i don't think that i will ever come to terms with the gripping reality that my life is, on the whole of things, utterly insignificant.

i once read in a magazine article that famous people know *intuitively* from an early age that they will be famous. i think it was an interview with gwyneth paltrow. she was recalled how certain people had a special "glowiness" about them, like a halo of good fortune to come: cameron diaz, tom cruise... i.e., celebrities which the public obssess over regardless of talent or credentials. this article made me particularly sad because i had never felt this "glowiness," let alone recognized it in other people.

pretty gross. that's it. after seeing someone every weekday for a good portion of eight years, that's the only phrase i can find to describe her. pretty gross. she was chubby, with stringy stringy cheese-colored hair and fingers that looked swollen around the knuckles. she was perpetually a mess: mismatched clothing that bunched around her middle and bright, but vacant, eyes. worst of all was her mother.

stefanie's mom was gross, too. she was a homeroom mom, constantly lending a hand in the classroom or around the school library when it was needed. of course, we all made fun of her. i can't recall much about her appearance, other than her oversized plastic-rimmed glasses -- i might consider them fashionable now, but they were hideous at the time. we used to joke that mrs. n was having an affair with our fourth-grade teacher, mr r., partially because it would have been a funny notion to any ten-year-old girl but also because almost anyone could perceive the desperation oozing out of mrs. n. she was gross, her daughter was gross, and they were doomed to a life of ineffectual regularity.

it makes perfect sense that stefanie encompasses herself with a fantastical alternative to her everyday reality. she goes by the Gaelic name of K* online and douses in super-thick (read: morosely saccharine with hideous dialogue) fiction writing. online, to paraphrase her own words, her persona relates to all things "art:" music, poetry, prose, dance, etc -- how fitting for someone whose singing ability threatened to ruin our sixth grade musical. (kc had to stand in the wings and sing, guiding stefanie a la "my fair lady.")

the link entitled "love" on stefanie's site is nonfunctional.

today is jimmy eat world and i am excited.

for the past week or so, sleep has been ever so elusive. i've been going to bed at around 10 or 11, only to wake up three hours later. it's almost on the dot. this morning, i woke up at 1:55 p.m. after that, it's just tossing an turning, or fitful dreams that are too hazy to remember.

i feel sorry for insomniacs. it's horrible, this no sleep thing. it makes me grumpy, groggy, and whiny, not to mention the headahces and sore muscles from the tossing and turning. if i have to go through another week of it, i think i will have to seek some ambien.

last night, l and i made it to the warfield to see weezer. at the last minute, around 6 pm in lab, i bought tickets from a guy named "ed" who had posted on craigslist. i know it was pretty risky, especially since he had e-tickets... i could have been ripped off pretty easily. when i called, ed said "i swear they're real, i'm not ripping you off..." and i guess the word of ed was good enough for me. next thing i knew, i was shelling out $100 over paypal.

the show was great. we had floor tickets (yay!) and were basically within 10 yards of the stage. with the exception of the fat teenage girl in fornt of me, it was a great spot: no moshers, no fat sweaty guys, no slutty girls trying to hop on stage. in fact, bringing a person of l's stature to shows is a great strategy: since nobody wants to stand behind him, a nice people-free bubble forms around him. it's quite comfortable, really. i had enough room to dance without having to worry about hitting the person next to me with my purse or ass.

rivers was so cute. he had a navy blue crewneck with a collared shirt and khaki pants. of course, i know wardrobe probably dressed him, but that's ok. i like the short hair, too. they played a lot off of blue and pinkerton, including no one else and in the garage. they also closed with a ballad off make believe, instead of the good ol' surf wax, which is their normal peppy end. the ballad was really good, in a lionel richies kind of way. i liked it.

overall, they played a tight set. no screwups, probably because rivers was keeping a leash on everybody. at one point, scott turned to say something to pat about the tempo, and rivers makes this little gesture telling him to get back to the mike to sing his harmony. i was cracking up, although no one else seemed to notice.

*sigh* it wasn't the most amazing =w= show, but it was so much fun! and i'm glad lw got to see them play a smaller venue. i'm guessing they'll be playing a stadium show the next time around for the make believe tour. i can't wait.

oh, and eating burritos at the warfield is ridiculous.

and so is making gestures to rivers. don't the other girsl know that he's mine?

hmmmm... from http://www.straightdope.com:

"Chinese" is one of those all-purpose English pejoratives in which foreign is equated with weird. Two variants may be noted. The first is Chinese in the sense of "confused, disorganized, or inferior," as in "Chinese fire drill" (a chaotic scene, or more commonly these days, the collegiate prank in which everyone tumbles out of a car at a stoplight, runs around to the other side, and piles in again), "Chinese ace" (a bumbling pilot), "Chinese navy" (a disorganized group), and so on. The other sense is "exotic, mysterious, or devious," as in Chinese handcuffs (the finger restraints that bind more tightly the harder you try to pull your fingers out), Chinese checkers (the game is said to have been invented in the latter 19th century by an Englishman), and of course the Chinese water torture.

