Les Bas-fonds

okay, maybe I am a little bit ridiculous

2007-03-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

me: Rosser hasn't called me. Or texted me. Nothing.
Ivana: Why should he again?
me: He picked a fight with me! And after I took the first step in reconciliaton, nothing!
Ivana: But didn't you already apologize?
me: Well, yes ... but I left in a huff, so technically I was still mad, so I took the first step and ...
Ivana: It's NOT the Holocaust!! He doesn't need to PUBLICLY accept your apology!

Late Nights

2007-02-23T02:12:00.000-05:00

Mystery and wonder did light up the valley
To be beat back by dark clouds and a harsh reeking wind
And that battle staggered through 3 awful months there
To stop for a minute
Just to start up again
Your hands like birds in the trees
If the trees themselves were all on fire
Your hips on mine make a choir
Singing "baruch atta adonaï"
And the river never made it to the lake
So the lake surrendered to the mountain
And the mountain's heart did fucking break
At the sight of your nervous hands...
And oh my love
So gently breathing
So my heart does softly swell
So her & me did greet the evening
With much red wine and giddy yells
In these times of wandering soldiers
Building towers on ruined land
I hold my love to my belly
And feel her breath fall across my hands...
I have grown tired of the struggle
And i've grown tired of making plans
It think i'll quit to the valley
Regain my strength
And start again
Where once we were some clumsy army
Now we are just lazy hens
I think i'll quit to the valley
Until the light moves me again...
So, let's link arms sisters and brothers
And let's promise not to retreat
There is glory in our failure
So let's march to the rhythm of fatigue
To live our lives without leaders
To live in joy without fear
Let's walk together to the valley
And let the light redeem our hearts...

--A Silver Mt. Zion, "There's a river in the valley made of snow"

hold me closer than that
hold me closer than that
how'd we get here so fast?
hold me closer than that

on a dark, raging sea
ships lay sleeping beneath
overhead, spinning past
hold me closer than that

things we lost in the fire
how'd we ever get by?
words will never take back
hold me closer than that

hold me closer than that
hold me closer than that
how'd we get here so fast?
hold me closer than that

--Low, "Closer"

stunning

2007-02-22T19:19:00.000-05:00

"We lie awake, back against back, never blinking."

One-line poem Rosser wrote back in high school, when he was 15 or 16, to illustrate the meaning of love.

Bukowski's was playing Bjork ...

2007-02-22T11:32:00.000-05:00

I'm a fountain of blood
In the shape of a girl
You're the bird on the brim
Hypnotised by the Whirl

Drink me, make me feel real
Wet your beak in the stream
Game we're playing is life
Love is a two way dream

Leave me now, return tonight
Tide will show you the way
If you forget my name
You will go astray
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay

I'm a path of cinders
Burning under your feet
You're the one who walks me
I'm your one way street

I'm a whisper in water
Secret for you to hear
You are the one who grows distant
When I beckon you near

Leave me now, return tonight
The tide will show you the way
If you forget my name
You will go astray
Like a killer whale
Trapped in a bay

I'm a tree that grows hearts
One for each that you take
You're the intruder hand
I'm the branch that you break

--"Bachelorette"

If travel is searching
and home has been found

I'm not stopping

I'm going hunting
I'm the hunter
I'll bring back the goods
but I don't know when

I thought I could organise freedom
How Scandinavian of me
You sussed it out, didn't you?

You could smell it
So you left me on my own
To complete the mission
Now i'm leaving it all behind

I'm going hunting
I'm the hunter...

--"Hunter"

Overheard at the KSG

2007-02-21T18:41:00.000-05:00

me: You know what terrifies me? What if I have ugly kids?
Ivana: Don't be ridiculous. That doesn't happen to good people like us.

beautiful

2007-02-17T23:37:00.000-05:00

"Your hands like birds in the trees
If the trees themselves were all on fire
Your hips on mine make a choir
Singing "baruch atta adonaï"*
And the river never made it to the lake
So the lake surrendered to the mountain
And the mountain's heart did fucking break
At the sight of your nervous hands ..."

