Geo-rgia. Geoooorgiiaaaaa...

We saw the movie about Ray Charles today. Really, really good. That Georgia song... tear... makes me want to cry. I kind of didn't want to know that Ray Charles was a heroin addict though, I kind of just wanted to think he was a saint.
Let me tell you about my job last night. So I was a Graduate Party Assistant again- this time for two bands that were playing at the coffehaus. The opening band had a "special guest" named Red Lightning. Red Lightning is a 75 year old man with no teeth. He was wearing long black pants studded with fake jewels and a large kimono-like black shirt, also studded with star-patterned fake jewels and accessorized with a large jewel studded belt. To top it off, he was wearing some seriously cool sunglasses. Before the show, he walked around outside where I was, with a little tape player, playing "Run Around Sue" and singing along. He also performed with this radio, putting it up to the mic and singing along. Every once in a while, he tried to strike up a conversation with me. Examples-
"So... I just bought all those Twilight Zone episodes on.. what do you call that new thing? DVD? I figure, they're gonna be sold out soon and I want to get while the gettin's good"
"Hey, sweetheart, are you havin' fun? Good, good, now I'm happy"
"Hey! I just got a good idea. For my valentines this year, I'm goin to send out cards to all my girlfriends that say 'Wild Thing, You Move Me' "
Hmm...
Anyone dressing up and going to a Halloween party? What are you dressing up as?

Hello!

First, Erin, here is another damn funny open letter

Tonight I am doing another Grad Party Assistant job- at the 'coffehaus' which has been described to me as 'disgusting'.
Here is another one of the nonfiction essays I had to write for class- Except it's not actually about me, I stole a story Rob told me cause I couldn't come up with a childhood memory that week- so where you see "Laura" in the story, insert "Rob".

My Very First Published Work

So the other day, a few weeks ago, someone broke into my car while it was parked on a backstreet behind my apartment. It was no big deal, since there was nothing in there to steal, they just made a huge mess. BUT- I wrote one of those "Open Letters To Entities that are Unlikely to Respond" (on McSweeney's website) to whoever broke in and sent it to McSweeneys. They just emailed me back that they're going to publish it on the site! Yay! Exciting! I don't know when, but when they do I'll link to it.

Slice of life with Dolores

I'd like to let you in on a part of my daily life. A woman named Dolores lives down the hall from me, I would say she was about 75, and we always seem to be leaving at the same time, so we take the elevator down together. And we have the same conversation. Every day. Don't get me wrong, I like Dolores just fine. But is it possible to have the EXACT same conversation every day? To all you disbelievers, I answer 'yes'. Please see transcript from daily elevator ride with Dolores below.
Dolores: Oh hello!
Me: Hi Dolores, how are you?
Dolores: Oh, fine, fine. It's chilly today!
Me: Yeah, it's getting pretty cold.
[Laura and Dolores enter elevator]
Dolores: So, tell me, how do you like it here?
(at this point, Dolores looks deeply concerned, and even if I hated it, even if I was contemplating suicide, I would still have to tell Dolores I liked it, because she seems very concerned)
Me: Oh, we like it a lot.
Dolores: Yeah, it's quiet, you never hear nothin.
Me: Yeah, that's nice though.
Dolores: 44 years I live here, I never hear nothin. People keep to themselves. Never had no problem with anyone here.
Me: Yeah, everyone's really nice.
Dolores: And your husband? Rod? How does he like his job?
(I've corrected Dolores a few times, but now, I've just decided to let him be Rod)
Me: Oh, his job's going really well.
Dolores: Oh good, good. He's so nice.
[Elevator reaches lobby]
Me: Okay, well have a good day
Dolores: Yeah, you too, sweetheart.
Do you think Dolores doesn't remember that we've had this conversation? Or do you think she's going "Geez, that Laura, never nothing new to say"?

I reserve all my cheating for Monopoly, thank you....

