" and "notes from underground." "werther" parodies must ensue related to two young men i know. ;) i began imagining it during pe when we had to play hockey and i was terrible at it and didn't want to feel so bad, so i concentrated on something else, and it was born. i'm the underground girl. but that's too cheap to put in the actual piece, that's just written here. i wrote a brilliant beginning, about how there is not editor's note about whose journal it was because it was mine, because i wasn't denying the fact that i'm pathetic and shameful enough to write such a journal. it sounds weird here, but it was good. rambling is necessary, and i do it, but i will want to polish it a bit. i really like this idea. it makes even horrible bit of my life exalted. it's just so damn perfect. i worked on it after pe, during third hour, then went to french, ecstatic. i know how i will begin, with nate's question to me in french class the other day. that's the question i'm working to answer. and, as i believe "notes from underground" is really the u.m. trying to justify himself to the men who stood him up at the cafe, as shown through the use of the word 'gentlemen' often, my notes are secretly to nate and his group, trying to answer the question i couldn't answer when it was posed to me. but, as in "notes", that's not really obvious. and it's not even the point. but it's true.

2004-04-12T12:28:00.000-07:00

was it this heart that bore yesterday or centuries before?

well, the weekend's been shit, but at least i wasn't at school. i did the poetry explication and most of the project. my mother is upset about how lewd 'the cold, putrid vomit' is, but i'm convinced rayburn won't mind. 'touch not my d and d' is a beautiful anthem against asshole nerdy guys. i took a big walk and practiced piano. somehow this shit took up my whole day. i went to confirmation class today looking very formal to try to feel good. dorothy and shira sort of teased me, or at least were critical, but they really looked like shit so i didn't care. i need to start writing my speech on one of the ten commandments this week. i sort of have an idea, but not really...

then i did lots of math which really depressed me. i vented my feelings to my friend on aim. i met her in a chatroom and now we talk a lot. her situation is similar. i also posted twice on the best week ever blog, once about bob dylan's victoria secret commercial and once about ted turner. tcm, tcm! i'm too depressed to go to bed, but i have happy things to daydream about. my inner story took a new twist and i've got a fun new character. i hate my life. i think i'll be happier if i do more artistic stuff. i should be strict for awhile, maybe it'll do me good. no tv except tcm, the nanny, and south park, the last two are so funny and cheer me up. i should read when i get home from school. i'm worried i'm getting too immersed in superficial, popular culture. i'm helping brad with his anthro homework. ;) ah, on aim i've helped anna with the autoethnography and both micky and someone else, i think also anna, with the matewan history paper, i got 97 percent. why can't math be a little easier? i guess i'm just too damn artistic. *sigh*

although i'm so lop-sided, can only do arts and not sciences, i'm very diffuse in the arts. i can play and listen to music in a sensitive way, study literature, write literature, study art, and study film. so, since i love all those things, which do i do when? i feel guilty that i don't do enough of any of it. but i blame myself too much. i'm not in control right now and that's just how it is. i can't die of guilt. this summer, in seven weeks, i'll prove to myself that i can do lots of great stuff. i know how much better i am when i get some control. think of the holocaust, the jews had no control, they had to struggle to stay alive, to just eat and sleep. at least i can do those things... very well ... too well, in fact. but after oppression, we use it as we sensitive folk use all our experiences, all our happiness too, to conquer it and take control. there is no 'good enough' or 'not good enough' right now. it's so sad to have to think this way, to be so subjugated. but really, i've done a lot. my head realizes it, and i know that my heart will as soon as the school year is over. i'll be proud i've made it through the toughest part of my life (despite some college junk -- most applying will be exciting -- and one semester of biology senior year it'll be pretty fun and laid-back) ever. i honestly don't believe i'll ever suffer that much again because i'll have more control. i get to study what i want and go where i want when i want in a great city this summer, then senior year is decent, then i'm off to a great college, then grad school, then i'll be curating and working on my other projects, there'll be no stopping me. i'll have control. and that will help me psychologically. right now i just want time to pass. it's april 12, i need to reach may 29. i hate everything so much. my mom's out of town for three days and i don't want to be with my dad because he was mean. i'm looking forward to staying up lat eand watching some great movies on tcm. both madame bovary and cool hand luke are coming.

2004-04-09T16:21:00.000-07:00

i'm addicted to the bad kind of love

it's been awhile. i sort of have a travelling blog in the form of a black and red journal i got at powell's bookstore in portland. but i still like this blog. that one has more substance in it, but here i can vent my emotions. it's not like i'm doing quality work in anything anyway. i think i've reached a point of greater happiness. i've decided i don't have to be so sensitive, that i'm too developed to ever lose myself and become like those dumb drones at school, so i don't have to worry, my actions aren't theirs. i still worry about productivity. i feel like i'm wasting my life. i should be reading, writing, creating, but i'm taking dumb classes at school and watch crap on tv. how dare they make me waste my life and then make me feel at fault! how dare they! i'm sure that corky st. clair would call them bastard people. this is my father's new favorite expression. but why do i have to pressure myself so much, create expectations (not expectancies, dr phil, that's not a word you little texan piece of shit) that are too high and then feel horrible? i just want to do something meaningful with my life, is that so bad? au contraire, that makes me good! i deserve to relax after working on shit at school. i'd like to work more on meaningful things because of the fulfillment it brings me, not as a disciplinary measure, i have to remind myself that good work is fun and i want to do it, but there are plenty of times in my obnoxious life that i need to sit back, relax and watch tv or go shopping (i never feel guilty about that one!) so i shouldn't feel bad about that. i'm stuck in a shitty situation, but i do what i can, and maybe what i do isn't my "best", but it's what i do and i just can't pressure myself over having a shitty life i can't control. i'm a good person, i do good things, end of story. i had to go home sick today, and i seriously had menstrual cramps from hell. i was light-headed, my stomach was pounding, i was really in agony during fourth hour. before that it was under control, but it really got bad. i admit i didn't want to take a math quiz, but i wouldn't have gone home without sufficient provocation. i've got menstrual shit, watch weight, exercise, try not to flunk math, do all my other shit, sit there bored all day, practice, worry about body and intellectual sufficiency, OY!!! i'm entitled to some mtv once in a while, jesus christ!

now that my neurotic issues are dealt with... for now, i'll talk about things that have gone on since we last spoke. that was a very long time ago, so where do i start? shopping of course! michigan avenue was wonderful. i love those grand buildings and the advertisements in the windows of the clothing store. that versace add for sunglasses has a blond model who looks like she's dying of radiation. there's an aldo poster that shows a bunch of people smiling and then a shoe. hmmmm. the industry is demented, but i love buying nice things. i got a pink spring coat at banana republic and i got white shoes with lime green stripes at marshall fields. i was waiting for white shoes with green stripes and i found them! i also got eye makeup put on at watertower place. i think it had orange, blue and lavender. anyway it was gorgeous and i had this on as i sipped tea at the ritz carleton. not only is that place incredibly beautiful, but i remember being there when i was twelve and it soothed me when i was frightened, so it feels so triumphant to come back, a lovely young lady of 16 and to say to the ritz carleton, "thanks for taking care of me. i'm doing fine. i made it back." i feel a connection. maybe by the time i'm 18 a freshman at a great east coast school with a cute jewish boyfriend and group of cognoscenti we'll all go to that ritz carleton on spring break and i'll remember being there when i was 16 and i'll know that i made it. it'll be so wonderful. but until then i have to live in fantasy land. but what's wrong with that? it's the best way to live no matter where you are! i'll always live apart from the earth, even when my life is happier. the weekend after that, mom dad and i returned to chicago to go to alise freilich's wedding. she's the oldest daughter of judy freilich (pronounced fry-lick despite the spelling) my mom's friend from high school. i didn't actually get to go to the wedding since it was too expensive to have any kids, but i went to brunch. it didn't matter because after we arrived in chicago and got to the lovely claridge hotel and had lunch at a great steak place, gibson's. then we went back to watertower place and i bought the most gorgeous red spring coat at lord and taylor. i went to barney's which was really crowded, so mom got upset and we left. i found a great pair of sandals for skirts, but mom got sick of staying at barney's by the time i pursuaded her to get it for me! she was worried about the heel. she has this idea that thin heels are too adult for me. how demeaning! but i love my mommy and her wonderful fashion sense, so i can forgive her. i'll get around it. besides, we both love the kind with the band and the heel that rises gradually because it's both safer and more elegant, so i have two pairs like that, both from chico's. one is all black one is black with lots of colors on it. after buying the coat, my mom got makeup done by the same woman who did mine last week! her name is arzu and she's from turkey. she's our friend now. :) during the wedding, i watched "my big fat greek wedding" at the hotel. that's a very funny, cute movie. i also watched freaky friday which, despite some waspiness, is really pretty good and lindsay lohan isn't even annoying. hillary duff is so prissy i want to fucking kill her.

so, that's chicago. back to school. ick. i've been pretty happy-go-lucky about it. the intern is doing a horrible job of le petit prince. she didn't even know it was a communist allegory until i told her in the hallway on monday. she gives dumb, childish assignments she can't even explain. i'm convinced that was making me sicker today. in english we're reading lots of crappy poetry, but we're being very rowdy about it so that's fun. i enjoyed pretending to die while mr rayburn read a really sappy parlor poem. i think my poetry project will be to make fun of those poems. why do something serious for that class? for my explication i think i'll do emily dickinson 341 because that poem was interesting. we read a few good emily dickinson poems and sections from whitman's "song of myself" that were just glorious. i had no idea free verse could be so wonderful since now it's used as an excuse for idiots to write dumb ambiguous contrived sentences that try much too hard to be profound but don't know what they're saying. whitman is ambiguous, but it's so meaningful and liberating. it's so original, inventive. i got some criticism on it but have yet to read it. i'm excited about these english projects this weekend and i'm gonna study some history. there's just math :( in anthro we had an in-class essay on wednesday where we have to say if love is universal or culturally constructed. i used christina's relationships with vinnie and orin in mourning becomes electra as a great case that love is based on circumstance, what people associate with children and if love is helpful to them since pain always occurs and is unpleasant. i used anthro readings, too, but i was so happy to discuss literature because i often feel that i can't quite bond with anthropology, but now i'm bringing my art, my personality into it. i had an example from madame bovary, too, but no time for it since i wrote two whole pages on very thinly lined paper. so, those are the highlights of my week. i've been dressing well. i get plenty of compliments. ;) yesterday i wore a white collar shirt with my red pants and wooden flipflops with white flowers on them. today i was more formal. i wore my off-white shirt with the big collar, pinstriped pants, my black heeled sandals and the long red coat.

two especially exciting things happened this week: passover seder at the kaplans on tuesday (i was a good jew and didn't go to school, but i didn't go to minyan either!) and mom's big concert, the german romantic cello, on thursday night. at the seder i wore a figure-flattering black top with dark green/gold patterns on it, black pants, black knee-highs, and black heeled shoes. they're very formal shoes and i think i got them when i was 14 for grandpa's 90th. i wore the navy blue ones. these are gorgeous shoes and i looked stunning. mom was worried i looked too provocative for the conservative kaplans, but i think it was fine. it was a very nice top and i didn't show skin or anything. just because rachel and her mother dress like prudes doesn't mean i have to! i'm a prude compared to most girls my age, i won't wear any skirt above the knee or any shirt above the elbows! and i won't wear shorts or capris but i just think capris are too prissy for me and emphasize the upper thigh which is not my best region. i rolled my red pants up on thursday just for fun, up to below the knee. i think it was cute. i was told, "gabby, you look so summery!" but that may have been a polite way of saying, "you dork, that's dumb as hell". i couldn't tell. at the moment i thought it was an insult, but when i look back on it, i don't think it was a big deal. besides, she was wearing an atrocious silver mini-skirt that exposed the gigantic red scar on her knee. ewww! so the seder was sort of long, but it was nice. that day i had been yelling at god for giving me such a crappy life, but then i was called on to read the part that said that god always helps his people after their oppression. i think he was gently teaching me a lesson. it was too beautiful to consider a coincidence. the evil in the world somehow overpowers god, but i don't get that part. after rachel finding four of five pieces of the affikomen and enjoying some brisket and meringues with chocolate chips in them, dad and i discussed the role of god in the haggadah. it kept praising god for getting people out of oppression, but doesn't he get them into oppression the first place? i don't think god has that kind of control over people. he gets them out of oppression because he gives them strength through faith. i look at the torah in a figurative way.

i wore the same outfit with the red coat at my mom's concert. it was so nice to see theresia, she's so warm-hearted and fun, and to meet eeshean. i think that's how you spell it. it's pronoucned ee-shee-ahn. i loved chatting with donna and peter. peter's so kind and donna's so fun. she was wearing great pants, black with blue vertical stripes. i have to go to gap now and find them. she and i have similar taste in clothes, especially shoes. we're great with shoes. we found out that so does mina, tim's fiancee and the pageturner in the concert. her shoes were especially stunning, black, tall heel, and they wrapped around the ankle. the arms on the dress bothered me, but otherwise it was nice. her hair was a little flat, but asian hair tends to be. don't mind me, i just enjoy being judgmental this way. i liked her a lot. at the party at the shapiro's i magnificently ate nothing but selzer water. no cheese, no chocolate cake, not even fruit. i just didn't want to stuff myself that late at night. at talked to donna and mina and some other people. it's so nice to socialize and adults are so much better than dumb adolescents who conform to the fucking system. the other day nate looked like he was scowling at me so i scowled back at him and he mimicked me. i said i did it because he was scowling and he said he wasn't. he wasn't lying. he just has a gross face and temperament. poor fellow. ;) we can't all be as charming and beautiful and modest as i!

at 5 i want to watch head to toe because joan and melissa rivers are going to make each other over and that'll be funny. i wonder what they'll come up with. i've become such a vain adolescent! sigh! it's such a nice outlet when intellectual matters aren't going as well as i'd like. shopping is so lovely. you should look nice as a manifestation of your inner artistry, and that's why i don't believe in showing much skin. the point is too look elegant, beautiful, artistic, charming, or cute and sweet if you want to be less formal, to show your great personality, not to be a sexpot. i love the wrong thing for the right reasons. i hope significant others is coming on tonight. i miss that show. it's so funny! i think it's on tuesdays, tho. one more thing, when mom took me shopping on tuesday i got a great pair of tennis shoes. they're adidas where one side is black with pink stripes and the other is pink with black stripes! it's so much fun!

i'm sick of blogging now. i might continue to be vain and lazy and trivial tonight. good for me.

2004-03-27T19:24:00.000-08:00

casa bonnita

so, here i am again. back from chicago. i'm really in a dysfunctional mood after bawling to my dad for three hours on the car drive back about how my life sucks and i'm weak and stupid and there's nothing i can do to improve anything. *sigh* well i've decided i'm stronger now than i used to be and that i do accomplish things in my little way. all it amounts to is that i'll suffer more. i've learned certain things i can do, but it won't really make a difference. i'll just suffer again. "a league of their own" is coming on tcm in 4 minutes, so i thought i'd watch and work on my screenplay. michelle wasn't in tonight, as usual, as i'll call tomorrow and i hope we'll get together. we could go see "ladykillers" because tom hanks looks funny. i could call allison about the moeuf website. that's a good idea. she's probably not in or doesn't care. they're all the same.

i had a really nice break, though, even better than new orleans last year. michigan avenue is so beautiful and i did lots of shopping! first we arrived at cathy's house, she's mom's friend and let us stay there, but she's in california right now, so we went to a mexican dinner with her dysfunctional, alienated, taciturn husband and son. joy of joys. it was nearly impossible to make conversation. my burito was good, though, but i had too much out of boredom. this opening dialogue is very stale.

2004-03-24T11:44:00.000-08:00

and if that is sinful, then let me be damned for it

mom and dad are doing a bunch of errands. we'll leave for chicago at least at 2 because i think we're meeting my mom's friend for dinner at 5. but she might have cancelled. i watched the nanny again this morning (god, i'm so hooked) and was thinking about how any philosophy i choose to have about the world won't matter yet because it's hurting me and there's nothing i can do about it. no matter how i feel, what i wear, what i decide, i'm gonna fuck up my math tests and get upset and not be able to cope with all my homework. i hate my life because there's nothing i can do about anything. that makes me feel like a waste of human life. i'm here to *do*, to *accomplish*, to *create*!! it's not good enough for me to "endure" suffering, i need to do something about it. no matter what anybody says, how anybody tries to trivialize my circumstances because our fad of "simplifying" and studying cultures makes everyone want to simplify and devalue everything, i am discovering truths through this. then i think, was this actually a *good* experience for me? am i better off this way? but that thought is too difficult to bear. life goes how it goes and there's always both joy and suffering in it, the good times and the bad ones, so i don't feel that i even have the authority to answer a question like that. i'd certainly rather not. ;)

but i can refute my arguments. my main problem is that i care too much about the external world and its judgments. look how poorly blanche dubois, for example, does in the external world, and look how people misunderstand her because of it, but look at how truly strong and noble she is on the inside, in the world that she creates! i feel, though, that i can't lose my snobbery. that would be giving in to these foul people. robin doesn't know these people, she doesn't get it. some people are superior to others. i'm not saying i'm better than everybody, but i can think of plenty of kids who pale in comparison to me. and i'm speaking only truthfully. i'll tell you how i judge. i don't think i'm superior for prefering the arts to the sciences, i think that some of my peers are clever but lack ambition in a field, they don't know what they love and why they love it with all their being, they may be skilled at math problems, but they aren't trying to understand nature's phenomena through mathematics as i try to understand what i can through art and introspection. they're just stupid kids who do well in school, play sports, and will go nowhere because nothing is inside them. there's no way i'm not superior to that. in even my darkest hour, i know i'm superior to that. i have to realize that my crying in math, my screaming in english, my grumbling in french, my whining in p.e. are not me, they're me rendering myself in life's ugly earth tones and thick brushstrokes. i can't describe how liberating it is to be able to articulate that, to have such an acute understanding, finally, that i'm not really this person i appear to be. i start to believe in it and almost become it, like hamlet appearing to go mad, but it's completely untrue. i admire blanche even more just thinking about this. i don't feel that i can change the way i act. i just...act. it seems as if i should have complete control over that, but i don't. situations *force* me to be a certain way. i'm not justifying it, but it's what i do. besides, being the way i am is exciting. i think it brings out both the best and worst in people. it makes school a thought-provoking drama about the plight of the suffocating man. i'm serious. that last sentence was not meant to be funny and something i'm going to write eventually will prove why. i think we're going to leave for chicago now, so i should pack the laptop and be off. i feel so good about posting. i feel a deeper understanding of things. i used to regret that my blogs were not more philosophical, but i'm compensating now. the main thing i really have to do is to immerse myself in my own reality. i need to read or write every day at school, even if only for 10 minutes before doing homework during my free hour or during a passing period, but i just have to keep it constant. in such desperate circumstances, it's quantity and not quality that counts. the quality will come. the quantity of the immersion will create a better quality of life for me. i continue to feel skeptical because school always wins, but with new attitudes and summer coming up, it might work better.

2004-03-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

and art shall be my mistress

so... today was pretty fun. i just decided, oddly enough while i was watching the nanny (but since i spend most of my time doing that it makes sense that i get my ideas then), that life is naturally cruel, boring, petty and stupid because people are so weird, but there is high art that is above people, that most people only defame, but that some, like the great artists, have risen toward and almost met. no one meets it. life has to have meaning beyond the stupid lameass people in it. god, that was articulate. i should be asleep, but instead i'm hungry. i had a late lunch and dinner today, so i shouldn't be hungry. anyway, i think i am not the first person in the world to have this idea, but it's so essential to my understanding of my purpose. i devote myself to art. and shopping, in my free time. ;) art is such an interesting, beautiful thing, it makes life vibrant and wonderful, it makes the meanness and hypocritical morality of others insignificant. my main objection with studying culture is that the whole emphasis is on people, as if these retarded concepts different societies come up with were the only important things in the universe. now i may be arrogant, but *that* strikes me as self-centered. everyone seems to have given up on art being divine, but it is. even music, with its striking immediacy, is divine, just the musicians aren't. and that's what i want to convey in my mockumentary, particularly through elizabeth bainbridge who, despite her "snobbery" and mental complexes, loves music for music, and art for art's sake. and it's more meaningful to have that understanding of beauty than to be skilled. god, that makes me feel so much better about my piano playing. i never feel good enough, and then i feel that my playing isn't meaningful when stupid kids who possess no artistry can play better. there has to be *some* idealism in the world. you have to believe in something and i've found my many loves. i am art's servant even at school because i feel so guilty for not living up to my purpose. i feel that something beautiful smiles at me for helping to express it. i'm going to write and read and feel meaning, the meaning i felt when i was little, and i'm not going to let philosophy, anthropology, and robin's concerned yet egotistical diatribes get in my way. i value alll three of the things i just mentioned, but i can't let them hurt me. if i can't do art now i can do it later; i shouldn't feel so guilty. i feel that with this philosophy of life i can get through my stupid days better and especially be able to handle more minor adversities in my later, happier life that i have more control over. society has taught me to hate everything good for me, to dislike disciplining myself and to desire laziness. that is so damaging. i have to understand that i enjoy discipline, i like reading or writing when i don't want to, i like dieting more than fattening foods, i desire hard work and deprivation. i also desire clothes. ;) the irrational torture of school has taught me to crave false, superficial luxuries and as tempting as it is i have to realize it's wrong. what i want is not always what i think i want, but i always know what i want in the back of my head. and yes, that makes complete sense.

today i woke up at 9 or so and enjoyed golden girls and the nanny with my mom. then she went to teach and i organized my entire wardrobe. i didn't realize i had so many clothes! i knew it was a lot, but wow! so what did i do about it? i went out and bought some more! but that's later. i cleaned my room to the sound of "brasileiro", then went to tang dynasty, again, with mom. that's the second time in two days! it just opened at lincoln square mall. it's a very nice place. but i think i described it in my last post. it was completely crowded today, so mom and i played cards until the food came. the only deck of cards she could find was gigantic; the cards were at least three times as big as normal ones! but we played spit and crazy eights, so it was fine. i won, with some cheating. ;) after a million years and many fun card games, the food finally came. the restaurant was just in over its head. it's new and the university's on break this week, so everyone just came pouring in. mom and i both got shrimp dishes: she got shrimp with lobster sauce, i got sweet and sour shrimp. mine was better. i have an incredible talent for ordering the best things on the menu. i can add that to my resume. speaking of resume, i didn't work on my resume of huis clos today. much too vain. but i actually don't care. i should do it sunday, though, or else i'll have to do it when i have homework from school. ewww! i'm not really sure how i'm gonna cope with school. is it gonna be any different? with my new philosophy, as long as i'm spending enough time being artistic it hardly matters. i have to work on that. i chicken out and sacrifice my soul for my stupid grades. i shouldn't be so frightened. as long as it's not math, i land on my feet. i told you how great my grades are in my last post.

after lunch i got really upset because of a conversation mom and i had in the car on the way home from tang dynasty. she ended up telling me how i live in the worst place in the world and go to the worst school in the world and everything else is better and everything sucks for stupid me. well, that's not quite how she said it, but that's how i interpreted it. i can't cope with this kind of talk because then i feel like my life isn't worth living. really, if everything is this bad then why not end it? well, my mother's mother committed suicide, so it's a good thing i didn't present this argument to my mother. she would have gone nuts and she's already neurotic most of the time. she's always so fucking uptight when i want to relax, especially in the car. dad helped me feel better. then i watched part of "nine to five", a very funny movie, on amc and fell asleep. then mom got home and started "joking" in her depressed way where she says nasty, untrue shit and laughs self-righteously at her "wit". ugh. well, it didn't last long because dad took me to circuit city to get the car a new stereo so mom and i can listen to music on our way to chicago tomorrow. (the old one broke). even though i picked out a particularly good one, mom immediately started worrying about how there was no tape player below the cd player, only a glove compartment, and how she couldn't find the button to make the sound go from the back to the front. that woman can't be happy! and she can't stop eating. and then i do it, too! it's so hard being me! everything in my life is wrong and i have bad influences. but none of that matters anymore. after picking up the car, mom and i dragged dad to dressbarn and lerner ny. though none of the *four* pairs of pants i tryed on at dressbarn fit me, i got a *gorgeous* black jacket that's reversible. it's shiny on one side and furry on the other, could you die? i'm bringing it to chicago in case the weather is cold and windy. chicago, cold, windy, what are the chances of that? but dad says it might warm up, so i brought my new red windbreaker from kohl's and my black flipflops with rope on the bottom since they go with black pants and are comfortable enough to walk around in for a long time. but i'll probably wear my nice black dressy sorta-loafer thingies. they're elegant, yet easy to walk in. lerner is the greatest store in the world and i bought two pairs of pants! one is light blue, one is darkish brown. they're not even too long, but need to be altered in the waist. they're absolutely gorgeous! i'm so excited that i can get nice pants, it's so hard! but best of all, i got two fantastic new shirts. one is lavender, one is yellow (same style) and they have form-fitting with boat necks, but i can't really describe them. i got a lavender and light blue necklace to go with the lavender shirt and it's so beautiful and elegant. i'm bringing it to chicago, too. we ate dinner at the mall, the japanese place as great chicken teriyaki. and they always give free samples. ;) at home i finished packing for chicago. i think we're going to the art institute tomorrow. i hope i meet that nice guy again. and i hope he liked me as much as he seemed to. at least i know i'll look particularly gorgeous. however, tonight i used "normal" shampoo instead of "extra body", so i hope that turns out ok. it should be fine. my hair can be dirty and still look great, i'm really lucky with that. it covers up my fat face.

i'm finally getting tired. very tired. i coaxed dad into letting me bring the laptop to chicago, so i might even blog again tomorrow night! pretty exciting, huh? golly gee willikers! have a nice life, all, and enjoy it more than i do.

