All I Do Is Win

Snoop has been running this rap game since he was 20 years old. Man, I am 2 years late, I better get my act together.
if you aren't familiar, and I'm very hopeful that you aren't, this is maybe the worst/best song ever. I am going through yet another of my terrible music phases. One cannot listen to New Pornographers, David Bowie, Old 97s, Fruit Bats, and Guided by Voices always. Well, maybe one can, but I cannot.

The story behind this fantastic/terrible song is that it was the pump-up song for my mock trial babies this year! I went to a round of regionals this year to root for my babies. It was weird, I guess, I thought I was going to be able to be more involved in the program this year, but I didn't end up with enough time or energy. SURPRISE. so, this was the third year of the AU program competing in regionals (when I showed up at AU there was practically no program [AU students are notoriously flaky], my junior year was the first time I captained a team at a regional), and one of the AU teams placed! That means they're going to the opening round of national championship qualifiers. I am so proud of my little mock trialers, most of whom started from scratch last year. They are fully informed that they are to name the AU invitational tournament after me, the program's unofficial founder and first official captain.

It has been raining all day, which is great, even though today has been a cranky one. curse you, barometric pressure changes! Because of the advent of allergy season, I've increased my daily intake of various pills now to a grand total of 13. Apparently Costco sells a giant bottle of knock-off Zyrtec for $dirtcheap.99? Stuff saved my life when Capital R and I went to West Virginia and I had relatively miserable sinus issues - it's cool to mix allergy meds with too much champagne, right?? Anyway I'm beginning to wonder if I'm over-supplemental-ing, is that a thing?

Soon I have to make a decision about what to do when the lease on my house is up. Which is in 2 months and 22 days. which is 1,992 hours, or just over 7 million seconds. I'm dreading everything about that.

3x5 notecards

Somehow it seems that I am incredibly motivated to update blogzie when I am cleaning my room. This might be because I am avoiding finishing cleaning, namely, doing the suckiest part of cleaning, like sweeping and dusting and going through the Pile of Papers of Doom. The other reason it might be is that cleaning time is the only time I have downtime at home these days that is not devoted to sleeping.

I am adding another family this upcoming week for Thursdays, which I may have mentioned. This means I'll have a work babby every day of the work week, except sometimes Fridays because Bee's family goes out of town a lot for a long weekend, plus Stellina every other Saturday. I have enough free time that I take a lot of extra work without having to turn too many people down, but I think that it might start getting a little stressful. OH GOD, not 30 hours a week of mostly guaranteed employment! The horror.

Hopefully the new kids aren't cute so I don't get attached to them.

I went through a few old notebooks on my bookshelf today, intending to reorganize stuff, before realizing that it already mostly makes sense in its present order. A lot of school notes I never studied, sloppy meeting notes, and notes passed between me and one of my friends during guest speakers and presentations in class. but also some really emo stuff! A couple of letters, a couple of angsty treatises, and one poem-y sort of thing that was not entirely cringe-worthy. I put it all back on the shelf to marinate for the next few years.

In super exciting news, MY SISTER is coming to visit ME in a REALLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME FROM NOW.

(For Some Inexplicable Reason the) British Train Mascot is a Mexican Wrestler

I found this blog post title in the list of auto-complete suggestions.

The interwebben are alight with chatter about Lady Gaga's new music video. It took me a bit to come around to Gaga; I mostly just thought she was a nutter with a penchant for strange hair. And then I realized that she and her production team are crazyinsane artistic geniuses.

Her video for "Telephone" picks up where the "Paparazzi" video leaves off, and includes Beyonce, sunglasses made of lit cigarettes, poison honey, and the Pussy Wagon, so, um, it couldn't possibly get much better. Here I have embedded it from MTVMusic.com, which I try to use as often as possible, in support of MTV's lost music days.

Lady Gaga |MTV Music

Also on the interwebben, the new OK Go video for "This Too Shall Pass," which I can't embed, but here it is. The official video of the marching band version has been out for a couple months and it's pretty cool, but this new one is AWESOME. Like a bunch (most? all?) of their other videos, it's one continuous shot, and they filmed in a warehouse in 60+ takes over two days. It's well worth the less than 4 minutes of your life.



