Good Luck to Those Who Plan on Reading This in its Entirety.

So I know I've been saying this a lot lately, which at some point might get worrisome, but please don't expect anything I write in this post to make sense. If you have to blame my incoherence on something, try this: I've just sung along to "Breathe" by Taylor Swift like thirty times on repeat (which has driven all my friends out of my immediate vicinity) but it's weird because I'm not really like empathizing with her lyrics or anything. I mean, it's a sad break-up song but I haven't gone through a terrible break-up in... a long time. Which I think might be it. I'm not saying I want some guy to waltz into my life and stomp on my heart until he makes heart-wine, but to be totally honest, I'm kind of bored out of my mind.

And when I get bored terrible things happen. There are really only two outcomes. One is that things continue this way until I throw a huge tantrum and freak everybody the eff out and people start putting me on suicide watch because I'm dressing in all black and muttering ominously about "fate's cruel games" and brandishing the knife a little too enthusiastically when I'm cooking. Okay, that might be kind of an exaggeration. I don't really like wearing black. Nor do I cook, for that matter. Anyway the more probable result is that I do something kinda big and drastic in the hopes that it will change my life, which it usually does not.

Example A would be my tattoos. So yeah, I have these tattoos. They're actually really tiny for the dual reasons that I'm poor and also that I freaked out when the tattoo artist was like "okay I can extend it but then it'll go across your ribs and that will hurt more" and I was like "whoa there buddy, I'm already letting you jackhammer your needle into my skin, let's not get carried away onto the bones" and he was like "you're the one who wanted them bigger" and I was like "that's what she said" and then it was awkward because I had to take my shirt off and lie in this strange position for thirty minutes while he inked me. Also, I bled. I had no idea blood was involved. Luckily that kind of stuff doesn't freak me out. Like, I'm cavalier about it to the point where I'm like "hmm I want to watch a movie this weekend. I should go donate some blood so I can get free movie tickets" and then I attempt to do that and fill out all the paperwork ("are you a male who went to Eastern Europe and had homosexual relations between the years of 1975 and 1985?") and then the doctor pricks my finger and tells me I don't have enough iron to qualify for life-saving because my body is retarded and then I have to pay for my movie ticket so no one wins. Except the movie theater I guess.

Anyway, I have tattoos because I was bored and I was turning 20 and I was like "jesus christ I'm going to be twenty years old and I haven't done anything with my life (this was before I went on my adventurous little trek through Europe)" and I figured I should do something like go to South America and hike through the rainforest but humidity makes my hair all frizzy so instead I took the bus to Venice beach and paid some guy to permanently alter my body. So that's one example.

The aforementioned Europe trip was another. I was in my second year in college and I was like "oh god I'm so bored with my life" so I signed up to go study abroad but I had to apply like a few months before the program began and in the interim I got bored again and that is why I ended up planning myself a three week trip through some of Europe's must-see cities.

And the time before that I cut off all my hair so that it was the shortest it'd been in at least ten years.

And then I did a few things in between those things that are not really suitable to be made common knowledge but the point is all these temporary distractions are all good and well and sometimes even permanent but they don't actually change my life. Which is why I'm bored again, and trying to think of ways to distract myself. My default when I'm not feeling creative is usually just cutting my hair even shorter, but for some reason I've been getting a lot of compliments on my hair lately. This is puzzling to me because whenever I look in the mirror my immediate reaction is something like "oh my god why does my head look like a beach ball?" but who am I to argue with the public's opinion? Okay, so it's like three people but you know what, I am considerate of everyone's feelings. So instead of cutting it I'm thinking of dyeing it purple.

Or going to Vegas. That would be really awesome because I just watched The Hangover and now I really want to go back. This is weird, because I don't want to experience any of the things the guys in the movie did, but I really just enjoy visiting a city where "wasted" is an acceptable condition to be in while strolling through public. Actually, it might still be frowned upon (I remember stumbling with my friend through a shopping area of a hotel and passing by these little kids on vacation with their family and loudly whispering "we are setting a terrible example. KIDS DON'T BE LIKE US") but as far as I know I wasn't arrested so it's still better than most other cities.

Okay so it's one in the morning and I just wrote like thirty paragraphs about how freaking bored I am of my life so if anyone should be put on suicide watch it's probably you, since you got all the way down here. So I will do you a favor and end this by saying: black is not a good color on you.

