“Monkey & Bear”

Oh, so much reading.  My shoulder hurts from the marathon of typing this evening.  Buh.

So, I’m not going to do anymore.

Edited to add: OK, what the hell?  So, the other day, I somehow got a piece of my own hair stuck in my teeth.  And just now I noticed that I had chocolate in my hair — like, way up by my ear.  It’s like the time I had a splinter that was actually a piece of my own hair.  How do I do these things?  They are so random and stupidly embarrassing.  Sorry if that was too much information, I just don’t know how I manage.

5 Things:

187.

Groceries.

Whole wheat pasta. Where have you been all my life?  Why didn’t anyone tell me you didn’t taste like cardboard?

Good workshop pieces.

Tea with milk and sugar.  It’s been a while since I’ve had any, and, oh, yes, lovely.

“Red Tide”

Holy moly, people.  Mad Men season finale was fantastic!  Seriously, how on earth to they do it? So good.

I got some good things done today, but not nearly as much as I wanted to do.  Story of my life, right.

And now some miscellany, because I promised.

Bird drops breadcrumb, damages Large Hadron Collider [via BoingBoing]. What? No, seriously, what? I couldn’t make this up if I tried. Which is why I love the universe, because it’s so much more bizarre than anything I could ever dream up.

Also on the WTF front, sex caused a woman’s short-term amnesia [also via BoingBoing]. I suspect that if they told kids this in sex-ed classes, abstinence might actually take. Don’t have sex, kids, it will rot your brains! Actually, scratch that. Abstinence will never take.

And, lastly, because you can never have too much surreal news: Bears in a German zoo are all losing their fur. They’re not sure why, but now you know what a bear would look like if you could get it to sit still long enough to shave it. Incidentally, according to Stephen Fry and the QI research team, when Victorian circuses claimed to have a pig-faced woman on display, it was actually a shaved bear in a dress and a wig. Why do I know these things?

5 Things:

Getting a full night’s sleep.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Breakfast of champions.

Middle Cyclone.  I know I’ve said it before, but Neko Case’s most recent album is completely stellar.  I love that woman.

Mad Men.  I know I already said it, but whoa.  And, um, apparently “whoa” isn’t spelled with a terminal “h.”  Why did I think it was?  I guess I am fallible, after all.

The slightly crazy kind of fatigue that borders on a manic episode.

“The First Taste”

2 Exorcist prequels in one night.  What an achievement.

Now I am going to sleep for a week.

5 Things:

Coffee with Bret.

Roland Barthes.

The cool twilight smell.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Gabriel Mann.

“Talking Talking”

What a good day!

I ran into Rachel this afternoon and we had lunch.  Then I went and got myself employed (thank God).  And then I went to a delightful party. Yay, Friday!

5 Things:

Not being unemployed.

Wrestling.

Watching Rachel kick Ozan’s ass at wrestling.

Chicken sandwiches.

Chocolate Frosty.

“I Am the Resurrection”

I didn’t really get a whole lot done today, but for whatever reason, I have a huge sense of accomplishment.  I suspect it’s mostly from a lot of printing things out and putting things in boxes, all that moving around of things which gives one a real tactile feeling of doing something.

And then, delightfully, I saw many lovely people and watched Project Runway.  We were all a littly loopy (ahem, some of us more than others), and Callie remarked that she felt like she hadn’t seen people in a week.  I knew exactly what she meant — even though I just had a nice social event the nice before, and it’s not like I’ve been totally isolated from humanity in general, there was just a profound sense of relief as today came to an end and I got to hang out with people I like.  Plus, Project Runway!

I have some good miscellany, but I’m going to hang onto it until the weekend, I think.  Then we’ll all have something to look forward to.

5 Things:

Napping through work.  I modeled lying down, so it’s not like I fell asleep at my desk.  And it was more like a doze, anyway.  But still.  Sleep is always a plus.

Sweet kitties.

Hot cocoa! Thanks, Janice!

Letting off steam.

This week’s Supernatural. Hilarious, but, incredibly, it also managed to move the plot forward in interesting ways.