Joe, I maintain that I did not cheat that time. My cunning Clue skills are world renowned.
So, tomorrow and tuesday are "October Study Days" at SLC (Read: made up reason to take two days off). At the school offices they get one day off, half the staff works Monday and half work Tuesday. But obviously, everyone wants Monday off so they can have a three day weekend, so my boss asked me to work on Monday so everyone in the office could get it off. This is going to be sweet. Here's what I do: (1) Get paid $10/hour. (2) answer the phone and since I dont know the answer to any of the questions, say "The person that can help you with that will be in tomorrow, I'll leave them your name and have them call you back". (3) Work on homework/writing/reading all day, which is what I was going to be doing anyways, only for free.
In other news, I have freaking horrible posture, but everytime I notice and try to correct it I realize how uncomfortable it is to sit up so straight and just go back to slouching.
Kalamazoo people-here is my idea- Rob and I are going to be there for New Years Eve, and we were thinking it might be fun to go to the Food Dance New Years Eve party thing- it's fifty bucks a person and you have a five course meal with it. It starts at like 7ish and is over by 10ish and then we could go out and do other stuff. It is a little expensive, but I thought it might be fun to dress up and go out together- anybody interested in that? I know, it's two months away but you have to get tickets a little bit early. If people aren't really all that excited about that idea, that's cool, but let me know what you think....
Does anyone else watch Desperate Housewives? It's really really good. I might even say better than the Apprentice.
Well, that's all I've got right now. I spent all day playing Monopoly with Rob, so really I'm having trouble coming up with a lot of interesting discussion...

Monopoly

So Rob and I played Monopoly last night. And I kicked his ass. And I cheated, so so bad. I was all landing on his property and he didn't notice, and I was mortgaging property and then not paying it back and still charging rent and developing it. It was so great. Until Rob got mad because he was losing so bad and I was forced to tell him how I cheated. But anyhow. I haven't played Monopoly since I was really young and we used to play it with the Edwards down the street. So, turns out when we played it then, we didn't play by the rules at all. Who knew? I thought that when you landed on free parking you got all the money from Community Chest that was in the middle, and I had never ever mortgaged anything until last night. And all this other stuff. Did we just make up our own rules or something? Probably. So that's all. We're having a rematch now and Rob's going to watch closely this time, so its not going to be any fun.

Shoop, Shoop, Shoop, Shoop.. SAAAAYYYY! Shoop, Shoo-be-doooooo

Guess what I'm watching? Oh yeah, Waiting to Exhale on Bravo. Rob is lovin it.

You know how when a game is really close, some fans can't watch it because it makes them too nervous? That's how I feel about the election. Here is a sight that's kind of cool, it shows whos winning by electoral votes. But yesterday, it had Kerry winning Florida and Bush winning Ohio, and now apparently new polls say it's the other way around. I don't think I believe that polls are all that accurate when it's this close.

The Apprentice, Writing, and Why American Lit Class Irritates Me

First of all, I love The Apprentice.
I know its bad. But its so so good. How did I get sucked into this? I have absolutely no interest in business. Stacy got kicked off tonight, finally, I couldnt stand her- I really can't imagine who would hire her to be their lawyer.
Moving on, I'm working on a new story and I'm really excited about it. I wrote the first draft in the past two weeks and it wasn't really clicking together.. and so I obsessed about it for a while, and avoided it and complained about it and drank about 20 diet cokes... and then I got this great idea and wrote fifteen pages in the last 24 hours. It involves Michigan and fruitstands and adultery, all the elements of a good story. And, of course, I kill someone off in it.
Also on my list of new obsessions- The Daily Show. Could John Stewart be the funniest man alive? I'm thinking yes.
On to other things- American Lit Class annoys me sometimes.. which is sad because I really like reading the books and talking about them, but without fail someone will read waaaaayyy too much into it. Okay yes, sometimes there are symbols and things in there, but sometimes people are just looking way too hard. People, it is neither a treasure hunt nor a conspiracy plot. If the writer wanted you to see something, they'll drop enough hints so you get if you're reading closely. BUT SOMETIMES, ITS JUST NOT THERE. Please, please stop because you annoy the hell out of me.
I carved my pumpkin last week, but it's too warm in my apartment so it molded over. Sad day.
We had split pea soup for dinner tonight. Wouldn't recommend it.
My niece is being a "Barbie Dinosaur" for Halloween. If you think you have ever seen a Barbie Dinosaur that may be cuter, you are sadly mistaken my friends. In regards to that, my sister and I can't figure out exactly what is so 'Barbie' about this dinosaur, and furthermore, since when was Barbie claiming she was around when Dinosaurs were alive? But you know, we're going with it.
Also, I talked to my little brother tonight. Hi Danny! And I talked to my parents. No, I haven't been on the phone all night, clearly I got off in time to watch The Apprentice.
And lastly, take Ryan's advice and go to the picture page and press 'back' and 'next' really fast and watch me do the robot!!

