Stormy Weather

Here is an awkward admission: I spent the majority of the day singing "November Rain" to myself. When I say "to myself" I also mean "at top volume" and "with hand flourishes." I had to walk a lot today and since I don't own any sort of portable musical device, full on vocals seemed appropriate (though not so much to the strangers casting weird looks in my direction). To be fair, I didn't spend the whole day on NR; "Purple Rain," "Stormy Weather," and "I Can't Stand the Rain" made guest appearances. An even worse admission: I am not generally the sort who sings out loud whilst walking in public. I prefer to be more low key by, you know, just walking. But it was raining and foggy and it seemed as good as any time to think about an assortment of glittery bandannas and leather pants.

It reminded me of the good ol' days when Duff McKagan's older brother directed my middle school band. Duff would show up at our concerts in his leather pants. He'd stand in the back, leaning against a wall, arms folded across his chest, nodding and keeping the beat to our exquisite renditions of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and "Old Time Rock n' Roll." He really liked it that time we bust out the Ewok theme song. That's when the arms came unfolded and he rolled up his fists to hold imaginary drum sticks, which he beat on the sides of his legs. Duff once played in a punk rock band called, no joke, "The Fartz." That guy was awesome.

I went to the public library because you can print ten pages a day for free. I went also because you can use computers next to patrons who feel like it is not only socially acceptable but socially desired to freely pass gas in a room full of strangers and absolutely no look of remorse.

But the main reason why I <3 are="" because="" crazy="" emails="" fanmail="" is="" jackson="" leave="" library="" like="" michael="" of="" on="" people="" screen.="" the="" they="" yesteryear="">, but even better. "Dear Oprah's Angel Network," it began, "we request US $215,500.00." Jackpot. Poor Oprah, with her fistfuls of dollars.

"transitional style" & the QLC

I am finally coming to terms with the fact of my QLF--Quarter Life Crisis. Sure, I keep saying that I think it is a self-perpetuated myth that actually doesn't exist (I'm convinced it only exists because of that one John Mayer song that came out while I was in high school, which is when I thought 25 seemed eternally old. Ha.) but when I find myself nodding in eager agreement while reading Wikipdia's diagnosis of the quarter life crisis--["insecurity regarding the near future" YES! "insecurity concerning long-term plans, life goals" NOD NOD NOD "insecurity regarding present accomplishments" OMG YES! "nostalgia for university, college, high school or elementary school life" SUMMER 2007!!!! WOOT WOOT!!! "a sense that everyone is, somehow, doing better than you" OH. EM. GEE. WIKIPEDIA IS A FREAKING MIND READER!!!!--I knew I hit the truth smack on the face. So I decided to do the only logical thing, which is to think about decorating a house. So thanks to my friend Katie and Sproost, I have discovered that not only am I mentally & psychologically reducible to algorhythms (thanks, Wiki!) but I am also creatively reducible.

Check it: Modern Elegance. Variety is the spice of life! And nowhere is this truer than in the design of your home. You may love contemporary, but wish it wasn't quite so cold and austere, or perhaps you're drawn to traditional rooms but you'd like to create a less cluttered and busy space. Transitional Style is here to marry those apparent contradicting designs.

I am so vague right now that even my creativity (as told to me via a 15 question quiz) is labeled "transitional." Awesome.

But the good news is that I have discovered that the QLF has another category that sounds a lot of like candy, which I approve of entirely. "Twixters"--trapped betwixt adolescence and adulthood. Dig it? I do. I love Twix. I think the answer to safely navigating through the rocky QLC terrain is found in the following video:

All I have to do is buy a fanny pack and a convertible, find some babes, and say, "Hey guys, what AREN'T we going to do today!?" Done and done.

ps:

i want you all to be aware that my birthday is june 21. just file that away as you peruse the following gift ideas:

bring back: the kitten shirt (see 1:03 for deats)

this video has been circulating pretty heavily but i had to share it here. mostly so i could link to his equally amazing website. it's basically my dream site: rainbows, clouds, small asian child, prancing puffy puppies...beautiful.

