Crazy Love

A List of Today's Better Stuff:

1. Excellent cup of Columbian. I went to the Cyber Cafe to hang out with Kirsten, Mia, and Dan and I conceded to what I thought would be a mediocre cup of coffee. It was actually delicious--a medium roast with a rich presence and a charming (and weirdly nutty) aftertaste.

2. Room Decor. I decided earlier today that I'd like to hang some imported burlap coffee sacks around my half of the room. I'm working on getting some from Costa Rica and some from Columbia, my favorites. Figuring out where to hang them will be an issue. But they will make our room look so much more worldly. We already have a creased National Geographic map behind our futon. Let's kick it up a notch.

3. I wash my hands of "The Laramie Project." After an entire year, I am finally finished with this play. Unfortunately I misplaced the script before I had the opportunity to cite it at the end of my paper. Eesh. I didn't even get to say goodbye!

4. Hearing his voice. Little Bunny got a phone call from her Puma today. We talked about ham cubes at Ponderosa and Poison t-shirts and whatnot. Nothin' but a good time.

5. Quality time with Ellis. I finally have my guitar back at school after a terrible musical dry spell. I played through some of my old songs and it felt so great. I'm in love again. I just moistened a washcloth and rolled it up in the case to keep it from drying out. Such a drought in this room. I'm reminded of the song that I wrote from a translation from this Indian text: "The monsoon had come and was gone for a song/The rivers are dry as these hours are long." Just a little excerpt. The original text was about a woman waiting for her lover to return after the monsoon season. I adapted it to describe my creative drought. I think that was the lyric--it looks wrong logistically or something. Whatever. I pay my own bills.

6. Having a party. Roommate, Mia and I are planning a party for this Thursday night. At the library today we found a Lifetime DVD combo pack--"Mom at 16" and "Too Young to be a Dad" so we're going to borrow a projector from our hall and show them in one of our lounges on a big screen this Thursday night. We're making everyone wear pajamas and we'll probably carry on like a bunch of idiots. I'm excited:

Christine: I'll bring the nailpolish!
Me: I'll bring Tiger Beat!
Adam: I'll bring...testosterone!

And alas, I have discovered the missing sleepover ingredient that I was lacking in my youth.

7. Toxic B-Movie Meltdown! I bought two awful B-movies today at Marc's. One of them is called "The Bat" starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead (I know, right!). The tagline is "When it flies, someone dies!" Then I got "Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical" starring David Hasselhoff on DVD. Wicked awesome.


I need to find the two books that I misplaced. This is really strange. What's my problem?

Wrapped Up in Books

I had one of those perfect mornings today. My alarm sounded at 9:00 but I was still feeling lethargic so I turned it off and slept for exactly five more minutes. It was great. Then I rolled over and grabbed Rita Dove from my bookshelf. I spent about a half an hour turning her pages under my heavy down comforter with my cat nestled beside me in one of its thick white billows. The introduction that Ms. Dove wrote for her anthology was a sort of childhood recollection that reminded me so much of myself when I was younger. Shy and precocious and fuelled by literature. She did all of the same things I did--memorizing all of the titles on the shelves and being able to spot the new additions every week, beaming excitedly over a stack of books "chin-high" at the circulation desk.

I was so inspired that I felt motivated to head over to my library. I took a very nice, quick shower (I usually try to stay under seven minutes--water conservation and all) and had a cup of fresh black coffee. Then I threw on a sweater vest and my sister's old Airwalks and headed off to be a bookish little nerd.

There was a Friends of the Library Sale today so I headed in there first and looked through all the titles for some gems. I actually found a lot of great stuff but I didn't feel like spending too much money today because my funds are kind of tight lately since I don't have regular income at the moment. I found "Love Liza" on VHS for fifty cents. Since I'm in love with Philip Seymour Hoffman, I bought it. The movie actually is very well done but completely depressing. Still, it was fifty cents! And it's Philly! Then I took a chance on a novel called "Death Rat!" by Mike Nelson. It looks completely hysterical. The cover looks like an old 60's b-movie poster and the inside of the jacket described what could be a truly delightful literary romp. The prize that I found was a copy of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers which I've been meaning to read for some time now. So now I have this giant list of books that I need to get through. I think this summer I'm going to try to read one or two a week--I'll make a calendar or something.

There was a big case with a bunch of the classics in it and I was paging through Ptolemy and Aquinas and then I really wanted to crack open Plato so I did and there were about three little cards tucked inside the front cover. So I started to read them. They were these really personal love notes from this guy named Paul to his lady, Deb. Some of the things he wrote made me blush. Actually, it sounds like they had quite a tumultuous relationship. Two of the cards said things like "Deb, I love you I love you I love you I love you. I never ever ever meant to hurt you that way. Please keep me" and he also quoted a song--I'm sure of it--but I couldn't place which song it was. I just knew that the words sounded way too familiar to be original. Then in one of them (a valentine) Paul said "I can't want to see you in that new teddie that you've been telling me about. You're so beautiful. Please wear it tonight." It was crazy! I kind of wanted to take the cards out of the book and carry them around and maybe use them in a poem or something. But I felt like a creep reading them in the first place so I just tucked them back in. I don't know how you could give away a book (especially Plato) without leafing through it or anything. Maybe Paul and Deb broke up and the books were a gift from Paul so Deb wanted to throw them out so she wouldn't have to think about him when she looked at her bookshelf. After all, the cards were addressed to her and they were obviously very comfortably tucked in that gathering place inside the cover.

So anyway I went into the library after that and picked up a few things:

Southern Culture on the Skids "Mojo Box." A guy I was in a play with recommended this band to me. I couldn't remember how I'd heard of them when I saw this CD on the rack but now I remember that it was him. I kind of miss him so I picked it up. He has a folk radio show now. They probably don't ever play Southern Culture on the Skids.

R.E.M "Automatic for the People." My sister had this CD growing up and I used to steal it. So now I'm gonna burn my own copy.

Rocket From the Crypt "Group Sounds." I'm actually revisiting this album. It's fresh. Good summer music--they definitely sound like a bunch of hard rocking Californians.

R.E.M. "In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003." What can I say? Michael Stipe's voice makes me feel human.

Sam Cooke "Portrait of a Legend 1951-1964." Anyone who doesn't like Sam Cooke doesn't know what it feels like to love.

