Oh man. It's such a gray day and I can hear the geese honking as the fly overhead, and it just reminded me of Rutgers, sitting in class and watching the rain splash down on Livingston, staring out the window at the geese drinking out of wide deep puddles, writing lines of poetry about them in the margins of my notes, and the way Kusch's voice just sounded so perfect and warm and comforting on a day like that, when I was still sleepy and cold and wet from the rain. I just feel like curling up in bed and sleeping through the day and watching my most soothing TV shows and reading children's books by he yellow lamplight. I wish it were cold and rainy enough for soup and a hooded sweatshirt, that would be perfect.

The last time the Scarlet Knights won big, they lit the Empire State Building red.

We didn't have any major landmarks on our side this time, but we're still Insignificant Bowl Champions! It makes me a little sad that Rutgers students will no longer be able to finish the ubiquitous tale of Rutgers' victory in the first intercollegiate football match with, "And we haven't won a game since." But on the other hand: keep kicking ass, kids.

I would not have missed it for the world.

Like everyone on my aeonian buddy list is Canadian. What's up with that, eh? I wonder if Canadians get really pissed off at Americans saying "eh," eh? Eh??? I remember how amazed I was when I started watching MuchMusic and every sentence really did end in "eh"...eh? God, I miss Ed the Sock.

I'm so hungry. I swear to God I have a tapeworm.

I went to Milledoler to pick up my honor cords today, and ended up walking through the University commencement. Jane Goodall was their speaker too, so I caught the monkey hello again. (The Monkey Hello is totally the new album by Mariska and the Silver Fox.) It was kind of nice to wander across Voorhees Mall with Jane Goodall and a bunch of tweedy professors in the background, and have free reign in Scott Hall. It just figures that I'd get all revved up about academia at graduation.

In your honor, let's make fun of Casey Novak! BEES! Plus: props to Mariska and the Silver Fox (which is the awesomest band name ever, yo)! Now, off to listen to more of the random jazz that Launch is feeding me.

I'm making over my room to make it feel more like home. Which I realized is bizarre because technically it is home, I guess, but it doesn't feel that way. It's just this place where I crashed between dorm rooms, where it's like someone paused my life at sixteen, and it has nothing to do with me at all anymore. So, little by little, I'm getting rid of the old stuff. The stuffed animals are going first, and then the Lisa Frank dolphin posters, and then the kids' books. It's sad, because I don't want to get rid of everything I used to have, but I don't want to live with it either. Because I really can't live with it. My life feels cluttered, and I start reverting, and it's not healthy at all.

But there are some perks to being here. I made my mom cook me dinner, and then I spent all yesterday listening to the iO digital music channels. It totally sucked watching ER in the living room, but next week things will be different. And CRAP, I just realized that my graduation is on a Thursday, which is the same night as the ER finale, and that BLOWS! Damn! Whatever, we shouldn't be out that late.

All right, off to pack up some more old junk. The AIM on my mom's computer doesn't work, so until I get mine up and running, just call me on my cell or on 845-1220.

Stay classy, New Brunswick.

Last takeout. Last of the Chung Festas. Last time in the Murray basement. And I've already had my last nuggets, watched my last episode of ER on the floor in front of the bed, eaten my last college breakfast, and, possibly, had my last shower in the crazy sinky shower. (Okay, part of why I took so long was because I got lost in savoring the crazy sinky shower. Sorry.)

I had my Kusch final today, and as much as I was dreading a mind-numbing two hours of poetry I don't care about, I actually really enjoyed rambling on about Levertov and line breaks and O'Hara's conversational style. I was really sad to finish, but I did, and when I went up to hand in my blue book I wanted to say something to Kusch about how he's been such a great teacher and I really respect him, because it kills me how sometimes people really matter to me and I don't say anything because I don't think it will make sense. So I just give him my blue book, and I say thanks and tell him to have a good summer, and he gives me this look like he wants to say something. Like he gave me when he tried to talk me into the honors program. And I hesitate, and then look down and walk out and sit in the hallway to wait for Pixie. And I see Pixie get up to hand in her exam, and suddenly I think I should get up and wait by the door so Kusch can see I'm still there, just in case. So I do. And he sees me. And he comes out and says, very serious, "You should keep writing." I'm kind of surprised, so I just thank him and say I plan on it, and then he says...well, I can't remember what he said, but it had an adverb. Something like "incredibly talented" or something. And I nod, and Pixie comes out, and he turns to go back in the classroom and, all flustered, I say, "Thank you...you've been a great teacher." And he just nods at me and goes inside. And wow. I know it sounds weird, but he really mattered to me. I have such an enormous amount of respect for him, and I've always kind of wished I did the honors program just so I could have worked with him on the thesis. He's a poet and he used to teach creative writing, too, so I could have done a poetry collection. It would have been great. So now I'm thinking of buying a little thank-you card and writing a little note about how he's been such a great teacher and I really respect him, and slipping it in his mailbox tomorrow when I drop off my portfolio. I should.