A Silver Mt. Zion, "There's a river in the valley made of melting snow"

*"Blessed are you, oh, Lord …"

I LOVE Lena Chen

2007-02-13T16:04:00.000-05:00

Sweet girl, cute as a button, and hi-fuckin'larious. I mean, her blog is a little narcissistic/exhibitionistic, but to that I say: she just puts out there what we Harvard girls are, deep down, all about, every one of us. Say what you will--if you attend this school, you are by definition precocious, pretentious and self-obsessed. And as for the sex, she just gets more than most of us (tho' not more than me ... booyah: see what I meant by the narcissicm and the exhibiotnism? :))

Anyways, this just made me hoot with laughter at work. From her latest column on CollegeHumor.

If you’re in a serious relationship, there’s no better time than Valentine’s Day to take it to the next level. Some say wait for dessert to break out the big stuff; I say wait until you break out the bling. As she opens that box of shiny objects, it’s your perfect chance to lean in and whisper those three magic words you’ve been waiting to say:

"Let's try anal."

AND, a certain someone who reads my blog as well: boy, you made the blog already and flatteringly so--

"At Saturday night’s date auction, Terra bought me and I bought (half of) her pal. Adia and I are headed to Broadway sometime this spring on a $110 joint date with a hunky Harvard theater veteran."

Hunky, eh?? Boy, I be waitin' for more news to go up on that blog with antici ........ pation!

à recueillir

2007-02-13T00:01:00.000-05:00

Caught my eye while I was taking a thesis break and watching trailers for upcoming films on apple.com, tagline for The Painted Veil, starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts, about a dysfunctional marriage brought back together when the wife follows her husband as he heads a team of doctors fighting a major cholera epidemic in Southeast Asia:

Sometimes the greatest journey is the distance between two people.

Victoria can go die

2007-02-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: I am not bragging, this really REALLY is an irritating problem! So I went on birth control 2 months ago, terrified of course that I was going to blow up like a blimp. No, no, bizzarely enough the exact ahem, opposite happened. I lost about 7 lbs and ... grew a bra size. Needless to say, my boyfriend is gleeful. I, on the other hand, have naught but dark thoughts towards him and malekind because, oh, yes, all my bras are cutting into me now and leaving nasty red marks all over my pwetty lily-white skin (I mean, I am really really pale, so the marks show up as angry red welts and I look like the victim of some sort of bizarre S&M gone wronger than even S&M goes).

So, broke as I am, I caved and went bra-shopping today to Victoria's Secret because I had a hunch that I was now a very odd size that no affordable place would carry. Well, guess bloody what, not only am I a D cup, no, it's better than that! Much better! I am in-between a 34 and a 36 which means NOTHING fits me properly. I hate the lingerie industry, can I just say? You'd think that because I have these wonderful new growths on me (I must say, many a dithiramble had been sung to them even before and now it's gotten so ridiculous that I dread spingtime even more than I did when this whole thing started back in junior high) I would be prancing around gleefully in dressing rooms, adorning them with lace and velvet. Oh, but though Victoria's Secret makes bras in every size, they do not always take into account their actual wearability. I don't know how it works--maybe girls with implants have it better bc they're, you know, sturdier or something. Well, mine need a fucking harness. You know the inventor of the brassiere was, in fact, an architect, specializing in bridges? The mechanism of a bra's support is actually inspired by bridge design. Yeah, well if some girls get away with Monet's pretty little arch over that lake of lilies in Giverny, then I need the entire fucking Golden Gate Bridge in order to actually walk with the speed to which I am accustomed to walking. The lacy bras are lovely, pretty, gorgeous even--and on me, they are something I could wear exclusively in the bedroom, where the damned thing would end up on the floor in 5 seconds anyways.

So two hours and abour 10 bras later (and they take so much adjusting and fiddling with bra straps too! they're just so irritating to put on!), I spent $99 on ... two bras. Oh, yes, my friends, TWO. One scary looking dachshund harness thing and one actually cute and lacy (and sketchy!) one, but def only for evening wear (and removal), simply in honour of Valentine's Day and my boyfriend, who is cooking me dinner.

Okay, I can't REALLY complain. I have a loving boyfriend who cooks for me and whom I repay by diminishing waist and growing breasts (and by a whole lot of other less superficial things besides), but honestly!! I am a poor, broke student. There has got to be some cheaper way out of this.

Ahh, department stores, here we go ... after I turn in the thesis. Ooooh, maybe they have post-Valentine's Day sales?!

