Monday, February 28, 2005

Die Sonne, sie scheinet allgemein! (The sun...it shines on all...)

I listened to Christa Ludwig before I went to bed (as is a usual custom). There is a fantastic recording of her doing Mahler lieder, I especially like the Ruckert lieder. She has the best female voice of anyone on the planet. Her voice has a tremolo sometimes that is just scary…also she is incredibly hooked up to her breath. And to think she made this recording when she was only thirty. Such a mezzo…such a woman.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Could this be love?

Sunday nights are usually so sad…especially if it’s raining. But this one is so good. Maybe ‘cause I am addicted to Flonase? Maybe so.

Welcome to Inexia...

Friday night Aaron and I went to Jeff Co. Saw floor friends from last year. General ridiculousness. 1:30AM: Laura, “That is a pretty fucking good potato.”

Saturday night a bunch of us went to Shattered for 80’s night. There were less people there than usual…which was sad. But I had a great time dancing with Robyn, Sarah, and Eryn. I forgot how much fun Sarah is--I miss that kid. Good times.

The whole concept of 80’s night just blows my mind. Does that mean that in 2015, bad 90’s pop will be in? Because if it does, I am definitely going to kill myself by then.

Friday, February 25, 2005

virtual insanity is what we're livin' in (but it's alright)

A tradition of mine is to make a list of to-dos for the weekend on Friday afternoons. Most of the time, I don’t accomplish all the things on the list…but I would get half as much done if I didn’t write it down on a little index card and tape it to my computer screen. The only problem is it makes me feel so inferior…and then I curl into the fetal position when the protestant guilt kicks in. Here is a sample of what I gots going on this weekend:

1) school work:
a) Organic reading (4 hours)
b) Cell bio outline+ quiz+ recitation problems (4 hours)
c) Do keyboard assignment for ear training/MacGamut (1 hour)
d) Finish chem lab write up/do pre lab/take chem Quiz. (2 hours)
e) Figure out how to form diagram a piano sonata for theory (1 hour)
f) Study for German diction vowel quiz on Tuesday (1hour)
g) Practice 4X1 hour for my literature
h) Learn and memorize 4 Poulenc Lenten motets (3 hours)

2) non-school work
a) Turn in my fucking library books so that I am not fined $1,750
b) Send letters to my little sisters/ write thank-you notes to my grandparents
c) Get an extension for my distance learning courses
d) Clean my room…really…it’s a health hazard
e) Figure out where I am going to live next year
f) Finish lab website (also figure out how to hack into the bio server-- so I can post it)
g) Work out/go running/bike riding
f) Do laundry (Rainman: definitely, definitely not wearing underwear)
i) File FAFSA?
j) decide if I want to go back to student death...i mean student health

3) Things I actually want to do:
a) See Katherine/Joe tonight, also go to Karen’s and see Steph
b) Go to Shattered on 80’s night on Sat w/ Eryn and Robyn
c) See Rachel when she gets back from NY

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

the real me

So in between 5 hours of class, an advising appointment, a sight singing test, and a doctor’s appointment (tuberculosis?), I saw a snippet of Telemundo today. Sadly it wasn’t a Spanish soap opera (those are splendiferous), but a court room show. Think of a power dressed Judge Judy…only Mexican not Jewish, and talking about 3 times faster. Pretty Amusing.

And that got me to thinking (as I often do), about how ridiculous Telemundo is —but maybe to some lonely Hispanic in middle America, it is what keeps them going every day. They yearn for the characteristic fast talking clowns and mariachi bands that parade endlessly through game shows, talk shows, and dramas. In my own mind I just negated an entire ethnic group based on a TV network.

Normally, I have absolutely no problem judging someone or something…I think everyone that knows me can pick that up. But what if everyone was as closed minded and spiteful as me? What if there are technologically advanced aliens hovering above earth…and the only thing that keeps them from blowing us up is the spectacle and ridiculousness of what us humans find important. I think there was a South Park episode once along those lines…Anyway, I think the point of all this rambling is something much deeper. I am a judgmental bastard. And I am never going to change. Ever.

Sunday, February 20, 2005

It's the day of the show yall

This weekend I went on the U-singers tour of St. Louis, and it was totally fun. I was expecting the worst, but I got along really well with everyone. We even had some free time…which was really nice.

We sang in some schools and churches including the Basilica (during Saturday night mass) and Aaron and JP came and saw us. I was pretty bummed out about how much time choir takes up lately (like 6+ hours a week…that I don’t have), but now I am really excited about the rest of the year. I know, I know. Such a nerd.

I got to hang out with all the music kids that I don’t see very much…there was lots of alcohol involved. I will probably still be drunk for days to come. Rachel and I shared 2 carafes of wine and a 12 pack over the course of 2 nights. I remember taking off my shirt and attaching the no-hanger (WTF?) stickers to my nipples and tackling Tessa when she tried to open our door at like 1AM. I found out Craig is a top (most of the time). And if Patrick says, “Mommy needs a drink” one more time, I swear to god….Also, we spent the weekend quoting Napoleon Dynamite…which got old. I must have said, “Tina, you fat lard, come get some ham” at least one hundred times.

