Second attempt!
1. I emphasized the words that are actually important to the message.
2. I got rid of some of the white space between words.
3. I kept it to three fonts.
4. Fonts that don’t come standard with MS Word.*
*Fonts (in order of appearance):
Wonderland by jully1780
Hand of Sean by Nice and Ripe Ltd
Wednesday by bythebutterfly.com
I pulled this gem off my old LiveJournal. I’m actually surprised (but very grateful) that I still remember the password.
This is from August 5, 2005. I’m really working hard to restrain from editing. (Oh, and as far as I can tell, the title means nothing but was probably the angstiest word in the song I was listening to at that exact moment.) Enjoy!
==
COLLAPSE
I have been at UC Davis for three years, and the number of things that I have exclaimed “Yes, let’s do that!” and then never done is astounding. Here is a brief list of examples:
1. Run through the maize maze (Woodland?) in the fall.
2. Gone, with any sort of regularity, to the Farmer’s Market. (And “But it’s SATURDAY MORNING” is no longer an excuse, as they have Wednesday evening FMs for which I know I am awake.)
3. Mini-golfing…Scandia…Sacramento…wherever.
4. The Davis Public Library: If I’m missin The Babysitters Club, they’re only a couple blocks away.
5. The MU Games Area.
Until tonight.
A bunch of us went to go bowling. It’s cheap, it’s accessible, it’s fun, it’s not too athletic (heaven forbid we do something cardio), and we all claimed to be bad at it. (Which was a huge lie, be careful of Drew, he will try to hustle you, but he’s bad at hustling.)
As far as I can see, bowling is bowling (*unless it’s $1.35/game and $.85/shoes*) and I thought it was all going to be very…familiar. Bowling. Ugly shoes and socks with shorts (what else could possibly be hotter?), and people watching your back, golf clapping for you whenever you turn back around but secretly chanting “gutter ball!” to themselves.
HOWEVER, UC Davis, well-known for several things, cows and a ginormous library being not the least of them, also features a “Rockin’ Bowl” to put all other “Rockin’ Bowl”s to shame.*
*Note: Writer has never actually been to any Rockin’ Bowls, nor does she know whether the term is “Rockin’ Bowl” or “Rock & Bowl,” but frankly, neither does she particularly care, and if you are still reading this, maybe you should just marry editing if you love it so much.*
So it seems to me that “Rockin’ Bowl” is made up of 4 main components. I will go through these for anyone who is unlucky enough to have never experienced the majesty.
#1. The music. Already loud when you walk in, and louder when you descend into the bowling pit, I mean area, it is turned up by a kid who can’t be older than 18 who tight-rope-walks down someone’s gutter to crank up the volume on the speakers sitting mid-lane. The number of times this exchange occurred is more than I want to remember:
*something unimportant*
“What?”
*repeat something unimportant*
“What?”
*repeat something unimportant, again, and louder, and also in a slightly embarrassed tone*
“What?”
“Never mind, it wasn’t that funny.”
“WHAT?”
“NEVER MIND!”
Then both parties would pretend to have heard the other, and that bit of conversation would be over.
Oh the glory.
#2. The music videos. Four large projection screens plummet from the heavens, and for the next…I don’t know how long it lasts. From then on, music videos are played on these screens. Music videos for songs whose names I only vaguely recognize. Music videos that are not nearly as clever as Britney Spears’ “Lucky” or Blues Traveler’s “Run-Around.” Music videos with angsty-looking men whose voices remind me sort of Phish, except I’m not thinking of these men as fondly as I think of Phish.
If I wanted to watch music videos, I would have been sitting at home whining about not having MTV. Or I would be going to Erin’s gym to “work out” and watch TV. It would not have occurred to me to go to Rockin’ Bowl at the UCDMU Games Area.
