+ / -

+ My teen idol wrote on my Facebook wall this weekend. TWICE. To let me know his tour was heading to my town. Because he knows where I live and wants me to see their concert. 13 year old elyse is having a stroke from happiness. 23 year old elyse is also pretty thrilled.
- I am exhausted and have to give two presentations this week.
+ I have food in my apartment and don't have to go grocery shopping!!!
+ Food includes: wine and beer.
- A crazy mood has descended upon me and I have been toying with various insane ideas about what to do with my hair, which i hate right now.
- I still have not made up my mind about which of my tattoo ideas I will still like in 50 years.
+ The weather in Chicago sucks and I don't live there.
- Migraine
+ Jeff Tweedy's migraines turned into beautiful music sounds. Maybe I can turn mine into something worthwhile.
- Migraines still suck, so they get two mentions.
- NO TIME TO EXERCISE
+ No time to eat!
+ Visiting Chicago in 2 weeks! (+ pizza, sushi, friends)

This weekend I watched my mother try to open a laptop that was clicked shut. It was like watching a monkey try to pry open a clam. She literally picked it up and hit it on the table. I am laughing now just thinking about it. Technology + older generations = guaranteed entertainment.

My pantry is full, unlike my soul

When my parents arrived on Thursday night the first thing they did was head to the fridge to see if there was a snack there-- even though I specifically asked them if there was anything they would like me to get (they said no) because there would otherwise be nothing there. There were three yogurts, oatmeal, and soy creamer. My dad said, "Don't you have chips or something to make a sandwich?" I said, "I told you all week that I have NO FOOD here." He said, "I didn't realize that included no sandwich food."

WTF Dad?

Anyway, I can't complain because they took me to the store and now my fridge and pantry are full full full and I don't have to go to the grocery store for weeks and weeks, hooray!

Natatory Notice

It's almost my birthday, and if you read my blog (I have a hunch that you do...), I want you to know that I would love to spend it downing vodka tonics and jagerbombs with you. Unfortunately, depending on who you are, various circumstances prevent me from doing so: for one thing, I'm in North Carolina. For another, my parents are going to be here all weekend, and while they SAID it would be OK to ditch them to go out with friends one night, I doubt that they mean "we will be your designated driver so you can go to a bar, get trashed, and stumble home with some strange man to make out with until the wee hours" which is what I planned on doing.

SIGH. But it's okay, I'm glad they are visiting, I miss my family, blah blah blah. They are going to be horrified that I have no food in my apartment. Here is an account of the contents of my fridge and pantry:

• 1 cup of flour (freezer)
• Half a bag of frozen spinach and a bag of frozen stir fry vegetables
• 1 yogurt (after I eat the second yogurt in about five minutes)
• 1 egg
• 1 eggplant and 3 red potatoes
• Mustard, minced garlic, and basalmic vinegar
• 1 apple and 1 lemon
  
• Dried lentils
• Canned tomatoes
• Instant organic awesome zen oatmeal
• Tea, tea, tea, and coffee, coffee, coffee
• Wild mushroom risotto
• Rice vermicelli noodles
  

(Did you notice that I don't keep many wheat products in my place? That is because they make me feel SICK.) All the veggies, oatmeal, yogurt, and fruit will be in my tummy by the time they are here. I eat a lot of veggies and yogurt and fruit and oatmeal. And B vitamins.

But I digress. My point is that, when it's not my birthday anymore, will you still go out with me and drink hard liquor? If you're from Chicago, I miss you. If you're from NC, I see you, so I don't miss you, but I do miss hard liquor.

OK time to make coffee.

I have no life

... by which I mean no car with which to go anywhere on the weekends. I am going to take full advantage of this by applying for an NSF grant. Hooray! It's like applying to grad school, but 20 times more competitive!

Myspace

... I should really not be on Myspace.

1. I don't use it correctly. All I do is write weird things about myself and friend musicians that I stalked when I was younger and pray that they will one day look at my profile and think "Wow, that little freak turned out to be a good looking freak." I only have 24 friends and I never write comments or receive comments-- If someone left me a comment I wouldn't really know what to do with it. Reply? Or think they are a loser for using Myspace? Reply to tell them they are a loser for using Myspace?

2. [edit for content, 2/09]

3. What is this list about again? Oh yeah. Myspace. I get a lot of creepy creepy messages from people about my profile, basically either asking me to have sex with them, have cyber sex with them, or give them attention so they can think, although they live hundreds of miles away, that I want to have sex with them in their apartment full of empty beer cans and dead roaches. The saddest is when the guy looks at my profile (which is almost entirely a joke) and picks out one of the insane things I wrote about myself and uses it to make a case about why we are soulmates. Um, OK, Internet Man, I have decided that if my soulmate is on Myspace looking for me, I'd rather die alone.

