Reading

John Updike The Witches of Eastwick

Course schedule, spring 2009.

Monday
[no classes]

Tuesday
12:30-1:45pm, PHI 301: Topics in Philosophy: Hannah Arendt
2:00-3:15pm, ENG 332: English Women Writers Before 1800
3:30-4:45pm, ENG 333: Southern Writers
5:00-7:50pm, PHI 322: Philosophy of the Arts

Wednesday
3:30-6:20pm, ENG 325: Writing Fiction: Intermediate

Thursday
12:30-1:45pm, PHI 301: Topics in Philosophy: Hannah Arendt
2:00-3:15pm, ENG 332: English Women Writers Before 1800
3:30-4:45pm, ENG 333: Southern Writers

Friday
[no classes]

***

SUPER EXCITING.

Reading

Geraldine Brooks March

Feeling guilty

For automatically losing respect for people on the Internet if they post photograph of themselves in which their melancholy face is turned away, but they are obviously holding the camera.

'Tis the season to use gerunds.

What I have been doing hell of much since exams: reading, waking before 9:00am, knitting hats, cooking vegan food, walking and looking, hydrating, remaining quiet, listening.

What I have not been doing so much: bitching, drinking, watching television, speculating, hiccuping, expecting, caffeinating, planning, explaining myself, fretting.

Reading

Margaret Atwood Cat's Eye

Ha-ha, ha-ha.

I spend about five hours a day at work now, and since it's a holiday not many people come in to rent DVDs. As a result, I've had a lot of quality time with the Internet.

So, today I'm surfing "Fitness Magazine Online" for articles about how too much fruit can lead to a belly similar to the famed "beer belly"--I'm not kidding, I swear I've seen an article about this before--when I see a link for the "100 Best Workout Songs of All Time." I go clicky.

I'm shocked. Appalled, even. After all, on which of your workout mixes have you ever put "No Woman No Cry"? Even classic jock jams would make their way onto one of my mixes (and have) before Bob. Sorry, but he just doesn't pump me up.

I generally tend to use Girl Talk's Night Ripper or Feed the Animals as good basic gym albums with consistent energy, but I've also been working on putting together my own pump-worthy mixes for the gym.

Here's one from earlier this semester:
1. Cut Copy "Hearts on Fire"
2. Daft Punk "Robot Rock"
3. Estelle ft. Kanye West "American Boy"
4. Katy Perry "I Kissed a Girl"
5. Mount Sims "How We Do"
6. Muscles "Sweaty"
7. Royksopp "Eple"
8. Simian Mobile Disco "Sleep Deprivation"
9. The Fitness "Chauffeur"
10. Trans Am "I Want It All"
11. Vitalic "Poney Pt. 1"
12. Will Smith "Miami"

Obviously, there is NO SHAME where gym mixes are concerned. After all, it's just you and the music and whatever repetitive motion you happen to be committing your muscles to--why not the Fresh Prince?

I'm looking to put a new one together over break. Any suggestions?

Reading

John Sellers Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life*

*My Christmas gift from Chris Berg.

Listening

Deerhunter Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

Listening

Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

TDP FTW.

Back to The Daily Plate, because I'm feelin' a fatty.

Here goes!

Reading

Tim O'Brien In the Lake of the Woods
The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature

It's that time of the year when the world falls in love.

Wonderful: The Carpenters Christmas Portrait; non-dairy ice cream; A+ on my final paper for Stuart's Contemporary Poetry class with some very flattering comments from both him and Ansel; the prospect of being finished with all the hard work tomorrow.

Not so: It isn't over yet; my upcoming lady-time is making me anxious and irritable; I feel HUGE.

Watching

Blue Velvet

Midwinter melancholy.

Began a few weeks ago. Since then I've been closing my bedroom door, staying in on the weekend nights, watching good films, reading a hell of a lot and even writing a little again.

It isn't sadness, exactly, but it is a comfortability in being alone. The melancholy comes on me every year and it's welcome until Christmas. After, though, the months of January through August are depressing enough on their own.

So I'm sort of enjoying being sick right now as reason enough to stay in at nights. My only class this morning was canceled, so I have here a glass of good juice by Bolthouse Farms (it's citrus Immunity), a few episodes of Fringe, and the last fifty pages of Vineland.

