INSOMNIA

I just spent like 10 minutes brushing my teeth just because I don't want to be asleep yet. Fortunately, Emily is making my night better by finally having pictures from Debi's amazing Turkish party. I share because I care:

Turkish Dinner

Dinner and Silly Hats!

mod 40 dinner and silly hats party

So I went to an awesome dinner at the kosher mod on Saturday, and then Debi dragged a bunch of us to an awesome silly hats party afterwards, and then I didn't sleep for a really long time (which is entirely Alex's fault) and then I went shopping with Noah and Sarah and Katie and then we went to Debi's house and played dreidel and I won big ($1.64) and we watched the Frisco Kid (funny funny movie) and I got home at like 1:30 (damn you Debi and your tendency to make people stay at your apartment until all hours of the night) and I slept and slept and slept and woke up and met with Rachel about my paper (a few minutes late cause I overslept but it was Debi's fault) and thought about homework but got distracted by fixing my Turkish costume and I went to Spanish and I went to the Bridge and I went to my Yiddish movie and then I ran into Alex and we went over to the kosher mod to eat the quiche that Noah made and pick up Alex's bike and I gave Alex some Bonine because I just happened to have it and he needed it and then I honestly thought about homework but I didn't quite get to it. This morning I woke up at 8:30 because Alex and I decided to have a breakfast date so he could go to the doctor, and it snowed! We got happy at the snow (he less excited than me because he's from Minnesota and snow is not quite as special) and ended up eating breakfast for like 2 hours because then Katie showed up and then Jack and we only left because they had class and then Alex and I hung out for a while (did not do homework) until he had to go to the doctor and then I revised one paper before lunch and then we ate lunch and then Alex and I somehow made 3 hours disappear and have no idea how but it was time for me to go to the ERP lab and Erik hooked me up to a machine with electrodes and I did a fancy test of some sort or another and he read my brain waves and I made $10 and it was fun. Came back and talked to Katie and then Alex wanted dinner so we got dinner and then we decided it was really and truly time to do homework, and since we obviously get nothing done in my room, we went to the bridge, where we discovered free nachos and milkshakes. So we ate and drank and did very little homework (I got like 2 paragraphs of Spanish written in 3 hours, Alex got like 1 paragraph of English, I'm not sure how much Katie accomplished) and then it was time to get the chili going because Alex and I are making chili for my Spanish class tomorrow (it being the last class and thus fiesta) and then I went to Katie's room and Alex went somewhere else and somehow I accomplished in half an hour sans Alex exactly as much as I accomplished in 3 hours with Alex, which does not bode well for either of us learning much Spanish (we have Jan Term and Spring Spanish together). So I stole Sarah's exciting pictures to share and I need some sleep now.

Welcome To Hampshire Post-Thanksgiving!

My friends, it is final paper season at Hampshire College. For those of you who think a school lacking both tests and grades must be a rather pleasant place to be toward the end of the semester, you are all kinds of wrong. I present you these lovely pictures of Jack and Katie working on the myriad final projects and papers that must be completed, and evidence of my own work.

In this picture, you will notice a very long color-coded list of notes on my wall. This is how I research things. Ideally, my wall would be a white board, and I could cover it with the various things I find in books and draw arrows and underline things and feel important. Instead, I make lists and try to pretend it’s enough. That list is for my WWWII paper, which is about Germans.

This picture shows an awful lot of books. These are the books I currently have out from the library, and I will give you a complete list, so that you may understand my life.
Left pile:
Ethnic Drag
A Traveler Disguised
Adventures in Yiddishland
Queer Jews
Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire
Eros and Jews
The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
Queer Theory and the Jewish Question
Unheroic Conduct
People of the Body
Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction
(pile of papers is an article called Queer Yiddishkeit: Theory and Practice)
Another copy of the Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer because I got confused once
The paper at the bottom is my Yiddish syllabus
Right pile:
Hitler’s War and the Germans
Tagebuchblaetter (Diary pages)
Ich glaube an den Fuehrer (I believe in the Fuehrer)
My planner
Copies of the Dybbuk and God of Vengeance
Shiksa: the Gentile Woman in the Jewish World
Books and Bombs in Buenos Aires: Borges, Gerchenouff and Argentine-Jewish Writing
The Jewish Gauchos of the Pampas
Outwitting History
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism
Notebooks from 2 classes
A really giant pile of things I either have read for Yiddish or need to read for Yiddish because the general homework doesn’t stop in the midst of writing a paper
Also I guess there’s a copy or two of the Omen cause they got mixed up in there

Sure, I love my life. I’m 5 pages into my 15 page Yiddish paper, and have used exactly 1/3 of the notes I took from all my research, so I’m confident, if I can only find the time to finish the paper (and the mental stability). My WWWII paper is at 7 pages and needs to be 10, so there’s some editing to do there, but not until after Thursday (when the draft of the Yiddish paper is due). I will get through because I actually have way less work than most people (due to very good planning on my part) but giant piles of books scare and excite me. 

Hey Dog Lovers!

Do you have the sort of dog who likes to wear bandannas? Want me to make one for your beloved pooch? Just let me know how big Fluffy's neck is and I'll gladly knit up a pretty little bandanna just in time for putting under your Hanukkah Bush or Christmas Tree or Ramadan Shrubbery.

(My e-mail is oneseventy@gmail.com and I am totally serious about making a whole lot of dog bandannas, so let me know!)

The Gathering of the Gazlonim

Hotzmakh's Shpiel

So Emily took various exciting pictures of the Magic Mirror Gazlonim at our various post-performance parties, and I share with you, beloved readers, because you seem to enjoy looking at pictures of me.

I'm a Nerd

If your life had a soundtrack, what would it be?

-------------------------

So, here's how it works:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...just type it in man!

-------------------------

Opening Credits: Shake Me Baby (Junior Senior)

Waking Up: Close to Me (The Cure)

First Day At School: Poison Pill (Raised by Wolves)

Falling In Love: Summer Cannibals (Patti Smith)

Fight Song: Support System (Liz Phair)

Breaking Up: Shake Me Baby (Junior Senior)

Formal: Hot Hot Hot!!! (The Cure)

Life: Robin & Marian (Nickel Creek)

Mental Breakdown: I'll Go Crazy (Andy Griggs)

Driving: Ordinary Love (Stew)

Flashback: Friday I'm in Love (Dryden Mitchell)

Getting Back Together: Someone Else's Star (Bryan White)

Wedding: Me and Mia (Ted Leo and the Pharmacists)

Birth of first child: Puerto Madero (Kevin Johansen)

Final Battle: Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)

Death Scene: Bicycle Race (Queen)

Funeral Song: Wearing a Raincoat (They Might Be Giants)

Credits: Wave on Wave (Pat Green)

I'm so impressed by what my party shuffle managed that I am going to make this an actual playlist, and I will gladly burn a cd of it for anyone who wants.

This Shall Be Insane

BUT SO AMAZING

Come one come all!

