sun sun sun here it comes

Until yesterday, I hadn't thought about The Sun in over four years. Marie's parents used to subscribe so it was always around her house when we were little, and then during the second semester of my senior year in high school I somehow rediscovered it online and became kind of quietly obsessed with it.

That semester my classes were a complete joke and between my second block "web design" class, third block "newspaper class" and fourth block slot as a "teacher's aide" I spent a lot of time reading Sun back issues online, annoyingly formatted in PDF form though they were. I was in charge of the school lit mag that year and the layout I designed (if you can even call it a "layout" and whatever I did to create it "designing") based on The Sun's black and white graphics and overlayed text.

I had completely forgotten about the magazine until yesterday when I saw a ripped-out Sun subscription card in our mail room. I checked the magazine and read the most recent version of Sy Safransky's Notebook which was always one of my favorite parts, but it'll take me a bit longer to decide whether it's still worth checking out or if it's just one of the many things that made my senior-in-high-school heart flutter that really just don't do it for me now.

(Included among those things: The Moldy Peaches, Donnie Darko, and a certain pair of mid-calf Report boots with Pocahontas/Daniel Boone-style fringe and a three-inch nubby rubber soul.)

the world is too tiny

I just clicked on a link in this post on Apartment Therapy NYC and was taken to their sub-page about Alluminare Lighting, which I then learned is located down the street from my apartment.

How is this possible?

this is pretty dumb

Because I am a fourteen year old boy, I have never been able to order fish tacos in restaurants. Ever. Like, even just thinking about ordering fish tacos made me giggle and spit all over myself in the process. So I just never did it. I was fine with this for most of my life but recently I began to see how inconvenient it was, especially after I started hearing about how amazing the fish tacos are at Taqueria where people at work seem to eat at least once or seven times a week.

In fact, they sounded so good that each time I've been there I've convinced myself that I would finally get over my stupid middle-school hangup and just order the damn thing already, but I've chickened out every time. Literally. I always go for the chicken.

Until today, that is. Today one of the specials was "blue corn fish tacos" which was FANTASTIC. Apparently the words "blue corn" in front of the words "fish tacos" were just what I needed to restrain that uncontrollable and terribly embarrassing snicker that I had so long feared would erupt from my mouth the moment I actually tried to say the words "fish tacos."

As it turns out, the blue corn fish tacos were TOTALLY DELICIOUS and I will probably order them every time I go to Taqueria for the rest of my life, which will probably total up to be many, many times. The most amazing part was how they were TOTALLY NOT LYING about the "blue corn" part, as the pieces of fish were actually breaded with ground up blue corn chips, so the fish was all blue and crunchy on the outside. BLUE AND CRUNCHY. AMAZING. I should have taken a picture. Maybe next time. BECAUSE THERE WILL TOTALLY BE A NEXT TIME. Many, many next times.

---

This is completely unrelated, but these are the words that my Firefox spell-checker suggests as alternatives to "Taqueria":

Vaquero's
Vaqueros
Vaquero
Equestrian
Marguerite

existential phantom limb

My biggest problem with being out of college so far isn't that I feel weird because I'm not always doing something. It's more that I feel weird because I'm not not always doing something. Beacuse, I have to be honest, I spent a lot of time procrastinating and putting things off and generally stalling when it came to school work. I eventually mostly got it all done but I never realized how much I enjoyed not getting work done. I actually don't know which I liked more, getting work done or not getting work done.

Here is a list of things that I can no longer enjoy in the same way because now when I do them I am doing them out of boredom and not because I don't want to do schoolwork:

- Watching TV
- Reading blogs and/or the internet in general
- Cleaning my room
- Balancing my checkbook
- Taking a shower
- Doing the dishes or laundry
- Going to Target or the grocery store or Ikea or anywhere
- Laying around and staring into space
- Cleaning out my ears
- Washing my feet just because they're a little dirty
- Watering my plants
- Organizing shirts in my closet by sleeve length

Etc. etc. etc.

Now I understand why post-college people get pets, or have babies, or take up hobbies that used to seem really weird to me, like gardening and yoga and book clubs and taking long walks and scrapbooking. Hopefully I won't have to resort to that, though. Especially the part involving babies. And scrapbooking.

failure at adult life #1

I've somehow made it all the way through my checking-account-holding life without a major crisis, at least not one that involved the words "completely," "totally," "utterly," "100%," and "overdrawn."

Until today, at least, when the check I wrote for my first month's rent at my apartment was cashed-- you know, that check that I was totally beside myself to finally write, to the point that I remember thinking, "I'm so excited! I hope I don't forget to write this in my registry!" Only I did forget. Completely forgot. Completely, totally, utterly, 100% forgot.

Fortunately I have an amazing credit union who I think saved my butt (or at least saved my check from bouncing) but unfortunately I didn't find out about this until after business hours today so I'm in this weird limbo state where I feel like a total moron and can't do anything about it until tomorrow morning. I mean, I'll probably feel really stupid about this for a while, but resolving the immediate situation would at least make me feel like somewhat less of a moron. A moron in control of her moronicness, at least.

I'm calling this entry "failure at adult life #1" but maybe it should be "failure at adult life #2" since technically I think getting pulled over for making an illegal left-hand turn out of a Wal Mart parking lot the day I graduated from college should really count as the first. Oh, well. Maybe if that asshole had given me a for real ticket instead of a warning. Not that I'm complaining.