To do to end the fall semester, 2008:
1. ENG 359 (Contemporary Poetry) final exam on Monday, 8 December.
2. ENG 352 (20th Century American Novel) take-home final exam due at 12:00pm on Tuesday, 9 December.
3. ENG 390 (Writing Center practicum) portfolio due on Wednesday, 10 December.
4. LAT 203 (Intermediate Latin 1) final exam from 8:00-11:00am on Monday, 15 December.

Watching

Eraserhead

Watching

Firefly

Reading

Thomas Pynchon Vineland

Feeling Guilty

I'm on the fifth page of my seven-to-eight-page Herzog term paper and GUESS WHO STILL HAS NOT READ THE LAST FIFTY PAGES OF THE NOVEL.

If you guessed Webster, you're almost right.

Reading

Junot Diaz Drown

Reading

Willa Cather My Antonia
Frank Miller Sin City: The Big Fat Kill

Zotero: simple, sexy, and useful as Luke Skywalker in a Death Star. Unless you're the Emperor, in which case he isn't useful at all.

From the good folks at George Mason University comes Zotero, a Firefox plugin that helps organize and cite sources for academic research. Zotero makes a nice little library out of all your online articles and PDFs, and inputs citations directly into OpenOffice. My Herzog paper has become about twenty times neater, if not as all closer to completion. I ought to read the second half of the book.

R. I. P. my green thumb.

The rosemary died. Jerry offered to bring me a few cuttings of rosemary and other plants from his home garden, in which case I will simply swoon with joy.

Over the summer I began to make ringtones for folks in my phone book who call me often, and I continued this project yesterday.

• J. Savagery--Elton John "The Bitch is Back." I won't explain this, because it isn't necessary.

• C. Frye--The Trashmen "Surfin' Bird."
  

• A. Stew.--The Beatles "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?" Because, why don't we do it in the pool?

• Brittany--M.I.A. "Boyz." One of Britters' favorite musical artists, and our favorite topic of conversation.

• My mother--The Beatles "Your Mother Should Know."

• Michael Dale Munday--"Pokemon Theme."

New ringtones:

• Kate--Pixies "Where Is My Mind?" I thought I would be clever if I used the ringtone she uses for ALL of us (she loves the song so much) for her ringtone on my phone. It was either Pixies or Pearl Jam "Even Flow," which is her ringback tone and the no. 2 reason why I call Kate.

• Mallandizzle--Katy Perry "I Kissed a Girl." Partly because I have a secret hope she'll call me sometime when her boyfriend's around (and gosh wouldn't that be funny) and partly because it's true, and partly also because it's the only song Jayme and I have ever discussed.

• Rich--Dragonforce "Through the Fire and the Flames." And, the least sensical of them all,

• David Loner--Notorious B.I.G. "Big Poppa."

Harriet, Seventeen

A small tossed roiling glee in her tummy, a
small sea, green as pea. Thick with soup.
Deep and sick. The child Catholic in Harriet pleas:
War for Purity!
But her insides yield and lack bitter. Sweet
persimmon. Will she be freed?
Can she shed genes? Her mothers willed
her these, unwilling: your hands, her sticky finale.

Rosemary!

I'm hoping to begin an herb pot. A few weeks ago, I bought some rosemary seeds. I read on the Internet that rosemary is very difficult to germinate, so I soaked the seeds for a few hours and then planted several in a terracotta pot.

Lo and behold! Last night I discovered a seedling had sprouted.

The new challenge is not accidentally killing it.

Webster is officially the dipshit of the Allies.

Woken twice in the night because Webster, that dumb shit, got stuck on the highest platform in the cage and couldn't get down. I had to place her on the floor of the cage.

This morning I removed the platform permanently.

Take some time and admire the irony: Webster, the mouse named for the American verbal reference deity, spends her time eating, running around in the same damn circle, and getting herself into situations she can't get herself out of. Roget (French) and Oxford English Dictionary (UK), on the other hand, are doing just fine.

Recall the mouse story.

Like many other college students who move off-campus for the first time and have much freedom and money and less responsibility--I now have a pet(s).

Three female fancy mice. Last night's incident inspired me.

Their tentative names are Webster (fat and ginger), Roget (medium and lilac with white lightning bolt down her face), and Oxford English Dictionary (tiny, white with lilac spots), also called "Oxie."

