i don't know...it's the same sky.

the next rando that calls me "sweetie" on the street is getting punched in the nuts.

remember the village people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLup8wjbSIo

you do now. try not to cry yourself to sleep tonight.

so i'm a little frustrated right now. i've counted to ten, i've done my yoga, i've gone to my happy place. and nothing's working. but i think i have a solution to my problem.

you know how in the olden days, if you stole something, you had your hand cut off? (did that actually happen, or am i making that up? i know for certain at one point they were cutting children in half, but i think that that may have been unrelated. regardless, i feel fairly confident in saying that it was for more common to go hacking people of any age up back in the day, so to speak, was it not? let's just go with it, because i'm about to postulate a new theory of government meant to improve the general well-being of the public, and it's sort of dependent on that assumption.)

and you know how the old eye-for-an-eye system worked? i punch you, someone else gets to punch me, revenge is sweet, justice is served, everyone goes home with black eyes and satisfied vengeance?

that was a pretty good idea.

now, i know what you're thinking, because if you're reading my livejournal, you're one of my friends and therefore most likely suffering from a severe case of left-wing liberalism. "barbarity," you claim. "it's inhumane, it's thoughtless, and dammit laura, it's cruel. we thought you were one of us. we thought you understood the value of a human life. we thought you had read foucault's dicipline and punish, and seen the negative consequences of monarchial punishment. we also know that foucault only applies in a periphery manner in this debate, but have discovered that 90% of arguments in art school are won by the first person who invokes foucault, judith butler, or nietzsche. and we DEMAND-"

whoa there, now. just sit tight and let me finish, and do your best not to let that sand deep in your vaginas get the best of you. shhh. everyone calm? cool? collected? lovely. now, just like you, i am a liberal member of the voting public, and believe in that whole human rights thing. but there are two serious misdemeanors that as of yet remain unpunishable by law. and i think you all know what they are:

1.) complaining. and 2.) mooching.

just think of that friend that you have. that guy. you know who he is. (sometimes it's a she; far be it for me to be sexist, as that's jsut not how i roll). you go out to eat. he/she doesn't want to eat THERE; that food isn't very fresh. well, we shouldn't go all the way to THAT restaurant...it's a really long walk and my feet hurt. i think i might have twisted my ankle. alright, i guess we can eat here.

(the food arrives.)

eugh, these french fries are soggy. how much grease did they use? i wanted a salad with dressing on the side. yours looks good, can i try some (their knife is already plunged deep into your chicken, slicing off a hefty piece of meat.) mmm, yours is sooo much better. i'm jsut gonna have one more bite. oh i promise, this one is my last one. are you gonna eat that toast?

(the bill comes. everyone throws money down.)

so...for some reason, we're six dollars short. did everyone pay? (it's that guy. the bastard didn't include tax and tip, and he ROUNDED DOWN on a $7.85 meal. but you can't prove it, so you'll throw in three dollars extra on your seven dollar meal to cover his soda that he HAD TO HAVE when everyone else was content drinking water.)

and...end scene.

(that chicken thing a few paragraphs back sounded weirdly sexual; i apologize, i was on a roll and it kinda got away from me).

but more importantly...the point is, you agree with me. a few minutes ago, you were invoking the eighth amendment in my face, but now, you're ready to chop that whiny mooching motherfucker's hand off. am i right? am i RIGHT? you'd love to do it right now, wouldn't you? grab a giant kitchen knife and invite that sonofabitch out to dinner, just to start cutting off fingers as his hand reaches over onto your plate for "just one more potato chip, hahaHA." who's laughing now, you one-handed bastard? that could be LEGAL. L.E.G.A.L. and justice would be served, for once and for all.

god, i hate that guy. let's take it to congress. let's outlaw whining (except for the whining on livejournal about other people whining...we should maybe venerate that).

on a related note, if i were in charge of the world, i would outlaw whistling, speaking french, and the tv show dharma and greg. but don't let that dissuade you from voting me into office.

i've been in a detatched, sort of unsettled mood all day, and i've been trying to determine the causes.

could it be that new york city seems to be flooding, creating a rushing river of fecal matter, smaller rats, and superfluous post cards littering the streets?

could it be the alarming amount of male (of the large and hairy variety) nudity in the movie borat?

could it be that the woman with the two-plus-inches long chin hair that sells fake prada bags outside my apartment is finally getting to me?

could it be that my last month of hard work and minimal alcohol consumption is catching up to me, and my system has gone into shock as a result of withdrawl?

or.

