Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Don't Stop Y'all

So today I had a Spanish test that I wasn't prepared for, followed shortly by an economics test that I wasn't prepared for. But I think I aced them both, so no worries. I celebrated my genius by going on a nice, crazy long bike ride out to the mall. Murder by automatic vehicle was the goal, but I came out with a nice jacket for next weekend's wedding, too. The ride home was death-defying. Stinging sideways hail that got right into my eyes when I needed to see cars the most, out on Meridian. The ride was simply exhilarating, mostly because I was a quivering mass of jell-o moving super-fast on an aluminum frame not 2 feet away from big hulking masses of metal (that moved faster than me.) Oh, then there was the bright idea to go outside in the same outfit I wore in the morning. Here's a tip for next time you're in my situation: overcast weather clothes do not suffice in the face of snow! So the walks to and from campus were miserable, but I made it through. I had music.

And after all of this, I come home to the smell of fresh-baked cupcakes. My roommate is awesome. Baking skills are now a requirement for all future roommates.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Sleep Tight, Dream Right

Anyone who listens to me long enough eventually hears about my obsession with the Underground Coffeehouse. I just want to lay out all the facts for everyone, here and now. The Underground Coffeehouse is the nearest to Heaven I have ever been. Couches, left and right, bundled in groups or off to the side. Overstuffed recliners, old and battered coffee tables, broken lamps, and more couches. In some places you've either got to weigh 110 lbs or be able to bend all sorts of crazy ways to get through a couch crowd. Generally, the play good music, although at times it does get a little loud if you're looking for a decent nap.

Think of Interpol. PDA: "We have two hundred couches where you can sleep tonight." Literally, every time I start feeling sleepy and drowsy, I think of that song and imagine, just exactly what would two hundred sleeping couches look like? And I see the Underground Coffeehouse. I see home. It's where I go to study, it's where I go to read a book, it's where I go if I'm trying to avoid going back to la casa verde. It's not, however, where I go for coffee. The Underground does not do good coffee. The Starbucks upstairs does better coffee, obviously those numerous places downtown do coffee better. But that's not what makes the Underground special.

It's all about the couches.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Frou Frou

Work work work, all day... Coworker was coming in to pick up her boyfriend at the end of his shift, ended up getting a bloody nose instead. She was in the office for about 20 minutes without it stopping, so we called an ambulance and they took care of her. Eventually she went home, but man, you should've seen the staff bathroom before it got cleaned out. Blood EVERYWHERE. Something like a scene from a horror film.

Also finally reading the Fountainhead, which was probably a bad idea to start it because it's a fatty book and I don't really have the time to get lost in Ayn Rand. But it's fantastic.

Amigos, please. Calling me about strange signs at Chevron? Not kosher. At least have the decency to tell me you stole it. It's just common decency.

Pretty pictures from Friday afternoon at Larrabee. My picture-taker took a swim in the ocean and I find out if it'll be okay later this week.














Saturday, February 24, 2007

Gross, Chelsea

There's no way I can go to the UW next year. First, they couldn't possibly consider accepting me. Second, if they did, I couldn't go because I'd know the entire institution is corrupt for accepting a person like me.

I am officially the stupidest person alive. Not only did I manage to drop my brand new camera in the ocean yesterday, but just now, I found my mp3 player. You know, the one that was stolen back in January? Guess what. It wasn't stolen.

It was lost in all those blankets on my bed.

I was putting the shelves at the base of my bed back into position since these last few days have been rough on my bedding arrangement. When you sleep 10+ hours a day, your bed gets thrashed. All 8+ blankets are piled in the corner near the wall, while the mattress itself has moved about 5 inches from said wall. And amidst all of this destruction, I found my mp3 player nestled calmly under my Target blanket at the end of the mattress.

So today, I'm going to clean my room.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

I see spiders when I close my eyes

Half an hour until new episode of The Office. Suh-weeeet.

Tomorrow is going to be a Very Long Day. I haven't had one of those in a while, I've been trying to avoid them completely while I battle a two week long so far cold.

Today I did all sorts of neat things. Kicked complete ass on my accounting test, rocked on guitar hero (first time ever, but they didn't believe me. I am such a bad ass.), and watched a pack of about 15 dogs rollicking in and around Lake Whatcom. I am this close to giving the middle finger to responsibility and checking out the Humane Society for a puppy (or two.)

Brent gave me directions to the mud flats for the next sunny day. Personal note, though: wear a windbreaker and tie back that hair. Boots would be good, too. The wind howls out there. Last time I went was in May, the sun was shining fiercely, and I was wishing for a sweatshirt.

Also, figured out my schedule for next quarter. No classes until noon on Tuesdays and Fridays! This of course means that I will do nothing exciting Monday and Thursday nights, unless sitting up playing video games or listening to music while Stumbling the internet counts.

