Disneyland Nightmare Vacation

This blog got 50 hits yesterday, which sort of blows my mind. One of those hits was for "masklophobia." You may remember my paranoid post in which I lamented my fear of costumed people/animals. I hope that I helped you, anonymous masklophobia researcher, with your investigation of a phobia that has ruined Halloween and all theme parks for me and tens of other neurotic freaks.

A friend of mine recently went to a wedding at Disneyworld. This, too, blows my mind.
weddings + costumed characters = ELYSE'S ULTIMATE HELL
If you're my friend and you get married at Disney, I'll send you a gift and be happy for you, but I'm sorry, I cannot be a part of that. I don't even want to see pictures unless I've had a shot or two of tequila to calm my nerves.

Do you really want Mickey and Minnie on your honeymoon? Their unblinking, soulless eyes would haunt you during your most romantic moments, the shining plastic whites reflecting moonlight ominously within the intimacy of your Epcot marriage suite. All night long, you'll lie awake in fear of the gentle caress of a pair of large, gloved hands up your bare back... you startle as you hear the unmistakable sound of one oversized button slipping from its hole, then another. The giant head leans closer. You begin to scream uncontrollably...

I should write something

Lately I've been a little distracted by re-relocating, social life, and being sick. Here's a distracted update:

It hailed in North Carolina today, which ruined my utopian ideas about the weather. Once, when I was working in Champaign-Urbana, golf ball sized hail was falling. That really freaked me out because that was my "dirt poor" summer, when I couldn't afford to take a bus or buy an umbrella to get to work. I am really glad I wasn't caught out in it, because the hail left big indents on cars in my neighborhood. What did primitive man do when it hailed? Maybe he cursed at the sky and invented religions.

Here's a fact that I want to share with everyone: You don't have to be sick! TRUE STORY, guys. I kept myself from getting sick during winter break by drinking obscene amounts of echinacea tea and taking garlic/lysine pills. Echinacea and lysine are antivirals and garlic is an antibiotic. Every night I would feel myself starting to get sick and I would just load up on homeopathic remedies, and every morning I felt better. I had to do this because listen, people, I only had two and a half weeks to have a social life and there was just not time to be blowing my nose.

I am ready for it to be spring, now, for no other reason than my primitive-woman urge to put on a dress and look pretty in it. I also want to watch some animals MATING, baby! I have yet to espy squirrel sex, and I cannot die until I do.

How did I get here?

Sometimes I ask the question philosophically, pondering the purpose of my own life and fate. Sometimes I use it to retrace the actions leading to a mistake to understand and prevent a future recurrence. Sometimes, today, I ask the question out of pure flabberghastery.

This morning I had some ideas that I wanted to record, and I have zillions of notebooks here leftover from high school days. As I looked for the most empty one, I found an old paper I'd written as a sophomore in Ancient World History. It's a fictional narrative of someone's life in Athens, Greece. My teacher for that class was a dumb jock, fresh out of college, whose ego was greater than his grasp of any intellectual concept. We did not get along. Memories of him came flooding back to me.

One morning before class, he had written "You're tests are graded" on the blackboard. I was in class first so I corrected his grammar. He told me to keep it to myself because it was none of my business if he wanted to write things incorrectly. Later in the semester, after I had neglected to do his busywork homework bullshit for the 50th day in a row, he threw a stapler on my desk in outrage. Honestly, it probably is annoying if your students blatantly reject your pedantry as pointless wastes of time, but it's also annoying to be the 16 year old victim of a grammar gimp.

A Ramble Through Athens is a five page, double-spaced, piece of junk final project that I probably spat out in about an hour one night after schmoozing on the phone with my boyfriend for two hours. I do not attest to the overall quality of the essay; my grade indicates that I got a 42/45. There are no comments on the entire essay besides this one. I wrote,

"The agora is a busy, crowded place in the morning, especially when public discussions are being held there. It teems with life, the smells of food, and shouts of vendors with their produce."

He crossed out the 'e' in teems and wrote an 'a' above it.

HOW DID I GET INTO COLLEGE HAVING EDUCATORS LIKE THIS!? I had a lot of good ones to make up for it, apparently. Thanks to Mrs B, Ms J, Mr M, Mrs D, and Mrs K.

Happy New Year!

Hopefully everyone reading this blog had the New Years Eve they wanted. I went out for the first time since high school! I typically experience unwanted emotional boycott of collective effervescences and don't want the pressure of going out, but this year I sucked it up and decided to have fun anyway. And I did.

Next year I want to

• start running again and do yoga
  
• spend less money on food and more money on clothing
  
• be more social so I can be more productive during non-social time. It works for me; I'm just an antisocial person and can't help but stay home alone when I have the chance
  
• drink more water
• read more, read more, read more
• not cut my hair
• write more, write more, write more
• listen to awesome music

My iPod and I are in a serious relationship. I can't imagine life without it whispering rock'n'roll nothings in my ear all day.

Breaking news: "Many teens don't keep virginity pledges"

by God! Who knew!?

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