2004-03-22T21:54:00.000-08:00

it's break!

i should be pretty proud of myself. save math, which after friday's test and having a 70 before that insures a d for the quarter, my grades are really, really strong. in history, i have 94, 97, 98 on the two tests and paper which is worth a test grade, so even if my last test is a b which is possible because the multiple choice was pretty tricky and i might have been too vague on the id's where he's very picky, i'll still have a good 'a'. no worries there. french and english are a's without explanation. merf got pissed at me recently, so maybe she'll add a minus to my 'a' like doug did that one time. i really don't think this scrawny bitch can hurt my artistic integrity. *turns up nose.* :) and i got an a+ on the first anthro test, a 100% on the annotated list, a on the montaigne essay and checks on all the homeworks but one, so that's very strong. i should really be proud of myself. all week people have been complaining about the physics midterm and how the material's even more vague than it was first quarter. i think i would be dead if i had to take physics again. thank god i got out when i could! there are certain things i can't do and no one in the world has the right to make me do them. that's just that. mr vaughn, in a brilliant, decisive move of intellectual idealism and purity, cancelled our test and gave us all a's on this nonexistent test as long as we participated in the discussion about race that mr vaughn was desperate to continue. what other teacher would completely cancel a test just because he wanted to talk more about important issues? bravo, billy, have a great, romantic time with matti in nyc this week! way to go!

although, as a teacher, mr vaughn might have a crude ulterior motive. agora days might be fun for us kids, after all, but it's really so the teachers can grade and not feel so stressed. i do pity the teachers for having to grade over spring break. it's fourth quarter! thank the lord! maybe mr vaughn did it because he was too lazy to make another test. he overloaded us with 3 huge projects earlier this quarter. but things went well. the annotated list was a complete pain, but the 100% was worth it. the research paper should be more interesting and an ethnography on uni high will be fun too. i also look forward to reading our second ethnography, "the miracle of intervale avenue" because it's about jews, like me! but poorer and from the bronx. so, not like me, but it'll be nice to read something i feel at least a slight connection to.

robin im'ed me today. she wants me to visit her for a week in LA in june before harvard summer school... if they let me in. i haven't gotten the letter yet. but why shouldn't they? i got an 'a' last year and they wrote me, wanting me to reapply! only first semester grades are on there, so there's no d, and my application essays were even better than last year. mom always acts so snooty about her corrections; she just broke up a few sentences and altered a little bit of syntax, nothing major. i wrote the fucking paragraphs. i think my essay about the book that most interested me out of class was particularly effective. i wrote about anouilh's antigone and how i was inspired to read it because we read the sophocles in english class and the anouilh adds great complexity. i almost forgot the fact that it's a criticism of the vichy government, which is a serious faux pas because i wrote my first paragraph about history as my favorite class at school (i'm not such a liar as to write about english class) and how that connects to my study of literature! phew! but that really shouldn't be overemphasized because that would sound like anouilh is only blaming creon and he's pretty sympathetic to creon which is why his play is so complex and poignant. anyway, make sure to watch deadwood on hbo sunday nights at 10/9 central. they swear a lot, but it's interesting after you get used to the ambiance. calamity jane is my cousin! i'm prettier than that, though. so is robin. she's very pretty, if i do say so myself. her hair is so dirty in the movie it looks brown, but it's really strawberry blond. it's funny that she plays such a dirty, crude character because she's so intellectual and refined. she's kinda cheeky, like me, but she's the thin one. :(

speaking of authors, i've been writing a lot lately and enjoying it very much. i've just started my mockumentary for the classical music world, "larghetto vivace." it's very funny and accurate, my international competition-winning cellist mother approves. she gave me a few ideas for some extra dialogue. ;) i watched a mighty wind after deadwood last night and noticed that my film is slower-paced, but i think that's fine. one of the reasons "wind" is so quick to cut from one scene to another is because it can't sustain the humor as long, it's not as funny as other mockumentaries like best in show, but it compensates with its incredibly sweetness. my film, however, is cruel, and that's just how i want it. the humor is outrageous and that's important so non-musicians can easily see what the flaws are about this world and be able to laugh and marvel at the interesting criticism. spinal tap is especially good at that because i don't know rock music but i laugh a lot during that movie. i also don't know dog shows, but i do know that those characters are ridiculous and are more universal parodies of types of people everyone is familiar with. my characters are more embedded in the classical music world than the best in show characters are a part of their world; what i mean is that my characters don't exist out of the classical music scene but best in show's characters do. well, girls are preppy like icki, but i bet they don't play a perfect sibelius violin concerto. but "a mighty wind", which deserved an oscar for its original song "there's a kiss at the end of the rainbow", taught me something very important: you can put a bunch of random scenes together with no connection between them and as long as chronological order is correct, you don't lose continuity. this works better for shorter scenes, especially splicing rehearsals and other actions with interview footage. i'm certainly going to have lots of rehearsal scenes. too much organization will make it look ponderous, too professional, after all, ronald bergman isn't the best documentarian in the world. ;) (ronny is a crappy music ed cellist who is making a film about the festival). i'd like to post some of my dialogue here, keep it mind i've hardly started and am going to be editing a lot. i've also written some poems, but since all teenagers write depressing poetry, i'm frightened to be a typical teen who is dissatisfied the way all the other little shits are. i think i've used my situation to understand people and life in general and this "phase" that will pass has a little more to it than that. i started another poem, but mom called, so we had a nice, long talk until she got home from notre dame. we ate lunch at the new chinese restaurant which is fantastic. great hot and sour soup, spicy, and mongolian beef to die for. the beef is nice and sweet; it's too spicy at first wok, my favorite place. the ginger chicken and greenbeens are also great. it's more formal than other places.

i haven't done much else today. i've had some fun with friends over break. i've found my spirit again, but often find myself bored and watching crappy tv. i'm entitled because it's break, but i still feel like there isn't enough excitement in my life. i really think a nice romance would do the trick. everything else is manageable enough. i went on a "date" i guess, but it wasn't really romantic, as usual. charlie and i went to the san francisco symphony with gil shaham as soloist. he played a berg concerto which was ok, but a little weird for me. i also think it was a dumb move for shaham; it's too modern and atonal to show off his virtuosity. he should stick with tchaikovsky. *sigh*. i think charlie liked the berg more than i did and i liked mahler number 5 (like chanel number 5 but not) better than he did. i was wearing perfume, but it wasn't chanel. it wasn't even mine. it was one in my mother's elaborate set on her dresser and the bottle was pretty. i have some of my own, most of which she has bought me. i'll develop a collection, probably in collection. i think he liked it, but i have no real way of knowing. i thought a certain other someone liked me, but he keeps telling me to be quiet or not say certain things and i don't want to be bossed around. technically, he's right, but etiquette does not mix with advanced topics in math. 10 minutes till my nanny comes on! i watched from 11:30-12 this morning, but missed her at 5. god, i'm so obsessed. but it's so funny! it gives me motivation to make up earlier than i might (some episodes are on at 8 or 9 or something) but i really would rather sleep. i've been reading a bunch of blogs, but i haven't found a really exciting one. i want to find somebody i can identify with a little bit, but i'm so eccentric that it'll be a difficult mission.

i've got some exciting prospects coming up. besides LA and Boston this summer, i'm going to chicago on wednesday and staying till sunday, so that's almost the rest of spring break. on thursday mom and i are spending the day shopping with her friend and colleague karen buranskas who either practices cello or shops till she drops. mom says her endurance is amazing. i feel a bond with karen because her birthday is two days after mine, so we're both scorpio! tomorrow, i have three things i need to do before i leave, but these things are fun and exciting, so my bored moments should decrease in number. thank god! i need to pack some of my new clothes (i look gorgeous in this new shirt today) for the chicago trip, organize my clothes because they're strewn about in my room and the master bedroom and must be hung up nicely and some must be ironed, and i should finish my resume of huis clos for claudine which is due april 1. that plus some screenwriting, eating, walking outside and cuddling my mommy should make for a pretty nice day. break feels like it's been really long, but i've only had three days. it's amazing how much happens in a day and how liberating a day feels when it's not regimented, condensed into hellish periods and requirements. life is such a beautiful, exciting journey, it needs to flow.... like sure-flo cathaters made my leonard crabbe of crabbetown. see "a mighty wind."

fran: "single white female, that could mean anything from madonna to janet reno."

gracie: "you have no idea how cruel children can be."
fran: "i've had this voice since the second grade, i know."

god, i've written lots of shit. i'm not sure what to write next.

cc: "where's the pate?"
niles: "why don't you lie on the floor and let them peck out your liver?"

gracie: "let's face it, i'm co-dependent and teddy's my enabler!"

kathy: "everybody thought you were going places!"
fran: "well i showed them!"

cc: "i wouldn't be caught dead in that dress!"
niles: "you'd have to be dead six months just to fit into it."

i just noticed that at least three commercials use different frank sinatra songs. well, i don't blame them. he's got a good voice, that man. i've been listening.

fran: "look at all these flowers for a handshake! what do you get for a goodnight kiss, holland?"

val: "i thought the eiffel tower leaned."
fran: "no, val, that's big ben."

fran: "hey, don't knock jewish holidays, they get you out of more school than mono."

niles: "it seems like only yesterday that you called the orkin man when i served escargot."

niles: "i see you've customized your red robin uniform."
fran: "believe me, you sell more cookies my way."

there's a movie coming out called "connie and carla" where women pretend to be female impersonators. honestly, do we need another victor/victoria? nia vardalos thinks she can do any shit movie now because of big fat greek wedding. that was a great movie, i saw it three times. sappy, yes, but so funny it doesn't matter.

cc: "i'd rather die young."
niles: "and we're all pulling for you."

niles: "i'm guessing the fieldtrip was less than a total success, considering there was a body count."

fran: "let's sit down and relax and watch court tv."
gracie: "who's on?"
fran" it's the menendez brothers. they're back for a second season!"

max: "i know red robins are always prepared, but for what?"
fran: "well, you're just going to have to earn a merit badge to find out!"

2004-03-16T21:34:00.000-08:00

it's all happening at the zoo

i'm a little better at the moment. i've been getting through the week. this new show on bravo, significant others, is pretty funny. i'm staying up for the nanny at 11.

"it's good to know you're only cheating on me with one appliance."

"he's my brother-in-law! i don't need him knowing that i'm horny all the time!"

"i said a lot of things i should have kept private and i'm sorry about that. now what is it about you that i don't know?"

the humor is quirky and perceptive. i think i'll watch it more.

things have changed a lot. i constantly feel powerless to alter my situation and then i feel even worse about myself. jockstrap got mad at me for having a dental appointment during her class. the dentist gave me a 1:00 appointment, so i have to remember i have math then and tell her to move it? that's kinda weird! but it's so reasonable that it's all my fault. i just become the pathetic, stupid, emotional freak who can't do anything and i resent that. but what can i do? i have to do my homework! i'm gonna have a d in the class. i was dieting very well, but my unbelievably poor performance on the 12 minute run monday changed all that. i think i just have to survive until spring break and then i can think about productive strategies for the last 9 weeks of junior hell. at least i'm going to chicago for three days. i get sick of making "survival strategies" that don't work because i'm so vulnerable right now, but that'll be gone. no matter what happens in my future, i know in the deepest part of my soul that i will never spiritually suffer as much as i do this year. i'll have more control. i can handle stress, pressure, pain, when i'm capable and have a certain degree of control. i can work within parameters and i know one has to in life, but there are certain things i can't do. simon and garfunkel's song "a most peculiar" man is so beautiful. it reminds me of someone i know. i'm convinced that he's that lonely. i develop such strong intuition about people and literary characters. i bond with certain ones. i find that even when i argue points to myself in my head i think of how the other person would rebuke me as usual, but they are suddenly more persuasive. it must just be indicative of my lack of confidence lately. when this year ends i'll be fine. i'll get my life back on track. i think i'll even be able to forgive all of my sins (not puritanical sins because i disagree with that concept, but sins against my own code of conduct) because it was an unfair year and i passed it and i still have my soul and life is looking up. i'll be able to appreciate what i kept during the year and not only think about where i am defficient. all of that will fade, only the timelessness and depth of art will remain, and will transcend cultures and diversity. though anthropology is interesting, concentrating so much on culture leads to the question: if it's all about our culture, what does it matter? are we just products of our culture and nothing else? i think people have that idea and as an artist i think that we do transcend culture because we touch people, we show them what their life can mean and broaden their perspective on what life is in general. i think literature is often more philosophically persuasive than philosophy, except the literature that is philosophy which is wonderful. lauri informs me that ms linder is teaching senior english. at first i was mortified, but now i'm ecstatic about having the opportunity to tell her that hamlet isn't indecisive.

gracie: "cc, how come your dog hates you?"
niles: "well, after all, he is male."

cc: "sticks and stones can break my bones, but bad reviews can kill you."

cc: "is it on the puh-tah phone list?"
fran: "that's pta, mother hubbard."

fran: "it's ashame we didn't have this conversation out in the garden, the plants would have loved the fertilizer." i could use that one, it's really good.

i feel a lot better. it looks like we have a completely different house this summer: a gorgeous apartment near china town, macy's and boston commons. woohoo! it's more urban than brookline, but that's going to be really exciting! it makes me so excited! almost there! push push!

so, what else has happened? we have a history test tomorrow. i'm gonna study early tomorrow, but i think i'm well-prepared. i'm not worried because i have a 96 test average and this is our last one for the quarter. i think my 100 pt paper was pretty good. it should be at least a low 'a'. i've done the journal, so i think i'll turn it in on friday for more points. if it has to be longer, tho, i won't bother. pe was depressing again, then i got some work done during my free hour. the national french exam wasn't too bad. i was surprised how little grammar there was and that the reading comprehension was so straight-forward. i want to do better than i have in the past.

cc: "i may have to offer myself."
niles: "i'd close the play now."

niles: "baguettes don't hurt people. people hurt people."

fran: "would you like a finger sandwich, mr. bradley? a man like you deserves a good finger now and then."

max: "you know, frank, i'm getting tired of sucking up to you."
cc: "i'm not! i'll do it!"

max: "now let me show you the door. it's over there."

fran: "bartender, change the volume on the tv, i sound a little nasal."

english was boring. he's giving a bunch of quantitative quizzes this week, so i vented a little. math was dull and we didn't say much in anthro. i'm looking forward to the concert tomorrow.

2004-03-14T13:59:00.000-08:00

one for my baby and one for the road

i'm not really worried about next week's tests even though there are three and a quiz. math quiz monday (who cares?), history test wednesday, and both math and anthro friday. that's gonna suck. why do all our anthro tests end up on the same day as math tests? i have those classes one after the other! ahhh! i should study some history when i finish this.

i sink into deeper and deeper depression. i cling to the negative aspects in my life, they seem most prominent and therefore most compelling. i feel like a weak idiot because i can't fix my life. i get annoyed always dreaming about the future when i don't know what it has in store for me. i want something NOW! i've been trying to repent for my sin of existing by throwing myself into my work. i did the every english assignment for the week yesterday. "the yellow wallpaper" was a great story, but the rest were incredibly boring, especially jewett's "the heron." however, the main character, a shy, little 8 year old, had the name of sylvia, so i pictured sylvia fine the whole time. she had to climb up a tree! haha! it was very funny, trust me.
depression is paralyzing me right now. i think i'll have some grapes and study history. i need spring break! if only it were longer!

2004-03-10T15:40:00.000-08:00

fran: "four feet? oh my god, how am i ever gonna catch him when he's bad?"

max: "did you see the size of his thumb?"
fran: "that's not his thumb..."
max: "that's my boy!"

the nanny is such a funny show. it's the only thing that cheers me up. i've been so bored and miserable these days. i don't want to do anything anymore, but i always have more homework. i'm such a pathetic non-entity. at least mom and i are gonna go to dinner. the trouble is, if i don't get certain things done this week there's the weekend. i'm always so busy i don't know what to do. i worked so hard last weekend; i need a break! i need SPRING BREAK! next week won't be that bad because break is coming. history test tuesday, anthro test friday, no english, no math, so that's quite manageable.

2004-03-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

Advanced Big 30 Personality Test Results

Sociability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	62%
Aggressiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Assertiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Activity Level	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Excitement-Seeking	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Enthusiasm	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Extroversion	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	71%
Trust	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%
Morality	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%
Altruism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Cooperation	\|\|\|\|\|\|	14%
Modesty	\|\|\|\|\|\|	14%
Sympathy	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Friendliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	36%
Confidence	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	50%
Neatness	\|\|\|\|\|\|	18%
Dutifulness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	58%
Achievement	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Self-Discipline	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Cautiousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Orderliness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Anxiety	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Volatility	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	66%
Depression	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	54%
Self-Consciousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	34%
Impulsiveness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	74%
Vulnerability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	78%
Emotional Stability	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	38%
Imagination	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Artistic Interests	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Introspection	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	90%
Adventurousness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	82%
Intellect	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	86%
Liberalism	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	70%
Openmindedness	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	84%

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test .

2004-03-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

we don't do that at st. xavier's, o'hara

friday was disapointing. i was excited about going to the art museum, so i wore a gorgeous outfit. i wore my new black boat neck top with white stripes on the cuffs and waist, my new velvety black pants and camel colored heels. i was excessive enough to put some perfume on my wrists because i saw it in its cello-shaped bottle (thank you, mother) sitting there. i looked pretty good, but my day was crap. history was ok, i always have a pretty good time in history, but then i was bored during weightlifting. i read the latest MAD Magazine and that was fun. they had a section about stars who could be nominated for a best actor or best actress oscar and why they should and shouldn't be nominated. very funny! in french i sat two seats away from nate in the front, so i think that's a pretty good compromise. i worked on a dull composition and ate my gigantic fattening cheap sandwich for lunch. i read another mad magazine at lunch, then sat there pretending to write and getting bored in english. after that came our fieldtrip which was worth missing math, but not worth much else. the exhibit was stupid. the art was making superficial anti-war states; it was politically correct, cultural messages, not art. the curator was really late, dull and didn't say anything meaningful. there's no appreciation of art here! uggghh! it's so weird how hard it is to find meaning. my life is stupid. i just wake up and go to school. i feel bored and depressed now, so i've been watching "kim" and jeopardy on tcm. we're finally doing the graduate for moeuf tonight. i actually want to go running, but i got a blister from doing too much walking in my heels, so i'm waiting. i've eaten horribly today. dad's 59th birthday is tomorrow, so i'll make him take me to kennedy's. yep, that's his present. i hate all these commercials for politicians. i don't care about these stupid people. everything is stupid. i was upset to see in mad magazine that fran's on the d-list. :( but i'm convinced she'll rise again, just not for a few years still.

so, nothing else to talk about. i've been vaguely wondering about something lately, though. it's weird that all conceptions people seem to be born with, things i know i was born with, seem to be completely wrong. why are we born with all the wrong intuition about the world? society certainly gives us the wrong values, but that's not completely it. at least the nanny's coming on now so i don't have to think about this. at least i only have 2 more weeks of school before spring break. i hate my stupid life so much. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

2004-03-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

and i curse the life i'm livin' and i curse my poverty

hey i'm posting again. i didn't do any homewurk tonite! woohoo!

so, what happened at school? lots of trivial shit that isn't worth being put here. i try to write about most things I feel because this is my one place where I don't have to worry about quality, I can just express things. I don't really express myself because this isn't artistic enough, but I get my feelings out and I think my inner self is clear enough. i managed to do my entire 7-page autoethnography last night! this weekend i need to finish scarlet letter which is so unbelievably overrated. i should rant about it, but i think i'll wait till i've actually read the thing. anyway, i find it to be conventional, simplistic and moralizing. why read about hester prynne when you can read about emma bovary? now there's an adulteress for you! but seriously, that book has such interesting philosophical implications about society's traps and natural longing whereas hester and dimmesdale are just feeling incredibly guilty. i think i fucked up my math test, but lots of people fucked up worse. now we're doing stuff with defective chess boards and triominos, but i didn't do the homework because i'm not going to math class. mr vaughn is taking our anthropology class to an art exhibit, so we're missing 6th hour! i'm so excited! anthro has been different this week because we've had two guest speakers. the first was the head of the anthropology department and he talked about monkeys. he was a skinny little man with a nasal voice and gigantic feet. he lectured in socks and i couldn't find his shoes. today's guy was more interesting, but weirder. he had a big potbelly and a funny part-asian accent. he studies gay philippino immigration, isn't that exciting? and what food means. and he hates queer eye. i'm frightened by how many freaks i know.

i found out something absolutely fascinating today. nate, grubby, vulgar, obnoxious nate is concerned about me. claudine informs me that he asked her about me because he knows i'm unhappy at school and was genuinely concerned. is that weird? this is the same guy who was yelling at me for not conforming to the system! this makes me wonder about so many things, but i know for sure that even without this information i prefer him to kinzie and after my stupid little run-in with her today that's too dumb to even talk about i'm planning on sitting next to him instead. i can either sit in the back next to kris behind kinzie and hillary or next to nate. at least when i sit by nate i sit in front of meredith and diagonally to the left of tiffany. if i work with kris on a project again, i'll make him move to the front.

donna got very upset about something her mother did, so my mom, who has been her friend since before i was born, comforted her and helped her write a little to her mom expressing her feelings. then mom went to play a concert and donna and i hung out! i showed her my shoes and clothes and introduced her to the glory of the nanny. she liked it. we watched a hysterically bad lifetime movie called "invisible child."

so tomorrow moeuf is doing the graduate! at last! this will be a moeuf to end all moeufs.

the plot summary to my screenplay, "larghetto vivace", is going nicely. i'm at a bit of a tough spot because i have to put all these small random scenes together but maintain continuity and coherence of plot. that'll be especially fun to work on this weekend, but i'm so busy!

i'm getting more and more absorbed in my simon and garfunkel cd's. that stuff just gets better with time. right now i especially love "richard corey" and "bleaker street." the harmonies are pretty, the melodies are nice, the lyrics are both poetic and meaningful. the lyrics are the highlight of the songs, but the music compliments it perfectly. during fitness today i dreamed about photographs of the movie and the cast i want. yeah, like that's gonna happen. well, i think i'll continue doing very little tonight. i want to listen to music -- oh! i found my frank sinatra cd in my cd player! wow!

2004-03-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

i am a rock

god this was long ago. i don't have much time to post since i should be working on my autoethnography, but when i get on the computer i read blogs first and that often inspires me to write. it's been too long. so much has happened!

first i think i'll respond to two issues i found on another blog that interested me.

last week was "national eating disorder awareness week", so they put up posters around the school. this posters were unbelievably horrible. most of them had statistics about how many people are affected by bulimia and anorexia and how they make you unhealthy and depressed. do you think anorexics and bulimics CARE?!? "i don't think i'll be anorexic because that could result in depression... but i'm already depressed!" you do it because you're upset inside. knowing that it will physically hurt you is not a concern because you want to hurt yourself, you don't value yourself, that's why you do it. DUH! the posters were so mean, too. people with such a disorder need sympathy, not nasty pieces of propaganda telling them that they'll get liver problems. there was another poster that was even dumber and it went something like this: "one in a thousand people get an eating disorder. be original. don't become a statistic." of course, if it's only one person for every thousand, you're pretty original for getting this illness, no? you're more of a statistic if you are healthy. either way, everyone is documented in the cenuses and is, partially, a statistic. it's such a stupid argument. you're as much of a statistic if you are "girl with anorexia" instead of just "girl". i remember videos in health class saying, "do you want to be reduced to a number?" i responded by pointing out, "i'm number 19!" because merf gave us numbers in her gradebook. you're already reduced to a number by being one of the 6 billion people in the world. and your identity, no matter how ill you are, is not consumed in this number, so everyone is both a number and not a number, so what does any of it matter?

next, the passion. the rabbi was thinking of taking our class, but saw the movie himself and decided it was much too violent. just his description of certain scenes made me not want to see it. my parents are forbidding me to, but i'm glad of that because it means they care about what is affecting me. from what i hear, gibson blames the jews for killing jesus which is ridiculous and he is audacious enough to pretend that pontius pilate is a sympathetic character! outrageous! his father hutton said that "the jews just got up and left" about the 6 million deaths in the holocaust. as a jew myself, i think hutton gibson should "get up and leave" and see how he likes it.

i've had some really paralyzing depression lately. i worked incredibly hard last week, then when i wanted a break on the weekend i had lots of worked to do and balked under the pressure. i got most of my work done, the really important stuff. i'm having trouble reading a book as boring and moralizing as the scarlet letter but they're aren't too many assignments left, so i thought i'd try to finish them this weekend so next week i can read the book i have to for anthropology. i have an autoethnography, history 100 pt paper, history journal, and english annotated list. but two of those things aren't until the weekend after next. i just have to work and play (all work and no play makes gabby a suicidal girl) and it will get done. i also need to do my harvard summer school app this weekend. my dad says i'm basically in because i got an a last year and they wrote me a letter encouraging me to reapply. i was so frightened of the essay questions last march and they took me forever, but i think i'm much more prepared this time. there are times when i could be more productive, but i can't drive myself mad with trivial shit. i also need to work on my screenplay.

before i go, i want to announce my latest and greatest project. when i was in dark despair last weekend, in such despair that shopping and discovering my pants size is down did nothing to cheer me up (god, i'm shuddering at how serious that is), i suddenly had a revelation: to write a mockumentary that parodies the classical music world! my character profiles are pretty funny, so i should put some up. i'm working on a plot summary so i know where the scenes progress and how the character interactions are going to develop. when all this is in place the screenplay should be pretty fun. i feel that right now i need more humor in my life when i'm not studying, so i'm putting my novel on hold for a bit, not that i ever had time anyway. the outline there was going well, too. i think i'm discovering the joys of pre-writing. i remember a year ago i couldn't pre-write and i think that held me back. slowly and inexplicably i manage to teach myself how to read and write. how else is gonna teach me? harvard professors, that's who! well, brandeis professor, technically; mr flesch was absolutely fantastic. he possessed all qualities i want in a teacher beyond being knowledgeable: relaxed, not out to prove he's better than you because he knows you're learning from him, he's sure enough of his knowledge that he can't be challenged by a student, and incredibly passionate about the material, not afraid to tell you his opinions but supportive of different ones and encouraging when people add to the discussion. from most of my teachers i get the impression that they purposely make the class "hard" to prove how great they are and how much they're going to push you. they use long, complex sentences to intimidate you. he just taught the material, his goal was to help us learn it, not to be egotistical. the class was plenty difficult with him purposely trying to trip us up. i learn from reading critics, too, but that's not as fun. i hope next year will be as good!

well, i think i'll say more about these things later. it's been about a half hour, or 15 mins i'm not sure, so i think i'll go do my autoethnography. it should be fun, but vaughn's always out to intimidate you. i think my a is extremely solid in his class now, but i'm not sure about my annotated list. i have to get myself not to worry. i shouldn't worry about my matewan paper because i got 98 on our history test last friday, giving me a 96 test average. one b, which won't even happen, won't kill me. we also have another history test on the 17th. and an anthro test and english on the 19th, math sometime that week, too. arrrgghhh! from worrying about tests and watching them fade into the past, i'm realizing now that it's manageable and even unimportant. you study, you take it, and life hurries on. and the leaves that were green turn to brown.