was it the incredibly fantastic sex dream that i had last night with someone that i had NO IDEA that i was subconsciously attracted to?

i fear this may have been it. but i will probably drink tonight just to rule out that other possibility. or begin the healing process.

or both.

here's the thing. normally, i enjoy a good sex dream as much as the next person. and i'm rarely thrown off by the participants. celebrities, exs, the occasional silent but attractive kid that sits in the back of my lectures and chews on his pencil and sort of drifts off and stares into space and occasionally doodles and then looks up and sweeps the hair from his eyes and ooh my god he just looked at me. have i been staring at him this whole time? why can't i stop staring? break the eye contact, you must break the eye contact. do. something. awkward. so. awkward.

you know how it goes.

but this one came out of left field. i mean completely unexpected, we have a totally platonic relationship. normally. but...in my dream we had earth-shattering sexual intercourse, and now i'm really really really thrown off.

mostly because now i can't think of him without fantasizing about aforementioned earth-shattering sexual intercourse (or essi, as it shall now be known).

i had to meet with him today. and i couldn't speak in coherent sentences, and i couldn't make eye contact, and i chewed half a pack of gum and two pen caps in the time frame of about 16 1/2 minutes.

essi. god. the memories.

and i mean, i need to get beyond this. because in reality, this guy is the kind of person who most likely has had sex with his socks on at least once.

at least.

so this entry is a plea for advice.

i don't know where else to turn. please. help me.

ahem.

*awkward silence.*

so...hey...long time, no-

alright, i'll say it. i'm sorry.

what? what else do you want me to say?

fine. i'm a horrible person. you didn't deserve this. i know, i know, i- don't give me that look. what?

i know, i know. how can i explain this to you? i feel like the chick who got knocked up by joseph (the star of the football team) when she was only 18 years old (and had to get married so grandma wouldn't call her a slut ever again and so her daddy wouldn't throw her out of the house without a dime even though mommy thought it was cruel because, let's face it, he's the man of the house, and what he says goes) and then raised two children (matthew and emma) in a sexually unfulfilling marriage and then one day met brad. and brad opened her eyes and her heart, and she ran off with him to have wild passionate sex in reno, leaving matthew and emma with their deadbeat father who's been working extra hours at the steel mill just so emma can get those braces (which are so fucking expensive and really only serve cosmetic purposes). she has her wild romp and her uninhibited sex and her brief flirtation with marijuana and other drugs (cocaine only twice), but then one day she finds out the money's running low and brad's got his eye on a younger, prettier, more economically stable young lady (who just happens to turn tricks on the side, but it's reno, so wht can he expect?). so brad kicks her to the curb, and there she is: no money, no home, and no love in her life. suddenly, she remembers the two shining, innocent faces that she traded for a life of sin. and so she sells her one possession of any value, the pearl necklace her mother gave her, and buys a bus ticket home.

so here i am. stnding on the doorstep. begging you to take me back.

i know things weren't perfect. and i know i messed up. i never should have left you. but the truth is...things will be better this time.

well, you'll just have to trust me. just this once.

and i promise, i'll never leave again.

(hey, fuck you, lundstrom. that was an amazing analogy.)

seems that you've all somehow managed without me for those long, cold months when i was gone (or "incomunicado" for you spanish speakers).

i decided, however, in honor of my return, we're going to start a new segment entitled "pet peeve of the day." during this special time, i will bitch about whatever the fuck is bothering me, and you will read because, let's face it, if you've made it this far, you're not going to give up on me now.

this segment will feature such favorites as pet peeve #345) adults talking in baby voices; pet peeve #578)roommates talking on their cell phones at 3am; and pet peeve #62) those posters of cats grasping a tree branch with one little furry paw that say "hang in there." fuck you, cat. your cuteness only inspires me to rip that poster off the wall.

(a note to our regular viewers: yes, you caught me. pet peeve #62 once had a different association: keanu reeves. actor keanu reeves has ruined such films as dangerous liaisons, much ado about nothing, something's gotta give, and the devil's advocate. however, his recent appearance in the feature film "constantine" made me re-evaluate my hatred for him, and the cat poster took his slot. mystery solved, and of course a hearty congratulations to mr reeves.)

but today, we will be discussing pet peeve #327) people taking off their pants, then sitting beside me.

let me qualify this: clearly this irritation does not apply to all situations. i can think of a number of people who have lost their pants in my presence and made me very happy as a result. i can also think of a number of people that i would encourage to drop their trousers the next time we should stumble across each other in a darkened street (or a well lit hallway, or a doctor's waiting room...actually, at this point, i'm up for pretty much anything).