Roget and Oxie are smart, but Webster keeps running the same circle around the cage. I'm a little worried for her. Possibly she has the beetus.

It ran under my door and across the room and under my desk and then back out again. It was brown and so cute.

There's a mouse in our house!

I hope it doesn't decide to do anything adorable like EVERYTHING THAT EVERY MOUSE HAS DONE EVER.

Z-pack FTW.

Doc: "It's an upper respiratory infection. Like bronchitis or pneumonia."

Rahl: "But it isn't either?"

Doc: "Right."

Rahl: "Sweet. I get the third-party disease."

I'm concerned by how many times I hear this at night.

Just heard a car going the wrong way down Friendly Avenue.

How can I tell? Dude laid on his horn for at least fifteen seconds.

I bet if I could see sound it would have been one long streak of angry yellow like those photographs of car tail-lights in traffic with a long exposure time.

One long streak going the WRONG FUCKING WAY.

What do folks do for this sort of a cough?

I have Robitussin DM and decongestants with pseudophedrine. I've drunk tea with honey and sucked drop after Halls cough drop, but my throat is raw and my abs sore and my stomach queasy with violence.

Doctor tomorrow, f'sho.

Watching

Twin Peaks Episodes 1-7
O Brother Where Art Thou!

I just love this song, don't you? It's so dreamy.

I'm at my parents' house in Raleigh watching Twin Peaks DVDs I borrowed from my work in case of boredom. I am sick: a sore throat and a cough, slightly more tired than I usually am. It's the first I've been ill all semester. I'm amazed. My graduate school applications are not yet complete; I have done a good amount of work on my writing sample in particular, but it isn't finished. I have forty-nine days until my University of Maryland application is due. The time is Fall Break.

Failtober is in full swing. Today is the twentieth, which means there are eleven days until my favorite of all holidays: Halloween. I have my costume all worked out; bought the ears today. I'm going as Molly Sanders from Chris Onstad's Achewood (my favorite webcomic). This time is the first in a while I've wished I had a boyfriend, but I do, and I wish he were into Achewood and owned a short-sleeved white dress shirt and black tie. Roast Beef and Molly Kazenzakis would make an absolutely awesome set of costumes.

Molly is the most regular female character on Achewood. Unfortunately, Onstad has left Molly a mostly undeveloped character and uses most of her speaking opportunities in both the comic and Molly's personal blog to explore the personality of her now husband Roast Beef. I'm curious about Molly. I think there's more to her than her various unfulfilling jobs in food service and her relationship with Roast Beef. I know many women who are as wrapped up in their relationships as Onstad writes Molly. But any coding woman worth her programs wouldn't put up with having herself relegated to such a role.




Come on, Onstad. Molly can stay a small character, but don't make her all about Beef. She has enough interesting character attributes and possibilities. Let her explore them.

Reading

Saul Bellow Herzog

Radtember.

I have decided to create my own month.

It begins on the first of September and ends the 25th of November, and is known as "Radtember."

Radtember is my favorite time of year.

Watching

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Watching

Bleu

Biggest canker sore of my modern life.

Seriously, this motherfucker is the size of a dime.

Watching

Dependencia Sexual

Watching

Dr. Strangelove, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb

Reading

Richard Wright Native Son

Watching

Savages
The Man Who Wasn't There

That's four honks, two calls of "Sup Shorty?" and one "Hey, cutie." Today.

In other news, a recent poll of Friendly Avenue motorists shows they still appreciate my fine ass.

I say "fatal" because I retain water equivalent to the Great Lakes for two days afterward.

I planned dinner for this evening: spaghetti squash with broccoli, spinach, and cheese in a tomato sauce, with baked turkey breast marinated in garlic and herb oil.

Coby and Kate invited me to the local Mexican restaurant, El Carreton, as I pulled the garlic out of the refrigerator and I immediately placed it back in the crisper drawer. I'll make it tomorrow.

Mexican food: Obviousgirl's fatal weakness.

Almost the new semester.

My own insignificance dawned on me as I watched Phatty's Party Bus pass under the verdant glow of the Market Street stoplight.

There are truly awesome moments in this modern life.

Watching

Sade

And now I've seen every film at the TLC about the Marquis.

Watching

Be Kind Rewind

Watching

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Schedule, fall 2008.

