Thursday, October 01, 2009
I love my space heater more than I love the planet
Singing along to: U2*, October
Before I start, I'd like to make a public service announcement: For the love of all that is holy, people, stop using "green" as a verb! (i.e., "As a company, we are committed to greening our manufacturing process..." or "This year we'd like to invest in the further greening of our home..." Just typing those sentences makes me feel syntactically dirty.)
Despite the atrocities language that it has engendered, however, the "green"** movement has some pluses that have nothing to do with your feelings about global warming. I think we can all agree that clean water is super, and that trash littering the highway is less super. Recycling is both rad and easy and the rainforest is kind of gorgeous. Whales are neat, and so is the money you save with energy-efficient lightbulbs or whatever. (Especially since no matter what Ben Bernake says about the recession, nobody has any money. Especially underemployed recent college graduates with liberal arts degrees.)
So I do what I can. I try to bring reusable tote bags to the grocery store and the mall, I turn off the lights when I leave the room, I use rags instead of paper towels for house cleaning. Sometimes I even remember to unplug my cell phone charger when it's not in use. I lived in the only trailer on campus that recycled, although we had to lug our recycling halfway across campus to do it.
But there are some things I am not willing to compromise. Like the space heater in my bathroom. I use that sucker year round, because people, bathrooms are cold. All that gleaming glass and tile is frigid, and this is one place where your grandmother's scolding advice to "just put on a sweater" does not apply. I hate being cold. I especially hate being cold and wet, which is why that little space heater and I are best friends. We have had it for as long as I can remember, which means it is probably about as energy efficient as your average tank.
I don't care. It keeps me warm.
(It also keeps the mirror from fogging up, because oh yeah, I also like hot showers. Oops.)
Sorry, Al Gore.
--
*Did I just see U2 in concert on Tuesday night? YES. YES I DID.
**or "hippie" or "crunchy granola" or "tree hugger" or "this whole global warming thing is just a hoax perpetuated by Al Gore to get a Nobel prize" or whatever your preferred adjective is
Before I start, I'd like to make a public service announcement: For the love of all that is holy, people, stop using "green" as a verb! (i.e., "As a company, we are committed to greening our manufacturing process..." or "This year we'd like to invest in the further greening of our home..." Just typing those sentences makes me feel syntactically dirty.)
Despite the atrocities language that it has engendered, however, the "green"** movement has some pluses that have nothing to do with your feelings about global warming. I think we can all agree that clean water is super, and that trash littering the highway is less super. Recycling is both rad and easy and the rainforest is kind of gorgeous. Whales are neat, and so is the money you save with energy-efficient lightbulbs or whatever. (Especially since no matter what Ben Bernake says about the recession, nobody has any money. Especially underemployed recent college graduates with liberal arts degrees.)
So I do what I can. I try to bring reusable tote bags to the grocery store and the mall, I turn off the lights when I leave the room, I use rags instead of paper towels for house cleaning. Sometimes I even remember to unplug my cell phone charger when it's not in use. I lived in the only trailer on campus that recycled, although we had to lug our recycling halfway across campus to do it.
But there are some things I am not willing to compromise. Like the space heater in my bathroom. I use that sucker year round, because people, bathrooms are cold. All that gleaming glass and tile is frigid, and this is one place where your grandmother's scolding advice to "just put on a sweater" does not apply. I hate being cold. I especially hate being cold and wet, which is why that little space heater and I are best friends. We have had it for as long as I can remember, which means it is probably about as energy efficient as your average tank.
I don't care. It keeps me warm.
(It also keeps the mirror from fogging up, because oh yeah, I also like hot showers. Oops.)
Sorry, Al Gore.
--
*Did I just see U2 in concert on Tuesday night? YES. YES I DID.
