Children's Literature Reading List

Last night I read Bridge to Terabithia. How come nobody warned me? That was one of the saddest books I have read in a long time. Seriously. I'm no stranger to sad books. But holy shit. I cried for a good 30 minutes. Scratch that. I sobbed for a good thirty minutes. Then I looked in the mirror and thought to myself it isn't possible for my face and eyes to be redder. I wanted to take a picture of the redness, but I decided against it. It's best to let those moments fade away with out physical proof.

Happy Halloween!

I'm going to a children's story time at my local library. I think I will dress up as someone who doesn't have tattoos.

I get nervous when she comes around

The week is over. (giant sigh of relief) Only 5 more weeks until the end of the semester. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it. I went and bought my cap and gown this week along with my invitations. I feel like I should have a party for myself, but that seems like to much effort and cleaning. Maybe I'll muster up some motivation. Maybe not. So my excitement about graduate school has been slowly waning. Here is my analogy. Library school is a woman. I was trying to find out which parties to go to so I could go and then pretend like it was an accident we saw each other. I was really working hard to get into library school's panties. She was playing hard to get. Years this went on. Finally I get her in the sack. Now I'm having visions of all the money and the time and the effort and commitment and I'm wanting to bail. I know in reality I won't. But the whole thing is making me tired just thinking about another 2 years of school. I know I can do it. I know I used to want to. (kidding) I know I can. I know I can. I know I can. I just have to mentally prepare.

Can't stop to chat

I fucked around all day and now I have to scurry around to try and finish all my homework.

Poetry

I have to perform a poem in one of my classes. I picked two Anne Sexton poems. I picked two because we have a 3 minute quota. Since my poems are so personal my professor encouraged me to perform them with a persona. Anne Sexton? High School Goth? I think I will do Anne Sexton. I need some clothes.

Stalking

For a class project I am supposed to stalk myself. Oh, through the internet. I am supposed to find everything there is to know about myself without paying. I have found my address and my telephone numbers both old and recent. I have found my flickr, blog and myspace (no surprise).

Have any other suggestions?


Do you like to stalk people through the internet? Do you lurk on the myspace?

Dear God,

You may remember me from such blog posts as: Please let me get into graduate school (bang up job on that by the way), please make my neighbors move out, and make the neighbor keep her dog from barking. I'm writing to talk to you about another dog. The previous dog has been so quiet. Whatever you did worked great. Could you work a little magic with this new dog? He has a blood curdling part yell, part bark, part howl that is horrific. It goes for hours. Hours. While your at it could you miraculously put the answer in my head to this question: Why do people lock their dogs outside and let them bark and bark and bark? It irritates me. I feel sorry for the dogs.

Thanks for reading,

Lauren

I'm back

Sometimes I-35 really blows and then other times I am so happy it brought me back home I forget how hard it blows. I feel like I need a shower after being in Fort Worth, to wash off all the hillbilly germs I got on me. I was mostly in Saginaw, a small town outside of Fort Worth.

You find out a lot about Texas towns by billboards. As we came up on Temple/Belton area there were tons of billboards that advertised "Keep an eye on Poachers" and it had a picture of a Bald Eagle. Is there an excess of eagle poaching in Temple? For God sakes. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, when we got to Waco they had billboards that advertised that they had the 7th highest murder rate in Texas. Is that the kind of thing you want to advertise? I'm not really sure what that is supposed to accomplish. They should try Waco is for murderers. Or maybe- If you are thinking about coming to infect the Texas market with your inflated California money think again! Waco, where someone might knife you! How about - We don't have any jobs for you and we'll just as soon kill ya. Waco, where we want you to fuck off. Lovely, isn't it? Why didn't I go into advertising. I would be so good at it. That took me seconds to come up with. Waco might do good to hire me because I was a little unsure of their marketing strategy. There would be no mistaking mine.

We took a small poll in one of my classes the other day to find out who hates Houston and Dallas. One guy said he was from Dallas and he liked it. Werido. Personally, I hate both. Especially the driving. One second your on the road you are supposed to be on, according to your directions, and the next minute you take a left exit to lost-ville. The left exit is the bane of my existence. I am so glad Austin doesn't have the left exit. I might never find my way home.

How about you... Do you hate Houston or Dallas? (I promise I will judge you.) If your not from Texas you can play along with ....How do you feel about the left exit?

I'm off to Fort Worth

Why? My mom wanted to see her family and she didn't want to have to drive. I woke up at 5:30 AM. I'm wicked tired. How to people do this everyday? I would hate the world. More than I already do.