PHI 310 Intro to Formal Logic
LAT 203 Intermediate Latin 1
ENG 390 Writing Center Theory and Practice
ENG 359 Contemporary Poetry
ENG 352 Twentieth Century American Novel

13 hours a week at the TLC -- a shift every Tuesday-Friday afternoon until about 5pm.
Exercising with Coby after work every day.
Libs meetings. Radio show.
Grad school applications.

Hogwarts: taken over by pirates!

Our new upstairs neighbor must WEIGH 500 POUNDS, WEAR A PEG LEG, AND MOVE FURNITURE 22 HOURS PER DAY WHILE LISTENING TO THE STROKES AT 8,934 DECIBELS.

Watching

Atonement
Seven Samurai
Paprika

And by "strange," we're talking Failed Surgery on the Twilight Zone.

Has anyone else ever been struck by the strange spelling of the word "Wyoming?"

Wyoming.

What a weird combination of letters.

Feeling guilty

For the many times I've used the bathroom unnecessarily at Aaron Dell's (and now Gloria's and Tom's and Mariel's) house. I can smell the Sensual Amber-scented hand soap on my hands every time they get near my face for the subsequent six hours.

Feeling guilty

For giggling through the last four minutes of the United States vs. Italy water polo match: the only four minutes of water polo I've ever seen.

Chocolate, plz.

This is rather how I feel right now.

I mean, yeah, I'll keep doing it. I'll eat the fruits and the veggies. They really are delicious, but they are significantly less delicious this week every month.

Edit: Mariel sent me this as an addendum to the first meme. Picard makes me giggle.















The female body right before and during one's period is a load of bloaty, crampy, prone-to-binging B.S. Seriously. The worst side affect of my monthly lady time, though, is stopping myself in the middle of a good ol' emotional breakdown and realizing, hey, I shouldn't reasonably be this upset. An appropriate emotional reaction to [insert peeve here] would be half what I'm currently experiencing and, oh God, are those DISHES in my SINK?

Reading

Elias Canetti Auto-da-Fe

Read at the beach

Milan Kundera Laughable Loves
Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Watching

Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs

"Would you date a floating space eyeball with pink tentacles?"

If he sounds like David Cross, sure.

Listening

Beach House Devotion

Grad schools, revised.

Boston University (Boston, MA)
New York University (New York, NY)
Pennsylvania State University (State College, PA)
Rutgers State University of New Jersey (Camden, NJ)
Tufts University (Medford, MA)
University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)

Right now, I am satisfied with this list. I may add one or two other schools.

I've been thinking of ways to combine my interests in post-/modernist fiction and Shakespeare. It won't be sandwich material for a good long time, but at least I'll be doing something very few other people are doing AND studying the two areas of lit that pump me the hell up.

Feeling guilty

For continuing to talk smack about the dude in girls' pants, who had just rented two films and left the TLC, as he walked back up to my desk and asked to exchange one of the DVDs he had rented a minute earlier.

These days, they make dudes' jeans that fit dudes as well as women's pants fit ladies. I suppose the appeal of his particular pair was the line of five buttons down the crotch.

Feeling guilty

For calling 911 and filing My First Noise Complaint.

Hot damn!

I done picked m' grad schools!

Boston University (Boston, MA)
Brandeis University (Waltham, MA)
New York University (New York, NY)
Northeastern University (Boston, MA)
Rutgers (Camden, NJ)
University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA)

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD

I have actually selected three schools to apply to for my MA in English. I will proceed to hyperventilate.

Boston University (Boston, MA), ranked fifty-fourth for its English PhD program.
Northeastern University (Boston, MA), which I am considering my sort of "safety school," if there is such a thing where grad schools are concerned.
Rutgers-Camden, The State University of New Jersey (Camden, NJ), my mother's alma mater and the eighteenth-ranked English PhD program in the country.

I think I might apply to someplace totally outrageous, like Cornell (ranked sixth), on the off-chance they might accept me.

Hurrz.

The hair that has been nibbling on my neck for the past few months is less than a semester short of FULL-ON SHOULDER CHOMPING.

I'm not going to cut it yet. I'm curious how far it will go to satiate its nibbledy desires.

Feeling Guilty

For stepping on the scale this morning, even though I promised myself I wouldn't weigh in until Monday morning.

