One more for the cabin

Hi all
I want to use this post as a middle ground to get the trip organized. the occupants for the weekend I believe will be (in no particular order):
-ash
-amanda
-steph
-sara
-scott
-dave

for my part, im bringing my own clothes and furnishing the occupancy. I've informed scott of the sleeping situation, so he's bringing stuff for that for himself. a list of the stuff that is included is here:
http://www.huestonwoodsresort.com/two-bedroom-family-cottage-supply-list-914.html


We need to figure out who is bringing what. I'm not opposed to going to K-roger after K-ona, but for things like lawn chairs for around the fire, or firewood that might be less than practical.

So please discuss what we need to bring for the weekend in the comments and if you can't bring it down, maybe someone will else take it.

ONE WEEK AWAY FROM TOTAL SANITY.

Ready for this?

THIS is the kind of shit I have to deal with in my intro-to-poetry class.

So is THIS.

And THIS.

And let's not forget THIS.

(And there's more where that came from.)

In Which A Young Man Tries To Pick Me Up At A Library.

Today, a young man tried [failed] to "pick me up," as they say, at a library. For reals.

1. That never happens.

2. It's a library.

3. I will forever associate this memory with Love in the Time of Cholera. [the book I was trying very hard to read]

It begs the question [sidebar: I recently found a web page entirely devoted to preserve the original meaning of "beg the question" which is not at all how I used it just now. see http://begthequestion.info/] : Any bad pickup stories? Ladies? Or gentleman? Out with it!

sorry sorry sorry

but this is soo fucking cool!

same principle as 3-d glasses, but without the hardware. sort of like those magic-eye books from when we were kids. neat!

Liberty

This is nice.

Hueston Woods

Just booked a cabin big enough for us (maybe 5-6 people) for March 6-9. If you can't make it, I think we'll try to get to Oxf for Kona that evening if it works out with my flight.

I hope you guys can make it.
Dave

In a lame effort to curb neglect of the FLC . . .

How is everyone? And if you don't read Gawker and their branch sites, you probably should.

The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences

This is seriously cool.

Some Favorites:
The prime numbers
Fibonnacci Sequence

And how's this for cool: You can go to their main welcome page and type a series of integers to see what sequence it belongs to!
CRAZY DELICIOUS

SIMULATED IMAGERY. RESULTS NOT TYPICAL.

I want to tell you that the above imagery has been simulated. The results are not typical. Your results may vary.

progress- ive?

So I'm sure ive told some of you at one point or another that I am beginning to write a story, whether it is a novel or a short story has yet to be seen by lenght, but I am aiming for novel. Names of the characters are subject to change, these in the below section are inspired by conversations with my Sara(h)'s.
this is just one of a few scenes i have thought out with dialogue and a tiny bit of plot. all you need to know is it takes place in a faux maimi, where things are not nearly as boring as ox.

so feel free to rip apart or say, hey that sounds not awful:P much luvs

“What were you thinking? Did you not put your head on before your balls this morning?” Martín growled at Maximilian.
Max looked at Martín with earnest eyes, “I had to, and you did too, did you not see her, she’s like a wisp of air; she’d never survive. I’m amazed she survived the predators at the party. Did you see the way they were looking at her, like she was something to be pillaged or conquered?” his eyes getting desperate at this point. “She’s not an easy lay or fresh meat.” he added firmly.
Then thinking for a quick moment he hinted “And, I saw you looking at her friend,” he finished with sly look. Martín scoffed.
“They’re freshman, we are supposed to look at them like that.” He bit back a laugh.
Max glowered at him, much liking the idea of giving him a few more good cuts to join the bleeding trickles in Martín’s shoulder. After a few seconds Martín sighed “Yes, I saw her at the party, I saw you staring at her like there was no tomorrow. And her friend wasn’t that hot.”
“Wasn’t she? Did you or did you not offer her twice to get a fresh beer?” Now Max was incredulous, almost having to hold back a giggle, the first since he saw the black haired girl in the crowded room of the party.
Martín was flustered for a second, “That’s not the point, you should not have interfered with them, we should not have gotten in the way, and I …” he said with a sort of malice, “should definitely not be fucking bleeding! You owe me a new shirt.”
“Oh shut up, think of it as battle scars, and think of all the ass you’ll get if you tell chicks it’s from a rock slide or something else wicked.”
“They won’t believe that, even if I told them the truth.” Martín dusted off his jeans, then considering the street lamp for a moment and then said “They might have seen us, really seen us, you might not be able to protect her every move, she might not want you nearby.” he finished coolly. He looked at Max. His hazel eyes seemed to already drooping in the knowledge of this fact.

i followed sara's example and posted small, so you might actually read some.