Then I picked up a giant book called "In Style: Weddings" upon my mother's request because of my sister's wedding. I felt really weird carrying it around. Usually when I'm at the library I try to give off an "I'm a young intelligent single woman" vibe just in case a charming gentleman wishes to discuss the finer points of whatever CD or book or film I have tucked under my arm. So today I have this HUGE coffee-table-sized book with WEDDINGS in giant letters onthe front cover. I can't hide it. Actually I can't even tuck it under my arm because it's so big. So for a while I feel like a bride-to-be which is pretty funny because all I'm doing is floating in and out of rows of bookshelves with little conviction in my step and frankly with nothing important on my mind. I'm sure that in a couple of months I'll be a little less carefree when my duties as Maid of Honor start to stack up. But for now I guess it's kind of cool to casually tote a book about weddings without worrying about how napkins are going to be folded and which flowers are going to be in season and which gifts are appropriate to give to the wedding party.

For now, I am going to settle in and get some studying done. Then I think I'd like to go thrifting. I feel so calm today.

On the Fly

I'm going to try writing a song in this blog--I've got my guitar in front of me and I feel some stuff rising up so here it is:

I don't believe that you are real
Most of the time
The sincerity in your eyes
convinces me otherwise

We meet in streetlit parking lots
Most of the time
But it never feels temporary when I'm with you
My fingers close the door and yours lock mine

And we're not wasting time
We're not wasting time

This kind of thing happens in the movies
All of the time
The two of us make a slow motion montage
sweeping across the screen in black and white

We share a jawline and pulse
When we've got time
Kissing at stoplights, studying friction
Making the truth more real than fiction

And we're not wasting time
No, we're not wasting time

Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key

Every now and then I run across a poem that speaks so strongly to me in a certain moment. The poem that I am posting today arrived into my life this afternoon as I was leafing through books of poetry at Parma Regional Library. There was a middle-aged bespectacled man with kind eyes standing on the other side of the shelf and we smiled at one another over the stacks and when I looked down this was staring up at me:

His shirt

does not show his
true colors. Ice-

blue and of stuff
so common

anyone
could have bought it,

his shirt
is known only

to me, and only
at certain times

of the day.
At dawn

it is a flag
in the middle

of a square
waiting to catch

chill light.
Unbuttoned, it's

a sail suprised
by boundless joy.

In candlelight at turns
a penitent's

scarf or beggar's
fleece, his shirt is

inapproachable.
It is the very shape

and tint
of desire

and could be mistaken
for something quite

fragile and
ordinary.

-Rita Dove


I had the opportunity to meet Rita Dove two weeks ago and I missed it. I was completely heartbroken for a while and I picked up this book today as a kind of sweet penance. But after reading this poem, I feel like I've already met her and like she knows me and what I think every second of every day. Especially lately.

I think I'm going to be alright this weekend.

Our Own Personal Hailstorm

Christine and I made a run for Borders today. I was pissed off because I checked online for all of the stuff I wanted and they only had one of the three items I went there for. And last night on the website they said that they had all three in stock! Bastards.

So I got the Awards Edition of "American Beauty" which is the one thing I really asked for for my birthday and the one thing I didn't get. They didn't have "Raise the Red Lantern" or "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"--well, actually they had the latter but it was $29.99 and that's rubbish. My gift card was for $30 and there was no way I was spending it on one DVD that I could get at Best Buy for $16.00. At least buying the one DVD got me a coupon for 30% off my next purchase. So now I can go to another Borders and save more money. I rule!

Anyway, the reason for this post is not to discuss my frugality or my frustration with chain bookstores. Nay, this post is significant for another reason.

On the way home, me and Christine were on the highway and I was just chilling in the passenger seat, rockin' to Kanye West and all of a sudden this slew of tiny little rock things poured down on us from above. It was coming off the top of this big ugly dirty semi that was chugging along in front of us. So we accelerated and tried to pass on the left and as we were passing I looked up to see the idiot who was driving the giant jalopy of spewage and it was this disgusting trucker who happened to be looking right at me. Like, his head was turned and he was staring me in the face. So what could I do? I looked up at him and smiled. Then he pulled on that chain thing and honked his horn.

The dude was disgusting and creepy. He had a terrible long, dark, unkempt beard ala ZZ Top and these giant aviator sunglasses. And his smile. Oh, his creepy, creepy smile. So I waved as we went past. And then I cowered into the soft grey fibers of my seat and wept softly as Kanye spit the second verse of "Golddigger."

I Make Myself Soar (and Sore.)

I'm on quite a high right now. I actually got to sleep in today for a change. I had some trippy dreams last night which is bizarre because I don't usually remember my dreams and I hate dreaming to begin with. Oh well. I woke up and everything was cool--I definitely sat up in bed though to see if the dude who tried to kill my parents was still bleeding on the floor after I had cut the tendons behind his knees. That was seriously one of my dreams.

A friend of mine once told me that there are still countries in the world where they make "yes or no" decisions by slashing the tendons behind the knees of one of the village peasants and if he falls forward the answer is yes and if he falls backwards the answer is no. Granted, this girl who told me this is the same girl who said that you can rearrange the letters in Michael Eisner's name to spell "Lucifer" but I still thought it was an interesting concept.

So anyway I had a bit of a sore throat this morning but I still had a lot of energy. I finally wrote a new song last night which was a good note to fall asleep on. I'm quite proud of the song really. I think he wants to be played slow. I'm not 100% sure yet though. Maybe I should slice through a peasant's tendons to decide.

I actually "worked-out" today. I wanted to listen to records and figured since I had all of this pent-up energy that I should burn some of it. So I jogged for a while on this small trampoline that we have at home (or the Urban Trainer as my mom and I call it) and worked with a few small weights and then I did a lot of yogic stuff for my muscles. I made it through two records before I quit. I could have gone longer I think but I have a short attention span I guess. I listened to NIN's "With Teeth" and the Police's "Outlandos D'Amour" which are excellent work-out albums. It's a hell of a lot better than sweating to the oldies.

That reminds me. Yesterday in the cars I was in at different times I randomly checked the radio to see if they were in fact still playing crap, and I ran into three Beach Boys songs. This was in a span of about six hours. And it wasn't like "Don't Worry Baby" or "God Only Knows." They were playing "California Girls" and "Surfin' USA" and "Kokomo." And I got so pissed. Because it's Cleveland. And I don't want to think about Kokomo. And they never play the Beach Boys this much during other times of the year when it's actually appropriate. I don't want to think about bodies in the sand and tropical drinks melting in my hand. It's depressing.

Right now I'm absorbing some new music. Yesterday I grabbed some stuff at the library again. In case anyone is curious, here's the list:

Common- "Be." I'm a big fan of Common. I was really into his one album "Like Water for Chocolate" a few years ago. This one is great as well. Not as good as the aforementioned though. Kanye stepped in and changed things around a bit.