My Weekend

A few things-
First, my new job- well, I was 'security' at the Coming Out Dance. First, the highlights-
Best Girl Costume/Outfit- bright red hot pants, absolutely no top, Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker across her boobs.
Best Boy Costume/Outfit-A very short (less than five foot), very built African American gentleman with long dreads wearing bright red sequined biker shorts.
Most disturbing Girl outfit- Girl with no shirt and 'slave' painted on her chest being led around by her neckwith a leash by a guy with 'master' painted on his chest.
Most disturbing Boy outfit- patent leather butt cheek-showing shorts, no shirt, leather whip
I have now seen far too many people in thongs, garters, and corsets. The gross thing was, I was supposed to walk around the room and make sure there was nothing scandalous going on , so you know how when it's really crowded you kind of have to push past people. Yeah, it was that, only everyone was naked and sweaty. Nast.

Second- Me, Rob and Sara went and got pumpkins this weekend. I didnt do such a great job carving mine though. We're not going to have any trick-or-treaters here and that makes me sad.

Third- this is really cool, Sara showed it to me when she was here- you go to this site and it's for teachers who work in low-income schools and they write proposals for materials they need for their class or trips they want to take their class on. You can pick the one you like and pay for it, or if you're broke, you can just partially fund it and donate like $20 or something like that.

Fourth- Have you heard this "my goodies" song? The lyrics are "I know you want my goodies, I know you've thought about it. " 'Goodies' makes me think of baked goods.

Fifth- According to CNN, they think that Kerry is going to get Ohio. Good choice, Ohio.

Sixth- My sister hasn't bothered to call me all day. Clearly she no longer cares about me.

That's all. Happy new week.

So, I got a new...job?

Right, so I am now a Graduate Party Assistant, which means I go around campus and watch over the registered events- its just like, every other weekend or so. Anyhow. So I'm working at the Coming Out Dance this weekend... apparently this is a very big deal here... when the guy hired me he's like, okay, so people are going to show up naked. What? where do I go to school now? And then, a mass email was sent out to the students that said "the rules for the dance are you can not be nude (hint: t&a is okay)". Again, what? I will have a good blog to post after friday night...

Give My Regards To Broadway

So I'm on the elyptical machine today. And this kid comes in and gets on another elyptical, and first of all, he gets on the one right next to me despite the fact that there are 5 others to the right of me that are open. That always really irritates me. Why do people do that? So they can be really close to other sweaty people? Anyhow, so I'm all doing my elyptical, and I start to notice that any time I speed up a little, the kid next to me speeds up, and then looks over at me. And I'm going, are you racing me, buddy? But I thought maybe It was a conicidence. So I speed up a little more, and guy next to me kicks it into high gear, and I SWEAR TO YOU, he's looking over at me. So I laugh, which I shouldn't have done, but it was damn funny. And the whole time, you know how you kind of pump your arms. like when you're running? He's doing that, but his fingers are spread out, like he's got Spirit Fingers. He looked like a broadway dancer, with his spirit fingers and rapid leg pumping movements. You know what it kind of reminded me of? In Zoolander, where they have the model walk-off thing. I think if I would have stayed just a little longer I could have gotten him really worked up and he may have broken into a stirring rendition of "New York, New York" or maybe something from Cats, he looked like a Cats kind of guy. That reminds me of a story. When I was little my best friend was Megan Bennett and she loved the musical Cats, she had probably seen it a million trillion times. So she named all of her cats after cats from the musical. But they all died. Jenny-Enny-Dots (sorry if that isn't right, I've never seen it, the thought of watching gigantic Cats dance together terrifies me) died when a chain link fence she was trying to dig under fell on her. But you never ever brought it up, because it was this like, really touchy no-no subject. Grisabella (?) was fine until she started to pee all over the basement and then she was.. disposed of. There were a few others, but those are the only ones I remember. So the moral of the story is... cats are evil. And so are broadway dancers. And broadway dancers exercising like freaks. And I feel like the biggest moral is, if you've got the money to see a Broadway show... don't pick Cats, okay? There are so many good shows out there (that I will never see, because I can't even afford to rent them...). I feel like we've all learned a lot here today.

Umm...

So a third post for today..
I'm reading this news story at cnn.com
Go there and read it, it's about a girl who attacked her babysitter with a machete.
Troubling enough on it's own, but here's what's really bothering me-
"The altercation continued until the girl found the machete lying in the yard and began to chase the woman, who took refuge in the bathroom, Hubbard said."
..... I'm sorry... she found the machete in the yard? Righhhhhttt... god, people need to be more careful about leaving those machetes out where people can get them.
?
Between the Bush rally at the elementary school and the machete, it's been kind of a disturbing day...

Scared.

Why are the ELEMENTARY school kids on the playground across from my apartment shouting "Four more years"? Is this a sign of the apocalypse? I'm scared.

So.. it's Thursday.

