mix it up

here's the tracklist for a mix i made for katherine. i picked out the songs over several months, but only took a day or two to organize them, and i don't think the flow is very good, so i guess it's sort of all over the place. but i hope that didnt detract from the music...

1) Gore Gore Girls - I'm Gonna Get You Yet
2) Rasputina - Brand New Key (Melanie cover)
3) The Magnetic Fields - Reno Dakota
4) Zoe Boekbinder - Funeral
5) The Dresden Dolls - The Jeep Song
6) Madeline - Nobody
7) Thao Nguyen - What About
8) Whispertown 2000 - Restless
9) Regina Spektor - Reading Time With Pickle
10) Daniel Johnston - Some Things Last a Long Time
11) Julie Doiron - Shivers + Crickets
12) Laura Veirs - July Flame
13) Smog - No Dancing
14) Matson Jones - Welcome Back Mr. Audiotechnica
15) Throwing Muses - Green
16) The Ditty Bops - Aluminum Can
17) Hurray for the Riff Raff - Grocery (live)
18) Jolie Holland - Wandering Angus
19) Larkin Grimm - Get Naked with Me (live)
20) Diane Cluck + Jeffrey Lewis - Travel Light
21) Alabama Sacred Harp Singers - Present Joys
22) Josephine Foster - Three Day Days
23) Mount Eerie with Julie Doiron - O My Heart
24) Adrian Orange - Save the World

i know you and i know you need someone to hold you all the time

Statement as of 12:08 am EST on January 30, 2010
A record daily snowfall of 11.0 inches was set at the Asheville regional Airport yesterday... January 29. This breaks the old record of 6.0 inches which was set in 1930.

so i'm fairly certain that this is the only snow-covered birthday i've ever had... i am sorta bummed to be stuck on campus with no wine and cheese or delicious dinner. luckily, the queer suite is throwing a small party for another girl's birthday! with wine and cheese and grapes and cake! her birthday is technically monday, but we can celebrate our aquarianness. and somehow i volunteered myself to be in charge of music, so people better dance to what i play!!
i just went back and read some different birthday posts from over the years of this blog, which was a little strange. what a life!
since i can't really do anything too exciting today, i'm just going to relax. right now that means taking a bath and possibly reading sense and sensibility although the light in the bathroom is terrible on my eyes. i sort of just want to lie down.

listening to: the blow - gravity (pauline's response to amy)

i love a new planner. i love my new slingshot and its fresh cleanness.

there are many things i could say. i will try to say a few of them.
the most important is that my cat is missing. he has been gone since wednesday and according to my parents' craigslist ad, it was a "very cold night." he has never wandered off for longer than a night before now. mom thinks someone thought he was beautiful and snatched him up because he didn't have any identification -- he has lost or destroyed every collar. somehow that doesn't seem very likely to me, and i am fearing the worst. although tomorrow i plan to go door to door with flyers, if i have time between preparing for england and spending time with friends, family, and my remaining cat (who seems to prefer willy's absence, not surprisingly).

listening to:

walking in a winter wonderland

A record snowfall of 6 inches was set at Asheville NC today. This
breaks the old record of 3.6 inches set in 1916. With additional
snowfall likely... the total for the day will increase. Another
statement will be issued after midnight with the updated total.

it snowed ALL DAY and it is STILL SNOWING. i have never experienced this before... i just want to hole up in my room like a cave and go to bed. but i have to drive home! in all this yuck! so many people today tried to leave and couldn't... my friend was stuck in traffic for about 6 hours coming back from the airport after her flight was canceled, and i watched a van trying to make it up a snowy hill, but it just kept sliding back. go back inside! to your little cave house! i wanted to say.
the stupid health center was closed, and i didn't know, so i walked all the way up there for nothing. i almost fell down on an icy bridge. then i fell down in the snow... i predict this will be the first of many this season.

well, today i rewrote the essay i lost. to be honest, this one might be better than the original because i wasn't delirious while writing it. but, i don't really care about the grade at all... i almost didn't rewrite it because i turned in the first essay and my professor just said "rewrite it by tomorrow if you have time" and that wasn't super motivational. i feel like i learned a lot in the class, and i guess it would be nice to get a grade that reflects that, even if my essay doesn't. ha! I'M JUST GLAD THIS STUPID SEMESTER IS OVER. it was probably my worst semester in turns of taking useless classes. and i will really be feeling it when i am taking so many important reqs next time. anyway, it hasn't really hit me yet that it done.

rum nog in my belly... mmmmmm. time to pack!!