Misfits- "Walk Among Us." I've been casually involved with the Misfits for awhile and last year my cousin's band opened a show for them and I got excited about them again, even though they are just way too old right now. Aging punks are depressing. They should all die young. Anyway, it was pretty shameful that I didn't have this album. So now I do.

The Concretes- "The Concretes." I was physically attracted to this CD because of its cover art, which reminded me of the art on the liner notes of the Wilco album "A Ghost is Born." I don't think they're connected since Wilco is on Nonesuch and the Concretes are on Astralwerks. Although Brian Eno did do some work with David Byrne on Nonesuch...and stop the dorkiness. Anyway, I made a good choice. The album is really easy and smart--a cool surf-beat on the drums and some tasteful guitar work. And the lead vocalist sounds tasty. Sometimes you can tell just by looking at a person..er, album.

Over the Rhine- "Ohio." My friend James recommended this album to me over a year ago. I really do enjoy Over the Rhine. They're one of those bands that I get cravings for. And this album is just superb. It's so much more powerful and packs a much more artistic punch than "Drunkard's Prayer." I'm in love.

Iron & Wine- "The Sea & the Rhythm." Greatest ever. This one's just an EP and after I brought it home I realized that I'd already heard all of the songs on it. But really it's good. And beards are good too.

And now some really great stuff that's written in the liner notes from Over the Rhine's "Ohio:"

"Like love, a voice can flood a life with possibility, the mouth of a river flowing from somewhere faraway yet familiar."

"We don't listen much to our own records after they get made, but we find ourselves replaying again and again many of the conversations that take place underneath and around those songs. We talked abotu Bob Dylan Starter-Kits and Tom Waits Finishing School. Sweaty hickey parties and haunted pianos with broken hearts. Shock and awe, oil and joy. We talked about how we're often more interesting when we're misunderstood. And about God, and meditation, and the waitress at the Greek restaurant. We talked about the fact that we had 21 new songs and not one damn hit."

And now I want to get back into the studio.

Start Me Up

I should have named my car. I feel like I'm trapped in the final moments of some terrible Lifetime movie called "She's Too Young to Die" or something. And I'm standing over my 2000 Seafoam Blue Toyota Echo with a fistful of black and with a furrowed brow and just one tear creeping down my cheek and settling on my quivering lip.

So I lay the flowers down on the frosted hood and I turn around and bite my lip and curse at the sky. "I never even knew her name. I never even knew her name!"

Alright so maybe it's not over yet. The truth of the matter is that I've been trying all day to start my car and all she's giving me are these pathetic churning sounds and little ejaculatory revs that hiss dejectedly when I turn my key and remove it from the ignition.

Thankfully, I'm at home tonight. So my dad was just able to do man tricks on it or something a few minutes ago and get it into the garage. I'm concerned though. I love this car. Yea, she's little but she's all I've known. And I've been through a lot in her. And let's not forget--she's only six years old! She's a baby! And a Japanese baby at that! The Japanese don't age! Look at Ken Watanabe for Pete's sake.

Maybe I should name my car Watanabe. Or Akira. Akira would be a cool name for a car. I hope it's not too late to give it a name. I'm gonna do better this time. I'm gonna do like Queen Latifah in "Last Holiday." I'm gonna dress Akira up in a white faux fur pimp coat and take her out to eat at really great restaurants and I'm gonna let her pick the music for once because frankly, I do tend to bogart the radio. And I'm gonna clean out her trunk and get rid of all those old copies of Scene Magazine and all of those blankets and empty bottles that have been festering up in there for so long.

And I'm gonna tell her I love her. Dammit I'm gonna tell her I love her.

Shaking in the Wind

It sounds so violent outside right now. The wind is just assaulting. I actually feel a little nervous and frightened, which sounds silly, but I guess all the horror movies I've seen since I was a kid have conditioned me to expect bad things to rise up with the wind.

I didn't have the greatest of mornings today. And it's strange because I think in the back of my mind I knew it was going to be that way when I went to bed last night. I listened to the Smiths and the last song I heard before bed was "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground. As much as I love that song for what it is, I just don't think it's a good one to fall asleep to. I woke up and dressed myself in black from head to toe. Then I cracked the blinds and saw the rain.

I don't feel the need to talk about why my morning was so poor or why I fell asleep this afternoon in the dark with the stereo on and then again with the television on. I woke up from a really bizarre dream and ended up feeling even worse than I did when I first lied down.

Katy and I finished up the screenplay that we're working on this afternoon. It's funny. I'm proud of it. I can't wait to produce it. After that we walked together to the Book & Bean and skipped over puddles and acted like wee school girls. She's really an awesome girl. So I made a purchase at the B&B and then we scurried back to the hall.

I don't have much to say really. Nothing of consequence. I am floating over and through things right now. I feel as though I am lying belly up in a warm swimming pool in late summer. At night when the streetlights surround me this sensation is heightened. And with the wind blowing against my back and pushing me forward I feel light. I feel a stronger connection with nature in this type of weather. I want to cling to the wet grass and stand in the puddles of rain on the sidewalk until the stagnant water soaks through the canvas of my tennis shoes. I think it's because everything feels so temporary at this time of year. The sun, the rain, the snow--it's all so fleeting. You can't count on it. So when you get it, you make the most of it.

When something special comes around you make the most of it and you never take it for granted. And it's always completely worth the wait. I think I learned that more than once this week.

Schmalentine's Day

February 13th, 2004: "Tomorrow is Valentine's Day/Singles Awareness Day. It's interesting to see how Valentine's Day has become such a parody of itself. If you're not making fun of Valentine's Day, you're taking it too seriously.

February 14th, 2005: "I probably shouldn't say this but I have three "valentines" this year. I don't know which one of my gentleman callers I'd like to eat barbecue with first...Yea not really. I mean, I do and I don't, but not really. Follow? Me either. It's a shame that even though I have three valentines, I'll probably be stuck in my room tonight alone watching movies. What a waste of a night off. Oh well. It's a day. A DAY for Pete's sake. I'm cooler/better/awesomer than any day."

Those are quotes from my old blog. I felt the need to comment on Valentine's Day since it happens tomorrow. I'm sure most people I know expect me to maintain my cynical perspective and to continue my tradition of bashing the day with firey resentment. Things are a little different this year though.

