Charleston & stuff

Whoo, lots of stuff has happened since I posted last!  I'm kinda sorta moved into my new room where C & S used to live, and now that I got it painted something other than Krypton Green I can move more of my stuff in.  However, it will probably be more my stuff being moved in while I am away for New Year's at Charleston.  I'm got here yesterday with The Flower and her BF, and I'm visiting now while school is still out.  I'll be back in Gwood on the 2nd most likely.  I love Charleston, and I hate that I can't visit more frequently.  The city is a huge 3D puzzle of buildings, old and new --though mostly leaning towards the former-- and the archetecture is so stately, so grand that I don't know where to look.  The Flower and I were out walking for much of the early afternoon, and we walked across part of the campus.  The Spanish moss hanging from huge oaks, framing stately old buildings and gateways made me wish so badly that I had not left my camera in my room for the break.  On the drive down (until we got on the interstate) I kept seeing buildings or scenes that I wanted to photograph.  I believe that if I ever get the chance, I will take a scenic photo trip down to Charleston, possibly by way of Aiken.

Monkey and I visited a friend from school in Aiken the day before I left for Charleston (also the day Indigo arrived, thaough I missed his arrival).   We had a great time visiting with A and her cousin (who shares S's name).  We went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the Aiken theatre, a rather good movie, and quite long for movies nowadays.  

I have started to look up possibilities for summer internships, but it is doubtful I will get one this summer.

I can think of many things I have done or seen, and about which I would like to post, but my thoughts are not in a clear manner, and so I shall post them later if at all.

Bon nuit,

~Light

Stolen name meme

Mememememeeeeeeee:

Witness Protection name (mother's and father's middle names)

Lynne Wesley

Nascar name (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)

Joe Ollie

Star Wars name (the first 2 letters of your last name, first 4 letters of your first name)

Mc'Lucy (sounds like a fast food item)

Detective name (favorite color, favorite animal)

Black Cat (that's actually not bad...)

Soap Opera name (middle name, city where you live)

Faith Greenwood

Superhero name (2nd favorite color, favorite alcoholic drink, optionally add "The" to the beginning)

The Blue Rum

Fly name (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of last name)

Lues

Gangsta name (favorite ice cram flavor, favorite cookie)

Chocolate Fudge American Crisp

Rock Star name (current pet's name, current street name)

Samhain Lawton

Porn name (1st pet, street you grew up on)

Clyde Smith (I don't think I'd make a very convincing male porn star)

Monkey and my computer are waaay too evile!
She forces me to type. Moo. sdjgadailfghadfi shgvbnerfj dkjfvs vadf ig ivox goiddhvi oi gjclk vndfk acv n b bn nb c,n nv kn b n, b ,nb kjbvjk ckj;

this is monkey
Brill has suddenly lost her mind and will eventually return.

Brill here:
There's nothing sudden about my insanity.

Ironic

There Are 1 Gaps in Your Knowledge

Where you have gaps in your knowledge: Art Where you don't have gaps in your knowledge: Philosophy Religion Economics Literature History Science

Do You Have Gaps in Your Knowledge?

I have one gaps.

Oddly enough, in the very discipline in which I am majoring, though I think my poor scoring is due less to a lack of visual arts knowledge and more to a lack of cinematographic knowledge.

On a slightly tangential note, I went to see Beauty and the Beast at Limestone College this evening. Overall it was an enjoyable performance, though there were many little things that picked poorly at my brain. My theatre teacher gets to read all about that come next week.
Tomorrow night I see the Mikado here on campus, and I'll probably go again on Sunday so that I have a better chance of seeing both casts. I'm looking forward to it.

I get to go home next Tuesday! Not much should transpire between now and then, and I really hope the time flies fast.

Au revoir,
~Brilliance and Light

I have POT (s)!!!!

Not the psychoactive drug, CERAMICS!!!! (which are much better, IMHO).
And if I can get my computer to cooperate, you will have full-color pictures of what work of mine has come out of the glaze kiln.


This is my pitcher, in very poor light (unfortunately the only type I have, so the colors on these are rather washed-out on all the pots). The glaze on the top is Bauer Clear, and the bottom is True Blue, which crawled a lot on the bottom. It looks nifty:This is my baby. This is an extra credit project from an idea that came to me while reading a fanfic. My cababbage baby has taken on a life of its own and taken over my mind, and I'm currently working on 3 other pieces using the cabbage theme that will go with the teapot, 2 of which actually fulfill a project requirement (salt and pepper shakers). It is a functional piece, and hold about 3.5 cups of water. The glaze is Mauve all over, including the interior, and it broke wonderfully over the surface to give a range from almost white-green thru sage to a reddish-purple. My baby, and it's definitely going into my BFA evaluation next year.


These are my two reverse-glazed matching cups. The light, as I said, is REALLY poor, but the cup sitting up has Bauer Clear over the body and interior and Celadon on the handle, and the one I'm holding has the reverse. There's a little cube in the bottom of the Celadon-bodied cup, a fortuitous accident that came from playing around in the studio when Mum came one day.
Both glazes crackled, and look really cool.

I'm currently working on some more cups, and would like to continue in this series, though getting the foot on this style to behave was a bugger and has killed 2 other attempts.


MINIMINIMINI!!!! *cough* erm, I'm good now.
This is the model for my large pitcher, and one of the first pinch pots I made (actually, I think it was the first). Both have Iron Blue on the outside/bottom, and the mini has Bauer Clear on the top and inside (yeah, I used a lot of Bauer Clear. It is calm and neutral enough to go very well with a lot of things). The glaze on the inside of the pinch pot is allegedly Rhodes White, but someone had added red iron oxide to it in mixing, so it's not the color on the sample. I still really like it; it has a certain 'sandy' look to it, and it's not as high a gloss as a lot of the other



Here are two pots, one of which APARENTLY reveals very Freudian insights to my subconscious. The first thing Monkey's Big Sis said when she saw it was, "Oh my gawd, it's a vagina!" And then she proceeded to rant about the vagina pot for rather a while. I thought it was just her, and that she was stuck on vaginas since she accidentally signed "eating vagina" in ASL in an improv show last year when she meant "eating pizza." Another said it looked like a lemon, but I asked yet another friend of mine tonight (a student in the program for students over 24, who's been a good friend since I arrived), and all she did was close her eyes tightly and tell me I really shouldn't ask a lesbian. Well, phoo. The outside of the 'vagina-pot' is the screwy Rhodes White, and the inside is Tessha (which looks really cool while you stir it!). The flowery pinch pot is True Blue on the inside, Bauer Clear on the outside. The cobalt in the True Blue on either this piece or another nearby floated onto the outside, so the Bauer Clear has an interesting bluish tint, especially on one side.

The best part of all of this? I get a GRADE to do this! I get graded on having fun, learning how to do even more fun and imaginative stuff, experimenting with color and forms...and if everybody has a different answer, they can still all be right!!! This is awesome!
Clay is my crack.

~Brill

Haunted House

Ally and Palmetto Players had their annual Haunted House on Halloween night, and this year I actually got to participate. The theme was "A Very Grimm Halloween," using the original stories from the brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson. You know, the ones where the queen doesn't get insider info on Rumpelstiltskin, and he ends up killing her and taking the baby; or where Prince Eric is a fickle, weak-willed cad who falls for Ursula and dumps Ariel, who promptly died and turns into sea foam; or in my room, where the wicked, myopic witch really does eat the children who were stupid enough to trust a stranger who lived in a confectionary. That was fun.
Anyway, ignoring the scrambling confusion to find 2 people for my room who qualified as members of at least one of the clubs, the day itself was an exercise in frantic-ness. The Haunted House is set up in the Alumnae House, across the street from the school. We needed to get cardboard to make an oven big enough to shove 2 people into. Also, the room to which we were assigned was a bathroom. Small in the first place, but downright claustrophobic when you shove 10 people PLUS the three of us in there. (Most groups weren't that big, but there were some that made doing much more than standing in one spot difficult). We finally scrounged the cardboard day-of, then assembled the oven over the tub.
My scissors got commandeered to cut yarn, then something else, and now 2 weeks later I have no idea where or with whom they are.
Our room, as I said, was small, and the frequency of the groups dictated that we had to know cues from the room before us to set up our own act. The room also had in it a heater we could not turn off, and a window we could not open. Once we got the cues from the Ariel room right before us down fairly well, we spent most of our time in the large bedroom after us, hanging our the window and gulping cold air.
One group in particular left a vivid impression. If, once I had shoved 'Hansel' and 'Gretel' into the oven, the crowd didn't move along quickly enough, I would 'invite' them in to be cooked as well. That usually moved them along, with the direction of one of Monkey's Big Sisses who led the groups; however...
One guy took me up on it. I was getting tipsy from his breath.
He didn't climb all the way into the oven, though (thankfully). I think he would have brought it down on us. As it was we had to tape it back together after every go-through.

