I talked to the dude at Expressions today aaaaaand they're ordering Starbuzz and Al Fakher! No idea when it'll get there, but they finally took the initiative, and that's what counts. Good job, college head shop! Having never ordered Starbuzz because it's too damn expensive online, I'm excited.

Also, Al Waha's After Nine is my new favorite cheap shisha. Smoke was a little wimpy at first, but I think that was a matter of the coals I'd been using not having been hot enough. Not having a stove with coils sucks. The side-dish part of the grill is my alternative, but that still takes forEVER, and if I use a small coal I have to hold the damn thing with tongs. It normally ends with me getting impatient and just waiting for the coal to burn through on its own for a while.

I finally got a new nose stud, which was my primary reason for going into town. I'm tired of using bend-your-own varieties (I always end up bending it too loose or too tight), and my piercing isn't big enough to handle anything besides practically the smallest gauge. Also, my nose in general is just too small for most twist varities (thank god it's catching up with the rest of my face), but I finally found one that worked... I just had to press through a bit of scar tissue to get it in right. That was left over from when I was an idiot and took my original piercing out for the first time over a sink with an open drain, then had to wait a couple of days to get a new stud (at which point the freshish piercing had started healing), and I had to re-pierce the new tissue. That was gross. Messing with piercings is gross. They're fun to have, but not fun to mess with. Remember that.

Anyway, then I washed my hands, cause boogers are gross too.

Bonus: A fair bit of off-brand shisha and two studs came out to just $22! Not having money is an adventure.


Finally, I just found out the new medication I JUST started taking for my insomnia is one of the misbranded drugs Pfizer is getting sued for. Which is fine, because I take atypical antipsychotics purely because of their sedation side effects -- I guess if I had schziophrenia, though, I'd be pissed at Pfizer right now. Benzos and nonbenzos have absolutely no effect on me... which is okay, I guess, since I don't really like getting addicted to pills or hallucinating or sleepwalking. If you can name a drug normally used to treat insomnia, I've taken it, and they were all shit. Lunesta gave me this gross taste in my mouth, too. Basically, I would suck hardcore at being a recreational drug user.

Ooookay, I think this entry is long enough for talking about nothing.

In my last Spring semester at Carolina, I led a three-day revolution which bucked the Daily Tarheel's trend of YWC fluff pieces, bringing level-headed critics out of the woodwork to explain how absurd this is. If I have done nothing else to advance society, I've at least accomplished this.

Okay. One class, four exams, two papers, one project. Then fake graduation. Then a semester of summer school. Then another semester of summer school. Then a fall semester.
THEN I GRADUATE FOR REAL!
THEN I GET A DOG!
THEN I GET A JOB OH GOD I HOPE!
THEN I GET MARRIED!

I'm hoping I'll see a horizon soon for this whole being-done-with-college thing. Granted, I technically have a semester and a half left to find some sort of glee and nostalgia, but I'm pretty ready to be done with this. I'll miss the occasionally raucous parties, some small sense of community, and being on that beautiful campus -- but it's nice to be pretty sure I have more things to look forward to than things I'll miss.

I recently ordered a duplicate of my driver's license, since my old one is cracking in half. I got to update my address (holy crap, having a permanent address is great) and finally got the green border that says I'm 21, so stupid waiters/clerks don't try to sit there and do the math on my birthday. Or, more recently, ask me a bunch of questions based on my license -- which I hadn't updated in years, so it still had my parents' address, and I swear the guy gave me a virgin whateveriordered.

Anyway. After less than a week, I'd lost it. Along with my debit card, which is sort of important. Except SECU just sent me a letter telling me they were cancelling it on April 1st, which is sort of a problem since I still haven't gotten the new card they promised, and I have, you know, bills. And things to pay for. Like food.

So, in a vaguely depression-era move, I had to go to the bank and withdraw a bunch of cash in anticipation of not getting my card by the first. CASH. The only thing I use cash for is, occasionally, parking. I hate it. I've gotten so used to accessing my imaginary money with a little piece of plastic, carrying cash feels awkward and old-fashioned. And dangerous, if I have more than $20 on me at any one moment, which is something I don't do. Just to protect myself from robbery, I'd like to hang a sign similar to the ones outside convenience stores which announce that the teller has less than $50 in the register. Like a criminal isn't going to know about the safe. Dumb. I keep thinking about that girl on campus last month who got robbed by some homeless dude for eight bucks. This was after he attempted to kidnap/kill her. She threw the cash in the air while they were walking to her car, and, interestingly enough, it was a great distraction.