Sproing Breaks

I'm going be in ohio from March 6th at 3:20 PM until March 15th at 6:55 PM.

Im going to be in the mood for some serious decompression. Anyone want to get a cottage for a few days at Hueston? they have a 3-days-for-the-price-of-2 special going on...

How I love PBS: Let Me Count the Ways

Today I decided to come home for lunch, because I actually had some food in my refrigerator. I turned on the TV for some background noise, and since I don't have cable, my options were rather limited. Unless I wanted to watch soap operas or children's shows, the natural choice was pbs.

I adore pbs. It has sponsors, of course, but it is the only kind of (free) television that isn't completely overwhelmed by capitalist corporate greed. Gone are the days when a television show would simply politely pause for a moment, "for this word from our sponsor." The sponsors are in the fabric of the program now, their logos are pasted all over the screen, their products are props. I didn't watch Superbowl XLIII Presented by Cadillac, but I did catch the last few minutes (waiting for the Office to come on afterward). I noticed that at one point an announcer said something like, "These post-game aerial shots are brought to you by Budweiser." I imagine Budweiser was an overall sponsor of the event, but somehow it warranted mentioning that something as specific as the post-game aerial shots were being shown to us thanks to Budweiser. I can't help noticing that sports games these days are, more often than not, played in places called "The Nabisco-Budweiser-Axe Stadium" or something similar. I'm surprised sports teams haven't started to be called "The Nike-ExxonMobil Pittsburgh Steelers" or the like. We're living in a bit of an Idiocracy.

Have you ever watched a commercial for pbs? They're intense, and frequently heart-wrenching. Robert Redford encourages you to support pbs because somewhere, there is a child with great ideas whose voice should be heard, and pbs is a place for that voice. Pbs seems unspoilt. It feels comforting, like your grandparents' house. You're going to watch your grandmother knit, your grandfather might show you how to build a cabinet, and then you're all going to bake a nice pie. The voice of Bob Ross washes over you like a warm breeze, comforting and reassuring you that you can put that happy, fluffy little cloud anywhere you like because your life is your painting. There's no need to worry so much. You can paint a new day tomorrow.

And then there are the documentaries. I love documentaries. Which brings us back to today at lunch. There was a documentary on called "The Truth According to Wikipedia." (That's youtube. It doesn't have a wikipedia page, which just feels wrong.) I didn't get to see very much of it, but what I saw was fascinating. Lunch time today is at the heart of why I love pbs: I watched less than a half hour of television, but what I saw there was a discussion of what truth is. What is knowledge? Who creates knowledge? Who should be the gatekeeper of truth, assuring accuracy and quality? Can truth be created democratically? Are there individual truths? Is the sum of these individual truths as meaningful as validated, reliable expert opinion? Stuff that you can really sink your mind's fingers into. Meaty, important, thoughtful questions.

It was so cool. I love pbs.

how smart are you?

Im smart enough to realize that something is not right here.....

Lives Column

For my non-fiction workshop this semester, our assignment was to write a short piece in the style of the "Lives Columns" in New York Magazine. The guidelines dictated that the work be centered around a single event that changed you as a person, written in less than 1400 words. I was hard pressed to remember a life changing event that could be properly recounted in such a small word limit, but I managed to find one. I've pasted it here, in really small print so it looks like you have to read less . . . Aren't I tricksy?

Anyway, I like sharing this stuff, so here goes. (This is a pretty rough draft, so any cold-hearted bashing and/or lovable praising would be appreciated.)

One of the biggest mistakes I ever made was getting a perm. Like most teenage girls surrounded by media where image is everything, there were more than a few things I was self conscious about. This included my hair, which was so straight and thin that even an industrial sized can of hairspray couldn’t help it hold a curl, and no amount of mousse or teasing could give it any volume. For as long as I could remember my hair had been the bane of my existence, unremarkable and unchangeable. It was the summer of my sophomore year in high school that I decided to take a stand.

I did extensive Internet research, browsing sites that asked “Is A Perm For You?” and listed steps to “Getting a Good Perm” that armored me with some knowledge of the process. I saw photos of women with beautiful, thick, and bouncy ringlets framing their faces, piling and curling into the endless volume that I so craved. Their permed curls bounced off the page, reached out to me and told me that a perm could solve all my problems.

I convinced my mother to come with me on that fateful day, and we drove a short distance to the Paul Mitchell Academy, a cosmetology school where beauticians and hairdressers learned the tools of the trade. A perm there cost $15, which was a much more appealing price than those upwards of $75 at salons where the employees were already established and skilled. We were told that the student performing on my hair would be accompanied by a professional, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

My mother and I entered the building and signed in for my appointment at the desk where a heavily made-up receptionist told us that Tracy would be over shortly. A few minutes later a young woman greeted me and led me to my seat, draping a billowy cape around my shoulders.