It was an exhausting, frantic, tiresome, exhilarating, and I can't wait 'til next year!

~Brill

Moneh moneh MONEH

I got my very first genuine, authentic PAYCHECK today! As in, one for which I had to fill out a form a few months ago using Egyptian hieroglyphics and numbers that had absolutely no connection with their end use.
Anyway, it's not a ginormous amount of money, but it's more than I usually have in 2 months, so I get to do actual Christmas shopping as well as purchasing class supplies!
(Side note: I can't spell hieroglyphics right the first time, but the computer says 'ginormous' is an actual word. Go fig.)
Only a week and a half more of work and school, then Thanksgiving break, woohoo!

We did a pit firing today in Ceramics with our red raku pieces, and Mr. Sir said that the next pit firing (with the pieces that weren't ready today) we get to do ourselves. Wheeee! It was so much fun! Our 'pit' was a metal trashcan, and we used leaves from the parking lot and his house, shredded paper, and burnt down ...something from the last firing as fuel. My piece was in this go 'round, so I'll see Friday how that went. The glaze kiln also gets emptied tomorrow, so I get to see my ceramic babies on Friday. The problem is that we have to keep them in our rooms until December to free up space and prevent theft or breakage. Urg, to all who've seen my parts of the rooms. I need to clear off my desk in my free time tomorrow.

I'm rambling, and it's 1:30 A.M. Good night and sleep well.
Maybe next time I'm on here I'll talk about The Mumbler's most recent (evil) assignment in Drawing 2.

~Brilliance and Light

We are experiencing technological difficulties

My computer is a hop and a skip away from the electronic equivalent of sitting in the corner and blowing spit bubbles all day. Piece of crap appliance!

You know, if a teacher has to put materials on reserve at the library, and his class is bigger and about 10, he should really, REALLY put 2 copies of the packet on reserve. I came in a few days ago and got started on the reading but the library closed before I could finish, and I had forgotten my laptop or notepad to take notes from the materials. So I came in today when I don't have class (although I still have 1 drawing to go, and it's the pastel one) and the kente cloth packet is checked out. I got most of my worksheet (i.e. mini-papers) done, but I need the packet to get the info about the meanings of the patterns and colors in the kente. Grrgnawgnaw.

Happy election day! Sort of. Not that I intended to vote anyway, but i just found out last night that when I registered to vote in the college Democrat/Republican voter registration drive, none of the paperwork for anyone got filed. Big OOPS for them. I'm just going to sit back and watch the history being made. It would have been nice to vote in the first presidential election I was able to, especially considering the historic importance, but oh well. I didn't get my absentee ballot on time anyway.

In ceramics news, teacher-person (Mr. Sir as one classmate calls him) is filling the glaze kiln, so soon I will have some FINISHED pieces! WOOT!!! There might x2!! even be room for my cabbage teapot to go in there! w00t!

Thanksgiving break is in, what, 3 weeks? Yeah. After we get back there is only ONE WEEK of classes, then exams. Holy cow, it's so close to the end! We're learning matting in Drawing 2, and I need to go get mattboard when my paycheck comes (end of next week, I think she said). All in all, I don't not enjoy working Phonathon. I'm basically a telemarketer (boo, hiss), but I understand the reason we're calling and I'd give to the college if I were an Alumna. That, and I get paid. Paid is goooooood.
My upper wisdom teeth are acting up, and I have an appointment over Thanksgiving to see the tooth-getter-outer to schedule a tooth-getting-outing during Xmas. Man, that's a mouthful!
Our Photo class is taking a field trip today, to document election day '08! (It also helps that he's scheduled us to have the Architectural & Historical project now.)
More on that later. Possibly. Probably.

~Brill

This is me.

Or, at least according to Monkey, Sunshine, and our friend M from down the hall. Seriously, if you haven't checked out lolcats already you should. It's the ultimate in time wasters.
I have posts I want to write on the Haunted house and the Greenville Metropolitan Arts Council thing this weekend, which I will probably do AFTER Wednesday's Drawing 2 class is over. That's the one where I have 2 large, finished drawings due Wednesday, one of which I've not even started due to artist's block and not being allowed to work on my out-of-class assignment in class (duh, but that's 3.5 hours a-wastin').

more later, hopefully. Sophomores register for Janterm and Spring classes on the 5th ('remember, remember the 5th of November') and I probably won't get the last spot in the PE class I need in Janterm. Argh. For now I need to get down to the art building before it locks.

Bon nuit.
~Light

So special. Really.

Outcast Genius

65 % Nerd, 70% Geek, 65% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius.

Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject).

Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius.

Congratulations!

(I'm not linking to the quiz because Hogarth is about dead. The link is on Monkey's blog, though).

~Brill

Impacted

This upcoming week is, for lack of a better word, Homecoming week here at school, during which the classes compete against each other in service activities, skits, and dance for points. This morning was Impact Day, a community service day where we break into groups and go around town doing good work (and sometimes keeping in touch). I signed up to go clean and do random tasks at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore (a wonderful, splendiferous place). We got there and were directed to reorganized their furniture display so that a) the display included the rugs available, and b) it looked like mini room displays, kind of like those in retail stores. We did, it was fun, and I got to browse some as well. The store has a random shelf of lids that includes a duplicate of that which currently tops our butter dish. When we finished that, they had us paint some dividers from black to white. Much fun, and I was very glad I had worn my paint pants. When we finished up and were about to leave, our group leader came up and said, "I don't want to alarm anybody, but that was lead paint."
Whee.
Lead paint all over our arms, some faces, clothes, and we hadn't worn masks or gloves, though the area had been ventilated to the extent that the door was open.
Thankfully, the group leader's father is a doctor, and he said that as long as we got it off pronto and didn't make a habit of using lead paint that we should be fine. We all used mineral spirits from the Printmaking room to get the paint off, and I am not sure whether or not to keep my pants (a favorite pair, and highly useful for art classes).
I go general grr, but on a happy note, Le Batard came by this evening and we all visited, he gave me a back massage, and then we went to the Opera Scenes on campus, all of which made me much happier than earlier today.

My head hurts and Monkey is waiting up for this post before making us both go to bed.
Bon nuit, mes amies.
~Brilliance and Light

Oops

The Honors Program held its annual retreat this afternoon, and since I am in the program and didn't have any pressing homework (that I could do...more on that later), I went. It's just an afternoon affair; we went to the Milliken facilities, brainstormed for a slogan and logo, and then ate lunch and played Cranium until it was time to leave. When we got back it was still raining as it had been all day, and I decided to stay down in the art building (incidentally, also named Milliken) and work or my extra credit Ceramics piece.
I planned to stay a few hours there, and since I'd told Monkey I'd be back shortly after dinnertime and before a campus event at 8, I gave her a 'ditch call.' The ditch call originated last year when it was fairly late at night and one or the other of us had NO IDEA where our other half was, so idea-less called the other and asked whether or not she was in a ditch. I'm usually the one on the receiving end, so I figured I'd cut out getting clay on the phone later to answer it. Anyway, I told Monkey I'd be back around 9. Yeah, right. The next time I even looked at the clock was a quarter of 10, and I didn't leave until ten 'til midnight.
I got sarcasm-ed at when I got back.

