oh i forgot to mention i got THE COOLEST chair today.  Since reading all these design blogs i've gotten really into mid century modern furniture.  yes, i'm a douche.  Anyways these things are sort of easy to come across here and they are usually really cheap since no one gives 2 shits about danish furniture.  So anyways i was at a house party a few weeks ago when i saw the most awesome chair!  so it turns out the people were graduating and moving and through some facebooke exchanges we struck a deal.  here it is.  

the chair next to it is gonna go in my kitchen in my breakfast nook.  So i have mixed feelings about the plaid since it's pretty ugly, albeit unique.  but it also just doesn't go with my aesthetic so i was at target today and found THE LAST orla kiely tablecloth so i thought about reupholstering it with this.  Either that or i'm contemplating some sort of really cool orangy yellow.  now i just need to find a sweet couch!  emily i want yours!  

i'm also looking for a new credenza which i think will be pretty easy to find at the barnyard antique mart.  aaaanyways i just have to learn how to sew so i can redo this chair.   project!!

packing and moving advice

guys and gals, i need advice.  So my summer plans are quickly approaching.  I might have gotten a subletter but the way this is gonna work is i'll be moving to dc in late may, and then coming back in mid august to move into my new place.  So since i'm getting a subletter i probably have to pack up most of my shit, right???  like i said i have no idea how this works.  I'm planning on driving all of my stuff down to nick's place this weekend for our anniversay and also just to move all my shit down there.  So today i started packing up some of my stuff, and MAN i have a shit ton of stuff!  it got me really stressed out.  i think i need to give stuff to salvation army for sure.  

ok so here is my question.  target has those plastic boxes on sale for 5.99.  So shoudl i buy a bunch and pack up what i can?  or should i just go to the market and get some boxes and pack my shit in those?  I sort of think the latter is better because once i'm done i can just throw them away, whereas the plastic boxes would take up space (and cost money).  But i have a giant basement in which to store shit next year so i guess space isn't really an issue.  I don't know!!  what should i do!!  help me guys.

chafing

ugh guys.  so it was like 85 degrees today.  You think i'd be happy but the HUMIDITY!  why!  why can't this state just be not wretched in either direction!  so anyways humidity and my body do not work well together mainly due to my hyperhydrosis.  I sort of forgot about this problem since it's been winter and it's just not an issue.  But i wore a dress out tonight and a few hours into the night after walking around town from bar to bar my thighs started chafing.   And then all the memories came back of my chafed thighs and as i was walking home it got pretty painful.  ugh!  remember how last summer my ultimate goal was to make it so that my thighs dont' touch??  it's for this very reason!!  does anyone have any solutions for chafing?  i googled it and there all some sticks that you can rub on your leg to make it stop.  Also my favorite was these things called luvees which are basically like spanx only with padding at the thighs so that they don't chafe.  the slogan is "the discreted, comfortable thigh solution." amazing!  would you judge me if i bought them?  would nick ever sleep with me again?  i know this is really not an issue for most women because they don't sweat like i do but it's really wretched.  or is it an issue?? is this another one of those things that happens to all of us but that we just never talk about??  i really need to know. 

oh shagoodness i forgot to mention!! so the weather has been pretty volatile, blah. i don't want to get into it. suffice to stay the trees are still brown and dead looking and there is very little grass coming up so spring is DEFINITELY not here yet. BUT, yesterday it rained super hard so i went out in my rain gear and collected lots of worms for my compost!! yes, i am now officially a vermicomposter. total cost? 4$, what i paid for the used bin i am keeping my scraps in. I had intentions of ordering worms but they were expensive and nick laughed in my face noting that worms are everywhere and it is not green at all to order yoru worms online. These damn practical midwesterners! So anyways i stood outside at midnight last night with a fork and a tupperware collecting worms that had crawled out to the sidewalk and now they are happily eating all the yumminess that is in my bin. bravo!

summer's almost here

oh peeps, what is up. i am in grading hell reading some of the WORST research papers ever. It's finals, yes we end super early. I swear i question whether english is these kids' second language. My favorite was when a student kept using the world "literally" in situations that were not at all literal, but were in fact the complete opposite of literal. oh undergrads...you slay me. like "relationship, medications, and therapy all litearlly work hand in hand." oh really!! do these things have actual hands!! i think not!

life updates, quickly. relationship seems to be going quite well. Tomorrow i find out if i got this SUPER awesome internship in dc, which would double as both helping me professionaly and allowing me to live in sin with my man for the summer. Also i would get to live on the other coast for the first time ever, AND i'd be able to visit my gay boyfriend, ivan and my peeps in new york. holler!! Otherwise i have a teaching gig lined up here in ann arbor. And if i actually end up staying here the plan is to learn to play guitar, take a sewing class, and write that whole dissertation thing. Oh and go antiquing of course.

