This is not a legit post, but I caught part of Beauty and the Beast this long weekend, and noticed something I've never noticed before. She's my favorite Disney princess (books, duh, and she's awkward, hence, me), so I've seen the movie quite a few times. Favorite part is obviously when he unveils the library. That'd be game over for me. You imprisoned my fathe-DON'T CARE BOOKSBOOKSBOOKS.
However, I noticed one part I'd never noticed before. The Beast is asking Cogsworth for advice on a gesture he can make to Belle in thanks for everything she's done or whatever, and I never quite registered Cogsworth's response. It's "Hmm, there's the usual... flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep..."
Wow, Disney. Wow. Not sure if a writer just got dumped, or wanted to make some adults in the audience laugh, or what. I love it, and it's hilarious, but jeez, the previous scene is Pretty Girl Plays With Dog-Turned-Footstool.
Anyone else notice this? Or did everyone and I was just blinded by the ten-story library right after that scene to notice the line?
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Giving thanks and getting fat.
I plan to eat tomorrow until I cannot move and hate myself, nap for several hours, and then begin again. My family already broke into a pie. I ate two pieces. My attitude for Thanksgiving eating is let those of you without sin cast the first stone. I try to enforce that in my behavior elsewhere, but I MEAN IT when it comes to food. I ate a pile of mashed potatoes the size of K-2? Whatever, I saw you eat both drumsticks and enough stuffing to fill a silo. Don't hate, appreciate.
I'm thankful for a lot of things, always, but trying to catalogue them is difficult. You, dear readers, have the luxury of getting to hear all of my brilliant thoughts! (Times like this I could honestly propose to and live a happy life with the narcissism that made blogs exist. Internet, you da best.) To come back to my original thought, I'm making a list, and please do not feel obligated to read it like any other post. Those at least occassionally address common problems: this is straight-up me loving the sound of my own keyboard.
I'm thankful for:
I'm thankful for a lot of things, always, but trying to catalogue them is difficult. You, dear readers, have the luxury of getting to hear all of my brilliant thoughts! (Times like this I could honestly propose to and live a happy life with the narcissism that made blogs exist. Internet, you da best.) To come back to my original thought, I'm making a list, and please do not feel obligated to read it like any other post. Those at least occassionally address common problems: this is straight-up me loving the sound of my own keyboard.
I'm thankful for:
- My little sister. She's a ridiculous human being, but she's kind of my hero. She's so grounded, tough, and not afraid to speak her mind, and I envy that about her. I think she's currently blasting music in her room which is totally normal.
- Books. Ultimate escape that gives me the ultimate high.
- Catching every green light on the way to school
- Laughing until I cry and not even trying to stop it
- Going to kids' movies
- When the congregation sings along to the closing song at Mass
- When you bake earlier in the day, leave, completely forget that you baked, come home, and get super excited that your house or apartment smells really good and you have delicious food
- Unexpected happy mail
- Big envelopes (okay, so I've been a student forever and these still mean something to me)
- My parents, for being overall tough as hell on me but determined to make my life better than theirs. Doubt they'll read this, but just in case: you guys didn't "screw me up." You're not perfect, but no one is. You care, and that's the most important part.
- All of my friends who may disagree with me on religious or political grounds but are happy to discuss, take it seriously, and still love me. Y'all rock.
- Cardigans
- Nice conversations with cashiers and sales clerks
- The 3/4 measure in Livin' On a Prayer
- The characterization of Keladry of Mindelan in the Protector of the Small series
- People letting me pet their dogs
- Snow
- The release you get from spitting a verse of rap correctly and angrily
- Quoting a movie and having just one person recognize it and laugh
- Andrew Marshall. You like me for all the reasons I like me, and you make me happy. Even though you're a nerd and a half, and I'm pretty sure you might marry a rat and the Brown Band will play at your rat wedding.
- Chocolate
- Finally playing correctly a passage you've been practicing forever and having to stop right after the measures are over because you're smiling and fist pumping too hard to continue
- Pandora being brilliant
- (Watch me get all enigmatic and Livejournal-y) The ten or so people who have let me share my personal garbage and haven't run away from me
- Not working Black Friday for the first time in four years
- My hair behaving on a day I want it to
- A homily that says exactly what I need to hear
- Brown
- Villanova
- Life. It's pretty awesome.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Extended camping trip part 1.
I don't know whether or not to say SPOILER ALERT but the book's been out for a while. I guess if you haven't seen the movie and actually care about the differences between the book and movie (join us, we've got jackets and the derision of our peers), then don't read this.
I'ma break this down into things I liked and things I didn't: seems simplest.
Things I liked.
I'ma break this down into things I liked and things I didn't: seems simplest.
