an ode to kt

what do you get for a friend you've known for twenty some odd years for her 22nd birthday? well, the obvious answer is Jonahtan Strange and Mr. Norrell, a book you told her about months ago, but what do you do when her mother purchases the book before you can mail it? i've tried to come up with something creative for my nearest and dearest bucket, but no such luck. i wrote a couple hikus but they are all along the lines of:

owning a hedgehog
especially a drunk one
will seal a friendship

or:

removing a fly
from many flat surfaces
is quick with hatchet

not very birthday worthy. no, no i need something perfect. something that says "wow, raising two drunk hedgehogs and creating a mythical forest meant a lot to me these past years even if i received many many unnecessary mosquito bites". well, i will come up with something soon. maybe a limerick.

The Irate Narrator

Narrator: It has come to my attention that steps have been taken to demistify Simon and Ivan's blog. It seems Simon and Ivan's friends and . . . well alright, their readership is so small it doesn't even include family. At any rate this highly exclusive readership has expressed confusion over the purpose of this blog, meaning that I, Narrator, have not been cranky enough to scare off pesky questions like "Who are Simon and Ivan?", "What is this blog for?" and the one blogspot.com does not like: "Why don't you have a LiveJournal?" Therefore, let me fulfill one of my many metafictional purposes by saying this: There will be no explanation. In this way the blog exemplifies life--so unfathamably profound that it is its own raison d'etre. Translated from the French, this means, "Just read the damn thing and comment so Simon and Ivan feel their musings have reached someone's interested ears; for heaven's sake what else is a blog for?"

I shall now assiduously hide the infamous Demystifying Post*, severing once and for all the link between Simon and Ivan and any stable semblance of reality. The only revelations we will allow to stand concern a longstanding friendship based more or less on a synchronized feeling of eleven o'clockishness, and a mutual fondness for hedgehogs.

*Said post will be made available in pamphlet form and can be obtained upon the production of appropriate candy goods, certain of which will only be accepted frozen, and with curled ribbons tied around the package.

the LA i <3

oh yes, i did use the "<3" and LA in the same line of text. It has been raining here for about three days straight... the first measureable rainfall in los angeles in 181 days. rain makes me happy. i was actually getting used to the sunshine though... hopefully it will come back. but yes, life is good in la la land. the rain does make traffic move about 75% slower because people here are idiots, but my road rage is soothed by the soft pitterpat of something besides birdshit falling on my car... feels like rochester. I also saw Jason Lee yesterday and Kevin Spacey today. celebrities and precipitation... what a great city. well, that's all from the west coast. good night and go sox!

Oh, bother.

Why do I persist in mistaking getting up in the morning for a good idea when it repeatedly demonstrated to me that this kind of wildly unreasonably optimism does not, in any way, behoove me?

attack of the pod people

i spent most of my weekend at "the grove". for those of you not living in the park la brea (plb) complex, the grove is a shopping center that closely resembles disney land (you thought i was going to say hell... no, that's park la brea itself). either way, it's the one place within walking distance of the plb that isn't frighteningly ghetto. the grove functions on the principle (as all LA businesses do) that los angeles natives are inherently lazy and will always enjoy the convience of having a gap, j crew, nordstrom, banana republic, barnes and noble, over-priced movie theatre, hagen daz, guess, and pac sun within twelve feet of a parking garage (valet parking upon request). a trolley runs up and down the middle of the strip just in case you feel johnny rocket's is too far away from starbucks to walk. either way, i spent many hours holed up in barnes and noble this weekend reading a good book that i lacked the funds to buy... of course with the amount i spend on overpriced coffee, i might as well have just bought the book and flown home to read it. poor planning on my part. just thought i would share this piece of pod culture. rock on east-coasters.