Normally I would live the day as any other day and only acknowledge its existence if one of my friends spontaneously asked me to rap on it. And I'd say how ridiculous the whole thing is. Because it really is. If there's one thing I can't stand more it's something that's been fabricated solely to evoke false sentimentality. It's why I can't stand Nicholas Sparks. Everything he writes is written to force his reader to feel a certain way. I hate being forced to feel. I hate things that are "touching." So to me Valentine's Day has always been deplorable.

This year I can't hate February 14th because I actually have some special plans that I'm very excited about. They're sort of vague at the moment but the important thing is that I'm going to spend time with a dynamite fellow. I still hate Valentine's Day--don't worry. But now it's more of a streamlined hatred that allows for me to actually enjoy myself in the face of all of that blatant pink and red and lacey adversity.

There are a few things that I enjoy about Valentine's Day. For one, I really do like those Necco Brand Conversation Hearts although I'm finding that anymore they are bending over backwards a bit too far to accomodate for my generation's flash-in-the-pan slang. When I pull out a powdery little purple heart and see "TEXT ME" stamped on it, I cringe a little bit. I think this year Necco has a Neil Young fan because I ate one the other day that said "♥ OF GOLD." No complaints about that one.

I think I'm going to lie down on roomie's futon and watch a movie. We've had it folded down in its "bed-mode" for about a week now and it's great. Very Austin Powers, only without the shagging. Mostly it's just cool to sprawl out and read in a giant pile of pillows and blankets.

I'm 99% sure that roomie and I are getting an apartment next year. I'm excited. We're soul mates.

I need a haircut in a major way. I barely have curls anymore and I look really shaggy. I have to wait until Saturday though for my appointment. Bummer!

It's so cold outside. My face hurts.

I Love the Hades

A truly excellent birthday so far and it's not even 5:00 yet.

I think the Maelstrom meeting was my favorite part of the day. I've really found my niche with these folks. Last year I knew I wanted to be a part of their elite little group of exclusivists the day I was forced to attend the Student Activities Fair and I saw them all sitting cross-legged in a corner with a guitar and a case full of satire. I naturally gravitated towards them and we've been orbiting happily together ever since.

It doesn't bother me anymore that we don't get funding. I'm so happy with this publication and I can't believe that in a short year I went from the youngest staff writer in history to the co-editor-in-chief. I'm so happy. Maelstrom is the best thing that's happened to me at school.

Now I've got to run out. I'll edit later.

EDIT:
I won second place!
My previously posted essay on being in love with the pudgy choir boy ended up winning second place in the Cleveland Free Times Valentine's Day essay contest. I didn't win anything concrete, but it's pretty cool to be printed, especially in one of my favorite publications.

Right now Pumpkin and Honey Bunny are talking about robbery! I love "Pulp Fiction" a lot.

I got the cake I wanted. My dad went to my favorite local bakery and picked up a small cassata cake and had it written on for me. So sweet of him. I think tonight is going to be a movie/cake night. I think I feel like watching "Seven Samurai." Although ABC Family is showing "Cruel Intentions" tonight which I just can't even begin to comprehend. That movie is such smut--it's the kind of movie that tries so hard to be overtly sexual that it becomes laughable. Maybe I'll watch it.

For now, I'm gonna clean my area and have a nap. Keep on rockin' in the free world.

No other label will do...

Today I got a call from a politician friend of mine. It was about 10:30. The roomie and I were just having a good time watching "Swingers" in honor of my birthday next week. (It's the tenth anniversary of the first time I saw that film--it's a film that had a profound effect on the way that I watch movies.)

So anyway this fella called and asked if I wanted to "wander around" with him. He was in the Giant Eagle at the time, holding a loaf of Italian bread he said. And he wanted me to meet him there so we could sit outside and eat the bread. He even described his attire, apparently trying to seduce me from my comfy lair. A cowboy hat, a pair of Nike sweatpants, and a Thundercats t-shirt. (The sad thing is, it almost worked.)

Seriously though. Weird call. "Come out and wander around with me and eat this loaf of dry bread." I love it. I love imagining what it would have been like if I'd actually gone. I see us sitting on a tree lawn watching a bunch of drunken idiots swaggering and howling around Beech Street. And we'd eat about three slices of the bread and then get tired of it and go to Coe Lake and throw it in for the sunfish and the ducks. Although I don't think there are many ducks at Coe Lake this time of year.

I'm thrilled that my apartment next year is going to be near the lake. Like, right on the lake. And the Berea library is just a mere fifty paces past the steps to the bank. I cannot wait to revel in my geeky glory. Usually I have to walk a while to get there and the weather is so bizarre that there have been times when it starts raining just as I reach the boardwalk. I need to stop writing about this. I'll get cabin fever.

I actually have plans on my birthday this year. Usually I stay in, watch a movie, and lay low until someone calls and rousts me out. I'm a bit of a hermit I guess and birthdays are never very different. This year it's off to dinner and to see "Rent." I think my eighteenth was the lamest birthday ever. I dressed up and waited for someone to call and then when nobody did I locked myself in the basement and watched "Lost in Translation" in the dark...in FULLSCREEN. Eewwww.

I'm so tempted to head out for a walk right now. Campus is scary on Thursday nights though. Don't want to be found all swollen and strangled underneath the fountain in Coe Lake.

Yea, sorta like her...

This week at our Maelstrom meeting we agreed on whoring ourselves out for a special "Blind Date" issue. Readers who are interested in dating any of our staff writers are supposed to send e-mails to us with 75 words on why they want to get with us. Then we have to go on dates with these people and report on it. Completely bizarre, eh? Instead of putting our pictures in Maelstrom, we're all submitting photos of "look-alike" celebrities. I've narrowed down my search to three, based on the suggestions of my staff:

Lisa Loeb. I can see it I guess. We both have glasses and we wear scarves and yes, there was a time when I found the film "Reality Bites" to be completely life-changing, on a more pathetic level than Loeb who basically owes her face to Ethan Hawke for giving "Stay" a shot. I think she was 19 at that time or something and she didn't have a recording contract or anything. That was a total digression. Anyway we're both folk/pop musicians. I don't straighten my hair or anything so cool like that but I think I'm sweeter than her because I'm not obsessed with Hello Kitty trinkets.

Tina Fey. I get this one the most--people have actually told me, unprompted, that I remind them of Tina Fey. I take this as a pretty high compliment because she's pretty kickass. We both rock the satirical humor thing,we have a similar smirk, and of course the trademark specs help. This picture is a total glamour shot but her hair is more like mine in it so I chose this one. Her dress is so friggin' shiny!

