Awkward Turtle

So I realized today-my life tends to be a series of awkward moments. Pretty much whatever I do, I realize at some point that some aspect of whatever I did could have been done better. Then there's always that period of decision-should I go back and explain myself, or try to subtly bring it up in conversation so they'd know what it is that I really meant, etc, etc. Maybe I should just drop it. Maybe I should blog about it in the hopes that people will read it, and the next time I do something stupid, they'll be like "Oh yeah...Bri said she often does stupid, awkward things. That's just her. I'm sure she didn't mean to blow me off or belittle me." That's really my hope of what happens.

I also realized that my reading list has grown and grown and grown, but I'm not knocking stuff off very fast. So I'm going to write it down and possibly add to it, and just maybe actually get reading.

1.Winesburg,Ohio-Sherwood Anderson
2.A Farewell to Arms-Hemigway
3.The Old Man and The Sea-also Hemingway!
4.In Our Time-Hemingway again.
5.The Sun Also Rises-the last of my Hemingway list.
6.Maggie-Stephen Crane
7.The Red Badge of Courage-Stephen Crane
8.The Natural-Malamud
9.Anna Karenina-Tolstoy
10. The Grapes of Wrath-Steinbeck
11.Tortilla Flat-Steinbeck
12. Collected works by Flanner O'Connor. (Note: I have bought copies of most of 1-12, using my prize money from my poem. That was about two years ago. I have not read them.)
13. Not My Will. The book from Katie that I borrowed probably a year ago and haven't read yet.
14. Brisinger. 170 pages in to a 700 page book. Read in the 30 minute intervals that I'm doing, I might have it done by Christmas. Thankfully, my friends thath have read it understand the importance of NOT SPOILING THE ENDING.
15. Mere Christianity-C.S. Lewis.
16. The Year of Magic Thinking- Joan Didion
17. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure-Can't remember the author
18. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius-Dave Eggers
19. Of Mice and Men-Steinbeck
20. Secret Life of Bees-Too lazy to look up the author
21. The LOTR trilogy- J.R. R. Tolkien
22. Something, ANYTHING, by James Joyce, basically so I can say I read him.
23. Something by Salman Rushdie, for the same reason as 22. And because I think I can name-drop and sound pretty pretentious.
24. Pere Goriot- Honore de Balzac
25. Moby Dick
26. The Great Gatsby
27. To Kill a Mockingbird
28. Slaughterhouse-5
29. Love In the Time of Cholera
30. Water for Elephants (just because I'm behind on reading the NY Times bestsellers that were hip and cool to have read and talk about a year ago (example-20,29,30...) doesn't mean I don't want to read them and be hip and cool TOO.)
31. Lolita
32. Animal Farm
33.One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
34. Reading Lolita in Tehran
35. The KJV Bible, all the way through
36. Most of Shakespeare's major works
37. One Hundred Years of Solitude
I think that's where I'll stop for now. Yes, I am an English senior, and I have not read those books on that list. That was basically a 37-point admission of guilt right there.

I shall also start a list of books I want to add to my collection. This is not a hint for birthday presents, it's more just a reminder to myself so I can keep track of the books I'm coveting. Pretty much, anyway.
1. The Chronicles of Narnia
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy
3. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson collections of fairy tales. Notably, the ones at Borders that are beautifully bound and presented, at $19.99 each. I have coveted these for a while. I would not mind these ones as a birthday gift.

I guess that's really it for now. I'll wait to add to this one after I've read the ones on my other list and decided if it's worth owning.

What a strange tangent this post took.

...

...I am so tired today. My wonderful, crazy-filled weekend has caught up to me. Blech. On the plus side, I did just finish a Spanish quiz in 15 minutes, because I'm awesome. AND i'm fairly caught up on homework so I don't really have to do any homework today, also because I'm awesome.
The girl next to me is looking at photos on the computer, and unexplicably, I keep looking over there. I think I'm weirding her out.
Has anyone seen the lineup for movies this fall? all i can say is Yippee!! or i guess I could also say YAYYY!! "Holla!" might also be appropriate. There are some truly fantastic looking movies coming out, AND i just found out that Leatherheads came out on DVD last month! So much goodness, I don't know what to do with myself! Except maybe stop by the movie store tonight!
Oh, and I hope everyone notices that I added new music to my playlist, and I finally uploaded the 500 pictures on my camera, so yesterday was productive. Yes, I do qualify doing these things as actually accomplishing something.
I think it's time to go get some caffeine. at least i ALMOST made it to noon without it.

I wanna know...have you ever seen the rain?