Somewhere Only We Know

Wow it's been a while oopsies. But I've had a ton going on so I hope you're ready. Basically, I've been living at the Yiddish Book Center doing sound cues for the play. The amazing wonderful play put on by so many talented people who I love to death and directed by the most organized awesome person in the world Debi. Tuesday and Wednesday were rehearsals, during which I learned to hit the thunder button at the right time and got to sit around and watch these great actors doing these great hilarious lines and be in awe for a while. Then came the first performance on Thursday, meaning more of Kari being mesmerized and a lot of me standing around giving people a thumbs-up while they ran around looking really stressed. And then some hanging-out in the kosher mod because 4/5 kosher modites are involved with the play and we love the kosher mod anyway and they fed us food. Also I guess Thursday was Hampshire Thanksgiving so there was like turkey and stuff for dinner and it was fancy but I ignored most of it because of the play? Ummm I slept late Friday and was sad that I missed the guest speaker in world war ii class but I was sleepy and had been up late and I need sleep sometimes. And I did go to Sound Patterns and I wasn't sure what to do with myself on the night without the play, but then I remembered that I have friends and hobbies and I ended up watching Full Metal Jacket with Jack and Katie cause Jack really wanted to watch it and then I went and slept forever because I was still quite tired. Saturday brought a lot of hanging around while Jack and Katie did homework (but not me!) and also some going to Northampton to shop and finding out that it was "Bag Day" in which you go into any store with this special bag and you can buy one item for 20% off so I bought a hat and a book. And then came another performance of the play for an audience that was really awesome (love that audience) and it was taped and the Hotzmakhs were so on that night and it was great and I was mesmerized again. And we decided kind of spur of the moment that the cast party that had been planned months ago when Saturday was the last night should go forward in spite of the people who were hosting it not being at all prepared to host. But we put the party on hold to go look at a meteor shower first, except it was cloudy, so we stood in the bleachers at the soccer field and someone made an impassioned speech about Jewish Football (Abandonment!) and then it was cold and Debi said "Guys! Warmth and wine!" and so we returned to warmth and wine and Scottie tried to get us to play Props but she failed at finding interesting enough props although I did get a really awesome tree hat that I'm sure pictures exist of and maybe I'll find them soon. And then we played charades until like 4 in the morning or something because charades is pretty cool and I am pretty good at guessing things in Charades because I can read minds. I slid home at some ungodly hour and slept forever and Sunday meant sleeping and then heading over to the Bridge where I ran into Alex and we realized that we only ever see each other in food related contexts, which we are pretty okay with, except that we're taking Spanish together Jan term and Spring semester and that means that we're going to see each other in non-food contexts and we aren't sure our relationship is ready for that but I'm sure we'll survive. Umm I guess Alex made chili Sunday night and so we ate his chili (he makes chili a lot and it is delicious) and watched the last half of Robin Hood Men in Tights because it was on tv and then Jack and I did laundry and then Katie and Jack and I watched the Princess and the Warrior and then it was time to sleep again. Monday was spent sleeping in and working crosswords and packing and getting lots of books from the library for my Yiddish paper and then came the play and there were some intense worries when Austin didn't show up and didn't show up and then it was 5 minutes before the house opened and finally Nick found Austin (in Chinese class of all places) and Debi didn't have to play Bobe Yakhne and all was good. Jack managed to see the play Monday, in an audience that was more students than other people (as opposed to the other two nights) and we successfully got the audience to sing the magic song and when it was over we managed to get things cleaned up before 9. Then there was piling in cars and an attempt to go to the Amherst Brewing Company, only to discover that it is far too full on Monday night for our party of 15 or so. Some quick thinking by either Scottie or Debi or both meant that we adjourned to Chili's and then Scottie had to leave and we were sad and then a whole bunch of other people showed up and there were some sailors across the way and then Scottie returned and then all sorts of fascinating conversation happened and Debi ordered some brightly colored drinks and then we had the fun of getting the 20 or so people we were to all contribute to a single check and get enough money and then we did and we left because Chili's wanted to close so it was back to Debi's apartment (Scottie only got a little lost on the way there and we only mocked Dan a little bit when we thought Scottie was driving right and Dan wrong and then we felt a little ashamed and then we had a dance party in Scottie's car when we thought we were there before Debi but we weren't and so we felt silly again) for beer and playing with Debi and Nick's lizard and discovering that Dan knows most of the "Would You Rather" book and that some people come up with really disturbing "Would You Rathers" and then Debi and I had a conversation in Yiddish and German (she Yiddish I German) and then Sara and Noah and Debi and I and maybe some other people started planning to go see A Night in the Old Marketplace when it happens because it will be exciting and then Nick did his turtle impression and all sorts of other fun things happened and then Scottie had to leave briefly and then Dan and some folks left and then some flower vases fell over and then we thought Scottie was coming back a few times but it was Debi's drunken neighbors and then Nick told the story of their soundproof bedroom and getting locked out of his own apartment and having to pry the chain from the door while Debi slept and then Scottie got pulled over and we were mildly concerned for her but she persevered and made it back and picked up all of us but Sara and Noah, who claimed they would walk home, although I hear that they ended up staying up all night with Debi and only leaving when Nick got up for work. And I came home and was too wound up to sleep and finally I did (fitfully) at like 4 and then I woke up at 7:22 (unintentionally) and pulled myself out of bed and showered and had breakfast and met with Aaron and Katie's mom took me to the train station and I got on some tiny little one-car train with a lot of old people and they crammed us in at a lot of tiny train stations until we got to New Haven where we got a real train and they crammed lots of people onto it and it somehow managed to get an hour and a half behind schedule and I have no idea how and so I missed my first train in Philadelphia but I caught the one an hour later and got to Atlantic City where Aunt Barbara and Candice were waiting for me and we went to the mall and bought Candice a coat and now I am settled in here and I kind of miss Hampshire people already. Also I am really really tired but can't quite bring myself to sleep.

Happy Registration Day!

Today is Hampshire College Spring Semester Registration Day! By which I mean that every Hampshire College student is clogging the Hub trying to get into that popular class. My registration time was 10:30, which means I spent from 10:31-10:57 on the Hub trying to make it (a) log me in (b) find the classes I want (c) let me select the classes I want and then maybe MAYBE (d) actually register me for said classes. I had no issues getting Spanish and Meaning and Philosophy of Language and Mapping Jewish American Generations (this is a maybe class because I have like 13 other classes that I might want to take) but Ever Since Darwin, the NS class I want (and I have to take a Natural Science in the Spring) was full and already had 2 people on the waitlist and I was sad so I got on its waitlist and signed up for Adolescent Development, and I have since found out that Dulcey and Lianne are totally also in Adolescent Development, but I want to try to get into Darwin still. But whooo S07 classes!

I am taking Spanish this JanTerm, of course, and I found out that Alex is totally in my Spanish class, so we're both very happy about having friendses there.

Ummmm life proceeds. I was sick this weekend and basically didn't leave my bed or shower for 4 days except I did leave to eat except when Katie made me soup (I love Katie and don't love Jack cause Jack is not sympathetic at all) but now I have to continue with life cause I have a paper due Wednesday and Debi's play is this week (I am doing sound cues for it) so I'm busy Tuesday-Thursday and Saturday nights with that. So Hampshire people come see the Magic Mirror it will be great!!

Shadowboxer

We played Apples to Apples last night (after running around in the rain for a few hours so that I am now sick- although Alex apparently gave me the Sickness and the rain just made it worse) and I want to share a few highlights.

Adjective: chewy. Judge: Katie. My noun: milk.
Adjective: luscious. Judge: Jack. My noun: men.
Adjective: addictive. Judge: Jack. Katie's noun: steak and potatoes. My noun: having a baby.
I also pulled the classic "comical- Helen Keller" moment, and there were more than a few nice little Holocaust moments because the Holocaust always wins.
Quote (Katie speaking to Jack): "So you're saying Michael Jordan is more shallow than a chimpanzee?"

And so a normal evening with us passes. Tonight, I want to die a little because I am getting sick, but I'll get over it.

Also, I have a job in the form of counting cars and noting the race and such of the driver to help the Amherst police department figure out if they're doing racial profiling, and I'm going to sell my brain waves to science as well because that is a great way to make some cash, so I'm kind of excited about both of those things.

Pillow Fiiiiiight!!

So we had this big Dakin v. Merrill pillow fight on Tuesday, and it was really awesome. Like you have no idea how cool it is to go outside and beat lots and lots of people with pillows unless you have done it. And some people took pictures, I guess, so here are some for you to enjoy.

Pillow Fight

After the pillow fight, I went to a Decemberists concert, and the Decemberists dress like ninjas when you go to their concert on Hallowe'en, which is sweet. They also have a completely unfair and totally arbitrary costume contest, which was won by a really great chimney sweep (like so great) and also featured a Shankill Butcher from the wrong century, a crane, Jackie Kennedy and Jesus. I adore this town.

Happy Hallowe'en!

So last night was Hampshire Hallowe'en, which is the hugest party in the universe. As in the entire Valley tries to get on to our campus, but we run it like reverse East Berlin and limit the crazies to 4 per Hampshire person. Katie and I decided it would be cool to dress in theme, so I was Elton John and she was William Shakespeare. I found the absolute best purple paisley silk fabric and made a pretty sweet costume of which nearly no pictures exist. Katie did a great job with hers, too, and carried around the skull of Freddie Mercury, which unfortunately just made people think she was Hamlet. Jack decided to use his crazy uniform fetish and be an East German border guard, which apparently every person ever thinks is a Nazi, even though the two uniforms look nothing alike (as in aren't even the same color you crazies). I told him his name was Gottfried Burghart Johannes Friedrich, but he said it was Senor Misterioso, and then I said it was Herr Gottfried Burghart Johannes Friedrich Misterioso, and then he said no, and then I called him Hans all night.
Some of our festivities included watching some great bellydancing, watching our awesome circus be really awesome (things they do: pretty pretty contact juggling, super-neat stilt-walking/dancing things, awesome acrobatic dances, subversive clowns, eating glass) and then some fire-performer-types do a show with fire that was really neat, and then some fireworks that were so pretty, and then eating candy, and then seeing the freak show that Necronomicon put together (they had some sweet freaks like a Wolfman and a Fishgirl and a Clay Man and a Batperson and others) and then we met a S'mores fairy who worried us a little so we did not eat her S'mores (but coming across a fairy in the middle of a dark garden offering S'mores with no one around is pretty sweet) and then we saw a person sitting in a big pile of leaves so Jack went and jumped on her (literally) and we made a new friend and played in the leaves for a really long time. Leaves are awesome. We came in as it started to rain a bit, since we had no interest in any of the 10 or so concerts going on around campus, and watched the Princess Bride because Katie had never seen it, and sometime really late I fell asleep in Katie's bed, not trusting my own hall to be free of revelers when I wanted to sleep (Jack says it was after all). We slept in until after noon today, of which we are proud, and we eventually made it to Northhampton because Jack needed a toothbrush, but we spent more time eating things than anything else. Jack did get his toothbrush, though, and some crackers, and a shirt at the thrift store, and I bought handsoap for the bathroom cause handsoap is good to have. We watched Hair tonight and made fun of it constantly and laughed at Jack because he hates musicals with a passion and this is not a good musical, either. Jack took some pictures of Hallowe'en and is trying to get them to me but his computer is all "no!" so I'll do what I can to share the good ones with you, and 10 billion other people took so many pictures, so I'll steal their good ones and share them, too.