Anyway. I spent three days trying to find these stupid cards which I basically need to live. They just fell out of a stack of mail, which is helpful. Until April, anyway.

See Update #2

So the home inspection came back, and there are a crapload of things that need to be done. According to our contract, we can walk away if the cost of repairs exceeds $5,000, which they very well may. Like, there are a ton of electrical issues... the water didn't run for more than a few minutes... and the insulation in the crawlspace is installed upside-down. All of these have to be fixed in order for the seller to sell the house to anyone, so Gavin just asked them to fix it all, like the guy said he would.

Anyway. I'm nervous.

THERE IS NO HOPE

sleep and i will just never work.

also i have had an intermittent cough for like 2 months now? and my head keeps getting all... stuffy. maybe it's doctor time.


eh.



i think i'm going to call this realtor to look at a house right down the road from our townhouse.

it's tiny and (from the outside) adorable. i see it every time i drive home. i promised mark i wouldn't fall in love with it or something stupid.

it's not like we have the money to buy a house or anything. but we were remembering what it was like when i was kind of living with him in his one-bedroom place before we moved, and how nice it was to be so close, and how cheap it was (well, would have been).



man.

i have to plan a wedding and stuff.

i also have to graduate.

yeah, not this semester! psssh. high-five if you're on the 4 1/2+ plan!

I am done with stores.
Forever.
AND EVER.

Crazy RoboSanta in the middle is our first ornament. The apple above it was my parents'.
Bonus adorable Christmas 1989 ornament to the left.

Mark and I did a crapload of shopping today, even though we were both basically too exhausted to move even when we first started... he worked all day and night, I was up coughing and had to rely on the black magic of vodka to finally get me to stop. Which means I fell asleep, but didn't sleep well. And neither of us slept long. Note to self: After purchasing new bottle of Nyquil, do not place it in a location where you cannot find it when you are ill and really desperately need it.

Ugh.

Anyway, I still have a ton of shopping left and it's driving me nuts. I have tomorrow and part of Friday; I'm driving to Pittsboro as usual to leave flowers for Eric that afternoon. Saturday morning we leave for Wilmington to begin CHRISTMAS... part one of... what... five, six, potentially?

Also, WHAT DO YOU BUY FOR CHILDREN??? Kate has the inside track here, I know. But my mom was all A+ on buying gifts for the kids (I helped!) for Christmas -- so I could be part of the "Bonnie, Travis, & Sarah" card. And once I turned 18 my mom would still help me get my shit together, and she'd pick out something genius or whatever.

BUT I DON'T HAVE KIDS AND I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT. Like, Eva, I can totally chill and remember (mostly) the kind of stuff I wanted when I was six. I mean, things have changed since '93, but Eva's a chill kid. I see Harper once a year so I don't even know what he's doing. Like, I think he was walking around and saying words last year. I imagine things have progressed? I haven't seen the twins in a year either, but I'm trying to put myself in Matt & Kim's position -- I don't want to get the girls things that'll just crowd up the house, or that they won't use/play with/whatever... and then with baby "11/12" (as I am dubbing her), I don't want to make life any more complicated. And I feel like 11/12 (aka Matt & Kim) should get something for Christmas too.

Being one of the three cousins without children and then, of those three, being the only one not living with my parents has put me in a crappy position.

MY BRAIN.
MY WALLET.
MY WALLETTTTTTTT.
(and mark's)

I need to sleep.

Okay, is this woman out of her mind?

ACORN? That shit is said and proven ridiculously retarded. Marxist? What??? The Great Depression started because of stratification between classes in the 20s, and it's like no one knows this. "Spreading the wealth around," the whole "Joe the Plumber" bullshit, is not Marxist, jesus christ. By the way, Joe the Plumber would get ridiculously awesome tax breaks running a small business. So, yes, his personal income tax will go up if he moves up into a higher tax bracket by owning the company and having a higher salary. But the federal taxes on his own business will be pretty awesomely reduced. His tax position really isn't shitty at all. Unless he fucks the business up. And that's up to him. Capitalism is still alive and well, buddy. Barack Obama may be promoting higher taxes for the upper class and tax breaks for the middle, but that hardly makes him a socialist. Much less a Marxist.