MY PAPER.

HAS BEEN EATEN.


THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.


!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?1?1!??!?1?!?! can anyone troubleshoot me oh my god

things just haven't been the same

ever since my mother joined facebook. she doesn't think i check my email anymore, so she is learning how to "chatter" and she's always leaving little messages on my wall, or sending me stuff like this:

you know, lots of peoples loves hoodies. like with bands on them. you can order a hoodie t-shirt sweatshirt with some weirdo on it, and people would loves it sooooo muches.

that's the entire message, by the way. i almost don't even believe that this came from my mother, but last night we were facebook chatting about my inability to get people decent presents.
i can't stop laughing.

manifesto against paralyzed panic

calm down about this massive pile of work sitting in front of you. realize that most of it is not so important. it doesn't matter if you don't get all the details right. don't waste time on word choice and just say it. you have one week left of school; you should be happy. this energy would be better spent elsewhere. just get it done and go to sleep.

holy shit

does this link work for yall?

i am speechless.

everybody's living like they should

someone pulled the fire alarm. AWESOME. i love sitting in the cold in my pajamas and no underwear FOR NO REASON.
i slept till 1pm today. i think i'm about caught up on my sleep and my sickness is almost gone. now to make up all that homework...
apparently i'm going to the winter formal tonight after all, despite all the fiasco. morgan needs me!! but what to wear?! [cue disasterpiece]
oh what the hell


listening to: tuscadero - mt pleasant

it's a wonder we don't collide

i am not motivated enough to do homework. is it actually because i am sick, or am i just making excuses at this point?
i am eating sweet tarts from the bystander intervention pinata. gotta save the chocolate for last.
i just loaned my car to elliot! i really hope he doesn't crash it on the hill.
everything is so lonely. i better get used to it.