2007-02-07T23:39:00.000-05:00

I must go on standing
You can't break that which isn't yours
I, oh, must go on standing
I'm not my own, it's not my choice

Be afraid of the lame
They'll inherit your legs
Be afraid of the old
They'll inherit your souls
Be afraid of the cold
They'll inherit your blood
Apres moi, le deluge
After me comes the flood

Февраль. Достать чернил и плакать!
Писать о феврале навзрыд.
Пока грохочущая слякоть
Весною черною горит.

--Regina Spektor, "Après moi"

Note: After listening to this bit about ten times, trying to figure out the first line, I finally Yandexed it (that's Google for Russian people), having finally figured out that my computer has a Russian phonetic keyboard (ah, so much better), and determined that she's singing a Boris Pasternak poem, the translation of which to my best approximation, runs:

February. Get ink and cry!
Write about February in sobs.
Until the thundering sleet
Burns with a black spring.

Further investigation reveals this to be the opening stanza of a massive poem entitled Начальная пора, or roughly, hm, let's see: The Beginning Season. I must say though, I'm not a fan. Too overwrought from the bits I looked over, but sung very prettily. And sort of apt. At any rate, a sight better than the song of hers I listened to just before, called, ahem, "Edit":

You don't have no doctor Robert
You don't have no uncle Albert
You don't even have good credit
You can write but you can't edit
Edit, edit, edit, edit, edit, edit...

Not what you want to be listening in the final stages of preparing your thesis and after a disastrous thesis meeting in which you burst into tears in front of 2 6'5" tall men because one of them was being such an asshole.

Argh, what an awful day. Just need to suffer through this kid's irritating thesis chapter (another gem: "He is so certain of his interpretation, he is willing to stake (or mis-stake) his entire grasp of reality on it …). Don't get me wrong: parts of it are positively brilliant, and the whole thing flows a sight better than mine and is helluva better researched. BUT THE WRITING, THE POMPOSITY!! :)

I just had a flash of paranoia, that he randomly does a search for like, one of the phrases he quotes, and trusty Google hits upon a blog, and he thinks, hey, weird, why is there a blog with this phrase from this book I read ... and then reads these 2 posts. In which case, my dear, who shall remain nameless, if you do ever chance upon this, please know that I think you're brilliant, but that no one in their early 20s ought to write like this, and take it in good friendly stride, :).

Post Modern Syndrome

2007-02-06T17:32:00.000-05:00

Here's hoping my blog doesn't get too widespread, but I just CAN'T read this without making snide comments now and then: I'm peer reviewing someone's senior thesis chapter, and I kind of want to bang my head against a table at certain points, much as I like the guy and much as parts of it are actually kind of incredible (and, dare I say it, he's also kind of stunningly gorgeous :)).

A prime example, "... the idea of a rhetorically constructed authority was not the catchpenny of the revolutionary, but a widespread mentalité by liberals and conservatives alike in Elizabethian England. After all, men were men, "Et au plus élevé trône du monde, si ne sommes assis que sus notre cul." The Chorus of Henry V is a relic. It is the reliquiæ, or remains, of a dead art, a dead culture."

1. If you're going to insert random French, which cannot but be pretentious (don't think I don't know this: Nhung still won't let me live down a phrase from my first ever Expos. paper freshman year, "this leitmotif par excellence"--YEAH), please make sure you actually understand the word. 'Mentalité' means mindset, and a mindset cannot be by somebody, it is of somebody.

2. A quote in 16th century French (which, by the way, looks grammatically incorrect to me beyond the weirdness of 16th century French)--not to be analyzed, not as evidence but just ... as part of the writing? Right after already using a random French word? From Montaigne, no less??

3. Reliquiæ. Relic comes from reliquiæ. Reliquiæ means remains. Remains of something dead. This sentence says, "The Chorus of Henry V is a dead remain. It is the dead remain, or remains, of a dead art, a dead culture."