#3. The lights. Strobe and disco, namely. As soon as the fluorescents dimmed and the colored lights began to spin and I began to think about maybe getting a headache, I was also transferred immediately back in time to high school dances. (Probably more middle school, honestly, because in high school I went to 1 dance that was not a prom or formal (neither of which seemed to feature strobe lights to the degree of your everyday school dance), and I left that 1 dance pretty early.) So, middle school dances. So why was my impulse, on the strobe lights, to make out with someone? I was definitely not doing that in middle school.
Hold up, I wasn’t doing that in high school, either.
#4 and finally. The fog. I didn’t notice it for awhile (or maybe it didn’t get going until a little bit after the lights, etc., made their appearance on the scene), but once I did, I was transported to the backstage area of the Mondavi Center, kneeling on the ground, with my head in the Coke machine, filling it with fog so that the guy who played Eddie could trip over me to get in it before all the fog drifted out and we missed his entrance.
It’s funny that I “hated” Rocky Horror so much while it was going on, but now I can totally look back fondly and think “Awwww. Backstage at Mondavi, dressed up with Katie and Tyler and Eric. How cute. And foggy.”
So while, for a minute or two, I was thinking to myself, “Man, I suck at bowling…good thing I’m good at mini-golf,” I spent some time post-our-game checking out the other people playing, and I realized that most people are not that good. Except for this one girl who got three strikes in a row, I saw on her screen. There was a little cartoon of bowling-pin Caesar in a chariot. But I digress. I don’t think that the UC Davis Memorial Union Games Area is the place to be super-concerned about your bowling skillz. (I am, frankly, more worried about my inability to write “skills” instead of “skillz.”)
So all in all, I guess I learned a good lesson tonight.
And that lesson is, remember to bring socks so I don’t have to wear socks that I find in the backseat of the car, socks that dump sand everywhere when I turn them right-side-out.
Oh, and I also learned not to stress about my bowling abilities.
In 5th grade, we had to do periodic book reports. For some people, that might have meant just standing up in front of the class and saying, “I liked the part when.” I don’t recall whether we were required to make our book reports more interesting, or just encouraged, or maybe I was just overeager and had too much time on my hands. But I remember book reports being A Thing.
When I read Black Beauty, my “report” took the form of a board game based on the book. The playing pieces were horses because I had many toy horses lying around. Inexplicably, I incorporated a bottle of “horse perfume” which was really just a giant green bottle with a stopper, and the stopper was sprayed with Lysol so it smelled like a vet’s office. I think it was called Eau de Horse, and there were flies drawn on the label. I have no recollection of how this was a part of the game.
The only other thing I remember is that part of my high-pressure performance was to roll the dice, count one-two-three, and land on a square saying, “You broke your leg. Game over,” and then I pulled out a cap gun and shot the horse figurine.
WHAT WAS THIS GAME ABOUT.
Confession #1: I never finished Black Beauty.
Confession #2: My dad was the mastermind behind this twisted board game. If you know him, then this probably doesn’t seem weird to you. In fact, this might sound strangely familiar to you. Maybe he helped you with a weird board game for a book you secretly never finished reading.
My dad is a quirky guy, who is willing to put himself out there, whether it’s in a skit or a performance or clowning or entertaining or just hamming it up behind the scenes. I admire that self-confidence and commitment.
I might not have inherited that same level of enthusiasm (unfortunately), but I think I did get a little bit of his artistic quirk. While making Black Beauty the Board Game, I showed my mom the label for the Eau de Horse, and her response was, “You can’t let Dad do the whole report for you.” I remember this very clearly because I was pretty much bursting with pride that she thought that Dad had created the label that I had written and illustrated all by myself! Clearly, if she mistook it for his work, it was amazing.
I learned two things from this experience:
1. Book reports are not always about the books; and
2. If I’m lucky, people will compare me to my dad and see the ways that I am like him.
Happy Father’s Day, Dad! Thanks for setting me on the right path early. I hope I am making you proud!
Drew: Get a piece of wood from a tree…that’s made into a werewolf. Then…
(long pause)
Me: Then what?