i think i've been putting too much into this job thing though. It's with the pew hispanic center who basically do ALL of the demographic work on latinos in the US, and this summer they are running a new study lookign at latino adolescent identity development. HELLO!! this is like my thing!! So anyways it's sort of perfect in that it's a very important organization and i'd get to hone my stats skills, which are pretty shitty at present. I had an interview last week and tehy called my advisor and she said they were definitely impressed by me. So it's nice to know that i'm being seriously considered. All this weekend i have been lighting candles and putting them on the alter where my dead relatives are. i acknowledge that this is creepy but i'm Mexican, and this is what we do. Anyways i've burned out 3!! I started telling myself that if i got this job it woudl be like God letting me know that i was on the right path, and if i didn't get the job than i shoudl keep searching for whatever my path may be. I waiver constantly on this PhD thing and right now i'm on the pro side but i could very easily become con any day now. So i just sort of feel like i need some direction! Anyways i do believe in in God and sort of like, things working out as they should for some reason that maybe we don't know yet. But sometimes it's just nice to get reminders that you're doing the right thing and i really need one of those now. Not to mention that fact that it would just be so awesome to get to see Nick everyday for a few months and live a normal life.

pray for me guys!!! or send me good vibes!! whatever is your thang

another year older and deeper in dept...

so yesterday was my 27th birthday. It was fairly uneventful. For some reason i had no desire to make a big deal of it, and I'm not really sure why. I spent the whole day in my pijamas on my couch watching tv. And i woudl love to say that it was magical since this is pretty much my perfect set up, but it wasn't. I got my period, had cramps, and it was cold outside. It was sort of, dare i say, depressing. I dont' really want to dwell on it because it might make the whole thing feel more tragic but it was by far the least awesome birthday i have had yet. Note to self: massive birthday celebration is essential to starting awesome new year of life. Nick agreed that it was lame and he said he would throw me some other sort of celebration called "Cri2.0" next time i'm in DC. Oh which reminds me, i was in DC this weekend and i saw the official beginning of the cherry blossom festival. beautiful indeed!! The city turned into building intermixed with pink cotton candy trees everywhere! brosssoms! i haven't seen a flower in months so it was very refreshing to see things in bloom. DC is a really beautiful city. My only problem with it is that it's very spread out but the buildings are so gorgeous and it just makes me want to get an old house there and transplant it back to california. People were dressed moderately better than i remembered last time and it was a decent place. I could potentially grow to like it, but we'll see. As with all cities i can't afford anything so exploring teh nightlife is a stressful and triffling experience. But it's nice to have somewhere an hour flight away that i can run to when i need an escape. le siiiiiighhhh

so nick is looking for a job. Do any of you have connections in DC??? anyone, anyone?

Also we watched the movie "Synedoche, New York" while i was out there. I highly recommend this movie. I might have to see it again because in true charlie kauffman style, it was way out there. It's the kind of movie that drags and drags and you are about ready to give up on it and then the last 5 minutes it blows your mind and you realize that the dragging was necessary. Anyways i'm curious to see what anyone thinks if they've seen the movie. it made me think, mucho, and the song that is playing in the backgroun is hauntingly beautiful.

anyways tory contacted me because she was considering doing a detox, after reading GOOP. no joke. Anyways it turns out that gweneth uses the same detox book that i used before!! naturally i agreed since i've been trying to do a detox forevs but just can't seem to put in the effort. So now i have a partner and we are detoxing...day 1: i had cramps all day from my period. not terribly successful but i stuck to the plan.

projects!

so recently i realized that i have not been expressing myself via my crafts. I am a very crafty person and i love knitting and painting things and just generally personalizing my own stuff. I just havent' felt like doing any of it but recently i decided that i was over winter and needed to create projects for myself to get through the next month or so. So here is project 1!

I purchased a phone bench last summer when nick was working in the middle of nowhere in michigan. I was driving down this farm road and came across this old barn where they held this weekly flea market. yes, it was awesome! This phone bench was sitting in my living room since like July and unfortunately before i redid it i forgot to take a before picture. I KNOW! stupid! anyways i found a picture of one that looked pretty similar.


so here is the after picture

the fabric is from ikea, which, plug for ikea, they have awesome fabrics. The paint is a color called "mermaid" from the behr collection at home depot.

here is my next project. Thsi time i'm actually taking a before picture. I'm not sure that i want to even paint the chair cuz it's a pretty cool gold color with a red accent in it. Anyways will let you all knwo how it works out when i've got it completed.

I'm alive, i'm a mess

thanks for all the support guys...i've really been enjoying my spring break with no one around. Nick is here for his last week of fun with me before he moves and we have NON STOP watched television, which you can only imagine has been a dream come true. I've never let anyone watch that much tv with me. This must be love. I introduced him to dexter, which i've seen before, and now he's obsessed with it and we are on season 2 disc 3 after only 4 days of the series.

