CD Case Inventory

My CD case doesn't see much action these days. It mostly stands on my bookshelf, wedged between The Romance of William of Palerne (ugh) and last year's planner, quietly gathering dust. (Seriously, it's kind of grey and fuzzy.) Thanks to the advent of newer music technologies, pretty much all my music lives on my computer or my mp3 player. There are a few CDs, though, that haven't made it onto either, but that I nonetheless keep around because I like them. They are for the most part too embarrassing to risk having them pop up when I put everything on shuffle, or are kept around for purely sentimental value. Anyway, here is a by no means comprehensive list of the CDs in that case that I keep around for reasons I barely know:

1) Mixes

B has been making me mixes since freshman year. E and A joined in later that same year, so it's safe to say that a sizable chunk of the discs are mixes with names like, "I wrote you a letter," and "Party like you're evil." These are all on my computer now, but I like having them physically present. Tucked into each slot is the accompanying handwritten tracklist, which I love having.

2) Good Charlotte, "The Young and the Hopeless"

Technically, this doesn't actually belong to me. My friend K left it at my house on my thirteenth birthday and moved away before I remembered to give it back to her. Listening to it brings back memories of K, who was all too briefly my best friend. She had blue hair and glasses and was generally great. Once she moved away my best friend ended up being Hayleigh, and we all know how that worked out.

3) Ani DiFranco, "Not a Pretty Girl"

Again, not actually mine. I stole it from my mom when I was around 10. It makes me think I was pretty much doomed to end up at Bryn Mawr.

4) James Blunt

I admit it. I thought "You're Beautiful" was a great song. I really did.

5) Michele Branch, "Spirit Room"

Michele Branch went to school at the same school as me back in Sedona, AZ, but graduated before I got there (I think). Teachers were always trying us to buy cheap demos of hers, and we scoffed. And then she got famous.

6) Yellowcard, "Ocean Avenue," and/or Slipknot, "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)"

There are two nearly indistinguishable burned CDs in here. One of them is Yellowcard, the other is Slipknot. I cannot for the life of me tell them apart anymore, but I know that I used to be able to see a small red smudge from when I tried to write on one, and I knew which one that was. Sometimes I pop one in expecting poppy rock with some violin, and instead I get blasted with heavy metal.

7) Eminem, "The Eminem Show"

I can't help it. Deep down, I like Eminem. I like swearing in music. I like bass. I just like it. God help me.

8) Miranda Lambert, "Kerosene"

Ah, country. I like you so much more than I should.

9) Jimmy Eat World, "Chase This Light"

I still like Jimmy Eat World, and I have ever since I heard "The Middle" on the radio in the car and had a mild revelation back in 2003.

10) Britney Spears, "Oops...I Did It Again"

I have had this since my tenth birthday. I just can't bear to get rid of it.

Hi, my name is Gillian and I'm a television addict

I know I watch a lot of TV. Really, I am aware that I have a problem. But it wasn't until I started compiling a list of all the TV shows I am currently watching/waiting to come back that I realized that I might have a situation on my hands. So, here's a list of all those shows:

1. Ugly Betty

2. Chuck

3. Pushing Daisies

4. Doctor Who

5. Stargate Universe

6. Community

7. Glee (oh my god why is this on during room draw?!?!?!?!)

8. Dexter

9. Dexter the Next Generation

10. 10 Thing I Hate About You

11. The Vampire Diaries

12. Weeds

13. In Plain Sight

14. Family Guy

15. American Dad

16. Psych

17. Caprica

18. Army Wives

19. Make It or Break It

20. Big Love

21. True Blood

22. Torchwood

23. Mercy

24. Fringe

25. House

26. Xena

27. Parenthood

28. Modern Family

I am so screwed.

Apologies

So, my roommate and I went to Panera after dinner, because I was in a bad mood and wanted nothing more than an asiago cheese bagel and a frozen mocha and a place to relax. We didn't get much work done, of course, but it was generally a fun time. While we were there, several things came up that we laughed uproariously about, while the dads and their kids looked on in frightened curiosity. So, because I'm lazy, here are the things we laughed about at Panera:

1) James Joyce

Last semester, my roommate, who shall henceforth be known as A because I'm too lazy to type roommate over and over, took a class on Ulysses. A year or so ago, I found this Kate Beaton comic about Joyce's letters to his wife, Nora. Don't look them up. Please don't do it. There's a reason Kate Beaton's dreams are haunted by a spectral James Joyce threatening to send her correspondence. Sophomore year, both A and I took a course on the Canterbury Tales. All of this leads up to the fact that we decided that the most hilarious/dirty literary penpals ever would be Chaucer and James Joyce. Think about it. It's funny.

2) Canadians, eh?

Another Kate Beaton comic that I really love is this one. Because it's true, of me at least. I can be so enraged that I'm about to beat my head against the wall, but if someone is suddenly polite to me I am completely unable not to respond in kind. Also, I have to have the last apology. I really have to. No really. I'm so sorry. Sorrier than you can ever be! Ha. I apologize for friends' bad days, for bumping into people, for people who step on my feet, for forgetting anything, for doing better than someone. You name it, I'm sorry for it.