but. there are those who choose to de-pant despite my sincere and zealous wishes. such was the situation today during directing class, when a certain unnamed actor sat beside me through three scenes in only his boxer-briefs.

why? i didn't ask. i didn't want to know. alright, i was mildly curious, but i didn't want to encourage pants-less conversation. it would be a dangerous precedent.

the point being, that i was supposed to learn, to take notes and give notes and express my opinions and strive for artistic fulfillment while the only thing covering the guy next to me was his pair of black socks (you heard that right, people. black. socks. word to the wise: if you're gonna lose the pants, the socks must go. there are no exceptions to this rule.)

and here's the worst part: as i sit here, staring at pages and pages of keats and attempting to milk a four page paper out of this fragmented lyric that he wrote for an unrequited love, all i can picture is...well...i don't think i need to type it again.

(hopefully this won't become a thing. if it starts to take over, you'll be the first to know.)

so. pet peeve #327. now you know.

and i bet you feel a better person for it.

much more to tell, but keats is beckoning from the grave. further updates as events warrent. for now, all you really need to know is that i miss you all, and i'm sorry i've been remiss in staying in touch.

and also, you should know that i'm going to spain in less than three months and can't remember the verb for "to give."

(it's dar. it just came to me. but still.)

quick recommendations:

book: reading in the dark by seamus deane.

movie: abre los ojos.

song: metallica's whiskey in jar. also, one can never go wrong with mc hammer.

(read: one could never go right with mc hammer).

over and out.

so.

discovered that there were unfathomed levels to the depths of my inebriation on saturday night.

let us first recount what laura remembers.

a. failing at rice pudding with janna before the party (entirely my fault, but it was nice of her to let me make a cooking attempt while she did the real work...normally i just hang around the kitchen while she bakes eating chocolate chips and drinking soda). let it be known that at this juncture, i had four shots of jameson. and off to the party we went.

b. paella, stew, baguettes, sangria...a true spanish cornucopia, if you will(mixing metaphors? i care not). let me emphasize the sangria, as i had several glasses.

c. tequila shots (discovering that i might actually like tequila again...or i was more drunk at this point than i realized, and just didn't taste it).

d. beer chugging contest with ellen...i schooled her on the first round, but she embarrassed me the second time. then we ran out of beer.

for those of you who are concerned: yes, we will rematch.  at a later date.  worry not.

but i disgress.  the point being: i think this is where i began to go wrong.

e. steamroller. of course.

f. dance party. of course.

g. snowball fight, snow angels, subway, walk, home.

fairly successful night, in my opinion. parts were a little hazy, and i couldn't remember if i had been annoying or not, so i said my tentative apologies to my friends, the apologies were dismissed as unnecessary, and there seemed to be no worries. i offended no one, broke nothing, etc etc. i assumed i remembered the night.

cut to: speech class today.

i dig into my purse for chapstick and find half a pack of camel lights.

 hmm.

i don't smoke. and when i do (as i have been known to in the past) i most definately do not smoke camel lights. i was a menthol girl, back in the day.

so i think nothing of it, but ask suzi when she enters the room if, perhaps, someone had stored their cigarettes in my purse on the walk home (my friends are, after all, prone to using my mary poppins suitcase-esque purse to hold cigarettes, keys, cell phones, desk chairs, etc.)

this was not the case.

apparently, i bought the cigarettes and smoked them "you know, the first time we went outside."

first time, suzi? was there a first time? really?

hmm.

also, apparently i heavily flirted with a boy who has a girlfriend. which i did not know.

about the girlfriend and the flirting.

basically, there's about an hour of my life that did not record in my brain. during that time, i could have killed a man; i would have no recollection.

so i mean.

wicked sweet.

anyways.  i thought it was funny, and that it needs to be told as sort of a penance for drinking way too much.

normally, i'm not a complete lush. 

saturday was an exception.

that's all for my story.  lundstrom, get your damn shot or i will find you and inject you with spinal meningitis, and you will wish you had heeded my warning.  

because that's how much i care. 

i swear to god i have semi-intelligent things to say, but i feel like i've lost the claim on any respect one might have for my musings.

at least until tomorrow.

god knows i can't be quiet for long. 

also: if anyone can name all the quotes in my journal titles, then you should be my valentine because we are made to be together.

i base this on the assumption that i've always operated on, which is that your taste in books, movies, and music makes you compatible (or not) with me. 