“The Big Sleep”

After class this evening, a bunch of us went out to dinner.  It was the first time in a while that I’d done that, and it was really pleasant. The food was only so-so, but it was just good company and a nice change of pace.

I guess I have a general sense of relief, since my school week is over.  I still have work to do — oh so much work — but I always have this feeling that I can take a deep breath after I’ve made it through Wednesday evening.

That said, I’m kind of drained.  I have a lot of writing and paperwork-filling-out that I need to do in the near future, and every time I sit down to contemplate it, I start falling asleep.  Energy, where are you?

5 Things:

Coconut-scented shampoo.

To-do lists.

Crossing things off to-do lists.

Little orangey fried vegetable bite thingies.

The really bright moon.

“Brother”

Man, this is the second day in a row I’ve nearly gone to sleep without making a post.  Bad form.

Sad news today in the world of anthropology: Claude Levi-Strauss has passed away [via BoingBoing].  He was less than a month away from is 101 birthday.  I was talking to Michelle today, and we both agreed that we can’t really imagine what it would be like to not only be such a brilliant thinker, but also to live to such an advanced age — that just seems like more wisdom than one person could handle.  Tristes Tropiques is on my reading list in the near future.

No 5 Things today, because I need my beauty rest.  Sorry to disappoint.

“It Wasn’t Me”

Whoops!  Almost forgot to post today!  I was in bed and everything, on the brink of sleep when something in my book reminded me.

Jeff and I watched The Exorcist III today instead of doing work.  It was pretty awesome, actually, at least up until the last twenty minutes or so, and definitely more enjoyable than the book that I do not want to be reading right now.

No 5 Things, because I am tired.  So there.

“November Has Come”

I’ve got a few more pieces of macabre miscellany to unload before the Halloween season is completely out of sight.

First off, two articles about the website Find a Grave: one on CNN, the other on Slate [the latter via copperbadge].  I had no idea there was a whole “graver” movement.  I grew up near three cemetaries, and we’d hang out in the one behind my friend DeeDee’s house a lot.  That probably explains a lot, right?  Yeah, I was a morbid little kid.  Still am kind of morbid.

Speaking of which . . .  My mom sent me a link to an NPR piece that led me to Martin Scorsese’s 11 favorite horror movies. I’ve only seen a couple of these, but I guess this’ll give Jeff and me new fodder for our horror movie screenings. Particularly, The Uninvited looks awesome (though it has nothing to do with the other two horror movies of that name), and I really, really want to see The Innocents, because The Turn of the Screw was so creepy and I’m really curious to see what it looks like on film.

Another thing from that NPR article that I seriously want to add to my fantasy reading list is that lost Nabokov novel.  Apparently his last novel went unpublished after his death, and is now being produced not as a finished book but as a fascimile of the index cards on which he wrote.  This is awesome in so many ways.  Apparently, Nabokov would write his books out on index cards and then shuffle up a book for himself, and I’m really fascinated to see what his process was like.  Someone in the interview expresses shock that an entire novel could fit on 138 index cards, and I have to agree — what a brilliant mind, to be able to plan out all the themes and plot points and be able to conceive of the shape of the book from the very start.  Should be good.

5 Things:

Clear fall days.

The way the water dips right in front of your forehead when you’re swimming.

Finding good books.

30 Rock. Oh, Tina Fey, how I love you.

Pineapple.

“Small Town Witch”

Well, Halloween has come and gone.  It’s officially All Saints’ Day/Day of the Dead now.  I love autumn rites.  Except for daylight savings time, which always gets me all confused.  I think that’s happening Sunday, isn’t it?

Went over to Jeremy’s for a bit, dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, but I was feeling kind of low-energy, so I didn’t stay for all that long.  It was nice, though.  It was a nice walk to his place on a beautiful night and it was good to see people and hang out for a while.

As a last Halloween hurrah (and in lieu of my 5 Things), I give you a picture of my pumpkin, Bertha, all lit up on my balcony.  Spooky, right?

Happy Halloween, all!