If You Plan On Ever Going Anywhere, Just Don't Even Bother Befriending Me.

And now, for the next in my series of Things I Hate About Adulthood I present:

this exclusively adult idea of Impermanence and Mobility.

I hate it. When you were a kid your parents (if they were good ones, I guess, or if they at least read some child psychology books) tried to give you stability. Like, that's pretty basic. You went to bed at nine, you woke up at seven, you had to go sit in the corner if you were being too rowdy unless you were too rowdy while your dad was sleeping, then you had to go kneel in the backyard (this is where emotional issues and childhood knee scars come from). You saw your friends every day during the school year, you played with your neighbors over summer vacation and then you went back to school and caught up with your buddies like nothing had ever happened.

Adults cannot do this, apparently. Now, I know I'm being kind of hypocritical because whenever things get tough around here I threaten to move to Hawaii and pick up surfing and get an intense tan and marry a boy with killer abs who lives for making me fresh pineapple juice every morning. But I haven't done it yet. And it's not like I'm sitting in my room looking at one-way plane tickets online.

But apparently some people are. People I know. People who, if they left, would not only be leaving California, they would also be leaving me with severe abandonment issues. But do they consider that? Nooo.

"But," I point out. "if you leave, who am I going to hang out with on Tuesdays? We always hang out together on Tuesdays."
"Well," they inevitably reply, "first of all, that's not true. Second of all, I hate you and can't stand being in the same state as you. Even a state as big as California."
"Screw you," I say, "I hope the Atlantic Ocean swallows up Florida or wherever you're planning on going."

Alright, so that conversation is not completely accurate. More likely than not they give me some stupid response like "My girlfriend lives in Chicago and I want to be closer to her/I got offered a job in Minneapolis and it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity/I'm in love with New York and would be a thousand times happier there/My ailing mother's last wish is for me to move to our family estate in Savannah/I'm fulfilling my lifelong dream of being a shark hunter in North Carolina" or something like that.

And they're totally missing the big picture. Which is that if they leave, I'm going to have to make new friends, and I hate doing that almost as much as I hate dating. First of all, it's going to be impossible because I'll be dealing with all the insecurity issues I've acquired as a result of being abandoned in the first place, and who wants to befriend a weirdo who won't let her new friends out of her sight, even if it is to go to the bathroom?

So, to my friends who are moving away, think about it this way: you're not only leaving me a big issue-y mess and forcing me into social situations outside my comfort zone, but your actions are probably also going to get me arrested for being a stalker.

Is that what you want? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now go to the backyard and think about what you've (almost) done.

You Were Warned.

So let me just say right now that if you value yourself at all you will not continue reading this. Because it's going to be long and rambling and, above all, angry. Because I am pissed. You can tell when my sentences get all fragmented that something else is going to get fragmented, and it'll probably be a bowl or someone's skull, if that someone were foolhardy enough to mess with me right now.

Yesterday I was taking a break from killing zombies and looking through my blog when Mango's roommate Maaron glanced over.

"What is that?" he asked.
"Uhm, my blog."
"I know that," he said, "but what's the point? Do people even read it?"

Now, if he had been a zombie asking that sort of impertinent question, I would have blown his head off with a trench gun. But since he has a soul (as far as I know) and his flesh isn't decaying off his body, I just gave him a dirty look.

"Uh, yes."
"Please," he continued, blithely unaware of the imminent danger he was in, "how many? Like five people?"
"EXCUSE ME," I replied, "MORE LIKE EIGHT."

But that's not the point (it's not why I'm mad now either). The point is that I don't know why I was all defending the readership of my blog. I mean clearly I think it's cool when people read what I write, but mostly I'm writing because I have this slightly neurotic fear that I'll forget everything if I don't write it down. Like I only have snapshots of memory from elementary school and that freaks me the eff out because come on, I'm 21 and I can't remember the third grade? Yeah. Thus my little self-prescribed mission to preserve my youth on blogspot. I hope this website has good technicians or whatever because if it ever crashes and wipes everything out there goes my entire past, and I don't think they'd want that on their hands. I'm like an android.

Jesus, where was I?

Anyway, what this post really is about is love. More specifically, about how love sucks and/or doesn't exist. Okay, I told you not to read this. If you're going to start crying you should really just leave now. I'm pretty sure it's all downhill from here.