On another note, in looking at the 2009 spring fashion photos I have to say that quite a few things make me extremely happy

1. the resurgence of the platform shoe! Guys, platforms are awesome because they can be high and give you the benefit of wearing a heel without the pain since your foot doesn’t actually have to be in the arched position. They are awesome
2. bright colors mixed with brown leather. I’m LOVING all of the bright colored fabric and mixes of patterns.
3. the fact that the mini short has not died. Confession” I love mini shorts. I DO! I look really good in them and so they make me really happy

a few more things without any particular order: vests, the occasional romper, and boat shoes

things that I’m happy i did not see: espandrelles

on a more serious note as I am soon to be reaching the ripe old age of 27 I have been thinking a lot about what kind of 30 year old I want to be. Do I want to be the kind that people say “oh she looks good but she’s a bit out of shape" (aka a typical phd student). Or do I want to be the kind where people say “damn that girl has her shit together!!” I’ve decided that it has to be the latter. It cannot be any other way. And so consequently I have decided that instead of my spurts of exercise here and there it has to become a lifestyle change and I have to learn to love gyms. I am making myself a work out regime which includes running, elliptical, pilates dvd, and I’m gonna add weights soon. Basically clothes makes me endlessly happy and when I can’t dress well I get sad. I need to have the freedom to wear what I want without worrying about rolls! Also I went to the gym 3 times this last week and twice this week. and I really pushed myself with dripping sweat and ass pain and I think I felt endorphins. Like I felt good the rest of the day! Maybe I too can become addicted to “exercise”! Suggestions for you folk, I have moved away from the running mix and decided to stick exclusively to podcasts (this American life, latino use, talk of the nation, etc) and I find that this motivates me to stay on the machine far more than music does. I want to keep listening to the stories so I keep working out. I’m just saying, as a suggestion if you feel whole heartedly unmotivated. Also I forget what I’m doing when I’m really emotionally invested in a story and I get my daily dose of news. And I look forward to going because I’m like, “oh I get to listen to this American life!” I know right! Anyways I’m doing another detox during the second week of lent if anyone wants to join me from afar. No dairy, no bread, no sugar, no meat = cleanse.

Dear God, it's margaret....

hey blog, i have not been here for a while, and it's not for the fact that my life has been goign so fantabulously that i don't feel the need for a blog. It's just that i reformatted my computer and it took me a while to remember this password.

anyways, i'm back for like a day.

guys my life for the past many months has been torn between awesome and wretched.

Awesome:
1. i have the most functional relationship i have ever had. Granted he's moving to DC in about a week but thus far it has been pretty good (and almost a year)

2. I'm going "GREEN"! i eat only grass fed beef when i do eat beef and eat free range, cage free eggs, and local produce (when i can, ie not winter), and i've officially switched the green cleaning products this week. Next year when i live alone i'm going SUPER HARDCORE! In fact, i'm going to start composting on my balcony (with worms and no meat because it attracts bugs) so that i can use my compost dirt to grow an herb garden with lots of cilantro for whne i want ot make salsa. Thinking about how and when i will compost makes me endlessly happy. I might even get my parents to do it!


Wretched
1. My bff Jen and i don't talk anymore. I can't even tell you why but i just know that it's totally awkard and we have little to no conversations anymore. This is exacerbated by the fact that she's in a serious relationship with my roommate and is here about 3 or 4 nights a week.

2. My living situation: i hate it. I feel liek i cant' talk to my friend and my roommate whom she's dating refusing to acknowledge my presence when she's not around. Imagine someone that you used to be friends with coming home and ignoring you. It's pretty awful and i relish when he's not around and wish that he would just move in with her so that i wouldn't have to deal with either of them. Awful but true. And i used to be friends with him but then he came back from france, started openly (instead of secretly) dating my friend and now i can't talk to either of them and it makes me want to sublet and move

3. my other roommate basically moved into his girlfriends house and they come home (together) occasionally to do laundry and when she's out of town at conferences he comes home and acts really sullen and upset.

so it's all like living alone except that they come home twice a week, watch basketball, invite their friends over, make a HUGE mess, and then leave for 5 days while i'm left alone to clean up after it. adn then they show up randomly to make other messes and then leave for days at a time before cleaning it up. it's awful and i hate it and i cant' wait to move.

4. I have no friends. I did not mean to become the girl with the bf with no friends who somehow i did and all my friends actuallly have bf's or gf's so they don't want to hang out with me when nick's not around and when nick's around i don't really want to hang with them. So i spend a lot fo tiem at home watching john and kate plus 8. This would be awesome if i lived alone and could watch J&K+8 all the time whenever i wanted but now it's like i do it when no one is watching with the stress and fear that at any moment men are going to walk in and kick me off the television to watch a basketball game.