In Bed

Sunlight is breaking through my window
Robbing me of my precious sleep
I don't want to
But I got to
Wake up and clear my head
Make some coffee, toast some bread
But I think I'd rather spend the day in bed

I don't want to get up today
I just wanna stay in bed
My feet feel like they're made out of clay
My head wishes I were dead
I just want to sleep in, okay?
Just let me lie here half-asleep

Summer's gone
Days spent with the grass and sun
I don't mind
To pretend I do seems really dumb
I rise as the morning comes
Crawling through the blinds
I shouldn't be up at this time
But I can't sleep with you there by my side
Wake up, it's a beautiful morning
Feel the sun shining for your eyes
Wake up, it's so beautiful
For what could be the very last time
25, don't recall a time I felt this alive
So wake up Boo
There's so many things for us to do
It's early so take your time
Don't let me rush you please
I know I was up all night
I can do anything, anything, anything
Wake up, it's a beautiful morning
Feel the sun shining for your eyes
Wake up, it's so beautiful
For what could be the very last time
But you can't blame me
For the death of summer
But you can't blame me
For the death of summer
But you're going to say
What you want to say
You have to put the death in everything
Wake up, it's a beautiful morning
Feel the sun shining for your eyes
Wake up, it's so beautiful
For what could be the very last time


Thank God I have a really good wake-up playlist. I finished my essay at 2:45 last night. I don't usually go to bed much earlier than that, true, but still. Will better bring pastries this time.

More Pictures

October

Sometimes when I am procrastinating because I can't look at Nazi love letters any more I take pictures and then I upload them. Enjoy.

Apples to Apples

I haven't posted a picture recently, so here is something lovely for you to gaze at.

We were playing Apples to Apples, and this is one of three moments:
-I put down "Helen Keller" for "hilarious"
-I put down "Blitzkrieg" for "speedy"
-Jack and I put down "going to the gym" and "lifting weights" for the same word (I don't remember what word it is) and expected Katie to choose between them.

In other news, I voted today (absentee), and I even voted for the Independent Green party candidate for the House! Wheeeee third parties! Now, the only thing I know about this guy (Albert Burckard) is that he really, really likes trains. I also like trains an awful lot, and I know that my other option, Randy Forbes, is the kind of person that I do not agree with on a single issue (maybe the weather maybe?) and so my choice was clear.

Now I shall return to reading Nazi love letters because I have an essay to write!

My brain platzt gleich

So I'm taking a break from reading and reading and reading to tell you about my life. As you may have gathered from my silence, I have been very busy this fine October. I suppose I haven't updated you since Fall Break began? Well, that was a restful weekend, in which I travelled to the land of Longyidow to meet many of Katie's family and friends, Longyidow being only three-quarters of an hour's drive from here. Classes resumed that Wednesday, and Jack returned in the evening to find that Katie and I had covered his room in pennies, which deeply aggravated his OCD and gave Katie and myself a hearty laugh. By this time, Katie and I had determined that we should be celebrating GLBT history month by dressing up, after a coincidence in which we each dressed as San Francisco politicos on Harvey Milk day. Lupe Valdez day brought Texas sheriff's badges, David Griffen day saw me as David and Katie as secret lover Keanu Reeves, Barney Frank day saw more political outfits and ushered in Family and Friends Weekend, in which parents descend upon our humble campus in droves and do such things as sit in on classroom discussions and create excuses for Ralph to host meals in RCC. Saturday (Barbara Gittings day) included a panic on our part when SAGA closed early and we could find no food, but then we found a great Ralph-lunch in the gym and we had mediocre but free sammiches and did not die. That night, Katie's parents came up for dinner with Ken Burns, but a famous Negro Leagues baseball player whose name I have forgotten died that week and Ken was called away to deliver his eulogy and thus sent his ex-wife in his stead. We still had a most delicious dinner and screened a portion of Ken's upcoming documentary The War (about world war ii), and I promise that it will be so incredibly powerful and when it finally premieres Katie and I will camp out in front of PBS for the entire 7-night, 14-hour series. Sunday was Phill Wilson officially but inofficially Goetz Otto, aka German Man from German movie der Untergang, which we watched Friday night. Yes, every man in der Untergang was German, but none was quite so Germanic as German Man, and we fell almost as in love with him as with Bald Man (Bald Men, of course, possessing incredible charisma and causing all who encounter them to fall madly in love. Whenever we see a Bald Man, Katie and Jack and I become incredibly excited). In honor of German Man, I did not go to German Breakfast, mostly because I was sleepy (I have found out since that Family and Friends Weekend events caused German Breakfast to be cancelled for the week, so I feel better). Monday was The Birthday Of Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, for which we all dressed up and went to Northhampton, where large crowds followed us and sang our praises. We went to Webs America's Yarn Store, which is the best store ever, and I bought yarn to knit Jack a scarf so he does not freeze. We bought other various things of varying degrees of importance, and returned to campus just in time for me to go to Spanish (for the first time in 2 and a half weeks) where I determined that my Spanish class does very little when I skip it. We spent the evening making an Oscar Wilde Birthday Day mix, which is a beautiful collection of Jack and Katie and I's favorite gay songs. Tuesday was Tim Gill Day, aka Kari does her Yiddish project day, aka Worst Day of Jack's Life. I got up early and got some books from the Hampshire library for my project (on Queer Yiddishkeit), grabbed some lunch with Katie and Jack, and grabbed a bus to Mt Holyoke with Jack (who has Spanish there) to get some more books. It began to rain as we arrived, and continued to rain as I left 45 minutes later. Once home, I began reading and Jack called me in his break between class and TA session, and Katie got out of class, and I kept reading. We waited for Jack, who called us to let us know he had missed 2 buses due to getting the schedule mixed up and that he had already eaten. I read him the schedule and Katie and I went to dinner, during which Jack missed another bus by watching it pull up, not realizing it was his bus while it sat in front of him for 5 minutes, then realizing as it pulled away. Deeply upset at his own stupidity, Jack proceeded to wait in the rain for the next bus that never came. Taking immense pity on him, Katie and I convinced the ever-saintly Madelaine to use her powers of Automobile to drive us to Mt Holyoke to pick poor drenched cold Jack up since buses obviously hate him. All other plans for the evening thus ruined, Katie and I determined that we should do laundry, which we did while reading for WWII class. After an exciting laundry session, the three of us had the best idea ever and decided to create Sims of ourselves and our respective significant others, all of whom turned out to be eerily accurate. Highlights: Jack Sim got food poisoning almost immediately (I have never ever had a Sim with food poisoning before), Katie Sim has the worst insomnia ever (and, ironically, loves to play chess), Kari Sim, when very tired, chooses to nap in Jack's bed rather than her own. We've begun populating the neighborhood with all our favorite people- Oscar and Bosie are already working on love affairs with Jack and Frank, the cast of Velvet Goldmine has moved in across the street, and Ralph and Manfred are planning their first garden party. We have plans for an Artists House featuring Andy Warhol and Friends, and Walt Whitman will certainly show up, and maybe even Bernard Shaw (we have been discovering that my beloved Bernard was totally friends with every single famous person in England ever). Of course, we have real lives too, and had to do things like go to class on Wednesday (which is pretty much all I do all day long Wednesdays) and then Project Runway had its finale (which was overly dramatic and the wrong person won and we are sad) and there was a fire alarm (after a fire drill on Monday morning, by the way) but we perservered. Thursday brought Bayard Rustin Day, aka Communist Day, in which Katie and Jack and I became card-carrying members of the communist party. It was also Heather's birthday and I had to give my Yiddish presentation (it went well) and we had to go to the Smith library to do research for WWWII (Smith has a pretty great library and I have a pile of books, in German, that I have to read and write an essay about by Wednesday). Of course we did nothing productive on Thursday night, because we had Sims to play, after having a giant phone party in which we had very long phoen conversations with someone. I talked to Mary in both German and English and I love that girl so much more than you. Friday brought Jim Kolbe day, aka Log Cabin Republican Day, aka Kari Wears a Top Hat Because People Respect a Top Hat day. We had class and we had lunch with Will and I had more class and Jack left to go have dinner with some lesbians and sleep at their house so Katie and I bought chips and watched The Laramie Project and made our Lord Alfred Bosie Douglas Birthday mix (mainly because we realized that Oscar's mix had too many glaring omissions such as ABBA and David Bowie). And we stayed up forever doing nothing of great import. Today has been quiet- it is Adrienne Rich Day, so we slept in and ate and we have spent our afternoon reading for WWWII because Jack is not home but we have his keys so we can't leave him or he won't get into his room. I think I will call him now and see if he's still alive, and then I suppose it is back to homework. Tomorrow is Ian McKellan Day, aka Lord Alfred Bosie Douglas's Birthday Day, aka a certain duck's birthday. It shall certainly be festive.