Things I liked.
- The entire scene with Bathilda's house. When I say I liked it, I don't mean I enjoyed the scene, just that it was as pants-wettingly terrifying as when I read it in the book. Beautifully creepy and awful.
- Xenophilius Lovegood. He was nicely wacky at the wedding, and his terror and desperation were very well portrayed in his second scene.
- The scene where Ron gets Splinched. Really good job by E-Wats there, pretty much exactly how I pictured it in the book. Hermione's still being her brilliant, efficient self, but also flipping out a little and crying and scared and the whole thing just felt very, very real.
- Story of the Deathly Hallows. I was a little worried when I saw the animation start, but I didn't think it was cheesy: something about it made it the perfect combination of fantastical and morbid.
- Every scene with Fred and George. Actors do a perfect job, and the writers, too.
- The interaction between Ron and Hermione. I was hoping for more, I guess, but I think they got the dynamic well, especially after Ron returns (his apologetic nonsense). There were also two extra lines that I kind of loved: when Harry's trying to run away, Ron's response of "we can't leave Hermione, we wouldn't last two days without her" was so sweet and SO TRUE. She's saving their collective rears the entire last book. I also really liked her response to Harry's question of "are you still mad at him?" - "I'm always mad at him." TRUTH. Both seemed like little self-aware inside jokes for dorks like me who got too invested in thinking about the books.
- Rupert Grint. Dude's been one of my faves since the first movie, but he did a really good job in this one. Knows how to convey emotion in his face, and every scene with Hermione (especially those when he's trying to get back in her good graces) were quite well done.
- Charity Burbage. All the chills from reading it the first time around showed up, and I more fully appreciated Snape being absolutely unable to do anything for her.
- The scene in the frozen pond with the sword. I was actively shivering watching Harry, and that scene was also pretty much exactly how I pictured it.
- Frickin' Dobby. Wept. And I don't cry in movies.
- Harry and Hermione dancing. Really? That was the most awkward thing ever, mostly because I'm not sure that was Harry attempting to be awkward, but actually how Daniel Radcliffe functions normally. Not that I don't love the kid, but seriously watch an interview or two. Yes, I laughed, no, it did not need to be in the movie.
- Voldemort's scene with needing a different Death Eater's wand. Voldemort doesn't ask for volunteers; he commands. He doesn't reference the amount of praise a follower would get for volunteering his wand. And when he chooses Lucius, and he responds with "My Lord?" Voldemort does not do a mocking voice of "My Lord?" No. He's not a petty, sassy bully. He's pure, straight evil and power.
- Mad-Eye's death. Specifically the little time they spent on it. And, in general, that battle, and how it's poorly done. Harry using the Disarming Charm is a huge point in the book: he refuses to sink to his enemy's level to fight. That whole battle is a big, huge, THIS IS SIRIUS (yeah I did it, shut it) moment of doom and they were kinda like "poor Hedwig, lawlz Hagrid landing in a pond, btdubs Mad-Eye's dead."
- Ron's bloodlust in the cafe. I originally really disliked his desire to kill Dolohov and ...Rowle? (slipping on the names), but my friend Jack pointed out that he actually liked it. It showed that Ron, growing up in the Wizarding world, had seen and heard about just how evil these people are, while Harry and Hermione did not. I was pissed because Ron is super nervous about even thinking about having to kill them in the book, so to me, the movie "messed it up," but Jack's take is a cool one.
- The end of the Horcrux's fantasy scene. You were doing so well at staying true to the books until you made the whole audience uncomfortable. The words were supposed to be what hurt Ron, not super awk H/Hr macking.
- They best be showing Dobby's effing headstone next movie, that's all I'm saying.
- The eye in Umbridge's door. He let her keep it! Not okay!
- This isn't really this movie's fault, but I actually laughed at the beginning when Bill Weasley has to be like "yeah, werewolf." That's because the last movie was Harry Potter and the Whoopsie We Decided to Leave Out the Whole Damn Battle Scene and Replace It With Helena Bonham Carter Acting Wacky and Alan Rickman Refusing to Shout His Lines. And I love both of them, I do. She plays a very convincing Bellatrix. And his voice sounds like chocolates on a pillow made of velvet. But there's supposed to be shouting and a battle scene.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Poor Loko.
Just tried to type "memo" and actually typed "mofo" which is a pretty clear indication of how my life is going right now. Law school is good until it keeps me from Harry Potter. No midnight showing for me because of law school. Once that happens I start yelling Unforgivable Curses in my head at my assignments and I wish I could actually make this memo writhe in pain: so worth the lifetime in Azkaban. To sum up: I'M IN A RAGE! This is the maddest I've ever been! (If you get this reference there is a monster high-five and a cookie waiting for you). This is just some background for my everyone-never-talk-again post below.