Regardless, for John McCain, it's sort of a bad sign when your running mate is "going rogue" in order to distance herself from you a week before the election in order to protect her own ass from your potential failure. That's just silly.

Anyway, Barbara West's husband is some Republican robot machine, and her interview with John McCain was all soft and cuddly. People are idiots.

i have a horrible horrible headache and am too emotional to function and miss my goddamn boyfriend

i just want to watch star trek with him and drink wine and eat papa john's.
guys that's what we DO.
it is SO. FUCKING. AWESOME.
you have no idea. the boy LIKES IT. HE LIKES THIS STUPID SHIT.
and I miss it so fucking much
i dunno

i'd curse his job except he likes it so goddamn much and it makes him so happy and shit.
so i can't do that.
i think it might be that i secretly want to ride in the ambulance with him JUST ONCE (and not be the patient)
and then maybe i could accept it more.

no, that's not it. i want star trek and wine and... wow i almost just typed "cuddles"

that's it, i'm going to bed.

MAN, our economy ROCKS! thank god our president and Republican presidential candidate are there to remind us! Oh, and remember that guy, Alan Greenspan?

Reuters:

Greenspan also said the chances of escaping a recession was "less than 50 percent."

"I can't believe we could have a once-in-a-century type of financial crisis without a significant impact on the real economy globally, and I think that indeed is what is in the process of occurring.

It's so awesome it's so unclear as to how the Fed plans to keep on keepin' on. There's a responsible way to let the market "correct itself," and an irresponsible way. Bailing out Bear Stearns, for instance: irresponsible. Letting the asshat CEOs at the head of the other national banks and lending companies see where their absurd bonuses and risks lead the company (hint: into the ground); well, that's capitalism. Though one can hardly blame the risk-takers -- the incentive sure as hell was there. It's just that there's some collateral damage. Like, jobs.

Sure, I'm pretty much a socialist, but if we're going to do the whole capitalism thing, it's kind of stupid for the government to reverse the market economy so as to "reward poor leadership" (thx Obamatron). I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) I'm somewhat on par with my libertarian friends here. Local and regional banks, on the whole, are not weak institutions -- and they're not as tied up in the national banks as one might think. They're not in a bad position to step up as the national institutions fall.

But the foundation's there; we've been going downhill since BEFORE Sept. 11th 2001. I imagine the downward trend of the economy sort of like a falling pinball, simple physics: the longer that ball runs towards the bottom without obstacles, the more momentum it gains, and the the harder it is to follow it to defend against it. And then, over the past seven years, the ball has hit targets that just increase its momentum -- more industries take hits and more CEO asshattery is sanctioned by the government. Greenspan seems right on, in my opinion (although I'm certainly no economist). We're headed towards an epic reset which will might require something like 21st century FDRNewDeal-tokens. We can all hope for a ramp right before Game Over -- but that is a rapidly shrinking possibility, and it's idiocracy to lean on it like the second coming.

Anyway, that's what we call an overextended metaphor.

(funny coincidence, though)


But just as a final note, somewhat unrelated: when Karl Rove says your attack ads are going "too far" and are not "100% truthful" -- hell hath frozen over.

So I sent Dell an e-mail where I basically threatened them with a loss of about $100,000 worth of business.

They're sending me a new computer.

yeeeep.

IT IS FRIEDAY
I IS ARE DONE WITH HOEMWORK
EXCEPT I THINK I MAY HAEV SUMTHIN DOO ON MONDAY
WHO CARES
WEEKEND AHOY
HURRICANE PARTIES

who am i kidding. i'm probably going to write a script that runs latin flashcards on my iphone.
also i forgot to bring my wallet today, and now i have to pay chapel hill like $10 for parking. que ridículo.

UGH.

i need to buy textbooks, i need to clear up this stupid issue with the damn rent check, i need to figure out how the hell to sleep.

on the PLUS side:
- Mark made me sushi
- Mark brought me flowers
- Mark brought me chocolate
- I found the best... thing... ever. I don't know how, but I have him, and that's it.
- In addition, I GOT THE BEST CARD EVER. Megan Derocher, I LOVE YOU, HOLY SHIT. Card is on the mantle, and it is the funniest thing the postal service ever brought me. <33333333

and, let's see...
they played that commercial again that makes me laugh like a retard.

bugh sleep.