i really do like macs a lot. if they weren't more expensive i'd get one. turns out abc decided against the jimmy kimmel show in several southeastern cities for reasons unbeknownst to everyone..maybe if we raise hell they'll reverse the situation because, as it stands right now, we're looking at celebrity justice as the time filler, and that just doesn't sit right with me. there's a small article about all this in this week's orlando weekly.

i've changed my major to liberal studies and my two areas of study will probably be behavioral and social science, and letters, and then i'll probably do a double minor in sociology and magazine journalism..it's all coming together. i'm thinking about this..and i'm thinking what magazines i'd like to write for..and these are incredibly lofty goals, but the new yorker and national geographic are way up there..i'd probably go crazy with something like AP or rolling stone..or even premiere (ha listen to me)...GQ is a lovely magazine..i could've worked for George if it had stuck around. lovely magazine.

we found out monday night that my upstairs neighbor died. this is shocking. his name was howard church, he was 55, he was driving to work friday morning and had a heart attack. i don't think anyone else on the road was hurt. he was married to his wife ginny for 34 years. they have a daughter that lives with them that has down syndrome, i don't know how she's handling this, i've heard at the viewing she was trying to feed him donuts, apparently not understanding the situation. they have three other children that are older, grandchildren, dogs. i never knew his name before this. we'd always run into each other coming or going and he was always so nice to me and we'd talk about the weather but it didn't feel stupid talking about the weather with him, not like we were filling in for conversation, we actually cared about the weather. this is all so sudden, it's so bizarre..when people around you die and you didn't really know them, but you were kind of used to them and then they're lifted out like that, and for their family and friends it's this devastating event and for you it's just a little change. we kept seeing all of these cars outside, didn't know what was going on..i saw kelly, that's the daughter who lives with them, she played with ed for a little while, i had no idea anything happened. god that's so bizarre. he just left for work and now their husband and father is gone, just randomly. i didn't hear anything about a heart condition..he looked just as fit as anyone else..not too overweight, just a regular 55 year old man. he always seemed so relaxed, maybe that was just the face he put on with neighbors. i dread running into ginny. i don't know what to say. the first day i found out i wanted to see her, just to hug her, even though we've never shared much more than "hi" together, but there were all these people. now they're alone up there, and the car that he died in is a few spaces down, just sitting there staring at everyone. everytime i walk up to my front door i look up at their porch, their windows, looking for someone, usually the lights are off, i don't know how they're handling this. i sit in my chair in my living room and i can feel this pressure from above - it's so strange knowing there's this immense sadness in the air right above you, it's just sitting there, and you're under it and can pay attention to it or not pay attention to it anytime. i can laugh with my family just like before, and i don't realize what's upstairs when i do, but i do realize right afterwards. it feels so strange. death is so strange. what do you say? what do you do? i don't know.

and then there were four who read her blog.. i think that's what went wrong with your's, alan, too many people reading it is weird..

i had a dream last night that some stranger (possibly the one that commented a few posts down) left some lengthy comment about how interesting i seem, that they've been reading my blog for the past year and i really wanted to find out who they were.. it felt good though. this is the narcissist in me.

wow this thing has been going for a year and 4 months now..i still keep a journal at home, but i only write in it every month or two, which would not be enough had i not had this thing as well..what a nice medium. thank you, alan, for introducing it to me. for years before this i had wanted to type my journals because you type faster than you write and you can get it all down better..i still want a little tape recorder to do that..which could be the end of me, like T-Vo..or however you spell it, it could take over my life and so i'm weary.

i love coldplay soo so very much. i've been listening to nothing but them for the last week..i really really love a rush of blood to the head now, possibly more than parachutes..i'm in love with daylight and warning sign and green eyes and the last track.. i'm always singing "green eyes, you're the one who i wanted to find..", even though they didn't play that at the show. did they play a rush of blood to the head, axel? i seem to remember they did, but i'm not sure..that's a great song. i'm hooked. they're not musical geniuses..they're a large part radiohead and oasis, but they still have much of their sound that is all their own somehow..as simple as it is, i've never heard a band that sounds just like them..though i'm sure they're out there somewhere. the music is just Good.. like rob says his relationship with laura was in high fidelity, as long as we're quoting..but really good. yes. i watched that on tv the other night. it cut out so much i was very disappointed...it cut out rob jumping over the counter to beat on barry for saying 'did laura let you leave in that?' (the cawwwsby swehtah) and jumps right to rob in his office telling dick laura left him..rip off man.

best commercial of the superbowl: Reebok: football player Tate (?) tackling everyone in the office..we were on the floor..i think i might have cried.. i want that guy to come and live at my house. oh man.