listening to: madeline - lit elephants

a chronicle of misery: the week before finals

dr. bradshaw and his wife lesley have two sons (see diagram), who will soon be home for the holidays. while preparing for their arrival, lesley fell down the stairs. i believe dr. bradshaw used the word "gruesome" to describe the event. in my head, there were christmas ornaments flying, tinsel trailing down the stairs, and blood everywhere. clearly i've never met her, and i've only seen things from the end of the old man. he appeared at the office only briefly on tuesday, hair unkempt and voice ragged. and he had the nerve to ask me how i am, how i'm feeling about my abroad trip! he won't let anyone help him, so i have been feeling utterly useless all week.
on monday night, eva was complaining of a sore throat, worrisome because it seems that she only just kicked the flu and its lingering symptoms. then at cowpie she went and COUGHED ON MY FOOD and it was mexican monday and i couldn't not eat it! mere moments (hours) later, my own throat started to feel a bit sore. morgan asked her biology professor for me, and HE said that someone coughing on your food can't give you a cold. but i beg to differ! i've gotten steadily more congested and disgusting-feeling as the week has gone on.
what's the best way to get better? SLEEP! comes the rousing reply from the chorus of everybody in the world. guess what my life is utterly lacking? monday night, i forget all your hazy details. my throat was sore, i started downing ungodly amounts of tea. i had had a panic moment in that afternoon's banjo class when i learned the set list for our concert, only two days away. instead of doing any of my *important* homework, i played banjo all night. why did i chomp off my fingernails and render myself useless for clawhammer?!?! oh yes, because one must destroy one's body while composing a 7-pager in 4 hours. thank you, body, for donating yourself to the cause once again. but why oh why won't you just do what you're supposed to do on these stupid strings? part of the problem was certainly the temperature; my room is a veritable ice box. the point is that i sat in morgan's room and strummed for hours until katherine and brett rang morgan's phone for our conference call. did we make any decisions? i don't know. but i felt pretty shitty afterwards. finally around 3am i lay my body down.... and tossed and turned and couldn't catch a wink until at least 6:30. also i forgot to ask morgan to wake me up and i had no alarm clock without a phone, so i slept straight till 10. my history teacher seemed understanding in her email. dr. b was absent, so grammar was a 15 minute q+a sesh with TA jenn, whom i have decided that i like a lot.
tuesday night is always a misery night because it is the night my study abroad group meets. this time, naomi from international programs came to talk to us about not drinking too much or doing drugs at all or leaving the group. i got all confused about money conversion stuff and what to pack and whether i made the right decision by deciding to go on this stupid trip. back in the land of doors, ben and i sat down to work on our astronomy lab reports when renee and eva appeared at the door and suddenly a mighty sound was heard throughout the land of doors: FIRE ALARM. beautiful. we threw on shoes and coats over our pajamas and tramped out into the rain storming night. every dorland resident huddled in the smoking hut not smoking for once. the fire truck arrived and RD kat said the locked mystery room in the basement was emitting smoke. possibly breakers or some such thing. we didn't want to wait around in the cold anymore, so we went to ben's room and ate his ancient candy and sat on his roommate's bed and poked at stuff. an hour later, the doors of dorland were still closed to us, so we trudged across the bridge to a worser place: sunderland. in fact, the worst place: sunderland BASEMENT. there, we were greeted by a quite nude ilinca who fed us water in huge kitchen jars and saltines with nutella and peanut butter. she even gave me a hello kitty thermos full of mint tea leftover from dinner... still sort of warm five hours later! we watched the episode of buffy where she tries out for the cheerleading squad but uh oh all the cheerleaders are losing various body parts! eva didn't know what was going on the whole time and either narrated to us what was happening, asked for clarification about what was happening, or said aloud what her brain told her. we finally made it back into dorland around 12:30, about 3 hours after we were displaced. there, i played banjo, had possible heart-to-heart with morgan, played banjo, felt sick, called brett, spoke without thinking, felt sad, felt sick, and got into bed at maybe 2ish. received text messages from tom, missed him terribly. and then, it happened again: i couldn't sleep. morgan says i probably slept a little without realizing it, but i know i was awake when the sun came up. had some weird dreams that i have forgotten now... i should get back into the habit of writing these things down, maybe. but there were moments when i couldn't tell if i was dreaming or if i was just inventing visions for myself as i lay there sleepless. anyway, i'm pretty sure i was awake or at least half-awake when my alarm went off, so i just stayed in bed all morning.
wednesday was another waste. i tried to work on my lab report, but i had already made up my mind to skip that class. instead of lunch or class, i went to the health center to get a sick note. this was sort of crazy because the health center has been temporarily relocated to some crazy cottage out past eco-dorm that i had to walk up this weird little woods path to find. here's the stupid part: i wore the new boots my mom ordered me from l.l. bean. in my sickness stupor, i didn't think about how disgustingly muddy it was gonna be on this walk or the fact that, wonder of wonders, the boots might not fit... which of course, they didn't, and now they are all muddy even though i tried to wash them off when i got home. i am gonna return them anyway. fuck some shoes. anyway, it doesn't say anything about mud on the return policy. the rest of the day was stupid but fine: corrected paper corrections at work, heard about a carbon monoxide leak in gladfelter, ate a very tiny but tasty dinner at cowpie, played my stupid banjo concert at which i couldn't even hear myself playing, called my parents and complained, and got in bed at about 11 without doing a lick of homework. this time, i KNOW i got some sleep, but i did not by any means have a good night's sleep. i kept waking up coughing or not being able to breathe through my nose. i don't think i had any dreams, i don't think i slept long enough at any moment.
my alarm went off at 8:30 this morning. i went straight to morgan's room to ask for her sage advice. thank god, she told me to stay home and rest. she even gave me her hot pot so i would have a steady supply of peppermint tea. i haven't left my room all day, not for anything. i have watched the world go light and dark through my window. i slept a lot, until 2:30 when i decided that if i napped anymore, i wouldn't be able to sleep tonight. i have been listening to music and poking at the internet since then. i need to figure out how long i have to turn in all the assignments i missed... i don't feel like doing any work at all, but next week, as i may have mentioned, is MISERY EXAM WEEK and i have lots lots lots to do. but, tonight might not be the night. morgan did bring me a bagel this morning, but other than that, i haven't eaten all day... except for gallons of tea and 1 (one) garlic pill. that's the real problem with sick days. so anyway, it's late now, and i better run to cowpie before it's too late. tonight they're having carmelized onion and squash pasta plus quinoa and black bean soup! i am excited for soup yumyum.
apologies if i have totally butchered the english language in this post. i blame congested fuzzy headedness.