Happy Birthday Love!

Today is Oscar Wilde's birthday (which is a High Holy Day in these parts). I will not tell you how old he is because that would be rude. I will regale you with Oscar Wilde quotes, and promise to sit down and tell you what I've been up to when I get some time soon.

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
I am not young enough to know everything.
One should play fair when one has the winning cards.
When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know it is.
Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.
It is through art, and through art only, that we can realize our perfection.
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
I can resist anything but temptation.
I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.
When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing is worth knowing that can be taught.
Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut, the pessimist the hole!
A true friend stabs you in the front.

I Feel Pretty

  

Rosenrot

I suppose this moment with at least half my college gone (including all my best buddies) is a good time to update you on what's happened since my return from Boston. Well, Tuesday started out as non-eventful as any, especially since there was no Katie. But then Jack decided that his stomach thing hadn't gone away, and that he wanted to die. I insisted that dying was not a good idea, and promptly spent most of my midday trying to make him feel better by running around and finding things for him and looking at him with concern and finally getting him to go to Health Services, where they told him that he had an appointment the next afternoon. Jack was insistent and they managed to squeeze him in, and determine that he might have an ulcer and should be tested. Got Jack back to dorms, Katie was home (yay!!), looked at Jack with deepening concern, ate food, decided that Jack needed this one over-the-counter thing the doctor had recommended and some Jello, went to Northhampton. CVS is across the street from the bus stop and had the Gaviscon, and had pudding, and had ginger ale, but did not have jello. Knowing that Jack was curled up in a tiny ball of pain and hunger in my bed (Tuesday was a day that Jack decided he liked my bed better than his), Katie and I walked half an hour to the Stop and Shop, where we bought vast quantaties of Jello, then walked back to the bus stop and came home, sweaty and aching and bearing goodies. We found Jack looking relatively chipper and watching Rammstein videos on my computer. We told him how much we suffered for him and fed him Jello, which made him happy, I suppose. Katie wrote an essay while Jack and I poked each other and we felt in general that Jack would live and life would be grand. Enter Wednesday. Get up, go to class, Jack doesn't want lunch, Katie and I eat, Jack goes to doctor for wonderful fun stool sample, Jack returns, Katie and I get out of class, lots of homework gets done. Think about going to Soul Force presentation, skip it because of homework, go to Yiddish screening to watch really long but really good movie version of the Dybbuk (great Yiddish play, great movie), come back at 9:30 to find Katie and Jack waiting more than anxiously, because we all need to do laundry. As in, are all wearing our final clean pair of underwear, Jack is wearing his two single socks that don't begin to match, I am out of pants and have 1 summer-time skirt left. Katie apparently has a vastly larger wardrobe than either me or Jack, because she wasn't as desperate, but she had a lot of laundry to do, too. We dragged all of our junk down to the basement and discovered a big Project Runway party, which we crashed while washing and drying our 6 loads (2 of blacks, both dominated by Jack, 1 small red load, 1 whites, 1 greens-browns of which Katie had none, 1 brights dominated by me). We watched that episode of Project Runway (the reunion special) a total of twice, thanks to the joys of reruns and of laundry taking forever. We also saw the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, making us very happy. Crawled into bed after bringing overflowing laundry basket back upstairs and slept until some loud person on my hall awoke me at 10 as happens every Tuesday and Thursday. Met Katie for lunch after her class (Jack having no appetite), went off to Yiddish. Arrive at Yiddish, waiting for prof Rachel, Katie calls, says "Jack's being taken off by EMTs and I'm not sure what's going on. I'll keep you posted." I say "okay" and proceed to worry, except then we spent the whole class discussing memorials and museums and Holocaust education and all these vaguely-related things because of the Eisenmann lecture happening (Eisenmann is the dude who made the Holocaust memorial in Berlin) and it was fascinating. Left class, called Katie, who had not heard from Jack and had no idea where he was. Spent some time worrying about him, finally heard at 5 (as we were heading off to the Eisenmann documentary) that he was on his way back from the hospital. Skipped documentary to wait for Jack, determined that he was not dead because they gave him good medicine and a prescription, decided to skip lecture to go to CVS to fill Jack's prescription. Went to CVS, discovered that Jack did not have his insurance card (not that he was with us either), discovered that medicine costs lots and lots of money if you don't have insurance, decided not to get Jack medicine. Shopped at neat stores until bus came (buses are infrequent in the evenings), went home, told Jack bad news, sat in Jack's room while bass pounded doing WWWII homework. Watched Jack want to die. Helped Jack pack. Convinced Jack not to die. Fell asleep. Met Katie for breakfast this morning (let Jack sleep), went to class, had lunch with Will to whine about bass-blasting hallmate (cannot repeat the names Will called him, but Will is undoubtably on our side), Katie's mom came to take Jack to airport. Jack left pretending to be alive, Katie is spending the night with her parents because I guess parents like seeing their kids sometimes or something. I went to Sound Patterns class, where Mark said he had hoped we wouldn't show up, but we definitely had a minyan, so class went on and we made pretty spectrographs of speech and I really love that class so much. Now I'm kinda lonely cause the campus is really emptying out, which is sad, but Katie comes back tomorrow, and Heather's coming up, and life should be fun.

Someone should come visit me sometime. Hampshire's a neat place.

1:30 in the morning update: Jack has a very good movie collection, and I am beyond glad that he left me his keys.

Dracula from Houston

So I went to Boston on my honeymoon this weekend and I guess I didn't tell many people I was going sorry? But ummmm Jack and I got married (I hope Jack's boyfriend doesn't mind) so Katie and Jack and I went to see Heather in Boston and it was great fun. Let me think back to
SATURDAY MORNING
Woke up early, realized SAGA opens late, thought about what to do for breakfast, decided to go across the cornfield to buy delicious pastries. Got on bus, went to Northhampton, waited in bus station forever, got on bus, went to Springfield, switched buses, went to Boston. Took some naps in there sitting beside Katie while leaving Jack to make new friends. Got off bus, met Heather, Jack felt nauseated. Went to eat food, look at Jack with vague concern. Got on T, went to Heather's dorm, met Heather's one roommate, discovered that other roommate was away for the night and that Jack and I got the bed (as opposed to the floor: very good). Immediately settled in to nap on each other puppy-style while Katie and Heather went to find Jello for Mr Stomach-Aching Texas. Ordered pizza, ate cookie dough, watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, fell asleep happy that Jack's feet do not remain frozen for too long.
SUNDAY
Woke up lateish, discovered that Jack was recovered but Katie's cold was still around, decided to head into city for Fun, got caught in a lot of rain and very very wet. Ate food and shopped a little bit and decided that the rain was too much and went back to Heather's dorm to put clothes in dryer and have a 4-person cuddle-fest on Heather's bed, which is a top bunk and makes things precarious. Cuddles turned into massages and then our clothes were dry and we were warm and happy so we got dressed and took more umbrellas and went back out into the city to shop and then try to find a restaurant without a name, which Katie said was delicious, and which was far away and hard to find. Got lost in the rain for a while, finally figured out how to get there, discovered that restaurant had limited menu that failed to satisfy Heather or Jack. Ate food, went home in rain, ate cookie dough/made cookies, watched Boondock Saints while being annoyed by random people from Heather's school (experience is showing that all-girls school girls are really scary in groups), realized it was 1 in the morning, went to bed (Jack and I on the floor because Roomie #2 had returned. Floor is not as nice as bed because Jack has this tendency to stay more than 3 inches from me and I thus get cold).
MONDAY YOM KIPPUR
Woke up late, dyed my hair (it is strawberry blonde- basically what it was before, but a more even color now), packed, went to South Station to check luggage, ate food, wandered Downtown Crossing for a while, got luggage, got on bus, slept on Jack while listening to Rammstein (Jack has taught me to enjoy Rammstein very very much) (also Katie did not come back becuase she and Heather are going to a concert tonight and Katie is coming back earrrrrly tomorrow morning but Jack has class and needed to come back today and I didn't trust him to make it home alone), switched buses in Springfield, got back to Northhampton, ate crappy pizza, got on bus to come home, called my mother, internetted.
Jack and I were going to wash socks and underwear but he has disappeared and I guess he is going to have a sock shortage tomorrow morning because I am too lazy to make him go do laundry with me.