Daria Morgendorffer. I get this one a lot too, mostly from this chick at work. I'd like to think that I vary the inflection of my unusually husky voice a little bit more than her, but I like the whole "think fast, talk slow" vibe. And I own that green jacket--really I do. I'll have to get a picture of myself in it to freak people out. That show was great until Daria started dating. Daria's not supposed to have a boyfriend. Maybe I should stop comparing myself to Daria.

I really do love writing for Maelstrom because I can do ridiculous stuff like this every week. Plus I can meet my "one-date-a-semester" quota. It's too bad we don't have funding though because I'll probably have to go dutch and it's probably not going to be worth it at all. Or maybe I should just start worrying about people actually responding to our contest ad...hmm.

Swoon

I've got weaknesses. Driving with the windows down, per my last entry, is one of them. You know what? I'm gonna make a list. So now all you evil-doers can easily thwart me/seduce me/make me cry at will. Any of this stuff will bring me to my knees:
1. The Cure
2. Rosati's Frozen Custard (particularly Key Lime Pie, Birthday Cake, and Apple Pie
3. Farinacci's pizza
4. Pineapple (the food, the smell.)
5. The following colors: Grey, green, black, brown, and pumpkin.
6. Hands
7. Flannel shirts
8. Guitars
9. Hot tea
10. Chai
11. Black Coffee
12. Being underneath anything
13. Dinner & Play (Instead of a movie)
14. Ellis Paul's music
15. Good lyrics
16. Poetry
17. Board games! (Even though I'm good at them, I can't say no!)
18. Being asked to do anything. I love to be ordered around.
19. Teachers and professors
20. Tweed jackets with elbow patches
21. Scarves
22. Baseball movies
23. Dimmer switches
24. Sitting in the two seats at Cinemark or wherever where you can look over the railing at the people coming in. I don't know what it is about that spot but I get soft when I sit there.
25. The following voices: Adam Duritz, Ben Lesh, Ellis Paul, Sting (especially early stuff), Dane Castle (can sing my clothes off), Elvis Costello, Chris Robinson, Peter Gabriel, Fiona Apple, Simon & Garfunkel
26. Vinyl
27. Movie soundtracks
28. Sno-Caps
29. Swedish Fish
30. Any Ed Norton movie (even "Death to Smoochy")
31. Film Noir
32. Trivia of any kind. I won't stop until I find the answer.
33. Saturday Night Live re-runs. (Especially from the Belushi era.)
34. Beards
35. Natural bodies of water
36. The library
37. Mix tapes
38. Midnight walks
39. Road trips
40. Evenings in quiet, independent coffee houses
41. Live music
42. Challenging conversation
43. Argyle (sweaters, socks, whatever.)
44. Corduroy
45. The lingering smell of stale cigarettes
46. Autumn (especially late September)
47. Snow
48. Bumper stickers
49. Cult films
50. The jukebox.

Pop suture

It's not particularly warm outside. In fact, there is a tiny little bite in the air today. This is good because I can wear my trademark plaid scarf and my brown skully. Still, it's warm enough for me to drive with my windows down and breathe everything in. I think if the temperature were five degrees higher, I'd feel perfect today.

I sense a lot of potential growing everywhere. Call it a side-effect of February, the melted snow, the wet lawn, Philip Seymour Hoffman's SAG Award...but I feel like things are waiting to get fresh.

I don't have much material for an entry today. But I did want to document the weather today because it feels notable. I sang in my car on the way to the library with my windows down today and I think I was smirking the whole way there. A few of the strangers that I passed where actually responsive--mostly men, but a few women as well.

I have been getting miffed at old people lately when I drive. I have bad ears so I usually have my music up at a moderate-to-loud level. I don't pump my bass or anything and I'm usually considerate at stop lights by turning down the stereo until I'm moving again. But I get some really dirty looks from older people who pass by in cars or on sidewalks. It pisses me off because I feel like I'm being judged. Like maybe they think I'm some hoodlum druggie chick or something. Even when I'm cranking Dean Martin I get weird looks. So today I unapologetically listened to "Sexx Laws" by Beck and then "Fit But You Know It" by the Streets at a decent volume and it felt great. I don't need to surrender my musical pleasure to a bunch of narrow, sour people.

I picked up some stuff at the library today:

Tom Petty: The Last DJ. I've been meaning to listen to this album in its entirety for a long while now. I was feeling pretty hippie-ish today so this is a testimony to that.

Lisa Loeb: The Way it Really Is. Lisa is my girl. I hope this album is as sweet as its cover.

Queen Latifah: The Dana Owens Album. I'm in love with Queen Latifah. Seriously I want to eat scones with her or something. She sings some standards on this one which should be a little bit of a departure from the days of "Unity." Ha.

Allison Moorer: The Duel. I've never heard of her. Her album cover intrigued me and that's pretty much all it takes to get me interested. I've been known to buy movies and CDs just because looking at them makes me feel good. I've got skills when it comes to snap-judgements. The first two tracks on this are so real.

Bamboozled. I enjoy this movie. Yesterday I watched 25th Hour again and I remembered how much I think Spike Lee is boss. I represent Tarantino too. I'll keep this movie away from Pulp Fiction on my bookshelf. Just like I put dividers between my Van Halen/Van Hagar albums.

The Cooler. I've wanted to see this movie since it was in our local art theater. Mmm Bill Macy.

Walker Percy's The Moviegoer. I've been looking for a follow-up novel to Sex, Drugs, & Cocoa Puffs. I wanted something different so this seemed like a good way to go.

I think if there were a movie made about my life, I'd want one of the following people to play me:
-Tina Fey
-Lisa Loeb
-Scarlett Johansson
-Thora Birch
-Miranda July
-Haley Joel Osment (because he really needs the work right now.)
Of course by the time I actually do something sweet that might warrant a biopic, most of these people will be too old. Hollywood sucks.

No sleeves.

Last night I acted like I was in college and it was probably the best night I've had during my college social career. Really.

I like thinking of my life as a series of completely trivial individual moments that create a larger and much more enlightented product.

I'm being careful about saying that I wasn't "myself" last night. Because really, I was absolutely the same person that I've always been. But there were a few small changes that I must have made--intentionally or unintentionally. I was a different version of myself and I wish I could have seen what happened from the outside.

I wanted to project myself everywhere in that basement. I wanted to hang from the wooden rafters and the dusty rusted pipes and I wanted to crouch beneath the bar and look from below and see what my feet were doing while the rest of me was completely surrendered to something so incredibly visceral. I wanted to know if I could see my toes curling through the tops of my shoes and I wanted to see the shape that his jawline took.