listening to: the mountain goats - jaipur

i read it's lame to wish that you might not walk out on me

today, as usual, i am a terrible person. i wanted to slaughter everyone and/or go hide in a cave alone. and just read and not have to communicate. i think my feelings of total annoyance and utter insanity may have something to do with the fact that i missed almost a week of BC pills and had to double up for a few days... i didn't do that for long enough to make up for all 5 pills i missed because that seemed like overkill. but still.
yesterday my eye was blotchy red and leaking crust, but today it's normal again. i feel like i will never be well... is this just my every winter?
i am a failure as a grammar tutor. i told him the wrong meaning of progressive tense yesterday and we had a verb forms question on the quiz today, and i know we both missed it. i don't know how to make it up to him, this kid is so anxious already.
are we all just losing our minds, holed up in little rooms like cupboards? when we are all crammed in together, but don't see beyond the circle at our table, how can we not be feeling so alone?
everybody is desperate, i dont know if i can really blame the cold weather anymore. it's too late to think. i'm done.


listening to: xiu xiu - hello from eau claire

there's a short, dark day until the night takes back over

this morning i rolled my ankle and almost fell down the slippery hill in the cold rain. somehow i managed to right myself before actually falling... graceful or ungainly?
yesterday, dr. bradshaw took it up a notch. as i've said, i feel like he has been testing my strength as an ERA, particularly in front of my peers. grammar was the same as usual. he rambled about farther vs. further and hyphenating words, then he passed out the quiz. everything was hunky dory... until i got to question 8:

On Monday, the effusively generous Professor Bradshaw, scholar, gentleman, and statesman, gave to Alanna Stewart, writer, film maker, and aspiring grammarian, some pennies to use in the bubble gum machine; though Alanna cannot now recall what occasioned such largesse and finds herself confused because her name is being mentioned on a quiz.

1. i was not even in the office on monday. i stayed in my room all day long.
2. he has never given me pennies for the bubble gum machine, which is actually full of breast cancer m&m's.
3. i don't understand why he exaggerated about himself, but said truths about me... except aspiring grammarian, what is that.
4. i gave him an evil look when he came back from getting tea, but he just laughed at me.
5. he made a big to-do about that question, even asking me to give the answer, but i just sort of squirmed, so he answered it himself.
6. he went BACK to the problem again later, talking about how you could have hyphenated "bubble gum" or something.
7. now everybody thinks i am a teacher's pet. and i'm worried that it's true.
8. a prize to anyone who can find the error in the sentence! respond with a comment.
9. should i be honore or flattered?
10. my first grammar tutee just left the office. no idea if i helped him at all, but i tried. i just wish it hadn't been with the quiz that has my damn name on it. how embarrassing.

listening to: thanksgiving - (you belong to the) blood

high in the clean blue air

i've gotten used to the sound of geese approaching, although i always look up to see them pass overhead.
right now, i am hearing a ridiculous cacophony of geese, which sounds close but isn't getting any closer. i think a massive flock must have stopped at our pond! i want to go and find them, but the studious part of me is saying no, stay in your little room, drink your little cup of jasmine tea, and read these mary wollstonecraft essays. still, i'm craning my neck to look out the window, thinking i might get a glimpse of a wing. i know they're close, but all i see is still trees.