How many times do we go through our day without stopping to consider all the fantastic things going on? Entire hours-days-weeks (!!) go by and I don't remember anything that happened. I woke up. Went to school. Went to the lab. Went to work. Went to bed. Repeated it all over again...but I didn't take time to take joy, and that's what we remember. When all I can remember about the week is the episode of The Office, I know something's wrong. Even though The Office is really, really funny. Example: Monday was an almost-perfect afternoon. We got to test-drive a Mini, go shopping and go to dinner with my sisters, mom and aunt. The Good-new clothes, girl time, pizza, zipping down the freeway... The Bad- Courtney couldn't make it, and they wouldn't just give me the car. Something about "profit" or some such nonsense. Anyway, long story short-it was a fantastic day. So how come when I think about this week, that seems so far away and yesterday's mad dash of fruitlessness seems much clearer?
Today, I saw a small white dog, dressed in a black and red plain jacket, running in mad circles around a tree. But the tree base spread so wide and his legs were so short that he was running on the lower part of the tree, seemingly avoiding gravity. Every so often, he'd stop and leap impossibly high, as if this time, this time, THIS TIME, he'd get high enough to catch the squirrel. I stopped and watched and wished my sisters could see it with me, because I knew it'd make them laugh too.
Today, I drove to a gas station to get a drink. I figured, Hey, I've got time, so I took the longer way around. I twisted through tree-lined streets and tidy houses with my window open and the beautiful fall breeze coming in and it made me relax just a little. I could have gone to the cafeteria to get a drink, but why pass up the opportunity for a drive when the weather's this nice? Also, I would have missed hearing one of my fave Third Eye Blind songs on the radio and a new song that I decided I loved. I would have also missed seeing a fantastic representation of East Des Moines in the form of a short, curly haired white she-mullet. And who'd wanna miss that?
Today, I finished the draft of a paper not due for days. Me, the great procrastinator. Now all I have to do is polish it up, and I can enjoy a Saturday off from work to the fullest without it hanging over my head all weekend. I could think about the fact that I still have to study for a American Literature midterm, or my Spanish test on Monday, but right now, I'm just looking forward to my fantastic Saturday plans.
And I wonder why I'm so content today. Nothing has happened that makes it different from any other Wednesday spent balancing school and work. I got up just as early. I missed breakfast again. I went to all my classes and had to listen to the same stupid student that I always do. I think the reason I'm so happy today is that I've looked up and noticed my world around me, and it's pretty frickin beautiful.
In this season of change and uncertainty, nobody knows what's going to happen next. We can read the polls, we can watch the weather, we can wonder...it's still all up in the air. So if we can't predict the future, why not enjoy today? Go notice something funny, or clever, or beautiful. Give someone a hug, or tell someone you like their necklace. Read something. Watch The Office. Ignore the headlines for just a day. Pull on a hoodie. Take time to take joy, and see what you remember. That's what I'm gonna do.

hurumph.

Today, the sky can't decide if it wants to be a gorgeous brilliant blue Autumn-in-Iowa fall sky that makes you want to run and breathe it all in, or the white-gray Autumn-in-Iowa sky that occurs when there's just enough chill in the air to make you wear a hoodie and drink some tea or hot chocolate and curl up with a book or music or a dog or all three. It's a weird in-between stage, like it can't decide what it's gonna be. Which, naturally, means we don't get the best of either of the two scenarios. Which, just as naturally, means I'm slightly bummed and very tired and sitting here listening to depressing music which, although beautiful and melodic, isn't helping matters any. So I thought I'd make a list of things that tend to contribute to the bummed-out feeling, or just outright torque me off.

1. Slanted journalism. This one's been on my mind for a few days, ever since I read a NY Times article about Palin. Obviously, journalism is *rarely* completely unbiased. But when you're the New York Times, shouldn't the fact that you've reached the pinnacle of your profession mean that you're good enough to write the straight up facts like you're supposed to? I don't care which way it's slanted- if I want an opinion, I'll read the Opinion section. Not the front page.

2. People that expect me to think they're funny when they're really, really not.

3. Bashing on law enforcement. Maybe this should be a subdivision of slanted journalism, but it's outside the world of media too. Where do these people get off thinking that they can judge what our police officers do? Have they done it? Oh right, you've watched Cops. That does make you qualified. I forgot.

4. The fact that I never tell people to shut the heck up when that's all I really want to do.

5. The fact that I found out that I didn't have my first class AFTER I got up early and got there.

6. Being tired pretty much all the time. Nobody ever told me that was part of the whole "being a grown up" package. I think I'd prefer my childhood vision of adulthood, which consisted of having a dream job and making like, THOUSANDS of dollars, and having lots of time to go do cool grownup things with friends.