Or this little gem: "Choruses and prologues like the one in Henry V seem at first glace nothing more than anachronistic conventions, nothing more than unskillful plot-advancers or awkward remnants of what Thomas Nashe called “English Seneca”—the product of those writers who would model themselves too much on the classics (in this case borrowing the Senecan chorus between acts) and deform both works in the process. To some extent this is true. The prologue/chorus convention is of interest to us mainly because of its associations with the past, because of how it evokes or “encapsulates,” in the words of Robert Weimann, “a dense variety of issues related to the early modern theatre itself.” It is an outmoded theatrical convention, but in being outmoded it is a kind of window unto other earlier conventions, ideas, tastes, styles, and behaviors."

EASILY could be twice as short.

Hmm, I couldn't resist writing him marginal notes along the same lines (though more politely) but a fresh take on this made me realize that my PMS is actually unhelpful. Fuck, now I have to reprint his chapter and leave nicer comments. Argh, I hate people today.

"the beginning is counterfactually optative"--you're 21 years old, kid!! What does that even MEAN? I mean, I know what it means: he is saying that's it's wishful thinking, but ... why, why does he have to use that phrase?

whoah

2007-02-06T02:21:00.000-05:00

I just found out that this guy I just went to a drag show with (long story: totally awesome, the theme was Soviet kitsch--the opening number featured the inimitable Katya lip-synching to a PERFECT Russian translation of "Momma's Song" from Chicago, Chris and I almost DIED!!! and then yours truly won a used hair straightening iron for answering trivia on Goldie Hawn--because yes, I am a butch gay man trapped in a woman's body)--anyways, this cooky guy I know, his father is Ken Russell, none other than the director of (well, these are the 3 I knew!) Tommy, Lisztomania and Lair of the White Worm!!

I don't make any sense to myself either

2007-02-05T15:50:00.000-05:00

So on the one hand, I am a COMPLETE disaster. As in, I have no money in my bank account, currently; I have loans; I am a massive spendthrift (I went into buy thermal underwear today and I emerged with ... six thongs, which, ironically, even stitched together would not make it down one thigh ... ).

On the other hand, it's February 5th, and I have both a summer apartment and a summer job. Uh-huh. The apartment is a wonderful little two-bedroom with a sizeable kitchen and a pantry and a hands-down BIG living room (it's going to be so hard not to call it a common room :)). Bay windows, light and air! Ellie and her friend Ross are living there currently, and I am moving in at the start of the summer. And for all my spendthriftyness, I am buckling down, my friends, and working 19.5 hours a week to afford that $650/mo baby. $650 for a large spacious apartment in Cambridge?? Whoot, whoot!

But the BEST part is that I now have the ultimate cushy summer job: receptionist in a building that is going to be EMPTY this summer. And when I say I am getting paid $10.50 to do nothing, I really--really--mean nothing. My sole responsibilities at this place are (a) metering letters and parcels; (b) answering the phone that rings once an hour on average and (c) telling tourists the museum moved ten years ago. I KID YOU NOT. Oh, and when I work full-time when my supervisor takes her vacation I will have a whole new duty--gasp!--putting mail into people's mailboxes in the morning. The sweat spontaneously drips from my brow just to think of it.

Yeah, between living with my girl, spending glorious summer nights with my boy and hanging out with my Boston friends, I am uhhh, one lucky bitch.

My thesis rough draft is done and it's 88 pp.! Of course, I haven't yet gone to either of my thesis meetings this week, so let's wait for the carnage but, fuck it, everything is editable!!! The hard part is getting it DOWN.

2007-02-05T02:21:00.000-05:00

This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath

No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again

And on the radio
You hear November Rain
That solo's awful long
But it's a good refrain
You listen to it twice
'Cause the DJ is asleep

--"On the Radio," Regina Spektor

Procraaaastination Junction, What's Your Function?

2007-02-04T23:46:00.000-05:00

me, to Ivana emitting bizarre sounds: Are you hiccoughing or something?
Ivana: No, I only talk-!-like this because I'm-!-swallowing balloons. What-!-do you think? That I'm giving imaginary-!-blowjobs and having a-!-gag reflex??

me, uncharacteristically: Well, I would wash my hair at your place, but your shampoo doesn't really agree with my hair ... and I don't have my anti-frizz serum ... or my leave-in conditioner ... and I don't have my mousse either ... and I have to go to a birthday party and I don't want to have messed-up hair at a birthday party and ...
Rosser: In some aborigine cultures, frizz is seen as a sign of strength.
me, brightening: Really?! I didn't know that! ... Wait ...
Rosser roars with laughter and gives me a well-deserved smack on the head.