When I was little I had this totally concrete idea about my perfect guy. In middle school I had it down to the color of his eyes (green; grey was also acceptable), his family background (he was an orphan or estranged from his parents), and of course, his personality. He was this total tough guy, kind of a thug actually. He would be sarcastic and a little mean and very in control. I think I read too many gang novels where, you know, that one nice girl could turn a gangster into a doting boyfriend and upstanding citizen. Anyway, now that I'm older I realize that my 'perfect guy' in middle school would, in real life, have with several warehouses full of baggage and probably be borderline abusive.

So that went out the window and I was kind of left to drift. I dated guys I would never have imagined myself with, mostly guys I couldn't see a future with. And I didn't really mind at all. I mean, if I had met that one guy with whom I could (god forbid) see children or wedding bells (hopefully not in that order), I probably would have driven the relationship straight into the ground using only the sheer force of my temper. It's kind of my specialty.

As it is, though, no prince has ridden up waving an obscenely large emerald ring and promising to cook for me for the rest of our lives (never using onions, eggplant or raw tomatoes, of course), bring me wet cloths when I'm sick or tell me my singing is cute and not horrendous.

So thanks to his taking his sweet time, I'm left to fend for myself out in the dating world. And it sucks. First of all, I'm not a real big dater. I kind of hate it, actually. Dates bore me, and plus they're kind of awkward because you know it's a date, and it's so hard to get to know someone when you're alternately wondering if you are making a good impression and when you can go home and put on your sweats. It's much better when you like someone, and you know they like you, and then you do something silly together like make root beer floats and have an Arrested Development marathon. In your sweats.

Okay, so I'm a loser, but I'm a comfortable loser. So that's one reason I'm mad. Because I have the sneaking suspicion that I'm a grown-up now, and I'm eventually going to have to go on grown-up dates, and I hate that.

And you know what else I hate? And I'm not saying this applies to me personally right now or anything but GOD I HATE IT IT MAKES ME SO MAD. Sorry, it just came out. I hate it when you can't be with someone who you want to be with.

Like, if I were Rachel McAdams in The Notebook and my parents dragged me out of town and I didn't hear from Ryan Gosling for seven years I would have razed the town of Savannah or New York or wherever she was (actually, it was New York for college and then Savannah, where she was getting ready to be married. Have I mentioned it's my favorite movie?) Or if I were Nicole Kidman and I had to pretend I didn't love Ewan McGregor anymore because I had tuberculosis or "consumption" or whatever, I would've torn the windmill right off of the Moulin Rouge.

But sometimes it's not an obstacle as easily overcome as protective parents or a fatal illness. Sometimes it's more than that, or less than that, or (in what I'd imagine to be the worst cases) the other person. And there's nothing you can do about that. Because no matter how many major metropolitan cities you threaten to destroy, you can't make that person like you, or at least not enough to take you out for ice cream or watch Titanic with you on rainy nights, I'm pretty sure. To be honest, you'll probably just scare him/her off further with your displays of violence. You should really get your anger problems checked out. But enough about you. Back to me.

So yeah, I'm angry today. It's one of those days where it doesn't really feel like things work out for good people, or that no matter how compassionate, sympathetic, helpful, optimistic and well-dressed you try to be, life is going to kick you in the face with a muddy boot and then leave your doors open on its way out so that a fly gets in and you can't open the windows to let it escape because it's pouring outside (that's how the boot got muddy) but you're not fast enough to kill it, probably because you are still recovering from that attack on your face, which, by the way, is probably going to leave a scar that will have kids calling you "Harry Potter" for the rest of your life. Yeah, one of those days.

Happy Birthday, Iz.

Five reasons I'm moderately glad not to be an only child:

5. I have a travel buddy. One of my first memories of Iz and I in Taiwan (3rd and 4th grades, respectively) is when we first got to the airport. Now, I hope the fact that we'd just been on a plane for 12 straight hours excuses this, but while our mom was waiting in line for customs Iz and I sat on the floor and sang the "who wears short shorts?" song for like thirty minutes non-stop. (Answer: "I WEAR SHORT SHORTS).