5. I cant 'fit into my jeans. This is especially bothersome since i have lots of moderately expensive clothes (hello! burberry jacket!) and need to get into shape because i cannot afford buying a new wardrobe and because i hate when i'm overweight. Anyways i worked out twice this week and plan on going tomorrow. if i looked hot and was lonely and had no friends and hated my living situation i have a feeling this would all be much more bearable because at least i could shop and fill my life with materialistic things but this is all theoretical.

all of negative seems to outweight the positive and i haven't even gotten into my professional life which is in the shits, nor have i discussed the fact that the cold is sucking my will to live but basically my personal life is a hot mess, i have no friends, i hate my roommates (who used to be my core friend base), and i just want to sit around and watch tlc reality shows.

this is my cry for help to you guys i guess to make me feel less lonely and wretched

hola peeps. i have been drowning in work, so there isn't much time for blogging. Basically the election ruined my life for months and now i'm making up for all the things i didn't/couldnt' do because i was mentally incapacitated with anxiety about "our future." But now i feel better and it's all very like "is that all there is to electing Obama?" So i wanted to note a few things

1. Finals season is coming up. When i was a student i used to think that finals were like the epitome of all that was wretched in the world. Now i am a TA and i realize that NO NO NO, grading finals are in fact the most wretched thing in the world. The only thing that comes a close second is teachign section to a bunch of privileged rich college kids who coudl give two shits about economic disparities and the achievement gap. so anyways my students have their final papers due tomorrow and they have been bombarding me with drafts to read, and coming to office hours and making appointments. I've lost interest in my own story, but the point is that i feel really sorry for all the times that i turned in crappy, night before written papers to my TA's. Now that i have to take time out of my personal work schedule to read 60, 13 page papers, 75% of which are bull shit i realize that i was for sure in that 75%. It's like...it's called a run on sentence! learn about it! Or sometimes i had to include comments like "this sentence needs a verb." For serious. Also liek i said, 90% of my students are rich white girls, and when they write about issues like "black underachievement" and inequity in teh schooling system they refer to their own personal experience like this. "In my experience, i came from an upper class family. Even though my parents didnt' have time to help me they knew my education was important so they hired tutors and got me the finest education. Poor people tend to not value education because their kids do badly in school and tehy dont' even try to help them. In my experience it has nothign to do with social class and has everythign to do with how much parents value education, and poor parents just don't value education." i read this and was like...where do i even begin!!! I have gotten a lot of personal stories liek this in their papers, about why their success in life has had NOTHIGN to do with class.

2. Nick is back from the election trail which has been nice. He's been living in my apartment, which is kind of like living in sin, only it's temporary and not official But we spend most of our time outside in coffee shops and such doing work (me my student emails and him applying for white house jobs) so we dont' really get the whole "cute couple cohabitation" thing going on. Not bad at all. But alas he is trying to get a job in the white house (as is everyone else) and so he'll probably be leaving pretty soon. It's the curse of my attraction to men with big dreams.

3. I went to this dinner party this weekend which included me (daughter of taco trucker), Nick (son of environmentalists middle class michiganders who like to argue alot), Adam (law student/ self described hippie from Maine), a natural resource phd (whose dad is a writer), a canadian natural resource guy (who studies bird migratory patterns), A mixed black girl of kenyan heritage (like barack obama!), and my roommate (who has harvard educated phd parents). Oh and Alex (the poet liar, who is pretty middle class too but likes to talk about henry james alot). Anyways it was an odd assortment of people who just wanted to talk about marxism and economics and how they were reading Moby Dick for fun. When they asked me waht i was reading i was like, "well in between perez and jezebel, i dont' get too read much but i'm really looking forward to reading Twilight next week on my flight home." Their response, "what's twilight?" SERIOUSLY!! sometimes i really hate the circles that i run in. Another response "why dont' you get your news from a real source." i do bitches!! Also i really enjoy perez not just for the gossip but for the fact that he is able to filter important news to the masses. News that that average americans wouldnt' normally access, like he links to nytimes articles and stuff. I find that interesting that by way of reading gossip he has gotten peopel interested in social issues. Did anyone at the table care about this???? no, to them it was just stupid celebrity gossip. ugh snobs. so instead of having a deep discussion about something not deep, we ended up talking about 3rd world farming patterns and how someone was writing their thesis on indigenous farming practices that they studied during their backpacking trip through central america. It was like a not funny version of stuff white people like. After 3 hours i took a hit of hooka and just passed out on the couch because i couldnt' deal with the convo anymore. Oh we also listened to Nigeria 70, which is an obscure collection of Afrobeat music. I have listened to the cd before because my roommate gave it to me and honestly it sounds a lot like latin music, but of course, africa is way cooler than latin america on the obscurity scale.

real deep

so words fail me right now...because i'm tired and excited and drunk and have things to do tomorrow. but for this moment i feel at peace. And it's just a moment but it's so meaningful.

to quote people who said it better

"i didn't vote for Obama. I voted for change!"
- Grace, my mom, who has voted republican since reagan

"Your Tio Charlie, asked me why i voted for Obama since we are both small business owners and i said, 'I voted for Cristina.' he kept saying to me, 'why would you vote what she wants. She has her own vote. You should vote what you feel.' And i said, 'No Charlie, you didn't hear me. I didn't vote for myself, i voted for Crisina...for her future. That is why I voted for Obama, for her and for your daughter and your son's future.'"
- Ernie, my dad, who voted on is first election

guys, tonight was deep and beautiful and full of tears.

um HELLO!!

so in honor of this momentous day i felt it important to record my feelings in some way so here i am. Every hour or so i find myself on the brink of tears.