Listening

Atlas Sound Let the Blind Lead Those Who See But Cannot Feel

Feeling Guilty

For accidentally looking through my bathroom window into the window of the lit and therefore totally visible bedroom my ex-boyfriend shares with his girlfriend in the apartment building next door to my house.

I want to call his or her cell phone and scream "OH GOD I AM SO SORRY." And then hang up.

Listening

Air France No Way Down EP

Reading

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera

Peeve of the day.

Did your mother never throttle you hard enough to convince you to put your silverware in the dishwasher?
And what about that pile of pots I find in the sink every morning from your dinner the night before?
I am a neat person in an increasingly dirty house, soon to be a neat spree killer of three male roommates.

It is official. I am engaged

to TheDailyPlate.com.

Don't ask me anything about its connections to Livestrong. I don't know shit about it.

What I DID know was blinding terror when faced with the prospect of eight weeks with minimal exercise on my busted foot.

My sister broke the same bone, fifth metatarsal, last year. She gained ten pounds. It was hardly visible -- both my sisters are skinny tall ladies -- but on me, ten pounds looks like a potential pregnancy. I like the phrase "gone to seed," but I cannot go to seed. I'm only twenty years old. That phrase is on special reserve for forty-year-old former football stars. I have never played football.

When the ginger lady doctor at the clinic showed me the fracture on the X-rays I screamed "OH GOD NO FOOT TEN POUNDS TOO YOUNG CHUB CHUB CHUB."

The ginger lady doctor, who was very kind, reminded me that weight gain wouldn't be a problem if I simply adjusted for my new caloric needs. Brilliant woman. Although I probably would have figured it out myself if I hadn't been too busy writhing in agonized pre-ten-pound spasms on the cold clinic linoleum floor.

It's very easy. I told TDP about my lifestyle (sedentary) and my weight (atrocious). I sit down at my laptop religiously after and often during every meal, and I record exactly what I've eaten. TDP helps me keep my water intake and my % Daily Values on track, too.

Aaand . . . not only have I been able to maintain my pre-break weight, I've lost a little, too.

Take that, you damn foot!

Peeve of the Day.

The survival rate in Battlestar Galactica is something like 300% -- unless you're a new pilot we've only met for two seconds, or you've recently made an unsuccessful marriage proposal.

Our hero comes from a family of semi-related people who do stupid things.

My grandfather is probably the worst of the lot. He's not a blood relation, but the husband of my grandmother. They married about ten years ago. After meeting Frank, we enthusiastically adopted him into the fold. He's a sweet guy, an amazing cook, and somehow able to cope with my grandmother's numerous weirdnesses that I can only speculate stem from the same strange environmental factors which gave my late grandfather (her first husband) colon cancer at the age of fifty-six.

I last saw Frank when he and my mother's mother came to town for my sister's high school graduation. My sisters are able to use the tiniest slivers of soap for weeks on end, but Frank (whose eyesight is not great) overlooked their sliver and assumed there was no soap. The poor man got out of the shower and dripped his way to the downstairs bathroom, where he seized upon a bar of shrink-wrapped hand soap my mother kept on the sink for appearances only. He then proceeded to attempt to wash himself with the still plastic-wrapped band soap bar.

One of my mother's favorite stories about Frank is probably not totally fair to Frank in re-telling. He had indigestion. My mother had her cure-all, Tums antacid chewable calcium discs about an inch in diameter, readily available. (So many stomach viruses my mother has valiantly attempted to combat with Tums. So many failures.) Frank went into the bathroom to take the Tums and came out spluttering.

"Frank," said my mother. "Are you okay?"

Frank rubbed his red, watery eyes. He wheezed. "Those Tums were a little hard to swallow," he explained.

As odd as Frank can be, he's no match for his wife. My grandmother is truly an strange duck. She called my mother to ask what colors I was planning on using in my freshman-year dorm room. She wanted to make me an afghan. When my mother told her red and purple, she replied, "Well, I've already bought green and pink, so I'm just going to use those." Later that same academic year, she mailed me a box of socks inscribed with "Princess" and embroidered cats she'd bought years earlier and never worn.

And now I've determined to carry on family tradition. While two-beer-dancing to the new Girl Talk album at a friend's party Saturday before last, I rolled awkwardly on my left foot and broke my fifth metatarsal.

