I'm going to a party tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it. They have a pool! And because I am really only about five in my head, I'm totally psyched about swimming.

So since I know I'm going to wear a swimsuit tomorrow, I've been dousing myself in sunless tanner. Now, I know people look down on self tanners because they can look a little splotchy, but I think it's much better than the alternative (a color about the same as the one behind this text). And tanning beds look like death traps to me.

My problem with self tanners is that they'll stain your clothes if you get dressed before it dries. Which means I have to run around like a naked crazy person while I do my hair and makeup so I don't ruin any clothes.

In the mean time, I've been putting Sun In on my hair to make the too-blonde ends not stand out against my darker-than-I-remember roots. All I have to do is spray the stuff in my hair, blow it dry, and voila! highlights. Or, really, just lighter hair.

So there I am, naked in the guest bathroom of my parents' house (because, after all, I am a "guest" now) trying not to let my arms touch the rest of my body because I've smeared them with darkener and drying my hair which I've just sprayed with lightener (which makes me realize how dumb the sun seems to be) when I notice that my torso, the only part of my body that hasn't been covered with fake sun, has these odd-looking white spots all over it.

Because the stuff on my hair is a spray, I accidentally got hairlightener on my boobs. And my stomach, too. I look like some kind of polka-dotted mutant.

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A couple nights ago I left the house of one of John's friends and decided to call Sara on my way back to my parents'. Well. At one point my phone claimed three (out of four) bars of service and said "no service." Right. Then I drove through downtown, which was completely out of the way, to see if I'd have service there. And I did, for a second, but there was a dog standing in the middle of the road, so I didn't want to call then. In the middle of the road. It just stood there and stared at me.

And it was soon joined by what looked like a German Shepard.

At that point, stopped waiting for these two enormous dogs to get off the street, my phone had full service. Then I turned. And had none.

Going back through town on the exact same road as before, I had full service. On the other side of the street...none.

Welcome to rural Tennessee.

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John and I have been watching The Brak Show and Invader Zim on my laptop all day.


Brak and his dad.

Two twenty-two-year-olds sitting on the floor (because we have no furniture) eating pizza and watching cartoons. (It figures that the cartoons have both been cancelled.)

So. I thought. We're not being juvenile enough. So I took an internet quiz. Yay rah! I am Gir.


GIR // GIR is one of the most hilarious people on
the show. He's a robot and is SUPPOSED to be
helping Zim. His quote is "Can I be a
moongoose dog?"

John, true to form, was Zim himself. Stupid alien invader extraordinaire.


Zim // Zim is basically the star of the show. He's
trying to take over the world but his enemy,
Dib, is keeping it from him. His quote is
"Invader blood runs through my veins like
giant radioactive rubber pants! The pants
command me! Do not ignore my veins!"


Which Invader Zim character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

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Our stuff. Is. Packed.

While John was sitting on top of an overturned end table inside our Uhaul trailer, he turned to me and said, "I hate all your stuff."

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I hate all my belongings. A few minutes ago, I was looking at mugs with contempt.

A note to remember: When running the dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer with all three huge machines crammed into a kitchen the size of horse trailer, packing your dishes will make you sweat more than if you were running a marathon.

Have I just compared my self to a horse? Can't think about that now. I have to go scale Mount Laurasclothes.

Labels: apartment.

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Our DVDs and videos are now sitting in boxes in front of the TV. When I see them like that, taking up so much physical space, I'm shocked. They fill up boxes that would be big enough to mail my nephews, if mailing nephews was something that could be done.

The two boxes that are big enough for me to fit in are still completely empty. What do you put in something that big? I'm afraid I'll pack wrong and (albeit indirectly) break someone's back.

Labels: apartment.

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I just finished Love Monkey. And I'm thinking about Hugh Grant in About a Boy.

I have been taught that comparison, in the literary analysis sense of the word, is when a writer discusses what two seemingly different works have in common. Contrasting works, therefore, involves works that seem relatively similar. In other words, "Sleepless in Seattle" and "You've Got Mail" should be contrasted while The scarlet Letter and Bridget Jones's Diary should be compared.

So, it depends on whether or not a person liked Love Monkey as to whether they would want it to be compared or contrasted from Nick Hornby's books. I would choose to compare them, since they are so different I would take it as a challenge.