7. Homework. I know, everybody has to deal with it. But that means everyone knows what I'm talking about, and it sucks, right?

8. Knowing there was something you were thinking about and it was important and all of the sudden,you can't remember what it was in the first place.

Okay, I think that's pretty much it for now. However, to counterbalance the whole negativity bit, there ARE things I'm very happy about. I'm off to a cooking club with my sister tonight, where we'll get to share food and stories and fun. The Office starts up again tomorrow-more pam and jim goodness and dwight ridiculousness to laugh about. Class was cancelled this morning. I still have a third of a strawberry soda and an entire package of dark chocolate peanut m&m's to get me through my shift in the writing lab. (sugar crash, what?) homemade macaroni & cheese! My sweet playlist at the bottom of this blog. I'm almost caught up on homework. Knowing I'll be with my favorite people ever in 1.5 hours. The fact that the clouds are pulling apart-looks like the sky decided to be sunny after all.

Perfect, or as close as it gets...

I don't think too many people will say their life can't get any better. I mean, I know I would say my life could get better if I published a novel within the next three years and was able to travel the world and got accepted into the Workshop without hardly trying and did all the millions of things I WANT to do. But then again, I'm pretty sure I don't need any of that. Actually, I am positive I don't *need* any of that. It might be nice. It *would* be nice. But I'm sitting here today in the math lab at school and thinking about how many things/people/experiences/days make me happy. Like the fact that my Pepsi came out from the machine really really cold instead of the lukewarmish it usually is. Or the fact that my mock interview/final is over and I aced it and now I have one less class to juggle this semester. Or yesterday, when my sisters and aunt and I took my mom out to dinner for her birthday at a awesome little spot downtown, and then walked next door to starbucks and sat outside drinking our lattes and laughing. That's pretty much nirvana right there. Even work, which sometimes gives me a headache or the sudden urge to cause bodily harm to someone, right now? I'm actually looking forward to working tonight so I can hang out with my coworkers before I get the next two days off. Weird, right? And then there's all these opportunities for me to follow up on. Even if it's just researching the opportunities right now, the fact that I can follow up on them and explore all the paths before me is pretty frickin sweet.
So I'm going to try to remember these things on the days when the only thing that makes me happy when I get up is that I get to go back to bed that night. The days when my soda comes out warm when all I really, really needed was a cold caffeine/sugar jolt to get me through the next class. Or the days when a coworker or customer makes me want to scream and/or cry and/or quit.
I'm going to try to remember this feeling of being absolutely happy, because my life is absolutely perfect. Or at least as close as it gets.

And to further the procrastination...

Alrighty here, folks. If I can just push this for 36 more minutes, I will have successfully avoided reading my American Literature homework in the time slot I had allotted for myself. Why would I give myself an alloted time slot if I wasn't going to use it, you ask? Well, my answer would be to not ask stupid questions. There is no rhyme or reason to my procrastination. In fact, I'm well aware of the fact that if I only did my homework when I told myself I was going to do it, I'd be more likely to have time to do fun stuff like see my family and friends, watch movies, and sleep. Instead, I like to stretch a one page response paper over the course of four hours, interspersed with lots and lots of facebook checking,(note: not much changes in four hours. In fact, I don't think anything happened in those four hours, but I still kept checking just in case.) getting up for snacks, sitting back down, getting up to take care of the snack plate, taking off with my brother in law to go look at a car for sale, etc. You get the idea. At my little sister's nagging, I finally finish the first response, and promptly write the next two page response paper in twenty minutes cuz I was tired of sitting around "writing." So I'm capable of turning out papers. Actually, I'll be honest (read: full of myself) and say I'm more than capable; I'm really good at turning out papers when I want to sit down and do the work. Unfortunately, I usually don't "want" to do my homework. It's gonna be a long semester. And a long 27 minutes while I find something else to do to avoid that homework.

Joining the 21st Century, folks!

Reasons I finally decided to join the masses and start a blog.

1. Everybody and their brother has one. And by everyone and their brother, I really mean two of my sisters and my brother in law, so I thought I'd join them.

2. I want to share the inner workings of my extraordinarily creative, on-par-with-Plato-philosophically brilliant mind with the world. I'm pretty sure that this will be the start of a future filled with many award-winning works and quite possibly saving the world. I'm looking forward to it.

3. This is one more tool to further my efforts at becoming the worst homework-procrastinator in the world. By the worst, I really mean the best.

4. Really, though, I like to write. I like people to read what I write. I like people to like what they read when they read what I write. So I'm hoping that blogging will allow me to freely write what I want, and for you to read what I write and then tell me nice things about it. :D