Most people understand Chinese water torture to mean driving a prisoner mad by dripping water on his forehead, although a few claim it refers to (a) near drowning or (b) stuffing a rag into the mouth of a prisoner and dripping water on it until it swells up and suffocates him. Chinese = confused is thought to have originated in Britain around World War I; Chinese = exotic/devious is perhaps a little older. Word sleuth Barry Popik tells me the first known use of the term was Harry Houdini's "Chinese Water Torture Cell," a stunt introduced circa 1903 in which Houdini was lowered into a tank of water upside down and had to come out alive. Popik says the drip-drip-drip method of torture, not referred to as "Chinese," is described in Brian Innes's The History of Torture (1998) as having been invented by one Hippolytus de Marsiliis in 16th-century Italy. At some point subsequent to 1903, presumably, someone conflated Houdini's trick with de Marsiliis's torture, and the two have been linked ever since.

... in lab. yes! i hope writing this doesn't jinx everything. that we definitely not be awesome.

i wish i had a southern accent like ben folds. he is awesome.

rr is also awesome for setting up my spectrometer and tolerating all my stupid questions about gratings and binning.

when do generation boundaries begin and end? i was having a discussion about eighties music, and i claimed to be a child of the eighties. rr and djs were skeptical. apparently i am too young to be a child of the eighties, despite quite literally being a child during the decade of 1980. granted, my biggest musical influence, =w=, was mid-90s. so, does that make me a "child of the eighties" or a "child of the nineties" or a "teenager of the nineties?" so many important questions, so little time to write them in my blog and come up with an inane answer...

listening to: destination failure/smoking popes

equipped with l's i-river (which gets fm radio) and my cell phone, i tried to win live 105's miles the intern weezer tix giveaway. during my group meeting. i was caller 8... i had to be 10 to win. CALLER NUMBER 8! goddamn.

now i have a big headache. i've downed some alleve (sic), which has not taken effect.

my experiments better work tonight.

listening to: elevator/hot hot heat

ge was my tf for two semesters. he made me hate physical chemistry (especially thermo), which is hard to do to a chemistry and physics concentrator. he was the worst teacher, not because he lacked knowledge but because he let his personal belief override his professional ability.

nobody liked him.

he made us, the students, feel inadequate. rahter than teach, he decided his attentions would be endowed to a select few. to be in this group you had to be white, male, and overly nerdy. whether or not you were actually smart didn't matter. if you wore a bowtie religiously, you were automatically "in." what kind of a teacher encourages academic segregation (literally, segregation)?

i found his pseudo-intellectual snobbery quite sickening. he made it quite clear what he thought of each student, which was typically based on a first impression.

it was clear that ge was a tf because he loved to assert his authority.

and btw, that teaching award is a total sham.

it makes me angry that people i know and like could ever show an ounce of respect or kindness toward someone whom i truly believe to be a malicious and self-serving prick.

i was recalling one time when i tried to administer chinese water torture on lw. it wasn't successful in the least... partially because instead of a slow steady trickle of water drops, i was just tapping my finger on his forehead as periodically as i could. and instead of being on his back in utter darkness, he was lying asleep in bed. i woke him up. i guess simply being chinese isn't enough to make it chinese torture.

sometimes i think i isolate myself too much. i'm so horrible at keeping in touch with people that i don't see day-to-day. i think i will try to reconstruct the lines of communication.

today, i ate chicken feet.

i am doing my taxes.

hoorah for t-shirts from le petit bateau.

somorjai: if you want a good way to kill someone, put them in a sealed room with a zeolite cooled with liquid nitrogen. then you wait.

what i want: bloc party's new cd

Lucas Watkins is getting ready for a train trip. He thinks high speed trains would work here. "You don't have to spend so much time on the train you can spend more time with your relatives," said Watkins.

today i started laughing maniacally when e told me that he loves maroon 5. although it was under the guise of being a music snob, i was really laughing because i am constantly trying to figure out whether e is gay or straight. the maroon 5 obsession (he knew their names) really threw me off...

so, let's examine the facts about e:

1. does gymnastics
2. loves maroon 5
3. complimented my haircut profusely
4. engaged to be married
5. bad fashion sense

1-3 point strongly toward gay. 4 is borderline. 5 strongly points toward straight. (note: i was really tempted to add "6. likes men" on the list, just for laughs, but it would've been a falsitude.)

i just can't tell.

the truth is
i don't stand a chance
it's something you're born into
and i just don't belong

aaah, beverly hills -- the first weezer single from the new album. well, it's stuck in my head. and i'm playing it on loop on my ipod. it's a little too slick for my taste, but it has that el scorcho flava in some parts. there's one key change into the chorus that i love. it's a good song. catchy. fun.

plus, rivers raps. it's awesome. he's the new fred durst. except not fat and a loser.

listening to:: beverly hills/weezer