Rosser, staring at the bacon in his George Foreman grill: Sizzle, my honeys, sizzle for daddy!! ... Wow, maybe that's why men are reputed to be good cooks.

mispselling

2007-01-31T22:49:00.000-05:00

me in an e-mail to Rosser: I don't know why, but ever since my massive panic attack I have been so zen, like the paragon of clam.

me, in a PS: HA. Somebody should name their band that: the Paragon of Clam. (Seriously, sweet name, no?)

Ivana, upon being faithfully recounted this (what else you gonna do at the end of a 6 hour library shift?): You also might want to reassure the boy that it was not a Freudian slip and that you don't have chlamydia.

Speaking of Freudian slips, Ivana has been prancing around all day--to my undisguised horror, because it's 25 degrees out!--in leggings and a skirt that barely covers her ass.
Ivana's young Greek TF: Today in class we're going to do a mini-skirt ... mini-skit. SKIT.

Foot in Mouth Disease

2007-01-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

Ivana, passing by a Buddhist monk: Oh, my GOD, that is so SURREAL.
me: Ivana, you can't say that passing by a Buddhist monk!
Ivana: Why? You think he speaks English?

(Disclaimer: the girl is currently reading House of Leaves, she just has her jaw-dropping moments.)

Vanity--definitely my favourite sin!

2007-01-26T15:54:00.000-05:00

So I'm literally currently wearing more layers than it is degrees outside, to say nothing of the windchill. Ah, Boston, my Boston, how I love thee. Now, being a non-born yet bred Bostonian of Russian extraction, the cold has got NOTHING on me. Though Russian-Americans scoff at their Russian mothers who warn them that sitting on stone steps in the sun at noon in summer will (still) freeze their kidneys/ovaries (the threat is gender-dependent, and the freezing of testicles is, apparently, not a concern, though if you ask me, they are slightly more likely to come directly in contact with cold stone surfaces, more so than ovaries, though unless your humping said stone surface, I don't quite see how that's possible, so maybe that's why no one warns Russian boys about freezing scrotums [scrota?], but I do digress), it does raise them with a sense of, well, unease towards the cold at the very least. Many a Russian-American has suffered as much as me in the grade school locker room (by the way, girls are just as vicious as boys, if not more, and, yes, my clothing has been stolen out of my locker and strewn on the bathroom floor or worse, many, many a time; in fact, my grade school experience was, and I do not joke, profoundly similar to Welcome to the Dollhouse, and what is even creepier is Heather Matarazzo's uncanny resemblance to yours truly in second grade in that shot where she is, um, lifting the hammer over her sleeping younger sister ...? I never did that, by the way. But I also didn't have a younger sister, ;).). Apart from the funny accent and the lumpy sweaters, my wearing tights as long underwear under pants caused my 12 and 13-year-old American female counterparts to hoot with laughter, and in vain could I try and explain that I had to WALK 30 minutes to school in this Boston cold, for Chrissakes, and, no, my parents didn't own a car, they just didn't! Ah, fond memories of Shady Hill, the elementary school with the name of a mental institution just down the road from my alma mater ... Hmm, but I am in a digressive state of mind, :).

The point of the above paragraph being that a combination of repeated threats of infertility from my mother and the necessity of walking to elementary school/waiting for the bus that came once an hour to get to high school, etc. has left me an expert on combatting the cold. Thus, in preparation for a longish trek to work this afternoon and a longer trek to my boyfriend's place, I cheerfully bundled myself in interlocking layers of tights, tanktops, jeans, long-sleeved shirts and enormous fuzzy sweater, donned fur-lined knee-high boots, gloves and my prized possession, a 12-foot long purple scarf, wrapped around my entire face, going all the way up to my eyes, all topped off by an adorable little hat, courtesy of Rosser. Ha-haaa, I thought to myself, tripping merrily down the streets, I am fabulous! To the amused grins of passers-by, I grinned widely back (though you couldn't see it through the scarf), thinking, laugh away, little people, at my get-up, I am SO MUCH WARMER than you, booyah, motherfuckers!! But when my supervisor seemed strangely mirthful at my arrival, I began to wonder whether there might, in fact, be something odd about my appearance. My hair, stick straight in this awful weather, having become recalcitrant yet again, I retired to the ladies' room. Yeah, the combination of applying mascara right before leaving, having my eyes water from the cold and scrunching up the bit of my face exposed to keep warm, I ended up with a perfect imprint of my lashes in long, thick, glorious black lines running up till they went into my eyebrows and down to the middle of my cheeks. I did, indeed, look fabulous.