seriously, if you can name em all, we're totally gonna bang, and possibly getting married (even if we gotta go to canada to do it).

also, swear to god canada's not a real country.  i mean, come on.

sorry, canadians.  i love you.  i just don't take your homeland seriously.

i leave you with three recommendations and a splash of jack handy.

book: the wind up bird chronicle.

play: the lieutenent of inishmore (blowing up cats and hacking four bodies to pieces onstage throughout the entire second act...plus three people being blinded by bullets and one shot in the head point blank with two guns...my kind of dramatic literature).

movie: boondock saints.  i watched it again yesterday.  amazing.  if you haven't seen it, slap yourself smartly in the face and then go rent it. 

or borrow it from me.

during the middle ages, probably one of the biggest mistakes was not putting on your armor because you were "just going around the corner."

p.s. rachel: if you think i'm joking, you are sorely mistaken.  do not test me; i am a woman of my word.

have you gotten your meningitis shot yet?

don't think i've forgotten.

you have 72 hours to respond to me...or else.

my great grandma died today.

it was time.  it was past time.  she was 102 years old.  the last time she talked to me, she told me that she prayed every night that i wouldn't have to live as long as she has, that she prayed every night that god would take her before she woke up. 

it was a conversation that we had several times in my life.

...intense.

she was lonely, i guess. 

102 years is a lot of memories.

i've never really known someone that's died before.  which i suppose is a little ridiculous.  i'm twenty years old, and the first person i'm at all close to that dies is my 102-year-old great grandmother.

i've been lucky.

but this is weird.  i don't know what i'm supposed to do.

i miss existentialism.  i'm angry at it right now.  this is when i need it.

normally i have words for things.  i'm not that sad, or that angry, or anything.  i just feel a little lost right now.

i loved her.  i think i did.  i don't know, how are you sure that you really love anyone?  she was family.  and i have a lot of memories of her, memories of details, and you only really hold on to those if you care about paying attention to someone besides yourself.  and i visited her, and it didn't feel like an obligation.  and i listened to her, and not because i had to.  so i guess i loved her.

i don't know.

part of me prays that there's no such thing as coincidence, and the other part thinks that the possibility of an uncontrolled future is all we've got.

that doesn't make sense.  in my head it does.  my brain's a mess of song lyrics and quotations and pictures taken when i was six and studio today and the possiblity of true love and my mother and my father and the grim reaper and vitamin c tablets and chocolate cake and lips and sex and music and a book i read when i was little and plays that i've seen and movies and more music and more quotations and so many memories that if i spent my whole life cataloguing them, i still couldn't control them. 

i don't know.  i feel like these are the times that i wish i had something profound to say, just sort of for the sake of having it to carry with me, and for sharing, and expressing, and naming what we are and how we are. 

and i've got nothing. 

i wish i had a dog.  wayne, my fish, is i think a little mentally incapable.  he keps getting stuck behind the plastic plant we have in his tank.  he fights for a while, then he just sits there, resigned to his fate, until we help him out. 

i love him, but he really is terribly terribly stupid.  and while i would never try to replace him, a dog would be nice.

they could live in harmony.

i think cliches are, for the most part, very insincere, because it's hard to bring them to life, so i don't want to really say anything about death right now.  i've never experienced this before, and everything coming to mind  is just something i've heard enough times that its stuck with me.  and i think that at this point, cliches are just sort of disrespectful to the whole fucking thing. 

so none of that, then.

my first pet was a fish.  two fish, actually.  sebastian and ariel.

they were goldfish.  my parents hadn't quite worked their way up to the whole dog idea yet, so that was what i got.  i must have been six at the time.

when my dad was in third grade, he had a dog for a month (they named him snoopy) and then they had to give it away.  my dad said it was one of the saddest days of his life.  i don't think he wanted us to have to go through it.

so i got fish.

anyways, sebastian loved our kitchen, and he swam and ate and thrived (he, unlike wayne, had no trouble with the plastic plant).  ariel, sadly, was not so prosperous.  she (or he...let's face it, they were goldfish...who knows, but we assumed one was a she and the other was a he...look at that, gender programming, defining the nuclear 'normalcy' at an early age, call up the art and public policy department and see what professor carol martin has to say about it), she passed during her first night in our home.

i cried, because i was six, and because my fish died.  and my parents couldn't console me, because what are they gonna say that's gonna change things?  and all i wanted was for them to change things, and they couldn't, and they weren't gonna pretend that they could.  so i cried.

