...In which our heroine returns to proper form.

Let's ramble, shall we?

I just saw a delightfully adorable photo of a Boston Terrier in a Santa Hat. It never ceases to amaze me how I can draw equal pleasure from both zombies gnawing on human flesh or a cute baby animal. That makes me nostalgic for Odin's Word, and thinking of Cute Overload. I've been adhering to Sylvia Plath's wisdom lately of taking baths so hot you can only edge in one foot at a time. I don't understand - I hate being hot any other time, but I love hot baths. Last night it was hot to the point that I almost made myself pass out. I listened to "Nights in White Satin" in the dark bathroom and thought wintery thoughts. As much as I hate hate hate Christmas music, I'll listen to "Last Christmas," yes that "Last Christmas" by Wham! any day of the year. Heidi read my tarot cards in several variations tonight which never ceases to amuse me. I don't believe in god, but for some reason I listen to some colorful pieces of cardboard. I got the death card in every reading, which is actually not so bad. The words attached are things like "rebirth, new beginnings, desire, moving on."Another book she has talked about how the power card for Scorpios is death is not the end, but only a chance for resurrection. And somehow death is tied to Scorpios because we're the most sexual of the zodiac, to which the only connection I can make one Neil Gaiman short story talks about how the French call an orgasm la petite morte: the little death, and I suppose they're mostly right. I always liked that phrase or the other French phrase Mr. Gaiman taught me, l'espirit d'escaliers, the spirit of the staircase, meaning you remember the exact right thing to say as soon as you leave the party. I've had many of those nights. Tonight I ate an all-time Hall of Fame Chipotle burrito that had the perfect amount of corn salsa, but just a little too much cheese. John, it's a nice thought that you're telling me all I need is love right now, but terribly impractical. BUT, my finals are nearly done. I put finishing touches on my film today, and I'm a mere sound mix away from never having to shoot another film on a Bolex, although they are very cool cameras. Someone told me Columbia got the very last shipment of VHS tapes, in addition to owning the very last Bolexes. That "exes" looks weird in the last sentence. As people talk about Tiger Woods and Brian Kelley, I realize how little I care about sports. This shouldn't be a surprise, but then again, I haven't seen a movie in theaters in two months, which seems insane for a film major. The Cranberries on shuffle, the song takes me to 1995, Q102, Target parking lot, holding my new stamp shoe Barbie. Emily and I have been binging on 90s music this whole fall, crap from our childhoods that isn't any good, like Third Eye Blind, but then again neither is 80s music and I love that. I've been exploring Tumblr accounts lately - they start frequently with "fuck yeah" and end with "Christina Hendricks," or "beards," or my personal favorite, "beards and bacon." It never ceases to amaze me how much time people spend on the internet, because I know how much time I spend, which is too much, and they spend far more. In seven days, I will be a junior in college. I was at Big Art last night, and Joe told me to stay in college forever, and I nodded, smiled, because he is so damn cute and not nineteen. A man, not another silly boy. Motorhead, alright shuffle, I see we're behaving badly tonight. Skip. Now "Material Girl." Yes, Madonna, I'll listen to this garbage because it reminds of MTV clip specials I watched back when they still played music, and I still played Barbies.

Leah in Production II is using this in her final film. Gave me chills when she showed a rough cut.

ED. NOTE - Fixed "Least Christmas" back to the proper "Last Christmas." I think that was a Freudian blogger slip for actually talking about Wham! in a non-ironic context.

...In which our heroine is the midnight rambler.

Ramble, ramble, ramble since we seem to not only like them, but make some of our own.