Instead of letting myself totally freak out about this, I went on a little walk to my new bank (not the amazing credit union that saved my ass today, which makes me really sad/scared for the future, when I will inevitably do something ridiculous like this again) and made my first-ever ATM-facilitated deposit (very scary, I was convinced I was going to get mugged the whole time) and then took the long way home via the library where I tried to get a library card but was unable to because I lacked proof of county residence. Good thing my ATM experience was a positive one or else the very handsome West African librarian man at the front desk would have had on his hands one flipped-out crying white girl who just wanted to check her email and maybe get a few books ohh goddd why is life so hard?!?!

life update #2

Things that have changed in the last month:

- I no longer spend hours and hours per day/week thinking about Degrassi
- I have been given permission to call a number of my former professors by their first names
- I no longer get weird shivers up my spine whenever I think about what life after graduation will be like
- At my apartment I am surrounded by all my own stuff, all the time, with no one around to make me feel like I should clean up after myself, except myself (which is weird and kind of scary but fortunately I seem to be enough of a threat to myself that I have actually been keeping quite tidy)
- Instead of watching a stupid amount of cable TV, I now watch a stupid amount of rabbit ear antenna TV (though that was mostly last week when I had not much to do, and will probably change further once I decide between Netflix and Blockbuster Online)
- I have a bank account for the first time in my life, the whole obscure-credit-union-in-Tennessee not being so convenient to life in Decatur
- I drive two minutes, instead of twenty-plus minutes, to get to work (and most of that involves sitting at this one red light that seems to change every half hour)
- I have a different desk at work and I do (mostly, so far) different things at work, and I get to tell new people to do all the things I used to do
- I haven't been talking to Joe every single night for ever and ever because he's been in Europe and very much phoneless, except for this one payphone by some basilica in some tiny town in Italy (though things will thankfully get back to normal after he gets home this weekend)
- I saw The Devil Wears Prada after many many months of secretly wanting to very much

I am currently thinking about a) getting coffee and b) how to blog about my new weird life.

life update

- Graduated from college on Saturday
- Then drank the biggest beer of my life
- Was pulled over for making an illegal left turn (much later after the biggity beer)
- Got a warning
- Spent four hours at Ikea with Kelly Beckley
- Discovered the wonders of pomegranate flavored alcohol
- Slept like a baby
- Discovered the wonders of Crescent Moon Neighborhood Eatery
- Repotted spider plants
- Packed and cleaned
- Carried boxes to car down three flights of stairs out of old apartment
- Carried boxes from car up two flights of stairs into new apartment
- Familiarized self with weirdly tiny oddly shaped shower in new apartment
- Slept like baby again
- More boxes, more carrying
- Bagged up trash at old apartment
- Phonecall from Joe from a payphone next to a basillica in some Italian town he couldn't pronounce the name of
- Checked out of old apartment
- Recycled
- DeKalb Farmer's Market-ed
- Finished movie to review for Paste
- Currently accessing internet by less than legal means, probably won't have regular access until next week, call me if you need me

dropcloth like it's hot

My parents and Joe came down yesterday and we moved most of my furniture and a few odd boxes of things over to my new apartment. Then we painted. Or rather, my mom mostly painted and the rest of us kind of stood around and watched her. I get to tackle the "dining nook" sometime this week. Uh, wish me luck.

I feel like I went and dumped all my stuff off at someone else's place and that I'll never see it again. I kind of kept forgetting about yesterday before it happened and I kind of keep forgetting that I'm actually going to be living there soon, once all this pesky school stuff is done with. (I'll be done by Tuesday and graduated by Saturday. Weird? Yes.)

maybe I should get sick more often

Since I last wrote, I have accomplished the following:

- Went to my last college class ever
- Finished, edited, and delivered my thesis to my reading committee
- Saw (The?) Arcade Fire after waffling about going all afternoon but then deciding that if Win Butler could slog through a sinus infection for three weeks and then have to cancel his tour and have sinus surgery, then I could definitely make it through one show (and it was totally worth it)
- Kind of maybe sort of arranged for my gas/electricity to get switched on/off for my various apartments
- Took five rolls of film of Miriam dressed as a mall goth-y Goldilocks for my final photo project
- Had my own photo awkwardly taken in graduation garb with Oglethorpe's Provost and Director of Alumni Relations for the DeKalb Neighbor
- Developed said five rolls of film, printed contact sheets, and printed my 8 required photos for my final project
- Went grocery shopping

To be honest, I think it was all the decongestants that I was popping every 6 hours. I'm probably feeling a lot better today because I stopped taking them this morning, though, so I guess I should now expect my productivity to drop off while my general well-being continues to improve. Maybe?

Aside from the fact that it contains 32% of the recommended daily serving of sodium, Campbell's tomato & rice soup isn't all that bad.

from senioritis to sinusitis

I have a sinus infection. I suspected that this would happen although I certainly was not planning to be so swiftly struck down by it on today of all days: the day I have to finish my thesis, the day I have to buy photography product supplies, the day I have to collect all of the information for the senior pages of the Petrel, the day of the Arcade Fire concert, the last day of class of my college career.

I have drugs. I have Odwalla C Monster juice from the bookstore that says "ENJOY BY 14 APR 2007" which I only realized after buying it, so I am not currently enjoying it. I have Halls Defense Vitamin C Supplement Drops. I have a thesis conclusion to write and 60-something pages to edit. I have a very tight schedule to maintain. I don't know why I am blogging about this. I think because my head is about to explode and I cannot concentrate on anything else.

I haven't been sick during school since first semester of junior year. WHYYYYYY.

Edit: A frenzied talk with my academic/thesis/life advisor, vitamin C, raspberry Dasani water, crazy jittery-making decongestants, and Sigur Ros may just pull me through (the thesis part, at least).