4. I have someone to spit on. One of Iz's favorite childhood memories (I'm sure) is from when we were little, like in elementary school, and she was bothering me while I was reading (this is how most our childhood memories start out). She kept talking and talking and moving closer and closer as she did so that eventually and inevitably my face was speckled with her spit. This did not please tweenage-Carolyn, so very naturally I reacted by holding her down and spitting on her face. Justice was served.

3. I'm relatively normal, as children go. My mom stayed home with us up until about when Iz started kindergarten. Let me just say, Iz was the clingiest baby ever. And only to my mom. Like to the point where she would cry if my mom left her alone with my dad. It was sad, and also made people suspect my dad was a baby-abuser. Anyway, when my mom started work we'd be at home with a babysitter or whatever from when school let out to when she got home after work. Iz would go lie on my parents' bed and bury her face in my mom's pajamas and sob until my mom got home. Sometimes she would switch things up by calling my mom's office (I'm pretty sure that's the first phone number she ever memorized) and sob into the phone until my mom was forced to hang up because her boss was looking at her like she'd just murdered a puppy over the telephone line.

2. I'm a comparably good spellur speller. We were playing the Naked Game a year or so ago and Iz wrote "surades." The person who got the word paused the game ("what's ... sur.. ah.. days?") so that she could explain to us that she meant "charades."

And..

1.
Two words: penis hat.


Happy birthday, Iz.

Laundry Day.

Hello, Monday.

I spent the weekend in San Diego and Irvine and I don't know really what to say about it, except that it was one of those weekends where you feel like you need to wash all your clothes afterwards.

So since I've been so busy lately doing laundry with school that I never get a chance to write here, I came up with the best idea I've had since that time I ordered Enzos at ten P.M. because obesity has been a goal of mine since childhood I was studying late into the night and needed nourishment.

So, consider this the grand unveiling of Pictures in Lieu of Words Because I Fail as an English Major and Captions are Much Easier and Faster to Write (PLWBIFEMCMEFW).

A hamburger-cake.

A close up of the hamburger-cake. This is how awesome it was. I love cake, I love hamburgers; one day I dream of eating a hamburger that tastes like cake.

Okay, so this picture is way back from the end of summer (this doesn't explain the expression on Iz's face, but then again, what can?) when our family drove one tiny car down to southern California with most of my and Iz's belongings. The car was crammed so full that stuff took up most of the backseat, and Iz and I were squished so closely she thought she was in heaven (this only makes sense to people who have experienced the clinginess that is my sister). So I guess maybe that expression is just a demonstration of her excitement at the thought of a six hour ride in close quarters.


OH MY GOD. My favorite souvenir from this weekend. Iz's friend ("Shaftsies" -- three guesses who came up with that nickname? Hint: not me) gave it to me as a "thank you" gift for going to my own sister's birthday dinner. If all family events were similarly rewarded, I would avoid my family a lot less. Then again, maybe not, some people would have a field day with my chocolate-enhanced figure.

Now I have to go collect my laundry from my bedroom floor. Our dryer apparently is confused as to what appliance it is and sucks like a vacuum cleaner so none of my clothes are dry and everything is spread out on sheets on my floor like I'm having some sort of strange underwear swap meet. I would put a picture of it here but I'm pretty sure it's a slippery slope from pictures of drying underwear to adult films or something like that.

The Sickness Didn't Kill Me, but My Life Might.

Hello, world wide web. I haven't been blogging lately because life has been sucking hard and I try to preserve the naivete of my poor innocent blog by shielding it from the big bad world of collegiate stress as much as possible. But yesterday was the last straw.

Let me tell you a little about the weeks leading up to this moment. Ever since class started, my life has been steadily spiraling downwards to the point where, when I fill my Eeyore thermos with mineral water every morning, I wistfully eye the half handle of Svedka in the fridge. But it hasn't quite gotten to the point of alcoholism (yet).

Instead, I've decided to fill my days with other worthwhile ambitions, like flyering for Prolit ("do you want to help children?" -- this was quickly shortened to "help children!" while I desperately shove the flyer into the passerby's hand; this strategy is alarming enough that it works up to 20% of the time), pretending I understand other English majors (how can one relate Curb Your Enthusiasm to Aristotle's Poetics to Soviet and Japanese productions of King Lear? Come to my senior seminar to find out!), to attending mandatory training sessions for volunteers working with minors (Powerpoint presentation: "try to limit your physical contact with children to high fives. No hugs! If absolutely necessary, side hugs only." Have you ever tried to high five a seven year old while she is sprinting toward you for a hug? I foresee this information causing more trouble than good), and desperately ransacking my apartment for food. It was the fruitlessness of this last endeavor that led me to a midnight rendezvous at Ralphs with Roro, Laycon and Mango. And that was where my weary spirit was dealt its last, crushing blow.