Speaking of Stumble, I showed it to Zoey today. She was incredibly excited. She sat at my computer going "Stumble!... Stumble!" until Firefox froze, as it usually does, and she got impatient and walked away. This all took less than 5 minutes.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Turn Around, Bright Eyes

Made two dates with two Tom's today. Tom Payne, my dear dear senior friend, is coming up from Fedtown on Friday to see the Thermals and hang out. If his poor broke high school ass can find the gas money. Thomasaur the Third will be visiting a bit later, the weekend before Finals Week, but he'll have a car with lots of gas and we'll do all sorts of crazy things. Things like driving and making each other listen to our music, just like we did in high school. Maybe we'll go for a hike, he'll probably talk endlessly about his girlfriend, and we'll probably gossip about old high school kids. So now, I have weekends to look forward to again.

Once upon I was falling in love, now I'm only falling apart. Nothing I can say, a total eclipse of the heart...

Three weeks and no scalloped potatoes later, the lost and found on campus finally found my bike light. After I gave up and went and bought the same expensive version. Fortunately, REI takes returns for all reasons.

Monday, February 19, 2007

I Love Love

Anyway, new plan for tomorrow. .... Goddamn, just as I started filling in all the mental gaps in my plan, I came across one irritating obstacle. Geology Lab. Arrgh, I hate being on campus until 4. So now I guess the plan is to sleep in and go to the gym at 4, and maybe beat back this funk that's settling in with a good long sweaty workout. And this music mix I've made for myself over the course of the last 5 days? I will never turn it off.

Read that wonderful kid's book, Holes, today. Luh-luh-loved it. Be careful, Chelsea, it was only a month ago you abandoned your studies to take on His Dark Materials and Howl's Moving Castle. Well written children's books = love. Meh, actually, I think I'll just take my copy of Catch-22 out of Irene's room and start that again.

Here's a list of all the books strewn about my floor that I refuse to put away because I actually think I'm going to pick each one up and finish/read it front-to-back in the next few days:
Accidental Empires - Robert X. Cringley
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man - John Perkins
Naked Economics - Charles Wheelan
Running with Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
How Soccer Explains the World - Franklin Foer
Eva Luna - Isabel Allende (the spanish text)
The Impossible Will Take a Little While - Paul Rogat Loeb (and contributing authors)
The General in His Labyrinth - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

So actually my life is not revolving around books these days, or bollywood movies, or any of those things that I like to obsess about fervently in this little patch of cyberspace. It's because I don't have the time for them that I just love to write, write, write about the silly little lists I'm forming. I'm more preoccupied with my Ikea plant, which has grown too tall for this lack of sun and is now too weak to hold itself up. It's got bright purple flowers and pink spots on the leaves, just like in its days of prime during the summer, only the stalks are too thin and spend their time draped across my desk. Hey, sun! Come back out! My Ikea buddy here needs some nutrients, and I'm dying for a nice long bike ride that won't leave me with a hacking chest cough after.

Last night, fed up with baking and being sick, I hung out with the old Green House Group. We watched this awfully fantastic movie called Ravenous. Watch it. The soundtrack and the ending fight scenes are literally the best I have ever seen a movie come up with. Also, every time I feel like creeping someone out, I'm going to start wiggling my fingers around and making drum beat sounds.

Please don't ask me how studying went today. I just really don't want to talk about it.

Think about some direction

Damn damn damn. Irene beat me to the idea of crashing on Seth and Tiana's couch and playing Zelda for hours and hours on end. Looks like I'll be heading to campus to do homework instead. I hate studying. I read a book and baked brownies and an oreo cream pie and, of course, played Zelda for a few hours yesterday, all between the hours of 6pm and 4am, just so I could not study and maybe sleep all through Monday, thus avoiding studying all of today, too.

Listening to the Brunettes has given me a hopeful outlook on life, though. "Maybe someday soon we could spend the afternoon together. We could go to put-put - my favorite game."

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Woozy

I really want to say last Saturday was terrible because I was woken up early and only got 4 hours of sleep. I really want to say that I resent that person who woke me up and that it was a one-time thing that I refuse to ever let happen again.

I really want to say it, and mean it.

Except here it is, the very next Saturday, and once again I was up until 6 am, once again I woke up four hours later and couldn't go back to sleep.

I'm going to have to figure a way to rig up curtains that block the early morning sun, so maybe I can sleep off the hangover in peace next time.

But okay, so here's what happened. In hopes of getting shitty drunk last night, I left Brent's friendly chill party to find a raging kegger on Franklin. It was awful, so we picked up some boys, bought a flat of Pabst, and proceeded to drink ourselves silly in the middle of the living room floor.

Here's a question: Why don't I ever sit on the roof? It's prime chill spot. Actually, the answer's simple. Weather's shitty. As soon as it's warm again...