“Is this your first perm?” she asked with a nasally sweet voice. I nodded with an affirmative smile. “Well then this will be new for both of us!” she said happily. “I’ve never done real hair before.”

After a short consultation where I should have realized that this girl (who was hardly older than myself) had no idea what she was doing, and where she should have told me that my hair was too thin and long to hold a proper perm, we began the two-hour process.

With the help of a professional instructor named Jan who looked like she couldn’t have cared less (and who, my mother said later, she wouldn’t have let near her own hair), Tracy began the arduous task of wrapping small sections of my long hair around tiny rods and pinning them to my scalp. “Your hair will conform to these rods when I put the chemical on,” she said.

Then came the perm solution, which Tracy violently dabbed around my head, drenching each rod with the smelly, acidy formula. There was so much of this mixture on my scalp that I started dripping and could feel the little liquid beads slide along my neck and the sides of my face into my t-shirt collar. Two rods dangling by my ears sent the chemical dribbling into the tiny fissures. The ammonia seemed to singe my nose hairs. In the harsh light of the salon mirror, with all those rods poking up off my head, I looked terrifying.

“Okay,” said Tracy, her nostrils flaring at the smell, “now we let this sit for about 25 minutes, I think. 25 minutes, right Jan?” she shouted across the salon to confirm her estimate.

“Yeah, I think that’ll do it,” came the hoarse reply.

Tracy placed a shower cap over my head, mumbling something about the trapped heat making the chemicals move faster, she thought. I sat for 25 minutes under that shower cap, feeling like my head was being microwaved under the poofy dome of heat and moisture that was collecting. My despairingly incompetent hairdresser came to check on me every few minutes, always reinforcing the cap around my head and turning with a quick, “It’s looking good sweetie!” Once she came over with Jan, who circled me and grunted in approval before waddling off. The last of these visits finally led to the removal of the cap, which caused the built up steam to explode off my head and right into Tracy’s face in a cloud of acidic moisture. I couldn’t help but chuckle as she stood blinking out the sting of ammonia.

We rinsed out the perm solution, and I relished the relief of the cool water running across my burning scalp. We then returned to the chair where Tracy proceeded to douse me in neutralizer, once again reassuring me with her usual knowledgeable comment.

“I’m not sure what this does exactly, but it’s the next step.”

After five minutes, we returned to the sink for a final rinse, then back to the chair for the unrolling of the rods that had been biting at my head for the past 45 minutes. I must have counted over 50 red flags from the moment I walked in the door to the moment Tracy removed those rods, but said nothing while my poor follicles fried. At that point, my excitement and anticipation outweighed any reservations I had about the disaster happening on my head. I just wanted those curls!

Tracy slowly began to unroll my hair, each little rod unwinding and dangling sadly at the ends. I wanted to close my eyes so I could see the final result all at once, but the anticipation was too tempting. After the first rod, I kept watching as my hair fell to my shoulders in limp, crinkled sections. Predictably, the perm was not what I expected, and certainly not what I wanted.

“How long did you say it would last?” I asked nervously as I looked at my once straight, perfectly fine hair that now resembled thin, twisted roots sprouting from my head. I could feel tears welling in my eyes and quickly told myself to calm down to keep from bawling at the irreversible damage, which I did promptly upon returning home.

“A few months,” Tracy said, her brow knitted in concern, avoiding eye contact. Clearly the outcome had surprised her as well. An uneasy smile spread across her lips and she whipped the cape off me and walked me to the lobby where shelves and shelves of hair products stood in perfectly lined, color-coordinated rows. She picked up a bottle and tried to tell me that this would make my hair look better. “Give it a few days,” she said, as if I had a choice.

            Well, I did give it a few days, I gave it months, in fact, and my perm never developed into what the pictures and hairdressers had promised me. For months my hair was nothing but a mess of uncontrollable frizz. It still wouldn’t curl, and attempting to straighten it proved just as impossible. I had no choice but to wear it tied back everyday, and I eventually cut most of it off in a desperate attempt to eradicate the permed hair as soon as possible, which ended up taking a couple years to grow out. It became routine for me to check the mirror everyday for signs of my straight hair growing through, straight hair that I missed greatly.

In spite of all this, I managed to make it through those years with my head held high, finding some sort of confidence in my awful decision, being brave enough to face my peers and the public without being overcome by my locks of chemical devastation. And today, whenever I curse my hair or any other part of me that isn’t exactly what I want, I always remember that botched perm and its aftermath: results of the decision that taught me to recognize the difference between the things that I have the power to change and those that are probably best left alone.

 

3 Things

1. Christopher Guest movies are awesome.

2. Pandas are awesome.

3. 20 credit hours of course work is NOT awesome.

That is all.