The Facebook online box is a list of former lovers. It always it hits me when more than one of them is on at the same time. Someone who you've shared you're most intimate moments with is reduced to no more than a green dot and a tiny profile picture. Technology, what a weird thing. Not even former lovers. Former classmates who I spent nine hours a day with are reduced to no more than "WHO DEY" status updates and changed profile pictures. The wind is howling fierce outside and I love watching it rain from this height. I look at the Sears Tower, clouded in fog, and think of Ben, always. There's a tiny cockroach shimmying across the carpet, but he's too small to kill. There's also a spider that lives behind my tapestry but every time I try to kill him it just retreats back up. Fall is in the air and I can't put into words how the chill in the air and Sundays spent hitting these buttons makes me nostalgic. I miss my house in the winter and I miss taking it down and passing it around in my upstairs, when it was still something forbidden and fun and not a lifestyle. I haven't smoked or drank in a month which was longer than I went with mono. Bugs thinks I'm looking down on his current activities because of this, but really I'm just tired of the stoner lifestyle. Most of my peers indulge and I feel like I'm being holier than thou for living clean. The cockroach is migrating towards my DVD shelf and now "Crazy Mary" is in my head. Who really cares if their eyelashes aren't thick enough, Latisse? Mascara works just fine. Mad Men is more perfect than I can say and it inspires me to say less and show more. Which completely goes against the point of this. I spent four hours tonight writing about race and gender and I don't really give a shit about analyzing either. I will saying Writing Women Safe is both awesome and nauseating. When the woman, Tara Dabney, came from Family Rescue this week and said that in an abusive relationship, the woman feels like no matter what she does will ever be enough, I dug my nails into my palms and tried to make my stomach stop doing the hot/cold thing that happens when I'm excited or terrified. That class is making me perceive my life and my relationships in a new way. I need to call my grandma and aunt, but every time I do they make me feel like shit for being here. Sorry, I need to live my own life and that I don't have a three-year old right now. The spider veins in my thighs remind me I'm theirs, purple and fragmented despite the fact I'm not even twenty. Emily has them too which makes me feel not as horrible. A Johnny Cash song I don't know the name to, one line from it is on repeat. I played one level 47 times in Crash Bandicoot tonight before passing it and cursing every word I know. Then I lost on the next level, of course. We're under a tornado watch tonight so I won't sleep, the wind howling. I'm getting to be an expert at cat naps but my dreams have been especially vivid. Bachelor No. 1 keeps coming to kill me in them, or comes back to school. I wake up and can't go back to sleep. Tool Academy, now there's some deep television programming. They could shoot it in my building this year. I keep seeing cute boys in the film building but they all seem so old. Another mascara commercial - I don't even know what brand I wear, just that the tube is yellow and purple. I made the fatal mistake of finding out Cookie Jar blizzards have a thousand calories, but that won't stop me from using my dollar off coupon. I eat so poorly when school starts. I've had a headache for five days and my immune system is doing its best. I refuse to get a flu shot, swine or otherwise, or use hand sanitizer. Wash your hands, drink your OJ, do something nice for someone else, and sleep tight.

Here's that song. My mom would faint if she knew I was posting it, the only Pearl Jam song I still actively listen to and it's not even theirs:

...In which our heroine has seconds.

There are sites and blogs I check everyday - things like / Film, The A.V. Club, Time Magazine, and all of my delightful gossip sites. But there are unsung heroes, things I still enjoy but don't read everyday. In case you're curious:

Cake Wrecks: Sometimes cakes don't turn out so well. Here, they get their time to shine.

Food Porn Daily: I'm trying to be a better cook. The dishes on here make me want to work harder. Click, and something else awesome appears.

This is Why You're Fat: Most of the stuff on here is inedible, but when it works, like bacon ice cream, it really works.

That Obscure Object: Just a bunch of photos of wonderful celebrity things, like Christina Hendricks, the Goonies, and old photos. Lots of pretty ladies.

JBlyth: I don't even know what to call this one. It's just a lot of cool photos that change from black and white to color and generally fit a theme - tattoos, nudes, animals, whatever.

The Frisky: A fun and varied sex blog, written mostly by women who talk about more things than 101 Ways to Spice Up Your Love Life! which I'm pretty sure is in every issue of Cosmo ever.

Savage Love: Ah, Dan Savage. I remember when I felt like quite the scandal for reading this. Now I mostly just think it's made up, but it's still a weekly read. I have to settle since Tristan Taormino quit doing Pucker Up.

I Did it for Science: Nerve can be pretentious, but these are lots of fun.

