I WANT THIS JACKET SOOOO MUCH.

I've never wanted a piece of clothing this expensive in my life.

http://www.julesb.co.uk/elm-309.phtml

It's a cool and versatile piece. For real. I've been getting more and more into fashion lately. I mean, not in practice at all (I'm pretty dedicated to my sweats and hobo look in general), but I wish that I had the financial means to create a whole new wardrobe from scratch. Like I'd love to be on "What Not To Wear". I have looks that I'd love to create in real life, but I just need some guidance as well as some sort of financial miracle. The make-over wouldn't be bad either. LOL

So WeightWatchers... well I haven't really been following it yet. Next Monday I'm going to a meeting because I feel that it makes a huge difference. I mean the e-Tools are very helpful, but weighing-in every week makes the progress (or lack-of-progress) real. The scale doesn't lie. There is more to being healthy than weight, yes, but right now I think it's a good indicator or where I am in terms of my health. I can't really work out, so I have to be more careful about what I eat. I know a bunch of holidays are coming up which equals more eating, but I really hope I can start to get some sort of handle on my eating habits. They're pretty horrible, actually. I eat way too much, and I'm not even saying that in an anorexic dancer type of way. I'm saying it in a I-eat-way-more-than-the-average-person way. Here's to hope...

So I'm supposedly out of the walking cast next Monday. I really hope everything is going well down in my right foot. I'm gonna be in the hard-sole shoe for a month. In a couple weeks I have a second appointment with the dance orthopedist during which we will X-ray my foot to see if it's healing and come up with a plan for the rest of my recovery. Fingers crossed!

So this winter break is looking to be family filled. I'm leaving school on December 18th, I'm going with my family on a Christmas Train at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk on December 19th, going to the DAC party on the 20th, going to Monterey for a few days at a resort with my family and my cousin Sarah's family for the 21st through the 24th, going up to my dad's on the 24th and staying until the 27th, and going to Yosemite with my family and my cousin Sarah's family from the 27th until the 30th. I'm probably going back to my dad's for New Years. Then I'm going to spend most of January doing leatherwork during the day and chilling with friends and family at night. My family will be back to school starting January 4th or something, so I'd like to keep somewhat busy. I was supposed to go on a trip to Baltimore with one of the professors I'm doing research for, but she was only going for a couple of days and I didn't really want to go to a Linguistics conference essentially by myself. There were only a few lectures that I was interested in and it seemed like it'd be taking from my time in California. It just didn't feel right. I didn't want to disappoint them, but at the same time I think that there are better things that we could be spending our research money on. I'll be going back to NYC either January 30th or 31st.

I start back to classes on February 1st. Here is what my academic schedule looks like for next semester:

Monday:
5:50-7:10 Normal Language Development
7:15-9:55 Senior Seminar for Psychology

Tuesday:
2:30-5:20 Speech Pathology 1: Speech Disorders

Wednesday:
10:00-2:00 Neurophysiology Lab Internship
5:50-7:10 Normal Language Development

Thursday:
10:00-2:00 Neurophysiology Lab Internship
2:30-5:20 Speech Pathology 2: Language Disorders

I'll probably babysit on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoons. I'll be taking my dance classes again, too, hopefully, and this schedule works out nicely with the classes I want to take.

So I've been wanting to get more crafty lately. I'm looking forward to getting my leather tools this winter. I want to do leather work, making stuff and decorating stuff. But I also want to learn how to do other things. I love doing beadwork and I'd really love to take it to another level. I learned how to create glass beads this past summer, kiln and all, and man, I think that I could really do some cool stuff with that. This is the type of kiln I was looking at because it can work with glass and ceramics:

http://www.bigceramicstore.com/Supplies/kilns/olympic-120v.htm#HotBox

Here are the skills that I'm interested in learning:
glass bead/pendant making
pottery
fabric painting
sewing
knitting
and
silk painting

I can learn silk painting at camp, so I'm not too worried about that one. I think that my mom would be interested in a few of these as well. I know she's into silk painting because she made a beautiful piece at this fundraiser for the Mendocino Woodlands that was at my church. We put it on the alter at my aunt Patty's memorial service in Syracuse in September. The kiln is like $650 at the cheapest, so that will take some convincing, but I think she'll come around. So... I'm just trying to keep myself awake at this point. I don't know how long it's taken me to write this entry. I've been multitasking, watching "Beetlejuice" and messing around on Facebook in addition to writing this. My bus to Syracuse leaves in less than 3 hours. Nice.

