I remember vacationing in the Canary Islands (yeah, look that up and you'll see I was practically in Africa -- and only 6th grade! Oh, how much I didn't appreciate it then...) with my family. It was spring break time, I think, and Brett Dotson had asked me out that Friday. I spent the entire vacation humming "Again" by Janet Jackson and fantasizing about my first kiss.

Haha, it's funny how things never change. Not that anyone asked me out, or that we're going to Africa, but I'm still waiting for my first kiss.

That was also the vacation where I dreamt that I had killed someone -- didn't dream the actual killing though -- and that I disposed of the body by putting it in the dishwasher. Should I have just admitted that to the internet? Probably not. I live on the edge like that.

It's funny, though, cuz I bet I have already told the internet that dream when I was drunk once, but just forgot about it or something. I nearly shit my pants when Rob brought up My Most Shameful Incident last week at the bar. Either I'm coming down with Alzheimers, or I need one of those Men In Black thingys that make me purge my memory, thus not allowing myself to tell people about Horrible Things I've Done.

Well kids. For fear of being trite and saying cheesy things about seeing you next year (SHIT! I did it!), I'm leaving you with a snapshot of my favorite Christmas present,

Christmas04, originally uploaded by Lindsay Smith.

from my sister Allison, who has picked up the term "Damn Gina" from me and spread it to the hardcore residents of University of Dayton. I should put this on my resume.

(PS - What's with the black eye? You think that mirror pic was unintentional, and YOU ARE WRONG.)

My brother was just telling me a story...

"...I remember that one day when I was at work and I realized I had your pants on. All day, I'm thinking 'damn, why are these so bi-- why is this crotch all different?'"

He totally caught himself saying "Why are these pants so big you big fatty fat?" DOH.

Well. I may be on the chubby side, but at least I don't cross-dress at my place of employment. HA!

girls_jack_house

girls_jack_house, originally uploaded by Lindsay Smith.

ladies_in_red2

ladies_in_red2, originally uploaded by Lindsay Smith.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Post wherein I attempt to say remarkable things that make 2004 sound like a wonderful year and myself sound somewhat interesting. Note: attempt futile.

1. What did you do in 2004 that you'd never done before?
White-water rafting and camping with friends. Such activities had prior been fulfilled with parents and siblings only. WHYYYYYYYY? did I wait so long to break that habit?

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Yeah right. Every year, I resolve to floss daily. This year, I will not make such a resolution. I will make an even more preposterous proposal to myself and will laugh myself to sleep for most of January thinking about it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No. Boo.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.

5. What countries did you visit?
Not applicable = boo.

6. What would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
Balls. Both in the physical sense and in the... well, only in the physical sense.

7. What date from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
February 14, 2004. Why? Because it was Valentine's Day. (Ahhh, I'm so good at saying something without actually saying it!) (Wait, I didn't say anything there, did I?) (And you're all "fucking quit it with the parenthesis already bitch!")

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Hands down graduation from college. Getting ready that morning, I was doing little jigs around my room and had the biggest grin on my face. It might have been my happiest window of time in 2004 as well.

9. What was your biggest failure?
At one point before Jackie's wedding (which could win for "Longest Countdown in 2004") I promised myself I would run a cumulative 100 miles before the date. I think I got around 35 miles after a couple of weeks and then totally gave in to failure.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
My trademark 3-week cold, twice, I think.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My car, 2004 Ion 3. Leather. 6-disc changer w/MP3. Travel package. Loser driver not included. (Cuz who brags about a SATURN!?!?)

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My dad's behavior of generally living to the prime old age of FIFTY thus encouraging us to blow up funny pictures of him, hang up AARP poster, invite his friends over, get wasted, and call it a party.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
My own, at various separate times. (Cue clip from The Grinch"eight o'clock: wrestle with my self loathing... I'm booked!")

14. Where did most of your money go?
Said car. Clothes. Bar. <-- living 2 blocks from downtown East Lansing was the best way to spend (the half that I was there) senior year. Who cares about the windchill when it's only 3 minutes away? You'll be wasted in another 7 so who's counting?

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Jackie's wedding. Everything about it. Being in it!

16. What song will always remind you of 2004?
Hotel - R.Kelly

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? honestly don't know
ii. thinner or fatter? ditto
iii. richer or poorer? poorer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Making out.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Casual sex.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
IN MEXICO BABY!

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
Karin -- oh boy, do we have some great conversations! And I can always count on her to answer the phone like this: "hellooooooo!" like she was just thinking about calling me and was about to press SEND when her phone started ringing. :)

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Six Feet Under. Got hooked once I discovered THE BEST THING OUT THERE (HBO: In Demand) (simulataneously the WORST THING OUT THERE as it pulled me in by its reins and forced me to sit on my ass for a good 24 hours straight, rising only to urinate (sick, who uses the word "urinate" on their own website by their own will?) and get another Diet Coke) and watched every single episode from Season 3 in one sitting. Then, promptly went to Video 2 Go and rented Season 1 (for $1.11 no joke) and later Season 2. That was a really good story wasn't it? If only I had comments, you could praise me on my great story-telling abilities.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate is such a strong word.

