i have been so self-indulgent lately and that scares me, because usually i am cheap cheap cheap.

i think this coincides with my relatively new understanding that i can die at any minute of any day, and then what would be the point of working really hard and hoarding all my money in the bank?

spend spend spend spend spend.

i hope this new habit ends soon.
it makes me nervous.

"if we don't wake up
and shake up the nation,
we'll eat the dust of the world
wondering why ..." - the late great jonathan larson

Everyone thinks I am a lesbian because I am unusually attached to the gay rights movement.

After my especially long commentaries for French homework on the subject, my entire class, as of tomorrow, will probably be thinking the same thing...

It doesn't really bother me, except when I say I'm not and they don't believe me. It's just annoying when people don't believe you in general, I guess.

summer in the city

as much as i like being at home and i love summers on long island, i don't want to leave.

i don't want to spend the summer away from my people. my new york family.
i don't want this semester to end...

i am sad in thinking of all the lazy weekends at the gay beach and all the sidewalk cafe happy hours that could have been. but i will try to content myself in focusing on the fire island days and the weekend visits that surely will be... and hopefully a trip up to maine to visit my dearest amanda. who i really really really don't want to leave the city. sigh.

gay parenting

"Le mariage étant une affaire privée, il est incompréhensible que l'Etat continue à exiger l'hétérosexualité pour entrer dans cette institution. Au nom de quoi justifier ce contrôle institutionnel ? (...) Il existe en France une contradiction forte par rapport à la filiation. Un célibataire vivant seul peut adopter, pas des concubins hétérosexuels ou homosexuels alors que plus de la moitié des enfants naissent de parents non mariés. Il est temps d'envisager une refonte de la filiation, avec la reconnaissance de plusieurs types de parents, plusieurs entrées dans la parenté. " - Francois de Singly


Marriage is a private affair. It is incomprehensible that the State continues to only allow heterosexuals to get married. In the name of what can we justify this institutional control? In France, there is a strong contradiction regarding filiation. A single person can adopt, but not unmarried heterosexual or homosexuals, even though more than half of the children born are of non-married parents. It's time to think about a new filiation, recognizing more types of parents, more ways to become parents.

Word.

summer came like cinnamon -- so sweet ...

"If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it."

Amazing weekend so far, except in my stupidity (which comes every year around the first gorgeous 80 degree day), i am now once again burnt to a crisp. you think i would remember all the agony i was in last year and never let that happen again. but no.

whatever. friday i wore my best outfit and everyone loved it and it kept me in a good mood all day. after, drinks in the garden of a wine bar with molly & gen & cooper, then dinner and conversation and a walk around the west village with coops. and yesterday, 6 hours at the christopher st pier. with meredith and matt and molly and gen and cooper and dozens of his friends. who were fun and started double dutching. and everyone on the pier got really into it. and it was amazing. and we picnicked and it was just so lovely. i can see myself doing that for the rest of my life...

and meredith and i bought a bottle of limoncello and vanilla icecream and lemonade and did amazing things with it. while listening to corinne bailey rae.

lemme tell ya, perfect precursor to summer.

i go to the same places, hang out with the same people, even tell the same jokes as before ... it's the shell of normalcy, but i'm not completely into it. i go along with it because it's as close to happy as i get. on a scale of 1-10, how happy am i, relatively speaking, that is a 12. but it's not the same. it'll never be the same without you.

that's so gay.

an 11 year old boy in atlantakilled himself last week because of endless taunting from his peers at school. they kept calling him gay. he hung himself.

the same thing happened in massachusetts earlier this month. anti-gay slurs, a hanging, a life cut short too soon.


what kind of world is this? i deal with this shit every year at summer camp, and i scream at these kids until my face turns red and i have to walk away in anger. and these bullies, their parents don't reprimand them, and the authority figures at school (or at camp. the supervisor of our camp doesn't care. and will often call kids gay behind their backs. and why??) don't think it's a big deal.

but it is. where do they learn this? not always from their parents. children are actually more influenced by their peers than by their family.