Yesterday I ate decadent chocolate cake at the Colophon Cafe with Allison. We talked about boys, and travel, and spanish, and boys. And we devoured that piece of cake. It stood no chance in the face of our post-economics chocolate craving.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

At Brent's

Vince's girlfriend made chocolate pie. Four people discovered it. Every single one went "Chocolate pie!!!"

Bike Bike Bike. That's all I think about all day long. When can I go on a bike ride? Started to watch The Constant Gardener last night while riding the trainer, lasted about half an hour before the whole stationary-bike thing started to bother me. But get this: Kimchi ran on his wheel while I rode the bike, and he'd stop and look around whenever I stopped.

So here's an exciting little story. I'm sitting in accounting when I get a text message from a number I've never seen before, from an area code I've never heard of. All it says is: Chelsea. Hmm, I wonder to myself. Who could this be? "This is Frans if you remember me." So I start hyperventilating a little bit. Frans Jensen, that boy from fall quarter freshman year whose room I used to live in, whose Lion King video game I used to play constantly, who used to take Jaeger shots and drink Red Bull with me almost every night, who played the fiddle and I was basically an idiot for not being in love with. After he disappeared mid-winter quarter, I never knew what happened to him again. He was a bit like John Books (who actually showed up at the Red House party on Friday. The mystery of John has been solved.) only I was more anxious about him, because news was literally silent.

Anyway, I was talking to a friend from accounting, and didn't really feel like freaking out in front of her. So I waited until our conversation would be done and I could call Frans with all the proper excitement he deserves. Then I got this message: "I went to school with you last year, was roommates with mar in buchanan towers." Oh, it was adorable. I turned to Christine, said an immediate Adios, and called the silly fucker to tell him how much I adore him.

The story goes he went back to Minnesota, got back together with his old girlfriend, moved to Montana to be a cook at a ski resort, broke up with the old girlfriend, and is thinking about moving back to Washington. I invited him to move in with me. It was a short conversation, I had to move on to my next class, but I'm going to call him again soon and gush and gossip and basically just take in every bit of Frans that I've been wishing to experience for the last year.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Today

Failed to wake up at a decent hour. So much for an invigorating morning run.
Classes - meeeeh. Not terrible. Not great. Accounting has never been so boring. Thursday is the official halfway point for the quarter, though. That's exciting?
Walked home and it rained.
Met Morgan downtown for coffee and we gossiped. Ohhh, girl gossip. It can't be matched.
Walked home and it rained.
Soon I'll be driving Irene out to some unknown destination, where we'll drink gin and ginger ale and hopefully make it home okay.

Tomorrow? I'm going to fix my bike! I hope I hope I hope.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

I am so unlucky

I'm very angry with my bike right now.

The back tire went flat last night at 2 am while I was about a mile away from my house. This was infuriating and humiliating and something I could barely forgive. Fortunately for the bike, a very cute boy walked me home and I found I couldn't stay mad for long.

So today Irene towed the bike in the back of her truck out to Fairhaven, where I got the tire fixed. Since bikers in general are smart and generous people, they suggested a few things I should keep on hand in case it happens again. I took their advice, picked up some supplies and went home with excitement in my heart, ready to take on the town as usual.

Right as I passed the WECU building on Holly, the front tire died.

I walked that bitch back home and spent an hour trying to fix it. Maybe my arms aren't strong enough to use an air pump, maybe I didn't even put the new tube back on correctly, but mostly I think that every part of that red monster despises me and decided to just spit back out every bit of air I put into it.

So I left the tire in the kitchen and stuck it out on the back porch to think things over. And maybe I'll call one of the bike gang founders tomorrow to see if they can fix it.

Samson

Flipping channels, I got this sentence out of the TV: "God says that women are beneath us."

That was 10 minutes ago. I'm still amused.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Shiiit how do I calculate CPI inflation rate?

First I thought I was nervous because of the boy I wanted to talk to. Then I thought I was freaking out about my upcoming Econ test. Finally, I realized it was just the caffeine from that doubleshot americano kicking in. It's been so long since I've had coffee of any kind that I'd actually forgotten what a caffeine high feels like.

And on a side note, I now have two hand-drawn walrus pictures from two seperate boys named Nick. Maybe I'll start a collection of walrus pictures. Except if I go with the Nick theme, I only have one more before I'm out of Nick-friends.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Stalling....

Last night in my Preschool swim lessons, only two of the boys showed up. Colm, my favorite, was having a great night. Doing back floats by himself, holding his breath underwater for 9 seconds (!!) and just in this cute adorable mood, telling me things like how he can recognize me even when I change my swimsuit (but not if I'm wearing normal clothes.) Then while Isaac and I were taking a spin around the pool, Colm fell (not sure how exactly, I wasn't watching. Bad teacher.) He hit his ear right on the edge of the pool. I could see the bruise forming already. Poor kid, hitting your ear hurts so much. He was crying and I let him go sit with his dad, where he sat in his towel and bawled while holding his head.