On a lighter note, I love my pot! I'm doing a cabbage-themed teapot for extra credit and I think I've put more labor-intensive work into this pot than the assigned ones. The leaf-edges are so thin that I have to routinely coat them with slip to keep them from drying out too fast for the rest of the pot.

My hair has faded considerably from the hot pink of 2 weeks ago. It's current combination of colors and shades has been compared to tie-dye (me) and shrimp (a photo classmate). Maybe it's a tie-dyed shrimp....

I need 4 more rolls of motion photography, and it has been too wet to shoot at all today. I totally misplaced the roll of film that I shot during the field trip a week ago, and that rankles me greatly.

More whenever I feel like it,
~Brill

(key music)

ToMOrrow, toMOrrow, I'll....... (dying notes)
...leave for Atlanta sometime after my classes have let out and HOPEFULLY make it in time to sign in at the hotel, get my ticket/pass at the con and still have time to rummage around in the dealer's room before keeling over from exhaustion or this migraine that's currently stalking me.
Man, that was a long sentence.
Anyway, everything is arranged, but not all the money is transferred to the people to whom it should be (namely me, except in one case). I really need to get together with those on campus who're rooming in the rooms I registered and get the money, or I will be walking around the con looking and not buying until I get paid back.

Photo class took a field trip to the park and downtown today. I hope the pics turn out well. It was fun, slightly informative in the photographic way, and highly informative in the I-know-where-more-things-are-in-my-own-town-now way. And he let us out 30 minutes early. Woot.

I went to an information session and signed up for an interview with Phonathon, the student-staffed calling center on campus that calls alumnae and parents with info on the school and solicitations for donations. Yes, I need a job that badly, but hey, I actually got off my rear and did something!

That's all for now, folks.
~Light

Yes, I am still here, and I definitely have things to post about.

For one, I'm going to Anime Weekend Atlanta in one week!!! I enjoyed it a lot last year and have some money saved from summer work and savings bonds, so one week from now I'll be in Atlanta. I'm going with a bunch of other friends from school, including Monkey, and The Flower and her boyfriend will travel from the coast to go too, so I'll see them again.
A friend suggested that I cosplay the title character from an old anime, Revolutionary Girl Utena. The character has bright pink hair, brighter than I can get with straight-up dyeing my hair, so I'm going blond this weekend then I'll give the hair a few days and dye it pink. After AWA it's going to black or another dark color. I really don't want pink OR blond hair for any length of time. I've tried blond in wig form and I looked WEIRD. A few dye jobs, some short shorts, and a touch of tailoring on a secondhand blazer, and I'm ready to go!

In school news, I'm really enjoying my studio classes, though in the future I'll remember not to schedule any studio class right before another class! (I frequently end up going to Art History late and smelling of photo chemicals). So far I've taken a bunch of pictures, battled rather frequently with reels in the loading room; drawn hands, feet, heads, and some bodies without the skin on them; pinched pots and a teapot, and am now trying to make a large pitcher 'out of at least 2 basic (round) forms'... it's fun.
Mum came up yesterday for a visit; I was so glad to see her. We didn't spend as much time together as other times, because I had class but I'm very glad I got to spend what time I did with her.
The heat here is starting to get to me. It started to cool down, but now it's right back up in the hot and humid range. I want fall.

More later,
Brill

My Da

more animals


In other news, manual cameras are ungodly expensive. I need a 35mm fully manual film (duh) camera for my Photography 1 class this semester, and after getting some pointers at a local film shop and doing some online searches, Da & I bought me a used Nikon F3 yesterday. Used price: $350, price new: about $1000. I quease. I'm really looking forward to the class though, even though this prof allegedly thinks his class is the only one you have, and gives you a workload appropriate thereof.

2.5 more days of packing left. Today I start disassembling things. Also, I have some work to do on my portfolio from Drawing 1; the drawings all slid & curled under at the bottom while sitting in the portfolio, so now I need to tape them by the cover-sheets to cardboard pieces and that should get them straightened out. Four of the pieces in particular I think are quite nice for beginner work, and I intend to submit the allowed number in the school's juried show in January.

~Brill

More lolcats

more cat pictures

I have been renamed.



more cat pictures

Thankfully not on the listed side effects of any of my meds....


more cat pictures

And this is for Monkey (what I look like, not her).
I really should sleep, but this is so much more fun than some of my recent dreams.

What I do when I should be doing other things

more cat pictures


This is me were I a cat, at least attitudinally. lolcats make me extremely happy, and it's a very good distraction from all the packing I should be doing.
School starts back on Sunday, and I'm only half packed. On a positive note, I'm half packed! This time last year I wasn't even that. Of course I also have a birthday party and a doctor visit in the interim, but it's still less.

The kids returned to school today, and it was blissfully quiet, and I got a massage. Le Batard has taken it upon himself to learn the art of massage, and both Monkey and myself have volunteered/were asked to be his practice dummies. I was quite happy.
Then I went to pick up Buster this afternoon. The High School decided that just before the year started was a great time to tear up a quarter of the main parking lot, right where kids usually wait. So now, instead of 4 lanes of traffic at the main pickup point and two lanes at the main road entrance, the whole shoot and match is now two re-routed lanes.
The people who drive in this town and especially at the school do not need this; the majority of drivers in that lot are blithering imbeciles who do not need construction to garnish their perfected massacre of the practice of driving.
I came down the road towards the school, had to pass two cars stuck behind another who refused to turn before I could finally get back into the correct lane, and pulled into the second (main) entrance. Buster saw me (our vehicle would be hard for a blind man to miss, it's so huge), and got in as soon as I stopped. The administrator they had trying to direct traffic motioned forward the car ahead of us. Nothing. More frantic motions. Nothing. The driver is sitting in the only lane in this direction waiting for his/her/it's spawn.
It's 20 minutes after school finished, but more people than usual still remain, and this car is holding up traffic. Finally another admin comes over and much gesticulation and exchange later, the car s l o w l y moves forward and trundles off into the doldrums of the parking lot.
I passed him/her/it and proceeded to freedom. Neither Buster nor I is amused at this point. Because of construction there's a large, very legible, noticeable sign that says cars in my lane must turn right, with adequate room given to switch around an island to the left turn. When I pass this sign, what do I find but a DIFFERENT driver from the original incompetent who decides that manners and common sense do not apply to him; his tail end is in front of me, blocking my escape from the hellgrounds when he noses his front in front of another oncoming car... and sits. Passes up an opportunity to go, and rather a lot of traffic goes by before he can next leave, freeing us.
Have I mentioned that I hate the HS parking lot?!?!?

Hazard pay

Gently insert fingers into hair.
Massage lightly to ensure maximum intertwine-age.
Take a deep breath.
...
Let it out at the highest possible volume as you yank the ever-loving daylights out of your cranium.
Rinse and repeat.

Mum and Da left yesterday for a five day camping jaunt at a much higher latitude and elevation. Just the two of them, no kids. Well, plus the large group with which they're camping, but no kids for which they are responsible! And I'm in charge while they're gone.

Really Kleptomaniac Demonspawn isn't that bad when she's left alone, but Hypersonic Hyperactive Demonspawn sees it as his honor-bound duty to incite mayhem and discord wherever he walks... and he ran out of Ritalin.

We went to the library yesterday, all four of us, though Buster didn't get anything. Klepto continually confuses me. She's not at her grade level with reading, but was motivated (by forces unknown to me) to get a large book on the life and music of Beethoven and a slightly smaller volume on Harriet Tubman. And she's actually reading them. It's good; confusing, but good.
We all return to school at various times near the end of the month, and I'm having my belated BD party as well.
I'm taking the kids to a local river today to swim and, as Hyper said, "work off our energies!"

Laters!
~Brill

Hello? Anybody out there?