Would you rather wake up early or stay up late?

Demographics

I find it fun to see what commercials are played during a certain show and then make judgements about who the people paying for that space thinks is watching the show. For instance Kyle and I watch Law & Order: Special Victims Unit after SNL on Saturday nights. The commercials they play are ridiculous. Of course there are the sex chat commercials, but there are also AZO yeast infection pills, some kinda poop medicine (I can't remember if it is supposed to make you go or keep you from going), and diet pills. Ewwww! Can you image the poor person who needs all those things? They would be in a way. There must be a lot of people in a bad way.

I have a thing for these Golden Snub Nose Monkeys. Yes I realize that they have weird nose holes, but I like them. That little blue face and the golden hair is adorable, and big giant round eyes that melt me.

Cute?

Dick? Again

I am watching A Scanner Darkly in my surveillance class. It is a funny movie. A really good movie, but sometimes Dick is so fucking out there.

I have a test tomorrow. (It took me 24 years to remember how to spell tomorrow, but finally I have done it.)

Has it ever happened that someone finds you attractive and it surprises you? Like you forgot that was a quality that you possessed.

If you were going to describe yourself what is the first adjective on your list?

Vacation to Peru after I graduate . . .

Booked.

I had a dream about Corley last night. She was doing pottery at her house. I was so perplexed. I asked where she was working on it. As soon as I asked the answer was really obvious, but there was really no answer. I just understood.

I really want to make some pots for my plants. I think this is why I had this dream. Specifically this plant. I want to make a pot that looks like the bottom half of a psychedelic pineapple. Then I went to Corley's house and there was pottery tools getting used on pumpkins and then I had a weird dream.

Do you think your dreams mean anything?

I have a reoccurring dream theme

The dream is never the same, but the theme is balancing. There is always a long line of people (sometimes I feel like know them sometimes I don't but I never really see their faces) and we are all trying to walk over tiny walkways in order to get where we are going. Last nights: I walk up stairs then it ends at a window sill I have to walk across that is about half an inch wide to get to another flight of stairs and there is nothing to hold on to. I tried holding on to the window lock, or the flat wall, but I fell. Then I wake up. Having fallen I jumped a little so I can't go back to sleep. There was some talk of where we were going, however I don't remember. I do know the beach was involved.

The last dream I had like this I didn't fall. It was surprisingly easy. Oh, I can walk on a half inch ledge up against a wall without hanging on. Then the next thing was more difficult I went to step and I woke up.

Do you believe in psychics?

I have nothing to talk about

My head hurts. It is so nice to wake up in the morning with a headache. Especially when I haven't been drinking.

There must be a reason for these things

For some reason every time I visit my friends at the tattoo shop I used to work at we talk about twisted things. Sex in general, but it always ends up with anal sex. I don't know why. Another theme we seem to fixate on is transexuals. The question always comes up:

Would you have sex with a post-op male to female transexual? (If you prefer men then post-op female to male)

I always think of things to write when I am away from the computer

You wouldn't think it,but typing is so difficult in the mornings. Maybe it is just because I slept like shit. I'm just sitting here staring.

Maybe later.

Finally

It finally rained today. It rained a little yesterday too. The weather is fabulous. I don't think it had rained in almost two months. It feels like it anyway, maybe it was one month. I don't know. It has been over cast for a few days now. I wish it was like this every October.


Would you rather be hot or cold?

Almost Forgot

School Blows! I feel like I will never be able to be done with school. It is never ending. That is part of the reason in sucks so hard. There is no light. I swear. I think I know better, but I haven't actually experienced school ending. Therefore, I have reason to believe that it never will.

I have nothing to vote about today.

I know

This makes me a total sap and corny, but almost nothing makes me as happy as when the dogs are piling on me on the couch. All I need is some dog snuggles and it makes my day. How can anyone live without a dog? The house is so lonely without them. The quiet of the house when the dogs aren't in it just about drives me to crazy house. I like to touch foreheads with Grubb. I love dogs I wish I had two more. I wish I had the time and the money for two more. I don't, not even close. But someday.

Would you rather have a dog or a cat?

I would really like to never leave the house

It would be just fine with me if I rarely left. For the next 6 months if I could just watch movies, read books, and tend to the succulents that would be just fine. I need a vacation so bad.

Would you rather take a vacation to Chile or Panama?