Sci-Fi Squad: An offshoot of / Film, it covers all things sci-fi.

Horror Squad: See above. Yes, I am indeed female.

Box Office Mojo: Gotta read about the weekend box office and this is the best place to do it.

Metacritic: I much prefer this to Rotten Tomatoes in terms of rating movies and other media.

Fuck Yeah Animals with Casts: I think the name says it all.

Mental Floss: Random crap that is terribly interesting. It has replaced my semi-obsessive reading of Wikipedia.

I hate this building on the weekends. Somebody puked in an elevator, which is still parked on this floor. Stupid drunk freshmen.

It's a rainy night, perfect for The Smiths:

...In which our heroine rambles on.

Another late evening ramble, yes?

I think I finally may be tiring of Girl Talk, which is not surprising since I've listened to Feed the Animals hundreds of times by now. I am so ready for school to start, to find another album to define the year and shed all the baggage that the past year has brought. I'm still wondering about what'll be like to see him. I don't think I'm properly utilizing Twitter yet, and still kind it kind of ridiculous. Diablo Cody is my girl though, I'll even forgive her for making me sit through Megan Fox for two hours in Jennifer's Body. Speaking of, what the fuck is up with movie lengths? I'm tired of two and a half hour movies that do not need to be. I started writing again, something I think that'll be a TV pilot, or at least in my own head it will. Somedays I still worry if I'm going to be able to summon the muse to pay the bills. I kind of want to go to grad school, then come back and teach at Columbia. I'd get to live in Chicago, enrich the lives of young people, and write on the side. I've met a grand total of one cool new person. All the freshman are bro assholes who cannot work a key card or an elevator and are trying oh so very hard to work their game on the opposite sex. It's kind of pathetic. My roommate, Alexandria, is back. Let's talk some opposite lifestyles now. I haven't even heard her curse yet. I have no idea how to broach the subject of substances or boys, and limits on either. Speaking of that, I'm thinking of detoxing for a month or so. Telly is very into all sorts of natural remedies and teas and such and I'm getting really tired of my lifestyle. Granted, I've cut way back, but still every time I've smoked lately I just feel like a mass of wasted brain cells. The charm has worn off, maybe. I dunno. And I think it'd be good to start the new school year with a clear head. Yes, I am tiring of this Girl Talk finally. I keep getting the smell of ammonia wafting off of my hair, which is freshly cut and dyed. Too dark again, but not as bad as before senior year. It definitely looks somewhat brown. I can't ever get my bangs cut the way I want even when I bring pictures. My Morning Jacket is covering "Get Down on It," which would be intolerable any other time. Inglourious Basterds is probably the best thing of the summer, and the best thing Tarantino's done since From Dusk 'til Dawn. I loved Hans Landa. I tried to read the script in the bookstore today and it made my stomach hurt. I guess it's a stylistic thing I'll develop too, but my god, so much descriptive text and camera movements and such. Summer is pretty much over and I'm not even sad about it, I'm just glad school will give me something to do. I still need a job but have quit looking. Extract wasn't very good at all, and neither was Mike Judge a very thrilling Q&A. Kevin Smith is at the Chicago Theatre in a few weeks and its taking every fiber of my being to not purchase a ticket although I'll probably cave. I feel like as soon as I have any money to spend it's gone, feast or famine. It's weird having someone else's food in the refrigerator and towels on the rack. I was quite liking being on my own. She doesn't curse - how do ask someone like that if you can have the room for the night, should it occur. Jeff Mangum is the King of Carrot Flowers, parts one through three. "Communist Daughter" certainly has the oddest lyrics on the album. Nancy Botwin finally learned that she can love men but not depend on them in last night's finale, good advice Not Francie. The ladies had a particularly good week on Mad Men and I still envy Christina Hendricks something awful. I would very much like Santa to bring me a PS3 now that they cost $299 so I can begin to move towards Blu-Ray and all that jazz. "Two-Headed Boy Part 2" makes me want to cry every time I hear it. Mangum's voice is just raw. Pangs of nostalgia hit hard this week, the chill in the air, the old rituals. How I've changed in this year. My dreams and deja-vus have been particularly intense. My scalp is stained with pigment and I want another huge, colorful tattoo of a feminine origin. I like how it challenges a conventional notion of beauty. But I don't want anything that'll show in a wedding dress, ha ha ha. I think Mia Wallace, hypodermic needle and all, will happen for Halloween, especially with this new hair. Say it Jeff, "Two-headed boy, she is all you could need. She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires and retire to sheets safe and clean, but don't hate her when she gets up to leave." I did leave him, whose birthday I didn't even acknowledge this week,  and I'm tired of safe and clean sheets, but it was the best choice. Second chances, are they worth it, or better yet, am I just imagining them. Who knows. I always project grandoise situations of reality before they even begin to germinate. It's how I go to sleep at night, imagining an alternate reality for myself. I always have, since I was little. Frank Black is screaming about some wild honey pie and I'm sleepy.