I love A/C. Really. I just don't understand why the dash is in there....
Anywho, I'm house sitting again, a short span this time, and I'm bored enough to blog. There's only so much SciFi I can read before my mind starts shorting out.
However, I come upon the problem of having nothing of any import to report; all major events are covered in Mum's blog, or if I DO have something about which I think, "hey, I should blog that," I invariably forget.
High points in my life:
+I have fewer than 365 days left as a teenager. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Neither Mum nor Da could say, either.
+I may, possibly, if there's room on the schedule, have gleefully gained gainful employment at a local pizzeria. Until I have to move back to Sburg.
+I have enough money to go to Anime Weekend Atlanta in September! I still need to get the ticket/reservations, but baring unforeseen fiscal disasters, I have sufficient funds. Which means more specialty manga, T-shirts with smart (-ass) sayings --see Mum's blog on Dad's Xmas gift-- lots of sugar, and possibly posters. We (Monkey, S if he does actually go, and some other friends) will probably stay in the motel/hotel we did last year. The only problem is transportation, and that may be solved if our other roommate, Sunshine, goes.

I saw Le Batard recently. He's doing much better, has his back brace off, and has been working out quite a bit to get back in shape. He lost a lot of strength in the accident and has been building it back up. Done a good job, too. He, Monkey and I went to see The Dark Knight the day after my birthday, and it RULED. Took almost 3 hours to do so, too! I love long, intense movies (NOT horror, that's Monkey's department), so that was an excellent movie.

E-chan gets back from Japan on the 8th, and the Flower gets back into town from summer classes on the 13th, so I'm having a birthday celebration a month late. All my siblings go back to school 1 week before I do so I have a week in which to hold a demonspawn-free party. Woot.
I cleaned the living room recently and got the kitchen a bit tidier (uphill battle, that room), so if I can keep them clean I should be able to have said get-together at home.

Mum looked at my schedule for next year (5 classes, if you don't count the class I intend full well to drop) and observed that the entire semester is nothing but art. I made the darn thing and I hadn't noticed that. I have Theatre, Art History (NOT with the Monotonous Teacher from Heck), and THREE Studio classes (Photog. 1, Ceramics 1, & Drawing 2). I also have nothing before lunch on Tu/Th, and nothing after on Fri. However, I am spending a collective 19 hours per week IN AN ART CLASS. Having had two of these teachers before and having heard horror stories about the workload from the third, I don't know whether to giggle maniacally or start rocking back and forth muttering incomprehensibly.

Well, for nothing that filled up a lot of space. One day when I have a VERY long span of uninterrupted time I think I may assemble a post on the subject of the perfect house. There will be lots of pictures, probably from houses around town. As oppressive as the town is sometimes, it has some real gems of architecture.

Ta-Ta!
~Brilliance and Light

(BTW, Spellchecker says 'manga' should be 'mange')

So...Damn...Hot

Well, our AC has decided to take its summer vacation again. For the past 3-5 days the entire system has been in an interesting cycle of Nada punctuated by burps of Semi-Cool.
Right now it's cooler outside than in here, humidity be damned.
Oh, and "nobody" broke the shower in the pink (hall) bathroom to the point where it won't go to shower mode all the way. C alleges that you "have to twist the middle handle, but not too far," and it will work, but so far that hasn't worked for me, so no cool showers to stave off the heat.

On a slightly less whining note, a good friend of Monkey's and mine from High School is currently on the other side of the planet. E-chan left for Japan Wednesday morning and won't be back until early August. She's staying with a missionary family, a career she herself has expressed interest in. (Japanese culture is another BIG point of interest for her, Monkey, and Monkey's and my future roommate, about as much as Harry Potter with me.) I'm happy for her, but all the same I'm going to miss her these weeks that she's gone.

The Klepto Demonspawn has managed a feat of epic and, to me, hilariously saddening proportions. She got herself kicked out of SUMMER SCHOOL. Tuesday morning I woke
to a call --on my cell phone-- from the school where the district holds the summer school program, informing me that me sister was in the principal's (or counselor's, I was a bit woozy) office. Said principal-or-counselor proceeded to rattle off an impressively long list of transgressions committed by said spawn that morning, including but not limited to death threats and written profanity. In her handwriting. That the woman on the other end of the line said, "looked just like her handwriting when she wrote, 'I did not write that.'" O. M. Effing. G.
Seriously, if you're gonna do something like that, child, learn to disguise your handwriting.
The phone cut out (Verizon: "You can hear me anywhere but your house or dorm room!") and they called the house phone. I had by this time woken up enough to wonder why that hadn't happened in the first place, but apparently the phone was busy.
Long story short, the principal-or-counselor talked to Mum, Mum got pissed, Mum picked up the miscreant, both Demonspawn have been hell for the ensuing time periods, causing much emotional, physical, and aural distress to all involved.

Tonight, Klepto got sick. I heard some weird noises from that end of the house (I'm on one end, though, so EVERYTHING is 'the other end of the house). Found out it was her. Poor thing. Projectile vomit isn't fun for anyone. I wonder what she ate.

Mum has given me a potentially VERY addictive link, so I'm going to stop there. I have more to say but it is less immediate, more nagging, and mostly less transient.

No, I'm not in a very upbeat mood, howdja guess?

'Night,
~Brill

I feel SOOOOOOO special

Mum and I went out shopping this morning. Along with some clothes for the interminably picky Hyperactive Hypersonic Demonspawn, we got me 2 5-shelf cheap-&-nasty shelving units. I just assembled the permanently affixed elements of one of them. That included screwing in by hand with a teeny, tiny screwdriver fourteen screws and hammering in heaven knows how many nails to tack down the backing. I sat the shelf up to put in the second and fourth (movable) shelves....
And I'd put the sides of the shelf on VERY PERMANENTLY with the insides facing out!!!
I feel special today. I swear it took Da (the *design engineer*) a full 3 minutes to really stop laughing at me.

On the bright side, at least it's put together sturdily for a $25 shelf, and I know what to do on the next one!

Briefly

I will post a longer update later about how it is a literal miracle that I can dress myself in the morning, let alone pass exams.

For now, I am turning into Monkey. Honestly. I even asked -nearly begged- Buster for permission to step on his foot last night, a quirk of Monkey's. Urg. Enh, The two Brain-halves will see each other tomorrow at reading club. Along with Le Batard, our friend SuB, and old teachers and former classmates we haven't seen in a while. But now I am procrastinating when I should be baking, so I will leave this at that and go make Peanut Butter Cookies.

They're spawning in my sleep!

My Econ/History class this semester has required me to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal for various and sundry reasons. One of those was to, this past Tuesday, present my illustrious teachers with a set of 5 articles pertaining to the legacy of the Great Depression, through how either New Deal legislation or programs affect the economy today. My main topic was how the Fed has changed it's outlook and responses, but that's a whole different kettle of fish. My problem now is, What do I do with 13-plus weeks of the daily WSJ?! Due to the frantic scramblings that ultimately resulted in the location of said articles, the paper now provided a more than decent ground cover for the better half of our room, i.e., I could walk from about 3 steps from the door, all the way around the pile of packed junk (more on that later), and over into my closet...without setting foot on my floor. Today also saw the imminent due-ness of two 5-page papers, one in mine and Monkey's 10 A.M. class (That Which Is Greatly Depressing) and one in my 4 P.M. Shakespeare class. We both got to bed shortly after 3 this morning, and after a 4-hour nap I finished my paper...before class (It is crap, and right now I really just want to get it over with). Shakespeare didn't fare so well. Due to mis-planning on my part and (*%*&$*&$%$#^%#^#%$#$^-ing) mis-labeling on JSTOR's, a large part of the (admittedly small) time I scheduled to do the Shakespeare paper was spent frantically scrambling for references for my annotated bibliography. Grrrr. I turn the paper in tomorrow at 4.
This afternoon I finally got around to dealing with the papers slowly but surely taking over the room (...the dorm, and one day, THE WORLD!!!!). They filled a Sterilite container, and are currently attempting to ooze out of the recycle bin a a pace slow enough that no unsuspecting passerby will notice. I kept a few in a neat stack to use as padding when I pack the last of my frangibles. And then I sat down...and saw more under my desk! And on my bed! THEY'RE SPAWNING!!!

In more scholastic news, I have a final exam project in the PE & Health class to "design your own wellness plan" while "being creative," and those were seriously the only concrete guidelines I've been able to suss out in 3 weeks. And it's due tomorrow before 12 noon. Woot. Whee. Goody. Joy.