What an excellent and truly surprising series of events. And I don't mind not knowing which part of the bigger picture this fits into. It was a fantastic series of moments and I look forward to making more of them, however unconnected or trivial they may seem.

Guess who?

Here's my entry for the Cleveland Free Times "Worst Valentine's Day Ever" Essay Contest:

He wasn’t classically attractive. Not in that heavy-lidded James Dean in a worn leather jacket sense. He was chubby and his wardrobe consisted of a seven-sweater rotation that he teamed with the same baggy jeans and suede flat-soled tennis shoes every day of the week. As far as I knew he’d never had a girlfriend. He wasn’t a Prom king or a quarterback or the honor society president—he was accessible. I’ll call him Dominic Fabrizzi to protect his name and to ensure that there are no questions regarding his heritage.
Dominic stood a few people to my left on the second riser up in our high school’s highest-level choir. I was an alto and he was a tenor with a rock star’s timbre—think of a portly Steve Perry with better hair and, again, only slightly looser fitting jeans. That’s what he sounded like. If you closed your eyes and listened closely during our choir’s take on Handel’s Messiah, every one of Dominic’s lines sounded like they could be alternate verses to “Open Arms.”
The other girls would giggle in appreciation when Dom belted out melody with those magic pipes but the thing that really made me swoon was his sense of humor. I loved him for his self-deprecation and his impeccable comic timing that breathed life into every theatrical production our school ever put on. He was just good. I imagined my sense of humor blending with his and how we would jive together if I could ever get the courage to speak to him. I foresaw both of our mental pop culture reference libraries blinking back and forth like little green lights on a network hub—and believe me, I wanted to interface. We’d be like Belushi and Radner: a perfect mix of husky frat-boy foolery and dweeby schoolgirl giddiness.
The trouble with this whole situation was a complete lack of communication. Mostly I stared pathetically out of the corner of my eye while we did our solfege exercises so I could see the fleeting but marvelous pout that his lips took on when they made a smooth transition from singing “mi” to “fa.” On days when I was feeling a little bolder, I would smirk innocently at him as we reached for our music folders before the bell rang. Some might say I was being coy. These people were wrong. I was being a total wuss.
I’ve always been a wuss when it comes to men. I still am. Maybe it has something to do with the way I’ve always seen myself as the smart, funny girl. I’ve never thought of myself as being pretty or attractive—I still don’t, even now that I’ve escaped the cruel conformist clutches of public high school. It was my senior year in that high school when I first realized my feelings for Dominic. If I was going to get him to notice the quirky girl to his right on the second riser up in choir, I was going to have to get brazen.
I asked around and friends of Dominic said that he always appreciates personality and creativity in a girl. I had both of those things so all I needed was a modus operandi to get him to realize that I was everything he wanted in a woman and maybe even more. (After all, this was the same year that I learned how to make homemade pie crust!) So one evening as I was putting my clothes away and noticed a blank t-shirt at the bottom of a drawer, it occurred to me that I should just go for it and wear my heart on my sleeve…in the most literal sense.
I immediately took a thick black sharpie to the clean untouched fiber of the straggler of a white t-shirt that I had earlier spotted in my drawer and feverishly scrawled the first thing that I thought of on the front of it: “Gee, I really wish Dominic Fabrizzi would ask me for a date.” I grabbed a red sharpie and drew a comic-inspired thought bubble around the text with an arrow pointing up towards my face. Then I added a few little red hearts, just in case the message itself was too subtle. I stared at the shirt from an arm’s length away and it looked creepily professional for how fast I had created it. I didn’t consider the possibility of Dominic thinking that it might be creepy; I was so determined that I was being creative and showing my true personality that I stuffed the thing in my backpack with all of my other homework and zipped the thing shut. I slept with a smile on my face and with little specs of sharpie littering my fingernails like tobacco stains.
The next morning at school I wore the shirt under a sweater that I pulled off as I entered the choir room. I sat down on the riser and waited for his eyes to meet mine. And they did. And then they met with the text on my shirt. I pulled the loose tendrils of hair behind my ears and felt my face get hot. I smiled a little bit and I think I started to squint as I tried to read him. He laughed nervously and climbed up the riser, fiddling with his choir folder. We spoke about it the next day. Then we never spoke again. I was completely heartbroken. I’ve since decided that actual conversation is a better foundation for a relationship than a homemade t-shirt. I kept watching him out of the corner of my eye in choir for the rest of my senior year and I came back to high school a year later to watch him sing “Open Arms” at the senior choir show. I think Dominic got over the whole t-shirt thing. I hope he has anyway—we go to the same college now and I've been thinking about joining choir again.

Feedback is always appreciated.

They better be making soup

Well, a friend of mine asked me to fill out this survey sort of thing. I objected at first because I usually make my lists in "5's" like Rob in "High Fidelity" but I broke down and decided to do it. I added a few items that I felt needed to be added.

4 Things

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE
1. Local newspaper delivery bitch. In my grandma's neighborhood. They handed me ten dollars every week, and fifteen when there was a "newsletter"
2. T-shirt presser/manager at Hometeam Sports Memories. Yes, that's right. I actually hand-pressed mass amounts of t-shirts every day. On slow days though, it was great. I worked alone and read a lot.
3. Head of Internet Sales & Shipping/Guitar & music saleslady at the Karaoke Kandy Store. Yes, a karaoke store. They exist. And I'm still marginally employed there.
4. Editor-in-chief and staff writer for BW's Maelstrom. Stick it to the Man. Alternative press rules.

FOUR JOBS YOU'D LIKE TO HAVE
1. Staff writer for The Onion or SNL
2. Owner of a record store/coffee shop
3. Whale trainer (seriously)
4. Owner of an independent movie theater

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER
1. Love Actually (I like to cry myself to sleep watching this one.)
2. Kill Bill Volume 1 (Even though I prefer Volume 2, it's more fun for me to watch Volume 1 repeatedly.)
3. American Beauty (I once watched this film three times consecutively)
4. The Wedding Singer (Four times in a week!)

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN:
1. Cuyahoga Heights, OH
2. Brecksville, OH
3. Berea, OH
4. I lived in Cincinnati for about a week once. Yea the whole "moving" thing will probably happen someday but college is sort of getting in the way right now. Anyway, Cleveland is a pretty okay city. You get what you put in around here.