my parents, however, being resourceful and quick thinking and, oh, i don't know, some other adjectives i suppose, they called the pet store, and they found out about the return policy.  you could trade in a dead fish for a live one if it had died within 72 hours, and if you brought in the little body.  you were just supposed to freeze them so that they wouldn't decay, and then show up with the receipt.  we had already given ariel a toilet burial, but we went back to the pet store and got another fish, and it died, and then we traded that one in.

at one point, i think we had about ten fish in the tank.  we had to upgrade the size to fit them all, and i always wanted more.

what i discovered eventually was that no amount of fish would come close to a dog, but i think my parents were delaying this revelation for as long as possible by getting really really really into the whole fish thing.  they knew that a six year old's enthusiasm for a project was jsut an exponential reflection of their own, so they bought a book and i became obsessed and forgot about the dog for a while.

but i would say that for every three fish that we bought, one would die within 72 hours. and then we would lose a more survival-driven fish about once a month.  those that made it past the 72 hour initiation got a toilet burial, like ariel, but the rest got frozen and taken back.  the pet store employees knew us by name (me especially, i was both outgoing and precocious as a child, and therefore made a point to meet and talk to every adult that had knowledge that i did not, including the keepers of more fish than i had ever seen in my life). 

all in all, we had a system, and i had a pet, and we had no dog, so everyone was content, if not completely satisfied.

but my nanny (her name was charmaine) wasn't really a part of the wole dead fish thing initially.  the woman has the heart of a lion, has probably changed more diapers in her life than anyone else i've ever known, would sit down with me in the sandboxes at playgrounds to play.  but the fish corpses were not exactly her thing.  so she stayed away, and we spared her the details of the graveyard in the freezer.  the fish would normally die at night anyways (don't ask me why), so mom or dad could scoop them out, put them in an envelope (making sure to clearly mark it), and slide the envelope into the little nook we had created behind the icemaker.

char never had to deal with it.

char is many, many things.  loving, supportive, strict when necessary, imaginative.  a book the size of war and peace would not cover her attributes.  all that's important for the purpose of this story, however, is that she was, and still is, extremely nosy.

she found the envelopes while my mom was upstairs doing her hair one morning.  god knows what she thought was in them; all that it said on the front (clearly, might i add, because char claimed to have missed it, but i wasn't reading yet and i knew what it meant so there was no way) was "do NOT open.  -mary kay".

she opened it. 

she found a partially frozen fish.

she screamed.  she threw the fish.  i, who had grown accostomed to the fish deaths and had learned, as we do in wisconsin, to hide emotions, started crying in spite of myself.  the fish sort of slid around on our floor (it was our old house, so it was tile) and ended up halfway under the oven.

my mom had to sort of pry it out.

this was after she had calmed me down.

this was after she had calmed char down.

this was after she had heard a scream and my violent sobbing and had run downstairs in a panic only to find a partially frozen black goldfish lodged between the tile floor and the metal stove.

it took mom a while to laugh at that one.  it took char longer. 

it took my father no time at all.  in fact, it is one of his favorite stories.

this has nothign to do with anything, except that stories are important, for the teller and the reader.

at least, i think so.  you may disagree.

my great grandma was not, to my knowledge, a fish person.  but she loved plants.  i never saw them, but my parents told me that she used to have a beautiful garden that she cared for constantly.

i think i was ten when then told me this.  something around there.  it was on christmas eve. i already had a present for her, but i decided it wasn't good enough after all (in my defense, i think it was a porcelain statuette from the dollar store...i was big on the marriage of economy and art when i was young).

so on december 24th, in the early evening, my mother obligingly drove out to stein's gardens and gifts, and i searched and searched until i found the perfect gift: a cactus with googly eyes and a santa hat.

great grandma (her name was genevieve actually, although that's not how i knew her) didn't know what to do about it.  then i mentioned her gardens in an attempt to explain myself, and she started crying and spent about half an hour talking to my mother about how she should fertilize our gardens come springtime.

she was wearing a red dress with pointsettas on it, and she had a pointsetta pin and diamond earrings.

weird what you remember.

hope no one read this far.  this was a self-indulgent entry (on a self-indulgent website, but still).

but if you did.  i don't know.  memories are important.  we don't get permanence. 

so i fail at livejournal.

and therefore life.

it's been about four years since my last entry. 

let this serve as an apology to all those people who wake up every morning just wondering what laura braza has to complain about today.