My friend Adriana and I woke up really early and got to the polls at 7:30. I mean, i guess this wasn't that early but i willingly woke up before 9, which is HUGE for me. So i rolled into the polling station in my jammies, and 2 hours later i was the proud recipient of a sticker. I have never felt the need to wear these stickers but today I do. so you know how i have "moments"? Well today i have had like 8 billion moments.

Moments:
1. seeing the long line of people, bundled up on scarves and coats on this chilly fall day, all looking so pleasant at such an early hour. It was a true sense of community that i felt. A community of Americans united, perhaps on different sides, but honoring this one thing that we all have in common, our right to vote. what a beautiful thing!! I ran into people that i knew who had just voted and we hugged and it was this feeling of like...LET'S DO THIS!! " sense of control in a world full of chaos" if you will.

2. i walked into the booth, opened up my folder and had to stare for a second at the 2nd option on my presidential ballot. "Barack obama, Joe Biden." These are names that i have been hearing and seeing in print for so long now, yet here i was and i couldnt' believe that those names were put in front of me. It's kind of like when i see my profile on the psychology website and it says that my degree is from Stanford, and i know this but seeing it out there always makes me feel a bit shocked and incredulous. Like, did i really go there?? Anyways this was how i felt seeing Obama's name on that ballot. I mean look how far we have come! right now i'm getting emotional! but seriously, i almost shed a few tears in that voting booth because who would have thought that someone like me could be president, AND have a shitload of people in this country voting for them. This is a great day! Last week my professor told us that she would be cancelling class today. She is Black and was planning on voting very early and driving out to pittsburgh to be with her family. She said "do you guys even understand?! This is HUGE!! I have relative who didnt' get to vote and went to segregated schools and now they are voting for a Black man!" And i knwo peopel have seen that clip of that old man and, yes, i wept buckets. But this was a person right here in front of me, talking about what it meant to her, and that moved me. And it was like on the west wing when Jimmy Smits got added as teh fake potential first latino president. I dont' even really watch the show but i saw a few episodes and i felt so proud!! and this must feel like that times 100 to this woman because it's not a hollywood fantasy, it's real! anyways when i used to watch those episodes just a few years ago it seemed to far away, like that would never happen but we could keep dreaming about it and hoping. AND HERE WE ARE ON THIS DAY!! VOTING FOR A BLACK, MIXED, SON OF AN IMMIGRANT, HARVARD LAW GRADUATE!! this is unreal!!!

3. My dad called me and told me that he woke up this morning and thought "wow! i am voting in my first American election!! Can you believe it, Mija!??" I tell you, i cannot. My Father is not a democrat, but he is a big believer in America, and what he believes it stands for. he's very upset about what it has become. And he said "you know, i don't believe that American is perfect, but i believe in America. And we REALLY do need a change! i really believe that." Then he went on to talk about how not too long ago he was driving by Staples' center during a swearing in ceremony and he thought to himself "what am i waiting for!?" and here he is, almost a year later, voting on his first election, perhaps the most important election of his life, voting for the first black person to have the chance of winning the presidency. Even my dad, who is racist as fuck, realized what a great moment this was for him, an Indio. When i asked him what his stance on Prop 8 was he said "hell no! i say no to that! It is not my place to say that they cannot get married. And they've been getting married for a few months now and i don't see california burning in hell so i don't know why people are so scared." People, we have come a long way for my dad to say this. Not that he's a homophobe, but he definitely has elements of teh old school to him

3. This one is truly embarrassing. So in my education class that i TA we were showing the students "kindergarten cop" as a depiction of behaviorism and knowledge construction. anyways there is a scene toward the end when they have all the kindergartners at a festival reciting the gettysburg address. And the final kid says "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal...that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from earth." We here these words, and for so long they have been just words. Theories, ideals. And here we are today and the fruition of that speech is happening RIGHT NOW! and the moment was not lost on me. And i looked at my professor and my fellow TA and we both looked choked up and kind of laughed at each other cuz we were like, "why is this scene in kindergarten cop so much more meaningful now!!"

Anyways i dont' know when i will have a feeling of complete unity with my fellow brethren like this again. but while it lasts i shall savor it. I wish i could be at home with my family, watching the results, or wiht my college friends, in the atrium of Casa Italiana, or with Nick, in North Carolina, or with Annette, in our living room. le sigh. But no matter where i am or how i celebrate it i will be thinking of all of you

halloween, recap

guys, halloween totally sucked! annette, we decided not to throw a party, which was a huge mistake because while there were tons of parties they either didn't have any music (what the hell???) or refused to play top 40. And seriously, i NEEDED to hear "Disturbia" or i was gonna die. Also i went as Ziggy Stardust, which of course, no one got. Thank god i had all teh shit lying around so it didn't really require too much effort.

here i am, rocking out in my 2 dollar body suit i procured many months ago
my friend dressed as icarus. he went as pan last year. He's really into these old greek type things.
ramones, ziggy, and prince rocking out

so like i said we were ready to party, but hit a few bumps in the road when we hit up some parties that were just not where thye needed to be on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being, rocking out to "American Boy." it was a night of heavy drinking, chasing a party that we never found, and ending up drunk at a local all night joint.

but there were 2 great moments of the night.