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH
1. Saturday Night Live
2. The Colbert Report
3. The Office
4. Grounded for Life (Because I want to do Donal Logue)

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION:
1. Punta Cana en la Republica Dominicana. I fulfilled one of my life's dreams there--I swam with a shark. I broke away from the beach with my snorkel and happened upon what I'm pretty sure was a baby port jackson shark in a small patch of reef. Someday I'll graduate to bigger sharks.
2. Seattle, Washington. A beautiful and truly unique city. I love all the piers and the artisans on the streets. My kind of weather too.
3. Bar Harbor, Maine. Whale-watching, The McLobster, rock climbing and hopping. So perfect. If I ever become a great and famous writer I will buy property here.
4. Yellowstone National Park. My favorite area was in Wyoming.

FOUR PLACES YOU'D LIKE TO GO ON VACATION:
1. California. Specifically Napa Valley or maybe even San Francisco. I have no desire to see LA.
2. Ireland. Seriously let's go right now.
3. Japan. As much as I'd love to see Japan's countryside, I'd probably do better in Tokyo since I don't speak Japanese. I could be like Bill Murray in "Lost in Translation."
4. Shark Bay, Australia. Remember that part about graduating to bigger sharks? There you go.

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY:
1. www.bw.edu/campus. I check my mail a lot. A LOT.
2. www.livejournal.com/login.bml. Yea, I have another blog.
3. www.imdb.com. I'm one of those geeks that communicates on message boards about film.
4. www.facebook.com. I am, after all, an American college student.

FOUR OF YOUR ALL-TIME FAVORITE RESTAURANTS:
1. Stancato's of Richfield
2. La Dolce Vita, Little Italy Cleveland
3. The Tin Angel, Philadelphia. (Best bangers & mash I've e'er tasted!)
4. Blaggard's Pub, NYC (The one on West 38th)

FOUR MEN/WOMEN YOU'VE THOUGHT ABOUT IN THE PAST FOUR DAYS:
1. Matt McKenna, my co-producer from BuzzTV. I had such a crush on him. Then I found out about the whole "I'm married" thing and I realized it just wasn't going to work out.
2. James Catullo. He was in my intermediate improv class and he's positively delightful. We've been e-mailing back and forth and it's fun.
3. Shawn Gaines. He's got a new lady and I'm not her. Good for him. Life goes on!
4. Angela Spisak. I need to call her. It's been a while.

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS:
1. Pesto. On bread, on pasta--I love it.
2. Veggie lo mein
3. Quiche
4. Diet Coke. It counts, bitch. And yes, I do eat meat, contrary to what one might imply from my answers.

FOUR SCHOOLS YOU'VE ATTENDED
1. Highland Elementary
2. Chippewa Elementary
3. Oakes Road Middle
4. Brecksville Middle/High (I got bounced around because I was "gifted")

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE THINGS TO WEAR
1. My big heavy black ribbed Eddie Bauer sweater--I pretend that I borred it from my nonexistent boyfriend.
2. My black Pumas
3. My glasses!
4. My black Mossimo jeans, cuffed.

FOUR ALBUMS YOU LISTEN TO ALL THE WAY THROUGH
1. The White Stripes "Elephant"
2. Ellis Paul's "American Jukebox Fables"
3. The Police "Synchronicity"
4. Over the Rhine "Drunkard's Prayer"

FOUR PLACES YOU'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Bed
2. On a couch with James Catullo
3. At the river ford (during summer though, reading.)
4. In a loft. Any loft, really.

Alright. There it is. Never again.

Only in the Movies

This morning I woke up and hit my head on the ceiling. I guess that's the price you eventually pay when you loft your bed. The strange thing is that I've lofted my bed for two years now and this is the first time it's happened. It really hurt. I'm still feeling it.

When it happened though I was reminded of two films:

1) "Zoolander", simply because he hits his head in similar comic fashion.
2) "Magnolia" because of my make-believe boyfriend Philip Seymour Hoffman's excellent telephone monologue.

His character discusses the possibility of extraordinary circumstances and quasi-cinematic occurances happening in real life and he painfully tries to convince someone else to believe that what he is saying is not some fantastic fabricated sob-story. In fact, in the opening of this movie the narrator tells us, "These strange things happen all the time." And I think that hitting my head this morning was a case of life imitating art or the other way around or something. Then I went to turn on the TV and it was already on. I had it set to "Input 2" last night whilst I was watching a movie and I must have forgotten to turn it off. So when I pushed the power button on the remote, I heard a click and nothing happened. It was strange.

Last night I saw a screening of the new Woody Allen film, "Match Point." As always, he offers up a really insightful and captivating (if sometimes slow-moving) exploration of the politics of sex and ambiguity of love. Scarlett Johansson was weird. I mean, I love her a lot but I guess I wasn't used to seeing her playing such a forward and overtly sexual woman. To me she's still the awkward indie girl from "Ghost World" with a thrift store skirt and a crush on the guy at the gas station. I make bizarre connections with characters in movies.

I hope that I never hit my head on the ceiling again--not because it was so painful--but because if it happens again it won't be such a special occurance anymore.

The girl next door is singing some horrid radio "country" hit. I like the old country--back when it knew what it was. Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn, George Jones.

I can't think of anything good to say. I think I'm going to finish watching "Girl, Interrupted" and simultaneously forge bizarre connections with two of my favorite cinematic foils. (Susanna (Angelina Jolie) Kaysen and Lisa Rowe (Winona Ryder)). )))))(().

Falling stars

The old Romanian astronomy professor smelled like bouillon cubes. He wore Cosby sweaters and black leather loafers with stiff tassels and worn leather soles. I never actually saw the soles but I assumed that they were worn and tattered, per his general appearance.

I signed up for the class the semester before my sophomore year for a few deeply thought-out reasons. Firstly, and most importantly to an average college student such as myself, I had heard it was an easy "A". I have since learned that this was a great fallacy, probably passed on to me by some bitter upper-classman who was similarly misled. Thankfully, I also had an interest in astronomy. I loved looking at the stars. I still do. I had little history with the subject but it seemed intriguing. There has always been something captivating about the night sky, ancient and archaic, evolving yet staid. In so many of my romantic fantasies I kissed the editor of the college newspaper under the stars. That was enough of a sell. And in addition to all of this frivolous reasoning, I wanted to seem worldly. I wanted to say that I had something in common with Galileo. I wanted to square off with all of the bearded bespectacled philosophy students in their tweed jackets and be able to expound my knowledge of the universe. My universe. We'd sip black coffee and smoke rolled cigarettes and stare up at the sky with understanding. And the editor of the college paper would be devastatingly impressed and ask me to join him on a hike through the mountains. Because like the stars, the mountains seemed so foreign and exotic to a suburban college commuter and self-proclaimed city slicker. Me and my editor fellow would strap on thick leather boots and name all the visible planets. He'd kiss me each time a shooting star passed by overhead.