I was on my way out to do all these errands- take books back to the library, work out, mail some stuff.. buuuuuttt.. it turns out Rob accidentally took my keys with him to work. So.. I'm doing nothing. I did just make myself some Cream of Wheat though.. ymmm.. you know whats the worst? when you make Cream of Wheat and then you're adding the milk and sugar and you put too much milk in... and then its all watery and it just ruins the whole thing. And after all that hard work.
I just remembered something last night. When I was little I had all the boring regular Barbies, but for some reason my sister got this cool Hawaiian Barbie named Miko. Every time we played Barbies I wanted to be Miko, but she never let me because face it, if you've got cool Hawaiian Barbie are you really going to share? On the other hand, I did get Peaches and Cream Barbie (Hey sickos! this was before 'peaches and cream' referred to anything other than actual, literal peaches and cream, so I dont want to hear the jokes, got it?) with pink sequin-ny formal dress, and I did have that cool Barbie-sized comforter made out of neon pink material and lace... but I would have traded them both for Miko. And you know what else? I had She-Ra Castle and a bunch of She-Ra dolls.. but my sister had the Blue Ice She-Ra doll that I always wanted too. Did my parents like my sister better?
Furthermore, Erin, I wanted to tell you about my ghetto window treatments because I knew it would make you cringe- So I go to work on my computer today but my desk is in front of the windows and it's like 8:30, so it's really bright. So I took those curtains you gave me and taped them up (yes, taped). But it was still way too bright, so I took one of those Bubble Mailer envelopes and taped it to my window to block out the sun. Thought you'd like that.
That's all for today...

Why You Should Be Poor

So, we used to go out with Ryan and Jen and have drinks like twice a week, but since we've moved to New York we are way too poor to go out and drink. No, actually we are too poor to even buy alcohol. But today, we get this rebate check for $6.50 from Charter because we overpayed them a few months ago, and I'm all like sweet! let's get some of those Smirnoff Twisted things No folks, the patheticness of this situation does not escape me. But anyhow, we get some and I'm drinking one and I call my sister and after a while, I'm having trouble forming sentences and my tongue is starting to feel all big. And I look at my bottle and it's only half gone. Yes my friends, It's been so long since I drank that I got tipsy off of half of a wine cooler. This is why you should aspire to be poor. I could get tipsy for the next six nights and only spend $8. Ha.:)

Ray Hearts Halloween

So our Super is this skinny muscley guy (Ray) who is all tough and whatnot, and he's always saying stuff like "a'ight" and "whadda you think?" and he constantly wears this Co-Ed Naked Firefighting shirt ("come slide down my pole"), usually for several days in a row, and he's usually to be found in the elevator, smoking a cigarette directly underneath the No Smoking sign and if you see him and you say hi there's only about a 50% chance that he'll say hi back- the other times he will either act as if you're not not alive or do that head-chin nod-jerk thing. Once, Rob was trying to be nice and make conversation and he's like "So, do you have another place on the weekends?" (because he lives in the building but he leaves on the weekends) and he kind of looks at rob and then he's like "yeah. I got a wife. I got a kid and I got a place in the Poconos. I mean, whadda you think?" And were like.. uh.. we dont know... So anyways, we come home from work the other day and there are Halloween decorations all over the lobby, and we're cracking up, cause we're picturing Ray out there hanging them up and Rob starts impersonating him in the elevator , saying "Yeah, I fuckin' love Halloween, I mean, whaddah you think? I love those fuckin' ghosts, all white and shit', they kill me. You know whadd'I mean?" So I'm all laughing and whatnot. And then we come home today. And there are more decorations. The lobby is pretty much covered now. There's a big banner and ghosts taped up in the elevator. Ray must really get into Halloween. (I mean, whadda you think, you know?)

Why I Can't Use Ebay

So Ebay, good in theory and all, but... I can't use it. Because I take it really personally when I get outbid. Like, for instance, this Joss Stone CD I bid on. I saw her video on MTV on Sunday or something and I really liked it, so I got on Ebay and found a CD that was going for $5.00, so I bid $5.50. With shipping it would be like $7.00, not too bad. And I didn't hear anything since then, and now, 5 hours before I win, someone comes in and bids higher than me. RUDE!! I've been bidding on this all week and now, right before it's over, you just swoop in and steal it from me? THERES A NAME FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU. SO.. I say, two people can play this. So I try to outbid them. Oh yeah, I went all wild and bid $6.50. AND THEY OUTBID ME AGAIN. You know what I have to say to you, new owner of a Joss Stone CD? There is a special place for people like you. Oh yeah, I hope you enjoy your music, live it up, because THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES FOR YOUR ACTIONS. Seriously, people dont like people like you.