Now goodbye, cruel world.

Screw You and Your Immune System.

I'm sick. No, I'm not bitching, I'm actually sick. Sick as in the Y was so concerned just by the weakened state of my voice that she took my temperature. I insisted that this was unnecessary, but I guess I was wrong because it came out to something a little over 102 degrees, which, according to the Y (resident expert in over-worrying about illnesses -- a little quirk for which I am now very grateful) is "hella high." Then she gave me some Nyquil, so I'm just typing fast now in a race against sweet medication-induced sleep.

Why am I writing instead of sleeping or mentally railing against my usually reliable immune system? Ah, college. I turned in at the early hour of 10:30 after watching a sneak preview of Zombieland, after which I felt so ache-y that I practically sprinted home and then stood in a scalding hot shower for thirty minutes solely because I couldn't find the energy to towel off. Then, at 12:15 AM, I was awoken by the sounds of drunken revelry outside my window. Thursday night on frat row. I tried to be understanding, I really really did. I tried really hard not to imagine the students outside as raucous zombies and me as Woody Harrelson with four pistols and two machine guns. I told myself that surely I've had nights like that, where I was just the right amount of drunk to enjoy walking and not notice the volume of my voice, and hey, it wasn't their fault I was sick, right? Then I hear from outside some drunken jerk slur, "that guy is a faggot-retarded faggot." Okay. I would never say that. A girl chimes in, "hey guys, I'm going to pop a squat in about five steps. Okay, I'm popping a squat!"

They were lucky I was having difficulty even getting myself to sit up, much less be in any position to pour burning oil out my window.

The thing I hate most about being sick -- more than the feeling that my head is wrapped in really hot cotton, more than the whole freezing-without-blankets-burning-up-with dilemma-- is that I become a huge brat. I mean, more than usual, if you can imagine. I'm kidding. I'm usually very good, if I do say so myself. I mean, I'll occasionally throw a minor tantrum, but it's nothing compared to what I'm like when I'm sick.

Take, for example, Jamerz and Teenie and I in line for Zombieland. "You don't have swine flu," Teenie insists. "you don't even have a fever." (Oh, how wrong she was proved to be). "I'M DYING," I wail, causing multiple heads to turn and the strangers nearest to me to back away. "I'M GOING TO BE DEAD IN A FEW HOURS AND THE LAST THING I DID WAS STAND IN A REALLY LONG LINE." James chuckled. "You're funny when you're sick," he said. What I think he really meant was "thank god my girlfriend doesn't get like this."

I'm fairly certain that my mystery sickness escalated in severity solely because no one (with the later exception of the Y) sympathized. When I walked to class with Mango in the morning, his idea of being comforting was something along the lines of: "No, you're not dying. Yes, you can make it up those stairs. What do you mean you can't, it's only twelve flights. No, you're not going to throw up." And this was before he started imitating me ("Oh, I'm soo sick. Oh I'm going to die. Oh my head feels like it's going to implode.") Cruel? Certainly. Unusual? Unfortunately not. It turned out to not be a departure from anyone else's reactions throughout the day.

In my class today the only person I knew didn't even attend lecture, so I had no one who could even pretend to care. Talk about inconsiderate.

At work Arrow did not evince much concern for my state (apparently snacking on Funyons and Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies is not a symptom of illness-- excuse me for missing lunch), but he did offer me a Tylenol. This is probably what sedated me for when Tando messaged me, saying "you're not dying" -- this in reference to my facebook status ("I'm dying I'm dying D: someone medicate me"). It was not exactly the kind of comfort a girl would like to receive on her deathbed.

Okay, I'm going to stop typing because my fingers are getting so warm I can't feel them anymore (sad? yes, welcome to the life of an invalid). I'll set this post to automatically publish tomorrow night so that if I die you'll all have something to remember me by. Oh, and try not to dance on my grave. But if you must -- absolutely no square dancing. I mean it.