**or "hippie" or "crunchy granola" or "tree hugger" or "this whole global warming thing is just a hoax perpetuated by Al Gore to get a Nobel prize" or whatever your preferred adjective is
Saturday, September 19, 2009
If I had $1 for every time I had this conversation, I wouldn't need a job
Singing along to: Modest Mouse, The World At Large
The conversation goes something like this, and everyone who has recently graduated or is on the cusp of major life changes can probably recite it word for word along with me:
Well-Meaning Person: So! You just graduated, right?
Me: So it would seem.
WMP: You going to graduate school?
Me: Not if I can help it. Ha ha.
WMP: So what are you up to lately?
Me: Working at the caterer. Still. Volunteering at the museum. Still. They can't get rid of me. Ha ha.
WMP: Have you asked the people at the museum if they have a job for you?
Me: OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? Oh right, because they're understaffed and out of money. Just like everybody else.
WMP: So are you applying for jobs?
Me: Wait, you mean you have to APPLY for them? I thought they handed them out with the diploma. I was actually starting to worry that someone had screwed up at graduation.
WMP: ...
Me: Yeah. I've been applying for jobs since February.
WMP: Oh. What was your major again?
Me: Medieval Studies. Which is probably why I haven't found a job yet.* Ha ha.
WMP: Ha ha.
Me: Yeah, you're just glad I made that joke so you didn't have to.
--
*I don't know why I keep using this line. It is not funny, and any traces of funny it may have once had have long since been steamrollered into oblivion. The forced levity of my delivery probably don't help either.
--
But it's all okay, because Ben Bernake has just come out and said the recession is, like, basically over. Soon we'll all be rich and happy and employed again! Right? Right!
The conversation goes something like this, and everyone who has recently graduated or is on the cusp of major life changes can probably recite it word for word along with me:
Well-Meaning Person: So! You just graduated, right?
Me: So it would seem.
WMP: You going to graduate school?
Me: Not if I can help it. Ha ha.
WMP: So what are you up to lately?
Me: Working at the caterer. Still. Volunteering at the museum. Still. They can't get rid of me. Ha ha.
WMP: Have you asked the people at the museum if they have a job for you?
Me: OH MY GOD WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT? Oh right, because they're understaffed and out of money. Just like everybody else.
WMP: So are you applying for jobs?
Me: Wait, you mean you have to APPLY for them? I thought they handed them out with the diploma. I was actually starting to worry that someone had screwed up at graduation.
WMP: ...
Me: Yeah. I've been applying for jobs since February.
WMP: Oh. What was your major again?
Me: Medieval Studies. Which is probably why I haven't found a job yet.* Ha ha.
WMP: Ha ha.
Me: Yeah, you're just glad I made that joke so you didn't have to.
--
*I don't know why I keep using this line. It is not funny, and any traces of funny it may have once had have long since been steamrollered into oblivion. The forced levity of my delivery probably don't help either.
--
But it's all okay, because Ben Bernake has just come out and said the recession is, like, basically over. Soon we'll all be rich and happy and employed again! Right? Right!
Labels: Real Life
Sunday, September 13, 2009
The adjective of the weekend was "backwoods"
Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Homeward, These Shoes. How much do I love Iron & Wine? So much!
This weekend, James & some friends & I decided it would be a great idea to go to Pickin' in the Panhandle, the annual West Virginia bluegrass and barbecue* festival.
It was, indeed, a great idea. (Honestly, how could any event involving a barbecue competition not be a great idea?) But like all great ideas, it could only be fulfilled through strife.
Backwoods strife.
Back Creek Valley is, as the festival website promises, quite beautiful. It is also accessible solely by way of winding, country-mountain roads, the kind that don't have stripes, or enough room for two cars to pass each other comfortably, or guard rails between your car and a deadly tumble down the mountainside. Basically, they are backwoods roller coasters.
So when the sun's shining, and you're in the passenger seat with your right foot mashing the Invisible Brake Pedal, and you're cradling your gas station coffee in one hand and gripping the door handle in the other, and the car's coasting down the mountain at fifty miles an hour in neutral, those roads are a lot of fun. They also kind of negate the need for that coffee.