2004-02-22T15:21:00.000-08:00

heaven holds a place for those who break

there are on average 100 calories in a 5 oz glass of wine. white wine has 96, a fruity dessert wine has 130. 100 is 1/3 of 300 which is the number of calories in a healthy, even dietetic meal. (a lean cuisine has about 300 calories). it seems ridiculous that this drink should have so much, but science -- the cruel force that ruins beauty and spontaneit -- says it's so. everything i want to enjoy hurts me and even when i enjoy things they still can't prevent my math tests or physics tests and stress over other tests from ruining my life and self-esteem. i thought that maybe this coming summer could be a meditative experience. i'll be in a new location amid art museums, shopping malls and a french film festival while taking a literature class at harvard. sounds awfully good. i just don't want to be disappointed when i don't meet a prince charming in my class. i didn't meet anybody very exciting last summer, but had a great time doing other things. i never felt lonely at all. i was upset after the first day of class but then i realized things would be fine and they were. i'll never forget having lunch at the bombay club, looking down at the shops and knowing that life would continue and be beautiful. in my insomnia, i tried to subscribe to eharmony.com last night but i was one of the 20% of people they couldn't match. this looks promising! i don't think those dating services are for unconventional people. but i digress, what i mean to say is i will use next summer to "put my life in order" as garcin would say, and not use it to be a flashy yet artistic socialite. my day will come, but i need more time to develop, plan and study. perhaps the summer after that, or even later. i know life will be good in college, no matter where i go. i just hope my interviews go well. i've heard that sometimes they tell you that they'd like you to go to that school or they'll help you get in or there's no question you will get it. i want to hear something like that and i think that with my talents it's not unlikely. i know that next summer i don't want to be as absorbed in restaurants. i have more important things to do. since it's summer and i'll be happy and the brighton ymca is at my disposal, i want to get much fitter. i don't want to be in fantastic shape like a runner,i just hope that by next fall i'll be happier with my body. the lateral thigh burner i'll order and the cycling classes will help. my parents can go to the restaurants. though i'll probably want to go to that fantastic brazilian buffet once or twice. ;)

for a life that's complete shit, yesterday was pretty exciting. i was upset, so dad took me to hot topic. i got a shirt that says "i'd love to have a 'battle of wits' with you, but you appear unarmed." it's grey with orange writing. i got a small since they didn't have medium and large looked ridiculous. small is flattering, but perhaps too small in the waist and arms. my solution -- pure genius -- is to wear a running jacket over it, but i don't zip the jacket all the way so you can still read the words. (by running jacket i mean a striped windbreaker that matches running pants from adidas or something. i always get the matching jackets with p.e. pants, so i have four jackets: navy blue which i wore yesterday, dark red, grey with a blue stripe instead of a white stripe and light blue.) it's stylish, but informal and spunky. it gives me an opportunity to wear all my t-shirts and still look good. i went to the hot topic website last night and looked at their shirts. i want one that "some mornings it's not worth fighting the clowns under my bed". I got a Simon and Garfunkel CD and am enjoying my Frank Sinatra and Martha Agerich playing Gaspard de la Nuit. Pretty eccletic combo, no? I like to change the words: Here's to you, Madame Bovary, Jesus loves you more than you will know, whoa whoa whoa. coocoocachu madame bovary.... martha argerich also fits the meter and so does comus bassington, as in saki's novella "the unbearable bassington." he's so damn hot! i saw the queer eye book and cd. ahhh! i like them, but these guys are taking over the world! it's scary! i also heard that tom felicia is going to be the new spokesman for pier 1 imports and their slogan will be "queer one at pier 1". so, my days as a sommelier are pretty much over, but i'm recovering nicely. remembering that my show ended in january doesn't produce the same pangs of misery and longing in my heart though i'm still sad about it. feb 26 marks the end of an era for me. i'm ashamed to say more because my cheap passions show how little i have in my life and how little dignity i can salvage. but i have to say, i've come up with some genuinely interesting and intellectual social commentary about the triviality of these people. i rented the gruduate after lunch. i think i might watch it now. i just don't want to watch a movie when i feel too anxious, but blogging has helped me. sometimes the atmosphere of your life changes and mine certainly has in the last few days. i have some new interests (hot topic shirts and wine tasting), new perspectives (to embrace my plans for the future as being able to happen, having more faith in my plans and abilities without going insane, not as if it's really going to work) and new fantasies. no, not erotic ones. sorry. i just gotta keep living. it's hard, but the bad times will go and the good will come again. only one more week of february, then three more weeks of school until spring break where i'll go to chicago and feel horrible about myself just like this week. it's still better than school. after spring break i'll need to begin preparing for finals because i always feel rushed. o lord, give me strength!

2004-02-20T23:29:00.000-08:00

high on lack of life

so here we are. agora days ended today. before i get to more crucial matters, i'll talk about my classes.

2. i had first hour free, so i begin with second hour, my class! i taught "the mockumentary mystique" where we watched parts of the four christopher guest mockumentaries (he directs three): this is spinal tap, waiting for guffman, best in show and a mighty wind. i ended up having 9 kids in the class because two more subbie boys joined late. allison and tiff were there, and i was extremely pleased to see mo and michael, especially mo because we don't have much chance to see each other anymore. i enjoyed having josie in the class, too, even though she wasn't completely absorbed in the movies all the time. sense the sarcasm, people. i enjoyed threatening to recite baudelaire to her. wahahaha. i liked my subbies. they're very little and cute and nice. they haven't been polluted by the uni environment yet. one of them, paul, turned out to be a mockumentary expert who owned all the dvd's! i wished that people were more talktative. geez! we did some improv at the end and it was funny.

3. then i took the great romantics. it was nice to listen to that stuff, but i wish i could have heard more chamber music and solo works instead of all symphonies. that big sound isn't my favorite. greg is so knowledgeable. it's nice to see someone genuinely enjoy music without having to be a professional. he likes music in a more intellectual way than i do; when he talks he stresses all the factual stuff about the instrumentation and themes, and, if i may say a very strange expression here, all that jazz. i want to teach my own version of this class because i thought it was nice to listen to and study great classical music. since the piano is an underappreciated instrument, i want to do a class on just piano music next year. greg's class was designed to teach us about the symphonies and composers; mine will have a more artistic emphasis. i want to choose certain pieces i like, at least one from each period (but more romantics!) and play several interpretations of each and compare interpretations. i want to talk about the way the musicians make the piece beautiful, focusing on tempos, dynamics, voicing (*the* big deal in piano music) and of course my favorite: the rubato. i'm sure plenty of the kids won't know that term. i know i want to do ondine from gaspard de la nuit and beethoven's little appassionata to talk about how musicians misinterpret to suit their inflated egos. i hope i don't sound too cynical because i also want to dispel the myths that the piano is the easiest instrument and that it is only an accompanimental instrument. i still think it's important that i do so; i'll just try to be sweet and brief. this should be exciting!

4. then i watched moulin rouge. it's a stylish movie, if nothing else. michelle and sarah are both there, but there are lots of squealing, preppy, obnoxious subbie girls who like to say "christian [ewan mcgregor] is hot!" not that they're wrong or anything. ;) they just get annoying. i like making fun of them with michelle.

5. i move on to my other movie class, south park. it's me, two senior girls and a bunch of rowdy boys subbie through sophomore years. i especially enjoyed sexual harassment panda and chimpoko mon. javkovasaurs was lame, but spontaneous combustion and are you there god? it's me jesus was good too. since the principal is the class sponsor, we have to talk about the moral of teach episode. people are too simplistic and don't get the parody. they don't understand that there's some sarcasm in the "i think i learned something today" parts.

6. free hour! i went to tcm's website and emailed. nate was in the computer lab, too. he always has my free hours, even during agora days! fuck! i found out today that he listens to rock on the radio. isn't that odd? and i saw his agora schedule on his locker and he took mostly sports classes. both of those things seem so unlike him. it just proves that he's a conformist at his core and that his way of not conforming is just another way of conforming. can we ever, then, not conform and be ourselves? actually we can; it's not really a big philosophical dilemma. if we have artistry and pursue that, we're not conforming.

7. the ancient art of memory. he didn't really teach us stuff and he was dull and wore crappy jeans that hung too low, but he gave us junk food today. we watched memento. the form is interesting and certainly inventive, but in the end it's incredibly cheap. he killed his wife and has to go on with this stupid mission because he has nothing else to do. it's pathetic. the guy should kill himself. there's no depth in that cheap thriller ending. guy pearce has weird cheeks.

8. scotland the brave. i enjoyed the food and music. i had no idea that the song amazing grace and the author robert louis stephenson were scottish! since it was eighth period i wanted to go home.

so there you have it. it was decent, but i was happiest going home after teaching on tuesday. tomorrow i want to go see triplets of belleville because claudine recommended it. i also want to juice again, go running with my exciting new frank sinatra cd, practice piano, start "nausea" and order the lateral thigh trainer advertised on tv last night. i wish i could be somewhere new and interesting. i'll save math homework for sunday. o, i have to email my paragraphs to ali for the confirmation service thing, o shit! i feel like i'm living in a drunken stupor. i don't mind that at all, i'm even pretty happy about it because i want this mediocre period in my life to pass so i can get to the good stuff this summer -- but you know, if this is a drunken stupor it's a pretty erudite one -- i just worry that when it goes away i'll be left miserable. i have highs and lows, but i'm in control. i'm worried i'll regress to my previous insane behavior when i have to do homework again. history paper, anthro research list, anthro book, confirmation class book, math homework, scarlet letter. o holy fuck. i read the scarlet letter years ago and it did nothing for me. i guess i'll live somehow.

2004-02-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

l'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

well, i was desperate enough to read about how to find a date through your blog. even though i won't do this and no one knows this url, i think i'll post ten things i want in a guy. i'll be way too picky if i do prospective husband, so here's my list of ten things i want in a beau:

1. artistic and intellectual interests. i hope he enjoys either reading or painting or films (acting and/or directing interest) in particular, but if he likes music and isn't pretentious about it i'd still like him. i just hope that he's interested in some of the arts and likes me for being interested in them, too.

2. chutzpah! i've been around too many mild people. i hope he's funny and witty and enjoys talking to me about anything he wants to. i hope while still staying discreet he's not afraid to take some risks and laugh too loudly in a restaurant or talk during a movie or chat with a doorman or something strange and interesting. i'm tired of being around quiet, neurotic guys. i know guys have communication troubles, but i'd like someone more out-going.

3. good conversationalist. this is so important to me that i separated it from "chutzpah". i'm so tired of being around people with people, boys and girls alike, who don't have anything to say. i get bored and upset and don't know what to do. i want to be able to tell him things i feel and know that i can expect a kind and interesting response. that doesn't mean he shouldn't disagree with me. i love friendly arguments. nothing wrong with that.

4. not too happy. this is an extension of the end of number three. i know one guy who is very kind and charismatic, but he's always so goddamn happy about everything. he loves all his classes, he loves everybody, everything is so wonderful. ugggg! at harvard summer school last year i would tell people that i was discontent with the english classes i had in the past and since high school english tends to be poor and these people are at harvard i expected that feeling to be mutual, but instead i received very peppy, naive "why not?" s. i want somebody who has felt some anger, some discontentment. i know a woman who is incredibly well-read, but she loves everything she's read! that's not intellectual at all! i want someone who will say, "yeah, i don't like so-and-so very much, the prose is so...." you know.

5. has rich tastes. i have trouble with the arch liberal middle class men who look grungy and don't bathe because they think they'd be superficial americans if they did. i think that's a narrow, obnoxious attitude. some elegance is good. on the other hand, metrosexuals freak me out. i don't even like the way they dress; i need something more masculine. i just would like to be with someone who is willing to take me to nice restaurants, to the ballet, to the theater, not to anti-bush rallies or rock concerts. i'm a democrat and detest bush as much as anybody, but i'm annoyed with the people who obsess over how bad he is. someone who doesn't think i'm horrible for liking shopping or eating red meat with no guilt.

6. is a gentleman. this gender equality thing is all wrong. the advantage of the deep south was that men knew how to put women on a pedestal. not that we should revert back to a slave economy and have to wear corsets and be considered inferior. what i do like is when boys open the door for me or pay for my coffee, things that are kind and unnecessary and make me feel special.

7. isn't too grubby. i have very few restrictions on appearance. i don't mind if he's fat or skinny, tall or short, light or dark (though i tend to much prefer dark. ;) ). i don't care if he works out or has pectoral muscles or anything. athletics annoy me. in fact, i have trouble identifying with guys who are too athletic. as long as he doesn't smell bad (i know some that do), and doesn't wear a dew-rag and poor harlem regalia i'm fine. i think most people, particularly men, are too obsessed with what their boyfriend or girlfriend looks like.

8. isn't a womanizer. i guess that could be included in point six, but i have to make it to ten. some guys call themselves "leg and ass men" and i think that's absolutely disgusting. of course, i'm not an anorexic slut, so i don't appeal to that kind of man. :) no anger here!

9. isn't politically correct. i hate pc. it unfairly hurts people and robs them of their artistry.

10. is opinionated. i like men who know what they want. eww, not that way. i mean, someone who can tell me "i love this author" or painter or musician or composer or something! people who "like everything" are faking it. i need somebody with conviction.

so, there's my list. i feel too picky. i really don't mean to be. if there's any guy out there who actually likes me, even as a friend, from reading the ridiculous, needy shit i write here, please contact me! gkogut@uni.uiuc.edu. geez, i'm selling myself to someone i don't know! i hate my life! this is actually cheering me up. all i want really is a nice, artistic guy who likes to talk a lot and take me to a concert or art museum or something like that. making ten points is too much. of course that isn't really the sentence because my subject in a gerand. oh, fuck it. the only really, really important points on the list are 1-3 and 6. the sentence "all i really want is a nice..." summarizes those points, so it's not so scary after all.

moving on. what did i do yesterday? well, after being very sick in the morning i went to confirmation class. i was tired, but decided to go since i have no real obligations this weekend. i'm glad i went. at first it was annoying; the rabbi talked about stem cells a lot and i felt like going to sleep. there were no bagels and that upset me. then we read our paragraphs. my first one is about the book we had to read, alan dershowitz's (you know, the clever harvard professor who helped get o.j. off the hook) the case for israel. most people are stupid enough to say the book is "one-sided" but it is supposed to be. you don't sympathize with your enemy in an argument. this "love thy enemy" stuff is way out of hand. i think christian ideals have pervaded our culture, so jews, who tend to be free, intellectual thinkers, adhere to some of their beliefs because they make sense to our society as a whole. political correctness: you're not supposed to be biased toward anyone. we were talking about stem cells and most people seemed to adhere to the catholic view that the blastocyst is a human being. then i said that i don't think the child is a human until the umbilical cord is cut and it is a separate entity from the mother. i thought some people would be outraged, but everyone who spoke after me seemed to agree, at least a little bit. dorothy and pam went with the "authority of science" by saying "during the first trimester" but it was i who pointed out that that trimester is arbitrary, that the culture of the scientist caused him to chose that division and that that is as unsure as anything else. the rabbi agreed and re-stated the point later when dorothy refused to listen. i think he's glad i made it. i felt quite clever, myself. ;) anyway, the rabbi especially enjoyed my response to the confirmation trip because i wrote such an eccentric, yet moving piece. he said "charming", too, which is a word i wouldn't use to describe it, but that's ok. i responded to the hassidic jew who told us that he doesn't believe in evolution because man is too divine to come from animals. instead of disagreeing as most kids would, i said that his view gives me faith in my divinity as a human being, that i am meaningful to god and am not just going through my arduous daily routine as some sort of sophisticated ape. to prove to any readers that i'm not as dumb as i often act here, i think i'll post my paragraphs.

Response to The Case for Israel
Gabriela L. Kogut

Is peace possible in the Middle East? Alan Dershowitz, in his book The Case for Israel is very negative on the subject because the Palestinians have acted so unfairly to the Isralis throughout history. I deeply enjoyed reading The Case For Israel because Dershowitz includes so much useful and unbiased information about the history of Israel so that I can use that history in my arguments for Israel and refute arguments I commonly hear against Israel. Dershowitz eloquently expresses how the Palestinian terrorists exploit the double-standard against Israel by committing terrorist acts and counting on other countries to admonish Israel for over-reacting instead of admonishing the Palestinians who provoked the attacks in the first place. Many people, including some of my Confirmation classmates, believe that “Israel doesn’t work,” that Palestine should annex Israel because that will prevent all of the violence that has been occurring. I adamantly disagree. If Palestinian terrorists triumph by violence, they will become more violent to get what they want, not less. Osama bin Laden caused the Twin Towers to be decimated on September 11th, 2001; should the United States then say that “America doesn’t work” and let Muslim extremists annex them, too? And if they were able to annex the most powerful country in the world, couldn’t they continue to annex other countries at their will? Preserving Israel as a state is not only the protection of the Jewish homeland, but the symbolic protection of individual liberties. America must help Palestine find and elect a moderate leader who believes in liberty and compromise so that he can negotiate for peace with Ariel Sharon without refusing to make any settlement as Yassur Arafat refused at Taba in 2000. The Palestinian people are fair and rational, but throughout history these people have had the misfortune of being governed by cruel, extreme leaders who have used terrorism successfully against the state of Israel, from the Grand Mufti of the 1940s to Yassur Arafat of today. As soon as Palestinians are not oppressed in their own country Israel will not be oppressed either. Of course terrorist groups will try to assassinate the moderate leader and could very well be successful; Dershowitz proposes a two-state solution, but points out that these extremists will not accept one. No solution will work perfectly, or even work at all, but a strong, moderate political organization in Palestine must exist and must opt for peace.

Response to the Confirmation Trip

During the Confirmation Trip in Chicago, we went to the house of one of the Hassidic Jews at Temple Ben Ruven. He spoke with us about his beliefs and the question of evolution came up. He said that the Lubovich community does not believe in evolution because humans have been made in God’s image; they are too divine to merely come from animals. As a teenager who had studied biology in school, I have been struck by what seems to be the futility of existence: the apes, hairy animals without the capacity for speech save any intellectual or artistic endeavors, roamed the earth and gradually became the humans who roam the earth now, searching for meaning as the apes once searched for food. I go to school five days a week and take six classes each day. After the bell rings for one class, I have five minutes to scurry to the next one so I don’t receive a “tardy” which eventually results in loss of privileges. But the Lubovich community told me that people can be more than apes who search for food, than cattle that are herded from field to field, that my existence is meaningful in the eyes of god and that no matter what my tedious duties and unfortunate failures are on earth I am connected to a powerful and merciful being who cares about me. I feel too young and unknowledgeable to understand either the mysteries of evolution or the mysteries of God, but I do know that I deeply admire the devoutness of the Hassidim and that there is something divine about human existence. I think that it is more meaningful to connect with what is beautiful and divine in the world than to put all faith in scientific fact.

the last one is kinda poetic. yay! after that dad took me to asiana for lunch. i got a beef don which is pretty healthy for asian food. it's beef, egg, vegetables and rice with a little sweet sauce on the rice. then i went to sarah's house to prepare for our agora class. sarah's so quiet. we did some stuff. we chose all the handouts which was good, but we don't know how to begin our own mockumentary which is a bit of a problem. i'm sure allison will help us. we saw "girl with a pearl earring" and the movie is much better the second time. it really is necessary to have so much tension. it is necessary for the viewer to get annoyed. art is about much more than entertainment. i had a much better idea of exactly what i was in for this time, so i was more impressed by the beautiful cinematography and johansson's subtle acting. she's amazingly good at being nervous. strange compliment, yes. i like her. in fact, i want to rent ghost world. i envy her, too. i'm stuck at this stupid school, my mind reeling too much from trauma and neuroses to do anything worthwhile while miss scarlett's off acting in good movies. grrrr. my day shall come, though not as an actress.

this morning i ordered three cd's on dad's amazon account. i got martha argerich playing gaspard de la nuit because that's a cool piece, especially ondine. ondine is amazing. it sounds like a mermaid! ravel's portrayal of an atmosphere in that movement alone is as good as beethoven's pastoral or vivaldi's four seasons. yes, i'm eccentric. i think so. it's a more exciting, more modern, more erotic atmosphere which is what really sets it apart, what really gives it its greatness. the beethoven and vivaldi are innocent, bright and beautiful, with lush melodies and some exciting storms, but ondine is dying, is being swept up by the waves. it reminds me of: "we have lingered in the chambers of the sea/ with sea-girls wreathed in sea-weed red and brown / till human voices wake us and we drown."

i have to go get dressed for my make-up french literature lesson. i can't wait to show her what i did with "l'albatros"!!!

