Songs I have done in karaoke:

1. "Buddy Holly" - Weezer
2. "Y Control" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
3. "I Want You to Want Me" - Cheap Trick
4. "Don't Turn Around" - Ace of Base
5. "Release Me" - Wilson Phillips
6. "When Doves Cry" - Prince (Note: this was prefaced by me saying something like this: "Hi... so, yeah... this is, like, the best song ever.")

Songs I would like to do in karaoke:

1. "NY State of Mind" - Nas
2. "Chop Me Up" (mainly just the first two verses) and/or "Lovestoned" - Justin Timberlake
3. "Divorce Song" and/or "Polyester Bride" - Liz Phair
5. "The Walk" - The Cure
6. "Your Easy Lovin' Ain't Pleasin' Nothin'" - Mayer Hawthorne
7. "Streets of Where I'm From" - Old 97's
8. "Falling for You" - Weezer

Songs I could pull off in karaoke without embarrassing myself and the world at large:

...

Ok, I probably could do "NY State of Mind," but everyone would think I was being ironic. No irony, guys; I just have most of that track memorized.

NINE STRANGE THINGS:

1. I just updated my Amazon wishlist with CDs I used to listen to with my 2005-era boyfriend. Specifically: Campfire Girls and Spinto Band. It's weird. I ain't sorry, though; they're catchy.


2. Meryl the greyhound and Julie the rat terrier have worked out some elaborate system of playing outside where the patio is "base" or something and whoever is there is safe from aggression, and Julie gets to bite Meryl but Meryl never gets to bite Julie. I feel like I'm watching civilization develop.


3. I've now been single for almost three months. This is the longest I have been completely, 100% without a boyfriend since I was 17. I'm 26. It's kind of awesome. I DO WHAT I WANT. Is this how normal people live? Who is John Galt?


4. I used to be really blond, thanks to a heavy dose of bleach:
   
   
   
   
   For comparison, this is me (+ hound) normally:
   
   
   
   
   
   Anyway, there are times when I find myself looking back and thinking, that was a really good look! Maybe I should do that again! I will almost definitely not do that again.


5. I used to download pictures of my ex-boyfriend's ex-girlfriend (when he was still my bf) and write "WHORE" next to her face in MS Paint. I recommend this as a stress release. If you're squeamish about the word "WHORE," feel free to fill in your own insult. (Hi, Aubree (and other Leglers) and John, by the way!)


6. Completely without irony, I purchased a sweater for each of my dogs, because they have looked so pathetic during recently evening walks. Pictures to come.


7. True story: I have never eaten a Twinkie, and now there is a chance that I never will.


8. I need to find a karaoke joint featuring "NY State of Mind" by Nas. 


9. I know I have already told some of you about this, but I truly never tire of saying it. This one's for all you Game of Thrones watchers. And Christopher Nolan Batman fans. Check it:

On the left, you see the angelic little boy whom Rachel Dawes saves from panic-crazed Gothamites towards the end of Batman Begins. On the right, you see King Joffrey, vicarious abuser of whores (hi again, Leglers!) and all-around sociopath. What's my point?

IT'S THE SAME ACTOR. To me, this is somewhere between profoundly unsettling and really impressive.

You have to realize, this kind of actor recognition trivia is like easily the best thing in the world, for me. I love it. It's like visual punnery. Or something.

Here are things I like today:

• YOU, dear reader. I like you. Probably.
• The following songs by Rhett Miller: "Lost Without You," "Long Long Long," "Marina," and "As Close as I Came to Being Right."
• Slipper socks
• The spine of my copy of Infinite Jest is so broken that the book will now lie flat. This makes it easy to eat lunch while reading.
• Meryl the greyhound likes her new bed, which means she no longer sleeps on my bed and growls at me in the middle of the night whenever I move. That was really starting to affect my quality of life.
• It is finally cold-ish! I am typing this wearing fingerless mittens because it is even colder inside the house.
• I turned on my old laptop and found this picture as the desktop wallpaper:

On Friday, I was in Tucson to train essay judges for an Academic Decathlon scrimmage. My relationship with Academic Decathlon is complicated. It shaped me a lot as a person, but for a long time I resented it because of things I gave up for it. I stopped seeing my friends when I was competing and studying, basically. After the season ended, I tried to hang out with them again, but it just felt like I had missed too much and had stopped knowing how to fit in. I felt this enormous sense of loss, like I had given up being a human in order to study six hours a day.