They're a little less fun when you're tired out from some less-than-satisfactory camping sleep, in the driver's seat of a car that isn't yours. It might be better in a more familiar car, but as it stands, those roads become less roller coaster, more steely-eyed test of driving Zen. (Absolute regard for safety might dictate that you drive at the same snail's-pace of all those other out-of-state cars, but pride compels you to at least drive at the speed limit, or what you presume would be the speed limit if the road were well-trafficked enough to actually warrant posting one.) Still, it's kind of fun. There's a sense of triumph when you reach your destination, like your cushy suburban upbringing hasn't left you entirely soft.
Those roads are not at all fun at midnight, when you're alone in the car, trying to navigate an area pock-marked with abandoned barns, rusting mobile homes, the occasional possum, and God knows how many lurking deer, the kind you know are just waiting to leap into your path and help you file your first auto insurance claim. Sure, you could be around a campfire, roasting hot dogs and listening to bluegrass, but you're not, because the campsite turned you away at 11:00 pm, for reasons known only to them, and now you're one wrong turn away from a starring role in a backwoods horror movie. It goes without saying that your cell phone doesn't get any reception.
Eventually everything worked out all right: Although the original plan of me meeting everyone else at the campsite didn't work out, James and I were finally able to get in touch, and his parents kindly let me crash at their place at midnight. We tried the campsite again the next day, and they let us in without blinking, despite telling James last night that the only way they could let me in would be if he threw me in the backseat with a blanket over me.**
Then we ate some barbecue, drank some beer, listened to some bluegrass (including a wholly unexpected cover of Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"), and ate some delicious campfire cooking.
It was good times.
---
*Barbecue: on the list of words I can never remember how to spell. The "q" in BBQ always makes me think there should be a "q" in the actual word. Turns out there's not.
**Did we have a camping pass? Yes. Yes, we did. We even had valid festival tickets! What we didn't have were the special glasses so we could read the invisible text on the website about no admission after x o'clock.
This weekend, James & some friends & I decided it would be a great idea to go to Pickin' in the Panhandle, the annual West Virginia bluegrass and barbecue* festival.
It was, indeed, a great idea. (Honestly, how could any event involving a barbecue competition not be a great idea?) But like all great ideas, it could only be fulfilled through strife.
Backwoods strife.
Back Creek Valley is, as the festival website promises, quite beautiful. It is also accessible solely by way of winding, country-mountain roads, the kind that don't have stripes, or enough room for two cars to pass each other comfortably, or guard rails between your car and a deadly tumble down the mountainside. Basically, they are backwoods roller coasters.
So when the sun's shining, and you're in the passenger seat with your right foot mashing the Invisible Brake Pedal, and you're cradling your gas station coffee in one hand and gripping the door handle in the other, and the car's coasting down the mountain at fifty miles an hour in neutral, those roads are a lot of fun. They also kind of negate the need for that coffee.
They're a little less fun when you're tired out from some less-than-satisfactory camping sleep, in the driver's seat of a car that isn't yours. It might be better in a more familiar car, but as it stands, those roads become less roller coaster, more steely-eyed test of driving Zen. (Absolute regard for safety might dictate that you drive at the same snail's-pace of all those other out-of-state cars, but pride compels you to at least drive at the speed limit, or what you presume would be the speed limit if the road were well-trafficked enough to actually warrant posting one.) Still, it's kind of fun. There's a sense of triumph when you reach your destination, like your cushy suburban upbringing hasn't left you entirely soft.
Those roads are not at all fun at midnight, when you're alone in the car, trying to navigate an area pock-marked with abandoned barns, rusting mobile homes, the occasional possum, and God knows how many lurking deer, the kind you know are just waiting to leap into your path and help you file your first auto insurance claim. Sure, you could be around a campfire, roasting hot dogs and listening to bluegrass, but you're not, because the campsite turned you away at 11:00 pm, for reasons known only to them, and now you're one wrong turn away from a starring role in a backwoods horror movie. It goes without saying that your cell phone doesn't get any reception.