BOOMBOX from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

"that's what i'm talkin' about"

"dear ones," i said to my students, "you are, no doubt, familiar with drunken bouts of vomiting as well as the intricate world of sports." they nodded and leaned forward on their desks, instantly piqued by my allusion to alcohol and athletics, their two most favorite subjects. "well, yesterday i projectile vomited into a dumpster..." i then told them my tale of food poisoning woe. looks of delight and shock. "amy?" morgan waved her hand, "it sounds like you need to go home and rest," she looked so concerned i was tickled. then she said, "we won't mind if you cancel class." a-ha. i nodded, "good point. but i mostly just wanted your opinion on electrolytes. as in, what sports drink has the highest concentration of them?" i was at that stage of the toxin cleanse where i was bone-cold but also it hurt to have anything touching my skin. i blamed it on dehydration and loss of electrolytes. my class and i then proceeded to have a ten minute discussion, including a white board diagram graphing the pros and cons of various sports drinks. we finally concluded that the way to go would be G2. thanks, derek jeter, that fruit punch one tastes a lot better than regular gatorade fruit punch.

projectile vomit, a tutorial*

1. wake up at a productive hour, say 11 a.m.
2. shuffle about house "organizing"--it's a simple yet effective guise for not doing anything worthwhile like homework, or baking homemade bread for the class treat in the evening, or even catching up on 90210 episodes.
3. decided that the most imperative thing to do would be to whip up homemade tomato sauce for the only box of food you have in your cupboard--a six month old, tattered cardboard receptacle filled with orzo pasta.
4. concoct sauce with the only cans you have: tomatoes, tomato paste, and mushrooms.
5. eat bowl of orzo and tomato sauce.
6. work.
7. get ready to go to class, ignoring all possible signs of food sickness (dizziness, sweaty palms, increased heartbeat, a peculiar churning in the naval area--yes, ignore all of them.)
8. go to class.
9. sit as still and quietly as possible using your mindwaves to tame the storm within. do this as long as you can physically stand it, ideally interspersing the mental game with physical cues identifying the fact that you are a) present b) interested c) synthesizing lecture material.
10. when the saliva starts to pool in your mouth, do the only sane thing: leap off of your bar stool, book it out the door and place yourself strategically on the stairs above the dumpster.
11. using the bar for support, aim in the dumpster's general direction. go to it in all your glory!

*based on an all too true story that happened to me around 3:43 this afternoon. happy vomiting!

newest editor at identity theory!

if you guys haven't already checked out identity theory, you should. it's a pretty awesome literary site. i just joined the editing team so if any of you have things you'd like to submit, please do! my very first book blog entry is up, check it out if you get a chance!

reasons why...

one could fall in love with chicago:
1. mermaid tail domes in the old public library

2. endless pleasure in the form of a giant, mercury-inspired bean

3. promises of excruciatingly tasty deep dish pizza/casserole

4. valentine's spent in spectacular company such as amanda, sarah, katherine, lance (whose new book of poetry i jealously await), and the team of NPR selected shorts (with a stunning reading of raymond carver's "cathedral" by b.d. wong [YES! B.D. WONG!!!! law & order dreams DO come true!!!!].)

5. reunions with other great and glorious folk such as madden, kate, grover, and other illustrious BYU'ers!

in short, chicago = awesome. oh, there was the whole writer's conference thing, too. 8,000 writers in one singular Chicago Hilton Hotel--you know magic is bound to happen. there were so many elbow patches and leather satchels i could hardly contain myself!

Mimic Octopus = Off The Hook

what do a hatchett and a squirt bottle have in common?

The answer is: not a lot. Unless you have to get your ear flushed out. Then the connection is painful yet clear. Today at the health center I was positively dapper. I made doctors and nurses and even the stuffy ladies who check you in laugh. Not just a chuckle, these were good ol' jolly belly laughs. I was on FIRE. And this was because I definitely did NOT want any one of these fine people to attach a syringe to a tube to a squirt bottle, fill said squirt bottle with luke warm water, and then shove the syringe into my ear, squeezing the squirt bottle with such force that it would feel like Niagra Falls just set up shop in my ear canal. I thought I could charm them out of it. I almost did. But I got suckered in with their promises of US Weekly Magazine and a nice lounge chair covered in wax paper. I will know better next time.

Ear flushing is a terrifying thing. But it is real funny if the nurse starts saying things like, "Honey, I know they don't give out trophies for this sort of thing, but they should. Because you'd get the lot of them." And, "I've never, in all my days, seen something like this." That, my friends, is not something you ever want to hear coming out of a health professional's mouth. But the good thing is that my hearing is now so crisp, I can practically hear an ant tiptoeing three miles away!

hello kitty hospital!

dreams DO come true!!!!!!!! i am both amazed and traumatized by the following image:

"Hospital director Tsai Tsung-chi opened the themed institution last year in the hopes that the familiar cartoon cat would help ease mothers' pain and stress of childbirth." my pain would be eased for sure.

spring!

it's going to be a whole 53 degrees today! there is sun and melting snow and yesterday the children across the way were even out playing on the jungle gym! the saddest day of all will be when winter butts it's big fatty face in to say psych!