2004-02-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

splendor in the grass, glory in the flower

after some depression, yesterday turned out to be pretty fun. i went to lunch with mom and dad at friday's. i had already eaten while watching the end of "mr smith goes to washington" on tcm's 31 days of oscar. it's a fun movie, especially considering the fact that i normally hate frank capra. but jimmy stewart is fantastic. my dad and i got into a long conversation about filibusters. i read some wordsworth and thought about "splendor in the grass". he says "grive not", but his whole poem is about grieving. i think he tries to comfort himself in vain. the last line ends with "..too deep for tears" making us think of sadness when he means that the flowers bring him great happy emotion. he implies he is sad over what he has lost, that we may need to "grieve not" but that is impossible. i enjoy reading the poem this way because i feel it is impossible to put certain sadnesses behind us because there has past a "glory from the earth". it reminds me of sartre "cahiers pour une morale" where he explains that when we're sick we need to change our priorities to still thrive, but we our illness forces us to do that, so we are condemned to be free. we don't want to change. the predicament is unfair. we're forced to be content with what we cannot be content with. in a sense this is society's fault because society teaches us to have ambition, but also emprisons us. and there is the root of madame bovary's problem. my story centers on this problem of longing but since my main character is trivial to be faithful to emma i don't know how to convey all of my ideas. i can't make characters say what is too sophisticated for them, but some things must be said so the story isn't miscontrued. i don't think flaubert said enough.

well, i feel better knowing that my artistic faculties still work despite all the shit in my life and the fact that i haven't been reading. i need to read more but sometimes that's hard because school takes away my energy and all i want to do is play bubble trouble or watch mtv. i should watch tcm more often. it's really unfortunate that tcm's best month occured during my worst. i've hardly watched. i just can't have more energy than i have. my parents tell me i shouldn't feel so guilty, but i value hard work and discipline so much that it's hard not to. sometimes i need to get out to the theater or dinner or a movie or shopping but there's so little here. when i read i feel such a strong desire to be living, to be somewhere doing something with someone interesting. my friends hardly care about my exploits. it hurts my feelings. midwest idiots.

mom did take me shopping yesterday after lunch and that was fun. i was looking for green tennis shoes because i own red, blue, and purple, but instead i found camel colored dress shoes that were on sale! fantastic! they're amazingly beautiful. the heel's pretty small, so i get elevated without having trouble balancing. i'm a little scared of big heels or big platforms. i also got a gorgeous new pair of black pants and found a black shirt with white stripes that looks stunning on me! woohoo! you could die i look so good. i've never looked better in anything in my life. the pants need to be shortened, but i will wear my new shoes to confirmation class because the class is full of stupid pieces of shit who have no sympathy for israel and are obnoxious pricks.

after shopping we went to a concert. there was a pre=concert in the lobby. both machalas are very sullen when they play and lack expression, artistry. the brahms was complete crap, but the virtuoso pieces were pretty good. at the concert they played a horrible modern piece called "tilt" that was absolutely ridiculous. then the russian guest cellist played kol nidre and rococco variations. not bad, but not stunning. the rococco was a little fast. he looked down which really took away from the performance. i don't like going to music concerts much, unless i'm with boys who are interested in me. otherwise the pretentious shit annoys me too much. but mom wanted me to go with her and i did get to say hi to martin and rachel. after that i watched an iron chef pear and chocolate battle before going to bed. one of the commentators said that the white chocolate was like a woman curtseying to a man and the dark chocolate was like a man bowing to a woman, so when my mom made some butterscotch pudding i told her it was like a man masturbating and she cracked up. i didn't eat the pudding, but my mom said the milk in it was spoiled.

my throat has been really sore. i took some tylenol which will make me groggy and is already working, but i have to get ready to go in a half hour. i want to watch the movie "splendor in the grass" to see how they interpret the wordsworth and probably disagree. besides, warren beaty is incredibly handsome. ;)

2004-02-13T21:47:00.000-08:00

till human voices wake us and we drown

well here i am. the night before valentine's day. friday the thirteenth wasn't really unlucky.
first period -- we finished watching matewan in history class. i didn't really enjoy the movie. that danny's got a retarded mouth. i looked him up. it's will oldham who is in a band called "palace" now. he looks much better. i guess his face grew so his mouth isn't as out-of-proportion.
second period -- i'm really getting tired of weightlifting. it's so dull. i talked to rachel a lot who also didn't want to work.
third period -- free! i ate lunch. studied trig identities. ms. suslick liked my valentine's day attire and says she owns a monet bag like mine she also got at the art institute. a few years ago we had the same pair of shoes. ahh! she likes me which i find to be very amusing since she's an english teacher with a reputation for being superficial. the first thing i thought was, "that'll change." but after everything with linder i've really run out of steam. rayburn's decent enough and kind enough so that i don't have to fight with him, even when he does get threatened. i'm annoyed that he couldn't appreciate my tragedy paper, but we both enjoy emerson and thoreau.
fourth period -- we're supposed to make a resistance journal/newspaper. kris and i are doing a mock "dear abby" called "chere marianne." it's sadistic and fucked up. especially for a jew. some horrible jew stereotype jokes also. i'll translate what we wrote for your displeasure:
dear marianne,

i want to join the resistance but my husband is a nazi. what do i do?

confused in paris

dear confused,

why did you marry that idiot? you should take a hook, cut open his stomach and shove his entrails down his throat.

wait, it gets worse!

dear marianne,

i'm hiding some jews, the steinblooms. they're really obnoxious, loud and smell bad. they ate 200 pounds of corned beef. their children killed mine and laughed. what should i do? should i turn them in?

upset in lyon

dear upset,

you are an ethnocentrist. you clearly are not embracing jewish culture. your children were obnoxious and deserved to be shot. you better be nice to adam steinbloom because he's my lawyer.

sincerely, marianne.

is that bad or what?

fifth period: english test. we had to write a letter to the author of an essay and talk about the essay. i did "self-reliance." during third hour and french i wrote post-it notes and studied so i knew what to say. i certainly was detailed. i'm sure it went very well. i was ranting in french class about how dumb it was to write a letter instead of a serious essay. i actually enjoyed doing it as a letter and felt like a hypocrite but 1) a made some valid points and 2) "a foolish consistencyi s the hobgoblin of small minds" -- ralph waldo emerson, "self-reliance". haha!

sixth period: math quiz. i might have confused the sign in one place and i forgot two formulas, so not great. don't give a fuck. class was boring. she gave homework over agora days. bitchbitchbitchbithbitch.

seventh period: we started researching our countries in anthro. i'm doing brazil. we heard really strange music. most notably, i got an a+ on our first exam! he put a plus there and wrote "good" in two places! also, i got a 94 on the history test!

then i went home, watched dr. phil, ate too much, felt bored and eventually got to blogging this. i've been looking at actors on imdb, mostly to find some good ones for my nonexistent book. i found three girls and two guys i'm interested in. i know who i want the girls to play, but i'm not sure at all with the guys. i've been casting teachers, too. i'v ebeen really upset this week. jockusch claimed i had a tenth tardy and morris won't meet with me. i have a 65 in math after a 52 on the last test. oy vey. i just feel like such shit now. i want to put on my new guess shoes. at least i'm wearing pretty, comfortable pajamas with snowflakes on the pants! i don't want to write about how depressed i am. i cut my left ankle four times last night. one incision was deep. they're too thin. they don't look as pretty as they could. i could always rectify that, though. i'm just amazed i got through the week, and even with a few good grades! go me! i still feel horrible. i don't feel like finishing the last post, reading, bathing, dieting, doing homework, anything that's good for me. and going on walks and listening to music and watching tv makes me feel horrible. through tv i lose my identity. i see who i'm not and what i don't have. then i feel pathetic. all i do is long for something more and i'll never get it. i live in this dream world i'll never have. i dream about talking to the actresses i want in my nonexistent book. dreaming is good but i'm so lost. i can't do anything. i feel so chained in. it chains my mind in and i can't bring myself to be productive. i'm going to try to get over that. later.

well, i've done this pathetic blog for long enough. thought i'd zone out with tv again, take a bath, listen to music, maybe work on my outline. i need to get away. what i really need is a social network. i'm so annoyed only two of my friends signed up for "the mockumentary mystique" and hardly give a shit about moeuf which i didn't have tonight and which i'm really behind on. it's almost gone. i have to raise it from the dead. my parents help me, but there's this incredible sadness that's seeping into my blood.

2004-02-08T09:19:00.000-08:00

tout est prevu

so, it's been awhile. january was ok, but february sucks. i'm too drained to enjoy the 31 days of oscar. that's right, we're on day 8 and i haven't watched a single movie. i did go on the confirmation trip. that was mostly fun. i drove up with the uni sophomores. i realized that i like noam a lot. she's quirky and fun. we kept joking during services. i like rachel a lot, too, even though she's so perfect academically and goes to bed at 9 every night. she's 15. that's right. i want to bury my head in my hands, too, but don't worry, if i do that i still have a face. i am in hell though. speaking of my corny references this morning, i've started reading "huis clos" with claudine. we're reading it once so i know the plot and then we'll do an in-depth reading to understand the philosophy. we read the first 40 pages last thursday. for homework i was to reread them and write a summary. i did that yesterday. when you know they're actually in hell, it's pretty funny. "i prefer to call us 'absent'... it's hot in here! ... what ugly curtains!" i always love the superficial one. that reminds me of an extremely stylish comment. it could be called "superficial" but only by pessimistic idiots. i was feeling depressed at the beginning of anthro on friday because my day sucked and lauri, who sits at the table near mine, asked me how i was. so, as you can tell from things i've written, i started mobidly referencing existentialism. i told her i was going to live in a crappy flat and seduce male prostitutes with cliches, an "underground woman." immediately she said, "but why a crappy flat? i don't mind the second part, but don't you want a nice house?" haha! i then said, "well, it would be a visual manifestation of my inner turmoil" to which she replied "yeah, but you could have a crappy basement and a nice house." is that hysterical or what? that's just so perfect! i can describe its goodness, its emphasis on good values. *good* values.

so, confirmation trip. i also learned that i dislike emma's mom because she's pragmatic and annoying and is frightened by the way i hate practically every teacher at uni high. but i already knew all that. though emma annoyed me in 6th grade she was ok on the trip, even fun when we went to the bagel together, but i'll get to that. everybody wanted to get along on the trip because we were all together for three days and won't have to do it again. ever. i *really* dislike fred. she is neurotic, obnoxious and annoying. i can't explain all of her pathetic habits, but here's a perfect example. it was really cold up there. whenever we got in the van instead of letting us close the door she would tap each of her feet twice over the entrance of the van to get the snow off of them even though the snow would melt in the car. she had to do that nasty tapping thing. it drove me mad! that evening we went to a reform service. the cantor sang like a mezzo-soprano doing her aria. it reminded me of an episode of the nanny i had seen that morning at pam and dawn's house before we left to the temple. (their mom picked me up from sarah's house where i had been staying). there was this new cantor, gary isaacs, and he sang like he was on broadway and everyone applauded at the end. that show is so funny because it's all very true. it reminded me of my friend's bat mitzvah a few years ago. anyway this temple had a "brotherhood" and we kept making fun of it. as it turned out they had a "sisterhood" too that funded blooddrives. it was so ridiculous noam and i couldn't control our laughter! at the hotel i was with pam, dawn and dorothy. i had been talking to pam at the spertus museum about doing weed. i'm her dorian gray and she's my lord harry. she's so much fun. i adore decadent types. when i was depressed in math yesterday i wrote in my notebook "i want to do weed. i'll call pam." and "manechewitz (that's all we have) + coke = happiness". but i didn't actually get drunk. i've been coping with a lot of my neurotic problems this weekend and i think i'm feeling better. what i do know is that in bad environments like this the problem doesn't go away, you just have to somehow get through the days.

i would love to stay and chat, but i'm going to be late to confirmation class and i have to show off my brilliant "paragraph" (i.e. page) about israel for the confirmation packet.

2004-01-17T22:24:00.000-08:00

he sings rigoletto under a black stiletto

what an amazing vacation. i feel bad that it's over, but it's beauty lingers. i certainly bought plenty of clothes to remember it by. ;) robin still hasn't emailed back, but she must be busy. i emailed her last monday.

so, mom and i went up to chicago on friday morning after she nagged me about a bunch of stuff. i no longer mind the 3 hour drive there and back. i don't feel like i have to do anything productive in the car anymore, so i don't feel guilty that i just sit there and listen to music. i was completely relaxing, although i was feeling bad about things. i always do. i've learned that misery isn't all that miserable. you feel a little bad, it goes away, and then you feel better. as baudelaire and camus both imply in different ways, it's ennui that is true misery. lack of pain is pain. what a fantastic paradox! i feel my intellectual self re-emerging since it's not wasted on physics problems anymore.

we stopped at manhattan monee and ate at subway, as usual. yum. subway is a great cheap restaurant because it's healthy and the food is fresh, but then people go there and put fattening sauces and cheese on low-calorie, tasty food! all you need is onion for a little flavor. we got to chicago earlier than we'd expected, 12:30. we went to northbrook court which was absolutely gorgeous. we made friends with a fun jewish lady at "body works" who gave me free samples of white musk and oceanus lotion i have in my coat pockets. oceanus is light blue and really smells like the ocean! it's wonderful! then we went to "le bouquet" a french shop specializing in beautiful false flower arrangements, candles, stationery, wreaths, overall very high-quality decorative items. the korean woman who ran the store was extremely friendly, interesting and cosmopolitan. she's from korea as i said, but went to tufts and harvard, lived in paris, was married to a diplomat, and just remarried. she speaks fluent french. my mother's french impressed her. i was too shy to say anything. she said that i looked like a very good student. where do people get this from? i'm wearing a nice pink sweater and am polite, so i get straight a's? what the fuck?! the assumptions people make! my mom's friend's son is flunking his freshman year, but he's very smart. i think he's not working up to potential, but i don't think he's completely lazy either. hmmm. we bought me some gorgeous stuff: a black shirt, a colorful overshirt that says 'love' in many languages (but it's not corny, don't worry), a fantastic red sweater, a flowery shirt and matching floor-length skirt (strictly formal). yay! we went to lord and taylor, neiman marcus, marshall fields, and more! i got sarah a present. i'm staying at her house a week from wednesday until friday because mom will be rehearsing for a concert in chicago and dad will be at a physics conference in washington d.c. for dinner, mom and i met her friend cathy for dinner at the cheesecake factory. we split a delcious herb roasted chicken and caesar salad. i actually didn't eat any cheesecake. i was shockingly dietetic for most of the trip. cathy liked my thank-you note (she got me impressionist videos for my birthday) and was very nice to talk to. she loved my idea for an art exhibit and said i should write it down, so i will. i kept having confidence crises yesterday; i kept thinking i looked fat and horrible. it just happens sometimes. i used to think anorexia was ridiculous because you can see the way you look and no psychology can make you look fat when you're not. actually, it's amazing how different you can look to yourself depending on your mood. your appearance seems like an objective thing because anyone can see it, but you can see it through such a strong, distorted filter that it something as clear as the body becomes subjective.

i felt better saturday. friday night i did a practice sat ii. i was supposed to only do part a for claudine, but i did the entire thing, parts a through d. part c is always the hardest. the passages in part d were surprisingly short. it was lots of fun. i got lazy this morning; i watched tv. rhythmic gymnastics was on. i get sick of homework. i got ahead in history readings at the music institute of chicago when mom was teaching. it was fun to see aviva again. i laughed during her lesson because mom was acting so weird. she was stamping her foot on the ground and grunting really loud repeatedly. it was insane. i think aviva's mom thought i was laughing at her, but i really wasn't at all. shy people always misinterpret, the bastards. mom and i lunched at cafe central, a miraculous (yes, miraculous) french bistro. their soup a l'oignon is to die for! the onion is sweet and it has some apple slices on top! the cheese is perfectly cooked on top; it's a little bit crunchy because the top is baked. wow! i also got a baguette with poached chicken, zucchini, squash, cheese and pesto that was wonderful. after lunch we went shopping. "pieces" has lots of gorgeous home accessories. after mom finished teaching (that was before) we went to old orchard one final time. we went to swatch and i bought a beautiful watch! the design is very chic, resembling modern art. it consists of many circles and squares outside of them. there is a line down the middle of each circle and different colors on opposite sides of each circle and on each side of the squares. the colors are: black, white, light blue, darker blue, olive green and some beige. it really looks great; i can't wait to wear it at school! i can play with it during math class. mom and i bought a 100 dollar vertical blue cd player at sharper image. it's very cheap for such modern technology. it had a great cd in it, which we also bought, "new sirens of song, sultry singers". it's nice to have something relaxing and not classical. we split a kosher hot dog plate and matzah ball soup at the bagel for dinner. their pickes are especially good! we ate cheesecake and listened to sultry singing on the car drive home! mmmmmm, sensual bliss! sometimes talking to mom is annoying because she can't comprehend the complexity of all of my points. i don't mean to be arrogant, she's just more involved in musical beauty that can't be so scrupulously described and analyzed. she's just different, that's all. i consider that sort of thing to be inferior, but it's just my opinion. and i'm right. ;) but i know what to expect from her. dad's a more patient listener and with his philosophy minor background and interest in film i feel like he knows what i mean. he can't always articulate what he wants to, but i know we're on the same page. o, at lunch mom remembered to tell me that i ended up getting a b- in intro physics for the entire semester! waaahhhh! woohoo! i feel like god is spiting me, though, because i got so stressed over nothing. "you see you little neurotic bitch, you didn't have to worry about anything." but i'm basically happy. as mom said, my c in math looks more like an aberration now, not like a typical grade. (i got an a in math last year and a b before that). i had 77 in math, so dad is very optimistic that i can raise that 3 points and get a b. it's possible in theory, but it ain't happening, especially after last week's test. :(

so now i'm home. i have to do some trig, an anthropology reading and paper, look up stuff on sartre for claudine, practice, read "the case for israel" for confirmation class, and read two arthur miller essays on the nature of tragedy. that's actually very light because most of it won't be difficult or terribly time consuming and i have no exams next week! no weekly physics quizzes! i quit while i was ahead; good for me. daddy still wants to talk to carrubba, but that's good. he won't be too mean, he'll just be makign suggestions. he can be mean to jockusch and he loses his temper around her. claudine and her husband are coming to dinner monday, so mom is going to get cooking supplies today. she's got a great dinner prepared. i feel pretty good right now. things are going better and i have two more days of fun. i'll miss chicago, but it was so nice and i'll be back in two weeks over confirmation trip! i'm sure rachel kaplan and i will stick together up there. we're pretty good friends now that we chat in p.e. together and i think we prefer each other to our alternatives. both of us are bummed out with dorothy's mediocre pompous shit, but she may want to join us and that would be ok. life's looking up! too busy, but better. and it'll become better as i settle into it. new trier has first semester finals this coming week! poor them! ahhh!

but o miss lucy, dear miss lucy, he still belongs to me!

2004-01-15T21:06:00.000-08:00

it sucks being traumatized, but the rock's a little lighter

god it's been 11 days! incredibly eventful days! i think i'll summarize the important shit:

1. stressed out horribly over my physics final because i genuinely didn't think i'd get any problems right. not a single one. therefore, actually taking the exam was a relief. carrubba gave me some extra density problems, so i got the two density problems right on the second half of the test with no trouble, but other than that he was stupid and annoying as usual. he's such a lazy, moronic freak. i'm so glad he's out of my life. little bastard. *controls fist of death* studied so much i got behind on math homework which really sucked. had to do 4 assignments last weekend.

2. the physics finals weren't too too bad. 18/36 on the first one, 24/40 on the second and that's pretty good for me, god dammit. i thought i'd have no more than 2 points on each, so i'm impressed. i got 8/40 on my midterm, so you never know.

3. missed school on wednesday of last week. mom took me shopping because as a "senior" (age 55) she got a discount. got a gorgeous black and white sweater with the white collar and sleeves sticking out, some sweaters from the limited and a nice pair of white-ish pants. twas good. then i studied and cried again.

4. missed the history test that day, so i made it up tuesday 8th period. the essay question was fucked up. i don't think i did well, but i didn't look at it.

5. took a math quiz monday. that trauma is freshest in my mind. i felt like things were turning up, but i flunked and don't know why. i got really upset and went to see her. she was supportive, but blamed me in her nasty goyish way. bitch. i feel so much rage right now. god dammit. i hate her. i sobbed over the test on wednesday, feeling the old first semester futility creep back. i really had a breakdown. i rarely sob like *that*. sobbed at school, too. i probably fucked up, but i was able to take the test and it ended.

6. the weekend before that i was depressed. physics was over and i made a c, but i didn't feel my life improving. after crying saturday morning, dad wanted me to drive us to panera. i'm too neurotic to ever get my license. i wrecked our car. we have a rental. i was getting too close to the car in front of us when i was trying to change lanes and i pressed the accelerator by mistake. i only got a pretty bruise on my right knee. i fuck up everything. dad was pretty nice about it.

7. things have improved my leaps and bounds. only one evil, class and a glorious free hour in the morning! robin emailed me. she was nice and smart and artistic and helpful, but also arrogant, pedantic, conventional and moralizing. it's funny that you can be arrogant by telling someone not to be arrogant. that's true arrogance. but i can appreciate her good side, so i really enjoyed her email and replied to it. i'm planning on putting pictures of my family inside my locker. homework's not so unbearable. it was nice seeing samir again. i have to work on practicing. i have such a mental block when it comes to music, so that can be really hard for me, but as life improves that improves too. i did my first successful 2 day juice in practically a semester! i've been dieting well the last four days. i read about modernism and surrealism in the exhibit book from the phillips gallery and started "the case for israel" by alan derschowitz for confirmation class.

8. first semester left scars. i'm not naturally as confident anymore. since i'm dieting i'm not worrying much about how horribly fat i am, i'm worrying about clothes. that's really odd because i have such nice clothes, but they're not conventionally nice, they're not what most guys would go for even though they're pretty and suit certain areas very well. i don't have conventional good looks. that's good, but it makes me feel left out. as we discussed in history, you resent but always long for the in crowd. i worry that certain people look better than i do. being short is difficult because the fat doesn't have many places to go. i'm compact. everybody else is taller than i am. that is my greatest worry right now, but it's not serious.

9. it's a four day weekend and i'm going to chicago! i'll do some work there and the rest on sunday and monday when i'm back home. woohoo! mom and i are going to go shopping and to movies and maybe the art institute again, etc. but there's still a way i always doubt myself, always feel like i'm failing. it sucks being traumatized. the only trouble with this chicago plan is that it makes me significantly less productive. i won't be able to practice much piano. i've been lazy last night and tonight because the math test ended and i'm still recuperating from "first semester residue." i've made significant progress, but i can't come right away. i'm doing what i can, (i now *detest* the phrase "i try my best" because 'best' is meaningless) but i'm limited in this environment. i'm making due and that's great. i'm sisyphus, pushing that rock up the hill, no matter how many times it falls down. these days, the rock is a little bit lighter. chicago's worth it and more! woohoo!

it's funny to look back on it. it makes me feel forlorn. (that won't last, neil simon's classic comedy 'murder by death' is coming on tcm in 11 minutes. i've been looking forward to it all day!) i can't remember specific incidents anymore, but i do recall the cumulative, overwhelming sadness of the worst time in my life so far. it wasn't worth it, but i still learned from it. it wasn't all bad, but i won't give it more credit than it deserves. it hurt me. i used to be so involved in it and now it's basically over. my humor and zeal are returning. life will just get better from here.

now i'll write about what i did today.
history: took notez. wuz fun. didn't look at test.
pe: ran a lot. it sucked. i was the slowest again, but i got through it pretty well.
free period: took my time healing from fitness. i especially enjoy washing my face and brushing my hair. i always see people going to third hour p.e., showing how long i spend in the locker rooms. alex and emily sha seem to linger too. i'm not sure if they're free, but so many people are free third hour. i had procrastinated, but i answered all the questions for claudine on "le dormeur du val." dumb poem. we argued about it. clever, but i'm sick of pacifist propaganda. i need something with some substance, like baudelaire. and he's as great when he's uplifting as when he's depressing. nothing is more beautiful than "elevation". claudine says i'll prefer rimbaud's "voyelle", so we'll try it. brad found me and starting talking to me about lots of shit. it was boring, but since i no longer have the desire to be polite to him i just answered him dutifully, let him bloviate and did my french. i sensed that he was searching for my approval again, especially since i yelled at him twice in physics. still don't like the little runt with no ass.
french: did annoying research on the free and occupied zones of the german occupation. it was really hard to find shit. it was really annoying. i was really cranky because the pathetic class makes me that way.
english: discussed death of a salesman again. nothing really eventful. it's the best play and the best treatment of a play i've had yet in a high school class, and though the play is good i think it's simple. it doesn't ask the reader to stretch her perceptions, to change with the characters. it wants us to be jugmental, it yearns for that in the exaggerated and deranged willy loman. i think it's funny that blanche dubois had the same struggle between reality and illusion, but i find her sympathetic and him deplorable. she has a nobility in her character and he is just a failed businessman.
math: started trig shit. boring.
anthropology: spoke to a guest, bennett singer, editor of time magazine's education supplement or something like that, does documentaries. it was ok.
i really want to find the grey pants i got at lerner. i've seen some nice ones around so i want to wear my own!

i did little after school. i watched dr phil and oprah, went to claudine, talked to mom, ate a lean cuisine, watched the nanny (so funny!), went to best buy for a new discman (yellow!), ran/walked outside to "brasiliero", called tiff n betsy telling them moeuf is cancelled, blogged. i should pack and bathe. i think i'll stay up late. strawberry champagne is really good! if i want to get drunk, i could. yum! it just occured to me that for sins of emma louise should always look forward to movies or something and then she never watches them. it's only the anticipation. and then the next day she has forgotten about what she looked forward to. maldon thinks it's stupid. i'm not being articulate now. i'm so weak, permanently.

2004-01-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

as meursault walks to the executioner...

i really should have posted sooner, but at the art museum i had a revelation! well, technically i didn't because dad suggested it to me, but it was wonderful just the same! he suggested that i become a curator! what could be more fun? you get to study, write about and make exhibits about the great artists of the world. not only that, you make money and get an artistic circle for being in an artistic profession, a circle i can use when pursuing literature. plus, baudelaire was an art critic so it's perfect! wahahahaha! i even thought of an idea for an exhibit (i would specialize in french art because i would double major in french lit. and my french is pretty good): french authors reacting to french artists, or reacting to artists in general, and this would shed light on both the authors and artists. proust loved chardin, baudelaire writes many poems on certain artists but i don't get know details, and i know that sartre has a bunch of stuff, too. so now i'm going to try to read more history books. mom also suggested to me that someone needs to make a kids art tour that isn't condescending like the one to the bonnard exhibit was last year. that would be very difficult to do because when talking about art you don't want to alienate the kids, but you don't want to condescend to them. you can't lower art, that's what society keeps trying to do. that's why yo-yo ma is evil. he does all this pathetic politically correct crap. anyway i think that my sensitive way of interpreting both literature and art would make me a great addition to the field. when i got home i watched the impressionist and post-impressionist videos kathy cole (mom's friend in chicago) gave me for my birthday. they were very good, but the commentators were a little dull. even when they spoke well they lacked charisma and i think i'm strangely charismatic in my little way. ;) one woman, anne higonnet i think was the name, was the best but had a really odd mouth that moved in funny directions when she talked. one woman had an annoying lisp. john house was in the video which was wonderful because he wrote an article i read last year called "renoir's worlds" that was wonderful. i used it for my french iii presentation on renoir that was so good that skeptical mr garvey had to admit he liked it. wahaha! i am going to incorporate art history into my extracurricular curriculum, or the stuff i manage to do when i'm not doing homework. i have to wean myself from cheap tv. i want to finish the book i got at phillips. i'm busy annoying ariel on aim currently.

so, as soon as i got home i watched the ball drop, which is 11 o'clock central time, and then went to bed. i watched tv, played bubble trouble and treasure cove on the computer, saw a funny southpark episode, and was very lazy and horrible. i went to cold mountain, the movie. it was pretty good, though the development of perfect selfless belle ava and silent noble warrior inman was incredibly lacking. renee zellwegger was the highlight of the movie as sassy yet sensitive ruby. too much carnage, though. the last samurai erred in that direction, too, but that was a more complex and interesting movie. cruise acted better than his ex. i became desperately upset about my life and ran 7 times around the block with no music. that was good. i organized my school supplies. dad took me to illini union, but wouldn't let me buy the leather folders because they were 20 dollars and i needed 4 of them, so i got plastic which, though i'm incredibly disappointed, are still pretty nice. i got a translucent blue pencil case. i organized my room today which was actually pretty fun. yesterday sarah and i catched selected scenes of the 4 mockumentaries we're doing for our agora class and chose what we'd show from each movie. that was pretty exciting. today i watched the secret life of walter mitty and pillow talk on tcm. streetcar is playing on friday at 11. mom wanted me to tell her about it, so i did and told her about my tragedy paper and we looked at it and talked about how he didn't appreciate it n stuff. he misspelled leery as leary, like dennis leary. so that was fun. i was up until four last night being nervous. i thought about college applications, how my life sucked, and how to deal with all of it, so it was very healing to be walking around my house that late.

when i look back on it, i think i had a very good break that gave me lots of ideas and helped me clear my mind and put things into perspective. things seem horrible when i'm in the middle of them, for the most part. i was miserable in oregon and wanted to be home, but i had plenty of good times, too. we only feel the bad times but remember the good ones. that's interesting. i know that the most depressing part of break was not my great-aunt's death but rather the sudden end of a television series i deeply enjoyed. it had only 10 episodes. i didn't like it because it was any good, it was just a release somehow. it certainly wasn't as cheap as most tv shows and i made some societal observations from watching it. what began as a decadent pleasure became something interesting and even fulfilling. it was just such an escape. i really enjoyed it and now it's all over. i never saw one of the episodes, though. it might replay, but it's not the same. i still miss bravo's "the restaurant" which was a lot of fun. i also really enjoyed bravo's show on cirque du soleil "the fire within." these shows just come and go, talking of michaelangelo.

i'm looking forward to watching more southpark, queer eye, and "the apprentice". the apprentice is sort of educational because you see how these clever people manage to outwit the competition while completing almost impossible projects. those are the shows i'll allow myself and my new schedule that doesn't let me watch much tv. i hope i can catch golden girls and the nanny a little bit, too. if there's a movie on tcm i like i'll make time for it. i have to write the highlights on tcm this week. it's become a tradition with me. it makes school more bearable. i have large post it notes and i wrote the day of the week, the date and the themes on that way for monday through friday of almost every week. sometimes i forget because i'm that way. i need to email more to stay in touch with people, i emailed jesse and becky and talked to them on the phone which was a lot of fun. robin wants me to email her, of course. i think that's the only way she can talk to me without sarah intervening. i think sarah's way too controlling and generally obnoxious and that they should break up. i'm really frightened of lesbian relationships now. i like screwing betsy, but i'm a straight woman. i don't want to sleep, although i've been tired for an hour, because i'm afraid of waking up for school tomorrow. i can't believe this is the end, that i'll have to suffer again for a long time, that i'll have to remember the long, tedious days of meaningless drivel and nasty teachers. i'm looking forward to history class tomorrow, though. other than that life sucks major shit. when i cleaned my room today i realized how much art i have around me and how wonderful it is here, in my little haven. it shields me from the cruel world. it's my reality. since my series ended, this transition to school again is so much harder. i guess i'll just live through it. i sweat and bleed, but somehow remain alive.