(note to those people: i can't take the pressure anymore.  also, that's disconcerting.  get a hobby.  read a book.  watch a movie.  listen to music.  and if you want strongly worded recommendations on books, movies, or music, that's when you come to me.)

and to the rest of you, who have lost no sleep over my recent hiatus, and who i love dearly: sorry i dropped off the face of the earth for a while there.  life's been a little complicated.  i think i'm back now. 

whew.

and again we reach a juncture where i have nothing profoundly interesting or enlightening to share.  we got here quick, didn't we?  hmm.

so i've gotten into the perturbing habit of narrating my own life as it happens.  this has had several unfortunate side effects, the most pronounced of which have been a.) thinking of myself in the third person (which is sort of surreal because i don't really associate with my name, so it's always "she" or "the girl"...but never never "the woman" because honestly the neo-nazi-esque feminists have turned me off of that label for good and even if they hadn't i'm still basically twelve in my own mind), b.) unwittingly muttering under my breath about what's going on around me on the subway or, worse, once in the waiting room before a meeting with my advisor, and c.) generally gaining a sort of "big picture" perspective on my life, and how every moment fits into the whole linear dramatic structure. 

beginning, middle, end. 

a recommendation: life isn't meant to be lived that way...each moment building on the next in a series of mini climaxes that all come to a head...when, about mid-thirties? forties? and then a sort of resolution through your last decades.  it just makes you anxious about every decision that you make, and after awhile it's really wearing.  i'm trying to break the habit.  so i guess my recommendation would be don't think about it.

lindsay pulled a r. lundstrom on friday night and emailed the boy she's in love with while heavily intoxicated.  i enjoyed the morning after.  lindsay did not.   just thought that might amuse you, rachel.  cuz really, this journal is for your amusement.  you and emily kowalski.  if you want, i will dance for you.  i will tap.  hang on a second, i just need to get my shoes on....and....there we go. 

you're welcome.

i'm back on the insomnia kick again.  a copy of a copy of a copy.  it's fucking with my focus.  too much to think about lately, i guess.  existentialism is failing me for the first time in my life, and i'd be lying if i said i didn't feel a little betrayed.  its probably time i stop depending on an ethos as a, i don't know, barometer for my life(?)...just seems so easy that way.  

lots more to say on that, but i won't get into it here...someday i'll post what i've written about it.

i realized the other day that i don't look people in the eyes as often as i should.  well, not should.  as often as i would like to. 

it's jarring when you first start up again, because you could have been talking to someone for half an hour in the student lounge or on the subway or under your breath in class, and you still don't know what color their eyes are.  and it's always a surprise to me.  just a little jolt of energy, and it takes so much more focus and commitment to continue talking, but you force yourself to because you feel like you're actually awake and listening, not just passing the time.

so there's that.

i've decided that i will either never get married or be the type of person who gets married four or more times. 

if you think about it, it makes sense.  most likely i'll have some violent on again off again relationship with the same person who's equally independent and stubborn for about a million years.  like mother, like daughter.

don't know why i've even been thinking about that. 

it's the damn life-as-a-storyline thing.  everything becomes means to an end, becomes a clever little foreshadowing mechanism in the plot. 

swear to god, it will drive you insane.

so i've decided that there are two things that will never appear in my writing: alliteration and exclamation points. 

alliteration because it's overused and, in my opinion, a cheap trick.  (this rule may be broken if i find a really good spot for it.  i doubt, however, that i will ever in my life feel the insatiable urge to alliterate.)

exclamation points because they are the scourge of the english language. period.

should probably wrap this up at some point.  i could ramble forever, but lindsay made coffee and i definately need some, so i'm gonna head over there. 

quick recommendations:

the lone ranger and tonto: fistfight in heaven by sherman alexie.

transamerica, if you wanna see a movie in theaters.  magnolia if you want to rent one. 

porcupine tree's in absentia, signify, or deadwing...i firmly believe that the world would be a better place if everyone heard the songs "collapse the light into earth," "arriving somewhere but not here," and "lazarus" at least once in their lifetime.

i'll leave you with...hmm...some winterson: 

travellers at least have a choice.  those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home.  explorers are prepared.  but for us, who travel along bloodlines, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation.  we who were fluent find life is a foreign language.  somewhere between the swamp and the mountains.  somewhere between fear and sex.  somewhere between god and the devil passion is and the way there is sudden and the way back is worse.

that last entry was a little ridiculous.

thought it best to leave you all with an onion headline.

"Sole Surviving Bridge Club Member Didn't Want to Win like This."

there you go.  life's a little better now.  have a lovely day.