Uni's UNITE!

Fact: I woke up to no fewer than five emails containing the following image this morning.

Each person wanted to make sure that I knew about the cavorting unicorn displayed in the upper left hand part of the image. Some of the emails were timestamped as early as 6:00 AM! Meaning that as an email, it ranked somewhere between "Very Important" to "Ultra Imperative." I really don't know how I got to be the lucky girl who receives daily emails about kittens riding Roombas, unicorns spraying rainbows about, or pandas climbing plastic toys, but I am so flattered because they are the highest expression of love. So please keep those precious gems coming! {Seriously. I live for them.}

Jalapeno Holla

It started out well enough, my foray into the intricate world of jalapeno/green onion cornbread. It was Superbowl Sunday. My supper group was coming over but since we don't own a TV that works, I thought I'd try to at least recreate Superbowl Atmosphere. That meant, of course, chips, salsa, chili, cornbread (and a homemade plum tart, because what Superbowl Sunday is complete without a little Martha Stewart?) So while the Steelers were busy running circles around the Cardinals for the first quarter, I followed my recipe exactly. That meant 3 Tablespoons of chopped jalapenos.

I don't know if you are aware of this fact but jalapenos are spicy. Actually, let me be precise: they're mean little suckers that can (and will) blister any bare skin they touch. I found this out the hard way. What happened is that I finished de-seeding the things, chopping them up into cute little pieces, washing my hands, etc., etc. Then I made the apparently life-threatening decision to wipe my mouth. 0.5 seconds after contact my lip started swelling like Macauly Culkin's face in the hit movie My Girl. It was funny at first, until it started blistering (about 2 seconds after contact). Literally.

Here are some things that don't help jalapeno burns:
1. Water (the capsaicin does not dissolve in water. I repeat: does not dissolve in water.)
2. Frozen peas still in their package.
3. Frozen potato bits clamped over burned area
4. Milk (the internet doctor lied)
5. Yogurt (because who doesn't like smearing yogurt about one's face?)
6. Tears
7. Panic
8. Talking about burned area
9. Ice water (see number 1)
10. Rubbing alcohol

Here is what does:
1. Carmax
2. Nerves of Steel

*Also, don't worry, the cornbread came out like a dream come true!

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

It was midmorning and it was cold. I was uncomfortable for many reasons, one of them being that it was about 95 degrees in the room and I was still wearing my winter coat. Shifting in my chair I kept my voice even and gentle, repeating cliched truisms:

"It's not you, it's me."
"You'll be better off without me. You'll see. Really."
Even: "If you love something let it go..."

He sighed, rubbed the bridge of his nose (discreetly wiping away a tear or two, I'm sure), and told me no less than five stories about how he had changed lives. Real lives. Lives from Vietnam, Canada, West Africa, even Des Moines. This is true love, people: commitment, integrity, communication, honor.

I nodded. I stiffled my urge to bolt. This was worse than a lot of breakups I've had.

This, of course, was the charade I had to suffer through in order to drop a class here at good ol' U of I. None of that faceless Internet nonsense. Why should you be able to simply click "Add" or "Drop" in order to add or drop a course when you can have increasingly awkward encounters with professors who will 1) try to guilt trip you into staying in their class 2) look personally offended that you want to drop their course and/or 3) walk you to the door with a wounded air and, martyr-like, shake your hand with one of the dreaded limp-fish-hands? All of this for one shabby signature on a piece of green paper that needs an actual litany of different administrative signatures (professor of dropped class, professor of added class, advisor, dean of college, mother of dean of college, best friend in first grade, pony you once wanted but never received, etc.)

So in honor of my course breakups this semester I leave you with the unparalleled break up song by the hit band Nazareth:

my sister, my hero

my sister is amazing in many respects (one of the major ones being that she is my sole provider of hit books like the babysitters club and sweet valley high). but one of the major ones is her sweet blog, the meanest mom. she even got on the news about it! you can watch it(and my super awesome nephews and niece) here.