As happy notes:
I GET SLEEP TOMORROW!!!!
Also, Mum's coming down to take home stuff I've already packed and drop off boxes in which I can pack. While she's here we're going to see my Community Adviser (RA)'s Senior BA show downtown.
I also finally own a dictionary, and it was even free! the Math building is undergoing some major renovations this summer and next year, so the school is getting rid of almost all the books in many of the classrooms (Monkey got some free textbooks for future classes in one of her minors). I've had my eye on the dictionary that sat on the top shelf of one of the rooms since last year when I had a class there, and after double-checking I was told I could have it!!! <3 style="font-style: italic;">Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged. Sadly the first 30 or so pages are a bit distressed but the remaining 3,200 are fine. ^__^ The only fully missing page that I could tell was the one that told the publish date (I wanted to know), but the library has the same dictionary, and it says 1934. Monkey is used to my spasmodic happiness in regards to unusual or obscure literary or reference works, but our future other roommate got a bit disturbed by my spontaneous jig in the middle of telling her about it. Enh, well.


( In other news, the levels of sleep dep. amongst the interdisciplinary class have reached the point where everything is funny. One of the girls in the class said this morning that she was up so late last night that an empty trash can was funny. And I totally got it.)


Nodding off in the direction of the soda machine,
~Brill

Monkey has threatened me with bodily harm if I continue to eat rice or Rice Crispie treats. She apparently has something against me disolving the lining of my digestive tract. I have slight gluten and rice sensitivities, and eating wheat, oats, and especially rice without a large portion of something else gives me heartburn.
I am a carb addict. This month I had a strong craving for Rice Crispie Treats, and got a box last time I visited Generic*Mart. Since then Monkey has harangued me every time I eat one (instances of which, I admit, I make sure she is aware).

Walking to class today, eating the last one from the box:
"Woah, it's making my tongue burn now!"...*munch*
"And you're still eating it?! I hope your esophagus melts!"


In other, slightly less harmful news, I will have 2 roommates next year. A friend of mine and Monkey's from the next floor up intended to get a single room next year, but so many upperclassmen went for them that even some Seniors didn't get ones. She also had an incredibly good lottery number (rooms are chosen by lottery), and Monkey and I are fairly certain we can live with her amicably. So we got a triple (in the dorm on the other end of campus from the art building, but on such a small campus it's still not very far). We went to see it and it looks really good; 2 rooms, 3 large closets, a ceiling fan (*insert Hallelujah Chorus*), and desks in that room come with hutches. Yay!

I'm currently (panicking about schoolwork) packing up some stuff for Mum to take back to the house when she comes either this weekend or the next. Both Monkey and I have a lot of stuff, and I especially have accrued a lot over the year by way of books especially (culled the clothes, though!). Don't really know where I am going to keep my stuff this summer since my room's become a storage room in part, but that will be worked out later.

Now to attack the mound of packing in front of me (and whimper at the mountain of assignments behind me).
~Brilliant...or something

It's okay, we're Art Students

Walking down my hall this evening, I saw our CA (Community Adviser) with two of my hall mates. The latter two lay on their backs while she photographed the words she had Sharpie'd onto their feet. Oh, I think, It's an art project. Cool.
I went over and nosed around, then as I walked back to my room she called out, "Hey, can I borrow your body this weekend?"
My instant reply: "Sure."

Honestly, it all makes perfect sense.

Interesting to know, but still not on my weekend 'To-Do' list

OK, so I took the quizzish thing from Mum's site, and aparently I'm more adept at merciless actions against kindergarteners than I thought:



24

Again, It's still not high on my priority list for the weekend. That list looks more like, "dig garden, plant seedlings, buy and lay linoleum...."
et cetera.

Au revoir.

Yes; I do, in fact, exist

I know, I know, it's been forever, but it's been one hell of a BUSY forever.

FLAG, in cooperation with the Theatre club, are putting on a Lip Sync show on the 22nd, and as I am now (at least in name) VP I am very invested in this production. And a very last-minute production it's turning out to be. Urg, if this gets done again next year, a) we will advertise earlier than TWO WEEKS before the show, b) we will start planning a hell of a lot earlier than about a month before, and c) we will not hold it in the last bleeding month of school! [/rant]

On a happier note, I went to Le Batard's college this evening to see their theatre's production of Much Ado About Nothing. It was marvelous, hilarious, and as far as I remember from reading it early on in the semester in Shakespeare class, quite true to the text (with the exception of a slight dash of modern music and some men with twirlers...but they definitely added to it, IMHO).

I've picked out my classes for next semester (Fall '08) and will register on the 30th. I really, really, REALLY hope I can get into all of my art classes, especially the art history class. (It will cover a major requirement AND a separate Gen Ed requirement because it's a 'Non-Anglophone, Non-Western European' course. They have some SERIOUSLY odd Gen Ed requ.'s). Monkey and I get our numbers for the 'room lottery' this Monday. Honestly, I've had the system for room choice explained to me a few times, a few different ways, and it still doesn't make complete sense. I know enough to know that, as rising sophomores, we're screwed as far as getting our desired dorm. Or second choice. Or possibly third choice.

My philosophy for school work is "Don' worra boudit." This mainly pertains to my never-sufficiently-damned Econ and the Great Depression class, and somewhat to Shakespeare. Both have relatively intense papers due in, oh, 2 weeks I think. I only have one of the due dates burned so thoroughly into my corneas that it haunts my dreams while I try to sleep. Oh, and the final project for health class: "Create your own fitness program. Creatively." i.e. like a magazine, apparently.
Ignore the dull, repetitive thud-thump, it's only the sound of my brain bouncing against my skull as it pounds the wall of insomnia.
On a very slightly related note: While attempting to keep up with the economics prof in the foremost of the above listed classes, I found an exception to the grammar rule: 'i' before 'e' except after 'c,' or when sounding as 'ay' as in 'neighbor' or 'weigh.' The word: Efficiency. (although I suppose 'efficient' also fits the mould). This is what I remember most from practically all of 80 minutes of class. If it didn't also include history, I'd be screwed.

Monkey is hungry. Not an astounding, thought provoking statement, I know, but apparently the only sustenance sufficient for her is my thigh muscle. At least that's what she tells me. I make sarcastic references to 1800s Oregon Trail history and try not to fall asleep before she does.

It's 12:40 A.M. I need sleeeeeeeeeeep, especially if I am to attend church tomorrow. I truly, adamantly wish that the Unitarian Universalist Church was closer (were closer?) to the school so that I could walk there instead of to the nearby PC-USA. Even if they do feed us at the later. I want actual emotion in a service! If I wanted pseudo-wakefulness, I'd've stayed in bed and listened to the Prairie Home Companion on NPR. Even the old hymns they sing are not particularly good.
*le sigh*

Bon Nuit,
~Brill, who just realized her tag list is insanely long

(currently listening to the medley of Panic! at the Disco, Art Garfunkle, and C.W. McCall stuck in my head. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants the slow, colorful, winding path to insanity)

Meme of Bookiness

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog.
5. Tag 5 people.

Okay, the nearest book is David Sedaris' Naked, (a truly wonderful and entertaining piece of literature).
5th sentence, p.123:
"'No, really,' our passenger would say. 'She is my grandmother, I swear.'"

However, I will violate the final codicil of the meme, since the 2 people who a) read my blog with any regularity and b) still have their own blogs have already done it.

Straight lines, twisted brains, and winding infections

In one respect, my household is primarily composed of two groups: punsters and those who give them incredible openings. Neither category is static, but some of the one-liners that pop up out of nowhere have literally left me on the floor. Case in point: last night.

C and I were in the kitchen while I made cookies and we bantered back and forth about random topics. I complained that I had trouble keeping up with the 83-year-old who did an aerobics class on campus. He said that he'd done a workout video when he still lived with his mother, "One by Crawford somebody."
"Cindy Crawford? You did Cindy Crawford tapes?"
"Yeah, that's it. Honestly, I don't know how my mother didn't know I was gay; what straight guy in his right mind would do Cindy Crawford!?"
The inflection...the tone...truly, I almost lost my balance laughing. And it took him a moment to figure out what was so funny.