does it matter where it starts, or that it isn't stopped?

and anyway, why is being called gay the ultimate insult?
society.
and all those crazy fucking "gathering storm" commercials aren't helping.
they also don't make sense:
1- who invented that metaphor? 'the storm is coming'??? what does a storm have to do with marriage? or gays? the rainbow is coming, maybe. rain of glitter.... but a real storm? too dramatic.
2- most of the things the people say don't make sense. how will letting other people be happy and get married affect your life personally? ?????????????
3- i feel like using the term 'rainbow coalition' at the end is confusing and invalid. it makes me think that the whole thing is a spoof. which it isn't. but it's perplexing. just like the rest of the video.

how did that get produced? did nobody say "this doesn't make sense?"

and anyway, i just don't understand why it matters.
because it doesn't.

a touch overrated...

i am incredibly sick of everyone's self-obsessions and everyone complaining about situations that could have been avoided if they were more responsible for their actions.

to tell you the truth, i don't feel bad for them.
BECAUSE IT IS THEIR OWN FAULT.

i'm sick of everyone's drama...
i honestly don't care anymore.
that's why i want to go home.

a playlist for the rain

bilingualism

instead of writing a french essay, i am going to discuss my own experiences with dual language fluency, why it's both amazing and detrimental, and yet always fascinating. (because i am a 'linguist,' probably)

my default for a lot of words and phrases is french. in the previous sentence, i originally wrote "yet toujours fascinating." recently i have taken to saying "in train of" instead of "in the middle of." i say it, get weird looks, and then realize it's not an appropriate english phrase.

because i spend hours at a time in my french classes, which are back to back, i've seen a weird progression that i didn't notice even in paris. which i think is because there, i wasn't also taking english classes a la fois. er, at the time. but the thing is, i do most of my reading and most of my essay writing in french. and i have a hell of a lot of work this semester for my french classes, so let's just say that most of my homework involves reading and writing in french. if not basically all, since i rarely do my english homework.

now i find that when i have to write anything, i am at a loss for english connecting words. "however," "furthermore," etc, all must be translated in my head from french. ce qui est troublant, et really makes my english work much worse than it used to be. i was once upon a time quite a stellar essay writer, and now everything is so basic, because i translate it. from my non-native language.

i guess it has to do with compartmentalization. i write essays in french. i've written maybe a grand total of 3 papers in english my entire time at college. so it makes sense, i guess. it's just such a weird feeling.

perhaps the most embarrassing is when i have to write something up at work, or if i'm in the middle of giving a book report (orally) and there is a long pause because i am searching searching searching for the english word for 'rapport'. which is, of course, relationship.

and right now, i am at a loss for both a french and an english word. when i try to think in neither (or both) language(s) at the same time, my thoughts become really fuzzy.

it's annoying but secretly i think it's wonderful. because my major is linguistics and what i am most fascinated in is language development...

what's maybe the worst is that non-linguistics majors, non-french friends (which, after freshman year and a semester in paris, i have very few of), and basically everyone from long island thinks i do it on purpose and am a snob. but whatever. can't be helped.

now off to find that word...

death & all his friends

is it weird that whenever i get a really bad headache, i think i am going to die of a brain aneurysm?

well yes, of course.

except that 1. they are hereditary and 2. there are no symptoms. it just feels like an extraordinarily bad migraine. so how do you differentiate between worst migraine ever and brain aneurysm?

you don't.
and then you die.

grandma.

my grandmother is crazy. and the best person i know. today was her 79th birthday, and at the end of the day, a few of us were sitting around the outdoor fireplace, wrapped in blankets and listening to my dad play the guitar. she says, "my life is so blessed. and that makes me sad, because some people do not have anywhere near the amount of blessings that i have had in my life. i have had a wonderful life. and i don't blame them [her sisters] for being the way they are [bitter] and feeling god has forgotten about them. because they see me, and they see all this, and they don't have any of it... god really looked out for me."

and the rest of us looked at each other, mouths slightly open in shock.