1. we left the first party that was only playing soul music and headed back to my house for a dance party where my friend, who dressed as prince proceeded to reinact the music video for "when doves cry" in my bathtub. I filmed it but can't find the clip.
thsi is her getting ready. Needness to say, there was crawling and seduction involved. it was awesome.

the second highlight of my night involved an impromptu jazzercize party that started on the street. We actually went to laurel's med school frat party, which was pretty fun, albeit a bit too undergrad for me. so anyways there was a guy dressed as one of teh girls from the "call on me" music video. he had a boom box and was walking around playing the song on repeat, inciting random people to start a street dance party that involved dancing to call on me on repeat for about an hour. At some point the situation got even wierded, because as cars started driving by the jazzercizer would jump in front the car, start playing "call on me" and proceed to hump the cars, which was followed by large crowds also jumping into the street and doing this. This basically turned into an all out street dance party
now that i talk about it in retrospect, the night wasn't as bad as i remember. i think i was just really drunk and pulling a cathy, in that "i hate you and everything for no reason" kind of way. you know what i mean?

2 things and a reality check

3 things have happened to me the past 2 days that have gotten me very e-motional

1. Last night i stayed up late to watch the obama special online. And regardless of politics and waht he said and crap, that was a great special. I felt so in touch with American, Americans, etc etc. The special showed the interconnectedness not the division. It showed that we are hard workers striving to help each other and our families even in the hardest of times. And it made me, for the first timein a long time, really proud to be an American. I mean i have been volunteering and i talk about the elction all the time and blah blha but it made me remember how important all this really is. It's not about who has teh better tax plan or who is or isn't muslim. It's about getting back to the America that my parents told me about, the America that they gave up everything to come to. They didn't leave their homes to be someone's maid or gardener. So that they could deign to exist as second class citizens to the "real americans." they came here because this was the land of opportunity, where anyone, regardless of where they came from could make it. Where the daughter of a lunch trucker could go to Stanford. THIS was the America i was told about. But for so long this has not been the America i have seen. There is so much anger and divisiveness coming out right now, revealing all of these festered wounds. so when did we stop believing in america?? When did injustice and not striving for ideal equality become acceptable in our eyes?? This is not the America of my father's dreams. this is not the America that he abandoned everything for. So as many writers have written, if what we have lived in for most of my life has been "real america," then i'm ready to give it all up and try something new to try to strive for the America that i have read about. Because this isn't it.

2. And then i read this which really moved me. I started thinking about what it would really mean to have a black first lady and all that goes along with that and if it actually happens i think i will cry. Not that it will mean all the bullshit of this country is over, but that it will mean the american dream can still live on. And i have lots of mixed feelings about the American Dream, but i also feel that when the idea of the dream dies then we are no longer America. I have this memory that has been coming back to me lately of a girl i went to middle school with. Her name was dominique and since we went to a christian school which doesn't promote halloween (aka devil day) they told us we could dress us as our heroes. It was a lame idea. I came as dorothy from the wizard of oz because that was my costume from halloween and my mom had spent hours putting sparkles on my ruby red slippers, so she would be damned if i didn't wear that thing as many times as possible. But Dominique showed up wearing a skirt, white button down, blazer, and tie. I went up to her adn i said "what are you?" And she said, "i'm my future hero, the first woman president." clearly her mother had inculcated her with this costume idea because her mom was a pretty liberal lady. but what is sadder is my reaction. I may have actually said, but definitely thought, "women can't be president. That's just stupid." When i think back on this, no amount of coaxing could have changed my mind, because reality is and was reality. So when i think about the power behind this election, and what it can do for the future, i am so very moved. If someday a kid can show up dressed in a suit and say "i'm barack obama, the first black president" than maybe a girl dressed up as her future hero, the first female president won't seem so stupid and unrealistic. i want to be able to tell my kids that they can do anything or be anything, but more importantly i want to be able to mean it.


now here's the reality check
3. Today one of my students, this white working class girl, came up to me. I felt so terrible. Her parents died and she's been raising herself and taking care of her grandma since she was 12, living on welfare and foodstamps. Now she's here in college, among all these rich as fuck ungrateful brats and she's too scared to take on loans because she doesnt' understand teh banking system, so she has all these jobs in addition to her financial aid. She went to the health clinic and due to various symptoms they think she might have a pituitary tumor. Here's the terrible part. She has no insurance, and they don't require you to have insurance to register here. She needs an MRI to see if it is in fact a tumor but those cost over $2,000. She's too scared to take a loan and medicaide isn't going through for her and she's trying to find a way to get that money while still maintaining a class load of 5 courses, AND dealing with the fear that she might have cancer, which her mom died of. Oh and this possible tumor is affecting her vision and giving her terrible headaches. She confessed to me, fighting off tears that her worst fear is that she will have to depend on others to take care of her, like her mom depended on her when she had cancer. And i think she's scared of depeneding on people, because she knows that there is no one to depend on. THAT is some upsetting real shit. I don't know what to do about this

ooooh fashion

Ok so i am only defending "she whose name shall not be spoken" because i am a shopaholic and it's not fair to judge people based on their desire to look good in well fitting clothes. It IS on the other hand, fair to judge people based on their hypocrisy (I am a working class, real american {read white}). So on the one hand i say...Sarah Palin, YOU SWEAR!