Sometimes I think that Monkey and I are way too similar. It is a constant running joke between us that we tend to think of/say/write the same things/noises/motions at the same time. Earlier today, after a long quiet period of not doing anything even remotely related to the other, we both burst out in vocal remonstrations against thoroughly inanimate objects (she a brush, I a carrot) ...at the same time. By the time we graduate, we will have mastered the art of telepathy! (At least, I think that would be cool. 'Course so would telekinesis).

Spring break was partially successful. S and I got the kitchen organized while Mum and Da escaped for a few days, I didn't kill either of the dibbuns, and did get seedlings and seeds (now sprouts) set up in my room as it is still too cold to put them outside. I do not have a job for summer, though a friend of Mum's said she'd send my resume (*mentally add accent*) to people she knows who might be looking for assistants, babysitters, nannies, etc. I intend to do this ASAP. My only problem (which developed during break) is that the only computer on which my resume is stored (the home one) contracted a massive virus of insidious and access-blocking virus. Grr.

Mentally cogitating on the vagrancies of the English language,
~Brill

4 Things Meme

Four Jobs I have had in my life: (for which I was paid)
Nanny
Babysitter
House sitter
"Freshman Orientation Student Leader" twice (Wherein I gave tours and small classes about adapting to high school in various ways to incoming freshmen. Honestly, it was a rather cushy job, but it paid well considering).

Four Movies I would watch/have watched over and over:
It's a Wonderful Life (courtesy of Mum)
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Pirates of the Caribbean (any)
The Incredibles

Four Places I have lived:
New Bern, NC
Easley, SC
Greenwood, SC
Spartanburg, SC

Four TV Shows that I watch:
CSI (Nevada only)
Law & Order: SVU
Food Network, pretty much anything
History channel, again pretty much anything

Four Places I have visited:
Orlando, FL
Richmond, VA
Dublin, Ireland
London, England

Four People who email me regularly:
Mum
Mum's Momma (chain emails typically)
My college (has the ability to distribute massively useless information with an alarming efficiency)
Da

Four Favorite Foods:
Chocolate (c'mon, seriously?)
Milk
Pasta
*good* cheese (Havarti, Munster, Brie... the list goes on)

Four Places I would like to be right now:
Colorado Springs, CO
Dublin, Ireland
London, England
Anywhere without pollen!

Four Things I am looking forward to this year:
Being able to work on a garden full-time over the summer
Seeing friends from other colleges
The end of school in general
The Bodies of Knowledge Symposium @ USC Upstate

Four People who should post Four Things:
Monkey
S
You have been poked.
Aaaaaaaand I know none else. Phoo.

Have fun! ~Brill

Duh(-ll)

Apparently, I'm not imaginative enough. One of my friends overheard me referring(sp?) to my computer Lappy today, and began to sputter in indignation at the dearth of creative thinking backing the sobriquet. A short *discussion* later, my laptop is now Hogarth.

(On a side note, I loathe gerunds. They mess spelling up so very frequently.)

Only three short (and yet interminably long) days until Spring Break and relative freedom from scholastic endeavors of a strictly structured variety! Of course, I first have to survive
Shakespeare, Great Depression, and Western Civ midterm exams. I think I'll just go hide under the covers now, and try to get the 7-8 hours-per-night I'm supposed to. HA!

More as it develops and I grow bored,
~Brill

Humph!

My college held a Girls' Day today on campus for a bunch (and I do mean BUNCH) of girls from around the community, about ages 5-11 or so. It was mostly in the central quad surrounded by the dorms, dining hall, and fine arts buildings. They had field games, relays, tag, etc., but one game in particular caught my eye as I walked through the two main groups. The leaders had a bunch of 5-8 year olds (I'd guess) playing a variation of tag; each girl had a brightly colored handkerchief/'flag' stuck in the back of her pants, and was running around trying to grab/pull the other girls' tails/flags/handkerchiefs out of their pants. Seeing that I thought, "We're teaching little girls to chase after and grab other little girls' asses. Damn, why did I never get to play this game!?"

Tidbits

*LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM*
That's what my New Deal program paper has done for the past, oh, week or so. It got really bad on Tuesday, since it was due this morning. Monkey and I both have the class, (though we focused on different subjects) and worked like little dervishes Tuesday and especially last night. I went to bed around 3 when I spent more time staring at the screen thinking about cheese and sleep, and less time staring at the screen wondering where I read that one random fact in the 20-odd double pages of photocopied, color-coded notes (it was never in the color-coded section, BTW). I finished it off this morning before class. I love the class, I learn economic & historical stuff & how the areas effect each other during one of (IMHO) the most interesting periods of American history, but DAMN if it isn't difficult to keep up sometimes. (No Block, Monkey!)
On a related note, has anyone else ever had trouble keeping within a word limit for a paper? This one was 1000-1200 words, and the shortest I could get it without doing some MAJOR limb-whacking was 1509 (incl. parenthetical documentation). I didn't even go into a lot of the political and civil rights influences because I knew I'd have to cut them. (I just realized I don't have a tag 'procrastination' on a blog titled procrastination. Go fig.)

As I mentioned in my last post, I was elected (in a very informal "Okay, who wants to run for [position]? Anybody got a problem? All in favor? All opposed? ...all abstaining?" meeting) VP of the college's Friends of Lesbians And Gays (FLAG) chapter. Flag is a Student Government Assn. group. I 'get' to go on the SGA retreat this weekend, Friday afternoon to Saturday evening. Thankfully I won't be alone; the Pres (apparently my 'owner') is coming too.

My friends have discovered, through virtue of my new haircut, the amazing somnolescent affect that 'scritching' my head has on me. Monkey likes to pet my hair, and a few other of our friends have recently taken to rubbing the hair as well (don't ask me why, I'm not complaining). They discovered at dinner tonight that scritching tends to put me into a bit of a trance where I lose concentration on all else. A number of them (one in particular who also likes to pick on my ADHD tendencies anent highly reflective objects) had fun.

Laters,
~Brill

Gone and Done It

No, I am not making rather horrendous musical allusions again. At least not on purpose.

Gone refers to the hair. On my visit home last weekend I went by Great Clips and asked if they were partnered with Locks of Love. They are, and since I had enough hair to donate (and the intention of doing so) I got a free cut. Friends and I had previously worried that my hair might not be long enough to donate.
We needn't have worried.
12 inches and a trim later, the longest hair on my head reaches around 2.5". Mwahahahaha!

The 'it' following 'done' addresses my having finally bitten the bullet and done a few things: a) planned out a fairly comprehensive schedule for the next 3 years here, assuming I do the maximum number of things I want to, major/minor/GEP-wise; then I, b) took it to my adviser, got advice, and declared my major. I am now a Bachelor of Fine Arts major in Studio art (tentative concentration ceramics and photography) with an English minor. On top of that, I was elected the VP for next year for the FLAG group on campus (Friends of Lesbians and Gays).
Major hours: 73
Minor hours: 18
GEP hours: IDK, but there are way too many, IMHO. I hope they get reduced for the BFA students, so I'm not taking the less desirable ones any time soon.
I just hope I can keep up!


Talking with Monkey the last few days has left me nostalgic for both chickens and a garden. While zoning prohibits the former, our yard is more than large (and mostly unused) enough for the latter, providing my nostalgia can solidify and sustain until Spring Break at the end of next month. While getting a garden started requires more (productive) momentum than that of which most of the household is generally capable, I think that Mum, Da, or Buster especially could help maintain one if it was already started, and the Dibbonic Duo could definitely use a positive outlet for energy.
If Mum or I remembers to call the other later, I'll discuss it and, hopefully, get a garden started in late March. (Yes, Mum, as well as look for a summer job.)

I WANT FRESH, REAL TOMATOES!!!!!

From chicken houses and gestational periods spawn...

