killer whales

yesterday at sea world, a killer whale ate somebody. i saw the tweet, read the article, and stood in the elevator lobby during my smoke break to watch some coverage. i wasn't smoking in the elevator lobby though. i wanted to be a "marine biologist" once. because i sure thought that it meant i could just swim with dolphins. when i learned that i had to study biology and marine life as a whole, the idea dwindled and the process started all over again in the names of physical therapy, forensic psychology, literature, and journalism. i ended up as a market researcher beeteedub. whatever the hell that is. i.have.no.idea.

anyway, after marine biology faq's were made clear, i developed a fear of fish. it didn't have anything to do with the course of study. it just happened. sometimes i tell a story from my childhood right after i admit this, and do it in a way that is so seamless you would think they connect. but they don't, really. i know that, i just tell it that way because people are always wanting to know why another person does what they do. i'm just keeping up with the freudians here. the story goes that i went to the beach with my parents when i was a kid, got stuck in a bed or pod or whatever the group name is for large amount of jellyfish. i get caught and my dad has to fish me out of the fish-things. i wouldn't have been out there in the first place if it weren't for him, but i was scared of this guy to tell you the truth and was only swimming in the big sea because he was, and i thought if i didn't he would call me a girl. apparently i didn't want to be a girl. i at least didn't want to be called one. so swim swim sting and i'm suddenly on the shore with the jelly stuck to my leg and live tentacles too. i didn't say much about this either, though. i just pulled the jelly off and hoped my mom would notice. i knew she would and she did so she tells buck, my dad, that we need to go buy some steak sauce. again i tried not being a girl and dismiss the fact that i have sting jelly on my leg and my parents are requesting steak sauce, mom makes it clear that steak sauce, much like piss, will take the sting right out. my parents weren't the kind to pee on their children.

so thats the story i always tell as a segway to fish fear. there was also the visit to the new orleans aquarium. before hurricane katrina took all the fish back home, i went down to new orleans with my grandmother. i called her nanny and she was a god. mom also went and the picures indicate that i wore a fanny pack and a bright-color-splattered outfit. so this was nineteen eighty something. nanny made a rule while we were there that we couldn't advance to the next exhibit until all of the information had been read. i was really smart about fish after that, but not smart enough to be a marine biologist. we finally get all the way through the first floor and go up to the cafeteria. the french fries were shaped like sharks. i have a picture of this as well. my hair is a mess of blonde and my teeth are very large and i am swimming the shark through the air with my fingers. it is only apropos that the shark tank immediately followed the cafeteria, and by shark tank i mean there was a large, glass cut out in the middle of the floor with great whites swimming underneath. great fucking whites.

twentyten reasons to update and maintain

you have got to be kidding yourself if you think i am actually going to think of 2,010 reasons for bloggery. but list form language is floating everywhere today. i woke up this morning, hungover, granted, and immediately started singing "99 ways to leave your lover." i stop singing it though when it gets to the part about "hit the road jack" and then lists a series of names and rhyming modes of transportation that one can leave by. it all seems very inconsistent. the measure of poetry is but everything.

anyway, i am going to start making an effort here, and giving you stalkers something to stalk about. meg and john both started blogs, thereby doing something with their lives and i simply cannot resist that peer pressure anymore.

lastly, sometimes when i lie awake at night pulling on another cigarette like i am somebody i think about emails would make good books. you could title it re:re or something unwitty like that.

i'm slammed with work. and i love a good volunteer position that requires so much of your time it should be a salary position.

john is home from scotland for the week. i went to memphis to see him at the airport and he's all euro trash and stuff (this is actually a good thing.) so tomorrow i'll make the dreaded trek and appearance in louisville and smoke cigars with the only one who can make me do such a thing.

i'm at my coffeeshop right now (my doesn't imply ownership, merely employment) but i'm off the clock and writing. in other words, i live here. as does the rest of the staff. we complain while we're slinging lattes that we are here, and yet reappear the moment we aren't scheduled, as if this is our favorite location to pass the time. i've been here the past 2 days (both my off days) writing articles and working on film fest duties, and its been a good time. tim has enough off the wall theories to keep the world spinning, chad is constantly shoving new music in my face, kathleen is searching for any outside opinion or idea that she can entertain at least three times, and sebastian lets me stare at his tattoos. and here i am today, with all these people and their stories, and i want to hear none of them. i don't want to be talked to. and while staying home where no one lives and can interrupt my sadness seems to be a reasonable alternative, i don't want that either. its the kind of mood that begs to be left alone and begs not to be all at once. the catch 22 of suck.