Stupid.

The Bat signal is not a beeper.

FILM.

Saw a late showing of The Dark Knight yesterday with my roommates Chris and Dan, Chris's girlfriend Ruthie, and our other friend Chris. I chose pre-sliced fruit and an Arizona Diet Green Tea with Ginseng (delicious and zero calories) from the Taj MahTeeter as we waited for the previous showing in theater one to empty. I was the most excited I've ever been in a Harris Teeter. Gosh, I love Batman.

Ruthie complained that Christian Bale's Batman fell flat "as usual." I've never had a problem with Bale's Batman. In this film, in particular, it was necessary for Batman to become secondary to two other highly dynamic characters: Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent and Heath Ledger's Joker. Three hours of three impassioned, complicated lead characters would have been a tremendous strain on the audience. We're already familiar with Batman's plight. He doesn't need as much attention. I am completely satisfied with "The Dark Knight", and if I had more dollaz I would go see it again today.

I didn't regret Heath Ledger's death when it first broke, but now, I do. His performance was unbelievable. I hope they give him an Oscar for that shit, because he's the only actor I've seen this year who deserves it.


MUSIC.

Electric Feel, the second single from MGMT's Oracular Spectacular, is the sexiest song I've heard since Hercules and Love Affair's Hercules' Theme.


DIET AND EXERCISE.

The Special K diet for two or three weeks. Why? Because I'm impatient and I broke a bone in my left foot so I won't be able to exercise for a while.

My sister gained ten pounds when she broke the same bone. I refuse. I am 143lbs and dropping.

I'm pissed that I paid forty dollars to use the gym for this summer session, because the good ginger lady doctor at the clinic says I'll probably be off my feet for the next eight weeks. I'll see what the orthopedic doctor has to say on Monday.

I've hidden the plans for the bomb in my brassiere, Mr. Bond. Apparently that was unwise.

FILM.

I saw my first two Bond films two days ago. From Russia with Love was charming. Sean Connery exactly satisfied my uninformed pre-existing notions of Bond. He looks very little like old-man Sean Connery, but the faces of the aging are always more defined than their younger faces. Oddly enough, he looks like an acquaintance of mine from high school who gave a Bond-themed party that I attended last time I was in Raleigh. Hence all this watching of Bond films. I hadn't seen one and talk and costumes at the party piqued my interest.

On recommendation from my roommate Mikey and our friend/Mikey's bandmate Sean, my second Bond film was Moonraker. I was a little thrown by Bond in space. I gather, from others' assessments of the film, that was a common reaction to the movie. I don't think I like Roger Moore so much as I liked Connery yet, but he may grow on me.

Mikey's bringing me two more films after he works at the campus Teaching and Learning Center (where we lucky students can rent videos) tonight. You see, I've decided to watch all 21 released Bond films before the end of this summer.



WORK.

Had a job interview today at the TLC (mentioned above). It seemed to go really well. Nanny Foster, who would be my boss, is awesome and nuts. She apparently carries cat treats in her purse to feed a cat named Biscuit, whose people's yard she walks through every morning on her way to work. I think I impressed her with my work ethic and mad peep skillz.

Chris and Mikey tell me working at the TLC is very laid-back. There is ample time to do homework, mess around on the internet, and various other activities while working. It sounds like the perfect job. I need one.

Murder in Blueberry Junction.

LITERATURE.

Agatha Christie mystery novels are crack for the sedentary literary set.

When I retire, I want to be the world's foremost authority on Poirot. I'll never have to write a word of criticism.


DIET AND EXERCISE.

I have eaten the world in the past week. Stupid lady-times.

I'm exercising three days on, one day off for the next week or two. I'm exhausted, and I haven't lost a pound. I took two naps yesterday and still fell asleep by two and slept until eleven.

I want to lose weight, but every time I'm more hesitant to commit to the self-loathing that is a necessary part of any weight-loss effort.

147.5lbs.

I can't cook, so I was surprised.

Last night, I made fried rice with onions, carrots, sugar snow peas. It tasted damn good.

Today, I did it again, but with onions and broccoli.

I am a GENIUS.

New layout/tuoyal weN.

Brittany Forks, my good friend and graphic designer extraordinaire, left me a lovely Facebook wall post two days ago offering to "spruce up" my blog. Thanks to her, we have this cute new layout to enjoy!