If I see one more post/article/tear-stained-face bemoaning the fact that everyone's favorite Bad Decision In A Can is gonna get nixed by that wet blanket, the FDA, I'm going to lose it. People are complaining like a government agency banned fun, and the entire country has suddenly become that town from Footloose.
Unpopular/my opinion: it needed to be banned.
I've never been one for drinking in excess. I didn't start drinking at all until my junior year of college, and to this day I've never been drunk. I can't stand the feeling of losing control, and I don't feel safe when I've lost it, in any sense. I don't mind being the designated driver, I can enjoy the occasional beer or gin and tonic, and I do not feel like my life has been compromised significantly because I don't get trashed. So yes, I do realize I'm coming into this with an inherently biased opinion, as I have nothing I would lose if the fruity gasoline got yanked from shelves. Hopefully you can look past this bias and see that I'm making sense anyway. If not, oh well. I'm aware I act like a 35-year-old and your being the 87th person telling me this fact ain't gonna do a damn thing.
I'ma break this down based on the arguments I've heard other people and the Loko lovelies themselves make for why lemonade-flavored tar should be sold.
1. Bars sell rum and cokes and vodka and Redbulls, and they aren't banned.
For one, Four Loko cuts out the middle man. It's pre-mixed, so the company deliberately added caffeine to alcohol. Two, have you watched the bartender make you a rum and coke? (It's always a good call anyway if you can peek, so you know how much alcohol just went into the drink.) You've got one, maybe two, tops, "drinks" in there, and about half of a can of Coke in that cup. In a can of Four Loko, you've got 4 times the alcohol and probably about 8 times the caffeine. Also a rum and coke has an actually decent chance of tasting good. Same argument goes for Irish Coffee. Three, saying that vodka and Redbulls exist is not a strong argument. That drink is 'Roid Rage avec Deux Straws Petits and looks like battery acid made a baby with a 4-year-old Green Apple Jolly Rancher. And that drink still has less caffeine and alcohol than a can of Four Loko.
2. The people who make Four Loko aren't making all these kids drink irresponsibly. That's on them.
There is no way to drink this garbage responsibly. The can it comes in is 23.5 ounces, and you can't reseal it. Drink it down. A fine wine or good beer may take a while for you to drink, because your tongue is enjoying it. With Four Loko, your tongue is saying GET BEHIND ME, SATAN, so you swallow it as quickly as possible. A product designed so you must drink a lot of it, and quickly? Call me old-fashioned and take away my knitting needles, but back in MY day, we called that irresponsible drinking. In this day, I'll also call it "a waste of money," "immature," "how dumb can you possibly be, seriously?" and "this can't possibly be enjoyable, can it? Don't lie."
3. Their marketing is not dangerous: kids don't get fooled by a brightly-colored can.
Really? You think this is the only issue? How about the fact that it's malt liquor, and the statute of limitations on when it's legit to drink malt liquor expires within about 18 months of you being legally allowed to drink because that stuff is FOUL. (Yes, I just made up that law. Should be a real one.) The whole can only costs a couple of dollars, and since we've already established that your taste buds are not part of the decision-making here, broke students are the only ones buying this liquefied Staten Island to get drunk.
4. Caffeine's a stimulant and alcohol's a depressant, they, like, cancel each other out, right?
NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO. Yeah, I was a bio major, but this is not even something that needs to get into detail. This is also why drinking coffee will not sober you up to drive. The only thing that makes you less drunk is time. Don't be an idiot, seriously: if you're drunk, the only thing a stimulant will do to your system is convince your wasted brain that it's NOT drunk, it's FIIIINE. Your motor skills are at the same terrible level they were at ten minutes ago, but now, instead of realizing that you couldn't fold a shirt if your future happiness depended on it, you think that you could fold a shirt so good that the creases could cut steel. Yeah, funny, until you actually try to do something more dangerous. Like walk. Or drive. Or DRINK MORE. Yes, this happens. You're really drunk and don't know it so you go after more alcohol. Summary: they do NOT cancel each other out. They build on each other like blowing up a planet with Doctor Device and lots of bad stuff happens.
5. Lawls, we should just ban all alcohol then! Since Prohibition worked SOOOO well LAWLZZZZ.
Shut up. Seriously. There are like a dozen fails in this argument. The first is that this is a legitimate debate, and dropping sarcastic nuggets of facts-everyone-knows doesn't improve the debate: it just makes you look like a sassy high school junior who's probs in the top 15 in his class but is too cool to work harder, calls women "overly sensitive," and quotes Family Guy a lot and thinks he's really funny. Yeah, I just generalized, and I'm doing it better than you do.