3) Walt Whitman

...love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice...

Need I say more?

4) Professors

We're both English majors. We both basically live in this English department. We talk about professors. all. the. time. It's an inescapable topic. In addition, we Gertrude Stein them - I've never met a Bryn Mawr student who doesn't say professors' names as Firstname Lastname, each and every time they mention them. It's bizarre, and we frequently wonder if BMC is the only place that this happens, or if it's more widespread.

5) Starbucks/Panera

I seem to have some sort of mental block. I can know that I'm in Panera, but I seem completely incapable of calling it anything by Starbucks. This is possibly because I am in Starbucks all the frickin time, but it's starting to border on the ridiculous.

6) Literary Movements

In talking about Joyce, we inevitably started talking about literary movements, and how much we love Modernists and their kooky relationships with one another. I also looked up Mary McCarthy and read about her infamous feud with Lillian Hellman, about whom she said on the Dick Cavett Show, "every word [Hellman] writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." HILARIOUS. This ended in A and I deciding that we want to be in a literary movement full of crazy smart people who all hate or love one another and create lots of literary intrigue.

Scars

I have a weird relationship with scars. I hate them when they first show up, and I bitch and moan about how they're marring my perfect beauty. But after a while, I get used to them. They become a part of me, a part of my body that I expect to see. Of course, the moment that happens, they disappear back into my skin, never to be seen or heard from again. So, I'm going to catalog them here, those that are present along with those that have vanished, so that I can remember. And you can know how clumsy I am.

1) Face Craters

My face is littered with scars from acne. It's just a fact that I deal with. I tend not to notice these, because even if that one right above my lip finally goes away, another will pop up right on the other side of my mouth in short order.

2) Lefty

Ah, lefty. The scar that solidified for me the difference between left and right. When I was 9. (I had a remarkable amount of difficulty with the whole left vs. right thing. I remember once my mom indicated to me which of my arms was my left and which was my right, and then I turned around and gestured with my left arm and said, "So this is still right, right?") Lefty was this long crescent-shaped line on the inside of my left arm, that I got from a ring of metal with some scented oil in it that had been on top of a light bulb. I was playing with the lamp that contained said light bulb, and knocked off the ring in the process. It rolled down my left arm, leaving a curved line that stuck around for years. I first noticed it had disappeared right around when I was applying for college, and felt much sadder about it than I meant to.

3) Seat Belt

My mom and I got in a minor car accident the summer after my freshman year in college. We both walked away, but I managed to get a giant friction burn across the upper portion of my chest from my seat belt. It hurt a lot, but it was actually the last thing that started hurting immediately after the accident. (The first thing I noticed immediately was that my face stung from the airbag smacking it and breaking my glasses.) This scar mercifully faded very quickly - I was not happy about having a parallelogram engraved right where shirts open, and by a couple of months into sophomore year it was gone.

4) Lock

This scar was from the same car accident mentioned above. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I got it when my right arm was jammed against the door-unlocking switch on the passenger side door. Regardless, it started out as this strangely deep gash in my arm, which would have been alarming if not for the fact that it was very small - maybe an inch long, at most. I guess it could best be described as a gouge. Anyway, I grew to like the scar left behind, because it was at the perfect level for my left hand to touch when I crossed my arms. It faded very recently - in fact, I was in AWLW when I reached for it and realized for the first time that it was gone.

5) Louie

I had a scar on my upper left thigh that I was quite fond of. I got it the summer after freshman year (this was a dangerous summer for me) when Louie, an overly-enthusiastic dog at the shelter, started humping my leg and wouldn't get down. He wrapped his asshole-y doggy arms around my thigh and held on for dear life, leaving one long claw mark that didn't even bleed, but just sort of hung around on my leg for months. On the bright side, I didn't have to deal with him after that, because no one else had that problem with him, and despite the teasing I endured for being Louie's "one true love," it was worth not having to contend with him.

6) Forehead

I have a barely noticeable scar on my forehead that I've had since birth. Apparently it's from where the doctor grabbed my head with forceps when I was on my way out. It's faded over time, but it's definitely still there. It's more of a smudge than a scar - just a touch of tan by my hairline. I like it, and to be honest, I really hope it doesn't go away, because then the only familiar marks on my body will be my freckles and moles, and those are rather too numerous to catalog.

Birthdays

Despite the fact that my birthday is almost two months away, I've been thinking a lot about birthdays lately. When you really think about them, they're kind of weird - everyone ages. Well, unless they're dead. I guess birthdays are more of a way to celebrate another year of survival? I think I'm feeling a little morbid tonight. Anyway, I've witnessed a few pretty pathetic birthdays/birthday parties in my time, and so here is my list, of saddest/morbidest/most pathetic birthdays I've ever seen.