2003-12-30T09:57:00.000-08:00

a nice dilemma we have here

well here i am. i'm pretty content now, staring at my computer screen wearing nothing but a white bath towel. it's oh so wonderful to be glabrous! (or as close to that as i get, meaning i have shaved). i'm so hairy, it's horrible. but i dunt care.

it just occured to me that sarah must have travelled somewhere because she hasn't been online and typically she's always online. but she told me she wasn't travelling. i am confused.

yesterday wasn't great. we drove to portland, then went shopping. portland's nice, but too small. i had to wear my navy blue pants with my blue sweater which was traumatic because the colors don't really go together. *faints* but it was snowy in salem so i didn't want to get my nicer pants wet. it looked nice with my yellow coat, but once at home my yellow coat i got over the summer at tj max in brookline must go to the cleaners and i must wear my mother's ugly purple raincoat. :( boohoo. i helped my dad get snow off the car before leaving the phoenix inn. i realized that i love cottage cheese with an unspeakable, animalistic passion. i also just realized that there's a huge dent in the skin on my knee because it's been leaning against the edge of the desk at which i've been typing this post. oh well.

so after i had an orgasm with my cottage cheese, fruit, and colorful cereal we left the phoenix inn in salem for portland. portland is only an hour from salem, but there was no snow there yesterday and there is no snow today. we checked in to a gorgeous hotel called "the benson." it has a beautiful christmas tree, free coffee and cookies, and lovely, old decor. mother was worried that there was too much of a german influence at the benson because one man at the concierge had a german accent, but father straightened her out.

nordstrom's wasn't great because i was suffering from my pants dilemma. after looking in the mirror i realized that my navy blue pair is too short and that they curve in at the bottom, not as much as my ugly old pants used to, but they still do. the material is also a little bit soft and doesn't hold me in well, if you know what i mean. my parents are back from breakfast and watching the hotel tear the christmas tree down, so we're going to the art museum. i've decided that i need longer, more informal pants that flare out and are a little long at the bottom and are of a harder material. i detest jeans, though. this will be my great mission when i get back home. but now i must leave you. to be continued!

btw, "a nice dilemma we have here" comes from a song from iolanthe which is a parody of something in verdi's aida.

2003-12-29T09:13:00.000-08:00

we spent yesterday afternoon with cathy. both her computer and her tv are too old for the dvd player we got her, so dad had to get our laptop from the hotel and use it there. he also had to print out our new and revised flight tickets from travelocity.com. she drew us an extremely detailed map of salem and explain her complex directions and alternate routes. mom and i tried not to laugh. then dad and i went to lancaster mall. i looked in all the shoe stores. we found a really nice calendar store with southpark magnets! there was a girl next to me in the store who started chatting with me about southpark episodes. it was fun, but she freaked me out a little bit. i feel bad i didn't have more fun with her, she just scared me a bit. i've been spacey around strangers lately. at breakfast this morning this woman asked if my blue sweater was a "christmas sweater" or something like that. it was a weird question and i was confused by her sudden desire for smalltalk with me so i said, "sure". i was also really testy on that little plane flight because the whole thing was so fucked up, but stewardesses are used to that sort of thing. dad and i ate in the food court at the mall, at "flaming wok." they served way too much, as usual, and the bourbon chicken was fatty. the noodles were ok, though. dad's sesame chicken was too sweet. i enjoyed my diet lemon snapple. i found a hot topic-esque store called "fuel" but they didn't really have cool shirts. it was just punky. they did have a black sweater that said "antihero" on it in yellow and i liked that because i always stand up for heroes or heroines in literature who aren't heroic, like prufrock or bovary (though you wouldn't really all her an antihero, i think the term isn't used with such early literature) or the underground man, but the thing was $47 and was big on me though it was a small, so i passed it up, especially after i got my dali planner, james dean calendar and southpark magnets! my mom is on the phone with my grandpa. my cousin robin, the one who was too busy worrying about her lesbian lover to talk art with me, is in the hospital. mom is saying "oh my god" a lot, but i don't know what happened. i also can't figure out if this singer is a man or a woman. i wasn't convinced it was a man but the name is "beth." it could be male since it's portuguese, but i'm not convinced. when i hear it i waver between thinking it's a man or woman. mom just said "i didn't know david and ann had cats" so i guess robin's allergic. i didn't know that.

i also felt really out of place in "fuel" because it's a punk store and i was wearing my fancy brown shoes, khaki pants, light blue french shirt and white sweater. those things, combined with my chubby cheeks make me look pretty innocent. i feel like i need a more informal look, but i can't find informal pants. most of my shirts can go either way and i have no trouble finding shoes (i found the black and pink vans i saw a girl wearing at the airport, those a great and remisicent of anouilh's black and pink plays ;) ) but only my formal pants are stylish enough these days. maybe i should go into a teenage store like gap or old navy (whose clothes i usually think are plain, but that sweater robin got me is gap) or aeropostale which has very nice shirts, but last time i was there, years ago, i hated the pants. they tend to make tighter pants than i want and for skinnier kids. we're heading off to portland and mom's getting annoyed, comme d'habitude, so i'll continue this post tonight or tomorrow morning! adieu!

2003-12-28T10:38:00.000-08:00

life unlivable and life unlived

well, last night we went to dinner with my mom's friend kathy. they both studied with starker, whose cigarette i gratefully partook of if you recall that post, though kathy was a few years ahead of my mom. then somehow kathy did less cello and got her dma with my mom teaching her at the u of i. a few years ago she contracted diabetes and didn't know it. she got a blister on her foot and somehow because of the unnoticed diabetes she had to get her leg amputated. she went to oregon to live with her mother, but her mother just died. she's an only child and never married, so she's very alone in the world. she really appreciates our visit. and boy can she talk! she has a lot of friends at the restaurant we went to, but the food was crappy. the best part was the bread and flavored butter. she likes to say "i'm bananas about" which always takes me aback. she was shockingly upbeat for all the misfortune she has suffered, but mom says that she can be shockingly depressed, too. she gets annoying after awhile and my parents keep talking about it. i wish they'd stop. mom is her friend, so she shouldn't talk so much. i'm the kid, so i'm allowed to be a little annoyed with the whole thing. for a woman who is so busy being "generous" my mom is really two-faced. she acts so nice around people and then when they turn their backs she judges them. her dad is incredibly judgmental, so it comes from him. he's worse, really. today we're having lunch with kathy, then mom is going to "talk shop" with her for the afternoon while dad and i go off together. it'll be nice to be away from mom for a little bit because we've all been getting on each other's nerves the past few days. that plane flight was excruciating.

it's strange how important everything seems at the moment it's happening, but then it just fades away. without literature, life would be nothing. but i figured something out: life only exists in dreams (not the ones we have when sleeping, the things we imagine when we're awake) and memory. everything that happens gives us ideas for our dreams, or we remember then and romanticize them. sartre said that one has to act passion before one can feel it, but i think you can only feel it and can hardly ever act it. when i'm in a social situation i'm hardly thinking. my consciousness is turned off. i think about what to say to my friends, how to make funny jokes for them, and that's all. i'm not really feeling anything. therefore, longing for something to happen is both the purest and most painful sensation that exists. it is pure because our senses are feeling the pain of not having what we want, of adoring what we are looking forward to, of imagining what it will be like. it is the most painful because we don't have it, we're close to possessing it because it is so vivid in our imaginations, but longing for something to occur is like trying to touch a ghost: you can see it in a sense, you are close to it, but it just isn't there. life is painful because there is no pain, because the truest life is the imagined life. this is essential to incorporate in sins of emma or the convent years because louise invents a life that isn't real and can't appreciate what she has because it's not real. she wants what can't exist to exist, to be tangible because she is shallow and impatient. like madame bovary, *that* is her flaw, not her insistence on pretty things, not her betrayal of her loved ones. those are society's fault because society has taught both emma and louise to admire trivial things and society prevents them from getting those things without hurting someone. both can we really only live in our dreams and memory? that is louise's true quandary. now another big problem for me is knowing where maldon fits into all this. he and louise represent opposite views of time: she hates its slow, regular procession while maldon cherishes its constancy as we see in the ridiculous jelly metaphor. i'm analyzing my own unwritten literature. what could be more fun?

and then i have to live a life of only longing. i have to live a life unlivable and a life unlived. that sounds cool, hopefully not too contrived. life unlivable is the real world and life unlived is the imaginary one. quality *must* boarder on pretension, so i'll use it somewhere, perhaps in poetry i never have the time or energy to write. i'm going to fix these things as soon as second semester starts and i'm going to count the first week back from school as second semester even though it's technically the end of first semester because otherwise i'll go insane not realizing my potential.

today i'm wearing my new blue shirt i got at nordstroms. it's about my tightest, shortest shirt. it's sexy. yum. i'm wearing it with my khaki pants, not the camel pants i wore yesterday because those are beautiful and expensive and i could stain them. tan socks, darker than yesterday's pair, and my brown shoes from nordstroms. we can see what store i like. when i enter college i am going to buy really fun, informal shoes and wear them with otherwise-formal outfits and will make my mom scream and i will get more informal pants, perhaps with big pockets. i only wear formal pants right now. i detest jeans, and all denim for that matter, and i detest the informal pants i used to wear, so i don't really have options.

i think i'll start making new years resolutions now, nothing better to do...

1) diet! i keep failing. i need to do more two day juices. i can do it! i realize more and more that i'm just always miserable and food has nothing to do with it. i could do one intensive month from jan 5 to feb 5 and see how much i'd lose. bet i could lose at least 10 pounds and that would be great!

2) more artistic stuff. i have to figure out how to manage that. and i think i have some ideas that will help.

3) less tv, especially less mtv and vh1, bad for gabby.

4) more tcm, i miss that channel! 31 days of oscar comes on in february!

5) get less stressed over schoolwork. if i'm doing more artistic stuff, school can matter less. i won't worry about my future because i'm so incredibly smart and talented and wonderful that i'll get in somewhere good. i'll just have faith that everything will turn out fine as long as i study at least a little bit, so there will be nothign to worry about. the physics final is no sweat because he'll just give me another c no matter what i get on it. for math she knows i try so i can't get less than a c. oh joy! i hate my fucking life.

6) re-decorate locker during the first week back from school to usher in second semester! i need that man ray salvador dali photo. it'll be easy to find online. i need more decoration ideas.

7) set up moeuf website! also, get on track with moeuf planning! i need somebody to help me start the website when i get home.

8) get leather folders with yellow paper pads in them for second semester! new, chic organization system should cheer me up!

9) don't get so irritable when doing math homework. the shit doesn't matter anyway. if you could do it you wouldn't be artistic and that would suck.

10) get more exercise. don't be afraid to "organize" time even though it sucks. what else can you do? you'll be happier for it, overall.

2003-12-27T17:59:00.000-08:00

continuing on...

the day after christmas was fun. since mother misplaced most of my clothes when we stopped at home before leaving to seattle, i just *had* to buy some new ones at my favorite store nordstroms! i got one pair of pants (i have 3 or 4 now) and 4 shirts (so i have 5). i'm wearing a new outfit today. i got a *pink* yes pink, sweater with funny "faux pockets" on it. i also have 100 dollar camel pants. they zip up in the back, though, which is really annoying. i also got a lavender collar shirt with a matching lavender leather jacket! that's my mom's favorite. i also got blue and brown vintage shirts. at least one of them has french on it. since i'm a francophile, that's good.

after that my parents, my uncle, my aunt, my cousins and i went to the tacoma glass museum. we went to a "box lunch show" where you can eat lunch and watch artists make their art. it's every friday. we didn't arrive in time for lunch, but we saw boyd sugiki make class martini sets. ben sat on my lap throughout and i explained to him that you put "juice" in the cups. the boy next to me laughed and said "juice" sarcastically. then i said "or liqueur in a few years." he said something else funny. he was with a big group and they left soon after. he was very nice even though he had light hair. i don't really hate light hair any more and even light eyes can be nice. let's face it, i've become a desperate teenager who likes anything that walks and has a penis. little benjamin suddenly informed me that "girls don't have penises" at his house. it was completely random. i enjoyed that wisdom. i got some practice being a mommy when we were walking to the glass museum because both boys wanted to hold my hands and then they'd let go and run off and i had to keep them together and it was very difficult! ben almost walked into the traffic.

we ate lunch at prizm, the restaurant in the glass museum. i got a funky sandwich with marinated grilled chicken, prosciutto, bell peppers and stuff. it was great. then annie took ben and tony home for their naps and dad, mom, william and i went to the art museum. they had an exhibit on american modernists in paris. it was pretty good. i especially enjoyed the man ray and berenice abbott photographs. the photo of man ray with salvador dali is hysterical! they both look so neurotic and uptight! i'm going to put that picture on my locker second semester. it was great to see all of these artists creating a little cultural metropolis in paris. i have to do something like that. i haven't met any of the right people yet. they all give in. that makes me feel more strongly that i shouldn't sacrifice my life to comfort and family the way my mother wants me to, but that i should pursue my artistic interests, as my dad encourages. he's much more idealistic than my mom and i think for good reason. she's upset that she got stuck with a bad cello job. i don't think i could stand a banal life as a lawyer or something with a husband, two kids and a dog. that's so 50's, uggg! speaking of ugg, i saw some ugg boots at nordstroms the other day and one pair was blue! i would buy blue ugg boots. i have three nice pairs of boots now, though: black, beige and tan.

we saw the dale chihuly exhibit, "mille fiori." it was beautiful, but i think the artists working in modern mediums like glass are too busy being decorative and not busy enough being profound. one exhibit at the glass museum made up all the symbolism for the kratz and neff art. it felt contrived to me. mom said that chihuly's skill is marketing himself, not so much his art. it's impressive and he has more of it than other glassmakers i see around, but all glass seems the same to me.

we went to dinner at johnny's. i got seafood fettucine and it was good. i pretended that little tony was a confederate soldier and i had to leave him to go to war. this morning we flew to portland, oregon. se-tac was crowded and airport security has gotten ridiculous, so my cranky parents concluded that we should have driven. i read about surrealism and modernism on the flight, "destination unknown" by paul paret. it's pretty good, but i'd like more of a conceptual rather than technical analysis. i have to look up the word "materiality." he talks about space a lot, but i want to learn more about the importance of this art, how the artist did what he wanted to do. it makes the art a thousand times more appealing. i can't help but feel, though, that kirchner's "streets of berlin" isn't as negative and forboding as paret says it is. to me there's something beautiful about the swaying of the trees, the lopsided view, the bright colors. what does that suggest? i can't make sense of it yet, but i'll probably come up with something eventually. i got really dizzy since the landing was turbulent. then we drove to my cousin andrew's new house. his grandmother, my mother's aunt kyla died today. she was 93. i went to her 90th birthday party in arizona. we were going to visit her in two days, but now my dad rearranged the flight so we're spending an extra day in portland. we're now in salem, oregon, about to go out to dinner with my mom's friend and former doctoral student. i have to go suffer more, so i'll see you later this evening, hopefully, or tomorrow at least.

2003-12-26T21:08:00.000-08:00

have yourself a merry little (jewish) christmas!

well, i guess i did that. after travelling to midway and then enduring an uncomfortable flight to seattle, i had a nice christmas with my uncle william, his wife, annie, and their sons, ben and tony. the flight from chicago to seattle was four hours and my mom and i were stuck in the last row! (my dad was in row 5, somehow we couldn't sit together). the people in the row ahead of us moved their seats back and we couldn't move ours back, so we were completely squished. on top of that, mom had to color her fuzzy posters with her vast marker collection, but she kept dropping all the markers, so i had to reach to the ground and pick them up during the entire flight! it was pretty funny, though. we ate some fanny mae debutantes. we sat next to a very nice old guy who helped us put our bags in the upper carrier and tolerated our antics very well. however i don't think i'll sit with mother again.

i had the great joy of chasing ben trying to tickle him. he's so rowdy! tony's very sweet and empathetic. he knows his older brother is rough, so he whispered to me (he loves to whisper) "are you ok?" he's only 2 years old! i asked him if he thought that pie, like life, is ephemeral, and he replied "yeah!" we watched alice in wonderland, the 1951 animated disney movie. it was so incredibly wonderful! it's not just for kids! the animation is exquisitely creative, the characters are all so unique and charming! i especially love alice. she's so sweet. she melts me, she really does. she's a person, not just a disney character. she's the quintessential imaginative, delightful girl who is stuck in a cruel, oppressive world but doesn't know it yet. the scene where she cries is so beautiful and i had something philosophical to say about it, but it slipped my mind, so after i rent it at home i'll tell you about it. the walrus and the carpenter is my dad's favorite scene. i like the arrogant, beautiful flowers and their song. i love the caterpillar and his matching pairs of sultan shoes. i love the chesire cat's smile. mine is a miniature version of it. however, i think that alice did not dream up wonderland; she was really there. the only way she could access such a fantastic, private world was through the medium of dreams, so she had to fall asleep to wake up and when she left wonderland that exit from the trust world there is could only be portrayed in our "real" world through leaving a dream. it's symbolic, it's the means to an end the way emma bovary's longing to live in romance novels is merely a manifestation of her desire to live in a beautiful world that isn't drab and boring like a convent, farm, or middle class suburb. i'll tell you more tomorrow; my mom is forcing me to turn the light out, so i gotta sleep. bye!

2003-12-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

six good minutes in eighty years

now i have some time to post. i'm back home, but we're leaving to chicago tonight, then we go to seattle tomorrow morning and actually stay there for a few days.

so, on friday, instead of going to school, we started driving up to washington d.c. we got there at 3:30 on saturday. i listened to samba, charlie byrd's guitar renditions of christmas carols, the mormon tabernacle choir, a little bit of rumba, and some brasiliero (last two from putumayo, like samba bossa nova). mom bought a girl from ipanema cd at the crappy country store by bob evans and first they sing the song in english and it's too fast and it sucks major ass. i got some red and white space putty. it has enriched my life. i ate lots of fattening crap and felt very guilty about it although i've been wearing some lovely outfits that more-than-compensate for my sins.

as soon as we got to the hotel we found my grandpa, dan (grandpa's sister kyla's daughter's adopted son) and his *new* girlfriend lynn. we thought he'd bring diane again. he's brought 4 in the last 4 years or something. i can't quite figure it out. he seems like a nice guy, but he's so shy! it's the burly chest what does it. i also think he refuses to make a commitment so they wait forever and follow him around like little lap dogs. well, as george carlin says, pavlov's dog trained pavlov to hit the bell right before the dog wanted to salivate. grandpa's been very nice. i guess he worries that he's going to die soon. well, since i didn't marry a goy and i'm not lesbian i'm the favorite grandchild! woohoo! robin brought her new partner, sarah, which really sucked because robin was tense the whole time and wouldn't talk art with me. at least it's not my fault. everything else is. she and sarah made fun of everybody and cuddled a lot. my mom was grossed out. she's much more bigoted than she'll care to admit; i get it from her but i love admitting it. i don't mind the affection, but sarah had such a loud, masculine voice and was mean and ordinary, so i didn't like her. robin can do better. she wasn't quite herself this holiday which upsets me. she really wants me to email her, though, so that'll be fun. i think she's selling herself out because she's doing this sitcom that's not really artistic. so that stuff was disappointing, but it was nice seeing everybody. moina's a lot of fun. she's doing another psychology book and was interviewing me about the role dads play in childhood. i told her about how dad used to do math with me and i'd make up fake students. i really came out of my shell around the relatives. i'm always tempted to be shy around them. moina thinks my little hating-school essay is publishable, and she's been on oprah talking about her books, "how to raise a thinking child" and "how to raise a thinking pre-teen." that's my cousin! she's my grandfather's sister frances' daughter. he has three older sisters, frances, lily, and kyla. then came little harold. that cracks me up. anyway, moina got david a george carlin calendar and i started reading it and thought it was hysterical, so i took it. i'm going to put some of the notes on friends' lockers.

the really fun part of the trip was going to the phillips gallery. i was a little worried because the exhibit was on surrealism and modernism which often includes ugly, meaningless drivel, but the exhibit was actually great! i loved seeing the way that each painter made his own psychological landscape with certain figures and colors. speaking of certain figures, there was a boy there, about my age, who was writing down his impressions in a little notebook. unfortunately he didn't talk to me. he didn't seem to notice me but that would be difficult since i was talking to dad very loudly for several reasons: so he'd start chatting with me, to impress everyone, and to let them know that there's no reason to be quiet at an art museum. museums are about displaying, creating and exchanging ideas; it's not a solemn place where you have to be quiet! i even stood next to him in the gift shop. i guess he really had no reason to talk to me, but that shouldn't have kept him from doing it. boys have to make the first move. i couldn't say anything to him; that would have been disastrous. i shudder at the thought. the guy who flirted with me last year didn't flirt with me this year, but he seemed out of it. it certainly wasn't me because i look better than last year. i had a gorgeous outfit on; a deep, royal blue sweater with my white pants that flare out and my brown shoes from nordstroms. it was perfect. i love taking the metro there and back. we ate dinner at the hotel and just got appetizers. i got french onion soup and baked brie served with pear and apple compote. fantastico! you know how i love food. i feel very good now, however, because i'm wearing the pretty grey sweater robin got me with my bright red pants from lerner new york and it's a wonderful outfit. i'm so curvy! wahahahaha. at least i have a few virtues. i feel like shit, though. mom slammed my fingers in the car door. three of them got caught and i pulled them out. they hurt but only the middle one still hurts slightly. mom screamed and that scared me and then she hugged me. i'm hoping that the more i go to art museums the more men i'll pick up. i hope to become 'the art museum madam.' i know there are plenty of art museums in seattle. ;)

though it's the holidays i've been feeling lost and forlorn. as always. it's just a new way of life and, ya know what, i think i'm starting to get used to it. i'm gonna be good after break. i'm going to act like it's second semester even though there will be one more week of first semester. i won't care. fuck them. i have to delude myself more. i watched the nanny today and it was very funny. i like that show a lot for no real reason. i watched king of the hill last night at the hotel and it was hysterical! the asian perfect thing is so well done. it really is like that. "conne is perfect, that's why we love her." "an f? an a- is bad, an a is not so good, but an f?" i think i might watch more tv and maybe even go to the library and look at movies for an hour. i'm just gonna space out. peace, world. i hate you.

2003-12-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

happy break! i really should post more. you know, that'll be one of my new years' resolutions, but that comes later.

well, a lot has happened. i took my history test and got 99, haha! betsy got 102. i took my math test, but i don't know how i did because i missed school on friday. i bet i fucked up. at least i don't have to feel bad about it during the holidays. i know i fucked up the proof by contradiction, though i might get partial credit. the other proofs were ok and most of the problems seemed ok, but i bet i still fucked up... took my macbeth test. it was ok despite my unforgivable lack of studying. i have to get off line now because my dad's using the hotel phone line and it costs money. shit. i shall post at a later date.