i waited until three am for Jimmy Kimmel Live..because, jesus, he was going to have GEORGE CLOONEY AND COLDPLAY...a melody love fest. and it never came on..it didn't say what time, it just kept saying "Later Tonight"..what the hell is that, i feel ripped off again..

oh man i have to run to existentialism now where i may find my future boyfriend..his name is scotty..he's very strange..not the hispanic looking guy with the german flag (i asked him, axel, he said he wasn't a nazi or anything, he just bought the jacket cheap...and he likes germany sort of..lol..i go "they have quite the large gross national income, don't they?" like a geek and he goes "yep"..lolol) ....so scotty wears a black and white striped cap (not exactly a beret, but almost, lol) and likes primus a lot and is in a band that he has invited me to see this friday at hard rock, which is hard to do, but i feel i definitely should..um..he has nice brown bowling shoes and jeans that are not in fashion, in a good way..and a two dollar simpson's watch..he is smart and he looks at me a lot and he seems kind..we shall see.

bye

the below was supposed to show up last wednesday, so it seems old now and maybe i'll add fun things..maybe mac doesn't like me:

wow..this is fascinating, i'm on a mac...it's kind of thrilling..this is new and different in a very good way..they're like aliens.

let me quickly relay my awe about coldplay:

what an amazing band, what an amazing concert..it's up there with my top five shows of all time...maybe top three. americans are so enthusiastic about coldplay and chris martin is so excited about everything, he was so happy, they sounded so great, all energy and joy and just good times - there was the quintessential hardcore guy with his metal signs singing along a few people over, very cute - there was the obnoxious drunk girl trying to get ahead of everyone during yellow when everyone freaked out and the girl next to me taking a stand, screaming "NO!", great stuff - chris' voice is so gorgeous, he was so happy, dancing and running around and telling us about free trade thru writing on his hand that we could see by the big screens behind them, cameras on his hands on the keys and on the side of his face from the top of the piano..it was so intimate when it needed to be, everyone singing the whole time, and loud and exciting when it wanted to be, starting the set with politik, lights flashing with the piano in the chorus, very exciting, though too bright, had to close my eyes during "open up your eyes", yes, everyone jumping. i'm getting back on them, i'm listening to them all the time now..i want to hang out with them..axel and i want to make love to chris, which is fine. he's so sexy, he makes you smile. politik, then shiver, great opening..end with yellow and the scientist, so beautiful, then encore with in my place, clocks, and finally trouble (or spiderwebs as alan calls it), a soft ballad that americans yell "yeah!!" to that he mentioned he loved..what a beautiful night. alan, you really shouldn't have missed this one. i'm so glad i didn't. i will see them every time they come here, and every other time i have a chance to see them. definitely.

oh no..oh no........oh no. this early rising thing is not for me. my world lit class is at 10 am, which means i have to wake up at 8:30 am two days out of the week.. and that's incredibly painful. i didn't think it would be this bad..i had a bad dream and then woke up incredibly groggy and with a headache this morning..i don't think i've ever woken up with a headache in my life.. i only went to bed at about 12:30. and then i'm always nauseous in the morning, so i can't eat anything, and then i get heartburn by the next hour for not eating anything.. ugh.. i can't brush my tongue in the morning anymore or i'll gag..my gag reflex has gotten out of control, this didn't used to happen, just in the last 6 months..what the hell..oh no oh no. i searched for half an hour in vain for a class to replace it with at a better time.. ucf is a bitch, they close all classes off to nonmajors, what the hell. i feel like shit. i'm forced to eat lunch at 11am..they have a new chinese place but it's not good at all, except for the eggrolls..so that's nice. we really need a wider variety of food around here. i think my family and i are moving back to tulsa in the next few years.. might as well, we're very tired of florida, we may go right after jordan graduates, or right after i graduate.. so two or three years. i don't feel like i'll be able to find work there, but maybe i can fit into a different life and just go on.. i just worry about the crazy conservatives..there's a lot of the religous right in those parts..that's not fun. still, i feel ready to go back there. for years i knew i would never want to move back, but, you know..things change. i need seasons and family members and horses.. dad is now in training to be a spokeseperson for a surveillance company which seems to be growing by the day and could possibly carry it to that region..looks like something that could seriously turn some things around for us financially, which would be amazing. confining the cab driving the weekend busy days. we're getting a dog. that's right. a friend of ours has this 4 yr old daschaund named Ed that they have to get rid of because they're having another baby.. we've had Ed over before, he is awesome, only he almost killed my cat, but that just makes dad and jordan love him more..he's got moxy. he's an incredibly cool dog, he sits on your lap when you call him, he thinks he's a big dog.. we're very excited. so it's gonna be me, dad, jordan, george, and ed. it's always me and a bunch of guys. i hope ed and george get along..dad and jordan say "well we'll just get rid of george if something happens", like george is a fly or something.. what the hell. he's george. i love george. i figure ed will get over it if he has a problem initially. hopefully. george is my buddy. i hope george is a boy. george's testicles have yet to grow in.