But the reason I'm writing this is because I have received the weirdest and most disturbing message ever. It is from a 42 year old married female with children and a husband in her profile picture. The message says:

You are very interesting. Would you be interested in a couple where anything is possible and where good conversation is a must. Not saying anything will happen, but just seeing if we connect. Talking and meeting over dinner or a drink.

Angie & Andy

WHAT!?

Long sleeves

Last week, one afternoon, it rained. It was about 70 degrees so I put on my long sleeved shirt. Now I can't stop thinking about my fall weather clothes.

I miss you, sleeves. It's nearly September-- we should be reunited already, but instead you sit in my drawers while I run around campus in a tank top sweating like crazy.

Sleeves are like a portable, instant comfort zone for my paranoia about having flabby arms. I also like not having to look at my arm hair. I can do all the push-ups and yoga I want, but it's never going to replace that peace of mind I get when no one can tell if my arms are toned.

Cold weather sucks, but I fucking love my hoodies.

???

Hey Contradictory South:

Why is it that hard liquor is sequestered away to inconveniently placed liquor stores, and you prevent me from buying it on Sundays and holidays...

... but a 12-pack of beer is still called a "Family Pack" in grocery store ads? FAMILY PACK? Are you kidding me? Twelve beers would be a hard stretch in my family.

random thought

Why isn't there a beer delivery service around here? I need beer and I need it to come to ME. Maybe the beer delivery man would even open the beer for me and hand it to me so I won't have to get off the couch.

MM BEER, THE GLUE OF SOCIETY.

things i am going to do in 5.5 weeks when i am in chicago

(this list is not comprehensive)

• eat asian food (i don't care which kind) that doesn't SUCK
  
• hang out with JAMIE, et al
• go downtown and hug a big building
• eat pizza that doesn't SUCK
• drive a car to get somewhere when i want to, without having to build in an hour-wide transportation time window.
  
• homework... because i do homework every weekend
• eat waffles, and i don't mean at a goddamn Waffle House
  
• wear long sleeves (!!!)
• not be scared of giant hornets when i go outside
• get my hair cut and maybe dye it black or dark dark dark dark brown.
  

...and just so you don't think this is a bitter list about how bitterly homesick i am, let me just say that i fucking love north carolina. today i line-dried my laundry on my porch and they smell like outsideyness. mm. and it's sunny and i feel happy all the time. it's like i'm normal, or something. whoa.

so what do you think of me dying my hair black??? is that too emo? maybe i don't care if you think i'm emo, and that's how emo i am. or maybe it's tearing me up inside, and that's why i'm so emo. emo emo emo. i am too old for this shit.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LAME WHEN:

Okay, i realize i've been freaking out over nothing lately. I am going through one of those "major life changes" and everything feels like a big deal. Today i did a minor re-organization and major cleaning of my apartment (usually I wait until Sundays to do the weekly OCD cleaning) and i'm just going to enjoy my saturday night in a clean place by eating some (crappy) chinese food and maybe doing some reading.

Next weekend is our first exam. [insert freakout over nothing here]. Now, back to business.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE LAME WHEN:

... I was going to write a long list of things insulting myself and I decided it wasn't necessary. Someone, please, come over and look at my obsessively clean apartment, and you'll automatically know that I had nothing to do this weekend besides study and procrastinate. I have no life. I also have no hard liquor in my apartment to help me ignore the fact that I have no life. WHERE IS MY CHINESE FOOD!?

Hey, did you know, adult neurogenesis was first discovered in birds? Pretty neat, eh? My blog is educational.

Um, this has been a really hard week in terms of sleeping and eating, but you know what makes it awesome? Fulfilling my monthly awkward situation requirement by going out for drinks with both my research adviser AND academic adviser AT THE SAME TIME.

TWO DAYS IN A ROW.

THEY ARE MARRIED TO EACH OTHER.

For some reason that makes it much more awkward for me. The fact that they are married somehow makes me want to perform like a little monkey for them so they will go home and say "My, my, that Elyse is an entertaining little devil," even though what I should hope they say is more like "My, my, that Elyse is really meeting our expectations as a graduate student." But my brain does not work like that, so I'm chugging down a Guinness and making jokes about Sarah Palin's kids' names, Trig and Trackmark and Whatnot.

Actually, I really like hanging out with them because it's not like they are uptight-- they are funny and cool. My brain is just bruised from trying to learn histochemical techniques, memorize the layout of the lab, and thinking of non-sexual non-swearing non-blatantly offensive non-chicago non-cynical jokes. Seriously, I can only make fun of Trackmark Palin and bad North Carolina pizza for so long before I am rifling through my barrel of tricks to find a story that isn't about making a boy cry.

Ugh, it's early. I have situps to do, class to go to, and work-appropriate humor to construct before I go to a BBQ tonight.

GRADUATE SCHOOL MAKES ME TIRED.

NAPTIME.