Do That Thing You Do

Pictures for you.

Pastures New

Oh dear I have been busy recently and not been updating. Ummm what have I been up to? Going to class, reading until my eyeballs explode and my larynx falls out, writing essays. I had a birthday in there and got awesome presents like an Oscar Wilde action figure and a Yiddish mug and I have all sorts of exciting pictures on my door now because Jack and Katie got crafty. And there was Mexican food and ice cream cake and a crazy German horror movie called Kondom des Grauens. And also the storytelling festival, which was amazing! I told to open it up, since I had a good opening story, and the other featured tellers were really great, and the open mic bit was so successful and there were so many talented people there with great stories and we definitely want to do this again. Spent this past weekend doing a lot of running around- had to go to Smith on Sunday to do research for WWWII, and holed ourselves up in the library for hours and hours to look at old magazines. Old magazines are actually awesome, but making photocopies is really expensive, and we had to miss the QCA meeting, which made us sad. I was kind of lazy on Monday, when I should have been doing homework, but I couldn't focus. I did manage to get Spanish homework done before Spanish class, which is worth something. And it was the Queer Safer Sex (Not Just For Queers) workshop, which included silly signs and a fashion show and crafttime and was great fun. Tuesday was a day for getting some homework done, because I realized that I had way more Yiddish homework than expected. Fortunately, I like Yiddish a lot. Wednesday was Advising Day and we weren't supposed to have classes, but we did have WWWII cause we took a different day off some other time. But no one else had to get up in the morning and Dulcey wanted to be social so we watched Fargo until 2 in the morning which meant Kari was sleepy when she had to get up early. But I got to spend my whole afternoon doing Yiddish homework, and trying to stay awake. And last night was Drag Wars! At Diva's!! Jack and Katie and I got ourselves all pretty as drag kings and queen and set off on a great adventure that involved waiting for a bus and then having a nice girl named Kate give us a ride instead of taking the bus and then discovering that Diva's opens later and going to the bowling alley where Jack was terrified of straight people even though we explained that this is Massachusetts and then realizing that Katie forgot her ID and Madelaine being really nice and coming to pick us up and run us back to get Katie's ID and then back to Diva's and then going in and discovering that almost no one was there and feeling awkward and waiting forever and Hampshire people showing up 5 minutes before the last bus would leave and then discovering that someone could give us a ride and then dancing and dancing and dancing and then drag performances by many pretty pretty kings and queens and then Rance won and we were so proud and then Jack got stabbed in the foot by a stiletto and then it was time to leave and some guy named Jeff who was supposed to be giving us and others a ride left early and gave no one a ride and then some other nice person said she'd ride back to Hampshire and grab a car and come back to get us and so she did but Jack and Katie and I got to chill outside Diva's for a while and feel silly but then we got back and made hot cocoa and had a foot massage session and were semi-insomniacs but I fell asleep at 4, my Yiddish homework not quite done. Will (my professor Will) called me at 10 this morning, and woke me up. I was so asleep that I wasn't sure which phone was ringing or where it was. Once I was up, I settled in to finish my Yiddish homework, and then Katie called and it was lunchtime, and I took my homework to lunch and finished it while gulping down chili and pizza and chocolate pudding (they finally had pudding again) and off to Yiddish, where I was barely awake but made it through (good thing Peretz is really really interesting) and then Katie and Jack and I went off to Northhampton to buy bus tickets because we have decided to go to Boston this weekend because Monday is Yom Kippur and we have no classes, which for me translates to exactly what fall break is, except that's next week. We came back for dinner, and then I spent some time transcribing phonetically Katie reading a thing from the Advocate, and then we woke Jack up (he was taking a nap) and started an essay-writing party. Towards the beginning of the party, Phil dropped by and promised us milkshakes one day, and we whined about the terrible bass-playing people in our lounge, and Phil said he can't do much more and we were sad. But then came hours of working on our essays. I finished mine about an hour ago, Katie just finished hers, Jack is working on his now. We've called Public Safety twice about the bass down the hall cause we're just so sick of it. The fact that we had to make the second call makes us wish Hampshire would be a bit better about taking disciplinary action. I am very sleepy but there are people and papers and computers in my bed. One of these days I will sleep, I swear.

Wound Up

This is all for now.

Jealousy

Mondays and Tuesdays are lazier days for mean than Saturdays and Sundays. I sleep in late and nobody (Jack) comes bothering me in the morning and my phone doesn't ring (Sara) until later in the day. I did have to get up yesterday morning cause I had a job interview, and if I didn't have class all day on Wednesday then I'd have a job, but now I'm waiting and looking into some other things. Did a lot of laundry yesterday, cause I needed to do a lot of laundry, and Katelyn and Jack did, too. We read while we were waiting for our wash (the alliteration in this sentence is an exampel of the alliteration David Kennedy loves using in this one book we have to read) and probably annoyed the other people who were around. We grabbed some lunch with Sara in her short break between classes and then we read until Katelyn had to go to class and then Jack and I were lazy and then I had to go to Spanish and I always kind of drag my heels to that class even though it's not bad at all. I just couldn't wake up and focus yesterday, but I swear I am learning Spanish, little by little. Grabbed some quick dinner after Spanish and ran off to watch Tevye with my Yiddish class (it's the movie Fiddler on the Roof was based on, except that it's more that they're both based on the same book by which I mean set of short stories by Sholem Alechiem which I am currently reading) and I adore Yiddish in ways you can't begin to understand. That language just makes me happy all over. After the movie came work work work and Katleyn and Jack and I plowed through Kennedy until midnight, when we were not done with 1 chapter and were so sick of it and sat down and planned that we will be very good students today and read the 4 chapters of Goodwin that we have left and we shall get through Kennedy on our own time and I am getting so tired of having so much reading to do. I couldn't sleep at midnight, of course, but I did manage to by 2, and I slept soundly until at least 10:30 and then did nothing more productive than make a carefully color-coded schedule representing me, Jack, Katelyn, and Sara and all of our classes until I met Sara to grab Jack and Katelyn for lunch until they all had to go to their respective Spanish classes. I went by the post office and discovered that I got 3 of my books for Yiddish today (I am only missing 1 now) and I've been sort of reading and sort of napping and being lazy but Katelyn should be back soon and then Jack should show up and we'll get down to business and really read until our brains explode.

I Got Presents Today!

That I bought for myself, and that are for a class. But I am kind of enamored of the growing book collection on my dresser, so you get a picture of it. Enjoy.
 

Second Skin

I once again have a big collection of great pictures, but they're going on the Butterfly Paper this time, if you're interested.