Pie! Pi! Totes! Coats!

Tomorrow: looking at puppies.

Ha! So close.

NaBloPoMo, I don't know. You just aren't as exciting this year.

I had my SAT crash-course with refsunbrendans this afternoon, and it was mostly delightful, except for the fact that I completely panic when faced with math and become unable to even figure out the most basic arithmetic. For real. My mind goes completely blank, and my heart-rate increases, and I maybe want to cry just a little bit. It's embarrassing. So. For the math portion of the test, I am content to simply get A Score. The rest of the SAT, however, I will freakin' demolish, because words and I are the best of friends.

Two eight-hour rehearsal days this weekend. I have already heard way too many Christmas carols for mid-November.

Feeling like a grandma. Soooo sleepy. I think I'm just gonna take my pills and go to sleep. Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!!!

here we have a list of grammar faqs.

although i disagree with some of them (please don't ever say "amongst"), this is a pretty comprehensive list of shit that people frequently have trouble with.

english = hard

This is crazy. I come home, I'm absolutely exhausted, and I just crash for about an hour, only to wake up and feel like it's the next day. It's like that montage in Fight Club when he's chasing Tyler from airport to airport.

Could my suave double be out plotting mayhem without my knowledge?

...maybe this is a hint to stop staying up late and drinking coffee before bed time.

Oh, and what have I learned from my Twitter experiment?

Trying to actively tweet gives me a headache.

So does trying to tweet with a purpose.

If I want to do something with purpose, it shall be fun, in which case, I'll just grab an issue of Highlights.

(Am I the only one who used to think the tagline for Highlights was "Fun With A Porpoise"?)

So today I realized that I am actually really lonely and it's taking its toll. I have had these feelings before, of course, but I realized today that I don't do well living all by myself. I lived here at the Y my sophomore year, but by this time I was hanging out with Keith all the time and when I'd get sick of him I'd go to the gym or do my homework. Last year I lived with three other people, so I was forced to be social whenever I was home. But, now, here I am at the Y again, not really knowing anyone in the building and feeling incredibly isolated. It doesn't help that I wasn't able to go to the initial floor meeting at the beginning of the semester and that I haven't been able to go to any of the events put on by the RAs. Also, my room is a mess. Honestly, I hate my room. In general, I don't have the motivation to do anything about it. I always think that it doesn't matter, that I'll be leaving in May anyway. But I think that it really reflects what's going on inside my head, as corny as that sounds. I have my pills next to energy drinks, hair products next to homework, Ramen next to my CDs, bubble gum next to spray glue, and an overfilled trash can below my GRE study packet and my hair straightener. I also have my art stuff all over the place, from my closet to my window sill. And the one picture that I have, the one reminder that there are people out there who love me, is on my window sill buried be neath an sketchbook, a book called "Evoked Potential Audiometry", and a toy alligator that I got from a fish bowl full of booze at Brother Jimmy's. Everything is mixed up. All of the parts of a functional person are there, but they're just all in the wrong places. Tonight, I really want to make a serious change in my environment. Even though the people below me are going to hate me, I'm going to clean up, move my furniture around, and decorate until I feel a little more satisfied with what I see. It's just bad and it must change. I'm pretty sure my sanity relies on it. But that doesn't really solve the whole social thing. My mom says that I need to start going to church again, which I agree with. Since I'm not going to the ballet class that would conflict, it's a good thing to start doing again. I feel that's a good start. 

this made me smile and nod and then grin and then nod some more and then smile again.

I waited until almost the last possible moment yesterday to get my NaBloPoMo offering in. I'm sure you were all in a frenzy of concern. Anyway, don't miss "Remember When I Went to Vegas Last Month? Part 1". Part 2 will be up sometime before the Mayan calendar runs out.

Cίνί׀ Wαґ CҺґίs†mαs rehearsals are well underway. My two girls are both complete angels who basically need little to no wrangling whatsoever. Also, both their mothers have been at every rehearsal so far, so I'm almost feeling a wee bit superfluous at the moment. On the other hand, I am more or less getting paid to sit and read Gormenghast. So no complaints here.

Thanks to my stumbling across a full copy of this a few days ago, I have discovered that I kind of love Barnum, and rediscovered that I really love Michael Crawford. (He walks on a tightrope at the end of Act I. A tightrope! While singing! That little YouTube clip doesn't showcase it, but the man is - or was, I guess - such a phenomenal physical performer.)