In general, today is just not my day. Or hasn't been since yesterday. Last night, having been unproductive on my thesis since the morning and spending the afternoon pondering mournfully whether my myriad of notes wouldn't look better as a tiny yet formidable fleet of paper airplanes and then draining my brain of all function through watching the aptly named show Arrested Development, I gave up on life and decided it was time for bed at the unusually early hour of midnight. I performed my various nightly ablutions, turned off the light and crawled exhaustedly into my wonderful warm bed for some peace and quiet.

I generally take a while to fall asleep, but as I finally started to drift off, my radiator started making sounds. I generally am overly sensitive to noise of any variety, and the hissing of that damned thing had been bothering me since November (to say nothing of the two burn scars adorning my knee), but this was something more than hissing. This was a noise that sounded remarkably like someone was banging the radiator with a metal rod directly next to my eardrum (my bed is next to the radiator and in front of the window). In vain, I tried to sleep and, after 45 minutes of tossing and turning, finally decided to move to my roommate's room who had conveniently taken off for St. Louis to visit her boyfriend (neglecting to mention this helpful fact to her two roommates until I sent her a text message asking her whether she was with boyfriend or lying dead in a gutter, although presumably she would not have been at liberty to respond in the latter scenario).

I moved my blankets, numerous pillows and huge fluffy white comforter, turned off the light and shut my eyes. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Turn on light. Find alarm clock next to bed. Banish it to the common room. Return. Turn off light, get in bed, shut eyes. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Turn on light. Hunt perplexedly around room. Discover second alarm clock buried bizzarely under pile of papers on desk. Banish to common room. Return. Turn off light, get in bed, shut eyes. Tick. Tock. Tick--I ain't fucking kidding you--tock!!! Turn on light. Utter string of expletives in English. Hunt. Hunt more. Keep hunting. Utter string of more powerful expletives in Russian, wishing all sorts of ungodly and inhumane acts on roomate, mother and extended family. Eventually, after sniffing around the room like a bloodhound, find a ... third alarm clock, buried at the back of my roommate's underwear drawer inside her dresser. Banish to common room, feeling like Michael Caine in Sleuth. Minus the whole wife-stealing and being a young male Cockney upstart to Lawrence Olivier's mad Sloaney mystery writer thing. Mind you that the presence of three alarm clocks, two cleverly hidden, does not deter my roommate from sleeping through all three alarms on a regular basis and emerging disheveled from her room at 8 p.m. and wearily setting about the task of cooking rice because she has missed all three meals in the dining hall, to say nothing of classes.

But my tale of woe does not end there, my friends. Having successfully restrained myself from shattering not one but three alarm clocks, I went back to bed and composed myself for, maybe finally now, a night of sleep, it being already a goodly hour and a half from the time I originally went to bed. Well guess fucking what, her radiator started clanging this time. Fifteen minutes later it was discovered that the only way to stop it was to turn the entire damn thing off (that not having been feasible with my radiator which was registering some faraway echo, as helpfully explained to me by my boyfriend who decided that a helpful and enthusiastic lecture on the physics of radiators is the perfect answer to your girlfriend's sob story about how she couldn't get to sleep). So I turned the damn thing off, and, as the atmosphere in my room steadily dropped a good 25 degrees, started drifting off to the happy land of no alarm clocks and radiators. Until 5 drunk guys started chasing each other around the Mac courtyard outside screaming either "Magic Johnson" or "Norman Johnson," I couldn't tell which. Repeatedly. At the top of their young, athletic twenty-year-old lungs. And then, those lovely Harvard men, shining examples of the future of our great nation, decided to sprint as fast as they could towards the door leading into the building, two windows away from where I was, and body-check it at full force, fall down, laugh like hyeanas, and repeat the whole human battering ram endeavour again. And again. And again and again. And again.