Okay, I think I can stop laughing long enough to type now. Monkey and I were talking about a number of things (see the title of the post), and somehow got off on the topic of the mishmash menagerie that comprises my home kitchen. On this topic I observed that our hodgepodge even included a brain-shaped jello mold, which my dearest Mum has on a number of occasions used for Hallowe'en parties. Monkey (a pre-med biology major, mind you, who delights in what some would term the grotesque) inquired if there was actually gray jello, though, as the correct color and opacity are crucial to correct representation. I assured her that there was a method of producing such a color (quite a tasty one, too), though I did not know the method. Then the following conversation ensued:
Monkey: "But is there a way to make the white matter around it?"
Brill: "I don't know. I suppose."
M: "Because you'd need it for anatomical accuracy."
B: "True. Hey, if you made some white jello, chilled it almost completely, stirred it up, put it in a spray bottle, and thinly coated the inside of the mold, chilled it, then poured in the gray jello and let it set...."
M: "That might work....Did we really just have a conversation about that?"
B: "Yes."
M: "My Geekdom is solidified."

I love my roommate; she's awesome. Together we represent the Left & Right brains, according to a friend.


More laters, when I'm less lazy. Even though 2 of my classes in the next 2 days are canceled, I still have about 4 papers to either do or start. Fun.
Luvs,
~Brill

Snips and Snippets

--I'm writing in the late night/early A.M. hours again, so in the event that I remember tomorrow, I'll have to revisit here and correct any egregious misspellings, sentence fragments, or dangling conversations.
Maybe musical allusions as well.

--One of the few things on my mind recently includes my hair, both literally and figuratively. It annoys me. However, it is by and large long anough to donate now, so very, very soon I will have spikeable-length hair again! (I have been a bit lax with the maintainance of regular trimmings, so the ends are a bit spare). A friend from class recently mentioned to me a barbershop in the area run by a lesbian and a gay man, and offered to take me there when i griped about my hair. I may go there, but from some of what she said I think it was one of the many barbershops not directly affiliated with Locks of Love, and if I am in charge of sending in my hair, I will graduate with that stuff still in a bag somewhere. Also, one of Monkey's "Big Sisters" (upperclassmen mentors) mentioned that if I get it cut at some places to donate, the cut is free. I am in college. I have no job. Free is GOOD.

--A local Presbyterian church offers free lunches after the late service to college students. I went with 4 friends last Sunday, including Monkey. It's been a while since I was in a Pres. service, but their Modus Operandi differed wildly from the church in which I was raised, and I don't think the differences were entirely PC/USA vs. PCA based. We, as far as I know, are going again Sunday.

--Mum is coming down tomorrow (today, by now) to see a cello concert at my college. She pays more attn. to some of the things at my school than do I. I look forward to seeing my Mum.


I had something else I wanted to say, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is. My brain must be going in my old age...No, wait, that's just the ADD.

Au Revoir, mes amis,
~The Brilliant Procrastinator

(Oh, yes...I remember now.......
--In an astounding leap of boredom and procrastination, I spent a few hours this past week painting small, intricate patterns/images/scenes onto my fingernails with acrylic paint, with a protective coat of clear-coat over them. This is a matter of routine for me; whenever I am either utterly bored to the point of distraction (and will be for a few hours) AND/OR I have rather a lot of homework, typically of the reading/writing variety, I do the nail painting thing. I have yet to do my toenails in such a way, especially since I don't wear the one pair of open-toe shoes I (reluctantly) own. I foresee such an endeavor only in the event of an extreme power outage.)

Not the head!

--Monkey has her block.
For about as long as we've been roommates, she's had a campaign to stop my use of profanity (we tend to pick up each other's words, so the campaign is fully justified...just really hard for me to do). Whenever I cuss, she mimes an overhand, double-handed throwing motion and screams, "Throws BLOCK at your head!" (or some variation thereof). We visited a friend's room the other day, and she gave Monkey a stuffed, one foot square cube. Which Monkey promptly launched at my head.
It now resides at the foot of her bed, glowering at me in cyan and cerulean menace.

--On a lighter note, Mum's back! *and there was much rejoicing* She mentioned something about possibly coming up to visit this weekend, so we shall (hopefully) see her. My winter term break ended right before she got back, sadly.


--I FOUND THEM!!!!! After searching 4 stores, 3 sections of the last one, and asking 2 different people for help, I finally, finally found those wire modular storage things. They are 14.5" square wire grids you connect at the corners by means of round plastic joiners with notches in them. They are truly handy little things, and I got 2 boxes of them, even though with the current room set-up only one fits (I really need to finish unpacking from Christmas break...).

A bientot,
~Brilliance & Light

Monkey is HIGHLY entertaining. She's sitting beside me, attempting to "blind teh eyesh" with a makeup-less compact. It would work if a) the lighting in the room was worth crap, and b) she could get the angle right.

Aside from that monkey business, I have a few observations :

"If I can't tell what it is when it's on my fork, it shouldn't go in my mouth." (courtesy of the Monkey)
Both Saturday and tonight, the cafeteria served something. That, and the observation that it was probably originally an animal were all the we're certain of. In both cases, actually, none of the people at the table were able to determine whether it was chicken or pork. (Monkey after a visual study, me after eating the damned stuff!)

I have an astounding capacity for mess when it comes to art class. When we're working on charcoal, I've come in with the stuff smeared, streaked, or smudged pretty much anywhere from elbows down and shoulders up. I doubt I've ever washed my jeans with such frequency, either. Today we did wash drawings (NOT, by the way, my favorite technique thus far), which use ink. Black India Ink. SOMEHOW between 8:30 and 11:30 I got it in both cheeks, nose, and neck.
I blame art gremlins.

Finals are Wednesday, sketches, portfolios, and exhibition reviews due then. Urg.

Books

I have finally finished a book Mum lent me...just after I left for college. It's From Boys To Men: Gay men write about growing up. A collection of short stories/anecdotes (truly the best kind for my fractured, ADD-type brain), one would think that I'd've finished the darned thing earlier. No, I got about 2.5 stories into it, got distracted by something shiny, and didn't pick it up again until this past week, mostly during car trips with Monkey or lounging around the dorm.
Due to the vast number of writers, the tone varies throughout the book from lascivious in few parts to precocious (especially those dealing with younguns) to heartwarming to even slightly haunting. I'm hooked on anthologies, especially gay anthologies. Mum still has (and hasn't, to my knowledge, finished) a collection I found in Barnes & Noble entitled Boys Like Us. I hadn't finished it either when I lent it to her. An end note in From Boys To Men said that one of the authors appears in both. I think I'll steal it back over break so I can finish it.
Another really good read is, well, anything by David Sedaris, IMHO. He's one of the ones on my Library Wish List, along with complete collections of Shakespeare (check, thanks to the wonderfulness of the Mum and Da), C.S. Lewis, and at least one complete set of encyclopedias. It occurs to me that I'm going to have a very odd book collection.

Continuing on the subject of books, I finally caved and bought some of the books for next semester. Since, as I said, I already have the complete Shakespeare, I didn't have to shell out $90+ bucks to the scalpers in the campus bookstore. However, I now have an interesting (USED!!!) tome entitled Birth, Marriage, & Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. Potentially fascinating, if it's not dry as dust.

I am being ordered by Monkey to do my laundry; apparently all the washers in the basement are empty, and she finds my method of carpeting-by-laundry unappealing. Alas and alack, I bid thee farewell, my laptop....

~Brill

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!!!!!!

Je t'aime, mere. Bon anniversaire et bon voyage.

~ <3 Light

How To (Instalment the First)

How To Electrically Shock Your Ear Canals:
First, you have to wait for winter. Oh, I know, the anticipation will practically kill you, especially in such a sudatory climate! How can you stand to hold off on such a tactile treat? Nevertheless, you must. After the arrival of the acclaimed and brief season, next don your most woolly, long coat or sweatercoat -the latter is most proficient in achieving the desired task- and a pair of rubber-soled shoes, and retrieve your digital portable music device (e.g. MP3 player or Ipod). Inserting earbud headphones -a most emphatically essential part of the process- into both the device and your own ears, place the device into the pocket of your coat or sweatercoat. Then set off on a brisk walk through the arid, wintery, statically charged environment, making sure that your coat rubs your body to build up a pleasant, tingly charge. Finally, if all has gone well, you should fell a series sudden, sharp buzzes in your ear canal as the static electricity leaps between the skin in your middle ear and the metal wires of the headphones.
The feeling is most especially strong if you wear another, similarly static-inclined shirt under the coat/sweatercoat, and take two off, thus creating sparks that may very well be seen in the next county. You may notice a tendency of said device to commit odd malfunctions later on. This may or may not be the cause of these malfunctions; please contact your local customer service representative at 1-800-66INDIA

My ears still hurt. This happened about 2.5 hours ago. (and no, I did NOT leave them in until I took off my coat, I forgot I had them in when I put it on to leave. Similar result: Deafer Brill than even typical)
~Brill ("eh, what's 'at?")