Thursday went down pretty much exactly as planned... it was rainy and gross, and I spent my morning doing various errands and being lazy, then I waited for Katelyn and Jack outside their class and Jack was very prissy and made me walk him to the bus stop with my umbrella so he wouldn't mess up his hair and only then could I meet Katelyn for a quick lunch (and SAGA was the most crowded I have ever seen it and I have no idea why) before Yiddish. I like Yiddish class an awful lot. At some point, we were discussing something about God that must have been at least vaguely blasphemous (maybe in connection to the Kabbalah? I don't remember), and the phone rang, and we determined that we didn't have to answer it, and my amazing professor Rachel started laughing and said "I just keep thinking I'll pick it up and it'll be this voice 'This is God. Stop telling them these things.'" and we all laughed heartily. Also Yiddish literature is just really neat. It was somewhat less rainy after class, and I ran around doing a few more errands and running into people I know, then I grabbed Katelyn and took her to knitting circle, where she learned to knit and I ate chocolate cake. Also the knitting circle people gave us the leftover cider, which Katelyn and I vowed to heat up in my kettle later and drink during our homework party. We had dinner, and then I went off to my storytelling meeting. We've got some neat stories for the festival on Friday, and it's going to be great. We're doing audio recording, and I'll let you know if it gets put up somewhere that you can access it. Once we got all the storytelling details ironed out, I headed up to D4L, where the fabulous sign decorating was going on, and I took those pictures that I already posted. We left the signs to dry and Katelyn and Jack and I were good little children and went to read the first two chapters of the biography of the Roosevelts (Franklin and Eleanor), which is actually quite interesting cause the Roosevelts are very interesting peoplen who had affairs with other women all the time. We put the cider in my kettle and made it hot (somehow, cider takes FOREVER to heat up, unlike water for tea, and it makes boiling noises long before it is even lukewarm) and drank our cider and were happy people while reading, although the cider left residue on all the mugs and in the kettle and I had to do dishes (which I did, um, yesterday morning :s). Sometime after we finished reading and talking to each other and bothering each other, we went to bed, and then it was Friday.
We got to sleep in on Friday due to not having WWWII class cause Aaron's out of town, and so we went for breakfast-brunch-lunch together, and then it was time to hang our amazing fabulous gay signs. I took pictures, they're on the Butterfly Paper. We love our signs. I did have Sound Patterns Friday, and I am going to kill the next idiot in my class who can't understand that the phonetic alphabet isn't the alphabet we spell with and just cause "ai" looks like the letters in "rain" doesn't mean it's pronounced like "rain" cause "rain" is "ren" phonetically and "ai" is the sound in "bite" and God this is not hard rawr. But we'll be done with vowels soon and consonants won't be as tough for these people to understand, I hope, cause I really like this class and I hate when Mark gets stuck explaining the same thing over and over cause people won't catch on and ignore the completely non-phonetic English spelling (non-phonetic for a reason, mind you, but non-phonetic nonetheless). Also I like talking about the Great Vowel Shift because it sounds so cool. After class, I picked up my big giant giant packet of Yiddish readings which is more than 2 inches thick and we grabbed some dinner and wanted to go to the Holyoke Mall to buy pretty things to make Jack a pretty pretty drag queen. Unfortunately, the only bus that will get us from here to the Holyoke Mall runs between 9 am and 5 pm on weekdays only. Not so good for us. So we entertained ourselves by reading for WWWII like the responsible students we are, and somehow Katelyn and I ended up bugging Jack in his room until at least 2 in the morning, which is not that hard to do. I stumbled back across the hall, exhausted, and collapsed into my bed to sleep sweetly.
I slept until I heard the local high schools having some sort of cross-country event outside my window, and so I closed the window and slept again until someone started pounding on my door, and I hoped he would go away, but then Jack was beside my bed poking me and telling me I left my keys in the door the night before. I glared at him in his chipper, freshly made up and pretty state from my tangle of blankets and pillows and unwashed hair, and then he asked for breakfast and I told him I'd put pants on and join him and I did. We then found Katelyn and went looking for a bus to get us to Northhampton (since the Holyoke mall was impossible) and had issues reading the schedule right, but ended up with an hour to kill, which we spent getting Jack more food (he is always hungry) and we ran into Alex and he criticized my eating of apples and then took the core that I had left and ate it and I thought that was pretty weird and gross cause who eats apple cores? We did catch the bus into town, and promptly went off to the thrift store, where we found all sorts of amazing jewelry for Jack and Katelyn and I bought matching velvet jackets cause velvet clothing is God and we had fun in the thrift store. Then came our general other shopping purposes: Katelyn bought some yarn to knit her girlfriend a scarf, we wandered through the neat used music store place, we went to CVS to buy Jack a bunch of makeup (although the boy already owns way more than me and Katelyn and Sara combined), then to Haymarket for lunch (I had the most delicious tomato and mozzerella sammich mmmmm), then shoe shopping at various places and I got new shoes but Katelyn failed to find any. Caught the bus at Smith and there were some annoying Mt Holyoke girls on it and I am glad beyond glad that I go to a school with boys at it, because all-girls school girls are incredibly annoying. We played Mad Libs on the bus because we bought Mad Libs because Mad Libs are great. We got back 3 minutes after SAGA closed (they have the weirdest hours on weekends), so we ordered a pizza and truly intended to do more reading, but we bought all those new toys, and we had to play. We spent forever blasting Madonna and getting Jack all pretty (pictures on Butterfly Paper, except that I forgot to get a picture of the finished product, so you'll have to imagine) and Rance dropped by to do Jack's eye makeup and do a little dance to Madonna (I love that boy he is so funny) and, just as we finished, Jackson called and asked if we wanted to come over to his mod and watch the L Word. Feeling vaguely guilty that we keep turning down the people over in the queer mod when they want to hang out, we decided to make the trek last night, mostly so we could show Jack off. Jack can not walk like a girl. Or sit like a girl. Or be at all ladylike. I spent most of the night telling him what a terrible girl he is, and he mostly ignored me as is his way. We ended up choosing bad lesbian movie over the L Word, and Better Than Chocolate is a truly bad movie that we laughed at an awful lot amid the strange, slightly awkward conversations that always happen at the queer mod and that are the main reason we don't spend more time there (that and that it stinks in there cause they don't clean well or something). It was so amazingly foggy when we made the trek back across campus, and absolutely beautiful, and the night air was so exhilirating. Jack and Sara wanted to watch a movie, but Katelyn and I weren't in the mood, so we went for a long walk that turned into sitting on a bench having a long talk and it was really good for both of us, I think, so sit outside and discuss everything until Katelyn finally looked at her phone and we realized it was 2:23 in the morning, and decided that we wanted to go to bed. I went to collapse in my room, only to discover that I had taken my pillows to Jack's room earlier because he has only one tiny flat non-pillow and that I had failed to bring them back. Jack was still in Sara's room, but he was almost done, and he returned and made me retrieve everything belonging to me, not just my pillows, and then I slept soundly and happily for many hours.

Our Favorite Drag Queen

So Rance dropped by Jack's room a few days ago while we were printing out gay signs (they are all hung now, pictures forthcoming), and he is the most beautiful drag queen ever, as evidenced by these pictures that Jack took and insisted I give him credit for. I especially like how he got himself in the mirror in that one:

Time Bomb

We decorated our beautiful signs last night! By which I mean Jack and Katelyn and Tabitha decorated them while I supervised and was very critical and ate Jack's chocolate. These pictures do not capture quite how amazing these signs are, but it's a good start, and I promise to take more at the hanging party today.



 

Homework Party Part III

 

Homework Party Party II

 

Only God

Did I tell you about how Jack and Katelyn and I are making a list of extensions of God? First, we were just very certain that God is found in chocolate pudding. Then we realized that God is also certainly found in Oscar Wilde. Then Jack decided that God is Oscar Wilde made of chocolate pudding, but Jack's a little weird and also an atheist. Now we've been working on a list on Jack's facebook wall for a while, and the most huh-worthy contribution came from Frank (Jack's boyfriend, whom we all adore): "that numbness of the lips that you get after eating lots of oranges," which we are still trying to figure out. Any insight would be appreciated.

So what have I been up to? Well, on Tuesday, in addition to taking a bunch of pictures, I had no class. I met Sara at 10:25 and made sure she got her laundry started, then we went to the bridge for breakfast, then we moved her laundry to the dryer, then I did some serious syllabus-crunching (I have these amazing new time management skills and I'm not totally sure where they come from but I love them), then I had to get Sara and Jack on the bus at 12, then I met Katelyn for a fast lunch before she had to go to class, then I got Sara's laundry out of the dryer, then I started calling around looking for a work-study job, then I ran around filling out some applications, then I had an interview, and, no, I don't have a job yet, but I'm waiting to hear. Sometime after I finished all this, Katelyn finished her Spanish class and came by to hang out and then Jack and Sara got back from Mt Holyoke and Spanish and then the homework party started, and got interrupted for dinner, and continued until Katelyn and Jack had written their essays (Sara did join the homework party later, and I took pictures that I'll upload eventually), and there was some doing of other homework, but then certain people got distracted and we moved to Jack's room to work on our beloved gay signs. They are all printed now, and, as soon as we get some time, we will begin covering them with feathers and sequins and shiny things and hanging them around. I will take many pictures. After printing all the pictures, Jack kicked us out of his room and I went to waste time on the internet for hours until I fell asleep.
Of course I forgot to set my alarm early enough to meet Aaron (I blame Jack), but he's cool with it. Turned in our essays in wwwii, talked about the essays a bit, listened to awesome radio programming. Went to post office, Jack got 4! packages, but one of them is a present for me so I guess it's okay. Jack gets a whole lots of packages, though. Ate lunch, did homework, bought Jack a Rosh Hashanah present (this is a long and mildly interesting story. also I discovered that Rosh Hashanah is my birthday this year), went to sound patterns where we talked about vowels and then spanish where we had a dance party and played with plastic vegetables. Went to dinner, more homework until Jack and Sara couldn't take it any longer and decided to watch Queer as Folk. I was good for at least an hour and kept reading my Yiddish, but then I needed a break and so I went down to watch with them. Jack stole my boa and Sara yelled at him about getting feathers everywhere. Watched QaF until Sara kicked us out, came back and finished my Yiddish reading before 2 am. Slept.
Today's plan: shower, go get mail, meet Katelyn for lunch, go to Yiddish, go to knitting circle, dinner, go to storytelling, have wwwii reading party, perhaps decorate signs.