Eventually everything worked out all right: Although the original plan of me meeting everyone else at the campsite didn't work out, James and I were finally able to get in touch, and his parents kindly let me crash at their place at midnight. We tried the campsite again the next day, and they let us in without blinking, despite telling James last night that the only way they could let me in would be if he threw me in the backseat with a blanket over me.**
Then we ate some barbecue, drank some beer, listened to some bluegrass (including a wholly unexpected cover of Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"), and ate some delicious campfire cooking.
It was good times.
---
*Barbecue: on the list of words I can never remember how to spell. The "q" in BBQ always makes me think there should be a "q" in the actual word. Turns out there's not.
**Did we have a camping pass? Yes. Yes, we did. We even had valid festival tickets! What we didn't have were the special glasses so we could read the invisible text on the website about no admission after x o'clock.
Labels: Real Life
Sunday, August 02, 2009
I bet you see the punch line coming from a mile off
Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Friends They Are Jewels
Things I have found while looking for the keys to my bike lock
Things I have not found while looking for the keys to my bike lock
Things I have found while looking for the keys to my bike lock
- A dilapidated plastic Christmas wreath
- 11 batteries
- A coaster from the Crescent City Brewhouse in New Orleans. (I have never been to New Orleans.)
- Phone chargers for every cell phone I have ever owned, and probably one or two I haven't
- A photo keychain from Christmas Dance 2004: "Candy Cane Christmas"
- A button that says "I [heart] Maui." (I have never been to Maui.)
- A Virginia/DC Metrobus map (I do not ride the Metro bus, and I don't spend much time in Virginia either)
- A New York City subway card that expired in May of last year
- 17 euros
- 2 packages of frog-print tissues
- All the tubes of chapstick I've lost over the past year
- ....and so much more
Things I have not found while looking for the keys to my bike lock
- The keys to my bike lock
Labels: lists
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Things I do when I'm feeling depressed
Singing along to: Iron & Wine, Dearest Forsaken
- Contemplate arranging all my books by color. It's OCD made visually arresting: seriously, look at these pictures and tell me that doesn't look awesome. I haven't actually done it yet, but I promise you'll know if I hit rock bottom, because I will have rearranged my bookshelves in accordance with my good friend Roy G. Biv.
- Read Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress." That poem is like a seventeenth-century version of "Let's Get It On", and you know what? If I were his coy mistress, it totally would have convinced me.
- Look at job postings. Which, I'm sure you can imagine, does wonders for my mental health.
- Re-read Henry David Thoreau's spectacular essay "Where I Lived and What I Lived For," from Walden. (You can go ahead and read it here, but you should also just go ahead and find yourself a copy of Walden.) Maybe it's the hippie in me, but I've always had a weakness for the Transcendentalists, and that particular essay never fails to resonate.
- Listen to a lot of Iron & Wine. Oh. Wait. I do that all the time, happy, sad, or in between? Never mind.
Labels: lists
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thoughts on the eve of a college graduation
Singing along to: Lisa Hannigan, Sea Song
Once I was able to disassociate my ambivalence about graduation from my graduation cap & gown & hood, I was able to have a whole lot of fun playing dress up. Turns out it's the best costume I've put on in years. Depending on how I accessorize (and how I decide to wear the hood), I can be Harry Potter or Emperor Palpatine or even a serious academic. (Okay, I admit, the last one is a stretch.) I could also, if I so chose, jump out of an airplane in my gown and parachute down to safety, because it is just that huge. It's nearly ankle-length (and I'm 5'8"!) and it definitely conceals the Senior Week Fifteen (like the freshmen fifteen, except four years later and the result of infinitely more mixed emotions and [at least in my case] beer).