The joyful sounds of college mirth were cut short by a bellow resembling, in its might and force and expression of pain, the roar of a wounded elephant in the jungle, "SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. OR. I. WILL. FUCKING. MURDER. YOU!!!!!!!" Apparently, I do the whole Russian rage thing well because those boys turned tail and fled faster than you could say "legacy brat." And then, ladies and gentlemen, after all that, I went to bed, only to wake up 6 hours later feeling like a very large icicle and rush frantically to the shower. Which remained obstinately lukewarm for the next 20 minutes.

argh

2007-01-25T19:08:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Lena's lovely New Year's Resolution, "#5. Do not under any circumstances try coke. Unless it's free" and recalling a friend's wonderful statement, "Hey, congratulate me, I haven't done drugs in a month." Pause. "Can't WAIT to see my dealer this Friday!", I was reminded that denial isn't healthy. Who the fuck am I kidding? My mother is a pack-a-day smoker, my father has been smoking since age 9, all my friends smoke, my boyfriend smokes (Nat, mmm, Shermans ...) and do I REALLY really REALLY think I am just a "social smoker??" However, if at least my heart has told this to me, there is yet something to stand in my path. I succumbed to my cravings, shamefully, and slinked to 7-11. I was CARDED. You can't card me--I'm 22! I have circles under my eyes from thesis-related sleep deprivation that make me look 30. I didn't look 18 when I was 18--in point of fact, the very LAST time I looked 18, I was 14 (yeah, I used to get into a fair deal of trouble :)). Hmm, I figured God was trying to say something to me. Went back to 7-11 today, checked for my ID once inside, was ready to whip it out sportingly, swishing hair (why THANK you for thinking I'm just ... barely legal, you big bad man you), when I realize, I don't have my wallet on me.

It's official. God doesn't want me to smoke. God DAMN it. I'll outwit you yet!

apparently my whole blog is about Ivana

2007-01-25T18:54:00.000-05:00

Ivana: Skiing terrifies me. More than anything else! It's the MOST terrifying sport!
me: More so than parachute jumping?
Ivana: I would RATHER parachute jump! Parachute-jumping makes SENSE to me. I mean, what idiot came up with skiing--why would you tie a pair of sticks to your leg and go down an icy cliff, I mean, WHY???

It turned out that Ivana's obsessive fear of skiing came from reading about a woman in Dubai, who went skiing in her burka and ... you know, didn't really have the time of her life, shall we say. Ivana has vowed never to repeat this woman's mistake.

Why Facebook should NOT have come to Croatia.

2007-01-25T18:52:00.000-05:00

So Ivana was recently friended by a Croatian guy, a freshman at a medical school in Croatia, whose "About me" section on his profile goes, well, like this:

"I'm Croatian, i am going to medical school in Zagreb. I like it here, the school is hard but the girls are amazing. The food is amazing and there is like no fat people. My name is Ivo. I play the piano..some pingpong..nogomet (of course). I never get mad, just frustrated. I could be friends with anybody. I'm easy to get along with..caring...hah. Id tell you how much i weight and how tall i am, but i am really not sure...i havent weighted myself or measured my height since i left the US, but im guessing around..hmm 5'10" or something and about 140 lbs. but that was like 5 months ago. I dont know if this is good or bad...im not like one of those guys that are into cars 24/7...like omg ford made a new pickup truck..yay!!...no, i will drive whatever moves. It would be nice if it was comfortable but who cares...if its like a box on wheels it probably uses less gas, and if you destroy it nowbody cares. Interesting things that i have done before include, researching some brain cells in a laboratory, moved to croatia..haha, been a part of the firedepartment, gotten paid for making websites, beat everybody in my school in pingpong (yes greg everyone...and xiao...i know ur chinese but ur not better), i dont know, i dont feel like thinking about interesting things now, i have a biochemistry the test is in 2 weeks...I love chocolate, infact last night i traveled across town to find a working place that sells chocolate at night..and i found it, i got 2 bars of the one thats mixed with rice...its probably not what you think unless you are sure you know what it is, and its goooddd. What else...i dont know, i really cant remember anything else...i just cant wait till the summer, the whole point of school is so you can get through it to get to the summer and school is also just something in between summers...of course i will put an effort into school, but my point summer is the best part of the year for me. I dont know what to tell you anymore...message me and find out more"

No, thank you.

