hermionesviolin: (older Cordelia)
QUAINT as a dirty word?  Best thing I've heard all day.

In other news, Sharon introduced me to HopStop.com.  I really like that it tells you the stops that you pass along the way so you can get a feel for when your stop is approaching.  And they give you actual maps for when you're walking between stuff.  Though I'm amused that it doesn't seem to include the MBTA Commuter Rail (to get from my house to my parents' house, has me pick up the 34 from Forest Hills, which is fine except that that makes it twice the time it would take if I just picked up the Franklin Line from South Station.)

I love how the flist keeps mentioning playing Apples to Apples for the first time.

gloss linked to a a great article on Captain America, including how he represents the ideal of America rather than the sometimes ugly realities.  I'd never had any interest in the character, but this makes me feel much love for him (I particularly love the origin story).

Eric brought in The Lost Room for me -- which I keep forgetting about.  (He mentioned it once and I said I'd seen ads for it and it looked interesting; he said he owned it, so he'd lend it to me.)  What I really want is the Truman Capote book.

He and MaryAlice went to the beach on Monday, and he was talking about how he had gotten a little bit burnt but it would turn to tan.  Then he said something about how I probably burn like whoa (though he did not in fact use that phrase) since I'm so pale.  I was thrown by this 'cause I'm used to identifying as more my father's (v. tan) complexion than my mother's (v. pale).  So, people who've meatspace met me, how would you describe my complexion?

Back to the joy list:

Tag-bundling gives me great joy [del.icio.us].

A friend of mine e-mailed me to indicate that she had not in fact fallen off the face of the planet.  Huzzah.

A friend called me to tell me that he was thinking of me because (1) he had just watched the first season of How I Met Your Mother and (2) he had joined a a Jewish comic book discussion group.  Heart.

FUH was talking about the neat sliding doors on their house in Maine, and I said something about how one of these days I've gotta see this house I hear so much about (he's basically built it all himself) and he was like, "Yeah, definitely," and started mentioning dates.  Rock.  Unfortunately, it's August that would work for him, and I'm gonna be away (he told me to e-mail him to remind him about Prague as he went a few years ago and he'll see if he can remember any of the more out-of-the way nice places), but he's on leave next year, so there's still September or October.
(He was also talking about "Harry Potter day" -- i.e. the Book 7 release date -- as his younger daughter's a wee-bit obsessed, and I said I'd have to get the UK copy from my parents at some point and he said I might be able to borrow his daughter's copy as it'll arrive a few days after Release Date which is unacceptable, but she is still ordering it.)

I had a good gym session.  I felt really good on the elliptical, and was v. pleased with my time (1mi@10:55min, 2mi@22:07min, 2.69?mi@30min, 3.05mi post-5minute-cooldown), and then I did various weight machine stuff and some free weights.  Off of friendsfriends I've ILL-ed Smart Women Do Dumbbells and if that turns out to be useful I may purchase some hand weights for home use.

Where is all this rain I keep hearing about?  Yesterday it was sunny out my window for most of the day, and today all I got was humidity (cloudy, but still).  Though now that I'm finishing this entry I do hear it raining outside.
hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (happy writing)
I got an early birthday present from my friend Kevin. A pair of earrings he made for me. Pretty dangly earrings. Red and navy. Not really my colors, but i appreciate the thought, and the card was lovely. (And yes, in case anyone’s wondering, i turn 19 one week from today, on July 9. Gifts and cards are always welcomed, though hardly expected.)

I headed out around four-thirty when i started feeling uncomfortably warm in my house. I passed this guy (who was waiting for the bus) on my way to the post office. He said i was pretty and asked if i had a boyfriend. I said no, but when he asked if there was any way he could get in touch with me i gently said, “I don’t think so.” He seemed nice, but he was also very much older than me, and i am not about to give my phone number or anything to a complete stranger i have any sort of weird feelings about. (It reminded me of the handsome young black guy who asked me for my screenname at Job Lot last spring, though. I’m kinda sorry i didn’t give it to him, ‘cause he was cute and there’s such a safe distance with AIM. Oh well.) It’s kinda neat to be hit on, though, especially when i’m just out on a hot day in average clothes with my hair (which i consider to be one of my better features) pulled back.

Semi-relatedly, the sketchy guy who checks out all these teen magazines and Vogue and such (he seems mildly retarded, and we definitely think they’re like soft-core porn for him; and there was a staff note today that i didn’t get to ask about that said he’s been making weird phone calls to the children’s department) and stuff from the library is named Richard. But Joe, it’s a different one. I have now decided that no one else is allowed to be named Richard, except other sketchy guys, because it’s just too much.

Beth said i need a hobby. Apparently she tells her kids this, too. They’re both college-age as well, so i’m sure their responses are similar to mine -- “Because i don’t have enough to do already, right?” “So I was thinking,” she tells me. Now, she is a very busy woman, so it amuses me that she feels this is important enough to think about. “I think you should take up a musical instrument. Or drama. And if I think of anything more specific I’ll let you know.” “This is like high school,” i said. “I played a musical instrument for nine years. I did drama.” I honestly appreciate her concern, it just makes me laugh. I work twenty hours a week, i’m taking three weeks vacation, and i need a hobby. I didn’t mention the fact that i live online, that i really should be getting back into fiction/poetry writing, that i miss zining, that i have a backlog of letters, that i have boxes of stuff to go through, that i have friends i keep meaning to get in touch with. I don’t think i exactly need a “hobby.”