Homework Party

We're having a homework party, and I'm done with my essay (unlike a certain other two people), so I took some pictures.

Although you might think Katelyn is sleeping against my wall with a computer in her lap, I swear to you that she is working very hard on her essay. Harder than Jack, at least.

Imagine me slouching and typing and chewing on a knitting needle at the end of the bed, and you have exactly what our homework parties look like to an impartial observer. Exciting, huh?

I like how Jack looks really intent on what he's doing here. Especially since he was totally not.

Ah, the piece de resistance. I meant this picture to be of Jack's really awesome amazing attractive earrings that I love to play with, but then he scratched his nose. We had a hearty laugh and he insisted that I include this picture.

My Room, Part I

Now that Rose has posted a bunch of pictures of her room, I feel vaguely obligated to do the same. But I'll go that extra step and label things. Maybe I'll even get pictures of people taken sometime.


 

My Room, Part II

 

I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow

Actually, I'm just going through a phase where I love both bluegrass and the word "man." More on that later.

First, I have to tell you about going to Amherst and the crazy free workers-communist bookstore where Jack and Katelyn had to buy books for their media class and there was the longest line in the world cause I guess Amherst or some college with departments sends a bunch of their students there to buy things. We spent most of our time in line looking at a book of drag queens, so it was not time wasted. Then we went to Ben & Jerry's and answered the question of the day (how many stomachs does a cow have?) and got a 10% discount and ate delicious ice cream. Then Jack complained for a long time about how there are not enough gay men around (we think he is crazy, but he comes from gay Mecca) and we got on the bus and came back to our darling Hampshire and we finished watching Ed Wood and got some dinner and the internet still didn't work so we decided to do homework instead. Jack and Katelyn went to read for their crazy media class and I sat down and wrote my essay that is not due until Wednesday but it's a pretty terrible essay and my goal was to be able to edit it, which is currently happening, but I am getting ahead of myself. After I finished my essay, Jack wandered by having just showered, and decided that he needed some tea, and that I should use my fancy new teapot and tea filter to make fancy relaxation tea (which is orange-cream flavored and so delicious thank you Mary I love you) and we relaxed and drank tea and then Jack went to bed cause he's a sucker with 9 am classes. I settled in with some Scrubs for a quiet evening, and then Sara dropped by and decided she wanted to learn to knit, so I taught her at 11:30 at night, and then she eventually headed to bed and I slept as well and I love sleep.
I slept in and was lazy this morning, until Jack called and said "Are you in your room? Good. Katelyn and I are coming to make some hot chocolate in your kettle. See you in a bit." So I put pants on and put the kettle on and washed mugs and they showed up and we had hot cocoa and continued the list of gay icons for our crazy gay signs until it was time to meet Sara for lunch between her classes. After lunch came more of the gay sign making party and these are going to be the best signs in the world and I am so excited about them. I suppose I will eventually post them for you to enjoy. I had to leave Jack and Katelyn with the signs while I went to Spanish, which was less scary than last time cause they got rid of the crazy people who already know Spanish. I met a girl from Mt Holyoke who was nice, and some other people, but I am somewhat saddened that I don't have buddies in there yet. We were pretty happy when we took a break and discovered the signers were having a Mexican food party, and we crashed it to enjoy their mini-burritos and fried bananas. After Spanish, I grabbed the trusty buddies I always grab and we had dinner and then Katelyn and Jack and I rushed off to the bus stop only to determine that we did not, in fact, need the bus we had rushed to, so we decided that the prefix man makes every word better and it only made sense if you were there. Let it be said only that we were going to get on that man-bus and go to Manherst to buy some man glitter for our man signs. Then Jack and I had a big pretend fight in which he stole my shoe and I chased him around and I ended up emptying his pockets and filling my own with his belongings. Then we got on the right bus and relied on a girl from my Yiddish class to make sure we got to the Hampshire Mall right
and then we found all sorts of amazing glitter and pom poms and ribbons and fun fun things at Target and Joanna's. And of course the buses to get back had to be completely inconvenient and we got stuck waiting outside at UMass for half an hour (as Jack froze because he is from Texas and an incredible pansy) but we finally got back to our beloved Hampshire and sent Jack to do his Spanish homework, which he totally procrastinated on forever while Katelyn and I hung out and drank tea and edited my essay for a while and Katelyn decorated my window and added some beautiful pictures of Whitman and Oscar and Bosie to my walls. At some point, Sara came up to help Jack with his Spanish and then she came to have me plan her morning for her (she has to get up at 9:30 so I can grab her at 10:30 to make sure she starts her laundry and then go to breakfast with her and she has to buy milk and I have to buy my Spanish book and Sara has to move her laundry to the dryer and get it out and be ready to get the bus at 12:30 to go to her Spanish class) and I think I am turning into everyone's mom and I'm not sure how or why cause I am hardly the most responsible person. I continued my mom-ness after sending Sara to bed when Katelyn and I sent Jack a note that he needed to be working on his homework and he replied that he was depressed so I took him some tea to make him feel better and then left him with space to finish his homework. Now Katelyn and I are sitting on my bed talking while Jack showers (he did finish his homework) and we're vaguely considering sleep but not really.

Lovesong

Nothing is sweeter than lying on the grass in the sunshine with my pretty Clara.

Yesterday was laundry day, and me, Katelyn, Jack, Madelaine and Tabitha descended to the basement to take over the 3 washers that were working (of 5) for hours and hours until all of our clothing was washed. I also did my phonetics homework, meaning that we had some great long discussions about whether there is a vowel at the end of theatrical, and what it might be, and the best way to pronounce beneficial and such. Somewhere in the middle of this, a fire alarm went off and we complained, but not as much as we did when it went off at 2 am. After our incredibly successful and widely acclaimed laundry party, we decided it was time for the highly anticipated gay sign making party and Tabitha went off to gather craft supplies and we made a list of essential gay icons for our signs and a list of people who will be receiving gay signs, i.e. people who live on our hall. Then we went to get food cause Jack was starving as always, and it was thunderstorming and beautiful and then we returned and my internet no longer worked, but neither did Jack's and neither did Katelyn's and we figured it was a building-wide issuem and decided to have a movie fest instead, starting with Ed Wood. Halfway through Ed, Heather showed up and we left Katelyn and Heather some space and Jack and I went to bother Sara and use her microwave to make the once-again-starving Jack some ramen and ended up watching Igby Goes Down and ordering pizza and hanging out until we went to bed.

Slept in this morning, discovered my internet still does not work, but Dulcey's does (she lives beside me) and Lianne's does (down the hall) and Dillon's does (across from Sara, so downstairs) and we're greatly confused. Grabbed Sara and Katelyn to go to library to get internet (Jack realized he had forgotten to wash his binder yesterday, so he was off to the laundry room again) and stayed there until Jack and I exchanged the following text messages:
me: I have your wallet.
him: Die Krappen!?
me: What are you trying to say, sweetie? Did you lose your mommy?
him: Damn you.
me: Kisses!
him: I need to get lunch before SAGA closes at 1!
me: I'm coming.
And so we went and ate for a while and then Jack finished his laundry and now we are relaxing on the grass in the sunshine and things are biting me and we are thinking about doing homework but we are so lazy. I have an essay to write for WWII and so do Jack and Katelyn and maybe we'll get to that today. Maybe the internet in our rooms will come back, too.

Always

Of course Saturday morning is the morning everyone decides to take a shower at the same time. Grr waiting hate.

