it's all a bit home grown

i love kate nash. she is officially my new musical obsession. though, if you have ridden in my car in the last month or so, you already know that. don't get me wrong, she's not for everyone. her songs are awkward and strange, she has trouble keeping a steady beat (watch this), and her lyrics make you wonder if she's just a little crazy. but she has something. i don't claim to know anything about music, but if julian is downloading girly folk/pop, there is something interesting happening there. i appreciate the craziness and i love her voice and lyrics. they are funny and sassy and bitter and wonderfully feminine, and you get the feeling that these are things that actually happened to her. and, most importantly, i can continue to perfect my chav londoner accent that i've been practicing all summer along with my lily allen cd.

i do have a point, i swear.

i can't get my hands on her cd! you see, she got really popular really quickly due mostly to myspace, and they rushed her album out after her single went crazy. so the day it was released i went to amazon.com to order my copy only to find out that it would have to be imported and would cost me a small fortune (for a cd, that is). wha?!? i had considered that it would be hard to find but i had not counted on it costing almost $50. weak. so i wait a few weeks in hopes that america would catch up, but no such luck. i don't know what i would do if i didn't have someone on the inside (england, not the record industry) to send me cds. thanks, jackie! she's sending kate nash as well as cherry ghost, lucky me! till then i still have my crappy, incomplete, poor quality downloads....

this is her most popular (though not my favorite) song:

enjoy!

training week 2

not so good. i did manage to do my required running, but injured myself in the process. i think the dancing and maneuvering in my tall yellow shoes contributed to the injury as well. all of the sudden on sunday my right calf was hurting like you wouldn't believe. real pain, not a good kind of sore. it felt like that one time i did pilates, only isolated to one calf muscle. i've been hobbling up and down the stairs like a gimp. also, i went out (and therefore drank copiously) five nights this week. that is ridiculous. almost lohan-esque. i'm thinking i either need a real job or a boyfriend to slow me down and keep me at home. eh.....i'll try the job first. anyway, here's the plan for week 2:

workout: i'll keep it the same, i'm still getting into the groove of running again. maybe 4 times/week if i'm really feeling it.

diet: holy crap, i blew it this week. taco diner, taco cabana, too much beer, cider, and wine. i'm gonna go to central market and stock up on healthy stuff. and wine, i can't lie.

feeling: blah. running outside sucks. maybe they have good gyms in rehab.

listening to: lily allen, clap your hands say yeah, sloan.

in other news, i painted this today:

this is sorta what i want my tattoo to look like, but i'm still working on the design. i definitely like the color, though. hopefully, the tattoo dude or lady will be a better artist than i am....

"august doesn't look good on me"

i overheard a girl in the bathroom say that and i agree.
just look at my sweaty bangs!
here is another new haircut pic:

i'm kinda getting a cat power vibe here, except that chan marshall is infinitely cooler/hotter than i am. so we went to the pub quiz at trinity hall on sunday and we were second to last again. this is unnacceptable. you can't do anything with three people. we need at least 10 if we're gonna win this thing. and so, i am trying to organize one day where tons of people come so i (uh, i mean we) can finally win and stick it to those smug bastards who always sit by us outside. jerks.

we've got music, art, and lit covered pretty well but we need sports, history, science, and movie experts as well as someone on the older side. as in born before 1980. so i'm putting together a pub quiz dream team, if you will. i think with me, sarah z, sarah l, tony, laura, dennis, hance, julian, alex, nadiyah, and milad we will be unstoppable. i only wish kari lived here. for the record, if i was on who wants to be a millionaire, kari would be my only non-family lifeline. she knows everything about everything.

so i'll pick a date, try to convince hance to make a flyer for it, and i'll get back to you.

i've got some beers, let's drink 'em!

so friday night didn't go how i expected. i couldn't get anyone to go to the granada to see jlr, even though they are pretty great and it would have been free. i love their songs, they make me want to put on a pretty vintage dress and dance with a cute boy. and there's nothing wrong with that. i'm sure i could have talked julian into going, but i feel i have cashed in too many favors with julian this year, especially of the "come see this band!" variety. ah well.

so i headed to lauren's house to drink some beers and talk about our new haircuts, which we did for hours. yes, hours. then we set out for fallout and things got a little more interesting. some dude asked us to sit with him and we had a pretty great conversation. and really, this is the only reason we frequent this area. there are always new nice people and excellent conversations. other than that, they are just really shitty bars.

so the cherry vodka sours made an appearance again and we danced the night away again. and i ran into a guy i vaguely remembered from high school and he's kinda hot now. all right! that is at least the third time that i've been glad i was nice to everyone in high school. has anyone talked to joey nelson in awhile?

still no hair pics yet, i blame hance and/or julian, our resident photographers. i refuse to take a picture of myself.

you know what i just remembered???