Case in point:

"She really is a tasty package. She's got hair like summer and a voice like three A.M." (LM, 176)

What does that even mean?! Is her hair in a ponytail? Does she sound like he called and woke her up in the middle of the night? And how exactly would those qualities make her "tasty"?

I would be completely willing (okay, not completely, but far more likely) to forgive this line if not for the critique of Train's "Drops of Jupiter":

"'There's nothing to it,' I say, 'It's a string of nonsense--"since the return of her stay on the moon, she listens like spring and she talks like June"?--what's that? It's just killing time till you get to the chorus.'"(196)

It's practically his own line! Did he think we wouldn't remember a clunker like that?

On a side note, when did titles start ending with a colon and the phrase "A Novel"? Such as, Love Monkey: A Novel. Do publishing companies think we can't figure out what type of book we're buying? Or do they simply feel the need to specify? Yes indeedy, this drivel is a novel, not kindling. Even though it'd burn up real nice, please do not use it to start a fire. It's not like we're ever going to see Oedipus: We Hear It's A Play or "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Collosal Waste of Time, Money, and the Beautiful Resources of New Zealand", which might actually be of some help.

Anyway, like I said, I'm thinking about Hugh Grant. I think he might be my new favorite actor. I love the way he says Jon Bon Jovi. Like he's talking in the middle of a fox hunt. Of course, I do love the British. And I'm thinking about how much I don't want LM to be made into a movie. And I especially don't want Hugh Grant to star in it if it becomes one.

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I think everyone should have a personalized Barbie watch.

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In the absence of papers and tests, I am slowly beginning to fill the void that is my brain with novels that are only a step above smut: chick lit. I heard this piece on NPR a couple of weeks ago about a version of chick lit for boys. They called it lad lit. A rather unfortunate name for up-and-coming books, considering no one has used the word "lad" in this country in at least 200 years. So I bought and have started reading Love Monkey by Kyle Smith. (In case anyone is wondering, and I doubt anyone is, I've put away Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About for the time being. I'm hoping some time apart will be good for us.)

Love Monkey is hard to describe. I've read more than one review that compares it to High Fidelity, but a third of the way through LM, I'm not ready to make that comment yet.

At any rate, I've become obsessed with this genre. I want to write about it. A lot. But there's not much that hasn't been said.

Okay, so the point I wanted to make with entry was that I'd been doing some research on the people that write this stuff. They're almost all involved with publishing or journalism professionally. Do I have to do that to get published? (Of course, I'm sure a good first step would be to write a book.) So just when I'm feeling my worst, looking at the info about Claire LaZebnick, who wrote Same As It Never Was, which I really liked, I see that she graduated from Harvard in 1985. Her book was just published last year. Of course, she has four kids, so I'm sure she's been busy. But I'd like to think that I've accomplished a lot since '85, even though I have yet to write a novel.

After all, in 1985, I was 3.

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I started the packing process this week. Spent $28.88 on boxes. I had no idea cardboard was about the same price as sushi.

There's something wholly depressing about packing away my belongings. Perhaps it wouldn't be so depressing if I hadn't done it about eight times in the last three years (my going to college was like an endurance test--for my parents). Perhaps it wouldn't be so depressing if I didn't always start with my books. But I pretty much have to start there though, right? I mean, they pack well, in small boxes, and I don't technically need them for day-to-day life.

But packing my books is actually an incredibly personal experience. They have to get all out of order to fit into the boxes better. The hardcovers always go on the bottom because they're so huge. Then the little novels stick into the crevices like chinking. I organize my books according to genre, then alphabetize them according the author's last name. Just like a bookstore. Because I'm a nerd who likes to know exactly where to find her copy of, say, Persuasion. When I see them crammed in boxes like that, some horizontal, some vertical, and all completely out of order, I think I might know what it would feel like to have OCD.

Is it any wonder that sharing a bookshelf with John is probably the most intimate experience of my life?

Did you know he owns roughly 900 books by Kurt Vonnegut? The "v" section of fiction is almost as big as the entire poetry section. And I haven't read any of those books! How can one man have written so many books anyway? Shakespeare, a complete a total literary genius, wrote 37 plays and people are always trying to say he didn't write them all. Christopher Marlowe, you say? Oh please. Doctor Faustus was just plain boring.

At this point I've packed four and a half boxes. There's still a whole shelf to go.

So what did we do yesterday? Went to a bookstore and bought me two new books.

*I'll give whoever remembers the joke behind this entry's title a peanut butter sandwich.*

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