in the town...where i was born...

i'd also like to have a pig. this is just what i'm thinking. my lit book is giant, in that it has 3000 pages, yet small, in that it is a small-framed book, only about 9 x 5 inches, with extremely extremely thin pages and fine print..and it's paperback instead of hardback, so you can't hardly keep it up when you're reading while lying down..giant books need to be hardback, people, i'm sorry. it has whole works in it, including Candide, Madame Bovary, The Metamorphosis, Death in Venice...it's nice. and it has a piece of "song of myself" by walt whitman, which you may remember from howerton's ap lit class..i like that poem. it also has stuff by rainer maria rilke, who i did my huge ap lit presentation on..so that's neat. i am completely and utterly in the dark with the reading for existentialism..these people compose sentences in ways that make them hard to understand..you understand all the individual words, but not the way they are collected together...heh. i have no idea what keirkegaard is talking about. and apparently strawser (the prof) wrote a book about keirkegaard, which apparently makes even less sense than this book of keirkegaard's own writings..which is fun. i hope i can wrap my head around this stuff..or else find cliff's notes.. i suddenly feel like the person in the class of average intelligence, a scary feeling. i've really only read introductions so far, and they sometimes don't make sense out of context of the book, so maybe the body of the book will make more sense..i'm holding out for sartre to make more sense... he has a lecture in his book called "humanism and existentialism" which i'm really interested in, since i'm all humanist now.. vonnegut has molded me in his image. i ran into Will yesterday, the first time this whole year that i've seen him on campus..amazing. i want to go see just married with you guys, but i can't on friday, so let's wait til saturday, eh? i'll call him. i still have to see about schmidt and roger dodger. very important. especially the first one. i hate how work cuts out so much free time, sure i can do homework easily (as now it is only reading), but if i were home it would even be better.. but she needs someone to meet her at the bus and get her into the house every weekday afternoon.. i'm going to start taking weekends off, though, dammit. ok i have to go to class.

i just ran into aneesha but couldn't say hi because i'd forgotten her name and then looked here and found it and verified my need to put people's names here. let's talk about school:

school is going to be good this semester. i'm taking interesting classes. it was supposed to be that i'd take three interesting classes and one gen ed class, but one of my interesting classes (race and enthnic minorities in the U.S.) is not so interesting because it's taught by this white chick grad student who is TRES boring and completely unenthusiastic.. ugh.. But, my gen ed, macroeconomics, is taught by this 50-60 yr old firecracker lady with short spiky hair who is very loud and enthusiastic and is going to tell us all about the economic implications of the upcoming war.. woohoo. did you know that if we attack iraq and sadaam burns up his oil fields the price of gas in this country will be $4.60 something? fun!! so she's cool.

there are a surprising amount of white people in my race class.. i think they're all just trying to impress their girlfriends. i ran into the fledgling frat-boy republican today. on our cards we made her with our info on it he asked "why is today's white america being punished for the wrongs of the white america of centuries ago?" and she gave him the website for the american civil liberties union (she was giving us all websites to review), which he laughed at, because it was apparently a simple answer to a difficult question.. i asked him what the ACLU was all about and he laughed that i wasn't familiar already.. oh boy. alright i just looked up aclu.org and it's basically an organization defending the constitution and the rights of every downtrodden person "for the past 80 years".. they sound nice.. nice and liberal. i have a feeling conserva-boy will not be appeased.

world lit II is going to be a hell of a lot of reading but i'm into it, i read anyway, they'll just be supplying my reading matter - the prof is a 30ish white guy who was definitely a big dork in high school but he's ruling the school now.. geeky little funny asides on the syllabus include: if you must leave class early, alert me beforehand and then, at an opportune moment, storm out of the classroom in disgust. aww.. he should be cute.

existentialism is where the real magic happens.. i have a friend in there, sara gudrey, whom i haven't seen in a year or so.. and we had this fun assignment first day that helped us meet people and they're all a bunch of cure fans and social rejects, it's so cute, they're all very nice, and now i know like 6 of them.. so that's awesome. the prof is another 30ish white guy who's semi-cute (i didn't think they really existed), it's his first teaching year, he's lived in sweden the last 10 years, he knows like three other languages, so that's neat. he's very intellectual, though, which might mean pretentious, we'll see.. either way, he's very enthusiastic, the people are cool, i'm excited. let the dark contemplation begin!

need to go spend hundreds on books now and eat chick fil a very quickly.. i need one of those self propelling devices that you just stand on and it moves how you lean.. those things are fucking amazing.. jordan and i saw one at epcot, they cost $200 to rent.. oh boy.. and to buy, well...anyone have $5000? the magic number. ok bye.