Bloglet, the gentleman's mock turtle soup -- Moss made it sweeter than myrrh ash and dhoup
I just earned $75 for lying flat on my back for an hour. Easy-peasy. I think I even fell asleep in the middle; it was all oddly soothing. And my tattoo didn't go white-hot and smeary! Double score.
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(5)
01:24:10 PM,Wednesday 2 March 2005
Tonight, K. and I, to our mutual surprise and alarm, found ourselves spontaneously bursting into "I Call Your Name" (yeah bite me shuddup). Got through nearly the whole damn song before we broke off, blinking bemusedly at each other. See, she only knew the Beatles version, heavy on the rhythm guitar and cowbell, and I was doing it Mamas-and-Papas style, complete with doot-doot-doots. The composite effect was... arresting.
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(1)
02:39:27 AM,Wednesday 2 March 2005
Légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal!
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(7)
02:26:43 AM,Wednesday 2 March 2005
Evil sleepy.
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(1)
05:14:49 AM,Tuesday 1 March 2005
I am, as you see [from the letter-head] staying with Virginia. She is sitting opposite, embroidering a rose, a black lace fan, a box of matches, and four playing cards, on a mauve canvas background, from a design by her sister, and from time to time she says, 'You have written enough, let us now talk about copulation'; if this letter is disjointed it is her fault and not mine. -- Vita Sackville-West
"She saw the word 'Boeotian' approaching - it was a word she could never remember how to pronounce. When she reached it she paused in agony and called out "Harold!" 'So,' Harold wrote in his diary, 'I say in a loud voice "Boeotian!" The audience were much amused, but some of them thought it must be a put-up job."
-- The Same
ganked from Shatterproofglass_
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(4)
10:14:30 AM,Monday 28 February 2005
Man, so what have I been doing besides fretting like an effeminate efreet? Quite a variety of lovely things, really. I've been getting correspondence -- two cookies, a Harry Potter Valentine, and a lobster pen from Julia, and a postcard of Louis XIV reading
"Mira - Dahling
L'Etat, c'est toi, non? Apples are delicious, but the skin will lodge between my teeth so. Orange are the same. So much pith for so strange a fruit. Visiting people is fun! Soon(ish) we will visti [sic -- note reads "an hurrnyl {?} and drinking, and writing ability degrades] you! Eee! Hail Poetry! In conclusion -- Watermelon, omnibus Lobster, orangutan. Do not try to find us."
From... well, I think I have some idea.
And there's a stuffed squeaky lobster in the kitchen at my job, which my employer's husband keeps liking to get the dog all riled up with just as my employer's dropped off to sleep, leading to irksome shenanigans, but eh. I guess Lobsters come in threes, these days.
In class, we've come to the end of Milton and are starting Blake. I'd better find a thesis to write my paper on soon, if I want to submit it as my writing sample by April 1. My professor has stopped calling me "Balakai" (hybridized from my name and the name of K.'s oldest friend, who took his class last semester). In fact, I even got to see his apartment on Friday.
I was taking the test, but Kali was giving a lecture that afternoon, and he hosted the reception. So I crashed the party and sat around munching ham with distinguished academics. His hobby is buying busts of Milton on Ebay, which proliferate throughout the place, and his dog, boyfriend, and book collection all try to outstrip each other in adorableness. Then K. and I went home and mellowed ourselves into goo. Bliss.
Next day, we went out and had sushi to celebrate the end of my monthlong snivelfest (she was gonna charge me by the hour for all the therapeutic noogies she had to administer, but decided to let me off easy). She also bought me a commemorative Yitzchak Spector Heroes of the Torah jellyglass, 'cause she is AWESOME. That night we made pasta with goat cheese and grape tomatoes and Super Colossal olives (these things would dwarf a baobab) and downed it by candlelight and danced to Ella and Louis and oh the details would make you green. I got my fortune told, too. All signs point to yes.
There's been a thaw; the world is bright and breezy. I just ate a pot of chicken soup and a bowl of rice crispies and am thinking of getting a little more sleep before work. My mom's coming to visit in ten days. I'm a-grin.