No one's trying to ban alcohol. This is not a "slippery slope," since this is a really specific drink with really specific bad properties. The Gambini Family will not start Four Loko speakeasies and whacking people over this "beverage." They're just gonna take the caffeine out of the drink. It's gonna be okay.
Also, to those saying kids will just find another way to get alcoholic energy drinks: I'm not so sure. There are definitely people just drinking this to "see what happens" and not because they like it or drinks similar to it. I think the extra effort will keep caffeine+alcohol out of lots of people's bodies.
This is all I've got so far, but I may add to it.
If you're an offender of being a defender of this nationwide drink-choosing fail, do the world a favor and fight for something that matters. Not only matters, but actually creates some kind of positive effect on anything, anywhere. Like hating on memos with me.
Bye, Loko.
If I see one more post/article/tear-stained-face bemoaning the fact that everyone's favorite Bad Decision In A Can is gonna get nixed by that wet blanket, the FDA, I'm going to lose it. People are complaining like a government agency banned fun, and the entire country has suddenly become that town from Footloose.
Unpopular/my opinion: it needed to be banned.
I've never been one for drinking in excess. I didn't start drinking at all until my junior year of college, and to this day I've never been drunk. I can't stand the feeling of losing control, and I don't feel safe when I've lost it, in any sense. I don't mind being the designated driver, I can enjoy the occasional beer or gin and tonic, and I do not feel like my life has been compromised significantly because I don't get trashed. So yes, I do realize I'm coming into this with an inherently biased opinion, as I have nothing I would lose if the fruity gasoline got yanked from shelves. Hopefully you can look past this bias and see that I'm making sense anyway. If not, oh well. I'm aware I act like a 35-year-old and your being the 87th person telling me this fact ain't gonna do a damn thing.
I'ma break this down based on the arguments I've heard other people and the Loko lovelies themselves make for why lemonade-flavored tar should be sold.
1. Bars sell rum and cokes and vodka and Redbulls, and they aren't banned.
For one, Four Loko cuts out the middle man. It's pre-mixed, so the company deliberately added caffeine to alcohol. Two, have you watched the bartender make you a rum and coke? (It's always a good call anyway if you can peek, so you know how much alcohol just went into the drink.) You've got one, maybe two, tops, "drinks" in there, and about half of a can of Coke in that cup. In a can of Four Loko, you've got 4 times the alcohol and probably about 8 times the caffeine. Also a rum and coke has an actually decent chance of tasting good. Same argument goes for Irish Coffee. Three, saying that vodka and Redbulls exist is not a strong argument. That drink is 'Roid Rage avec Deux Straws Petits and looks like battery acid made a baby with a 4-year-old Green Apple Jolly Rancher. And that drink still has less caffeine and alcohol than a can of Four Loko.
2. The people who make Four Loko aren't making all these kids drink irresponsibly. That's on them.
There is no way to drink this garbage responsibly. The can it comes in is 23.5 ounces, and you can't reseal it. Drink it down. A fine wine or good beer may take a while for you to drink, because your tongue is enjoying it. With Four Loko, your tongue is saying GET BEHIND ME, SATAN, so you swallow it as quickly as possible. A product designed so you must drink a lot of it, and quickly? Call me old-fashioned and take away my knitting needles, but back in MY day, we called that irresponsible drinking. In this day, I'll also call it "a waste of money," "immature," "how dumb can you possibly be, seriously?" and "this can't possibly be enjoyable, can it? Don't lie."
3. Their marketing is not dangerous: kids don't get fooled by a brightly-colored can.
Really? You think this is the only issue? How about the fact that it's malt liquor, and the statute of limitations on when it's legit to drink malt liquor expires within about 18 months of you being legally allowed to drink because that stuff is FOUL. (Yes, I just made up that law. Should be a real one.) The whole can only costs a couple of dollars, and since we've already established that your taste buds are not part of the decision-making here, broke students are the only ones buying this liquefied Staten Island to get drunk.
4. Caffeine's a stimulant and alcohol's a depressant, they, like, cancel each other out, right?
NO, NO, A THOUSAND TIMES NO. Yeah, I was a bio major, but this is not even something that needs to get into detail. This is also why drinking coffee will not sober you up to drive. The only thing that makes you less drunk is time. Don't be an idiot, seriously: if you're drunk, the only thing a stimulant will do to your system is convince your wasted brain that it's NOT drunk, it's FIIIINE. Your motor skills are at the same terrible level they were at ten minutes ago, but now, instead of realizing that you couldn't fold a shirt if your future happiness depended on it, you think that you could fold a shirt so good that the creases could cut steel. Yeah, funny, until you actually try to do something more dangerous. Like walk. Or drive. Or DRINK MORE. Yes, this happens. You're really drunk and don't know it so you go after more alcohol. Summary: they do NOT cancel each other out. They build on each other like blowing up a planet with Doctor Device and lots of bad stuff happens.