***
Speaking of accessorizing, I am sort of regretting my choices in graduation footwear. Today was solid: moderately trashy cork-heeled shoes from Payless (complete with a red cherry pattern on the foot bed). Obviously the perfect choice for dignified events like Phi Beta Kappa initiation, Honors Convocation, and Baccalaureate Mass. Tomorrow, though, I'm just wearing some nondescript brown heeled sandals. Sure, they work with my (adorable!) dress, but with the black polyester pillowcase I'll be wearing for most of the day, they are totally blah. Comfortable, versatile, and boring. This would have been the perfect occasion for red shoes, and somehow I didn't realize that until right now. I'm slipping.
***
Speaking of shoes (again), I think I earned some sort of girl-power award today: I helped move a fridge out of a third-floor dorm room in three-and-a-half-inch heels and a skirt. I did make my brother go down the stairs backwards instead of me, but still: win.
***
I've always thought taking down posters is the most depressing part of packing up a dorm room, because stuff on the walls is what makes a room (or in my case, a trailer) look like people actually live there. Well, it's doubly depressing when iTunes spins up the Beatles' In My Life. Somehow that ended up on the graduation party playlist I'm crafting, and I'm not really sure how. I guess I must have added it, but I've been trying really hard to put on music that a) I like, b) won't offend the party guests, and (most importantly) c) is not about moving on and saying goodbye and looking back on happy memories blah blah blah I DON'T WANT TO CRY ABOUT THIS, ITUNES, SO QUIT TRYING TO MANIPULATE MY EMOTIONS. In other words, I might want to take In My Life off the list.
***
The other night I was very tired but staying up with friends anyway. So I sat on their couch with my eyes closed and mentally added "in bed" or "that's what she said" to the end of everything they said. It was pretty hilarious, and I think I'm going to use that same trick to keep myself amused during the "commencement exercises" tomorrow.
***
When I graduated from high school, I made a point of wearing waterproof mascara, because I was sure I would cry. Turns out I was so done by then that I didn't shed a tear, even as my classmates sobbed around me. I just made a weird face when I got my diploma. This time around, I'm not feeling nearly as done, so I'm breaking out the waterproof mascara again as a sort of insurance policy against crying, ie, I probably won't if I wear it. Mostly, I'm counting on my intense distaste for ceremonies, crowds, and folding chairs in the hot sun to get me too pissed off to cry. We'll see how that goes.
***
Everyone's graduation-related Facebook statuses make me want to puke.
Once I was able to disassociate my ambivalence about graduation from my graduation cap & gown & hood, I was able to have a whole lot of fun playing dress up. Turns out it's the best costume I've put on in years. Depending on how I accessorize (and how I decide to wear the hood), I can be Harry Potter or Emperor Palpatine or even a serious academic. (Okay, I admit, the last one is a stretch.) I could also, if I so chose, jump out of an airplane in my gown and parachute down to safety, because it is just that huge. It's nearly ankle-length (and I'm 5'8"!) and it definitely conceals the Senior Week Fifteen (like the freshmen fifteen, except four years later and the result of infinitely more mixed emotions and [at least in my case] beer).
***
Speaking of accessorizing, I am sort of regretting my choices in graduation footwear. Today was solid: moderately trashy cork-heeled shoes from Payless (complete with a red cherry pattern on the foot bed). Obviously the perfect choice for dignified events like Phi Beta Kappa initiation, Honors Convocation, and Baccalaureate Mass. Tomorrow, though, I'm just wearing some nondescript brown heeled sandals. Sure, they work with my (adorable!) dress, but with the black polyester pillowcase I'll be wearing for most of the day, they are totally blah. Comfortable, versatile, and boring. This would have been the perfect occasion for red shoes, and somehow I didn't realize that until right now. I'm slipping.
***
Speaking of shoes (again), I think I earned some sort of girl-power award today: I helped move a fridge out of a third-floor dorm room in three-and-a-half-inch heels and a skirt. I did make my brother go down the stairs backwards instead of me, but still: win.