Head Hunters

Kyle has a friend who started a band. We went to Headhunters last night at midnight to listen. It was surprisingly decent. It is such a mixed bag in that place. I don't understand the dynamics, at all. There are two levels. The bottom is full of angry, long-haired men. My kinda crowd. Nobody bumps you. Nobody smiles. Nobody talks to you. Perfect.

Then there is the second level. It is about as big as my living room. There is no separation of the stage. There was dancing. Boy, was there dancing. And hats. I was sitting in a chair by the bar and my knees were dangerously close to the dancing area. My knees have never been in such immanent danger of being dry humped. There was one guy in particular that was the most dangerous. He was way to excited.

There was a girl in short shorts, a teal tube top, and matching high heels. She was dry humped a number of times.

This one guy must have been dropped off there, because if he was old enough to drive I would have dropped dead from shock. He looked 13.

Lets get back to the hats. One girl was wearing a hat and a vest and skinny jeans. She was dressed like a nerdy guy from 1990. Not pretty. Kyle says all she needs is bolo tie to finish her outfit.

I wish I had ear plugs. It was way too loud.

Would you rather go on a date with a guy who is a total tool bag? Or go to the movies and out to dinner along?

Kyle's Birthday

I gave the dogs a bath. It's tiresome. Poetry is trying to kill me this semester. Its evil plot is working. I going to try to take it easy this weekend. By take it easy I mean on the school work. Last night I drank some beer. And some homemade wine. It was good. I felt so much better after that. I had a hard day yesterday. Get this. Last Sunday I started my period. That same Sunday I stopped my period. I guess because it was too much for my body to take, being sick and on my period. I thought it was suspect at first, but here it is again to cheer my life up that much more. Thanks period, here's to you.

Would you rather be on your period for the rest of your life or have your uterus removed?

Would You Rather....

get hit my a car or fall out of a three story building. Neither one kill you.

Would You Rather....

I know this is off topic, but maybe I can bring it around some how. Now that I got accepted to Library School the real worrying starts. How am I going to afford roughly 4-5 thousand dollars a semester. Not to mention books and all that other crap that goes with school. I need a TA position. If you manage to score one that is 20+ hours a week you get over $3,000 in tuition help. The 10-19 only gets 1,000. which is better than nothing, but the admissions advisor said that most aren't 10 hours. Anybody have 20 grand they want to give up, because I could really use it right now. I have a fairly big bank account with a guardian lock on it. I have been to the bank with the paperwork from the court and they won't take the lock off. They said my file is lost or some bullshit. I'm not really sure what I should do. I'm going to call the legal department.

So here you go. Would you rather have absolutely no money? Or have money but it is locked in a bank and you can't get to it in any form?

Day 7- I'm bored

Frankly, I'm sick. Sick and tired. I'm pretty sure I had strep throat this weekend. I don't know for sure because on Sunday Kyle called his Aunt, who is a doctor, and asked her to call in some antibiotics. Later that night my throat was feeling better so my suspicions were pretty much confirmed.

On a totally different note, I don't want to be 30. Is that weird? I'm really dreading it and it is a good 5 years away.


Back on track. Would you rather loose your vision or your hearing?

Would You Rather....

this is a little different format. Which technology do you think did more for human civilization. Hand washing or Antibiotics?

Okay. I'll put it to you this way. Would you rather deliver a baby and the doctor hasn't washed his hands and came from god knows what? Or die of a bladder infection? I don't know if you can actually die from a bladder infection, but after the third day you would want to.

Would You Rather....

I'm not really prepared today. My excitement about getting into UT has been eclipsed by the raging pain in my throat. Feels like nasty old tonsillitis. Let's not forget the mass of homework that is slightly smaller than it was yesterday. Okay, here's one.

Would you rather write a 5 page paper over something that is completely boring and that you have no interest in whatsoever or read 20 pages of something that is not only boring, but has no relevance to anything in your life and never will (performance art)?

Would You Rather....

(this question was actually posed in a conversation I had recently)

eat a dog or starve to death? It doesn't have to be your own.

A little good news

You are reading the blog of the newest student admitted to The University of Texas at Austin's School of Information. Boy, am I fucking excited. Everyone I tried to call to tell them the news didn't answer their phone, jackasses. I'm kinda down off my high now, but still a little amped.

Would You Rather...

lick shoe sole of a nurse or a trash man?

Would You Rather....

drink a shot of horseshoe crab blood or eat a roach? The roach is roughly the same size of the inside of the shot glass.

Would You Rather...

be locked in a dark room (an average bedroom size approximately 10x10) with a rabid raccoon or a non-poisonous snake?