5. Lawls, we should just ban all alcohol then! Since Prohibition worked SOOOO well LAWLZZZZ.
Shut up. Seriously. There are like a dozen fails in this argument. The first is that this is a legitimate debate, and dropping sarcastic nuggets of facts-everyone-knows doesn't improve the debate: it just makes you look like a sassy high school junior who's probs in the top 15 in his class but is too cool to work harder, calls women "overly sensitive," and quotes Family Guy a lot and thinks he's really funny. Yeah, I just generalized, and I'm doing it better than you do.
No one's trying to ban alcohol. This is not a "slippery slope," since this is a really specific drink with really specific bad properties. The Gambini Family will not start Four Loko speakeasies and whacking people over this "beverage." They're just gonna take the caffeine out of the drink. It's gonna be okay.
Also, to those saying kids will just find another way to get alcoholic energy drinks: I'm not so sure. There are definitely people just drinking this to "see what happens" and not because they like it or drinks similar to it. I think the extra effort will keep caffeine+alcohol out of lots of people's bodies.
This is all I've got so far, but I may add to it.
If you're an offender of being a defender of this nationwide drink-choosing fail, do the world a favor and fight for something that matters. Not only matters, but actually creates some kind of positive effect on anything, anywhere. Like hating on memos with me.
Bye, Loko.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
You think you're smart, huh?
May I just share, first of all, the fact that few things in life can make me as childishly happy as the jazzy section in the middle of "Sleigh Ride." Yes, Christmas songs are on the radio. Yes, Starbucks has peppermint mochas again. Whether you like it or not, the two month long period during which I belt out "O Holy Night" and "All I Want For Christmas Is You" is upon us. Please don't tease me TOO much, and in exchange, I'll try to keep it down and limit the Mariah-ness.
I've noticed recently that regardless of how intelligent you are, life will make you feel like an idiot on a daily basis. In the past few days, I have: sliced my finger open on a piece of aluminum foil, tripped over flat ground, and panicked that I had forgotten my car keys while I was driving my car. I regularly make my own life more difficult, and I can complicate things better than a Facebook relationship. Don't even act like this stuff doesn't happen to you.
1. Usually minor, completely self-caused stupid-hurts.
Yes, I gave them a name: stupid-hurts. I call them this because this is the order of emotions you feel after they happen. First is "I'm SO DUMB" and only second is "...hey, OW!" Paper cuts are under this list. So is *ahem* slicing your finger open on aluminum foil while trying to put pizza away. Getting any appendage stuck in clothing. Pulling on tangled hair too hard. Slamming your hand in a car door (or trying to catch the trunk door on a station wagon from shutting... so maybe I did this when I was 6 IT HURT, OKAY). Having stuff fly into your eye when you're outside and then trying to explain to people why it looks like you're doing a new event in rhythmic gymnastics to try to get it out. After these happen, you look at the object that hurt you like "why would you do that to me?!" because you're trying to distance yourself from the fact that it's one hundred percent your own stupid fault. The paper didn't grow little teeth and bite you. It's your own fault you can't tell the difference between a sleeve and the opening for your head. It's a GOOD thing that car doors shut - otherwise we'd all be hanging our feet and arms outside of the car and during the winter it gets nippy. I like my fingers and do not want to lose them to frostbite.
2. Solid object fails.
There is NO WAY to make these types of screw-ups look like anything but your fault. They are your fault, obviously, but everyone knows this already. Tripping when the ground is even and flat. Hipchecking corners. Banging your head on a low door frame or a car. The I'm-an-idiot part of this is that this stuff does not suddenly decide to move. The door doesn't suddenly decide to Get Low (3-6-9, damn she's fine) and smack you in the dome. The wall didn't decide to test its boundaries into your liver. There was no earthquake, and the floor didn't suddenly become Great Adventure's Nitro and grow giant hills. That bruise is YO' FAULT. Also there's an excellent chance that when thi happens, you will be both 1) carrying everything you own, and 2) everyone you know will see you do this. Expert level? A professor, a crush, a future employer sees you. Winner of the House Cup? All three see you do it. Winner of the Triwizard Tournament? You drop or spill something as you go down. You spin my head right round, right round...