Britters is amazingly creative. One of my favorite of her many projects is Kilobyte Couture, adorable geeky jewelry handmade from old computer parts. (I have several of her pendants and two pins. I wear them all the time.)

The old KiloCouture logo is currently undergoing a revamp, as Brittany wants to make the products more appealing to nerdy dudes as well as girls. She's also planning to experiment with dipping resistors and capacitors in gold to create jewelry appropriate for more formal occasions.


LITERATURE.

I finally finished Mark Z. Danielewski's Only Revolutions on Monday afternoon a mere twenty-five minutes before I needed to complete it for Aaron Dell's fourth Monday afternoon Kinbote literary salon. I took four weeks to complete the book.

The plot of Only Revolutions is dependent upon the book's complex structure. It's the sort of book that requires a lot of time to digest. I was fortunate that my first reading took place in the context of the salon; there were many things about the book I didn't notice that other members did, and vice-versa. It's a frustrating novel. As in Danielewski's first novel, House of Leaves, many small things seem hugely significant and few of them are satisfactorily explained. I'm hoping to gain more from the book's obviously (hopefully) allegorical plot in future readings.

After some casual deliberation--I'm sorry, I can't lie--Steph Rahl's Best Beach Reading 2008 goes to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Adventures are a collection of installments from the Victorian Strand Magazine. Each story is a brilliantly executed mystery. Each is perfectly sized to allow you a bit of entertaining reading between the exodus from the water due to the inevitable false shark-sighting, and that blissful moment when the bulk of the beachgoers feel comfortable enough to re-enter the water. I always feel better if someone else goes in first. If there is a shark, he'll eat that guy and won't be hungry when I wade in.

New Super G Mart is super fantastic.

I can't tell you how excited I am about the new Super G Mart, which opened about two weeks ago in the FantaCity shopping center on Greensboro's W. Market St. So I'll let the prices speak for themselves.

Black plums at $1.29/lb.
Bartlett pears, $0.89/lb.
Crown broccoli, $0.89/lb.
Garlic, single bulb, $0.14.
Sugar snow peas, $1.59 for .64lbs.
Yellow onions, three-pound bag for $0.89.

I haven't been able to afford produce for most of this summer. My roommates and I do most of our shopping at the nearby Taj MahTeeter on Friendly Ave. But as of today, I will be able to supplement my Pasta Roni and bowls of cereal with produce that is excellent quality at a price I can definitely afford.

The Super G Mart is an international grocery store. It specializes in food items popular in Mexican, Indian, African and various Asian cuisines. In addition to my produce, I purchased:

Chocolate and almond Pocky, $2.29 for a seven-serving box.
Jasmine tea, $1.59 for a cute orange tin holding 120 grams of loose tea.
Maximum strength Nutra-Slim Tea, $2.99 for a 12-serving box.
Individual packages of Udon for $1.09 and $1.49 per package.

My roommates all bought various ethnic beverages to try at home. They are testing them as I type. Mikey just took a sip of his Grass Jelly Drink. The verdict: "It's pretty good at first, but then that aftertaste is just like 'fuck you'."

This band is so awesome.

MUSIC.

Reading is awesome. Young Steph didn't need Scholastic to tell her so. Friends who couldn't figure it out on their own immediately (video games are still pretty tempting) took the hint later from paper-pushing television stars like LeVar Burton and Wishbone. And now, there's a duo of magical musical heroes to help younguns on the noble road to becoming English majors. They're touring the country and fighting the good fight for books and love with one of the greatest magics of all: the power of rock and roll.

My roommate Dan and I were lucky enough to get free tickets from our radio station WUAG 103.1fm to see Harry and the Potters on tour with Uncle Monsterface and Math the Band last night at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC. Unfortunately, we realized that the show started at 6:30pm just as I was arriving home from the gym at 6:20pm. We grabbed a hurried pre-dinner of leftover Chinese (Dan) and a bologna sandwich (me) and hauled ass out of Greensboro. I was still sweaty when we arrived.

This was my third time and his second seeing Harry and the Potters, and they seem to gather larger (and older) audiences every time we've seen them play. The DeGeorge brothers, Joe and Paul, put on one of the best and most family-friendly shows I've ever seen. Their enthusiasm is rad and totally catching. I don't dance like that when I'm drunk.