A lot of the picture books i wanted to read were out, so tonight i mostly read ones we own. Yay picture books. *restrains self from boring readers with complete list* Rereading The Story About Ping, though, i realized that’s where my family’s habit of adding “and 42 cousins” to any long litany of people comes from. (The book opens: Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping. Ping lived with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins.) I think the picture books i continue to cherish from my childhood are mostly bittersweet, or at least full of emotional intensity. My mother tells me that when they read me The Legend of the Bluebonnet (Tomie DePaola) they bawled. I have reread it since, and it doesn’t make me cry, and that makes me a little sad. When i move into my first house/apartment, i think the first thing i want is a set of all the picture books i cherish from my childhood. I may never have a Phyllis house, but i want that for myself even if for no one else.

Apparently i already have a full day of plans tomorrow. Go to the library in the morning (return lots of items and check out more picture books) and then go visit with my grandma until my brother gets off work (at which point he’ll come visit because, hey, air-conditioning). And then George and i and his friend Brian and probably one of our parents are going to the fireworks in Walpole. (I still haven’t made up my mind as to whether i want to go with my mom and brother to the uber-security fireworks in Boston on the Fourth. I guess i should go and i’ll just skip out early if it looks like crowd+security=misery. Beth says i should go so i can report back to her--i guess she’s never been to see the Esplanade fireworks in person.)

My brother’s been downloading patriotic screensavers and desktops and so on, and one of the things he downloaded was an animation. “America the Beautiful” (quite possibly my favorite “patriotic” song) plays in the background as images of memorials all over the world pass before your eyes. I recognized the floral displays and such from a site my dad had sent me shortly after 9-11. They’re mostly from American Embassies. They’re shows of support and sympathy for all those innocents killed, all those lives irrevocably shattered, on September 11th. My dad sent me this in an e-mail with the subject line “Okay, my eyes started misting.” and while i did like some of the lines near the end, i wasn’t really touched by it. This animation, though, did touch me. We all know i have issues with patriotism and war and such, but united support for victims of tragedy, that touches me.
hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (nobody knows the real me)
Weather reports are predicting highs in the mid-90s tomorrow and Wednesday, so my plan is to basically live in the library (which, unlike my house, is air-conditioned), finally read LOTR or something, though perhaps on Wednesday i’ll go to visit my grandmother (whose apartment is also air-conditioned).

Today i slept late (my body seemed to have just crashed, despite it’s already having crashed in a long evening nap yesterday) and had a lazy day. I went down to the library in the evening because i had various errands to do there, and then i hung out with Terry a bit. It’s interesting to me the ways that people are concerned about me. He thinks i don’t get out enough, aren’t social enough. He says i’m young; i should be out clubbing or something. I’m just not a real social person. I like one-on-one, but i’m not big on going out partying or anything. Plus, i didn’t have too many close friends in high school and i’ve really lost touch with everyone from high school (though i do have plans to attempt to remedy that with a few people). He’s been on my case for literally a month about what i’m doing for the Fourth of July. Honestly, i have no plans and i really don’t care. Patriotism giving me squicky feelings aside, it’s just never been a big deal to me. I like the fireworks, but other than that i could wholly do without it.

Somewhere else in the conversation he asked me about my post-college plans. I haven’t thought too much about what i wanna do after college, so i told him what i have thought about. I mentioned working in publishing, as an editor, and he asked how much that pays. I said i had no idea; i really haven’t looked at pay rates for jobs i won’t have for another 5 years. “Why not? Don’t you want to make a lot of money?” “Not really. I want to be able to live comfortably, but i really don’t need a lot.” This prompted a discussion. My parents have raised a family of 4 on roughly $30,000 a year, and while granted we have low rent and don’t own a car, i have never felt deprived and if we could raise a family of 4 on that, i certainly think i could raise a family of 1 on it. Terry said he didn’t think he could live on $30,000 a year, with a car and insurance payments and all. He was very sincere and thoughtful, not flippant at all. I thought that was interesting. He said i didn’t want anything, and i said that wasn’t wholly true, so he asked what i did want. I haven’t really thought about that much, especially because he mostly meant after college and i really haven’t thought much about that, but i did my best to answer. One of the things i said, thoughtfully, was “I think i want to be dating someone.” “Someone?” he asked, in a tone that asked me to clarify. I knew where he was going, but i wasn’t going to say it. If he didn’t say something i was going to say something like, “Yeah, someone nice, and intelligent, and sweet,” but then he said, “Someone? Guy? Girl?” “Either, really.” “Either one?” “Yeah.” “Why?” I took a deep breath. “How do you answer a question like ‘Why?’ ” i wondered sincerely. “Why not?” he said. “Sounds like a good reason to me.” His face didn’t look too stricken, but he kept saying stuff like “wow” and taking deep breaths. I just laughed. After a bit he said something like, “Moving right along.” And i keep writing stuff about fluidity of sexuality and the logistics of “coming out” to finish this off, but it keeps sounding gratuitous and pretentious, so i’m just not.

In the interest of posting something of some intellectual merit, here are two articles my dad sent me: one on sweatshops and one on IQ.

And in gay rights news, Bush Signs Law Extending Benefits To Same-Sex Couples and Homosexuals Fight For Same-Sex Marriage In New Jersey.

I finally saw last Thursday’s Bulletin tonight, and Jim MacPherson’s letter was in there, too. I was gonna just let it go, but since the letter’s in both papers i feel obligated to write a response. Sigh.

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hermionesviolin: an image of Alyson Hannigan (who plays Willow Rosenberg) with animated text "you think you know / what you are / what's to come / you haven't even / BEGUN" (Default)
Elizabeth (the delinquent, ecumenical)

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