silent night, holy night... 

all is calm 

until... 

NARGH! 

plane and simple

my new favorite mode of transportation is the airplane. i obviously have no talent for driving, so i have been discussing (with myself) the feasibility of buying a jet. i mean, i have a job now and i really love this side of the country more than the other, so it makes sense to have an airplane at my beck and call. i obviously cannot rely on the major airlines anymore... their time constraints are cramping my style. take sunday morning. betsy and i woke up at 10 and i checked my flight itinerary... surprise! my one o'clock flight was actually at 11! damn those extra digits. betsy threw my bag into the car and broke several hundred traffic laws to get me to logan by 10:20. luckily i was not checking any baggage so they did not mind my tardiness. anyway, contributions to my flight school fund will be accepted in cash or candy donations. cash is preferred at the moment as i just received the estimate for the rental car incident.

And forth she goes.

I haven't blogged in approximately 85 years because annoying things keep happening to me and distracting me. For example, every morning I seem to wake up in a place where they expect me to read and write and do Latin from dawn til dusk. I wouldn't mind if this happened a few times a week, but it inexplicably occurs every single day. Why don't I ever wake up in Fiji or Tuscany or to a nice winter morning in Finland? If I did I would be a five-star blogger, let me tell you. I would blog your socks off.

Some mornings, of course, are worse than others. Let us take today as an example. Yesterday I turned in my last paper and finished, printed, and bound my thesis. And I was so relieved because all I had left was my Latin exam at one o'clock today, and I've studied enough not to feel like it's my fault if I do badly. So I was lying in bed after my alarm went off thinking, and this is an exact quote: "I'm so glad I don't have to write anything analytical for a whole month. SO GLAD."

Ten minutes later, I checked my e-mail and discovered a message from one of my professors saying that in the paper I handed in yesterday, I did not answer both questions and could I please just do a short paper on the first one and hand it in? And I almost wept in awe of the gargantuan size of my stupidity.

If I had woken up in Finland this morning, this would not have happened.

as seen on tv

my good friend amanda scored some extra tickets to the taping of "VH1 Big in '04" on wednesday and graciously invited me to attend. after finagling my way out of class, i trekked over to the shrine auditorium with amanda, megan and george. let me tell you, awards shows are very dissapointing in person. the red carpet has like three rows of people lined up to watch, but they manage to make it look like thousands... the actual arrivals are dull and the show took forever to start. when it finally started it was pretty cool. it definitely didn't have the same kind of energy they will make it have on television, BUT there were definitely some highlights. 1. the cast of arrested development was there... go arrested development. 2. black eyed peas, green day, maroon5, and velvet revolver performed- excellent. 3. our seats sucked. we were in the third balcony but we stumbled upon awards show secret #1... people don't stay for the whole thing. as the night wore on and nick lachey was sounding cornier and cornier the balcony emptied out pretty quickly. by the end we were right up front. yea for being up front. 4. now the really awesome thing about being so close was jamie foxx showed up and started talking to all of us. yes. jamie foxx. it was random. he introduced stevie wonder from the balcony and walked right by us to get to the stage... yes, we might be on television! so, tune in to the last twenty minutes of vh1 big in '04 sunday night for my possible television debut... you might see my hands or something. the show really is funny though, so watch... if not for me, then to see anna nicole try to take her top off on national television.

Camel and Llama Differentiation League

A week or so ago I changed my buddy icon to a camel. This received some positive responses...

Christi: I like the camel icon.
Christine: hee. camel.
Megan: i LOVE the CAMEL

...a moderate respose...

Matt: What's with the camel?

...some confused responses...

Christina: Is your buddy icon a llama?
Lindsey: I think you should blog about the camel icon because I want to know what's up with that. I don't know what kind of crack addict would think it was a llama.

...and a Justin* response:

Justin: What the hell is your buddy icon? A demented camel?

If you would all be so obliging as to refer to the illustrations below, a camel, as you can see, has a prominent nose, long eyelashes, eyes spread far apart, and funny ears, as opposed to a llama, which has a prominent nose, long eyelashes, eyes spread far apart, and funny ears. The differences are obvious. Camels are camels and llamas are llamas because camels are camels and llamas are llamas. Attempts to refute this watertight logic will be met with hostility from the Camel and Llama Differentiation League, which I have just created, and--as the sole member with voting rights--of which I have just installed myself as Grand Vizier. The Camel and Llama Differentiation League would like to stress that camels and llamas just are, and there isn't a damn thing you can do.

I also serve as President, Treasurer, Bo's'un, and Ship's Girl of the Pirate and Viking Differentiation League, and would like to stress on behalf of this entirely separate organization, of which I am also the sole member, that my previous buddy icon was a Viking longboat, not a pirate ship. The difference is that they are both seagoing vessels carrying marauders who use the elements of surprise and terror to misappropriate goods such as gold, gold, and gold.