Anyway, after that, Pixie and I went downstairs and wrote our initials on one of the bricks, so now the Murray basement is permanently marked by our presence. I'm really going to miss the English department.

I was all about to settle down for a nice healthy snack of fresh banana, and then I was like, "Hey, I still have a jar of peanut butter!" Suddenly, my nice healthy snack is more of a nice healthy vehicle for wonderful sugary lard.

Perfect.

Plus they do indeed have nuggets on Thursday!

I HAVE JUST FINISHED MY LAST PAPER EVER!!!

amidaIa 20: aww, that's sad
girlboymusic: Psh, no it's not.
amidaIa 20: i thought you were going to grad school
amidaIa 20: i don't know why
girlboymusic: haha good one
amidaIa 20: lol
girlboymusic: I am actually the first child in my line to not surpass my parents' education.
girlboymusic: <-- American failure.
amidaIa 20: i love that!
girlboymusic: What?
amidaIa 20: that you're an american failure
girlboymusic: Oh. Me too. :-)

1. The RC Academics page specifically says that you must satisfy the math requirement "by passing one of the following" (emphasis mine). So any passing grade should be good, and if not, I'll give 'em hell.

2. Tomorrow: last takeout nuggets ever. I'm getting really sad. I'm going to miss so much of this place. You don't know what you got till it's gone! (And this bout of nostalgia was precipitated by nuggets. How pathetic am I?)

3. Speaking of how pathetic I am, I'm watching Gilmore Girls and they're in a hospital, and I'm like, "They borrowed the ER set for this scene!" Why? Because I recognized the staircase More specifically, I recognized the staircase railing. And even though TWoP made no mention of it, I was sure because, first of all, the linoleum floor tiles are very distinctive, and second of all, I recognized the set layout as the characters walked around. Also? I can tell you exactly which props and decorations they moved to disguise the fact that it's the ER set. But hey, at least if I'm pathetic, I'm consistent. Food and TV: the loves of my life.

4. I was thinking last night that so many of our most beloved and mythologized female writers were crazy or killed themselves: Plath, Sexton, Woolf, Dickinson. Maybe it's just a function of canonical male writers outnumbering canonical female writers, but it seems like male writers aren't all tragically depressed, and if they are, they're not known primarily for it. I mean, Robert Lowell was in and out of institutions all his life, but nobody ever goes, "Oh, Robert Lowell, he was bipolar." But talk about Sylvia Plath and it's like, "Oh, the one who offed herself in an oven." Prior to taking a class that included her, this was the extent of my knowledge of Anne Sexton: "She was in a mental institution." How was that passed along to me independent of her work and her life? Why did I have to know about that before I could know about her work? And why was it the opposite with Lowell, or Fitzgerald, or any number of disturbed male writers? And it's not just that the women get remembered as depressed and tragic, but they're expected to be that way too. At least men have this macho, Kerouac-and-Hemingway, riding-the-world-for-all-it's-worth, fuck-it-all image to choose if they don't want to be doing the Lowell thing. But women are supposed to be sensitive and fragile and self-effacing and tragic, if they're going to write. There's no such thing as a woman riding the world for all it's worth. Even those who seem like they do, on the surface, like Parker or Jong--there's this little whispered acknowledgement that no matter how brazen they seem, really they're just not right in the head. It's so unfair, and it's so dick that so many female writers continue buying into it.

5. So, yeah, I hate that female writers are always depressed. I also hate that lesbian writers are always depressed. I hate that lesbians in general are always depressed, and also that so many of them had terrible mothers. Be a little more Freudian, will you? This really isn't helping our cause.

6. Finally, I hate when someone I hate is attractive. Not attractive attractive, but just...there's something about them that is specific and good and makes it impossible to hate them completely, because I can't exactly grasp it or name it but I know it means that maybe they were once better than this, or that they are better than this under everything else. But I don't know. I tend to mythologize people and attempt complex characterizations, and maybe people don't deserve that. Maybe people are just jerks. And speaking of jerks, Pixie and I were on a bus with TLM today, and we were having this great bitchy conversation about The Gay Canadian, and he totally stared at us as he got off the bus, and we think he looked like crap. Fantastic!

So, on the scale of 1 to scuzzy, where would you rate just wearing my effing scrub pants to class because I am too lazy to change?

I need to start waking up earlier for work, so when I wake up feeling like crap, I don't end up calling out fifteen minutes before I'm supposed to be there. (Although what time do the supervisors get there? It's not like I can call out two hours in advance of an 8:30 shift.) Of course, waking up earlier would probably increase the probability of waking up feeling like crap, in various ways.

I'm never both home and up at this time of the morning. It's interesting.

And I forgot to mention: ANDY'S BACK! He's supposed to be here for like two weeks. I love when he comes back and nobody tells me, so I randomly come home and he's randomly sitting there. It's like that time (forgive me, Beiz) Christen randomly showed up in my driveway. There's nothing like a good surprise.

77 degrees! Fahrenheit! I've got every window open, plus the door, and it's great, but things are blowing all over the place.