And that's still there, to a degree, but after all this time, I see other things, too. I see all the things I learned. I learned that talking in front of people would not kill me, that messing something up is not always equal to failure. I learned that, truly, I am a weird person -- like, I do things differently than other people. I had always suspected that last one, but it really became clear when I was spending four-ish hours a day around people who were (generally) closer to normal.

Yesterday, I found a job ad for a collections position at a children's hospital. This may be the worst job I can possibly imagine, and I say this as someone who had a job where I worked overnight cleaning toilets and got slapped in the face by severely mentally ill children. (Note: THESE THINGS DID NOT HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME.) No, but, seriously, take a moment to think about being a collections representative for a children's hospital. Blech. It's weird to think about all the awful things that people are called upon to do on a regular basis.

Pun Time!

A few months ago, I watched Hobo with a Shotgun. It is an amazing movie featuring Rutger Hauer, though sadly it does not include him performing a monologue that begins, "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..." The basic plot of Hobo with a Shotgun is that a hobo (Hauer), fed up with the corruption and crime in his city, gets a shotgun and begins serving up mighty helpings of vigilante justice. My favorite part of it was this newspaper headline shown during a montage:

(Sorry for the awful quality; taking a picture of a TV screen does not yield great results.) Ugh, such a dumb pun, but it continues to light up my life every time I see it.

Grammar Time! 

Did you guys learn in school (or anywhere else) that you should capitalize the first word after a colon if it begins a complete sentence? Ex:

Here is what happened next: She ran over my legs.

vs.

Here is what happened next: she ran over my legs.

I learned that capitalization was mandatory in this situation, but no one else seems to have heard this. Did I imagine it?

The other day, Molly posted on Facebook about a romance novel called The Girl Nobody Wanted. Here are applications of that title that I have invented.

• The Girl Nobody Wanted: The Life and Times of Ann Veal
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: THEN WHY DID YOU MARRY HER, ROCHESTER?
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: The Story of Rogue; or, An Unkillable Man Is Hard to Find
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: Bella Swan Outside of the Bizarre Mary-Sue Universe of Forks, WA
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: Why Can’t the U.S.S. Millicent Kent Get a Date?
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: The Perils of Making a Mix CD Featuring Tori Amos, Mirah, or Kate Bush
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: What Jersey Shore Taught Us About Grenade Etiquette
• The Girl Nobody Wanted: The Story of Robin Scherbatsky; or, How to Tell an Incredible Lie in Title Case

This list also says SO MUCH about what I am reading/watching/thinking about these days.

Try it for yourself, dear readers!

I looked at this thing for the first time in ages on Thursday, and I realized that abandoning this blog was a waste of a really, really good pun. (Check out the URL.)

Here are some things things that have happened:

• In my second-to-last semester of college, I took a class with a professor who brought really incredible desserts whenever we watched movies. Those pecan pie bars still haunt my dreams.
• In my last semester of college, I did a science project with two stoners about how THC levels in marijuana have changed over the years. Spoiler: They have increased. Nb: Finding research about this topic was difficult.
• I moved to Tucson for three years.
• I worked in an estate planning law office and learned just how rich it is possible to be, even in a small-ish, not-incredibly-rich city like Tucson.
• I ate tacos containing the following things: tripas, cabeza, and guacamole (like, just guacamole). This is in addition to less outrageous tacos, like carne asada, shredded beef, al pastor, etc.
• Bleached my hair blond; dyed it red when I got tired of that.

So there’s that. It’s been four and a half years, so, yeah, I’ve omitted a lot of things (romance! Being broke! Embarrassing myself in ways that defy both logic and decency!).

it is slightly weird to be back in AZ, but i am coping well by taking my dog for walks, even though it freaks her out. i have a lot more stuff than i remembered. even the stuff i took to berkeley with me seemed like too much, and now i return to the re-discovery that it was only the tip of the iceberg. it may be time to shed some books and other sundry items.

for a while, i felt disoriented, but that feeling has pretty much faded, although i remain very conscious that life here is very different from life in berkeley. everything here seems a lot brighter, larger, and hotter than i remembered. anyway, the bottom line is that i am glad i am back, but i was also sad to leave berkeley.