(If I ever use weird, large, obscure, or just unusual words in any of my posts, and you take it upon yourself to look them up, I have yet to use one that cannot be found here. My use of any of the above mentioned is primarily for my own edification. Thanks for your toleration).

1+1=2? Never!

Monkey has a tendency to be very bright, and more far-seeing than I, particularly where I am concerned, so one would think that I'd listen to her, wouldn't one?
She told me to take my sleep meds with me on the trip home, but nooo, I'm not getting up for class in the morning, so why on earth should I take the thing that helps me get to sleep in the first place, especially since I have trouble sleeping when switching environments?
Again: gun, foot, bang.

However, I have learned some from previous restless nights, and carry earplugs with my in the Tank (my purse, spawn of an unholy union between a black hole and a button factory). They finally helped with the sleep. Then came the dreams.
Holy crap, some days I wish I could record my dreams and watch them again just so I could get a more cohesive grasp of the gnarled plot lines. Then write them down. But on an interesting note, a lesbian couple of whom I was (sometimes) part made its first appearance in my dreams, even if it seemed like one of the girls was trying to kill the other for the first half thereof.
And I think "Sweeney Todd" had a rather interesting after effect on my mental nighttime wanderings... mainly through the rather bloody sprouting of pointy objects in my poor main characters through one violent fashion or another.

OK, I have no idea whether that made any sense or not, and it is barely past 9 P.M.
Bon nuit
~Brilliant (-ly disturbed)

Meme

1. What is in the back seat of your car (truck) right now? I don't have a car, but last time I was the main driver of a vehicle, the backseat was a mishmash of sloughed coats, clothes hangers (I found a half dozen at least), my youngest siblings' abandoned/'lost'/forgotten papers from school, a fire extinguisher, and a rather sad looking spark plug.

2. When was the last time you threw up? The last time I remember having done so was two January 1st's (or early A.M. the 2nd) ago. Sangria is NOT my friend.

3. What’s your favorite curse word? Fuckan'bugger!

4. Name 3 people who made you smile today? Monkey, Emily, and Mum

5. What were you doing at 8 a.m. today? Blunderingly attempting to get ready for my 8:30 class.

6. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Sitting at the computer, reading either fanfiction or blogs.

7. Where were you born? New Bern, NC

8. Have you ever been to a strip club? Nope.

9. What is the last thing you said aloud? "Frick if I know!"

10. What is the best ice cream flavor? Either Deep, Dark Chocolate or Chocolate chip cookie dough...one of the few good things my bloody dining hall serves, if only on occasion.

11. What was the last thing you had to drink? Sprite with lunch, unfortunately.

12. What are you wearing right now? Black mock turtleneck, black leggings, and a long, loose black skirt. With black shoes and socks. Yes, I'm rather fond of the color, today because it attracts HEAT.

13. What was the last thing you ate? Pseudo-chicken tenders (that is, the meal exchange says they're chicken tenders) and lard-fries. About half of it is sitting here waiting for me to go toss it in the trash.

14. Have you bought any new clothes this week? I have too many already, why would I get new clothes?

15. Where were you last? In the hall outside my door.

16. What's the last sporting event you watched? Who won? On TV, Braves vs. somebody, heck if I know. Don't remember if they won or lost the last game of which I caught a snippet, though.

17. Who is the last person you sent a comment/message while blogging? Mum

18. Where do you live? In a dorm

19. What song are you listening to? I've got "Bustopher Jones" from the musical Cats running about my brain when it gets quiet, but Alanis Morissette on the computer.

20. Do you tan? HA! I am PASTEH!!! I barely burn when I try, and Monkey refers to me as the "Moon" when I'm on the laptop.

21. Do you drink your soda from a straw? Not unless there's a lot of (disgusting) ice in the stuff.

22. What did your last text message say? To me: "Glad. how ya doing?"


23. Who's your best friend? Enh, it's a toss-up between Monkey, The Flower, and another loooooongtime from young childhood.

24. What are you doing tomorrow? Class, and HOPEFULLY sending off that thank-you letter to my grandfather....AAH!!! And shopping for a friend's B-day on the 17th!

25. Where is your mom right now? Most likely, in front of the computer, blogging.

26. Look to your right, what do you see? A larger, old brown teddy bear that somehow came with me, seated beside a littler red one from an upperclass(wo)man

27. What do you think of when you think of where you live? SWELTERING, HICK-INFESTED HUMIDITY

28. Ever ridden on a roller coaster? Once. Dad apologized for the persuasion to so do.

29. What is your birthstone? Ruby.

30. Do you go in at a fast-food place or just hit the drive through? I loathe drive-throughs, and avoid using them -specifically, being the poor soul forced to attempt communication with the evil metal box- unless unavoidable.

31. What is your favorite number? 17. It's a pretty, dark, mesh of colors. Kind of Greenish Gray-Blue

32. Do you have a dog? Personally, no. I am an affirmed cat person, and typically tolerate dogs at best.

33. Last person you talked to on the phone? I forget, but the last person I remember talking to on the phone was Le Batard.

34. Have you met anyone famous? Not to my knowledge.

35. Any plans today? Food, or what will pass for it, then either fanfiction or possibly (rare glimmer of hope) an honest to God paper BOOK.

36. How many states have you lived in? 2, but only remember this one. Many, many houses in it, but just the one muggy state.

37. Ever go to college? Therein enrolled currently. The true question is, Do I feel like a college student (not really)

38. Where are you right now? In my bed, should be at dinner.

39. Biggest annoyance in your life right now? The looming cost of books, or rather WHICH books. (I thought I would never have to read Things Fall Apart ever again....*whimper*)

40. Are you struggling to forgive someone right now? Not that I can remember, so probably not.

41. Are you allergic to anything? Cats, the "cillin" meds, most everything that blooms between March and Decamber, and one other med whose name escapes me.

42. Favorite pair of shoes? The ones I'm wearing now. Black, I think the style is called mocs, but I'm not sure. They're slide-on-and-not-fly-off shoes required for a (practically useless) class my senior year of HS. Technically guy's shoes, they were the ONLY black pair in Generic*Mart that didn't have pink on them, and were close to my size (they're still 1/2 size too small at men's 8 1/2). I love them .^__^

Again...

Well, I didn't wake Monkey up. Woke myself up, muttering rather loudly either admonishments or summons to the three siblings, who I also named. Sleep meds sent me right back to sleep, though, so I'm happy!
Ever gotten a song stuck in your head, but not been able to remember all of the bloody thing, so whenever you start singing it you end up stuck in some kind of verse-overlapping perpetual song loop? I've been that way with the Kingston Trio's "Haul Away" for the last few days. So very annoying.

Re: the current 12-ring monkey circus commonly referred to as the presidential races:
USAToday has a very interesting little quiz where you answer mult. choice questions and it matches you to the top 3 presidential candidates with whom your answers most agree.
(ooh, look! a long link:)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/candidate-match-game.htm?loc=interstitialskip

My top 3: Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama. Bill Richardson.
Richardson didn't creep me out horribly/disagree on a fundamental issue.
He's dropped out.

I have yet to register to vote (although I do have a voter registration form from last year, don't know if it works this year, too) and looking at the current lineup makes me want to go hide in a hole in the ground until everybody goes away.
*shuffles out of frame sideways*

~Brilliance & Light

The word "politics" is derived from the word "poly" meaning "many" and the word "ticks" meaning "blood sucking parasites."
~Larry Hardiman