roxford

i can't shake this good mood. not that i'm trying. i got a job at oxfordtown writing about the crunchy tunes that keep showing up in this town. this makes job number tres, and my social life may be dwindling. but i do get to hang out with the likes of girltalk so nobody's complaining.

also, i'm going to london in may. but before that, backpacking the rest of that continent. yeah. my life just gets better and better.

i keep forgetting i have this blog thing. and then when i remember i have it, i forget the things i need to say to make it a good one. if i ever remember both at once, this will be a party.

peace. and no genocide.

i have not seen my best friend john in a year.

he lives in scotland with nessie.

and got me a dinosaur tee for christmas.

i miss him and my tonsils, both in excruciating amounts right now.

nessie lives, but bigfoot is a stupid idea.

jordy gots married

my friend jorden got married this weekend. i really do think that it is safe to say that i genuinely like most people. in fact, i have a hard time convincing myself to dislike people that should probably be loathed. and all i mean by that is, even though i like alot of people on a genuinely superficial level, i deeply care about a select few who receive all of my love and adoration. jorden is one of them. she hangs the moon. i met her while we were english majors at state, but conflicting religious/political/socioeconomic/etc beliefs rendered us inept from the magical friendship we have now. i eventually grew a mentality worth having around and am now capable of feeling like i've got something to offer her, too. she and i moved to oxford at the same time and started grad school together. she was wise and dropped out, but i chose to pursue the educational debt. anyway, she called me one day and said she heard that i had moved here, and since her boy lived here and everything too, she'd give it a try. so she did, and if anyone has made this town worth 2 years of my life, it has been her. we entertain each others thoughts and curiosities, and hold each other accountable to esteemed literary opinions and selections. so we all spent the weekend in the mountains, watching her and her equally fascinating fiancee share awkward moments and vows, and then partied at a level that only we know how. there was music and dancing. a hot tub. my dear friends. and lots of booze to complement it. her and her man are in paris now, and move to miami when they return. he's going to write books and stuff. and i'm going to visit asap.

christmastime

i always thought it strange that someone made that into one word. i wonder who it is that gets to make up rules like that. christmas time/ christmastime. i think i've got the credentials, whatever they are.

so, for the aforementionedtime, i gave myself a new blog. i will shut it down and start a new one a few brief months from now when i have written something i am embarrassed of, and convince myself that all evidence of writing failure needs to be completely destroyed.

taperjeangirlwithamotelface is a kings of leon lyric, and not even my favorite, and i don't even wear tapered jeans. but i do love a motel.

stuffwhitepeoplelike.com just may be the best blog ever created. it is incessantly witty and its got all this irony and preciseness all at once. i've never read an entry and not thought to myself, 'omg! that's so true about white people!' immediately followed by, 'dammit! i'm white!' i'm proud of it and all, i guess, but we are some of the lamest people ever. so maybe i'm not that proud of it. i don't really think i'd care what race i was, and i don't meant that in some extremist anti-racist way, like i could tolerate the hardships of them all, because it'd be really hard to be a jew and all, but, in the least demeaning way ever, i'm officially claiming that lameness plagues white people, and there's no civil rights movement ready to unleash us from its bonds. we are the culmination of all things bad all at once. i mean, its cool to be republican. i would go to the bar with sarah palin any day. but republican, and this isn't even about party issues but what they imply, is just a new word for WASP, and those were a bunch of uncool people, and if they were still around today they'd be doing what george dubya is doing right now too: watching fox news or a documentary on the history channel in case a point is ever raised in a conversation, we'd hate to not have the right winged opinions on how to refute it.

as for the real reason i brought up this site. this was a post from earlier in the week. "halloween" is also something white people like, because it gives a reason to dress up and consume alcohol. we like that too. this year for halloween, i got all clever and original, or so i thought, and went to the square as an ipod commerical. many mistook me as being intentionally and really black, but once i pulled my shuffle out and did a few fist pumps, they got the idea. but apparently someone else had it first. see above.

merry christmas.