3. OBLIVIATE.
Yes, I'm upping the HP references: the movie comes out soon, okay? This describes when you forget things that you are using, wearing, touching, etc. The stereotype is forgetting your glasses when they are on your head, but watch me one-up: ever forget you're wearing your glasses when they're actually on your face? I HAVE! I've also forgotten that I'm wearing contacts, put my glasses on my face and then flipped out because my corrective eyewear is making my eyesight WORSE. What's going on?!?!?!?!?! How could this HAPP-oh, I'm an idiot, that's how. I've mentioned how I panicked at a red light because I thought I forgot my car keys and they were obviously in the ignition, making my car hum away and ensuring that I could listen to "Hot Toddy" at reasonable volume (22 on my volume setting is clutch to be representin' for them gangsters all across the world). I've gone looking for my phone when I'm conducting a phone call, searched for a pen when it's in my hand, and thought I lost my fleece when it was presently keeping me toasty. I'm pretty sure this is where my aversion to telling people what I've lost when I'm looking for it came from: this way, if I'm an idiot, people don't find out when I send them on a wild goose chase for the purse I'm holding in my hand.
Oh no. They'll find out tomorrow when I give myself a paper cut and then stumble over a tile floor because it hurt, dropping all three of my civil procedure textbooks at once.
I'm publishing this in the hopes that I'm not the only person who treats her brain as a fair weather friend when it comes to not acting like a clumsy tool, so if this stuff DOESN'T happen to you, can you keep it on the DL? I got a reputation to maintain. The Ruff Ryders are already pissed at me because I faceplanted getting out of the Escalade.
Much love.
I've noticed recently that regardless of how intelligent you are, life will make you feel like an idiot on a daily basis. In the past few days, I have: sliced my finger open on a piece of aluminum foil, tripped over flat ground, and panicked that I had forgotten my car keys while I was driving my car. I regularly make my own life more difficult, and I can complicate things better than a Facebook relationship. Don't even act like this stuff doesn't happen to you.
1. Usually minor, completely self-caused stupid-hurts.
Yes, I gave them a name: stupid-hurts. I call them this because this is the order of emotions you feel after they happen. First is "I'm SO DUMB" and only second is "...hey, OW!" Paper cuts are under this list. So is *ahem* slicing your finger open on aluminum foil while trying to put pizza away. Getting any appendage stuck in clothing. Pulling on tangled hair too hard. Slamming your hand in a car door (or trying to catch the trunk door on a station wagon from shutting... so maybe I did this when I was 6 IT HURT, OKAY). Having stuff fly into your eye when you're outside and then trying to explain to people why it looks like you're doing a new event in rhythmic gymnastics to try to get it out. After these happen, you look at the object that hurt you like "why would you do that to me?!" because you're trying to distance yourself from the fact that it's one hundred percent your own stupid fault. The paper didn't grow little teeth and bite you. It's your own fault you can't tell the difference between a sleeve and the opening for your head. It's a GOOD thing that car doors shut - otherwise we'd all be hanging our feet and arms outside of the car and during the winter it gets nippy. I like my fingers and do not want to lose them to frostbite.
2. Solid object fails.
There is NO WAY to make these types of screw-ups look like anything but your fault. They are your fault, obviously, but everyone knows this already. Tripping when the ground is even and flat. Hipchecking corners. Banging your head on a low door frame or a car. The I'm-an-idiot part of this is that this stuff does not suddenly decide to move. The door doesn't suddenly decide to Get Low (3-6-9, damn she's fine) and smack you in the dome. The wall didn't decide to test its boundaries into your liver. There was no earthquake, and the floor didn't suddenly become Great Adventure's Nitro and grow giant hills. That bruise is YO' FAULT. Also there's an excellent chance that when thi happens, you will be both 1) carrying everything you own, and 2) everyone you know will see you do this. Expert level? A professor, a crush, a future employer sees you. Winner of the House Cup? All three see you do it. Winner of the Triwizard Tournament? You drop or spill something as you go down. You spin my head right round, right round...
3. OBLIVIATE.
Yes, I'm upping the HP references: the movie comes out soon, okay? This describes when you forget things that you are using, wearing, touching, etc. The stereotype is forgetting your glasses when they are on your head, but watch me one-up: ever forget you're wearing your glasses when they're actually on your face? I HAVE! I've also forgotten that I'm wearing contacts, put my glasses on my face and then flipped out because my corrective eyewear is making my eyesight WORSE. What's going on?!?!?!?!?! How could this HAPP-oh, I'm an idiot, that's how. I've mentioned how I panicked at a red light because I thought I forgot my car keys and they were obviously in the ignition, making my car hum away and ensuring that I could listen to "Hot Toddy" at reasonable volume (22 on my volume setting is clutch to be representin' for them gangsters all across the world). I've gone looking for my phone when I'm conducting a phone call, searched for a pen when it's in my hand, and thought I lost my fleece when it was presently keeping me toasty. I'm pretty sure this is where my aversion to telling people what I've lost when I'm looking for it came from: this way, if I'm an idiot, people don't find out when I send them on a wild goose chase for the purse I'm holding in my hand.