listening to: honk honking

today i set my sights on your heart

physical pain lingers after the dream is over. there is no fly fish prick fastened to my finger to test my ability for removal. now i'm typing, but the for first few minutes after i woke up, i was afraid to touch the spot. it still stings a little.
i dreamed that i went to school with brett. i dreamed that the stay-at-home girlfriends wept when the bus drove off. i dreamed of exploring in a field of nail-gun wheelbarrows and a rambling country road where we flew past huge dogs and oxen and a hundred other animals. then i dreamed of a pond, where we hijacked a boat and paddled around serenely until a couple of men threw some traps into the water, my hand was stuck, they said it was just a test and watched me wrestle with it, unable to concentrate because of the pain. i think it was the intensity of the sensation that finally caused me to wake up.
this is the typical tragic tale of monday. i don't want to get up when the alarm goes off, i don't feel like i need to get to work on time, i snooze a million times, and eventually tell myself that it's time to get up. but i don't.
today i woke up at 11:16 and my throat's still sore, so i decided to take the day off. i mean, i still have a ton of work to do for this huge paper that's due tomorrow, and i plan to spend my time doing that. maybe a little nap here and there... i already feel guilty because of an email from dr. bradshaw, asking me to make 21 key-hole-punched copies on light green paper (most likely the poetry class reading list) and to march them straight into his hands as he teaches class in the holden auditorium, all the way behind kitteridge. the past few weeks, he has had me doing this more and more, perhaps to test out how i operate as an English Research Assistant in front of peers. after all, i'll be in the Romanticism class next semester, and i won't be able to hide behind a TA like i do in grammar. which apparently is also part of my job next semester. dr. b had asked me to consider doing it, but jenn tells me that he has already informed her that i WANT to do it. well, i guess i knew i was gonna do it. he just figured it out first.
sorry for the work rant... i wonder if i should go down and eat eggplant sandwich and split pea soup at cowpie or that would just make me feel guilty. my dorm room options are... canned soup or zatarain's. i'm getting really hungry, i think i'll go anyway.

listening to: holly golightly - stain

should i seek out someone i could keep?

i wish i had weapons.
i feel like smashing something, especially the thing that keeps BEEPBEEPBEEPing every couple of minutes. dorms essentially mean patterns, repetitive sounds, repeated behaviors, i want to smash it all. tonight is violent, not nice. maybe just me.
a dog barks like clock work, one time three times, maybe after cars go by.
i feel like scavenging, but i'm already feeling sick, and i know that will make it worse.
a pile of eleven fingernails collected next to my tea cup. i was doing so well, but i broke. my hands have reverted to their former selves and insist on doing meanness. do nailless pinches hurt worse? some say. say some: i want to know it all.
i came home intending to stay, knowing this was impossible. i think it's time to go.
all i wanted was a haircut.

listening to: the magnetic fields - i thought you were my boyfriend

what.

while writing a paper on cocteau's la belle et la bete and thinking about fairy tales, i pulled up my old friend, Last Semester's Deliriously-Written Half-Finished Victorian Fairy Tales Paper That Should Have Been The Best But Wasn't, and i came across this little gem:

Fantasy and fairy tales have the subversive potentiality of no other genre because of their ability to twist reality through its images and symbols in order to create a new reality of their author’s devise that makes his or her point either subtly or directly in comparison to reality as we know it.

translations, please??

ready to explode

i slept all morning to, i guess, make up for the amount of sleep i haven't gotten over the last week. i wish i hadn't, though, because my service trip with my abroad class is tonight, and i'm afraid i'll be up all night, and then i won't want to wake up to garden.
speaking of my abroad class... i woke up to this email from my mom, who i had spoken with on the phone last night. she was planning to call somebody from international programs, but i suppose she couldn't find just one person and decided email was better. so she sends the following email addressed to the dean of students, the dean of work (one of my teachers), and two people in the international programs office... but she didn't use their individual emails and now i'm freaking out that a bunch of student workers are reading the following letter:

To all of you --- I wasn’t sure who to address and it has take longer than I like to find email addresses (does no one have individual e-mail?)

I have a number of concerns about my daughter’s upcoming study abroad class. I don’t want to pay for something that, frankly, seems poorly planned and lacking in academic rigor.
As of yesterday, there was no syllabus, and no full itinerary. The classes that are supposed to prepare the students for the trip are, in the opinion of my daughter, not helpful. I trust my daughter’s reasons for questioning why she should continue with a class this unpromising.