Drew: Tear it.
Me: And that’s it?
Drew: Yeah.
Me: Okay.
Happy birthday to my wonderful, inspiring, awesome mom!
You’re the best mom a girl could ask for! Hope today is wonderful!
(We need to take some new pictures together!)
The other night at the theatre, it was about 6pm and it was all warm and sunny and beautiful, and this 20-ish-year-old couple came walking through the courtyard, holding hands. He let go and vaulted over this low railing, and then turned around and looked at her, needing approval. I thought that was so cute, that he was showing off for her. Then he tried to help her jump over the railing, which of course she pretended like she couldn’t do. Then she got up on this planter box and he stood about 20 feet away and took pictures of her. And I was watching them and thinking, Isn’t love great?
Then an hour or so later, this 60s-ish couple came in and they were waiting for the box office to open. When I looked back at them again, she had gone up to the first landing of the stairs, and he was standing at the bottom taking pictures of her. And I just melted, because love and showing off love doesn’t just apply to 20-year-olds.
It’s springtime and people are twitterpated. I don’t know what it is but I know that I’ve felt a little giddy the past few days – the warmer weather? The extra vitamin D? The opportunity for more exercise outdoors? In the fall, my favorite season is the fall, but at this time of year, spring is definitely it.
So show off some love!
I suck at technology. I’m not saying that in a braggy, isn’t-this-funny sort of way. I suck at computer-related things, car-related things, and iPhone-related things.
At some point I got into my head that I did not want to download the new operating system for my phone. So I just never did. But things started slowly dropping off the map: certain apps wouldn’t let me update them because I didn’t have the new iOS, then there were new apps I couldn’t even download, then I couldn’t even use some of the apps I had. Ridiculous.
So I tried to download the new iOS…and for some reason I couldn’t complete it. I downloaded the new iTunes, I downloaded the new iOS, but my computer consistently got stuck on backing up my phone. I left it plugged in for hours, and no dice. One night I left it plugged in overnight, hoping that when I woke up magic would’ve happened…but apparently when my laptop went to sleep, it shut down the backup. Disappointing.
I knew I needed to just go to the Apple store. But who has time to do that?
Well, finally, one day a couple weeks ago I magically found time to do just that in the middle of the afternoon. I dropped by the Apple store at the Hillsdale Mall and was told that all I needed to do was to make an appointment at the Genius Bar. Which I did. I went back a couple days later, at my appointed time, and spoke to Johnny. He was a delightful and helpful Genius with an assortment of tattoos, including the Apple logo.
I was prepared for the fact that they might have to wipe entire phone to update the iOS, so I had backed up everything the night before. It was still nerve-wracking: I sat there and watched the status bar progress, just hoping that everything would go okay.
A 30-something in a suit sat down next to me and told Johnny about how his phone had stopped charging and he needed to buy another one. Then I felt grateful that I didn’t have to buy another phone. (Then my thoughts started spiraling out of control, and I found myself at the point of “I’m glad I’m just losing my contacts and not my family,” etc etc.)
When I got home that night, I plugged my phone into my laptop to sync everything back up, and EVERYTHING – contacts, apps, photos, texts – repopulated in the phone. A complete success. And all thanks to Apple! Great products and awesome customer service!
(I did end up deleting all photos and videos anyway, because they were taking up all the available space. After I did that, I could update all apps and even download new ones, and start taking more pictures! Life is good.)