The "Cat People" scene in Basterds gave me chills like only a good movie can, but I prefer my Bowie like this:

...In which our heroine lays it out.

A late night confessional -

I had my first fish tacos tonight (no pun intended) and they were delicious. I do not think they would have been as delicious without the PBR consumed. Consequently, I still think PBR and Bud Light taste the exact same. I have red velvet cake for breakfast, delightful. It's funny how new friends work out and how I feel like Emily and I are the ones getting left out. I'm glad Bugs is back, but it also means Ben comes up a lot more now. It's a lot easier to be over him when I don't have to talk about him. We'll see how our first encounter goes in a week or so. Craig Ferguson is infinitely funnier than Jimmy Fallon. I wonder why my cable signal is only worbley on some channels. I'm getting a new roommate Friday and her favorite book is the Bible. Hmm. I need to get paid - funds are getting slim but I still spend on things like red velvet cake. I will have a red velvet armadillo cake at my wedding, should it ever happen. The bad tattoos in the world never cease to amaze me. A conversation about sex with a lesbian, a gay male, and a straight single female and an attached straight male is guaranteed to end in hilarity. Disagreements are always bound to happen about hippies and their body hair. "Oceanside" by the Decemberists is in my head right now. I'm currently wondering if recent transgressions were a mistake. Is a relationship better if it didn't exist, then really existed, and then is awkward, or better to not have that relationship exist at all? "Friends" is one of my most hated television shows. But yet I watch a constant stream of reality shit on VH-1. I do not mind having the apartment to myself. I'm so ready for school to start. I need to meet people, and not develop a crush on someone on day three of the school year. I don't want a relationship right now, but I'm tired of mornings alone, not even the sex as much as the companionship. Heidi and Telly, Bugs' and now my lesbian friends, are an exceedingly adorable couple and I want what they have. This seems inane, this stream of consciousness, right now as I'm writing it. I started a Twitter which is just one more way Big Brother is watching. Maybe my mom is right - who really needs to know if you go to the fucking grocery store? I wish they'd stop with these haunted house movies, especially the PG-13 ones. Antidotally, I borrowed The Devil Rejects from Heidi and Telly. I have such boy movie taste. DQ Blizzards and Ben and Jerry's ice cream are genetically perfected stoner food.  I've been sleeping copious amounts lately, storing up for the school year I guess. Dan and Darlene's relationship on "Roseanne" is incredibly similar to mine and my dad's. I feel bad about how little I've written in the past month or so, but other priorities have taken precedent. I can't even look at my script anymore, I'm tired of it and it needs fixing. I love writing like this as dumb as it may seem, it's the most cathartic exercise for me. These little girl pageant shows are abhorrent, the mothers more so than the daughters. And they always seem to be toads with hateful husbands. Yeah, that won't create daddy issues. I hate being a grown up and spending money on things like cleaning supplies, how lame. Lysol, so fun. I watch a lot of really terrible 90s movies on TBS, yet neglect my "intellectual" Netflix acquisitions. And now, this ramble ends.

And I want to go to Austin, Texas:

...In which our heroine loves the lads.