Fiddle-dee-dee

The only good thing about this morning is that I learned that the deadline for my research paper had been extended. After further thought, however, I realized that this will merely prolong the torture of midterm week. A revised evaluation thus reveals there is nothing at all good about this morning and as a precaution I should probably shove the boxes out of under my bed and hide in their place with a blanket and a package of Chocolate Double-Stuf Oreos until it's tomorrow and I can try again.

dogsitter

A woman came into the post department yesterday with her tiny dog, Sadie. Between all the ooohs and ahhhhs she mentioned needing a dog sitter. I volunteered and she gave me all the job information including her address and that she would put clean sheets on the bed if i wanted to have my boyfriend over before she realized she had no idea who I was... it was an ackward moment as my post comrades vouched for my reliability but i passed the test. i will be staying with the puppy all next weekend. party on.

typical moviola day: arrive. read email. clean coffee maker. make coffee for wretched students. field some calls about over-priced classes. bug some people about sending in credit card information to pay for over-priced classes. blog a little. nap a little. go home. in short: i do nothing in a typical moviola day.
now, let us compare to first day at fox: (this internship thanks to lior... fabulous friend) arrive at fox. read cool new scripts. watch cool new tv shows. see semi famous people. go home. yea! life is grand! i even enjoyed ordering supplies from staples... they let me pick the pens! what an awesome internship!

NARGH!

Narrator: Ivan has requested that Simon blog. Unfortunately Simon has a prior commitment to work on a certain thesis this afternoon and has been forced to hire the Vikings to do it instead. The Vikings, as mercenaries (mercenaries should not be confused with missionaries, as has been known to happen, because though both use fear to their advantage, mercenaries are deadly and if they ask you to tea, the correct answer is "AAAAUUGH!", while missionaries are merely bothersome, and it is verging on but not quite an appalling act of hypocrisy to eat their cookies and fail to convert)--to repeat, the Vikings, as mercenaries, are most familiar with war, pillaging, desecration, and, oddly enough, bathing. They understand doing something for money, but what they are being asked to do is slightly beyond them, and their behavior in this type of peaceful engagement is highly unpredictable. Thus, the special instructions which accompany this particular blog include reading it from a safe distance, armored with the proper protective gear, wearing a Babel Fish in your ear, and most importantly, suspending any accurate ideas you may have concerning history, sociology, or linguistics.

Vikings: NARGH! We are fierce! We are smarter than the Saxons! NARGH! And the French! NARGH! And we have cool names! Like Ivar the Boneless! NARGH IVAR NARGH! And Eric Bloodaxe! NARGH ERIC NARGH NARGH! Simon is paying us in gold Rollos! NARGH SIMON NARGH! We do not know what Rollos are! But some of us are named Rollo! NARGH EVERYONE NAMED ROLLO NARGH! Perhaps Simon will give us more Viking warriors! Viking warriors named Rollo made of gold! We love Simon! NARGH SIMON! We wonder what else Simon has made of gold! NARGH GOLD NARGH? We will look around Simon's room! Rollo is searching hastily and with little concern for the state of Simon's things! Rollo has found something gold! NARGH NARGH NARGH! What is it? It is round and has buttons stuck in it! Pretty pearly buttons! NARGH BUTTONS NARGH! There something stuck to it on a string! When Rollo pushes the pearly buttons, voices come out! NARGH VOICES! Rollo has ordered Chinese! NARGH ROLLO NARGH NARGH! We can't wait for the Chinese to come! We have never fought the Chinese! We hear they have strange armor! NARGH CULTURAL EXCHANGE NARGH! Simon's room is fun! We love Simon! NARGH SIMON NARGH! We're playing catch with Simon's TV! NARGH! NARGH! NARGH! We are the best mercenary bloggers ever! NARGH VIKINGS NARGH!

it's an eeevvviilll rental car

so i was about a week over on my car rental contract and still not quite sure how to approach the whole scratch/dent/gouge issue. i was pretty sure enterprise would not be pleased to see the large black mark branding the left rear door, so i ventured to pep boys and raided the scratch removal isle. at work i begged my fellow employees to help me remove the scratches, citing numerous menial tasks i complete during the day giving them time to do things like: create rubber band balls. they shot some rubber bands at me and decided i was worthy of their expertise. the "detailing" went surprisingly well and the car looked much better when we finished. too bad the car rental man was evil. he took one look at the car and said, "wow, looks like you got a little scraped up there... we're gonna have to get that fixed. we don't have any small cars right now, so i'm gonna send you home in a dodge ram". to this i said "i think not". if i managed to scrape up a car the size of a carolla, putting me in a tank masquerading as a car seems like a poor decision. i conviced him to wait till december to fill out the "accident report" therefore saving me more driving drama.