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Whacked Out

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I found this video via The New Yorker's book blog. See, English major nerds CAN be funny!

Summer Reading

Ok, first of all, full disclosure: I think the Modern Library 100 Best Novels list is ridonkulous. It's elitist, ignores many important trends, favors white, European men, and does not include post-modern works (furthermore, I feel like everyone thinks The Modern Library is some third party entity when, in reality, its an imprint of Random House. And I'm pretty sure that RH publishes all the books on this list, so...). That being said, all the novels on the list are top-notch, and yet I've read an embarressingly low number of them. My number is...22. Oops. I must make amends.

My act of atonement: a summer reading list; unfortunetly, most of the books aren't from TML Top 100. Red indicates that I've finished it already. An * indicates it's an ML Top 100.

*The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers.

White Noise, Don DeLillo.

The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie.

The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco.

The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd (I was the last woman in America to read this book).

Va' dove ti porta il cuore, Susanna Tamaro (This is The Notebook of Italy).

*Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald.

*Ulysses, James Joyce (let's be honest, this ones just not going to happen until grad school).

The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood.

Life Studies, Robert Lowell.

None to Accompany Me, Nadine Gordimer.

The Western Canon, Harold Bloom.

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino.

Matisse the Master: The Conquest of Color, Hilary Spurling.

And, last but not least,

Twilight, Stephanie Meyer. Just tryin to keep it classy.

Things I Dislike: Sweatiness

How do you stay cool when the mercury rises?

My mother always perscribed a healthy dose of "cold movies". We would sit in our dark family room, its windows and blinds having been closed since 7am, and watch movies that took place in icy, snowy locations. This often led to us watching Christmas classics in the midst of summer.

Since I am not spending these dog days under my mother's watch, I have to figure out my own coping mechanisms. Mainly, these consist of short, cold showers, naps, and alcohol. I know booze makes you hotter, but it also makes you sleepy, and then you can just nap away those unpleasent, sweaty afternoons.

Yesterday I went over to the house of pals Megan and Cara. They live off the Hill in a real neighborhood, complete with backyard and large deck. We sunbathed for a few hours, spritzing each other with the hose every few minutes, and listening to top 40 radio. There's nothing like hip hop when you're frying in the sun. We got sleepy and bored, so around 3pm we chopped up mint leaves and made some stroonnnng mojitos. And we kept on mojito-ing through dinner, through our impromptu 90s dance-music singalong, and through a viewing of Clueless. None of us were very coherent by the time 10pm rolled around, as it was at least 90 deg. inside the house even after the sun went down, and we'd been drinking for a solid 6 hours, and we'd probably sweated a good 10 pounds. However, we managed to make the day go by real quick, which is significantly different than how I remember afternoons filled with my mother's cool-down method. So booze, friends and 90s dance parties it is, then!

Taco Tuesday

Big success, pals. Taco Tuesday was an event for the ages!

I think our apartment will smell like taco seasoning until Judgement Day. 5 packets of seasoning will do that to ya.

In other news, Garrett beat me real bad at Phase 10, the best card game ever. A rematch will have to be had. Perhaps we'll live-blog it.

Sunday and Monday

Sunday and Monday were quite epic in scope.

Sunday: I bought a fan. Sunday also included some nice phone time with BFF "L" who told me she is getting an apartment and living in NYC for the year, and that I should move there, too. Seriously considering it.
Then The Other L and I bought food for Taco Tuesday, the classy dinner party we are hosting this evening. We bought 5.5 lbs of beef, 36 taco shells, 5 packs of taco seasoning, and about a gallon of salsa and guac. We are pretty excited for Taco Tuesday. It's almost as exciting as Bum Wednesday.
Pal "T" and I went to the park and played our favorite card game, Phase Ten. He owned me. Hard.
Sunday also meant family dinner (and by family I mean roommate). The Other L and I made pasta alla carbonara. So that the eggs don't scramble, you actually cook them with the heat of the hot pasta in the bowl. It was like a science experiment. A delicious science experiment!

Monday: L and I went to the fabric store and bought fabric to decorate the apt. I made a peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch. L's Mad Men season 2 came, so we watched the first episode, and then we went to have dinner at Rancho Bravo with E, K, and M. And we ate Molly Moon's. And we sat in Cal Anderson. And we got accosted by crazies. And the weather was perfect.

All in all, two highly successful days.

It Goes There

If you are an avid fan of Team Lara, you know that the Canadian teen series Degrassi rocks my world. It is nothing short of epic in its scope. Cancer, auto-thefts, coming-outs, teen pregnancies, first jobs, a teen stripper, drugs, jail/juvie, STDs, parent-teacher hookups, nerdy-to-slutty makeovers, and basically everything and anything you could ever imagine. BFF "L" and I watch it whenever we are at our parents', as neither of us have the Noggin channel in Seattle/NYC. We've watched it since middle school, and so it should be unsurprising to all you readers that I have a years-long crush on one of the characters, "Jimmy". Jimmy used to be a basketball star, but then a crazy classmate paralyzed him during a shooting spree, so Jimmy learned how to use a wheelchair, dealt with impotence, started a clothing line, went to college, and began rapping. His rapping does not remain in the realm of fiction, however. In the real world he is known as "Drake" (as far as rap names go, it's weak-sauce, but considering his birth-name is Aubrey Graham, it's a vast improvement). And although Degrassi claims to "Go There", it has never gone to the dirty territories into which Drake has ventured. Take a look:

Damn. Degrassi fans, I hope you're not too shocked.