but on the other hand i say, do not judge a woman for her Cole Haan boots! Granted i do not exactly love the outfit she chose to wear them with. It might have been better with, like, a sweater dress or something.
The full on suit and suede boots was not working for me. But this photo montage about how they don't know what she spent all that money on because she just bought more expensive versions of the clothes she had bought at Kohl's, i admit, is a bit fucked up. But that's kind of what you get for claiming that you are "real." I mean, I believed it when JLo said it cuz she confessed to her "rocks" and, i mean, she grew up Puerto Rican in the bronx and now she bathes in creme de mer, with no shame. Whereas this is just straight up lying. But I do think this focus on her wardrobe is unnecessary. Because, shit, if Tom Ford wanted to dress me up in his love i would be like, BLAZE! But i don't imagine that the highly homossssssexual fashion industry would ever volunteer to dress her anti-gay ass up. So unfortch for her she had to buy her own wears at Needness Markup, instead of receiving awesome free schwag like Michelle Obama.

So in conclusion, hate the sinner, not the sin...oh wait

north carolina

So the campaign just told Nick that his region is being uprooted and moved to North Carolina on Thursday. NORTH CAROLINA! they figure they are winning most of michigan and so they need to spread their manpower. guys, i'm super bummed.

I was watching grey's anatomy the other day and Izzy is trying to find someone to move in with her and no one will help her out and at one point she has this crying scene where she's like "i used to have people, family...what happened, i have no one and i used to have people." i kind of feel like that right now. My friends have either moved away or are essentially shacking up with their sig others and so i guess for a while i started doing that too becuase it was either shack up with my man or sit around in my house watching tivo. And now he's moving, and i have this feeling like....what happened to my peeps?? I used to have tons of friends, something to do during all of my free time. And now that Nick is moving i just feel like...ugh anyways i'm real upset about the situation. Granted it's just until the end of the election but then after that who knows what will happen or where he'll have to move or whatever. And we were going to spend election day together, since it would be the culmination of all the hardwork from this summer. And now he's gonna be in North Carolina and i'm gonna be here, sitting in my living room.

maybe i'll take up excercising again or something. damn you, barack obama!! Orges and i started thinking that maybe this is adulthood...people shacking up, getting married, having babies, moving to the burbs, etc. but waht if you don't want to do those things. Being young, single, and awesome is only fun when you have friends to do it with. otherwise it's just sad and lonely. is this all there is to growing up???

burrrrberrrrrry

ugh i just watched the debates, which were not as bad as i thought they were going to be. But really, how unfortunate is it when you have to say "it was better than i expected!" because you expected nothing. Anyways palin is full of shit, and apparently i'm a socialist and would rather live in europe (ie the future) than in redneck america, so whatevs.

What i do want to talk about, to get our minds off of all this sssseriousssssnessss economic shit is, my burberry trench. Yes, the irony is so thick, and YES I AM THE PROUD OWNER OF A BURBERRY TRENCH!! i know, can you even believe it?? I am one of those stupid americas who is paying off debt (and will probably never get out of it) so that i could buy something stupid and materialistic. Hoorraaah for "Joe Six Pack"!! I will tell you all that there were many reasons why this purchase was necessary

a) i live in a cold place, and will live here for a few more years, so investment in a good coat is not that wasteful
b) i bought it at a pre-sale at nordstrom in chicago, so i got it HALF OFF! I KNOW, die now
c) and this was the real selling point. I found a petite size 2. A PETITE SIZE 2!! the burberry stores don't even sell petites. They are so rare that they only sell like 1 in each color at flagship stores where there is winter, so basically like chicago and new york. FOR REALS! IT WAS NECESSARY.

this jacket (petite size 2 that actually fits my 5'0 frame) is basically the unicorn of trench coats. It's mythical!!

here i am in my coat



and just to inspire hope in all of you....the cutest baby ever!!! BENNY!! for reals why is he so fucking cute??!! I mean am i on crack or does this kid just make you want to go "DAH!!"

money money money

as abba once said, "it's a rich man's world." Guys, I haven't been paid in 2 months. 2 MONTHS with ZERO income. my mom lent me some money but for the most part i have lived off of 300 dollars the past 2 months. John Mccain spents almost 3 times my income to fill the gas of his cars. The university doesn't pay us for the month of august, and I stupidly forgot this so i used this massive load of cash i had left over at the beginning of august to pay some credit cards. responsible? yes. Good planning? NO! so whatever few hundreds i had left went to my rent. And initially I had been told i would be payed on the 22nd of September so i was holding out. so i check my account yesterday and...nothing. so i called payroll, and the department had noted incorrectly our paydate. We are actually not getting paid until the 30th. that is a whole week longer that I will have to scrounge and eat ramen. I have actually been eating ramen because i can't afford real food. And don't talk about the party that my house threw this weekend because i didn't pay for it. The worst part about all this is that i HAVE a decent sized paycheck coming in on the 30th along with lots of extra smaller amounts from my various part time jobs. But until then i just keep cutting more and more from my "necessity list." I mean i guess one good thing is that i realize that i can live on dollars a day.