I know I write a variation on this every time the seasons change, but it's funny how certain weather reminds me of certain places, sometimes all at once. Everything's been smelling and sounding like Woodhaven but feeling like L.A., and sitting in a warm classroom with the windows open and a water bottle on my notebook to keep the pages from flipping makes me think of high school, freshman year.

Great, there goes my MetroCard (Metro Card? Metrocard?) receipt. As winner of the 2005 Academy of American Poets University Prize, I should own more paper weights. I bet Sylvia Plath had a ton of paper weights. (Although she probably would have stuck them in her pockets and walked into Passion Puddle, so maybe there are merits to this existence.)

GUESS WHO WON A 2005 ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS UNIVERSITY PRIZE!

YEAH, ME!

This would have been so much better if I had won it based on that semicolon poem, though.

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I am out of almond bark! Woe!

My room is really pretty. It's got a nice mix of art, a cardboard John Kerry, plenty of books, even plentier of magazines, and those nice little jingle bells on the closet door. It's very me. Everything has a place. Everything is more or less in that place. The windows are my favorite old-fashioned kind. Even with the lack of lighting--it's kind of boyish--it's a cool room. I'm quite proud of it.

God, I really don't want to do this paper.

1. Launch spent a half hour thinking I like country music, and then it up and played Hoku. And now it's playing Dishwalla's "Counting Blue Cars." Blast from the past!

2. Speaking of which, I'm getting out of my car in front of Barnes & Noble, and I see this guy lingering by the door looking at me, and I'm like, "WTF?" so I look up and it's Forrest and he is staring at me. You know, Forrest? From middle school? The weird one? Yeah. He's staring at me. And he's going inside and kind of holding the door, so I linger at the curb and look down, like, you know, I'm just hanging out here, not going inside, no need to hold the door for me. And he just stands there. Holding the door. Smiling at me. Forever. So finally I take the plunge and go through the door and thank him for holding it, and he holds the next door for me too, and then I take off through the magazine section because it was really way too weird. He was kind of cute, though. Definitely grew up better than Peter Larsen.

3. Aaand...Jewel. "Foolish Games."

4. Skim just sent me this song by David Stringer, who does Buddhist chants, because I "always like weird strange music." It's pretty awesome. It's like one of those songs they play in the middle of '80s romantic comedies when the couple is split up and crying and staring out big glass windows at the rain over New York City, all sax and drums and everything...but with a Buddhist guy.

5. New girl crush and new boy crush. I should do another 10+1. Till then: More Lauren. More Topher. Lauren. Topher. Lauren. Who wants to squee and trade adorable pictures with me?

6. Finally: I've got a wedding to go to in April, not the lesbian one, and the ceremony is around 3 p.m. with a reception around 6 p.m. Any outfit ideas? I'm thinking my drapey beaded cream H&M top over a plain white camisole, with a black skirt and heels and my red eelskin purse, which seems sufficiently dressy for an afternoon wedding with a dinnertime reception...but I don't know. That's a weird time. Pixie, hurry back and help me!

NO CLASS!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

PS - My editor just called me "babydoll." Is she hitting on me?

My job rules. I had two assignments for the day: (1) collect quotes about pop culture from hip kids in my life, and (2) collect quotes about confidence & inspiration from celebrities in magazines. So I put out a few calls for comments, and settled down with a pile of my editor's magazines to collect celeb quotes while I waited. Basically, I checked out fashion spreads and IMed people all morning.

How exhausting. Time for lunch!

After lunch, I went back to the office and...well, ate. I mean, I was ostensibly typing up the quotes that I had so far, but that took like zero minutes. I ate. And then I went to Borders to pick up some more celeb quotes, and spent an hour and a half chilling in the magazine section and re-doing my eye makeup in their bathroom, and then I got a smoothie, and then I went back to the office and typed up more quotes. I sent the pop culture quotes to my editor at roughly 4:27 and got back the message, "you're awesome!" followed by a long string of exclamation points. I sent the celebrity quotes to my editor at roughly 4:28 and got back the message, "you're the most efficient person ever!" followed by a bunch of stuff about how she really appreciates how I work hard on every project she gives me, even the ones that are annoying or that other people would to a crappy job on, and I don't complain, and I am a shining light of awesome, etc. So I write back like, "No problem. Who would complain about a job that involves reading every magazine in Borders?" I mean, honestly, have there been interns who didn't like doing this stuff? Because maybe they should consider another field. The whole reason I'm going into magazines is because I love magazines. So I was amazed for a few minutes, and then I took one of giveaway books and learned about numerology. Apparently I'm a Life Path 4 and I enjoy my alone time.

OH MY GOD MY GRADUATION IS FIVE HOURS LONG.

Sorry, was looking something up. That's unbelievable. Anyway, yeah, my job rules and everybody loves me. It's a good life. Also, I slept really late and left my building at eight, and then I went back upstairs and changed my shoes, and left my building again at 8:05, and caught the 8:25 train, and I still got to work 20 minutes early. And I cannot begin to describe the profound sense of peace I get from walking into an empty office and settling down at my desk by myself. I guess that numerology book was right.