So what have I been up to? Everything. Let me think. Thursday was a day for sleeping in and being lazy for a while... then it was Yiddish Lit, which I ADORE. I am one of 3 Gentiles in the class, and it's at the awesome awesome Yiddish Book Center which is FULL of super-old books that are all in Yiddish and I am pretty sure that if I just knew the Hebrew alphabet I would be able to read them pretty well cause Yiddish is just German with a funny accent. I don't even mind too much that it's a 3 hour class, cause Rachel (our prof) breaks it up pretty well and who doesn't love reading Yiddish stories that are hilarious and sad and sweet and perfect? Then I hung out with Monica for a bit and then it was off to Convocation, the official start of the school year. Bagpipes led us in what they called a processional, but since it's Hampshire, it was just a crowd of people walking toward RCC with some bagpipes ahead of us. Then there were a bunch of speeches, and Ralph ranted about Don't Ask Don't Tell for a while and Katelyn swears it related to something cause I guess she listened but I was really just there to get my Hampshire button and now I have my official button and Jack and Sara were all "oh we are going to take forever to come back from Mt Holyoke and miss Convocation and now we have no buttons" and I am all "hahahahaha." After Convo, there was a cook-out and we ate hamburgers and watermelon and sat on the grass like Hampshire students (Madelaine reports that Amherst students are waaaay too prissy to sit on the grass and it makes us laugh). Then Katelyn and Jack and I were good little students and retreated to our rooms to read Watch on the Rhine, a play from 1940 about how the US needed to enter WWII. We acted it out and had so much fun with it and you should have been there but you weren't. Katelyn told Aaron about it at her meeting with him yesterday and he said he wished he had been there, too. In between reading, I went to meet up with the storytellers, and we're planning a festival for the 22nd and I'll be telling and have to find a story soon! Also while I was in the meeting Jack made a very important impulse purchase completely without me and I am deeply offended that I was not there for that momentous occasion, but I will be certain to be around when the package arrives. Also we hung out and played lots of very loud very gay music cause we're awesome like that. Had World War II class on Monday and we talked about the play and the essays we have to write for Wednesday, and I made Jack and Katelyn like 2 minutes late and Jack glared at me and then he later drew on my foot while I was trying to say something in class and it tickled and I ignored it and it was very difficult. He didn't even draw anything pretty on my foot. I love this class cause Will and Aaron make us think and make us push our ideas and I feel like I am learning so much that has nothing to do with World War II. Then it was lunchtime, cause Jack had overslept and missed breakfast and was going to have some sort of fainting spell if we didn't feed him. Jack had no pockets in his pants, so I somehow inherited his keys and wallet, and of course took full advantage of this new power by not giving him his keys back when he wanted them and we had a nice long glorious pretend fight about it but now my big duckie is missing and we're going to have to get Phil off searching for it. And then I felt a little bad about accidently locking Jack's keys in my room while I went to Phonetics, but I felt less bad when he tried to send me angry text messages about it, except they didn't show up until 5 hours later, and so I had a good laugh about his terrible phone service (and probably mine too). After Phonetics class (which is 20 college students sitting around trying to make weird vowel sounds and it's awesome), Katelyn came by and made Jack vaccuum his rug (this makes sense if you have ever seen Jack's rug) and then we hung out for a while and got some dinner and waited for Katelyn's girlfriend Heather to come and take us to Northhampton, and then she was late, and there was hanging out on a bench and being tall, and leaf fights, and I decided that I need to poke Jack all the time and more leaf fights and then Heather finally came and we drove to Noho. Noho is full of awesome stores, as you know, and I bought a teapot and a tea filter and I am a happy girl. Then we stood in the longest line to get ice cream at Harrell's but it was amazing ice cream and made us really happy too. Then we got lost for a while trying to get back, with 4 people crammed in the back seat of Heather's car, and then we finally did get back and decided it was time for a Queer as Folk party and so we watched QaF for 3 hours in Katelyn's room and then I went to sleep and now it's half an hour after I first checked the showers, so I think I am going to go see if one is open now, or maybe venture to another hall to use their shower.

Big Disco Ball

Ah, Wednesday. My day of full classes. (Further investigation has revealed I have no Spanish on Fridays, so Wednesday is my only crazy day.) Woke up early-ish, chilled until I met Sara and Katelyn to walk over to our tutorials, found out that Jack has Acting before WWWII, which he didn't bother to tell me, enjoy having a history class where I understand what is going on again yay for English. Wandered to Post Office, Central Records, ate lunch before Sara had to go to her next class, headed back to Dakin, where I discovered that my ethernet cable reaches my doorway, meaning I can sit in my door and yell at Jack while we each check our e-mail. Went to Phonetics class, taught by an awesome bioacoustician named Mark Feinstein, and I'm excited about this class. Went to Spanish, taught by an awesome Columbian lady named Nubia, who promises weekly parties where we will eat food (such as Columbian food and Argentinian food) and dance and sing songs. Also there are waaaay too many people in my class who have already had Spanish, which angers me because they should probably be in some higher class to allow true beginners the option to truly begin. Grrr. Laughed a lot in that class cause Nubia is a funny lady who makes us laugh. Ran to dinner while on the phone with a neurotic Jack who always thinks we will be late, ate quickly, still got to showing of Modern Times early, gave Jack a hard time. Watched Modern Times and laughed at Charlie Chaplain for being a funny, funny man. Came back to Dakin, retreated to Katelyn's room to read Charles Lindbergh biography, apparently written by out-of-work trashy romance novelist, since half was about Charles's escapades in Florida with his wife (using thinly veiled metaphors about mangroves and ibises) and the other half was about Lindy being some sort of anti-Semite isolationist who maybe hated Jews but maybe just didn't really care about Jews but certainly singled the Jews out many times and there's this one picture where it looks like he's Sieg Heiling, but he's really doing the Pledge of Allegiance and gosh he was friends with lots of idealistic young college men. Also people in the 1940s had really, really funny names, and also Katelyn kept having to say "ovation," Jack and I had an argument about my ability to pronounce "tribune" affecting his ability to pronounce "tribune," and by the end of the night half of Jack's clothes were scattered across Katelyn's bed and we have no idea why. We have a 3-page Lindberg speech to read still, and also a play, and Jack's off-campus for Spanish tomorrow, and it's Convocation and various other early-evening activities. While reading aloud may be a whole lot more fun (and it really is), it also takes a whole lot longer. Le sigh.

Fun fact: Katelyn lives on an all-female hall (although, unlike sub-free, males are allowed to come on the halls (sub-free means no substances on the hall ever even in your body) and also apparently chill in a girl's dorm and sit on the bed with a girl and randomly peel articles of clothing off while reading Jack is really strange and I adore run-ons) and they have a cutesy sign on the bathroom that you have to turn when there's a boy in there.



Addendum: and then the fire alarm went off at 1 o'clock in the totally friggin' morning. The rumor I heard was that it was our detested lounge dwellers, who probably are chuckle-headed enough to do such a thing. Sleep now angry grrrr.

I've Got You Under My Skin

Silly blog, I feel compelled to tell you my every move when I really want to sleep. It's only 11:31, but I had to get up early. I can sleep much later tomorrow.

Tonight was wonderfully chill. After heading over to Jackson's mod to hang out and watch Margaret Cho and also watch Jackson's modmates stock their fridge, I came back and grabbed Jack and Sara for dinner, and then Jack and I decided it was time to do our homework. Earlier in the afternoon, Jack was chilling in my room, unsure what to do with himself, and I suggested he read the assignment while I knit. Then I suggested that he read it outloud so we could both benefit, and he laughed and took it as the joke I intended it. Only at dinner did we realize the genius of this concept, and we locked ourselves in Jack's room shortly thereafter and proceeded to read the entire 45 pages aloud to each other (I took even pages and he took odd. We stopped mid-sentence when the page stopped mid-sentence), having far more fun than we should have as our ability to pronounce the big silly words the author loves broke down (your word of the day is "desiderata." Jack's is "proferred" and mine is "indefatigable," cause we each had to say those words frequently and never could) and Sara occasionally stopped by and told us we were very cute. I also learned that Jack can't say numbers when he is reading out loud, for which I teased him mercilessly. And he teased me mercilessly for always changing the pronounciation of place names when I read them aloud. I am pretty sure all future readings for this class will be accomplished this way. Our reading was interrupted by the all-important hall meeting, in which Phil shared his 7 pound bag of candy (I love Phil) and talked about hall stuff and confirmed our queer status and we decided that we need to get together and make a big sparkly gay sign to make the other halls jealous. And we set quiet hours on weekends until 11 in the morning, which makes me happy. Then Jack and I kept reading, then we finished our reading and sat on his bed and talked until Sara came back from hanging out with her Mt Holyoke friend Karina, and then the three of us talked a bit but realized we are all super-tired, and it is sleep time.

I am so happy about my schedule, and happy that classes start tomorrow.

My Schedule

Just got back from meeting with Aaron, my advisor (also Dean of Faculty), and we got my schedule all fixed up and pretty. Just look at it:

Yep, no classes on Tuesday, just Spanish on Monday evenings, a little busier Wednesday and Friday, but overall lots of nice sleeping in and free time. Free time which I suppose I will be using for doing a lot of reading and writing for my tutorial. Got the syllabus today and bought my books (3 big thick huge things and a play for this one class) and the first essay is due the 13th. I'm gonna read for a bit now until Jack gets back from meeting with Will (our other prof and his advisor), and then I might bother him until we go and grab Sara from the library to get some lunch. I've got a meeting about work-study at 1, and a hall meeting at 8 (where we will hopefully deal with the loudness and find out once and for all if we are in fact the queer hall), and Sara's friend from Smith (or is it Mt Holyoke?) is coming by this evening. Classes start tomorrow!