because my grandmother has had the hardest life of anyone i know. she grew up in brooklyn with italian parents, slept in the same bed as her (3) sisters because they were so poor, had to work really hard and take care of her little sisters/cousins... she met my grandpa, they had five children, and two of them died suddenly, very young (20s). she had difficult custody battles for 3 of the children, my cousins, and ultimately ended up raising them, too. she took care of my great-grandma, her mother, until she died at almost 100 years old. my grandfather had multiple heart surgeries that he wasn't supposed to survive and was a politician. neither of those were easy on my grandmother either... he died a year and a half ago, and now my grandma is alone. except that her crazy sisters moved in with her, making her life maybe even more miserable than it would have been.

most of the people in her life are dead.

so for her to smile tonight and talk about how lovely her life is and how blessed she was brought tears to my eyes.

she has faced (and overcome!) more difficulties than any other person i have ever heard of. fictional characters have had it easier than her, because authors aren't that mean. and for her to say that...

i don't think i'll ever forget it.
i don't ever want to forget it.
she taught me such an important lesson tonight.......

i feel the depression of last semester slipping back into my life.
i don't know what happened. i was so happy all year so far... and now i just don't want to do anything except cry, and it's a gorgeous day out and i don't want to get dressed and i don't feel like being outside.

and i don't want to be alone but i don't want to be around other people. and i can't really think of anything to look forward to.

i wish bryan were here, but he's not. so i wish jesse were here, but he's god-know's-where in southern europe...

i had a bad dream the other night and it's stayed with me ever since, and on top of that, everyone is annoying me and i feel like nobody cares, (even though this time i am certain that i have tons of friends, so i admit that this is just my fucked up head making things up)

and i feel like time is slipping away and i'm wasting it, and i'm not doing what i want and i don't know what i want.

and at the moment i feel like there is nothing good in the world.

i am often stressed and/or afraid because next year i will most likely either be 1. living alone or 2. living at home.

living at home would be a boring way to spend senior year.

but i forget that i already lived alone in paris for five months in a creeptastic huge apartment... and i survived. it was weird and lonely, but i survived...

have/don't have v.2

i have :
- a great little yellow bedroom, filled to the brim with books
- a headache
- a sore throat
- a funny (big/extended) family
- dye on my hands from coloring eggs twice today
- great new colorful shirts from h&m
- wet shoes
- euros sitting on my dresser
- way too much homework
- a desire to be lazy

i don't have :
- a shirt with sleeves on. therefore i am cold.
- enough money in my wallet
- a good attitude
- tolerance for college
- motivation
- contacts that don't hurt my eyes
- the ability to be lazy


want/don't want v.1
i want:
-to be wearing a sweatshirt
-a plane ticket
-an idea of what i'm going to do with my life
-to be in 3 (specific) places at once

i don't want:
-to go back to school ever.
-to have to deal with annoying teachers and difficult/tedious homework assignments.

orangina = animal orgy?

dear french people,
i am dying to know. what do orangina and sexy animal orgies (vom) have in common? and why did you decide to pair them in a marketing campaign that makes me want to run and hide in fear?

france in general likes to create odd couplings. snow-shoeing and the eiffel tower, modern jeff koons art and versailles, tuna-fish and corn, macarons and foie-gras flavoring, april and snow.

but orangina and animal sex? have we gone too far this time, maybe? because really, does seeing a zebra in a purple whorish outfit having some sort of weird orgasm really make anyone want to drink orangina?

music for everyone

so i just discovered this site.
you can make beautiful playlists to share with your friends.

now, i am a giant fan of mixes and lamely think that they are wonderful, personal gifts, and i think everyone should make me one. thanks.

i want the worlllllld, nothin' less...

bryan said that my life was getting glamorous and that he was proud of my new '09 self.

he never says those things, so it needed to be documented here in this blog.



i loveeee tuesday nights...and i only wish i didn't have class so early on wednesdays/always so much work due.