2003-12-14T19:26:00.000-08:00

chicago

i was cut off on my last post. sorry.

on saturday i finally got to take sarah, betsy and ariel to chicago for my "birthday." this has been my third 16th birthday party, and two of these three have taken place in chicago. i got sick at school on thursday and had to leave after physics. i wouldn't make that up. i thought i just had a particularly bad fitness day, but i had such a bad headache afterwards that i couldn't concentrate at all during physics and my tummy hurt. i did a successful 2 day juice! woohoo! i did very little on thursday. i wrote on friday and made wonderful progress. i also started a summary. i worked for at least 3 hours in a row; it was good. i'll post some things up here when i'm ready to prove that i'm not an idiot. i like to whine up here. i'm in a lot of pain now because i have to go back to school and my glorious weekend has ended and i have a math test i'm going to fail, an english test (that'll be easy, but it's still another test) and a physics quiz after two disastrous ones. four out of twenty. i suck so fucking much. i'm so fucking lost.

sarah, betsy, ariel and i played mad libs on the way up to chicago. mom stopped at mirabelle to get some delicious pastries. we walked around navy pier and did a maze! the maze pretended to be a tour of chicago where you'd get to go to the top of the sears tower and the elevator breaks down! the maze was fantastic. there was one part where the walls were made of some material that moved so you felt you were moving when you crossed the ramp. we had a nice lunch. i got cake for my "birthday"! then we went to "twelfth night" at the shubert (not schubert) theater where london's globe company was visiting! they were amazing! so funny, so flamboyant, such wit and charm! that was the greatest shakespeare i've seen live. it was long, but we all loved it. afterwards (3 hours later!) navy pier was lit up! we went back to the hilton hotel and checked in. we ate dinner at the fancy restaurant in the hilton and shocked the maitre d with sarah's blue hair and our obscene language! we had been gluttonous today (or i had) so i just had a caesar salad. it had anchoves and ariel gave me hers! it was an awfully fine caesar salad, one of the best i've had. we split a cheese plate which was great. i particularly loved the creme brulee and fruit in chocolate sauce. we watched part of charlie and the chocolate factory and went to bed. to cuddled my "besse boo". the next morning we went swimming. the view is so beautiful! sarah and i enjoyed looking at harold's chicken shack #62. then came the art museum! the exhibit was very good though i have a few criticisms. i had been worrying about the prevailing fantasy i've had of late -- seducing some artistic guy at the museum. i actually spoke to my spirits to help me with this one because i thought i should have a special poetic moment during my trip to chicago. i was upset because i had been counting on it and felt it never happened. i was conflicted during the whole exhibit about my fantasy.

well, guess what, it happened! and it couldn't have happened later! these things always occur when you least expect them. i was returning my audio guide before entering the gift shop and this hunky black guy marveled at my "accent" and thought i was from london or something and thought i was in college. we talked...and flirted. he told me he's modeled. i shouldn't have told him my age. i wrote comments in the book and mom made me leave. ariel said that i flirted in my gabby-way. he really liked me. i think i appeared sophisticated and charming. yes! why did i tell him my age, dammit! i didn't realize this was my relationship-thing until toward the very end. it was a lot different than i imagined. i pictured a younger white guy who would fall for my eloquent, intellectual and artistic comments during the exhibit, but there were no guys close to my age. some 20-30 year olds with girlfriends, one guy with baggy jeans and a very recessive chin, old people, little girls. i also hoped that more would happen, that we would exchange numbers or i'd end up going out with him after the exhibit, but that's so far-fetched. the fact that something happened with this much older guy at the last minute and that he was so impressed is ridiculously amazing as it is! i think my spirits listened to me! christmas is also coming up, so this implies that the four days before christmas in which i have three exams (well, one quiz) will be hellish. this whole thing makes me feel better about my appearance. i am going to juice, maybe even three days, but i look pretty good! i still have to pick on my thighs and cheeks, though, i just do that.

we went walking and saw the windows at marshall fields. charlie and the chocolate factory was the subject of the cute windows! we went in marshall fields and looked at the gorgeous decorations and i bought some great little perfume bottles for my smelling collection! sarah insisted upon looking at the lingerie! after a great kreplach soup at ava's deli and a fanny mae chocolate christmas tree we left and did more mad libs. i listened to some of my favorite "rondes et comptines." french children songs really cheer me up! we played "geography" where you have to name places that start with the letter the other one ended with. mom and sarah tied; i was out last. i named lots of cool places in france mom woudln't have thought of. she was very impressed. i guess i'm not completely stupid. i'd get an a in "name random french places" class. mom and claudine talked about how talented i am while theresia was there! eeeee!

i took a walk, watched skating and now i'm watching ellen degeneres interview katie couric. i feel depressed about school this week and my dream being over, but it couldn't have been better.

2003-12-10T21:28:00.000-08:00

the nanny, the adulteress, and extra fat

since saturday nothing has happened but it's taken a long time to not happen. i'm so fucking bored. i'm also hungry. i've successfully juiced for almost two days! i haven't done that since summer! go me! i also ran today. you know, it might be a good idea to run again even though it's late because i just can't sleep. i'm watching the nanny, though, and that show is so funny. the representation of corn beef jews is hysterical and oh so accurate! sylvia's food obsession is unbelievable, and i'm normally against characters whose sole appeal is their gluttony. she's not just a fat comic relief, she's the typical crass jewish mother! it makes a big difference. as fran put it, "that's why i weighed 150 pounds in the 5th grade!" do you think it's true? or that she was overweight as a youth? i'll bet you money she had to *earn* that skinniness. she just has a gluttonous personality. you can always tell. only repressed, stupid christian girls are skinny from birth. in accordance with that theory, if flaubert understood the female psyche *this* deeply -- which males cannot -- i promise you emma bovary would have been overweight. or at least a little bit chunky. she would fulfill her passionate need for sensation through food.

the history test was good. my studying-ahead plan really worked. i took a nap from 4-6 and had piano lesson and watched rich girls and dad math and physics while still managing to get completely prepared for my history test. woohoo! i figured out where utah is. it's the one by nevada with the square cut out of it. mormon country! i've been missing southpark which deeply upsets me, but i can never remember to watch it.

2003-12-06T22:15:00.000-08:00

so you're a cutter

things are still rough, but a lot has changed since i last blogged. i looked up "weight loss psychology" on google after blogging last and found a website about "brainwashing." you recite mantras to yourself to feel better and not need food. the first day was fantastic because i didn't have to feel bad about myself and i could just work on getting better. i felt really good that day until mom came home. i was reading one of the 7 books of macbeth criticism i got at the english library and dad was dozing off, so we didn't hear her when she came home and didn't say hello right away. she got mad. she's gotten really irritable, like her father. she suddenly decided to tell me how fat i am, even though nothing she said was true and she knew it. since i was dieting so hard, it really hurt my feelings. i stayed mad at her for hours which is a very long time in our relationship. she has a way of forcing me to forgive her. dad was really nice about it. i've completely recovered, but have not recovered my mantras since the incident.

i'm surprised at how i'm changing. i'm trying to adjust to being depressed all the time, to not being good at anything i have to do but doing it anyway. it's too fucking hard for me. it's just not right. i'm so desperate i use running -- yes, actual exercise -- as a release. i put on a sweater and my samba cd and run around the block. i'm in my own magical world getting slim; it's really fun! i ran twice today, 6 laps both times. it helps me forget my fears and get to work afterwards, though i need to rest for a few minutes after running. it's really nice in this cold weather. i'm worried about snow and heat, though. i thought that when it snows enough i could take myself sledding and in the heat i'll bikeride. i had been juicing today, but after my second run i wanted food. i wasn't too too bad. i just feel stifled with so much work and having to be so fucking disciplined every minute. math, physics, running, piano, history, english, standardized tests, moeuf, reading, writing, it doesn't end. i thought i would make 'special days' where i concentrate on one different thing each day. however i may have too much homework to be able to do anything on some of these days. i always feel guilty that i don't do enough. my ineptitude in two of my classes just shatters my self-esteem and i can't cope with anything. my parents are convinced that as soon as i get rid of physics next semester i'll feel significantly better and will even be able to raise my advanced topics grade to a b. i can't believe i have to strive for a b and can't even get it. i'm so fucking stupid. i don't care that i suck at math, i should be able to do better with all the help i get at home and at school (tutoring). i'm sick of sucking at everything and it always being my fault. i don't feel that from class i should be able to do these random problems carrubba gives me, but he has some excuse for how we learned it in class, so i'm the stupid one. same in math with jockusch. everything is my fucking fault. it's so miserable. i tried to make myself vomit, but could only cough and get a copious amount of saliva on my fingers. just another thing i can't do. *sigh*. this kind of life is so tedious, but i think having only one really evil course instead of two will make all the difference in the world. it at least helps me to believe that now and if it's not true dad told me i could yell at him, not that i wouldn't yell at him without his permission.

moeuf last night. rebel without a cause! well, my friends feel the way i do, they want to relax and not always work hard, so we didn't finish the movie and gossiped and looked up perverse stuff on the internet. i'm glad to see thati actually have more stamina than my friends because i was enjoying the movie's artistry and they clearly weren't. o well. what can i do? moeuf is cancelled the next two weeks due to the chicago trip for my birthday and christmas break. tiff told me she could come, but i forgot! i was so lazy about it! i didn't remind meredith about it, but technically it was her fault. so my friends think my mother is tyrranical and my mother thinks my friends are lazy and rude. i hope mom can get more shakespeare tickets so meredith and tiff can come. since tiff is *supposedly* a "shakespeare freak" i feel bad about her missing twelfth night at navy pier. we're also going to the manet exhibit at the art institute, and swimming at the hilton! what could be more fun? it's birthday party number 3 and boy do i deserve it! the only trouble is i have to get homework done beforehand. i think i might cut school friday to help in that process. tomorrow i think i have confirmation class. if so, afterwards i will study lots of history. test is wednesday, so it's not a big deal. we haven't even gotten through two pages of notes. after that i need to do english, then practice, then study physics for the quiz tuesday. shit, too much pressure. maybe i'll cut out physics because i studied today and i have monday. i need to do some history, though, and i'd even like to. did all my math, which was really hard and took forever. over 2 hours of base 2, 8, 16, etc. i had to write out addition and multiplication tables base 8, among other things. 7x7=61 woo hoo! i can't endure anything. i cry and panic. i just can't cope. i'm weak and lazy and fat and disgusting. it's an unbelievable struggle just to live this year. but i saw the last samurai yesterday and it was great! i'm curious to see elf. looks cute and i'm desperate. maybe i'll manage to go tomorrow. i'm annoyed about english because we're reading great books in a trivial way, so either i do *hours* of extra work reading criticism or i stupidly follow his trivial bullshit. ultimately i have to compromise between the two extremes. read some criticism, but no more than i enjoy, not enough to stress me out. so far i'm doing well. we studied some sartre with the student teacher and i was obviously the best! she's much better than our french teacher who is such a fucking moron i want to die.

i forgot to say that at moeuf sarah saw the cuts on my second finger. meredith, mommy, daddy, and hugh have all said, "gabby! what happened?" and i made up something and they felt horrible for me. but sarah said, "so gabby's a cutter, is she?" in a bit of a joking tone. i am still surprised that she understood my cuts right away. sarah has been suicidal, so i think she's done it and i know tiff has done it, but i'm haunted by the fact that sarah immediately knew. i suppose we're united in our misery.

i watched "awesomely bad hair" on vh1 and an elimidate where they ate sushi off of a naked woman. it would be a good time to go to bed if i were tired. i'm daydreaming. that's always fun. hopefully i'll have a better day tomorrow. looking forward to CHICAGO!

2003-12-02T22:59:00.000-08:00

there's a sucker born every minute

i've become so insecure about my body image. hmmm, let me enumerate. it just took me 10 seconds to figure out that i wanted to use the word enumberate. i kept thinking deliberate or eliminate. and i'm so fucking verbal. as i told samir twice tonight at lesson, i think school is making me dumber. but before i talk about my newfound english class anxieties (gabby worrying about english? what the fuck is wrong?) and semi-successful ventures into self-mutilation -- it also took me forever to choose the word "ventures" there -- i want to finish what i started in my head before i began blogging.

my best features: my eyes (shape, size and color), my lashes (so dark, long and thick i'll never have to wear mascara...ever, unless i want to wear that blue stuff), my hair, my eyebrows -- WHEN PLUCKED -- because they match my eye and hair color pretty well, my nose, my funny, little mouth, my bustiness (except sometimes shirts don't fit) and my figure, and very strangely i like my forearms because i think they're pretty thin and elegant and not as excessively hairy as the rest of my body. that's 9.

my worst features: my gigantic thighs, my pot belly, my chubby cheeks, my chubby hands, my fat calves, my hairyness. that's 6.

well somehow i've gotten really neurotic. i keep thinking about how fat i am. even when i was fatter i didn't think about it so much. i only need to lose 10 pounds or so and plenty of people tell me that i look completely fine. i had to go off the juice today because i got my period and i've been feeling really weird. or wierd as rayburn wrote on the chalkboard the other day. i guess my appearance hysteria comes from my desire to have a boyfriend, an intimate relationship, mmmmmm. i feel really lonely. i have lots of friends who are very kind to me -- betsy's like my mother, psychiatrist and sexual playmate all rolled into one -- but i have no soulmates, no one who shares my passion for literature, and no boyfriends. charlie doesn't exactly count. i don't feel that chemistry and he's not into literature, but i want to go as far as he does and i hope he wants to go farther. i'm sure he likes me a little. i like making him like me. i don't mean to be sadistic, i'd never hurt his feelings; i just want a relationship and he's the only half-decent guy i know. he's like mitch, he's more sensitive than the others. and i don't have to worry about weight around him or his family. i can feel good about it. that's a big relief. i feel bad that he inherited weight troubles from his family because i did and it's horrible. and if i think i naturally overindulge, his family is much bigger than mine. so is michelle's. it always happens to the good people! why? i thought i might continue my self-mutilation on my thighs to punish them for making me worry and so no one sees my wounds. the cuts on my left index finger are very noticeable; i can't keep doing that. it also feels funny. however i'm very proud of it. i really made a lot of nice cuts there. i've come to appreciate my skill at this. you can't tell you much you penetrated the skin until a day later when it's all red and nice. one of the gashes is even vertical instead of horizontal, and that adds beautiful contrast. i'm a work of art! meredith actually noticed it and asked about it. i was very vague. i'm glad someone noticed. i bet samir noticed tonight, it's very visible when i play piano, but he's such a gentleman that he'd never say anything. i really like him. he's such a nice, artistic guy. i enjoy being around him, even though i suck. i was thinking about not going to lesson today because i only practiced once over thanksgiving break, but when i thought of having to suffer through homework all night without his humor and charm i got really upset and realized how much i value my piano lessons. i almost cried. you don't realize how much you love it until you don't have it any more. they kept saying that on real world.

we're reading macbeth in english class. this worries me because it's a shakespeare play that i don't know. we don't do hamlet till next year, but that will be exciting. rayburn basically translates shakespearean blank verse the way lopez translates vian's prose and he makes these dorky observations that don't mean anything. i'm way behind on reading now. i feel that i should provide some significant ideas to our discussions because i'm into literature and have studied shakespeare at harvard, but we didn't study macbeth. it's impossible to understand shakespeare passionately without help. tiff was trying to tell me how much she loved king lear and i asked her about the contest and cordelia's role and she said all the conventional shit that shows no understanding of the play whatsoever, but you *need* a teacher to explain it because it's odd. so i humiliated her without her knowing it. i always do that to people. did it to lopez recently. anyway, i'm worried i'll get sucked into this trivial english class because i don't know macbeth. i'm going to get criticism at the u of i library this weekend to help me out. i think that'll do the trick. i still have a bad feeling about this. but i think i've developed such a strong reputation for myself that if i don't talk about shakespeare no body will care and i don't care about them. this is why school sucks. no real social concerns. we don't "care" enough to have an intricate social network, to have reputations and refinement. o shit.

i'm thinking about literature and getting excited. film also. i want to write about rebel without a cause for moeuf. and write some poetry. i have to be more disciplined about my extracurriculars. i think when i get home i should do that before i do anything else. i always fail somehow!

i haven't stayed up late to watch a great movie since sept 17 when i watched madame bovary. i feel so exhausted that i need to do it again. it felt absolutely envigorating last time. i'm going to look at the tcm schedule and find a good movie. i think i'll go now. didn't cut myself tonight. there's still time.

2003-11-30T22:44:00.000-08:00

tears and turkey

well, thanksgiving break has basically ended. it's sunday november 30th at 9:45 PM. i'll probably post a lot about how horrible i feel all the time and then i'll go to sleep before i have to wake up ridiculously early tomorrow and get back the physics quiz i flunked. i hate my fucking life. i wish my life had some fucking in it. i'm bored and lonely. i need rodolphe and leon. and to be able to eat without gaining weight. no, i am not to be so fortunate.

break was ok. break can never be bad because no matter how bad you feel you're not feeling bad at school and you're not getting bad grades. i enjoyed feeling bad in chicago, chelsea and ann arbor, michigan. it's somewhat painful to recall, but i've learned that i have to force myself into a state in which i can accept constant pain as a part of life. the only trouble with that is that happiness comes along for brief intervals and ruins it. i like that happiness, but it interrupts my determination to sullenly rise above my typical pettiness. happiness makes me gluttonous because i want the joy of eating, it makes me lazy because i want the joy of relaxing, it makes me stupid because i want the joy of joking. happiness is depressing. that's an odd one for you. on wednesday i relaxed into such a calm, depressed state that i didn't eat from 2 in the afternoon on tuesday until 8 in the evening on wednesday at which point i ate half a chef salad with fat free dressing. that was good. my mother was very impressed which upsets me because my past actions implied blossoming anorexia. you have to connect the symptoms: no power in life, upset, overweight, not eating. does this ring a bell to you? well, i don't think i'm anorexic, but i wouldn't mind trying it for a while. i just don't think i could. it's fun being hungry in a perverse way. mother fed me whenever i cried as a child. my irrepressable love of food is not my fault. she's really a savage. she screamed at me because i ate her chocolate in the course of at least three weeks. she doesn't realize how constant and piercing and stupid her criticisms are and how much they affect me. i want a car so i can drive away from her. she gets so irritable. she's turning into her father. they say that certain traits dominate as a woman approaches old age. this seems right. i also hope to drive charlie around because he won't be able to get his license for a while. i've noticed that it's much harder to get a driver's license at schools other than uni. he's homeschooled now, but his birthday isn't until march and he isn't signed up for a driver's ed course. dad and i want to hire a guy to take me through the test so i don't flunk it. i'm really sick of flunking tests. i forget how to park on hills because we don't live near any hills. fuck. i'm a stupid pathetic lazy idiot. everything sinful looks so appealing because there is nothing in my life. i want to smoke, drink, have sex and be as irreverant as possible. i can smell perfume. i think i'll go downstairs to the kitchen and get a knife and cut myself. my parents are watching tv; they won't notice. they won't care. somehow i don't take "bad" things seriously. it doesn't matter. nothing matters. life is a muddle, a dickensian muddle. i'm too lazy to get a knife

i actually managed to get a knife. my parents didn't notice. my mother said good-night. i've been trying to scratch my thumb, but try as i may i can't draw blood. i really don't know how to mutilate myself. i've got a few white scratches on me, at least. i seem to be pretty bad at everything, even maiming my own body. well, that really perks me up.

first we went to chicago. i was depressed on the drive up and listened to music. i started reading henry james' the princess casamassima with the mormon tabernacle choir in the background and that was fun. don't read austen for witty caricatures, read james. mr. vetch is fantastically described. james understands every detail about that kind of prentention, it's heroic. it's like dickens' description of james harthouse, the honesty in dishonesty. then i lost the book. i worked on memorizing baudelaire's "elevation" (i brought fleurs du mal with me) and finished it today. i'm not memorizing a poem i fell in love with years ago, l'albatros. i know the last and best stanza, but it takes me forever to remember it. we went to two furniture stores. one was dull and one was fun because of the animated woman who runs it. i bought two new pairs of shoes at nordstrom's, beige-white boots and navy blue shoes with light blue stripes made by gola, a british company. the shoes came with a pin that i pinned to my jacket. we went to lord and taylor after a bought the gola shoes and bought a white hat with matching gloves. i decided i didn't like the shoes at lord and taylors, so we went back to nordstrom's to get the books as my "christmas present" but we couldn't find the man who helped us before and the man we found didn't understand what we were looking for because i found the boots in the clothing section the floor above, but my mom found him passing by "returning from lunch", so we got the boots. my got ridiculously stressed over nothing. she always does that and it makes me tense and even more fucked up than i already am. she's so neurotic and doesn't care about the example she gives me. i'm going to provide more structure for my kids. it's hard to be disciplined with *that* in the house. i normally adore my mom, and i still do, but i've never felt such hostility to her before. that makes me wonder how much of my depression is caused by adolescent malaise and how much is caused by actual events in my life. i think events trigger a heightened, adolescent sensitivity, especially the stultifying environment, so it's a combination of both. cutting my thumb isn't working. it really hurts and feels weird, but i think it calmed me down. it's annoying me.

we went to dinner at kitty o'shea's in the hilton with donna and peter. i had a pretty outfit on and my hair had been done the previous day, so i looked stunning and everybody told me so repeatedly. yay! i'm so vain! they talked a lot with my parents, so even though we like each other i felt left out much of the time. i realized that i had nothing to talk about besides my pathetic situation. geez that sucks. i just sat there feeling lonely with my chef salad. i enjoyed some mario tennis in the hotel room (mom made us switch three times because she wasn't satisfied) but the video games bored me quickly. the next morning i watched the biography special on shirley temple while my parents went to breakfast. then we drove to michigan. more literature and depression. the cummings live way out in the country, but they have a nice, big house, albeit rustic and cold. emme and i played a lot. i enjoyed taboo. thanksgiving dinner was nice. nothing special to report. megan and graham are so shy, but they're properly perverse for their ages in private. there were many boring times, but many fun times also. the best part of break was going to ann arbor and browzing around shops. i got lots of little trinkets and birthday cards for my parents. i enjoyed playing airhockey at the skating rink. the skating itself was dull. i don't enjoy it any more. i was cold and one of the blades wasn't sharp enough. we got back to illinois saturday night. we went to "the human stain" with anthony hopkins and nicole kidman. pretty good, but the fact that they die at the end and the black guy on the board admits how wrong he was was superficial, contrived, false and really stupid. the acting was good, but it didn't stun me. i'd give the movie a b. i saw love actually today. very cute, especially the end, or should i say ends. b+. i got depressed afterwards because i'm so lonely. i need a romance and a soulmate (not necessarily in the same person). we tried to go to the art museum, but it closed. i had a nice chat with my dad and felt bad about how puggy my cheeks are. i played piano in michigan and the piano was horrible, so i forgot all my notes, sounded like shit since the piano wouldn't let me play with dynamics, then cried like an idiot. i hate music. michelle and betsy were too busy with that fucking history paper and other random duties to be with me this evening when i was upset. i poured my heart out to betsy over the phone to which mother replied that i shouldn't bother her and then i felt insecure, but i know that betsy likes helping me. mother just ruins everything. she always takes the opposite side in an argument and has some lousy excuse for it. i'm tired of cutting myself; it doesn't release anything and i suck at it the way i suck at everything else. tuesday was the worst day in the history of the world. i'm ready to be depressed tomorrow at school and to be chastised for being late. don't give a flying fuck. at least my streetcar presentation as great. mrs patton, our new principal, happened to see it! woohoo! rayburn was sort of obnoxious about it, so fuck him and his hatred of "rose-colored views".

i've basically said everything i planned on saying. that was surprisingly quick. i think i'll write the baudelaire, from memory.

au dessus les etangs, au dessus les vallees,
les montagnes, les bois, les nuages, les mers
par dela le soleil, par dela les ethers
par dela les confins des spheres etoilees

mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilite
et, comme un bon nageur qui se pame dans l'onde,
tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensite profonde
avec une indicible [et male] volupte.

envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides,
va te purifier dans l'air superieur
et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur
le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

derriere les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
qui chargent de leur poids l'existence brumeuse
heureux celui qui peut d'une aile vigoureuse
s'elancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins!

celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor
-- qui plane sur la vie et comprend sans effort
le language des fleurs et des choses muettes!

there, i did it. here's the last stanza to "l'albatros."

le poete est samblable au princes des nuees
qui hante la tempete et se rit de l'archer
exile sur le sol au milieu des huees
les ailes de geant l'empechent de marcher.

wow. bravo, charlie! it's almost eleven, so i might go be depressed somewhere else. sleep is nice because i can make up stories in my head and be free, even if the stories are sad. i basically enjoyed my break, but i'll have to suffer more and more and more and more.