how there were strippers at exposition park last week! let me explain. last week z, ren, and i were eating dinner at meridian, you know, because it's wednesday and that's what we do on wednesdays. anyway, we keep seeing these girls walk by in costumes (firewoman, lady covered in balloons, etc) and going into expo park down the street. curious, no? so later when we're headed around the corner to amsterdam, we see the balloon girl through the window. you see, this bar has huge windows all around it, and a crowd of chubby hipster dudes had gathered pretty quickly. so she's dancing on a table and popping her balloons and has basically underwear on beneath them. about that time we realized what was going on, but we were still confused about the strangeness and wondering about the legality of this situation. i mean, strip clubs have dark windows for a reason, right? there were also logistical problems with this plan, why would these guys go inside if there's a free show from the street? it was pretty crazy. also, the girl was not attractive. i'm just sayin.

i know what you're thinking: "how could you possibly forget about this?" well a drink or two turned into ten (i blame lauren and her cherry vodka sours) and we got shitfaced. there's no other word for it. we were sore the next day from dancing. check us out!

ladies and gents, i have a new haircut

i finally got bangs! soon, i will shut up about my hair. lucky you. i think i look like a different person. i think i look tough, which is different, but i'm not sure if it's good or bad. i've gotten good reactions from it so far (my mom said i look like a rockstar and jonesy called me "pretty lady") so i'm pleased. julian reassured me that it was still nerdy enough to attract dorky guys. phew! it really is a whole new look though. i may have to rethink some outfits......

their softball game was pretty lame today, it ended early on the mercy rule. it's always fun, though. i love how dave always laughs at my jokes. he's a man of few words so it means more when he laughs. and i lent milad the first season of arrested development. i'm pretty confident that i've watched that show more than anyone else on the planet (except for keaton of course) and i absolutely cannot wait till there's someone else around to understand my references to it. even the title of my blog is a reference to a recurring joke on the show.

"...her? is she funny or something?"

pictures soon!

i'm tipsy, thanks taco diner!

this is the cake i made for tony's surprise party. it tasted better than it looks. 3 layers of vanilla cake with buttercream icing. i am now a buttercream convert and will only use fondant for details.

anywho, i went to dinner tonight with some old friends. i forgot my polaroid, otherwise you could see some solid evidence. t, milad, julian and i went to taco diner. i have known these boys for at least 10 years and i love them dearly. some things never change. one of those things is t.

i also lent julian some books today. he left it up to me to suggest something he would like and it was difficult. going through my book collection i realized they mostly fall into 3 categories.

non-fiction: inaccessible to most people. these are not light reading. though the subjects range from rhetoric to gene cloning to 17th century art, these are all intense books. text-like. no good for julian.

overtly feminist: sylvia plath, virginia woolf, sandra cisneros, alice walker, etc. while these are inspiring to me, i don't see julian getting into them.

jewish: woody allen, born to kvetch, gimpel the fool, etc. i am obsessed with all things jewish. don't ask.

i ended up giving julian chronicles (bob dylan) because i don't see how anyone could not like it, a collection of essays by ralph ellison because there's lots about music and black america, the lone ranger and tonto fistfight in heaven (sherman alexie) because it's trippy and real and funny and exciting, and a short story collection by donald barthelme. that last one is a risk. it's a very strange book. we'll see. i do not feel confident in my book recommending.

smiles and high fives!

i'm running 'the rock'

i was inspired by keely and melissa to run the half marathon at white rock this year. i'm psyched! i have exactly 110 days to get ready for it, which is definitely attainable, but not easy. my brother has generously donated one of his ipods to my cause. i also found out when i registered that the race benefits scottish rite children's hospital, which has always had close ties to my family. my dad served on the board, i have taught art there, and my brother spent a few weeks there. a good cause is a bonus. training starts now!

week 1:

workout: 4 miles, 3 times/week, weights and yoga as usual, timing is not in the equation yet

diet: no more cokes or fried stuff (this is just a guess at what i should do, if anyone has a better suggestion, i'm open)

feeling: excited, optimistic about being less squishy in a month or two

listening to: cream, rush, ben kweller (good running music is essential)

wish me luck!

i'm back

back to blogging. get excited!

i worked on a habitat for humanity house today, and it was a really interesting experience. we did the framing today, and we saw huge payoffs from our work. it started out as a concrete slab, and now it's a house! it's crazy. most of the people working on the house were from my dad's company so there were blackberry checks every few minutes. psssh, executives. luckily, a dude (luke) that i get along with well was there and joined in with my silliness. (unluckily, my mom was trying to hook us up. sigh.) i figured since we were doing construction i should tell dirty jokes all day, and i did. there were plenty of opportunities for it. (nailing, caulk, etc.) here is a pro/con recap:

pros:
the work was fun/interesting
i learned some new construction terms
hanging with my family and cool people
the family getting the house was terribly kind and very deserving
we built a freaking house, how cool is that?

cons:
i was hungover for the first few hours
it's fucking august
i hammered my finger and almost lost a fingernail (luke did too)
a five year old called me a "scaredy cat" because i wouldn't touch her caterpillar
allergies were in full effect by 2 pm, hives and all