So a while back, I confessed my girl crushes. Women are the fairer sex, but I can only envy them and seeing as I do like the boys, as frustrating and enigmatic as they may be.  Mary-Louise Parker, despite her failings as Nancy Botwin, says it well in this thank-you note to men from Esquire magazine:

Manly creature, who smells good even when you don’t, you wake up too slowly, with fuzzy, vertical hair and a slightly lost look on your face as though you are seven or seventy-five; you can fix my front door, my sink, and open most jars; you, who lose a cuff link and have to settle for a safety pin, you have promised to slay unfortunate interlopers and dragons with your Phillips head or Montblanc; to you, because you will notice a woman with a healthy chunk of years or pounds on her and let out a wolf whistle under your breath and mean it; because you think either rug will be fine, really it will; you seem to walk down the street a little taller than me, a little more aware but with a purpose still; to you who codifies, conjugates, slams a puck, baits a hook, builds a decent cabinet or the perfect sandwich; you who gives a twenty to the kids selling Hershey’s bars and waits at baggage claim for three hours in your flannel shirt; you, sir, you take my order, my pulse, my bullshit; you who soaps me in the shower, soaks with me in the tub; to you, boy grown-up, the gentleman, soldier, professor, or caveman, the fancy man with initials on your towels and salt on your chocolates, to you and to that guy at the concession stand; thank you for the tour of the vineyard, the fire station, the sound booth, thank you for the kaleidoscope, the Horsehead Nebula, the painting, the truth; to you who carries me across the parking lot, up the stairs, to the ER, to roll-away or rice mat; to you who shows up every so often only to confuse and torment, and you who stays in orbit, always, to my left and steady, you stood up for me, I won’t forget that; to you, the one who can’t figure it out and never will, and you who lost the remote, the dog, or your way altogether; to you, wizard, you sang in my ear and brought me back from the dead, you tell me things, make me shiver; to the ones who destroyed me, even if for a minute, and to the ones who grew me, consumed me, gave me my heart back times ten; to most everything that deserves to call itself a man: How I do love thee, with your skill to light fires that keep me warm, light me up.

Admittedly, my taste is...let's say, unique, and oft-questioned. No, I do not think Tom Cruise, Zac Efron, Robert Pattinson, or Channing Tatum are attractive. Washboard abs (except Brad Pitt's in Fight Club) do nothing for me. I do not get excited about Hollister attire or Axe body spray, which for the record, is suffocating. Dark hair, however,  is an absolute must. 

The theme should be obvious in these, my list of boy crushes, in this Tiger Beat only edition of Katydid in the City:

Nathan Fillion - Oh Malcolm Reynolds, Dr. Pomatter, Captain Tightpants, or Dr. Horrible. You're just as funny as you are handsome.

Clive Owen - There are lots of adorable British boys including Ewan McGregor and James McAvoy, but his overall badassery bests them all.

Jon Hamm - He defines tall, dark, and handsome as Don Draper. I love the perpetual five o'clock shadow.

Emile Hirsch - A very promising actor, he looks way better rocking the hippie beard and long hair.

Colin Meloy - Of The Decemberists. His voice is far from sexy, but his wordplay makes up for it. I've got the hots for the smarts.

Ryan Gosling - Sadly, he looks best all cracked out in Half Nelson. But I wouldn't say no anytime. And he's a musician? Have mercy.

Zach Galifianakis - Yeah, a weird one, I know. But the beard is awesome and he's really funny, so I'm in.

Jim James - Of My Morning Jacket. My current obsession - the four hour bootleg of Bonnaroo 2008 is in heavy rotation. I want to be his hippie bride and tour with MMJ everywhere. Awesome beard, awesome voice, awesome lyrics. And he loves Neil Young. So cute.

Seth Rogen - We're destined for each other, I'm pretty sure, seeing as I could provide a list of ten ways we're meant to be together, but my BFFF already took that quiz in pink gel pen. The slimness and lack of beard have made him slip in the rankings lately, but I still heart him the most.

I promise to make a serious post to combat this nonsense. Maybe.