I put some pamphlets in Dr. Crabbs music as a practical joke that we picked up last year—they included:
1) How to give yourself a self breast exam
2) Hip replacement
3) and Cancer of the colon and rectum
He was as amused as a anal-retentive puritan (I love him to death) can get.
Good times.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

the darkness hushes wide...

So not much is really going on my life right now; school/work is taking over like a giant tropical strangling vine. But that is normal.

Rachel and I sat outside and ate dinner together on Valentines Day—watching her in the twilight (with her newly dyed Red-As-Franka-Potente-In-Run-Lola-Run hair) made me realize how important she is to me. This is the first time I had actually been in a relationship on February 14. We were both to busy to really talk, just weary of the world.

Things like that make me question what the hell I think I’m accomplishing by wasting my entire youth on school. I could be 28 before I get out of grad school…I don’t know if I can wait that long to start living. Hell, for cavemen, that was more than half of their lifespan.

As far as good news goes, I have several items:
1) I finally joined facebook (and am more than enthralled with the spectacle of it all)
2) My chem lab went ok today
3) I have rediscovered the glory of pre-1990 Madonna (Look around, everywhere you turn is heartache...It's everywhere that you go)

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Sugar-induced ramblings

Had two very literary experiences today:

While studying tonight, I got up to walk around my enormous apartment building to get a change of scenery. Even though there are about 1,000 people that live in U-Place, there is still a hallway on the third floor that no uses. I just sat on the carpet and read for about an hour. Its seclusion reminded me of The Secret Garden. When I was about to leave, I looked out the window because it was snowing, and the sky was purple from the reflected street-lights. The horizon was blurred by the reflection in the window of the cheap, white popcorn ceiling…I couldn’t tell where it started or ended.

I read a story in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stories to Read with the Lights On once about a woman who discovers a race of people living in the center of the earth. In return for the food she puts down the well, the subterranean people send her bars of gold. Of course they don’t know English, but can imperfectly learn the whole language in the span of several hours with only the use of a dictionary.

At the end of the story, the woman sends her husband down the well, and the sub-dwellers send a note back saying, “Delicious. Send more turkey.” In the process of relating this story I have discovered that my experience today isn’t really like that at all—but here goes. If I was the subterranean race, I would send for more wild berry skittles, which in the last several days I have spent a fortune on. In fact, I counted the wrappers….I have eaten 9 bags. My room is like a graveyard for purple skittle wrappers. How sad.

Monday, February 07, 2005

I have lived and loved....and closed the door

The weekend was a success for several reasons:
1) I went salsa dancing on Friday with Rachel and Jessie
2)Eryn and I fixed a pinic lunch and studied on the quad. And when I say study, I mean talk about the lifetime movies she has seen. Good times.
3)I had a really good voice lesson on Sunday, and managed to watch less than ten seconds of the Superbowl.

I have decided that I want to go to the ocean for spring break. By myself. The idea of a road trip is an attractive part of Americana—there is a lyric from Songs of Travel: “To the heart of youth, the world is a highwayside, passing forever--he fares.” Driving in a gas-guzzling car to nowhere in particular…alone…such a vivid image of Howard Roark individualism.

I had never seen a picture of the ocean when it was cloudy before, but that is what I imagine it to be when I get there. Then I will walk into the gray surf singing with all my clothes on and rub the salt water in my hair. And walk down into the sea. He to his nobler fate fares…and his face is gone (is gone).

Saturday, February 05, 2005

It's official: I now give the world permission to fuck itself

Ok, here is another list.

Things that the world has done recently to disappoint me:

1) Allow advertising to still exist. Isn’t that supposed to be some hold-over from the cold war? Why do people still listen when commercials tell us that the only way to make ourselves stand out is to consume a beer with a red label instead of a blue one? Or have A&F instead of A&E on our identical horizontally-striped shirts? You are not a unique and individual snowflake. Why don’t people just accept the fact that they are pretty much the same boring, mundane, worthless, consuming, shit-factories?

2)Let people like Paris Hilton or Ashley Simpson exist. Or even worse, wield any semblance of power.

3) Put, and I quote, “Preview XXXIX Mind Game: The Thinking Man’s Superbowl” on the cover of a nationally distributed magazine.

4) Not be anything but completely ashamed and embarrassed of The United Socialist States of America.

Ok, I think I am done. (The sound of me getting off my soapbox)

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

Hepatitis Mizzou

Talked to my mom today on the phone. As usual she was doing about five things at once, including saying, “Rebecca, get your hair out of the butter.” It is so reassuring to realize that some things never change—and that I did exist before Mizzou happened to me.

It sounds like a disease. I caught Mizzou. I didn’t wash my hands and was infected with Mizzou. I slept around and came down with a bad case of Mizzou.