This brings me to my second concern. The plane tickets were bought the week of the first class. It was too late to withdraw when she discovered the class was not what she thought it would be. The class description was certainly enticing, and I’m sure Alanna imagined something more suited to her interests. But again, when the imagination became reality, it was too late. This is most unfair.

I really wanted my daughter to have a study abroad experience, even a very short one. I expected more from Warren Wilson programs because such a strong emphasis is placed on international studies. I really want her to have a good experience. Is there any way she could design an independent study to pursue in England for the time period? Perhaps Warren Wilson has a partner college somewhere that would provide housing. I do not want to lose the money we have paid, and I do not want Alanna to miss a trip to England that will be closer to the study we both believed was offered. I may be overly optimistic, but I believe we can find a way to make this a positive trip.

I usually try to let my daughters’ figure out the problems of college life on their own. However, this problem is too thorny to ignore. I will support Alanna in her decisions, but I wanted to make sure we covered every option.

I appreciate that you listen to our concerns, and I hope we can find a way through the thorns.
Respectfully,
[MY MOM]

after this message, how can i go on the group trip now, even if i wanted to? what a mess. someone please tell me how to feel about this.

everybody sees your smoking gun

this week is all dreams and undone work and headaches and wetness and mess, no time to write at all. and yet...
my big news: i heard back from diane cluck, and she will play on campus next semester! can i tell you i'm thrilled? i wanted a spring show, outside somewhere, but she may be doing a residency somewhere then, so it's looking like february. i need a way to make all the right people come.
oh obvious, the other big news: bell hooks will be on campus all day tomorrow!!!!! my women in u.s. history class gets to join a couple other classes for a special q&a with her at 9:30, she's having gladfelter lunch with students (although i'm too scared to go), and i'm skipping my film class to see her speak at 4pm. i got one of her books from the library, but i've had so much to do, i haven't had any time to read it. i feel guilty that i won't have done my homework for her visit, but i'm excited just the same. i really want to get this book, and also this one. i can't wait to learn! *dork*
have i mentioned the rain? NONSTOP for three days and no end in sight. mostly it's not so bad that i need an umbrella, but it's surely cold and slippery. the worst part is the worms. yesterday ilinca and i each rescued one from the sidewalk on the sunderland hill, but there were squished ones all around. i've been so careful, walking on tiptoes in my rotting boots, but i still come home with soaking wet socks.
after the worms, i talked to dale for over an hour. dale is one of the two career services staff, and his face is amazing. this was my second meeting with him, but it had been a while, so i had forgotten about his face. i asked my question; he asked me to be patient while he thought his answer through. this was no problem. as he thinks, he closes his eyes, knits his furry brows, and occasionally smacks his lips, the bottom one pulling down on the left side. he emerges from the trance slowly, smacking and talking, and finally opening his eyes SO WIDE that his forehead just grows and his glasses move slightly. that's what i can tell you about dale. that, and he loves what he does. we're meeting again soon because he wants to help me find a job and work on my resume. he makes all this stuff not seem so scary.
on my way back to jensen, i saved two more worms. they were shiny and translucent in the rain, white and pink soil monsters fighting pavement. i hope this damn rain stops.
later, i am washing my hands in the cowpie bathroom. three girls are talking, on their way to dinner, i suppose. two leave, one is left behind fixing her hair, just for a moment. she leaves and cuts the light. i am stranded in total darkness, blind. people are always cutting the light on me in that bathroom; at least this time i was out of the stall. sometimes i am really invisible.
over dinner, morgan tells me that i need valium. of course, there's none to be had. it's only uppers for wilsonites, or lately, echinacea and garlic pills.
i don't know how to write about the hell that is my study abroad class. it is juvenile, embarrassing, and boring. i would be mortified to type out what actually transpired in that miserable hour and a half last night. the point is that i went home and cried and then calmed down and wrote an email to the teacher. i found out today that i can only get a partial refund if i decide not to go. i had a horrible meeting with the two teachers that felt like a gang up of feel good nonsense. these two are a trip of their own, talk about cross-cultural experience. the class is trash, but maybe i should go to england just the same. if i go, will i even try to enjoy the group, or will i be a breathing, reading shadow?
advice on this subject would be just peachy. i'm all lost.

listening to: josephine foster & the supposed - who will feel bitter at the day's end?