They've improved as musicians since their self-titled Harry and the Potters, released in 2003. Their songs grow increasingly complex, the quality of lyrics is SO MUCH BETTER than the bald statements of their first recordings, and they use their experience to make old songs even more delightful in their live show.

The DeGeorges are super-nice dudes, too. When I mentioned to Joe that the band's distributor hadn't sent any of their albums to the station, he dashed behind the merchandise table to grab us copies of their two most recent albums, Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock and Harry and the Potters and the Power of Love. He and Paul also did a fantastic radio liner for us, which Dan recorded and hopes to have available for DJ use in the station soon.

Check out Harry and the Potters this Friday afternoon from 1-3pm EST on my radio show, The Indie-Pop 500, only on WUAG 103.1fm.


DIET AND EXERCISE.

I've had an overall improvement in my calorie intake since getting back from Raleigh Sunday night. I went home Wednesday for my mother's birthday on Friday. So there was cake. And, because the few people I know in Raleigh were all there this weekend, there was booze.

But since I've been back, I've been under my calorie limit every day.

I did thirty minutes on the elliptical and about a half-hour of weight machines both Monday and Tuesday. I'm going to use the machines again today, and also take my university gym's 45-minute Spin class. I hope I don't die -- at least, not before I can run out of the instructor's line of sight.

I plan to use The Daily Plate to set my calorie intake to lose one pound this week, two pounds next, three the week after that, and then back to one pound. Cycling through will prevent me from damaging my metabolism, but I'll still be losing a good amount of weight. If I can keep to it, I'll be down to 125lbs in about ten weeks.

Just before my twenty-first birthday, actually.

125lbs by 21. Here goes.

Marquez and a movie I probably should have seen a while ago.

LITERATURE.

I finished The Sun Also Rises while having a mutual read (one of my favorite things to do with good friends) at my friend Alex's parents' place yesterday. Alex noticed I'd finished my book. He was kind enough to leave off his own book, Meher Baba's manifest of doctrine God Speaks, long enough to search his bookshelves. He offered me his copy of Chronicle of a Death Foretold, a brief but completely satisfying novella by Nobel prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Chronicle of a Death Foretold explores the reactions of various denizens of a small town to the news that one of their own was to be killed for his alleged deflowering of a new wife before her marriage and her subsequent abandonment by her husband. The overall style is in keeping with Marquez's background as a journalist. However, instead of beginning with the event itself and ending with the fallout for the family and the community, Marquez begins with the community learning about the intended murder and their general inaction in response.

I want more Marquez. To the library!


FILM.

Finally saw I'm Not There. I was most impressed by Cate Blanchett's portrayal of the young, successful, strung-out sell-out Jude Quinn. It was difficult to recall Quinn was a female actor unless I was looking at her hands -- which, unfortunately, were frequently on screen. Quinn is a perpetual smoker.

I had a little trouble with the storyline featuring Richard Gere as Billy the Kid, mostly because so much of the elements of the storyline seemed intended as symbols and I don't know enough about the life and works of Bob Dylan to read into it as perhaps I'm supposed to.

(Don't) feed the Rahl-nimal.

MUSIC.

For the past week I've been listening to the latest release from Illegal Art's Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis), Feed the Animals, another dance party-worthy album. Thank goodness. I've been inundated by Night Ripper at Greensboro events for the past six months. I'm super relieved to hear something new. My new best workout music, f'sho.

Shake it and jiggle it. Shake it and jiggle it.


LITERATURE.

It's been almost five years since I read Ernest Hemingway, and I've blown through The Sun Also Rises at lightning pace. I dig the simple syntax, the plain language, the booze and the bullfights. The expatriate American is fast becoming my favorite literary archetype (Henry James aside). Unfortunately, the copy I borrowed from the university library has been written over by at least three earlier student readers -- gray pencil girl, fuchsia colored pencil girl, and the probable boy with the black pen -- and they have some comments that are . . . curious. Gray pencil girl seems determined to read the novel as a Biblical allegory. Yikes.


DIET AND EXERCISE.

Thus far a complete disaster. I'm lazy, I've been drinking a hell of a lot and eating way too much Pasta Roni and instant macaroni on a very tight budget. I've started an account at The Daily Plate. Hope it helps.