Thirdly and finally in music news for today, I got a ticket to the Pavement show in Philly in September. I'm pretty pumped about that! My friend Steve bought his ticket separately from me, and ended up 5 seats away purely by luck. We're in Orchestra A, Row C, which is pretty sweet, though we're a little over to the right, I guess. If you're in DC or Philly, or anywhere else close, there are still tickets available, so you should come!!!


Today I was standing in the living room and my kitchen sink made a funny noise. I looked at it and it looked normal, and then 20 seconds later I looked at it again and it looked like this:



WHAT.


Time to finish my food desert paper and experiential map, and start packing for New Orleans. I'm taking my computer, so maybe I will bloggy while I'm there.

Tomorrow is my first adventure with a Zipcar! I get to go buy cat food and cat litter in Bethesda, so... that's cool. My Honda Civic's name is Carl. First time driving in DC! wooo

If I could do just one near-perfect thing

The new shoes that I have ordered! I think maroon will be more interesting than navy blue. I guess I'd better get a belt that is not hot pink.

I am far too excited to go to New Orleans; I can hardly contain myself. I have made a pact with one of my fellow travelers to make severe inroads on thesis work before departing... perhaps another of our fellows would care to join this pact?
Blerg I can't concentrate on anything except that exact point in time when I get bored of drinking mai tais and switch to hurricanes. I need vacation so hard.

HAY GUYS IT IS SPRING IN DC NOW
IT IS SO GREAT

Oh let me also say something about this horrible girl in my radical cartography of DC class. She's so horrible. She has not gone through an entire class yet without mentioning at least twice that she works at the Senate (let me tell you how much I hate people who love to brag that they work at the Senate. SO MUCH.), and also that she works at the University Information desk so OMG SHE WORKS WITH MAPS like omg she must know so much about everything ever! She never seems to know what she's talking about, but somehow can relate anything to her work at the Senate (did I mention she works at the Senate? Well, she does), or at the info desk. And it never makes sense. Most of the time the professor just kind of ignores her and moves on. I mean, I don't always know what I'm talking about, because the class is confusing as hell, but at least I don't pretend that I do know.

It is a total coincidence that she is a cheerleader.

So on Friday, we come into class and sit down to take our midterm. all 9 of us are kind of last-minute studying and making sure we have all the members of the DC City Council memorized, and know what food deserts are, and stuff. (HERE is some stuff on food deserts) Cheerleader says, "The closest grocery store to my apartment is 0.9 miles, so I have no sympathy for people who complain about having to walk to the grocery store."

um.

excuse me?

Dear Cheerleader,
I see some flaws in your argument! Let me point them out to you.

1) You live in Northwest DC. Not a food desert. I don't care if you live a mile from the grocery store. You only live a mile from the grocery store.

2) You JUST pointed out that many red line stops in NW DC have grocery stores within a block! Look at that, easy transportation, conveniently enough for you, because you live in NW DC.

3) You may work at the Senate AND at the info desk, which is two jobs and I'm sure that is a lot of work. But I guarantee your Senate work is unpaid, and therefore, you can afford to have an unpaid internship, and that makes you pretty damn privileged.

4) You to go American University, which costs $40+k a year. That makes you hella damn privileged and not qualified in the least to talk about having no pity for those who are less privileged than you.

5) Okay, say that you are here on scholarship and you are getting paid at the Senate (because you are actually really intelligent and are just really good at hiding it?). You don't have three kids to feed. Not to mention cart along with you to the grocery store! or, find care for while you travel to the grocery store, which is Really Far Away.

6) Even if you're here on scholarship and you're getting paid at the Senate, I don't see you getting a payday loan at 500% interest in order for you to pay for groceries for you and your three kids, and also to pay for transportation to and from the grocery store.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that after cheerleading practice, you shop at Whole Foods and lay down Daddy's credit card. And you're so preoccupied thinking about which cute J. Crew or Banana Republic outfit you're going to wear when you have to get up tomorrow at 8 am (gasp! so early) to go to the Senate that you don't even look the minority minimum-wage cashier in the eye, let alone glance at your grocery bill. And then you slip Daddy's credit card back in your Prada wallet behind your fake ID, which cost you $120 but is soooo legit, see? Look, it's even your own picture!