Oh no. They'll find out tomorrow when I give myself a paper cut and then stumble over a tile floor because it hurt, dropping all three of my civil procedure textbooks at once.
I'm publishing this in the hopes that I'm not the only person who treats her brain as a fair weather friend when it comes to not acting like a clumsy tool, so if this stuff DOESN'T happen to you, can you keep it on the DL? I got a reputation to maintain. The Ruff Ryders are already pissed at me because I faceplanted getting out of the Escalade.
Much love.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
One third of your life? Lies. It's all you think about.
Sidenote: they just opened a Chipotle about 5 minutes from me, which means I'ma be spherical by Christmas (think Violet Beauregarde but instead of juice, full of burrito).
I'm in law school, but I don't pretend like I'm the only person whose sleep schedule is messed up. (More like my life schedule: whatever, dinner can totally happen at 9:30 when I take a death nap from 6 to 9.) Most students seem to suffer from this, grad school, undergrad, whatever, and I love watching the articles and news reports showing that students aren't getting enough sleep. This is because I know every person between the ages of 15 and 29 is staring at the screen going "Say it ain't so! Next thing you know you'll be telling us that Lindsay Lohan has done un-Disney-like things and Soulja Boy isn't a good rapper!" We KNOW, people. EVERYONE knows. We don't sleep correctly.
I've never been a morning person, but I'm pretty sure most young people aren't. Waking up to an alarm, I've figured out, is retribution for the fact that you don't remember being born and what a rude awakening that must have been. It doesn't matter if it's 6:15 or 10 AM, if you don't want to wake up, the first emotion you feel in the morning is rage.
The alarm noise (I'm convinced they develop it by walking around and recruiting people you found irritating in highschool, bagpipers, and any one related by fewer than three degrees of separation to Fran Drescher) is basically a giant IHATEYOUIHATEYOU every morning, and if you have a comfortable bed, good luck. Snooze button? Let's put off life for a bit longer. Is it raining? Hit it once. Cold? Hit it twice. Raining AND cold? Three times. If you hit the trifecta of rain, cold, and still dark outside...sorry guys, not gonna make it in today. Bed is better than the frickin' Mount Doom outside. Except at least Mount Doom would be warm.
The rest of the morning is a blast and a half. I don't know what my favorite part is, since it's so hard to choose. The lines left on my face because I had the bad luck to sleep on a crease of my pillow? The fact that my muscles are so weak that a six-year-old could take me in a playground fight and I'm anticipating being defeated by the orange juice lid? The fact that my eyes are doing a sultry half-closed look due to puffiness and dark circles that might attract a raccoon but no other organism? The fact that I have to drink a cup of coffee just to hit equilibrium? Yeah mornings, that's how I like it. On Mondays and Wednesdays I get to go to torts and get shouted at for a while because our professor (while totally competent and clear) is a little WACKY so she SHOUTS some of her POINTS and at 8:15 in the Goddamn MORNING it's like having another ALARM so I just want to PUNCH IT but "it" is a PROFESSOR so that's probably a bad CALL but this goes on for two HOURS and by the end of it I'm like LESS LURNING MOAR SLEEPING PLZ. And seriously, she's a good professor, I'm getting the material, but still.
Other than your supposedly main body of sleep done during the night, there are these things called "naps." Naps are kind of like a deal with the devil, or eating at Coldstone: at the moment, it's wonderful, but not worth the price you pay in the long run.
There are rules to napping.
1. You will nap longer than you wanted to.
20-minute power naps become hour-long dozes. 45 minutes becomes an hour and a half. Didn't set an alarm for your nap? Rookie mistake, and you gon' be out for three hours. Why you gotta be like that, bed.
2. You will feel like an idiot when you wake up.
If you didn't mean to nap, you'll feel like an idiot because you gave into sleep, but even if you meant to nap, you will feel silly upon waking. You may look at the clock, see that it's 7:45 and assume you'll be late for class/work. You may rise and fall, not realizing one of your legs is asleep. You make wake up with a feeling I can only describe as HUNNNHHH? which, defined, means "I have forgotten everything that has ever happened to me and am very confused right now." The Goldfish State, as it were.
3. You will waste time at either end of the nap preparing for and recovering from it.
Changing clothes, closing blinds, listening to music, whatever. Attempting to fall asleep however it works best for you. Then, on the other end, you will take wayyyyy too much time getting yourself out of bed, adjusting to the light, and remembering how to make words with your mouth again.