I sold the fantasy. Instead, I ended up with three hours of lecture every Wednesday in a dismal tiled classroom with drafty windows that seemed like it could have been a set for "Welcome Back, Kotter." On the first day our professor stumbled painfully through an itemized syllabus with enough grammatical and spelling errors to make the English major in me twitch a little bit. His lectures were intolerable. His heavy accent was distracting and he read from ancient overhead sheets that we could have easily copied from our textbook. The only thing that kept me coming back every week was the giant bar of chocolate.

Every week our professor would give us a much-needed ten-minute break and then he'd pull a King-Sized milk chocolate bar from his brown leather briefcase. He'd break it into squares through the wrapper and tear it open for us to eat. We'd all grab a chunk and bleed into the hallway to recap the old man's best quotes for the day. Most of them were light-hearted pokes at his thick accent and his unsteady command of the English language. We'd sink down onto the salty brown floor of the hallway and lean coolly against the cement block wall. We'd stuff the chocolate down our throats and slap our knees and double over and laugh thick chalky laughs before heading to the vending machine for a bottle of soda to wash it all down. And the caffeine would keep us awake for the next two hours.

One day he forgot to bring our quiz for the week but he still remembered the chocolate. We shared another rbar and he asked us if we had any questions. By this class we knew not to bother asking--he just couldn't understand us at all. There was so little actual communication: lecture, chocolate, lecture. It was formulaic. It was ancient and staid. In fact it was nearly everything that I wanted from the class when I first signed up. And I started to welcome the routine.

Near the end of the semester I though to myself, "I'm going to buy him chocolate for the last day of class." I was so proud of myself for thinking it. I wanted a pat on the back that I didn't deserve. Weeks went by and eventually I entered the musty classroom for the last time to take my final. The old man stood at the front of the room smiling toothlessly at us, his cloudy gray eyes darting beneath the rusty-looking glasses on the end of his nose. When he turned to write on the chalkboard I noticed two large cysts on the back of his balding head and another on his neck. He turned back and pulled a chocolate bar from his leather case and broke it open mechanically for us on the lab table just out of reach. I watched everyone laugh and I heard the thickness in the back of their throats. They were still laughing, eating his chocolate, anxious to leave this stuffy room with all their youthful indifference. I took my test and followed them out.

I imagined the professor straightening our exams by himself in the cold classroom, trudging through the snow that reminded him of Romania to his rusted Ford Escort ("Red like Mars"). He drove home to his sturdy wife who was larger than him and who had a large brown mole atop her swollen left cheek. He told her over her beef stew how proud he was of all of us and how nice and good we were. How we really cared about astronomy, that we listened and studied and thanked him for the chocolate. And then he shook his head and swallowed a runny spoonful of beef stew and wondered why he ever came to America in the first place.

Yoko Okay

Sometimes I tell people not to "go Yoko on me". Like if my friends and I want to go to the movies and somebody crosses her arms and says she'd rather stay in and watch a movie, that's a Yoko move. Or if I'm working on a project with a friend and he says we should take a break and pose nude in an awkward position on the cover of Rolling Stone, I tell him "you're such a Yoko". Then I break down and do it. Twice.

Anyway I was thinking the other day about how hurtful this expression is. But for me it's kind of like calling someone a "Chatty Cathy." You know how stupid it is but at the same time, it's a dumbed-down cultural reference that is likely to be understood.

I guess lately I've been thinking about John and Yoko and people who think she broke up the Beatles and manipulated John. I don't buy it. I think this theory is insulting to John, Yoko, and the band. John loved her and to say in hindsight that she ruined him and used him is so tragic. John invested a lot of himself into his relationship with her so saying that she didn't really love him is terrible. That's like saying that everything he believed in with Yoko was a sham. That's harsh. All you need is love, right? John and Yoko had it. It was bizarre, it was happy, it was seedy and unclean at times, but most love is like that. Except for maybe the "seedy and unclean" part. But it was a different time. We have Mach 3 razors and Irish Spring now.

Alright enough of that.

It's been awhile since my last post. I'll do penance if you like. No? Good because I haven't had much time lately to do much of anything, barring my usual obligations. A major change in my life occured last week when I agreed to write a column for our official college newspaper, The Exponent.

The conflict is that I am a staff writer (and future editor-in-chief) for The Maelstrom, which is my college's unfunded alternative news publication. Sort of like The Onion, sort of like The Paris Review, a little bit Daily Show. It's the most personally rewarding thing that I'm involved with at school. Because of The Maelstrom I'm able to write weekly satire (the dream), I've made friends with a nice pocket of cool, smart, like-minded folks, and I'm so proud of the work that I do for it.

Anyway our official school paper is kind of a joke. It's mostly school news about events that happened last week, a few poorly organized editorials, and a few bright spots interspersed among a lot of muck. It's hit-or-miss basically. Anyway my friend Shawn who also writes for Maelstrom, is the A&E editor for the Exponent. We've often talked about the conflicting values/content of both papers and whether or not it's hard to balance working for both. In the end, I think Shawn does it for the paycheck and to get practical experience writing/editing a more "professional" publication. He's a brilliant writer and plans to make a career of it and "paid editor for college paper" sounds a lot better to most than "writer/idea man for underground satirical magazine laid-out in Microsoft Word." I respect him for making this choice.

Recently, however, Shawn asked me to write a short column called "This Week in Pop Culture." I wrote it in the style of the dude who does the Celebrity News in the Plain Dealer. Sort of a Weekend Update-in-print deal. Some of my punchlines were cut out because of space issues I think, and some because I couldn't get out of Maelstrom-mode and might have gotten a tiny bit racy. Last week he asked me to write a review of "Bee Season." I obliged.

I have mixed feelings about "selling-out." I get a decent stipend for my work on Exponent. It's not hugely significant, but it is in a sense that it's the first money that I will get for my writing (besides scholarships and stuff like that.) I sort of feel like I'm growing. And I think I'm growing in the right direction. I'm still in love with Maelstrom and my artistic values remain intact. And Shawn means a lot to me and I'm happy that we can share this thing with both papers. I think he kind of helped me open the door and grow up a little bit. We can't be totally bohemian forever. Maybe in heart, but in pocket a little stipend is sort of important if we want to stay alive.

Out for now.