la positive attitude

oh god, yesterday i had such a headache! i skipped class again and instead spent the afternoon in starbucks with dennis, doing nothing and people-watching. and then the minute i get home, i realize i have not had water all day and my head hurts a little. and as the hours pass, it reaches migraine status, con nausea.

it kinda stayed with me all day today. i think i looked dead at work, cause jim and michael kept asking if i was ok/needed to go home. i wanted to go to the bar tonight but i think drinking would not help...

i was going to give up the day as lost, but then michael asked me to do a 'special project'. i have a great YA manuscript next to me, and i get to read through it and note where corrections need to be made. i'm pretty excited. it's a much bigger job than usual/than the interns usually get.

i'm pretty excited for my sister to come visit on thursday, and then to finally go home for the weekend...

part of me wants school to be over tomorrow and to go home for the summer, but i know i won't be back to d&g and it's been fun, and i've really grown to like a few of the agents very much. so i'm not really ready for that to be over yet.

if only new york wasn't so far away ...

I am in a mood right now. Sad.

I'm really tired. I can't remember the last time I slept past 7.50 am, no matter what time I go to sleep.

I am so sick of school and homework and the professors this semester who want everything done in their stupid meticulous little way. It is really hard to type phonetic symbols and trees, I don't have time to watch French films and read 20 boring pages of text a night, I don't want to write you an outline because I don't write outlines, and your class just sucks - the pointless projects, the lectures, and the fact that your final is on the 11th of may.

Between the ending of Shadow Kiss and the season finale of the Real World Brooklyn (you aren't supposed to cry this many times while watching the Real World), I am just tired of life today.

My fictional worlds have been shattered, and all I want to do is sleep...

And why haven't any of my friends called to play this weekend? Lonely lonely lonely and all i want is you....

bookish thoughts : shadow kiss

SPOILERS (just in case anyone stumbles upon this who plans on reading it)

I just finished Shadow Kiss. God. Talk about the worst ending ever... Harry Potter made me cry several times, but Shadow Kiss made me nauseous and my eyes sting. Almost-crying. It just isn't fair.

I am obsessed with Rose and Dimitri's relationship. They were never supposed to fall in love. He was her teacher, her mentor, her lover, her soulmate. They understood each other so completely and would do anything for each other. She thought the world of him and would do anything for him... She was so young at first, and just trying to figure everything out, and he called her out on it every time. He taught her how to grow up, how to control herself, how to be a better person. Like he was. And now what is she supposed to do? I feel like the world is over.

And yet there is that part of me that is clinging to hope. Maybe Mason was lying. Maybe Rose can save Dimitri. Maybe he's okay. He has to be okay, right?

Because it's just not fair.

It's not supposed to end like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
People who have a connection like that are supposed to always stick together. They need each other. One can't just leave...

PS. Going to D&G to intern for the next month is going to be hellish. Because Jim has read Book4 and knows what happens at the very end of Rose's adventures (book 6!), and whenever I see him I won't be able to think about anything else.

Also I wish I were working there over the summer so I could be there when the galleys come in...

Also I think it is so fucking cool that I personally know the guy who got the proposal for Vampire Academy one day a few years ago and thought, "This is awesome." and got it published for all the world to read. Epic cool points.

they sing through life so why can't we?

i am happy. i don't know why. i just am.

some things still suck, but overall life is pretty amazing, huh? i have lots of great friends and a great internship that i love and i have an apartment in the west village, for now, and spring is here.

and i have vampire academy, for now, because i only have a hundred pages left in Shadow Kiss and after that i'll have to wait until august til the next one comes out. and i don't think i can wait that long. i am basically really obsessed with dimitri and scared to death that what i read by mistake on the internet actually happens. because i am obsessed with dimitri and that just can't happen. that'd be the end of the world. that'd be worse than killing sirius black.

it's raining and i love the sound of the rain. i love that i don't have anywhere to go this weekend and that if i choose, i can do homework and relax in my room the entire time. it's gonna rain tomorrow anyway.. i'm not sad. i won't feel obligated to go outside. or compelled to go to yogurtland.