4. You'll tell everyone about your nap.
One other hard and fast rule about sleeping: instead of using the "fall back" extra hour to your advantage, you will waste that hour on YouTube and Facebook or decide laundry needs to get done instead of actually going to bed. And Spring Forward? Kiss that hour of sleep goodbye; you're not gonna adjust your schedule. Am I RIGHT? Is that just me?....nevermind.
Not my best work here, I know, but I had this post mostly crafted a few days ago and haven't posted in a while, so here you go!
I'm in law school, but I don't pretend like I'm the only person whose sleep schedule is messed up. (More like my life schedule: whatever, dinner can totally happen at 9:30 when I take a death nap from 6 to 9.) Most students seem to suffer from this, grad school, undergrad, whatever, and I love watching the articles and news reports showing that students aren't getting enough sleep. This is because I know every person between the ages of 15 and 29 is staring at the screen going "Say it ain't so! Next thing you know you'll be telling us that Lindsay Lohan has done un-Disney-like things and Soulja Boy isn't a good rapper!" We KNOW, people. EVERYONE knows. We don't sleep correctly.
I've never been a morning person, but I'm pretty sure most young people aren't. Waking up to an alarm, I've figured out, is retribution for the fact that you don't remember being born and what a rude awakening that must have been. It doesn't matter if it's 6:15 or 10 AM, if you don't want to wake up, the first emotion you feel in the morning is rage.
The alarm noise (I'm convinced they develop it by walking around and recruiting people you found irritating in highschool, bagpipers, and any one related by fewer than three degrees of separation to Fran Drescher) is basically a giant IHATEYOUIHATEYOU every morning, and if you have a comfortable bed, good luck. Snooze button? Let's put off life for a bit longer. Is it raining? Hit it once. Cold? Hit it twice. Raining AND cold? Three times. If you hit the trifecta of rain, cold, and still dark outside...sorry guys, not gonna make it in today. Bed is better than the frickin' Mount Doom outside. Except at least Mount Doom would be warm.
The rest of the morning is a blast and a half. I don't know what my favorite part is, since it's so hard to choose. The lines left on my face because I had the bad luck to sleep on a crease of my pillow? The fact that my muscles are so weak that a six-year-old could take me in a playground fight and I'm anticipating being defeated by the orange juice lid? The fact that my eyes are doing a sultry half-closed look due to puffiness and dark circles that might attract a raccoon but no other organism? The fact that I have to drink a cup of coffee just to hit equilibrium? Yeah mornings, that's how I like it. On Mondays and Wednesdays I get to go to torts and get shouted at for a while because our professor (while totally competent and clear) is a little WACKY so she SHOUTS some of her POINTS and at 8:15 in the Goddamn MORNING it's like having another ALARM so I just want to PUNCH IT but "it" is a PROFESSOR so that's probably a bad CALL but this goes on for two HOURS and by the end of it I'm like LESS LURNING MOAR SLEEPING PLZ. And seriously, she's a good professor, I'm getting the material, but still.
Other than your supposedly main body of sleep done during the night, there are these things called "naps." Naps are kind of like a deal with the devil, or eating at Coldstone: at the moment, it's wonderful, but not worth the price you pay in the long run.
There are rules to napping.
1. You will nap longer than you wanted to.
20-minute power naps become hour-long dozes. 45 minutes becomes an hour and a half. Didn't set an alarm for your nap? Rookie mistake, and you gon' be out for three hours. Why you gotta be like that, bed.
2. You will feel like an idiot when you wake up.
If you didn't mean to nap, you'll feel like an idiot because you gave into sleep, but even if you meant to nap, you will feel silly upon waking. You may look at the clock, see that it's 7:45 and assume you'll be late for class/work. You may rise and fall, not realizing one of your legs is asleep. You make wake up with a feeling I can only describe as HUNNNHHH? which, defined, means "I have forgotten everything that has ever happened to me and am very confused right now." The Goldfish State, as it were.
3. You will waste time at either end of the nap preparing for and recovering from it.
Changing clothes, closing blinds, listening to music, whatever. Attempting to fall asleep however it works best for you. Then, on the other end, you will take wayyyyy too much time getting yourself out of bed, adjusting to the light, and remembering how to make words with your mouth again.
4. You'll tell everyone about your nap.
One other hard and fast rule about sleeping: instead of using the "fall back" extra hour to your advantage, you will waste that hour on YouTube and Facebook or decide laundry needs to get done instead of actually going to bed. And Spring Forward? Kiss that hour of sleep goodbye; you're not gonna adjust your schedule. Am I RIGHT? Is that just me?....nevermind.
Not my best work here, I know, but I had this post mostly crafted a few days ago and haven't posted in a while, so here you go!
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