I had this realization about a week ago, and it's gotten worse since then, that despite my "elite" lifestyle or whatever, i actually make probably a little more than the working class people who are so disenfranchised in this election. Anyways i have like....no retirement and 33 dollars in my savings account....The only things i have are a few designer purses left over from my days as a secretary and a burberry trench coat (yes reread that first sentence and mock me). But my point is not to show how poor i am and how badly i budget my money because i think i do a pretty good job given what i'm working with. MY POINT is to say that if our economy plumets, as appears to be the case, i am ROYALLY FUCKED! i have like NOTHING to fall back on. This scares the shit out of me. Is anyone else scared of our impending doom??????

so in conclusion, for me AND FOR YOU please vote for barack obama and volunteer in swing states and make phone calls and talk to those undecided voters. I have been volunteering more so because my man is an organizer in a white working class county and this is how we spend time together. But in addition to that i am getting so much perspective from the experience!! Just to give you some idea of what it's like where he works. Ann Arbor gets about 90 volunteers in the office a day. his county gets on a good day, 5. So i say again, if any of you want to volunteer to phone bank on weekends or weekdays in a white working class county of undecided voters in one of the most important swing states in the country (michigan) PLEASE CONTACT ME. stop talking about doing it and actually do it, people! Also, send me care packages of food and supplies!

so i went out karaoking (is this a verb?) last night and unfortunately it's the beginning of the year so our dive bar that is usually empty turned into the fun new ironic hang out for the business school kids. DAMNIT! So instead of being full of sad locals pouring their hearts out over karaoke it was a bunch of asshats. Case in point the 3 former sorority girls who were all dressed alike in typical, uninteresting outfits going on stage singing "like a virgin." they thought they were such hot shit, dancing around all cute and pretending to be sexy. And yes, i have done like a virgin before, but i really DID like a virgin. I didnt' go up there and vapidly sing the song. anyways there was also the mandatory "i like big butts" and when my friend sang "bad moon" a former frat boy came up to him and threw up his fists screaming "YEAH!!!!! FOGERTY!!!! WOOO!!!" A couple of people went up there to sing "friends in low places" but as seems to be the case when amateurs do karaoke they didnt' know all the words, just the chorus so it was like this

"blame it all on suuu.....ttaaaa ssuuuuuuu......IIIII GOT FRIENDS IN LOOOW PLACES!"

I was like...people, when you sing a song make sure you know it. why does karaoke ettiquette bother me so much? Anyways so this place has a new system where they have what i would definitely call the poor man's "live band karaoke." It is nowhere near the caliber of alix's bar, cathy. It's one guy on guitar, and another on bass who sometimes switches to a keyboard that sounds more like a synthesizer. And then there is this wretched woman running the karaoke machine who we call "karaoke nazi," which i know is a totally un-pc term but, really, sometimes there just isn't a better way to describe it. so yeah, they have the karaoke background music and then the band, basically adds to it with their own real music. It ends up being sounding a lot like guitar hero. Anyways, so this woman has all these rules if you want to sing and she yells them into the mic throughout the night when they are broken.

"NOOOOO drinks on stage! if you bring your drink on stage you will be kicked out of the bar"

"please keep a 2 foot distance from the stage!!! step back from the stage!!!!!"

And she yells this into the mic and if you are drunk it totally kills your buzz. But the best part about her is that during certain songs she will do the background vocals. Case in my point, my friend sang total eclipse of the heart and the woman did the "turn around" part. It was so great! and she got really into it closing her eyes "turn aroooouuund." and right at the end she even added the "turn around BRIGHT eyes" part. It was at that moment when i decided i officially loved her.

Oh my god i was about to end my post by saying "so in conclusion let me just go over the main points of this post. I hate b-school students and i love the karaoke nazi." Jesus, i've been writing way too many papers lately.

lean cuisines

this is a really brief, not really, update just to say that being in the microwave room in the psych dept at lunch time is really fucking sad and pathetic. Remember that scene on my so called life when angela laments about how unfortunate it is to see the sad excuse for her teacher's lunch? it's like that, only this is my life and i am the teacher. from about 11:30 til 2:00pm the halls are filled with the pungent aroma of various lean cuisines. And i'm talking like the beef stroganoff lean cuisine. the public fridge is filled wiht frozen dinners and prepackaged fruit cups and for some reason all of this just make me feel wretched, and i can't figure out why.

anyways that is kind of all for now. peep my fishing pics on facebook. super hot