Homeopathy--Russki Style

2007-01-24T15:07:00.000-05:00

me: So the best thing to do when you get massively sick but need to get better like, asap, like me when I got a raging fever one week before the show I was working on opened. The best thing to do is just to sleep, so you get a bottle of whiskey, some Nyquill and some sleeping pills and--
Rosser: And attempt suicide?!! HELLO.

well, that settles THAT question :)

2007-01-24T15:05:00.000-05:00

Rosser: If you turn down a Fulbright on account of my sorry ass, I will beat you. With glass things. Till they shatter. And then, when the cops take me away, and I go before the judge, and he asks me what kind of an asshole do I think I am, I'll say, 'Hey, she deserved it.' It'll be okay though, I can still compose music in prison.

Superficial is Right

2007-01-23T16:23:00.000-05:00

But sooo pleasing. Firstly I gloat because I own the exact same dress in navy blue (American Apparel, baby, for all-American girls). But more importantly I gloat because it looks WAY better on me. :P

(Click on the title of the post for the link. I can't figure out how to embed it in the text like a normal person.)

New Year's Resolution

2007-01-22T13:18:00.000-05:00

For the first time in my life, I actually have one. I came to the epiphany last night that I believe most firmly in two things in this world: Fate and Freud, making me realize that my missing my Fulbright (note the alliteration, oh, yeah, baby!:P) interview because I thought it was on a different day just proves that I don't want to go to St. Pete's for a year to study utopias, as interesting as that would be. Plus, the woman hasn't e-mailed me back yet about rescheduling my interview, so my chances are probably slimming more. I'm still waiting on Cambridge and Oxford (conditional on getting in and, ahem, getting funding to attend)--although if personal history repeats itself, one of those just might be what comes through at the last minute, seeing as the only high school I got into was one of the best preparatory schools in the country and 6 universities rejected my application, whereas Harvard admitted me ninth out of a class of 60, after having already taken in 8 on early decision. So you never know. Plus, I can always work for 6 months and travel for 6 months, like my crazy friend Sam, who has been part-time enrolled at the University of Melbourne since age 18 and, at 22, has visited 25 (28?) countries. Just works and goes to school for 6 months and then takes off. Travelled around with a magician for a while and does crazy amazing card tricks (not to mention card-sharping :D I assume). So, actually, I am getting more and more psyched in fact for the idea of staying in the US (not fleeing, for once in my life) but getting out of this goddamned city where the waters are stagnant to me (though I shall, always, love that dirty water) and go to that Mecca of the young and the restless, New York fuckin' City. Hands down, the best place on earth. As a friend of Rosser's put it last night, you cannot consider yourself cosmopolitan unless you have lived a significant period of time in NYC. Have I spent my whole life dreaming of living in New York? Hell, yeah. Is New York one of those rare cities that feels completely and entirely like home? Hell, yeah (Boston, btw, does NOT feel like home to me in the least; London, Paris and Rome do, but not Boston).

Oh, hey--I just got a call from a Fulbright Dragon Lady. Bitched out sufficiently by somebody who sounds not much older than I, but that's okay, I deserved that, and interview today at FIVE-THIRTY, YOU MORONIC CHILD, DON'T FORGET. And seeing as that man will now be calling me from 1:30 a.m. Russia time, I better not mess this one up. Gulp.

Must stop procrastinating. Exam tomorrow. Interview today.

The point of this rambling drivel is to say that I have always quelled a little annoying voice in the back of my mind that has an irritating tendency to remind me that maybe the issue of a family that includes a painter, a novelist, a film critic, a poet and two actors ought not to ensevelir herself in a dusty library. Maybe I have other callings, but pursuing them was scary and didn't line up with my parents' plans for me. Of course, 'tis but idle pipe-dreams to say to yourself, I am going to go to the Big Apple and become a film critic because, ahem, there are people out there, especially in New York, who hold actual degrees in film as opposed to pretentious autodidacts like me for whom the VES Department at Harvard was too puerile (yes, yes, I know how massively pretentious I am! :P). And I do ultimately believe very strongly that I have a true weird talent for comparative literary work and that it IS necessary to the world, in some strange way, :). But some time off would be a fine, fine thing, and some life outside the confines of university bubbles too.

And now, back to our originally scheduled program.