Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood

I am a cat person. Dogs do not make sense to me. I understand cats; they make sense to me. Crocheting also makes sense to me. I was meant to be an old maid from the minute I was born.

I dislike confronting physics material that I don't understand. I understand alcohol somewhat; I understand weed significantly more. My point being: The extent to which I like something is directly proportional to how much I understand it.

But let me introduce the contrary. Take, for example, the White Stripes. I barely understand the White Stripes, and yet I like them very much.

So now I have no point whatsoever.

I won a Spanish award today.

Gin and Gin

The reunions of my mother's family have predominantly involved cold beaches and card games and alcohol. This one was no exception.

My grandparents had been told of one of their closest friend's death the morning of the day we arrived, so my grandma went through crying spells and my grandpa went on a bender.

"I've had too much to drink, Bugsy," he said, using his pet name for me and my mother. He put an arm around my shoulder.

"I lost my best friend in the world today," he said with new treble in his voice. He looked down at me. "You knew Sarky," he distantly said.

I did not know Sarky. I nodded.

He looked back ahead of him, eyes glassy. "But tomorrow's a new day," he said flatly. He took a slug of his gin and set it on the counter.

"C'mere, Ivy," he said, motioning to my cousin. He wrapped his arm around her and squeezed us tightly, looking down at us. "I think I have the prettiest granddaughters in the world."

Apple?

There is absolutely nothing else to be said about the Pirates of the Caribbean saga. Pirates 3 was great in every way that it should have been great. I really don't care about what made it bad. It's wonderfully simple.

Keith Richards is indisputably the coolest man I can think of; seeing him as a pirate was overwhelmingly cool. I was drowning in cool, choking on the cool filling up my lungs. You must be ready.

While I was in the theater, I got this strange feeling, like a pining to go on a date. A movie date - I wanted to do the whole awkward progression into contact and sheepish smiles and grabbing during scary parts and kissing. It was spontaneous and unwarranted, interrupting my normal craving for a mature relationship.

I wonder if I've been wasting my high-school years. Maybe all this time, I should have been making out with people I hardly knew while zombies sought brains on the silver screen.

I think it's too late now.

Free Spin

Finking about fings, but not actually doing those fings.

My grandparents are here. When my grandparents come, we play a lot of card games and my grandpa watches a lot of TV and my grandma cleans everything. I realize that I really don't identify with my grandparents at all, which is understandable but a little sad.

Here is a poem. It's not about me, because I don't like it when anyone calls me on the telephone.

I like it when you call me on the telephone;
I'll make all these colors in your voice my own, and
my heart is only small, like a berry not quite ripe,
but we could share it if you'd like

Q: Are plantar warts cool?
A: No.

Here We Go (Or Not)

I would rather do many things than fill out my senior profile right now. I can't even put a pen to it. I'm worried I'll break out in a rash if I even try to squeeze myself into the lines they've provided for me.

Q: Would it be good to find the peer review that is vital to a decent recommendation letter from my advisor?
A: Yes.

Gray Matter

I can imagine my brain in my head right now, red and ropy like scar tissue or overchewed gum. My brother dicked around with my Magnetic Poetry box and I nearly blew out the circuiting in my brain with panic sweat. I'm so exhausted.

Jesus. I just looked at a picture of one of my old schoolmates and he looked like a smoky old movie star. It was his jawline and his suitjacket, both so sharp. I feel like I just got spun around in my chair really fast. It took me so off guard.

Panic So Charming, What the Fuck Style

I'm losing my shit. I'm awaiting an in-class essay tomorrow like I was going to have my leg removed by axe 1/4" at a time. I'm running away from homework assignments like they were scorpions.

Watch me eat shit and lose straight As in these last four weeks. Watch it happen.

Moo

I worry that I might be the worst type of vegetarian, the one without any sort of drive or principle. I stopped eating meat some two years ago because I don't really like meat. I dislike it because of what makes it obvious that it's flesh - gristle, bones, etc. - and I know that eating animals is essentially unethical, but I haven't been able to get myself to believe it yet. I probably wouldn't feel any moral repercussions in eating a thick hamburger right now, even as its pink juices flowed down my chin.

I've stranded myself here on the Great Cosmic Boca Burger with no purpose. I feel like a tool.

We the Beige

there must be a flaw in the simple life,
he said, like falling on your own knife
or something like that -

he is using my tweezers to pry the safety off of his lighter and we are rebels,
daredevils; we are dangerous.

Negative Nancy

One night, I was trying to fall asleep to no avail. I lay in bed for a long time before sitting up suddenly, turning on the light and writing down a list of the things I hate. I went right to sleep afterwards. I figured any blog is incomplete without a list of things that the blogger hates.

1. Chalkboards
2. Pigeons
3. The smell of tar
4. Yearbook pictures
5. Licorice-flavored jellybeans
6. People reading over my shoulder
7. Chapstick that's been rolled out of its tube a lot
8. Humans
9. Awful grammar
10. Fluorescent lights
11. The mega-player-hater who has taken the time to remove all the flyers publicizing a tiny shitty literary magazine
12. Mayonnaise
13. Dry skin
14. High-schoolers wearing college sweatshirts
15. Those painful zits that lurk under your skin
16. Referring to someone as "we" (e.g. "Well, how are we doing today?")
17. Wide-ruled binder paper
18. Being interrupted while in the shower

Check back for updates if you actually care about what I hate.

No More Acid for the Japanese

I'm just sitting here with my PS2 controller, watching my video game alter ego roll over canned coffees and organ monkeys and toilet paper and croissants and lipsticks and superglue and water pistols and mah-jongg pieces and mice and newspapers and bottles of detergent, and in the back of my head, like a dull pulse, is a constant "What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck."

The game is called Katamari Damacy and it's epic. It's a monument in the history of nonsense, a glorious nod to lysergic acid diethylamide, and it's probably nothing else.

Here is its premise.

You are the son of the King of the Cosmos (let's not even get into how he's dressed). This King has managed to knock all of the stars out of the sky, and you need to replace them. You do this by rolling up stuff with a sticky ball, which the King then shoots into the sky.

That's it, and it's baffling me.

My problem is that I can't really believe that the game exists. The nonsense is astronomical (no bad pun intended) and I can't believe that it could ever be harnessed, coming to life in a little disc. It's making my eyes cross.

I'm about to roll down the biggest fucking pants in the universe with my little sticky psychedelic crisis, and all I can do is hope that, against all odds, it doesn't snowball.

Polar Bear on the Rocks

It's hot. No, it's fucking hot.
It's May and this doesn't feel right.

I'm waiting for my cat to die. I'm waiting for the heat to choke her, to cook her little body, for her breath to stop rising and falling underneath her black fur.

It's too hot.

Section 1

The essay gives you an opportunity to show how effectively you can develop and express ideas within the time it takes some people to poop. You should, therefore, take care to develop your point of view, present your ideas logically and clearly, and use language precisely.

Assignment: Does human life have any significance on a cosmic or metaphysical scale? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this gigantically complicated issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

Men of the Hour

They were great, but noticeably unanimated (or just overshadowed in that department by Be Your Own Pet).

The British fog was so thick I couldn't understand a word the lead said.

Love it.