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(1)
07:24:15 PM,Sunday 27 February 2005
So I totally frikkin' whupped the GRE on Friday. I mean, I won't know what I got on the essays 'til my scores come back in a couple weeks, but I'm damn happy (and crazy relieved) about the Math & Verbal. So w00t.
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(17)
03:29:35 PM,Sunday 27 February 2005
Woo-hoo! Mp3 Milton-A-Go-Go!!
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02:10:49 PM,Thursday 24 February 2005
Skeltonics! Been trying to think of the bloody word since Tuesday. Skeltonics.
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01:26:17 PM,Thursday 24 February 2005
Damnit, I knew this would happen. I slept 11 hours last night and still woke up tired. I've got the test at 5:00 tomorrow, which means even if I get out of work and into bed and asleep by 8:30 (a long shot), I'll get seven hours. Which would be fine, except it looks like I'm going to manage less than three today. Which is going to make me stupid. Goddamnit. I've been trying, I swear! I turn off the computer and shut my eyes and can't sleep and try reading and can't sleep and turn on the computer again and... rrrr. But even if it is my own damn fault, what do I do? Do I skip class and sleep 'til 9:00? Do I bring my alarm clock and try to sleep at the college for a couple hours after class? I was hoping to take one last practice test in that time; I can't do it at work 'cause I never know when I'll be needed, and the thing doesn't have a pause button. Do I load up on caffeine tomorrow and hope it'll offset the braindeath? Do I just suck like I would anyway and use this as an excuse not to eviscerate myself for it? Argh. Oh well, I know there are worse problems to have. I just... rrrrrr!
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(1)
12:46:30 PM,Thursday 24 February 2005
The last words of Dutch Schultz. The first time I read an allusion to this was in the Illuminatus trilogy -- it stuck with me: "French Canadian Bean Soup". But just now I saw it mentioned in a Stephen King story, and I figured I should finally look it up. Interesting stuff, huh? Always been partial to delirious ramblings, in case you hadn't noticed.
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11:30:14 AM,Thursday 24 February 2005
You're all smart people. Tell me if I'm right and the GRE test-prep companies are on crack, or vice versa.
The opposite of facetious is:
A - lugubrious
B - ingenuous
The opposite of effervescent is:
A - vapid
B - disaffected
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(26)
09:13:34 AM,Thursday 24 February 2005
N ovg bs tbffvc (Fubhyq V ebg13 guvf gb cerirag tbbtyvat?). Fb zl rzcyblref unq n pbpxgnvy cnegl sbe Puevfgb naq Wrnaar-Pynhqr bs Tngrf snzr ynfg avtug (vg jenccrq hc orsber V tbg gurer, fb guvf vf nyy frpbaq-unaq). Puevfgb, nccneragyl, uneqyl fnvq nalguvat nyy avtug. Wrnaar-Pynhqr, ba gur bgure unaq, jnf ol qvirefr nppbhagf n gbgny fuerjvfu jnpxahg. Fbzr uncyrff eryngvir nfxrq sbe na nhgbtencu, naq fur jnf nyy, &dhbg;V xabj jung lbh'yy qb jvgu gung cbfgre vs V fvta vg! Lbh'yy fryy vg gb gur vagrearg sbe $400! Ubj qner lbh?!&dhbg; Naq jura gur ynql gevrq gb ncbybtvmr, &dhbg;V unira'g svavfurq fcrnxvat! Lbh yvfgra gb zr: V jvyy abg fvta!&dhbg; Lrrfu. Gura, jura fur jnf vagebqhprq gb ure ubfgrff, fur tbg nyy jvqr-rlrq naq nfxrq zl riravat-fuvsg pbhagrecneg, va uhfurq gbarf, "Pna fur urne zr?" (Hu, lrnu.) "Pna fur frr zr?" (Fur'f ybbxvat fgenvtug ng lbh, qbephf.) "Pna V xvff ure?" &dhbg;Yvxr fur jnf ng n fuevar be fbzrguvat,&dhbg; Ze. N gbyq zr, tevznpvat. Fur xvffrq ure unaq, zhezherq &dhbg;fur'f ornhgvshy,&dhbg; naq zbirq ba gb zl cbbe obff'f sberurnq, jub, fxrjrerq ba gur qbhoyr cebatf bs tenpvbhfarff naq dhnqevcyrtvn, jnf cbjreyrff gb cerirag ure. Ohg ng yrnfg fur tbg n fvtarq obbx bhg bs vg -- &dhbg;Ab bar gheaf qbja n pevccyr,&dhbg; fur fcryyrq bhg yngre, jvgu n jel xvaq bs fzvex ba ure snpr.