1) "No, I'm the ballerina."

This one is a little hard to remember the particulars of, since I think I was about 4 or 5. However, my whole class (so I must've been in kindergarten, I guess?) was at some girl's birthday at chuck e. cheese or a place like that, and her cake had various girly-girl icing figures on it. Among them was a ballerina and a princess. Somehow we all got into assigning ourselves to the various figures on the cake, and it came down to the ballerina and the princess, and me and the birthday girl. I REALLY wanted to be the ballerina, because of my completely hilarious conviction that I would one day grow to be a graceful dancer. However, the birthday girl also wanted to be the ballerina. So, I did the only logical thing to do: I completely refused to give in, and brought it to a vote - wasn't it fair that the birthday girl be the princess, and I be the ballerina? The whole room agreed. The birthday girl accepted her crown through tears. And I was the ballerina.*

I should be a politician.

*I should note that this is perhaps one of my most frequently told stories. But it is also one of my most embarrassing, because really. What a bitchy thing to do.

2) The Lip Balm Incident

This was in Arizona, and I believe it was the 11th or 12th birthday of a girl named Tyler, who I didn't really like, but since we were in the same class, I wound up going to her birthday party anyway. The invitations, handmade by her mother, informed the recipient that the party would involve fun activities such as making your own handmade lipbalm. When I got to the party, I was pleasantly surprised. Tyler's mom was a very pleasant woman, and it seemed obvious to me that they both were trying very hard. We flocked around the modest and square background, eating pizza and chatting. Well, other people chatted. I stood in a corner and tried to look cool. Finally came the lipbalm making. We all got little tins which we would decorate later. Tyler's mom stood by and mixed everything, and we all shuffled through a line, picking out oils in order to each have a unique flavor in ours. (I got plain mint.) Later, as we were sitting on benches admiring our (Tyler's mom's) handiwork, and decorating the tins, all the girls started talking about how, now that they had what they came for, they really wanted to leave. "Yeah," said one girl, "I really only came because I wanted lipbalm. I don't really like her. Do you want to go?" "No," said someone else. "Let's wait for the cake."

Ouch. I didn't really like her either, but this seemed a little cruel to me. And there's something that always gets me about people who try really hard to be accepted but for whatever reason just...aren't.

3) Stefi and Rachel's Co-Birthday Extravaganza

Stefi and Rachel were both briefly my friends, in that way that in Arizona, I didn't hold on to friends for more than a couple months at a time. Stefi's parents owned the only Chinese restaurant in town, a place my family didn't frequently visit due to the unnervingly frequent failures it received from the inspectors at the health department. Stefi was also rather stuck up. Rachel was really sweet, and saw a kindred spirit in the equally detail-oriented Stefi. Soon after Rachel moved to Sedona, she and Stefi were best friends, and I was once again eating lunch in the classroom, hiding from all my classmates.

In addition to being bffs, Stefi and Rachel had birthdays only about a week apart. So, they co-planned a co-birthday, inviting everyone in the class. The party was to be held at Stefi's family restaurant - they were going to shut it down for us for the day, and feed everybody free lunch. When, after I breathlessly watched Stefi pass out the invitations one morning, she finally reached my desk and handed me an invite, I was unduly excited. They had both been my friends, after all, and I thought that maybe this meant we could all be friends. However, Stefi paused in the act of handing me my invitation, holding in the air directly in front of my face as I sat at my desk. "Here's your invitation," she said flatly. "We weren't going to invite you, but it looks like there'll be room after all. My parents thought it would be rude not to let you come." Gosh. Thanks.

Finally, the day arrived. I'd like to say that I was too proud to go, but I wasn't. I showed up right on time. I was the first to get there, so I handed them my present and sat at their table, though Stefi warned me that when other people got there I would have to let her real friends sit with them. (Rachel was notably silent during these animosity-laden exchanges. I'll never know what she thought of it all.) So we sat and waited. And waited. And waited some more. The appetizers sitting on all the tables began to cool. The lunch Stefi's parents had made for sixty was starting to dry out. Finally, after about an hour, they gave up and served the food, cut the cake, and opened my solitary present. Rachel looked sad, but Stefi looked defiantly crushed - she was hurt, but way too proud to show it. On the drive back home I passed a group of the kids who were supposed to have been there zipping around on skateboards, clearly with nothing better to do. This event has always stuck in my mind, for several reasons - one, the sweet vindication of being the grudgingly invited guest who turned out to be the only guest; two, the expense of all that wasted food; and three, the fact that no one at school ever brought it up. It was the party that never happened.

4) My Eighteenth Birthday

I spent my eighteenth birthday at my uncle's funeral. It was a depressing entrance into adulthood, coupled with a healthy reminder of my own mortality. Does anything else really need to be said?

5) My Nineteenth Birthday

This one isn't so bad, but on June 25, 2009, Micheal Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died. This second intrusion of death into my birthday has me irrationally worried about this year, when I will finally turn 20. After all, once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action.