2003-11-17T21:47:00.000-08:00

je reviens de la poesie

hey i'm back. things never quite get better. it's been pretty low. this weekend was almost as bad as being at school for the most part. that's pretty serious. i'm still reeling from it. i have to deal with so much and usually feel so horrible that i can't bear to write it down, but i find it to be soothing now.

the exciting news is that i've decided to take up poetry. i'm pretty good at it and can do it quickly. i can get results. i want to read more poetry (especially those delightfully depressing, morbid, on alcohol/crack french guys!) and write a collection. i'm almost finished with the last poem in the collection. it's a response to a poem i wrote in freshman creative writing. it's nice and sad. i'm trying to embrace depression. food doesn't help. i was horrible today, but i've been better until today. i'm juicing again tomorrow and the day after. have an english presentation tomorrow on streetcar!! that's exciting. finished my visual aid today. also have a math test on wednesday which sucks. planning to cut school on thursday. we're going up to chicago on wednesday so i'm also cutting that halfday. i'll lie to them that i'm sick. i'm sick emotionally and that's what counts. i haven't researched history or learning the material. i'm just in a weird mood now. i'll try to catch up thursday, but i also need time for myself, so i'll see how things go. i'll be fine.

mr smith and i met with mr carrubba today. naturally, he was extremely nice. (they always are when the guidance counselor's right there!) i did shockingly well on today's quiz. somehow that really really painful studying with dad payed off. i got 4 out of 6 problems which, since he's such a ridiculous grader, is a high b/low a. second best score of the year! my last three quizzes have been pleasant. 11,12,15. that keeps me nicely in the b range. god i'm so fucking depressed. why do i have to be so pathetic, gluttonous and stupid. i'm tired of feeling like shit. somehow i'm going insane without enough niceness in my life. i fail at everything in my life and it's all such a big problem. the thing is, in math i have a d. i'll be content with c's. in physics i might even pull a b (2 day final, don't count on it!) so that's actually ok. hopefully i can take anatomy 1 at parkland and get out of physics a next semester. they're really nasty about letting me switch to stats. my option is to drop advanced topics this year and take stats next year, but i want senior year to be free of any requirements besides english and pe so i can take a language at the u of i, philosophy, film study, world since 1945, etc. and have some time to breathe and practice and apply for colleges that better figure out how smart i am god damn it! OYYY!

my life is so full of trivial shit. i can't stand it. i guarantee you that my adolescent depression is not ordinary. i'm too talented for that. i have real cause for complaint beyond the "adolescence is a difficult time" bullshit. it's only difficult because adults and school are fucking obnoxious. we're adults and could be happy like adults if we were given the chance. i understand things.

charlie and i went to the opera(s). two once act ones, gianni schicci and suor angelica. angelica was beautiful, so sad and gianni was hysterical! i could tell that charlie really appreciated it, so that made me feel good. we went to espresso royale after. we talked for over an hour! it was fun. i had a great outfit on. i wore my mom's brown coat.

2003-11-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

benjamin franklin invented the light bulb

things are a little better now. i'm writing a short story. i actually studied history, but need to go over it again in the morning before school. i'm not gonna get any sleep tonight. i just don't want to sleep. it makes me think of having to wake up too early when i'll be exhausted and take my stupid test. dad's mad because i'm not asleep. there's always more pressure. i read an email about the tardies and how people are getting too many. i've gotten a few. i enjoyed going to the bookstore tonight. it's been raining!

school was awful today, but i survived! about the diet thing, i'll do fridays and saturdays and try to be healthy the rest of the time. i've been too bad, grrrrr. everything is so difficult when you're unhappy! we did jack shit in history, i have to read four gigantic books for my 10 page term paper due in december and to do this i have to "skim" them and i don't know what that means. how do you get information out of books by "skimming" them? i am a detailed person and school makes me learn in this barbaric way where you take an intimidating amount of information and condense it into nothing. he might not even collect the questions on the readings i spent 2 hours doing on sunday. i'm gonna scream at him for that. he helped me think of my argument for the paper, at least.

p.e. was ok. slowest as usual, but i got a good average heart rate and was in my "zone". my watch number has switched to number 19. woohoo. i did over 100 jumpropes. in physics we started circular motion and he proved shit and it was confusing. mr smith and i have to talk to him. i don't wanna fucking mess with it, but dad does. i talked to jockusch today at lunch. she was actually nice and i know i've got her on my side and can get help, so that's good. in french we read and that was boring. i didn't do the assignment. eh. in english i edited stuff and yelled at betsy for her poor history notes. how you can get a's and write so sloppily i don't understand. people think they can use the "word" "unreadable" when it sounds like shit. there is no more eloquence in our country. math was dull. i studied lots of history, piano lesson was good, and then i studied more and did math and physics. i guess i should really go to sleep. i don't care that i'll be exhausted tomorrow; it happens.

2003-11-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

the monosyllable of the clock is loss, loss, loss unless we devote our heart to its opposition

guess what! everything's still horrible. i have a history test wednesday and i've been studying, but i feel too horrible to do much. binging again. i have betsy's notecards because i missed a day. i should work, but i'm having so much trouble. i wrote my entire tragedy paper last night, though, which is great. i really have to reform myself when it comes to studying for history tests. i should do some every night to avoid this kind of thing. yes, i think i will force myself to do that. have to practice piano tonight. was bad about that this week, too. i don't know how i'll be able to finish my history term paper in time. i have over a month, but i have to read four gigantic books and write 10 pages. i started one book last night. i'll ask mr sutton the history guru.

i've been writing lately. it's sloppy, i need to edit and put pieces together, but i'm too distraught. i just write what comes to mind. at least i have samba music and bubble trouble which i've been obsessed with since i re-discovered it when emmy came to town. i get to see her for thanksgiving! she and her siblings sent me great birthday presents! donnie gave me a gorgeous outfit, grandpa gave me $200. donnie says i should email robin about moeuf. great idea, but once again i'm too damn lazy. i hate my life, i hate always feeling pain. everything in it is boring and stupid. let them flunk me, i don't care. i think i'll get back to bubble trouble (i'm so good at killing those pesky starfish) before studying again. have to alter some clothes with mom at three.

p.s. my title is from tennessee williams' article "on a streetcar named success".

2003-11-06T09:56:00.000-08:00

sweet sixteen!

today, november 6, 2003 is my 16th birthday. that's pretty exciting. my mom came in at lunch with cupcakes and a corsage. i am wearing my pink flower now. that part of my birthday was fun, but this morning i had to run and i was slow as usual. but josie was so nice and cheered me up. it looks like a might be more well-known here thn i thought. i'm messing around n the turner classic movies website. eric and abe are reciting strange chinese names for no reason. they think this is very educated! wow! i'm absolutely surrounded my these nerds. antoine is working on the computer next to me. he's got a disk and h's doing something with his drawings. hmmm...

in physics i completely goofed off today. i'll study tonight and fail tomorrow comme d'habitude. antoine is scanning something. it's cool to see somebody besides me having an interest and project out of class. anyway, brad and i talked about movies the whole time. we have some good selections. he doesn't want to do the bishop's wife for christmas even though he doesn't know the movie so we're doing it anyway because i love it god damn it. he'll learn to appreciate its charm and beauty. he also likes to be contrary. he thinks it's funny, but it gets obnoxious. well, it's ok, i let him have a cupcake anyway, just not the stupid nerdy guys. english class starts in 14 minutes. believe it or not, a quarter of an hour is a long time at school. you can see why i hate it. i like time to flow, not to be so micromanaged, i like a beautiful day that magaically passes, not this overly-structured, academic life. i'll have to do something someday. hmm, there's something wrong with that clock because the bell rang, so i have to go. hopefully i'll post again soon. i'm going to kamakura with mom dad and theresia tonight. i also have claudine. math and physics homework, but i refuse to do any other work. it should be a nice night!

2003-11-03T14:53:00.000-08:00

i feel like shit

guess what, I'm even lower than before. cellofest, which promised to be exciting, was a real drag. i had no one to talk to, nothing to do except look after the kids. i babysat 3 during the starker masterclass. that was tough especially since it was at night and i got really, really tired. but i did it and i think the kids were ok. emmy just adores me. she calls me her mother. i think she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. i asked her how she feels about shy people and she said, "i hate them." darling! she alienates her shy older sister though. it'll be interesting to see how this plays out later in their lives. my own melodrama! and they all love me! sweeeet!

i'm so oppressively unhappy. (that sounds so wonderfully dramatic). i got my report card. just as i feared, c in math and physics, but i did manage an a in history and of course i have an a in my other classes. despite a rocky start with nasty quizzes, i got a 94 in french. so i have some nice accomplishments, but in the end i suck ass. geez, if you're bad enough in physics to get a c with perfect homeworks you really are a piece of shit. good for me. i'm just in a stupor now.

but i ordered samba bossa nova off of amazon and should get it in three days. that'll make a big difference. i have, however, taken some immediate initiative to end my bout with depression. mommy and i are going to see "intolerable cruelty" tonight. we've wanted to for a month but never got to it. i'm looking at greeting cards and they're funny, but i still feel like shit. gonna do math homework soon, that'll definitely make it all better. i think i'll fuck the history readings. i feel too low. i'll never be able to concentrate. i want another cigarette.

but i'm thinking about going out tonight and the cold air in my face and the lights of schlockville in the dark and a movie where everyone looks pretty and next to my mom and it will be good. i'm too depressed to articulate; this is serious. not even laughing at my own jokes. i need another cigarette.

2003-11-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

Moeuf and Cigarettes

i've reached another low. halloween was odd, but one really cool thing happened. school was horrible. i panicked in the middle of my physics quiz because there was some fucked up problem about subbies and breakfast bars and ray told me it was like one of the water problems we did, but i didn't get it. i actually did ok on the quiz. i got 12/20 which ray counts as a b. isn't that pathetic? naturally tiffany got a 20. *glares* history and p.e. were uneventful, i finished my french homewurk in class, i wrote my summary of streetcar during class. toine is doing that crappy, typical, modern play about gay tolerance or something. i expected better. all the nerdy assholes are doing a play with a really long title because the play has a really long title. wow. dickheads. for our compare/contrast essay nate was doing his "separate personalities." these guys are dumb. that's not fucking witty. i'm doing scarlett o'hara and blanche dubois, so hah. i should read the book gone with the wind since i'm so into the southern belle thing. i was a southern bull for halloween. hahaha!

i got depressed 7th hour about how obnoxious all my fucking teachers are so i walked around and then sat on betsy's lap. i took emmy and friends trick-or-treating. urbana's not as active at halloween as it used to be. i went to betsy's house. then i went home and all the cellofest people went out and i yelled at an imaginery mrs jockusch about the whole "missing school unnecessarily" thing. kovacs was trying to tell me that she was right, but she's not. i'm so mad. anyway, after that things got interested.

janos starker smokes. since he's a bigshot he always gets his way, so there were three cigarettes and ashes on one of our plates. they had been smoked, but there was space. when everyone was out i took a match and light one. I SMOKED. it was nasty and hurt my throat. i blew smoke out of my throat! that was cool! i wanna do it again. maybe next time i'll enjoy it. as i get depressed i sink into the underworld. i haven't done work all day. i'm sad because i feel completely left out of cellofest and i was under the impression that i was going to be a big part of it. there's nothing for me to do, really. now i want it to end when before i looked forward to it. but today is the first day of november! it's a new month! that's pretty exciting! november 14th is halfway through second quarter. my birthday is thursday. my god it's so exciting to be sixteen. SHIT. i've been out of it all day. eating too much, lots of candy, snl (it's pretty funny), etc. i tried to get drunk, but i just hate wine. it's disgusting. i enjoy so much modern junk. look what school does to me.

but due to my depression, i've gotten really antsy. i wann walk to urbana free library and look in their movie section for movies we could watch at moeuf. tomorrow at seven! that will definitely help me. TGIM! Thank God It's Moeuf!

2003-10-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

in search of lost blogs

i'm back! sorry it's been awhile. i get busy and depressed and don't feel like it. i really need to do better. so much has changed that there's way too much to say. i've got a half hour till my parents come home and i have to study for my physics quiz and math exam both on halloween. who is going to die? that's right! so i'll start with some categories.

music: i decided i wanted some jazz to relax me, so i stole my mother's miles davis cd and fell in love with it. i especially loved "blue in green." i listened religiously for almost a month, but have stopped recently. why? dunno. dad always has szeryng solo bach on in the car, so we listen to that.

clothes: i have four new pairs of shoes. blue, brown, white-ish and tan/gold. i've worn the blue to school twice and am wearing them now. i also have my fancier navy blue pants and my light blue sweater that matches the dark green one that i had last year. i got out a lot of my winter clothes. i don't care that it's hot today. i like my sweaters. my neck does feel a little constrained, so i might change, but i'm pretty happy. i'm nervous about my tests and frazzled by what just happened. shall i tell you? yes!

so, no more categories. story time! my mother's CelloFest is halloween weekend, so it starts tomorrow and goes through sunday, but we're still busy monday so i have to miss school and won't get any homework done in that amount of time. so i decided to be a good little student (always the wrong thing to do) and get an excused absence form. that means all the teachers tell you what you're missing and what work you have to make up and sign it and the assistant director signs it and you're excused. so mrs jockusch signed mine but she wrote "i advise you against missing school unnecessarily." what right does she have to make that decision?? she doesn't know about cellofest! she doesn't know what i have to do! my parents want me to miss and she has to accept that, but she won't. so to put her in her place for that unacceptable audacity, mom wrote her a letter saying i have to miss school on monday and gave her cellofest stuff. i gave it to her at the end of class today, but she still objected. sixth period is my last class, so i was annoyed and told dad what happened. he went in there and bawled her out! i didn't come, fearing she'd hate me more for it, but dad told me she stuck her ground, so they're gonna have a meeting after this weekend. the new principal mrs patton likes music and respects mom (we saw her at the alexander quartet) so she'll be on our side. it's so nice that my parents will take a stand for me. jockusch is obnoxious and has no right to interfere with our plans. i don't give a fuck about advanced topics and she's ugly. but as they say on crank yankers, "don't blame me for being ugly, i didn't make you that way, god did."

my next story is about october 19th, what i was so looking forward to, hms pinafore! it was so much fun! i had been really upset and unproductive that weekend, stressed out over a history test and shit like that, so it was a great relief. the show was charming and we met some really nice ladies! they wished me a happy birthday so genuinely, as if they'd always known me! i felt like i turned sixteen that day, but i'm not sixteen till next week. it would be cool to have to birthday on 10/19 because i'd be older than sarah (her birthday's today!) and kinzie. i sang sarah happy birthday as maurice chevalier. it was great! donna, mom, dad and kathy cole williams (mom's friend) and i ate at the cheesecake factory. yum! donna cheered me up about school. we had lunch at the bagel and mom brought me aviva and her parents! i have really cute pictures. they even gave me presents! ahhhh!

that's when i got my great idea. this weekend had been awful until then: i knew i needed a change. i couldn't suffer with school anymore. i needed more in my life. reading and practicing just aren't enough. so out of the ashes of despair rose the phoenix commonly known as moeuf!

moeuf is the mediocre film festival, MFF. we don't watch mediocre films, it's the festival that's mediocre. all films are classics. we kicked off our festival on friday, october 24th at my house from 7-10 PM with elia kazan's immortal "a streetcar named desire" with marlon brando and the magical, fantastic, goddess called vivien leigh. it inspired me so much that i decided to read the play and do it for my tragedy paper. i love blanche's character and i can make the case for her. i read the play in two days since we have to write a summary of our play in class tomorrow. plenty of people who didn't switch plays still haven't finished, so i'm doing great! i'm so excited! what an amazing, amazing play! i want to read more williams. it's so subtle and sensitive and dramatic and true and just perfect. it gives you so much to think about throughout instead of waiting to provide you with one trite theme at the end as so many plays and movies do. that's why it's so successful on screen. brando doesn't do much for me though. he doesn't a good job, but he's not extraordinary. it's because his character isn't. stanley's just an oaf and brando gets that right. c'est ca. but leigh is amazing. people don't appreciate her because blanche seems so strange, but she's not. she believes in how things *ought* to be and that' s noble and beautiful and true. see my un-written paper! my child! so anyway, we're watching psycho at betsy's house on sunday (can't do friday because it's halloween). you'll see more details on my website.

well, i'm pretty excited about all that and cellofest, but i have to get through my exams first. trying to relax before dad gets home and i have to study. god damn it. well, that's life and one just has to put up with things. but one day i'll show all those stupid teachers and pathetic midwest kids who have no trouble with this: *i'll* be the one with the literary salon, *i'll* be the great artist and socialite, *i'll* bring back those traditions and the artistry of earlier eras. just wait.

2003-10-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

one day i will live

jesus christ, it's been ten days. i think that's an all-time record for gabby's blog negligence. then i just finished cocteau, now i've read 2 mann short stories and almost all of the mourning becomes electra trilogy. wow, that's quick! i'm pretty good! but these ten days have felt like ten years. (not that i can remember what ten years feels like.) the days go so slooowly. but i love "tea and apathy." you could write a parody and call it that. that's so funny. i'm laughing so much inside. that's actually a play on our tragedy paper list and a movie with deborah kerr. tea and sympathy. hahahahaha. hey, what's this

let us go then you and i
among the corned beef, knish and rye

it's PRUFROCK IN A DELI! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I'M SO PATHETICALLY STUPID! WHAHAHAHA! DOES IT GET ANY WORSE? NOOOOOOOOO!

i'm 16 in three weeks as of yesterday. why does 16 have to be such a special age? i'm suffering as a junior at this pathetic high school, what joy do i have? every other age is better. i feel sixteen already and it isn't pleasant. i have no way of appreciating my exquisite beauty anyway because i have no boyfriend (unless you count somebody, but he's more like a friend who takes me to concerts, but if he likes me i'm happy...) nothing to do, lots of homework and crappy grades. i guess i'm overdoing this grade thing. what will i end up with, three B's? that's really not that bad. except for the fact that that's half my classes and p.e. doesn't really count. but lots of kids do worse. i'm still an ok student. but, god dammit, i'm better than that. shit. now i'm depressed again. i should be doing my pathetic english essay but i feel too lazy. i am going to hms pinafore in TWO DAYS and tiff's party on saturday night, so i should work, but i don't want to and i just don't feel the need for willpower anymore. i ate tons of chips, but watched part of "you were never lovlier" with fred astaire and rita hayworth. absolutely charming, but how can your last name be acuna when you wear a kilt? ask adolphe menjou. he's dead. god dammit, i hate my life.

that was a joke you bastards. no one appreciates my sense of humor. they think i'm serious when i'm joking and i'm joking when i'm serious. fucking losers.

from what i've seen and heard, it looks like southpark is in its waning days. it really is a pretty old show. it's starting its 7th season and golden girls did 7 years and the nanny did 6 and they're both fantastic shows, though very very different from south park. i got into it too late. but i was so young and innocent! i swear every fucking minute but back when i was 11 i thought that was the most horrible thing ever. dorothy doesn't cease to remind me of this. god she's a conventional pain. ugggggggg

dad and i were talking and he loves my novel plans and after senior year he wants me to be in rome or paris working on my writing! isn't that fantastic! and he was talking about a screenplay of it and we were guessing who should play the lead. it's between gwyneth paltrow (i'm serious, judging from her more serious work but funny side, she can do this. her emma woodhouse and margot tenenbaum in particular are to die for!), scarlett johanson (much more realistic judging from her potential in lost in translation, her looks, her young age -- she turns 19 two weeks after i'm 16) or an unknown sensitive 16 year old brunette i pick up and lead to stardom. though that sounds kind of silly, i could find a good unknown. i think that's most realistic. paltrow is the least realistic, but i love the idea. i just dreamt that i was calling her in for auditions and told her that i didn't want to insult her by her having to audition but i wouldn't be able to tell who will do the part the best without seeing it done even though i deeply admire her work. (except view from the top and bullshit like that. uggggg. and i haven't seen the sylvia plath movie. i'm not convinced i wnt to cuz i'm not into that type of poetry). i love to dream. i have to do something. it will be so fun to be 17, beautiful, talented, in paris practicing my french seducing men and writing a book. wahaha! i hope i'd get a boyfriend. i need men! daaahh! and my friend is annoying me. but he likes the tcm movie guide for november that i brought in today. it was so exciting. that was the nicest thing that's happened to me since last monday. it doesn't matter what i become, as long as i remain artistic, true to myself. and i believe i've been extremely successful, much more successful this year than ever before. the bad grades really help because i can see how dumb school is and realize that my art is more important. i can be errant like this. like the physics quiz i fucked up today. that's a great story and i'll tell it another time.

2003-10-07T11:34:00.000-07:00

drugs, poison and academia

today was exhausting! i finished les enfants horribles. whoa. i'm starting a collection of thomas mann short stories. i fucked up my history test (by the way under-achievers, that's an 82) but got 49/50 on my "we don't need no condescension" paper. i ran a lot and sweat in fitness. i'm so slow and forgot to record the first four laps on my watch. i'm so forgetful. at piano lesson i kept making the same mistakes over and over -- damn double sharps. i can't seem to learn anything. god i'm stupid. but there was a very poetic moment. samir said something like "school doesn't matter" when he was chatting with my folks toward the end of the lesson and i said in a sad, quiet voice, "but it's all i have." i got to school, i do homework, that's most of my life, that's my ticket to get out of this dump, and i'm not supposed to care. i think that's insulting.

i was errant in physics. i didnh't work on the sheet. i looked at my noats -- great new spelling -- on anouilh's antigone. i tried to talk about it during english, but he was a bastard. i said something stunningly beautiful about it and he replied "that's so existential french" as in "that's so yesterday" or something. how can a teacher care so little? the point is that it's so good, so stunning, so meaningful.

french was boring. i read during lunch and that was fun. math sucked because i was getting nervous about my exam. i was upset 7th hour and fucked it up 8th hour. so that was great. then mom took me on some errands. i had a bad headache, but it was nice to be with mom. we got spongebob squarepants gummy crabby patties at hancock fabrics. we ate at fortune house. studied math, physics, english (open-book test, the asshole) and looked at the french questions. oy. sleepy. watching the nanny. fun. i'm really tired, so i'm not going to write any more. want to sleeeeep. hate life.

cc: it's a natural thing, a female thing
niles: i hear sometimes females eat their young

2003-10-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

tea and apathy

sunday was depressing, but today was mostly wonderful. i can endure school tomorrow. i have to anyway. i woke up late and watched some lifetime. the most charming episode of the nanny was on. they did a fiddler on the roof parody of the scene in which tevya tells golda about his "bad dream" where wolf's dead wife rises from the grave and sings and fran was the dead wife and it was funny. maxwell scheffield does a great dick van dyke impression. that was especially funny.

i listened to miles davis and took a walk. to was so inexpressibly nice. everything was lovely, humane. the trees were beautiful, the sky was beautiful, the music was relaxing, i was on top of the world. it's ashame how hard it is to articulate beauty. the good authors manage it, but they complain so much that i know they have trouble. but i'm also sensitive to the emotions they are getting across, so i feel it more than other people would. that makes me a good reader. well, i have to be good at something!

then i went to michelle's NEW HOUSE from 12-4. GORGEOUS! lake view, patio, spacious, amazing! she feels the same way about school crap that i do. i can't wait till senior year! we want to take portuguese together at the u of i! anyway, we talked to my mom a lot and then she left and we got decadent! we ate pizza, chips (well, just me) and a donut and then we watched southpark! we talked a lot. it was great. i was so depressed when it had to end. dad took me to whole in the wall for dinner and i got cantonese pork n stuff. i practiced two hours.

thinking more about music. god dammit, i'm so fucking neurotic. i have so much shit to do that i don't want music to add to this gigantic list. i want it to be nice. last lesson was bad, but i'm better prepared. i'm finally connected musically to the schubert. took longer than usual. i enjoy the challenge, though, usually pieces are too easy musically, like the liszt. that was effortless, but very challenging technically. now i think the beginning's corny. it's not even hard. (un sospiro). in pieces the hard parts never sound hard, so people care about the crap. playing for people is a waste of time; it's just a big ego trip. people shouldn't think about music. it's pretty, it's nice to listen to or play and that's it. IT i tell you. that's why concerts are dumb. they're just nice to go to to get out. besides, there's no nicer place to go with a boyfriend. or a pseudo-boyfriend. my mother thinks we're dating. i'll go with it...

my point is that i've always made the assumption my musicality doesn't matter because idiots can play as musically. this is definitely true, but i think i need to have a little more faith. and since i'm so neurotic on this point that's all i'll say.

i'm reading so many blogs now. lemme think: mark, tom, ben, josie (but i think she changed her url), and i just added emily and jerry. i'm starting to enjoy posting comments. i'm frightened to give out my address because my blog will be reduced to their blogs. not that theirs are bad, per se, just conventional. no, i think i shall keep this to myself.

my latest idea, beside reading every fucking minute, is to write quotes from books in a notebook so i can write about those books during class. besides that, i can hand-write a blog and then type it up later. plenty of girls write letters to each other during class. i should have thought of that. i need to have the willpower to make myself do something while i'm bored in class. i have to retain my individuality in this stifling environment. it ain't easy!

hey, my title's a really cute movie pun. if you tell me what it's about i'll love you forever.

today is my 15 years 11 months birthday. i am 16 one month from today. woohoo!