Okay, here’s something from one of my creative writing: fiction classes at Davis. I have zero recollection of writing this, but it’s got my name on it (and it sure sounds like me). The prompt for this little homework blurb was:
A Stranger Comes to Town (April 2004)
“Guess where I am,” he said, and then, without waiting, “I’m coming to see you.” She went through a quick spray of shock, excitement, happiness, and then suddenly shock again. He lived an hour and a half away from her – two hours in heavy traffic – and while they had been talking over the phone for the entire summer, she didn’t feel the need to meet him in person. He had offered to drive down to visit her several times, and each time she had mumbled stories of previous engagements and sworn vague promises. “I got tired of waiting for you to make up your mind. I’ll be there in an hour.” The call ended and she was left holding the phone to her ear. She was still holding it there when it rang again, no more than a minute later. “I know what you’re thinking.” He began talking before she could even say “hello.” “You’re thinking that I don’t know where you live and so how can I find you? You’re thinking you’re going to hide in a city of twenty thousand people. I know you’re working tonight and there can’t be many Blockbusters in town. I’ll see you soon.” He hung up again without waiting for her to say anything. She couldn’t help feeling that, despite their telephone relationship, he was really just a stranger coming to town.
I’m intrigued by this…and also by the reference to Blockbuster. LOL.
So I made this “25 books in 2013” resolution for myself. What with book club, audiobooks (yes, I’m counting them), and keeping a list of what I should read next on GoodReads, things are going pretty well so far.
I’m currently reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Have you heard of this book? Has someone told you to read it? If so, and if you haven’t, then now is the time. Put down whatever lame book you’re reading and immediately start reading Gone Girl.
This is the first book I’ve read in awhile that I’ve found really, truly engrossing. I can’t put this book down. I started reading it 2 days ago and I’ve been devouring it, but my reading hours are limited these days, meaning I end up staying up way too late reading. Then I wake up exhausted (at 2:30…at 3:30…at 5:30…) but still not quite regretting my decision. I can understand when people say they got through this book in one sitting. (I used to sit around on the weekends, when Drew worked at The Lion King, and I would just read all day. I would sleep in and then literally sit around reading. All. Day. Long.)
Anyway. I had regular friends tell me to read this book, I had work friends tell me, Sarah and Vinnie told me, and I just kept going, “Yeah yeah.” Then someone finally loaned it to me and I finally picked it up and the rest is history. Every night when I reluctantly close the book I just keep thinking, “What is happening?! What’s going to happen?!” I am a little sad that I’m going to finish it soon. But also I’m thrilled because OMG WHAT’S HAPPENING?!
It’s funny, I’ve actually had one of Gillian Flynn’s other books saved in my Amazon cart forever. A couple years ago I went through Amazon, clicking from one recommendation to another, and dumping anything that looked interesting into my cart. Then I stuck everything into “save for later,” and I mostly ignore it. But Flynn’s Sharp Objects is near the top of that list, so I see it every time I check out with my other products, and I keep thinking I should check it out. And now? I 100% will. (I almost bought it yesterday, but then I bought myself an external hard drive instead.)
ANYWAY. If the storyline, the suspense, and the writing weren’t enough to keep me enraptured, here’s the one little thing that pushed me over the edge into adoring Gillian Flynn. Without giving anything away, this is a paraphrased line from the book:
She waited in the car and watched her husband and me exchange papers. (And yes, that is the correct wording: her husband and me.)
I LOVE YOU GILLIAN FLYNN. I love you and I love that you said that. (PS: It’s said in a diary entry type chapter, so it’s the character’s interjection, not technically the writer’s, so it’s acceptable.)
Okay. I seriously have to finish this book tonight.
I just saw this commercial this afternoon, and I love it.
Partly because I’m like, “it’s so true!” But mostly because I think it might be the first time I’ve ever seen breastfeeding on regular cable TV. With all of the reading I’ve done over the last year, and all of the breastfeeding stats and stories, and knowing how trendy it is right now…I still haven’t seen it being portrayed on TV as a totally natural and public thing to do. And the commercial isn’t saying it’s particularly granola or new-agey…it’s just a regular-type mom in an everyday restaurant, doin’ what ya do.
Bravo, Luvs commercial. I’ll probably still buy Pampers because I really like them, but maybe you’re right and I’ll see you in a few years when we do this all again.
The Cameraphone Diaries 