Oh, I forget where you work, did you say it was the Senate? Also, all those photos on your FaceBook of you macking on your boyfriend are really classy. Man, I really wish I could work at the Senate and have a boyfriend whose face I could eat all over the internet to prove that he's mine.

So dear Cheerleader, feel free to name-drop where you work as much as you want, but please please STFU about how hard it is for you to get to a grocery store.

Disdainfully,
Mo



(I love how the beginning of this post is about how privileged I am, buying shoes and going on vacation. self-awareness makes it okay, everyone! no but seriously, I don't pretend that I'm not privileged. ugh, I'm that well-meaning middle-class white girl.)

points? transfer of momentum

I'm in social justice class and there is a girl with a HUGE white porcelain teapot on her desk. Also, a styrofoam cup, which contains her shiny metal tea leaf strainer thing (what are those things called?).

I kind of think that if you're going to bring the giant teapot and the nice metal strainer for your tea leaves to religion class, you might as well go all the way and bring the matching porcelain cup and saucer. Perhaps even the sugar bowl.

I mean, really, screw styrofoam.

She ain't no diva

Looks like I just blew an entire week being sick and angry. That week was pretty much a gift that could have single-handedly saved my GPA, and I blew it.

And I'm still sick and still angry. And a whole lot of sad, too. Oh, and broke.

where no one notices the contrast of white on white

The past few days I've been honing my Oregonian skills of being able to predict rain. Mostly because it just rains every three hours and that's the way it works. But today it's just been raining.

For the life of me I can't concentrate on, well, anything, but especially not on my summer reading that's due on Tuesday, so a self-interested blog post is in order to kill time. There's even a gangster on the front of my textbook! and it's still not interesting. I, however, am interesting.

Not.

Captain Bananio is nearly running. He's got some words, he's climbing the stairs (until we catch him and pull him off), he's still not mastered the fork but he has mastered the throwing of the food. He's just past 13 months. We have conversations where we both fully understand each other even though we are not speaking the same language.

Zannah is going into the second grade. She keeps sending me text messages through her mother, and even though she's a little terrorist I still adore her. Same with Prince Philip. When you get them separate Prince Philip is an angel, but the two of them together.... super effective birth control.

School happens on Monday. Niki and I both decided this semester is going to suck. so. bad. I'm already ridiculously behind on reading. Niki doesn't even know all the classes she's taking yet. In brighter news, Maeg comes home today! in five short, short hours. And tonight I'm sitting for a family that is very low maintenance and pays me well. So, money and friends.


I love DC. I love it from my stupid apartment, I love it from carrying $95 worth of groceries home from Giant in 93 degrees with 67% humidity, I love it from the wet roof of a Columbia Heights rowhouse watching the storms surround the entire city, I love it from the crowded red line platform during rush hour, I love it from the midday sky getting darker and darker until it cracks and pours down on all the college kids moving into the building. I have never loved a city this way. But today I don't understand it.

I have high hopes.

Finals: Frick on a Stick

Funny bits from my lecture notes:

"Ike pres, old dude, had cabinet full of old dudes."

"Jack & Bobby obsessed w/Cuba, used every single resource to overthrow Castro
why? was action presidency"
I'm an action president! Running, jumping, climbing trees! and I'm an executive president. un president d'action et un president executif.

"one way tix on PanAmerican
astronauts - in case one was not successful would blame Cubans
rattlesnakes?"

"Trujillo finally assassinated -> great celebration -> CHAOS"
sounds like college

"we didn't care much abt indochina - French colony
♥ Mark Hatfield ♥"

"we were never going to fight communism after we left Vietnam -
even tho the wall didn't fall until 1989
the QUEEN!!!!
next time Jackson, Rostow"

"Marshall Acheson, lots of secretary said no Israel, didn't want lose oil"

"we took canal & chunks on side - since T. Roos."

"Sadat did own thing, was assassinated"
bummer

"[Reagan] also supported Israel w/o any neutrality
-heart of conservatism - God gave Palestine to Hebrews, hated Arabs"
Does Reagan hate Arabs, or is it just God that does?


trust me, they make no more sense in the context of my notes.