2003-10-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

nightlife

well, i'm getting back into the swing of things and it's not wonderful. it's not horrible though. i was up at 8, so i took a bath and resumed reading the cocteau. i'm almost finished. my goal was to finish this evening. i'm wide awake and pretty sick of tv, so i might read after blogging. this book is so incredibly, incredibly strange. it's one of those books that will influence my writing and perceptions subtly and in a way i can't explain, but it is not a book i can analyze the way i can discuss prufrock (though first i read it this other way) or anouilh's antigone. which was fabulous, the by way. i thought about returning to school on tuesday after my 5 day absence and writing about it in that way. i can't really write my meaningful thoughts up here. that's just not what blogs are for. as you know, i tried to explain taht on the blog that's officially dead. there was another brief post today, but the comment section was gone. it probably wasn't due to what i said; i can't imagine anything i say to him to be important in any way. lys means lilly in french. i stumbled across it while looking up words. that vian is impossible. but there's no way she's gonna give me a bad grade, so i'll get through it. i did an entire french wordsearch today for extra credit. i finished the whole thing. i was good at it! it was actually pretty fun. i'm not gonna do teh crossword. i can't and there's just no point.

elisabeth is so evil, clever, wonderful. beautiful, conniving, conflicted, passionate, she's all i want in a woman. and i'm not bisexual. someone has to remain straight. i've got two gays in the family already; i don't want my grandfather to freak out again. besides i like guys, just not the ones at uni. the only elligible ones (if you're reading this you've just become interested) are either too nerdy, conventional and bland or too happy, relentlessly cheerful, positive and from a very different culture. then there's my pseudo-beau who apparently has quite the schoolboy crush on me. i smile sadistically. i don't think i've ever been liked before. once. but i was little and he wasn't much. and in my last courtship which no one will recall the flirting was so poor that even i just wanted it to end. i don't know if he liked me. boys are so shy. is rejection that horrible? i hear a resounding yes. it's ashame i don't feel that kind of attraction to him, but i really like him as a friend, so i'll pretend i do for intrigue. i'm so evil. i love it. i'm not hurting him. i'll get as intimate as he wants because i know he won't want anything inappropriate. he's quite the gentleman. he always holds the doors open for me. it feels wonderful. i always thank him.

i was wondering if louise could be like elisabeth. since she has very little conception of what she is doing she would have to be an unconscious elisabeth, but that term is ironic because elisabeth and the others exist in a childlike, unconscious, mystical world, a spiritual, sensual, subtle realm that cocteau evokes with acute sensitivity, with so much sensitivity that no conclusions can be drawn, it cannot all make sense, it is beyond sense, it is in a time and space in which "sense" is not a category that applies to it -- it is the Room. i'm frustrated; i just don't know what the game *is*. it's like a drug, that's made clear. but what does it consist of? what are they doing to each other? between elisabeth and paul it seems to be mind games that will allow one to have power over the other. lise is superior. it's like a snide, depressed, existential version of beatrice and benedick -- they're both excellent at the game, but she is the undisputed master. especially when lise finds his love letter to agatha and convinces gerard and agatha to marry. her cruelty to paul was mercy for the other two who became happy, ordinary people (as of page 157). they were the only real players; perhaps she had to intensify the game, get rid of the outsiders to save them and hurt her opponent.

but i mainly see louise and maldon in antigone and creon. louise creates the stories, is loud, adventurous. maldon has to live day to day. but there are twists. like creon, and this inspiration i needed, he resents her for her pride, for not having capitulated. they have to become mortal enemies and fight each other with cocteau-like strategy. but they're friends in the end because he is the only person who understands her and does so sympathetically. that line was basically taken from summer school. i miss hahvahd! i adored my class! why did it have to end?!?! i want to be an english/french lit major at harvard and skip this whole uni crap! well, with the way my grades are looking i'm not sure i'll go that high, but i'm trying my best and some place will want me. i'm talented. i gotta relax and have some faith. i have an elaborate plan for my future. but in the end maldon will be caught for some petty crime and will get the privilege of dying, even though it wasn't his, and everyone will love him as a myth the way modern people love shakespeare and louise will know how wrong that is, how cruel to him it is, and she, the charismatic risk-taker, will be forced to live. that is the tragedy.

i'm having fun talking to a friend about blogs. i won't tell her my address. i'm telling her how much easier harvard summer school was than uni. of course i'm exceptional. ;). but it was true for me.

to all pages for all ages clintele, orpheus and eurydice is not by homer. idiots! all of ya!

i feel immersed in my own night-world now and i love it.

i found out that orpheus and eurydice is one of those greek myths with no author. and there *is* a movie of les enfants horribles which i must get. the amazon review says it's great. it's amazing how everything i do connects. on amazon it said if you liked holy terrors you'd like madame bovary and we know that's true. it also said that people who were interested in cocteau were also interested in thomas mann and i have been planning for a day or so to read some mann short stories after the cocteau. weeeird! i think the point of the cocteau is unimportant. it doesn't arrive anywhere, except that the game must end somehow. the point is to watch the game, to see elisabeth's subtle tactics and the intense relationships between characters. this is sensitive, poetic literature in which the subtle, hard-to-grasp insights revealed are more important than any ending "goal"; that is the best kind of book. that is what movies fail to realize; movies tell "stories" with conventional plots in which the end is the theme and all leads up to the end and has no value in itself. i'm worried that a movie of this book would trivialize it in that way. since cocteau did movies, i doubt it will be bad, but i don't think it will do justice to the book. i was glad that this wasn't a play because so much of the best part was seeing cocteau explaining the characters and creating the other-worldy atmosphere. that will be gone in thte movie. except the snowball fight. that will be amazing. if this movie is successful it will be a revelation in the history of cinema: a movie taht does not need a conventional plot, that can be sublte in an intellectual way like literature. movies are good stylistically, but lack the intellectual power of literature. there are so many meaningful, odd phrases in great books that are interesting in and of themselves without leading to some trite ending theme about loving people. american splendor, an otherwise annoying movie, had one beautiful scene like that in which harvey met a girl he went to high school with at the bakery and they liked each other and she was married with children; they missed their chance. she told him about a book she had been reading, dreiser, and how it was good. he finished it and loved it and felt the sweetness of having had that moment with her, but the sadness of missing her. being alive was both painful and sweet. he watched the cars underneath him. it was a masterful scene. the rest of the movie can go. except the nerd was hysterical. what a voice! nyerd. so deliberate.

every time i get immersed in my own world it's so much harder to go back to the real one. it makes life painful and confusing. but life is much more painful if i stay in the real world. i've suffered enough to know that. most of all, i'm frightened about going back to school. you can't completely retain it at school. trying is sad in that as you try to rekindle it you know you've lost it. but it's better than not having it and as antigone says, "what one can do one ought to do."

i don't like hearing most people talk about literature. they do it badly and it flusters me. they don't feel it, so i gradually feel the beauty and uniqueness of literature seeping out of it, as water is forced out of a towel when you wring it. i have to remember this forever. it separates me from other people. i think it means i have to write. i have so much more inside of me relating to literature than simple analysis. eventually i have to write. i love louise and maldon. i would be lost without them, as i would be lost without my own parents. i'm so sorry that my mother lost her mother at my age. i would die. no one in the world is kinder than my mother. and i mean kind in the purest, noblest sense of the word, not the saccharine kindness i hate.

i'm gonna sleep. except my friend wants this url. shall i give it to her? i'm torn.

2003-10-03T19:12:00.000-07:00

spartan epistles in code

it was easy to convince my parents to let me stay home again. i actually do have a headache. i watched part of "my favorite wife" this morning with cary grant and irene dunne. she was stuck on an island for 7 years and comes back to find out that he remarried. it's so cute! i just did something interesting. one of my favorite blogs that i used to read a lot is officially "dead". the blog was good; he just gets too self-conscious. so i explained that to him in a "shout out." i really liked that blog and his neuroses are getting in the way. i said i was "lys" after lysistrata, which i finished today. so funny! greek tragedies may be pompous, but the comedies are funny! i have to practice piano soon. uggg. it's such a pain. i just learn crappy notes and fail at the part i've "learned." it's such crap. life is boring and stupid. mom went to chicago. she told me she'll reward me for all the quizzes i flunk. now i feel better. but she's in chicago until sunday night while my unsupportive, tense father is here. i ate a lot. i really have to start dieting again. i usually don't eat really bad things, i just have too much. (we don't have bad things in the house, so i can't, but when we had chocolate i hate all of it...). i started emailing robin, yes i got her address, but donna called me, so we talked for a long time. i saw part of "the bells of st mary's" but it was really corny, even though i typically like corny. god, those nun outfits are so ugly they make ingrid bergman look kinda fat! she was awfully good at the role, very sensitive. lisa rinna is so fucking ugly. she's giving me a headache. must turn off tv and practice soon. i loved talkign to my mom today, but now she's gone! i seriously have a horrible, horrible headache. it's even affecting my cheeks. i have to start doing homework tomorrow. i wish i could read and finish cocteau's "les enfants horribles" but i have no fucking time.

but what one can do, one ought to do. -- antigone, jean anouilh. this is very encouraging for me.

"merge" is a funny show. this lady is really neurotic and wants her super laid-back husband to get rid of all his stuff. i had some motrin. icky. i woke up at 10:30 and i was really drowsy. i didn't even go to bed that late. i want to write down my tcm list of highlights for next week. i think i'll do that before i practice. i stained my shirt. have to change my shirt. i don't know how these newlyweds are going to agree on a house; they hate each other's stuff. i want to find another blog to look at. i'm rambling. i'm annoyed. my life is stupid.

2003-10-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

belle of the ball

so it's finally october. i've made it this far, but it's taking its toll. i'm sick today. i'm sniffly, but i'm mostly sick of tests. transformations are so unbelievably fucking hard for me and i had no time to study last night because charlie took me to the alexander string quartet. that was fun! i had dinner at 4 to get it out of the way. i didn't get home till four because i had to see mrs jockusch about the math. i'm doing miserably. the last unit was good! noooo! somehow dad couldn't help me on this the way he can usually help me, so now i'm behind. i thought, "ok, this didn't go well, but we can fix it, i see what went wrong and dad will know what to do" but that never happened. i explained that to her, except not the dad part. it felt annoying because that takes some of the blame for my lack of preparation off of me. normally he can help me, but this stuff confused both of us. i guess physicists wouldn't use this stuff. sometimes he has trouble with my physics homework, too. what does he do? lattuce gauge theory. uhh... whatever.

these days i remind myself of my third character, the one that made my daydreams begin, the center of all of my inner life. she's changed ridiculously since she was 12. her problem is funny. she's very smart, but not in such a way that anyone can tell, not at the things she normally has to do, so she looks stupid and that assumption hurts her feelings. she knows she isn't, but since even her own parents think she is, she has to believe it enough so as not to feel bad about everything she can't do, or mostly so she doesn't look like she's trying to act smart when she isn't, which is what everyone thinks she's doing all the time. you know, this isn't much like me, but i am also in situations where i'm stupid and i feel that is unfair because i know i'm bright. just in literature. and i'm not trying to write eloquently here, i just want a place for myself. however, because of my quirky personality and literary expertise no one will think of me as stupid. people don't care that i'm bad at math. even tiffany, miss braggard, was being so kind to me the other day. i think she knows that it's like to feel tense over grades and suffer over forces beyond our control. she found people selling free pens and knew that i like pens, so she got me one. that's so sweet! but it cannot fully redeem her: she has a very cocky way of being. she's trying to make herself feel better by quietly, but obnoxiously gloating. and i'm not the only person who feels that way. sarah and michelle do, too, and probably ariel. in sins of emma, since tiff has basically become katie o'meigh, this gets interesting. lou has to be mean to katie when katie tries to be kind, as i sometimes do to tiff because she is trying to console me to make herself feel perfect morally as well as with grades and i resent that. superficially lou will seem mean and she won't be able to articulate her reasoning because she just senses that there is something contrived about katie, but she'll be right, and yet not right for being mean. this is so much like emma and charles.

i knew everyone at that concert. i don't understand why the alexander quartet was such a big deal for everyone. you don't see all those people at other concerts that are just as good. i suppose they were good, but music doesn't do for me what it used to. it seemed silly: four men sitting there with their pants cropping up so you could see their socks, swaying a lot and playing music that i found to be a little dull. beethoven in e minor is charlie's favorite of his string quartets, but i thought it was dull. i enjoyed it as background music to daydreaming. at least 30 audience members were going bald. i counted. mr murphy was there, marilyn upah-bant, the new principal kassie "general" (haha) patton, lizie goldwasser (well that's no surprise) even kevin wyld's grandmother who i don't really know anymore. lots of uni kids: monah (daughter!), nathan domier who charlie knows, robert boyce who looks like eric loui, mr stone's son (i saw mr stone at the end), martin geiger, etc. i even saw alex ivanova during the second half with some guy i didn't know! why was she there and who was she with? i'll have to ask her; i'm dying to know.

but i think mom is right when she says i have good social instincts. i felt everything out and knew how to maneuver, like a social novel. that was what made the evening such a delight. i also read some of anouilh's antigone while drying my hair before the concert. charlie came before i was quite dressed, so my dad showed him in and i came down the stairs, looking lovely! i was what i had dreamed of, an intellectual by day (or early evening) and a socialite by night. i want to spend all day reading and all night partying without a care in the world. and those parties will become mine, i will be patron of the arts and one of the artists, i will lead a new group of literary visionaries. i hope i can! i feel like i can because i can't do anything else. what can i do? i read well, awfully well, and so personally. when i take something from a book, it comes from my heart, sometimes so much so that i'm not even analyzing the book anymore, it's helping me muse. that's what happened with prufrock and why linder hated my original presentation. i had been wondering about what went wrong there and i think i figured it out. i'm fantastic socially; i make lots of friends from very different social strata and i know how to manipulate my image. i do it so well that everyone falls into my traps and can never get out of them. mom was impressed with me at the funeral. i didn't even realize what i was doing. somehow i knew when to be where, how much to talk, i just knew. i am the leader of my friends and make the best parties. and i have a soul. no one else does. i'm destined to read, write and be patronness. i'm made for these things and for nothing else. it is my destiny! how exciting! destiny is usually such an ominous word, especially in anouilh. i love his play. it's so stunningly eloquent, especially antigone, and with so many more intellectual subtleties than stupid sophocles. even in english class i don't always read well. i disgraced myself yesterday. i couldn't phrase a point and someone else corrected me. that happened once last year, too, but that was worse because nate did it. i still don't know what to say in each situation. the english class is so poor, taught in so conventional a way that i can't even do it. but it's as if i have no skills at all now! i can't do history (the test was ok, but i could have analyzed the cartoon better and that's what i'm good at!) or english or french or math or physics or anything athletic. that covers all of my classes! i'm not much on piano either and have no time to practice. i must practice well today. i really don't want to go to school tomorrow. i want to miss 2 days in a row. i think i deserve it. we don't have school monday, so i'll get a five day weekend. nice. but somehow when you're away from school you're never really away from school. even just writing here now i'm nervous because i have so many duties. i want to read antigone and practice, study math, do history, get history notes from sarah tonight, do this, do that, oy vey. that's why i want one more day off. i deserve it! dad gets nasty about these things, but i can get mom on my side. how can i get sick? really sick? that would make this so much easier. i really want to be sick as a dog. fever, coughing, sore throat, congestion -- lots of congestion, bring it on! i will go to claudine tonight, though. i got sick once a few weeks ago and had to miss claudine because i went to school, had fitness and was exhausted. i think weightlifting might be my favorite class. that's so fucking sad. i desperately want to email robin and i've been meaning to do that, but i haven't found her email address. donnie called this morning and i didn't ask her! SHIT! MERDE! FUCK! i didn't think of it! i just wanted her to go away so i could watch the nanny. it was nice sleeping till 8 and watching lifetime tv! i love their morning shows! it's almost 11. everything is so nice. it's quiet, not pressured, beautiful leaves otu of my windows, all there is i nthe world is this house and me. i fear that i am going to write something stupid. it's so hard not to be contrived! and that's how cynicism got started. i guess i should go start doing some shit with myself. it was nice to blog. a little respite from constant pain; that's why i got a blog in the first place. i hope i'll have more time to write here, but time is exactly what i need and don't have.

2003-09-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

there will be time

today was absolutely uneventful. i didn't even think about my projects. i've just been relaxing. that scale doesn't work because i know i've gotten quite a bit thinner since school started and it says the same thing. you may think i'm blaming it for not dieting well enough, but i look better and clothes are looser on me. and my parents notice. i do not trust that scale. at all. i choose not talk about confirmation class. i had a greek salad at panera and my dad and i talked about how nasty he's going to be to mr. carrubba after intro physics. now i'm going to get pork teriyaki at asiana and then practice piano, so i'll be on in a few hours. mom's at sinfonia. joy.

2003-09-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

you can't go home again

i finally had a nice day. it's weird that the nice day was my mother's uncle's funeral. i had to wake up at 7 which was horrible. even though i suffered after doing my math homework, i wrote and made progress and felt better. i just have to work at it; it's better than i realize when i'm apart from it. i put on my outfit which is absolutely gorgeous. i had a flattering black shirt, my black skirt i wrote to ben's bar mitzvah back in july, my mom's heels that are very elegant, but slightly big on me and a white necklace that really set off the outfit. all though the panty hose feel funny, it's so nice to look nice. i was so happy that i was putting on nice clothes and going to chicago to see relatives instead of staying in my pyjamas and doing homework all day. I'll have to suffer tomorrow.

dad and i had a great time driving up. we listened to violin music for no real reason: pearlman playing paganini and tchaikovsky *melts* and szeryng playing solo bach *melts again.* then we talked about my writing plans which are coming along. i got out some aggression about school, but not in an offensive way. god, it's such a relief to have changed out of my hose. ahhh! there's a freedom about pants that skirts don't have, but skirts are so elegant. mom said she was so delighted to see me in a skirt because of that elegance. she said she even found some ncie skirts for me but didn't buy them because i normally don't like skirts, but i've gotten attached to this black one, so i think i might even wear one to school in a few weeks! that would be extremely fun, actually, because everyone would have to notice and comment. now i'm really motivated. anyway, my stupid hose ripped and i didn't break my extra pair which made me upset, but we got there early and bought me some new ones. i was initially worried because they didn't have the color i like which is "sheer black" they just had "off black" which looked grey. i changed in starbucks and decided i looked fine and that it would be worse to wear hose that were too dark. i keep feeling my legs because i'm so surprised i'm no longer in a skirt. there's no flowing material.

we went into a starbucks just as glorious as the one in brookline! they played boccharini and had books! dad and i bought turkey sandwiches for a light lunch before the funeral and ate at starbucks while i looked at the 2000 guinness book of world records! i especially enjoyed the fattest model who was 719 pounds. that was ***sick***. i wished that the funeral had been jewish and longer so i would have felt at home, but it was secular. :( well i have confirmation class tomorrow morning, so that'll be borning. that sarah who co-teaches with the rabbi is really annoying. my family really likes the rabbi, he's very sweet, but this sarah is coarse, ditzy and looks like a hillbilly to me. she shocked me. she was also so overly happy which scared rachel. rachel and i tease dorothy together which is extremely beneficial to my health. it makes me appreciate rachel so much more. i'm so evil. but she sees through that fake wit and it's nice to see that i'm not the only person who can do that. it really makes me respect her because that takes character. it's nice to know that people can understand other people a little bit.

and speaking of confirmation class, at the funeral was a woman who had confirmation class with my grandmother, marilyn, as the teacher! it touched my mom and aunt to see her. i wish i knew my grandmother; she was such a kind, sensitive and artistic woman. i would have cheered her up with my mirth; she was so lonely and i know what it's like to be lonely. my mom had such a hard life with this sad mother, strict father and arrogant sister and she's worked so hard to make life nicer for me. that is so noble. she wants my 16th birthday to be especially nice because her mother died around her 16th birthday so she was sad and never even had a birthday party. it also means a lot to me to have a nice party because school is so horrible this year and sixteen should be sweet and i'm becoming so pretty and in my prime of life i don't get to be a debutante or go to balls, i just have to do homework. but on october 19th i'm going to chute auditorium in evanston to see HMS PINAFORE!!!! WOOHOO!!! i had so much fun at ruddigore two years ago! i feel so bad i missed yeoman of the guard! but it may be too serious for my mother to enjoy.

after the funeral we went to jill's (lawry's wife) house for a sort of reception. i talked to my cousin david on the way and my other cousin david on the way out the door. he's a professor of art history at yale and has published two books! so buy them, there's "infinite regress: marcel duchamp" and "american art since 1945" which you can get at any art museum! but the best part was driving home with mom. i love her so much. i'm vowing to care less about school and more about my artistic self. i'm going to email my cousin robin because she loves literature the way i do, but she's an actress. during school i'm going to write thank you letters (won't send them till christmas, but there's nothign wrong with starting early) to my piano teacher and even my friends! i especially want to thank my teacher. he's the kindest, smartest adult i know outside of my immediately family and he genuinely respects me and cares about my musicianship. he's such a quality person. he adds joy and beauty to my life. there will be a sentence like that in there. it was so nice to see my family today because they're like me! they're quality people and love me and show me where i come from, where i belong, who i make proud by existing, who i resemble in both my features and interests. i look like my aunt donnie, my cousin robin, and most importantly like my grandmother marilyn. i wish i knew her.

2003-09-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

la vie en sang

hey this is my second blog today. i was hyper in english and that was good. math was ok except that she's given a ridiculous amount of homework when she even said it would be short. i just suck at it, that's all. i got food from first wok, had too much because my life's so fucking empty, and i suffered with all that math homework. at least i've been watching "the cheap detective" with peter falk taht's so hysterically funny. it's really odd. his humphrey bogart impression is stunning and the guy who does peter lorre is phenomenal. even though that's a stupid word. i just have to endure these years, these convent years. *faints melodramatically.* after all, vivien leigh went to a horrible brutish convent school before marrying her first husband at age 19 and then starring in gone with the wind at the age of 26. yay! i just have to wait for my turn.

2003-09-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

l'ediface immense du souvenir

greetings from school. i have ten minutes before the bell rings. i emailed my mom, so i feel better about my pathetic life. i guess i'll just tell you what i told her. i'm usually not this detailed because i'm too busy and therefore get too fatigued. in fact, i'm very tired right now. none of it is worth talking about. my lack of sleep from my movie night is really getting to me today even though i went to bed at 10:30 last night. i don't think i'll have much work this weekend. the physics quiz sucked, as usual. but i imagined lou feeling her misery and maldon (whose name may change but i'm so suck as to how to give him a personality without giving him a personality and maintaining his omiscience without him being an uncharismatic charicature) is angry at her because she can't see that her dramatic position as wronged pupil is something that she created that she can enjoy, is part of the fairy tale that she wants but she is so absorbed in what she doesn't have that she can't tell. that is not a moral lesson; she doesn't have the analytic powers. she can't see herself, she can only create other people. there is no moral way to summarize that knowledge, it's just how she is. her main problem is that she can't see the beauty in not being content, at being close, at approaching it as much as she can. but she does approach it and she deserves credit for that. i have no idea how to give maldon the right kind of speech so that he is ambiguous but not stupid, so he's not just implying things without saying them but creating meaningful symbols. it sounds bad here; i say it better and i will write it better. i feel like such a little nothing, but somehow i know that there's something in me that will come out someday, that exists on such a deep level that trivializing it does not rupture it, and i will lead an adventurous life when i get out of high school and can do things, feel, move, exist. now i'm just frozen here. before i go, i'll say that from watching the movie i'd have to call it "the convent years" not days. fine. i should post here about my latest, absolutely intriguing movie observations, but i have to suffer through english class now. see you.

2003-09-17T22:56:00.000-07:00

adultery and the sunrise

well, today's the day. madame bovary is on in a half hour, at 1 Am. I've had 3 cans of coke and extra food to be awake! I was tired about an hour ago, but from more caffeine and yogurt and cheese, (daaaiiiry) i've got my second wind! i'm so excited that i'm so excited! i'm ready to watch one of the greatest, most beatiful movies in the universe. this is such an adventure! i decided that i had to stay up until 3 in the morning to watch because school limits my freedom and i need to do something to get my freedom back. getting 4 hours of sleep one night is a fair sacrifice. most kids brag about how they don't get more than that anyway, but i think they're full of shit. it's actually great that i've stayed up so late because i finished my definition essay and otherwise i wouldn't have done it. it's important that i get stuff done as soon as possible because i won't get to do much homework saturday due to uncle lawry's funeral in chicago. he was such a nice man and my mom loved him a lot. he always got me extra presents when i visited him. but it's sad that he died because he was a man and a man left the earth forever. it's not sadder because he was kind. that makes it more personal for me, but it is barbaric to say that his death is only sad because he was kind. men come and go while the cold trees impartially sway as usual. that is the brutality of life.

that's the most affected i've felt about this. i loved him, but didn't know him well enough or see him often enough to feel very bad. i am only affected by my narrow life, not by anything of real significance. you can call this my spoiledness if you like, but it's only natural. i'm just a kid trying to do well in school; that's all that can affect me. i'm different from everyone else because i admit it. my mom and i picked my outfit. we took forever to find the right coat, but we went through enough of mom's things. i borrow a lot of her clothes these days, especially clothes she wore when she was younger. it's fun! i look pretty in all that black with the white necklace.

i'm trying my best to accept my horrible situation. i think i'm getting better at caring less about my horrible grades. physics is a huge problem, though. he gives too many quizzes and they're mean and he doesn't teach the stuff. i hope i can get him to help me. i know he'll curve the grades and i'm happy for a b, but i can't rely solely on that. besides, i want him to see that i care. **deeply.** otherwise i'm relaxing, though i was really tense during the french quiz. HOW THE FUCK SHOULD I KNOW WHO LIVES ON BOULEVARD SUCHET? BITCH! AND THAT'S IMPORTANT TO THE STORY HOW??? we made up definitions of word combinations in english. that was fun. and i finished decorating my locker. god, it's beautiful. i had so much space, so i want the same locker next year. i was dying to be in the senior alcove because i was awed by those lockers when i was desperate to get into uni, but it's alphabetical and since my name is about in the middle of the alphabet, i don't think i'd be where i'd like to. i'm near kris and brad, so that's cool, but my friends are all on the opposite side of the hall! i don't really care, though.

we had our first health seminar in p.e. today. it was uneventful. i love my blue shoes, but i wore them twice in a row so i think i'll move on to my red and whites. just 6 minutes until madame bovary! jennifer jones is so beautiful and amazing! ahhh! i will write my funny definitions here later, but i need to move upstairs, go to the bathroom and put away my food before the movie starts. please watch the movie, too, and enjoy it! adieu, my friends!