V nyfb urneq n terng fgbel nobhg fbzr Ebpxrsryyre fpvba svyyvat hc rzcgl obggyrf bs 1986 Ebgufpuvyq jvgu $6.99 Tnyyb naq freivat vg gb gur Terng Sbhe Uhaqerq. Gur guvatf lbh yrnea sebz gnyxvat gb gur uryc. Bu jnvg, V nz gur uryc. Uru.
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(7)
08:12:49 AM,Wednesday 23 February 2005
It was passed around quite a bit back when and Moss linked it fairly recently, but some people still haven't read "They're Made out of Meat". Mmmmm, meat.
Oh, and hell, as long as we're relinking old goodies: Klein Bottle!
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(1)
03:28:22 AM,Wednesday 23 February 2005
Smoke on your pipe and put that in!
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(2)
06:59:04 AM,Tuesday 22 February 2005
There's snow! And it's beautiful! I had a hell of a wonderful shut-in working weekend with my scholar -- all we did was bathe and eat and snog and study. Feeling somewhat better about the math, in that terminal-stage-of-yellow-fever-delirium-and-apathy kind of way. Still freaking the hell out about the verbal, in more of a terminal-stage-of-smallpox-lucid-horror kind of way. But we'll see what happens, huh? Also worried about my parents. My dad hurt his back and has been in dreadful pain for weeks, and my mom's got the whole burden of caring for him. Wish I could be there to help, argh. But oof. Things are as they are. And there's snow!
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(3)
09:32:26 AM,Monday 21 February 2005
Dude, I've been here seven months, and I still haven't been to Queens, the Bronx, or Staten Island. Only made it out to Brooklyn three or four times, and that was ages ago. I need to get off this island and explore a little.
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(2)
03:40:39 PM,Friday 18 February 2005
Czech Neverwhere LARP! I love these people!
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03:16:41 PM,Friday 18 February 2005
Hey, how about something that doesn't involve ego-bound angst or self-pity for a change?
I went to a concert last night -- Mozart's Coronation and Great Masses (in C and C minor, respectively). My two favorite masses ever, on a double bill! It was sold out, but I stood on the standby line and wangled a hell of a seat: eight rows up on the left aisle, with an empty seat to my right. Someone near me was wearing that ubiquitous perfume which I haven't yet been able to identify -- all nauseating floral powdery sweet, yeeuch, and lingers for days -- but otherwise, it was unsurpassable. Aw, man, I wanna give an exhaustive review, but my replacement is here. Maybe later.
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08:19:01 AM,Friday 18 February 2005
Stupid to get bent out of shape like this. Bleh, mostly I'm just generically weepy in that hormones-and-sleep-dep kind of way. But it bothers me a lot that I can't seem to get a perfect score on any of the Kaplan verbal diagnostics. I guess I missed one on the official ETS version and they still scored it an 800, but goddamnit what's wrong with me? I know all these words. I'd like to think I can glean at least a shallow understanding of whatever passage of lame academic text you wanna give me. It's not like I'm running out of time; I've always got ten or fifteen minutes left by the end. Part of me wants to chalk it down to Kaplan's vague and dithery wrong answers, but part of it is undeniably simple bloody carelessness. Or I'm just a cretin, either way. Argh. If there's one thing I should be able to do right, it's take a freaking test of sense and relation with nothing to memorize and all the information I need right there in front of me. But I've taken eight of the things, and I ain't topped out yet. I'm pretty good at digging imperfection, y'know? In many, many things, most of all myself. I just want to be able to do one thing well. And I used to think I could and now I can't and it's starting to fracture my will. I don't need advice, I don't need bucking up. I know how things are and I'm making my peace with them. Eventually, though, it'd be nice to learn how to digest "even if you suck, you don't suck" well enough to stop gagging on it.
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(10)
08:11:15 AM,Friday 18 February 2005