Bet you thought I forgot about you, NaBloPoMo. NO DICE.

Hey, remember that time I went to Vegas about a month ago? I sure did take some pictures! (I, uh, also put those pictures up on Facebook right when we got back. So those of you who are my Facebook-friends will find this set of entries to be lame. Suck it up, babies.)

So, Vegas! It was my first time going there ever! After a frenzied morning where my alarm didn't wake me up and we had trouble finding parking at the airport and we thought we might miss our flight, my mom and I ended up snuggled safely in our spacious JetBlue seats, on our way to Nevada. First, though, we had to stop off at the Long Beach airport.


Glamorous!
The airport had a nifty kind of retro vibe going on, and I'm always a fan of the open-air staircase as a means of plane exit and entry. Makes me feel like some kind of rock-star. Anyway, our terminal was actually in, like, a portable building, and birds kept coming in and hopping around, and it was very odd. Luckily, we were only stuck there for about twenty minutes before they let us back on the plane to continue on to Vegas.


Yaaaay, JetBlue!
We soon landed, then hopped on a shuttle (doing our best to ignore the schlocky tour-guide fella pushing various restaurants and clubs) and eventually wound up at our hotel, Treasure Island.


Our room. The beds had the comfiest pillows, oh man.


Our view. Everything looks like it's so close! But this is mere ~*~illusion~*~.
After taking a bit of time to get settled in, we decided to slowly mosey our way towards Paris, where we had dinner reservations for later in the evening.

( LET US EXPLORE VEGAS )
My first impressions of The Strip? Well, gigantic, first off. You can't really conceive of how huge everything is until you are actually standing there on the sidewalk and Caesar's is just stretching out in front of you for eternity. Also, Vegas is hot. Angry hot. It's like Vegas is an entirely different planet, and its sun is pissed off. I can't imagine visiting in the summer. I'm pretty sure I got burned in the fake outdoors at the Venetian, for Christ's sake. Finally, Vegas is The Sleaziest. I mean, look...I am not opposed to boobies. But when the streets are so littered with cards sporting boobies of every shape, size, and color that you are actually in danger of slipping on them and breaking your neck...that's just too much booby. Take it down a notch, Vegas.

Anyway, dinner! We ate at Mon Ami Gabi at Paris, out on the terrace directly across from the Bellagio fountains. There was steak, and wine, and the best French onion soup ever, and we took our sweet time as the furious Vegas sun raged its way down past the horizon.

( A few dinner pictures. But...not pictures of food. Sorry, food-porn people. )
Our next destination was the MGM Grand for the 9:00 showing of KÀ. The walk took us through a seedier portion of The Strip (seedier?), rife with lines of creepy guys clacking those little boob-emblazoned cards at you as you passed, trying to lure you to one strip club or another. "I've got tits of my own, thanks," I said to a few as we flew by.

We still had some time to kill before the show, so we decided to take a spin on the crazy-ass roller coaster at New York, New York. Turns out that thing hurts. Like, the height and the drops and all that were totally fine - great, in fact - but that coaster seriously bangs you up. I think my neck might have actually detached from the rest of my body at one point. But still, super-fun. Especially when kind of buzzed.

( Peek-shores )
KÀ was mind-blowing. Hands-down the best Cirque show I've ever seen live (and I've been fortunate enough to see a whole mess of 'em). The theatre, like everything else in Vegas, is massive beyond belief. Mom snapped a quick picture of just the auditorium portion before one of the hilariously attired ushers popped over to insist that photography was prohibited.


Just...100% crazy.
The show featured this great, epic narrative about a set of "Imperial twins" whose royal parents are killed in an attack by a neighboring kingdom. The twins - a boy and a girl - are separated in the ensuing confusion, and they spend the rest of the show going on various adventures trying to find each other again. A large portion of the action utilizes an enormous moving platform on a robotic arm; it serves as a royal barge, a sandy beach, and at one point the whole thing goes completely vertical, and a guy does a free-fall from the very top into the lord-knows-how-deep pit below. I straight up shrieked. It was incredible. The whole thing. Just breathtaking.

Ooh, here, YouTube has provided a trailer:


And you can find a cool ten-minute preview/behind-the-scenes video over here.

It was the story that really sealed it for me. I love Cirque, but their shows are generally just thinly-linked vignettes; this one takes you on such a journey. Love love love. A+.