***
I've always thought taking down posters is the most depressing part of packing up a dorm room, because stuff on the walls is what makes a room (or in my case, a trailer) look like people actually live there. Well, it's doubly depressing when iTunes spins up the Beatles' In My Life. Somehow that ended up on the graduation party playlist I'm crafting, and I'm not really sure how. I guess I must have added it, but I've been trying really hard to put on music that a) I like, b) won't offend the party guests, and (most importantly) c) is not about moving on and saying goodbye and looking back on happy memories blah blah blah I DON'T WANT TO CRY ABOUT THIS, ITUNES, SO QUIT TRYING TO MANIPULATE MY EMOTIONS. In other words, I might want to take In My Life off the list.
***
The other night I was very tired but staying up with friends anyway. So I sat on their couch with my eyes closed and mentally added "in bed" or "that's what she said" to the end of everything they said. It was pretty hilarious, and I think I'm going to use that same trick to keep myself amused during the "commencement exercises" tomorrow.
***
When I graduated from high school, I made a point of wearing waterproof mascara, because I was sure I would cry. Turns out I was so done by then that I didn't shed a tear, even as my classmates sobbed around me. I just made a weird face when I got my diploma. This time around, I'm not feeling nearly as done, so I'm breaking out the waterproof mascara again as a sort of insurance policy against crying, ie, I probably won't if I wear it. Mostly, I'm counting on my intense distaste for ceremonies, crowds, and folding chairs in the hot sun to get me too pissed off to cry. We'll see how that goes.
***
Everyone's graduation-related Facebook statuses make me want to puke.
Labels: College, Notes and Asides
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
Conversations with my roommate
Singing along to: Slumdog Millionaire
I walked in triumphantly, having just completed the last final exam of my undergraduate career.
"I just finished my last final," I declared. "I want to celebrate. I'm going to do something that I don't usually do."
"Drink?" my roommate asked.
"No," I said. "Get takeout!"
And I did. I got honey bbq wings. And they were delicious.
***
Honestly, the sense of freedom that's gradually settling over me is amazing, and something I'll probably write more about later. It's also an illusion, but I'm trying not to think about that now. I guess I just did too good of a job bribing myself with visions of sloth over the past few weeks, which contained more late nights in a short period of time than in the rest of my college career combined.
I walked in triumphantly, having just completed the last final exam of my undergraduate career.
"I just finished my last final," I declared. "I want to celebrate. I'm going to do something that I don't usually do."
"Drink?" my roommate asked.
"No," I said. "Get takeout!"
And I did. I got honey bbq wings. And they were delicious.
***
Honestly, the sense of freedom that's gradually settling over me is amazing, and something I'll probably write more about later. It's also an illusion, but I'm trying not to think about that now. I guess I just did too good of a job bribing myself with visions of sloth over the past few weeks, which contained more late nights in a short period of time than in the rest of my college career combined.
Labels: College
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
I should have written my thesis on list-making
Singing along to: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Aeroplane
Things I would rather do than finish my thesis:
Things I have already done today to avoid writing my thesis:
Things I would rather do than finish my thesis:
- Clean the bathroom.
- Make a summer rock and roll playlist on iTunes.
- Go to the residence hall office and get some toilet paper.
- Wash dishes.
- Re-fold all of the clothes in my dresser.
- Play on the tire swing that appeared in a tree outside a nearby classroom building. Sure, it would probably end in death and/or paralysis, but it would get me out of doing my thesis, right?
Things I have already done today to avoid writing my thesis:
- Go to the RHO to get toilet paper (turns out it didn't open till 1:00 today).
- Walk to 7-11 to get a gallon of milk.
- Go to the gym.
- Take out the trash.
- Read a long geek-speak article about how a large and dedicated group of Internet geeks hacked Time's most-influential people poll.
- Hang out with James after he got off work.
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