Let's try to keep it straight, folks. These are important distinctions.

*The only reason "Justin" isn't listed as an adjective in the Oxford English Dictionary is because the people working for the OED haven't met him. This applies to a number of other people that I know, as well.

Llama, lama, Llama: LLAMA. 

Camello; chameau; kamel: CAMEL. 

brought to you by the lingering effects of red bull, diet coke and multiple lattes

i have been sleeping about four hours a night. i wake up, walk dog, go to internships, go to class, come back to film garden to work, and go home around 3am. i have been living on caffiene and sugar. i slept through half of class yesterday... class is at 4 in the afternoon. i am very tired. i have switched from single shot espresso drinks to triple. i closely resemble a dead person. thank god i am going home tomorrow. seeing duncan will restore me to a human state. i cannot wait for nasty weather and friends. who needs the OC when you have the ROC. see you tomorrow.

Brought to you by the lingering effects of NyQuil

It may have come to your attention that I have recently had a cold. Ways in which this may have come to your attention include (1) me complaining about it, and (2) me singing Beach Boys songs to you in a feverish delusion. We can all agree the second is more fun, because I can be teased about that for weeks and months to come.

Despite its recent failure, however, I would like to point out that my immune system is actually amazing. I take this cold as an example because the sniffly-stuffly part took a whole of an hour and a half to get over and done with, and I woke up this morning happy as a clam. Happy as a clam with the tail end of a disease and a research paper due next Wednesday, anyway. And all that was required of me was to spend a few days watching Monty Python's Flying Circus and West Wing reruns. That's not a cold. That's a vacation.

What they (by which I mean Aaron Sorkin) say about the Secret Service is also true of my immune system: it only gets attention when it screws up. Doesn't really seem fair in either case. Huzzah for my immune system! Huzzah for the Secret Service! And huzzah for television and Yorkshire tea, because we all know neither immune systems nor the Secret Service could get along without them.

P.S. And so the cold doesn't feel left out, I quote Monty Python in its honor: "We interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally irritating." Colds would be a solid voting block if the BBC ever ran for President.

the reality of my reality television experience

film garden is working on a new show called "popularity contest" for CMT. Technically I am not allowed to tell you about "popularity contest" as everyone in the company including the cleaning staff was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement... but, being the lowly intern, I was overlooked when the confidentiality nazi's came a knockin, so i can actually tell you all about the show without any consequences- this includes paying the 3 million dollar fine (mtv does not mess around when it comes to bad reality television). I really can't tell you what the show is about though... i think i've labeled about 600 tapes and they all have titles like "debra sue practices for the hog calling contest but can only find a goat". of course my new job as "dub rack wench" (i copy tapes), affords me the opportunity to watch all 1,200 hours of the soon to be seven hour series... maybe i will tune in for the goat calling contest and tell you how it goes...

Latin, and a Response

Over the summer, when I asked my father where his old Latin books were so that I could look at them in preparation for beginning Latin 105 in the fall (mock me and I will hit you), he responded with, "AMO AMAS AMAT AMAMUS AMATIS AMANT!"

This is the present indicative active of the first-conjugation verb AMARE, "to love." Apparently it is ingrained in the mind of former Latin students everywhere, because when I told my sister the other day that I had to go study Latin, she said, "AMO AMAS AMAT AMAMUS AMATIS AMANT!" like I was some kind of Latin Drill Seargant.

I admit that Latin is a strange and dangerous world, but goodness. The only imperatives I know are "Praise!", "Warn!", "Give!" and "Teach!" That doesn't even come close to, "Down and give me fifty! And then, wage war on the Peloponnesians!"

And a side note from The Narrator in regard to the Narrator's latest entry:
1) "upon the production of candy" there meant, "candy must be turned over, in whatever form." Said candy does not need to be home-made. In fact, in light of my experiences with home-made candy, I hereby rule that it should be store-bought.

2) Yes, Simon and Ivan both require the candy. They have different tastes and these should be inquired after before the deal is made, in order to avoid a misunderstanding with gruesome results.

3) The turnaround between receival of candy to mailing of pamphlet is somewhere between three weeks and never.

4) The pamphlet, were one to be produced (which here means "made from scratch") will be a joint creation.

5) Whether this is a well-rehearsed goose-chase is something--which, incidentally, reminds me of a pantomime I saw in York last January, which featured a very diverting short film of a man dressed as a woman chasing a man dressed in a large goose costume and dog ears around the most recognizable portions of that great and dignified city of York, which, if I could get my hands on it, I would watch once daily and twice on Sundays. I hope I have answered your question.

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.