Aaaaaaaaaaand that's my first day in Vegas! Stay tuned for day two, which includes the Forum Shops at Caesar's, my first go at a slot machine, an afternoon in Venice, and an evening with the Phantom. Woo!

Reminder to all: tweet about the arts tomorrow! Tag it with #XperienceArt! Come on!

Ok, fine, it just gives me an excuse to twitter at work, but still...yeah.

I had one of those days that makes me swear I was sleepwalking, and if I didn't have tweets and facebook updates to prove it, I'd think I spent the whole day asleep. I woke up around 9am, felt a complete energy crash around 3pm - still daylight - and woke up at 6pm - completely dark.

I have almost no memory of what I did between 9am and 3pm. Apparently I sent e-mails and did dishes. I somewhat recall Arianne coming home, but I only heard her come in. I woke up just as she was leaving. So for all I know, it wasn't her at all, but some random stranger who decided to crash at our place for the day.

Naturally, this led to my making breakfast at 7pm.

That all said.

I'm deeply mired in all things The Gilded, and as part of that, I thought I'd share with you the progression of dream casting over the years, to give you an idea of how long I've been writing this:

Elyse/Lisette:
Marla Schaffel, Alice Ripley, Julia Murney, Laura Benanti

Tobias:
Chad Kimball, Michael Arden, Matt Doyle

Kelsey:
Laura Benanti, Jenna Leigh Green (you can tell when I went through my BARE phase), Jennifer Damiano

 So tired. I can't even deal. I got through today and I guess that's all that matters.

Thursday:
12:00 pm Wake up
Buy Acting book for class
2:45 pm - 5:30 pm Take care of Marc
7:15 pm Acting Class

I had an awesome climbing session last week in which I climbed 4 5.9s and a 5.8+ (which is about a mid-level climb, for those of you who don't climb at a gym). So I was feeling really proud of myself, since this is mad progress for me, until THIS week, when I climbed my first 5.10! Granted it was just a 5.10a, but I feel really awesome for making it up that wall all the same.

I've also had a number of really good runs this week and last. I'm still doing short distances, only 2-5 miles, but I've been enjoying the nice fall weather, as well as no longer feeling the pressure of marathon training. I can just run because I love it! I also figured out that I may have to become an afternoon runner in the fall/winter, because when I wake up, my allergies are ridiculous and I can barely breathe. But within a few hours the congestion decreases, so I'm good to exercise. Part of me wants to whine but I like being a morning runner! however this seems to be the best solution for now, even if I lose hardcore points for not running before dawn.

The Great Lakes Belly Dance Convention is this weekend--color me excited! It's rare that I get to take classes anymore.

the hairdresser had some curtains to hang in her new room. the curtains will separate her room from the adjacent living room -- i think at some point in time, her new room was actually the dining room. i just tried to draw a picture, but it was lame. anyway, here's the point of this post: we needed a drill to drill some pilot holes to then screw in the curtain wire thing. (this curtain wire thing was the bane of our existence. you need to have the sharpest wire cutters ever made, the patience and steady hands of a neurosurgeon, and you need to be really secure in your relationship with your partner, because assembling this thing could lead to divorce if you're not careful. christ.)

andrea, her roommate, has a drill, but the charger doesn't work and it's dead. my roommate karey has a drill, but she doesn't know where the charger is -- when i asked her about it, she said it's in a compartment in the drill, at which point i had to explain to her that no, that's, actually, the battery. so. yeah.

so i went to target and bought myself a motherfucking POWER DRILL! i almost got a cordless one, but then realized that it would probably need to be charged for at least 12 hours and this was becoming such a hassle, with dead batteries and chargers and shit. so i bought a corded one! for $10 less than the cordless!

and let me say something: it's so cool! i own my own power tool! and i knew how to use it!

i don't usually care about things like that -- it's so stereotypical that i should like a power tool, being a lesbian and all, and let's face it, i'd rather have a new pair of shoes than an electric dill, let's be honest. but still!

in other news, today i'm a wearing a flannel shirt. um...

 Wednesday:

7:00 AM- 1:30 PM Babysitting 
Pick up Paycheck and give Research Hours
4:00 PM Geology (LAB)
5:50 PM Phonetics
7:15 PM Abnormal Psychology (Test Corrections Due)

Once I get past the morning bit I think I'll be okay. I just don't know if I'll be taking care of Andrew AND Katherine. Larissa said that she may take Katherine with her. I mean, it will be fine either way, but 1 kid would, of course, be easier.

It's like a cloud I didn't know was there suddenly lifted.