Felix Felicis

Midnight showing of HARRY POTTER!

Harry on felix felicis = a Harry I'd hang out with.

Furthermore, the only movie that I've seen in a theater in which I felt more stressed out was Titanic. The faux-horcrux locket retrieval is tense, man.

Reunions

The theme of my 10 days away from Seattle was Reunion.

The first reunion: I went to the family beach house for the 4th with my ENTIRE family. 35 relatives (grandparent, great aunt and uncle, aunts, uncles, cousins, 1st cousins once removed, second cousins...) in one house. Although I would not categorize myself as the most patriotic of young Americans, my family goes all out for the 4th, and the whole weekend was Americana at its finest: we played card games, tanned at our favorite beach on the peninsula, ate ice cream, sat around on the porch while the sun set, brought seven or eight tables outside and ate our dinners al fresco, decorated the house with lots of red, white and blue bunting, played with the millions of dogs running around our property, and set off at least $500 worth of fireworks. Family + a little alcohol + explosives = a great weekend.

The second reunion: the wedding of a childhood friend. It was super surreal to see someone I grew up with standing at the alter, but it was also a fun time, and lots of friends from our Catholic K-8 were there. As there were only 26 people in our class, we were quite close, and it was nice to re-connect with people whom I haven't spent much time with during the past 4 years. We ended up going to a bar after the reception and chatting for two or three hours, and we now have a real reunion in the works for next Christmas. ST. C DRAGON POWER!

Post-Bum Wednesday

Bum Wednesday went really well. I made eggs, watched TV, watched "Mean Girls", and lay around. Good first Bum Wednesday.

Bum Wednesday

It's Wednesday. What does that mean in normal person-speak? It means the worst day of the week; it's not acceptable to drink on a Tuesday night, so you didn't have any fun the evening before, and it's not yet Thursday so you're probably not going out later. What does that leave you with? Exhaustion, boredom, desparation, endless hours of checking your social networking site of choice. It's really quite the joyous day for those who are gainfully employed.

I, on the other hand, am jobless. Who knows how long this will last, but I propose to make this Wednesday, and all future Wednesdays that I remain unemployed, "Bum Wednesday". "Bum Wednesday" is a new holiday.

Every unemployed Wednesday I am going to get up no earlier than 10am, I am going to spend too much time on the internet, I am not going to get dressed, I am not going to shower (not that that's anything new), I am not going to put on makeup, I am not going to exercize, I am going to eat popsicles or some other disgusting childhood summertime food, and I am going to lie in front of the TV/youtube screen all day doing nothing. These are the essentials of Bum Wednesday.

Additional rules: I can only leave the house under extreme circumstances (such as an offer to eat a fatty lunch with friends), I cannot jobsearch, I cannot better myself (painting my nails is the one exception), I must keep the bedroom blinds closed for no less than one hour after waking from my slumbers, I must spend a significant portion of my day channel flipping, I cannot talk to people who are being productive (ie. replying to texts from people who are bored at their respective places of employment [unless it is this response: "sry, bum wdnsdy. cn't talk 2 u now. 2 bsy wtchin telemundo]), I cannot read anything deemed "high literature", I must spend a minimum of one consecutive hour surfing the web, I cannot clean, I cannot spend more than $10 (especially since I am only allowed out of the house for extreme circumstances).

I know what you're thinking: this new holiday is nothing new; it's called my average Sunday morning experience--it's basically a hangover day! I call foul on "holiday status". However, please keep in mind that this is Hangover Day minus the pounding headache and/or intestinal distress. Thus, it deserves it's status as a holiday. Viva la Bum Wednesday!

Wednesdays will be my mid-week weekend, so to speak. I deserve it. Being unemployed is exhausting! I've been: teaching my newly legal cousin T how to drink last Tuesday; eating (and drinking) for Italy at Taste of Abruzzo with K & M last Wednesday; chillin like a villian with Garrett and his cat and other friends last Thursday, as well as coping with the deaths of Ed McMahon, Farrah, MJ, and Billy Mayes; an extensive Moe happy hour turned into a happy night turned into an improv show on Friday; a hungover Saturday and a send-off dinner for K, who is on her way to Italy; and getting cable installed on Sunday. Monday was spent at Cal Anderson with the roommate, eating chips and guac. Yesterday was spent at Volunteer park where I ran into M, and getting dinner/ice cream with Katrina. Therefore, today is going to be Bum Wednesday. I'll let you know how it goes.

Pictures and documentation to follow.