26. What was the best book you read?
Middlesex. It might have won by default.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Stevie Wonder

28. What did you want and get?
My summer job working as the Materials co-op in 2 plants. My very first pair of steel-toed shoes!

29. What did you want and not get?
Yeah, like I'm going to admit that here. Shit, you're probably reading this.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Garden State - the only film that made me cry

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
22 - it was a quiet night (sarcastic, disbelieving voice: noooooo) - Fajita Rita Monday

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More drunk dials. One can never receive too many drunk dials.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004?
Never think to myself "Does my shirt/coat/belt/shoe match my shirt/coat/belt/shoe?"

34. What kept you sane?
The thought that there are people out there who have it immeasurably worse than I do.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Chris Noth ala Mr. Big. Oh man, it's just wrong. I mean, he's FIFTY. Give me the shits, keep me out of the sun for 12 years, hand me a flask of whiskey and call me Shitbreak -- he's my very own DIFL.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Proposal 2. I didn't get it how people just didn't get it.

37. Who did you miss?
My family (when I wasn't living with them), Kare, Rox, Allison, Jack (when I was out-of-state), my co-op friends (tons after the summer), Cora, Montejam, Josh (in an opportunity-lost sort of way), my grandparents - not personally, as I never really got to know them, just the thought of having them.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Mickey - and I quote "Lindsay, we could talk about tax returns and we'd die laughing"

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
I don't believe in life lessons. They're a touch too Dr.Phil for my taste...

40. Quote a song/movie lyric that sums up your year:
"So what do we do? What do we do?"

Depression

It sucks. My first experience with depression was my freshman year of college. I'm not sure if it was clinical depression (you know, the whole chemical imbalance or what have you) or just being really, really lonely. Whatever brand it was, it still sucked. I remember sitting in a class of about 300, mostly freshman. It was one of those intro classes where the professor was really cool and cracked jokes and the whole class laughed and it was alright to talk a little during lecture because it was just that kind of course. I knew people in it, so it's not that I felt really alienated or anything, but one day it just really struck a chord. I was feeling horribly lonely and felt like my chest was going to cave in. Thank god I had an aisle seat, and I got up and left the room just in time to start crying. I sat outside on the cold cement bench and just cried with my head down. I don't think I had spoken to anyone that day; literally, I had not heard my own voice. So when I heard myself crying, I guess I was startled by my own sound.

It's never really been my style to 'talk' about my feelings. I tried that when I trained for the Listening Ear crisis center my freshman year. (Coincidence that I didn't end up volunteering there? Who says the blind can't lead the blind anyway?) It's just sad that the topic is still so taboo, or at least seems so. Real depression, the kind that is life-threatening and can cause people to die, is just as much a disease as heart disease or cancer or anything else. I know someone who, if not for medication and electric shock therapy and hospitalization, would be dead. This isn't about someone being dramatic or wanting attention. It's a real fucking thing.

And that's why I'm so thankful that my experiences with depression have been mild. I'm so thankful for my own health, both physical and mental. When I think about the latter, I usually think about my freshman year experience, and the few other times since then that I've felt that way. And when I think back on my college experience (I know, it's been so long since I was there!) I shy away from the whole "Oh, I came out a better person" blah blah bullshit, because I don't know if that's true. I just came out a person having experienced more, not just the relationships and living on my own and moving away and coming back and having my heart broken and sometimes depression and sometimes having an absolute grand fucking time. I had good times, I had bad times, and I can just add them to my bucket of experiences.

Okay. Enough of that already.

For fear of being Dooced, I won't elaborate too much. But. This whole nine-to-five thing just doesn't seem like it's going to do it for me. Yes, the one about which i said "I had better fucking get that job". And I am grateful to have a job. This is true. But still. I can bitch. This is my website, after all.

Alright, I'm fresh out of incoherent sentences and incomplete thoughts. I want to stay up and watch a movie or something, because how awesome is HBO In Demand!?!? But that part today? when people were trying to explain to me my job and my eyes were starting to roll back in my head and all I could to was try and pinch myself to stay awake? all because I only got about 2 hours of sleep last night? Yeah, that's probably not a good way to start my career. I'm not even kidding is the funny part.

Bah humbug.

I apologize in advance for the lack of content on this site.
www.flickr.com/photos/lindsay_smith
This will change soon. Wait, I may be lying.

Tomorrow, I graduate from college.
Discuss.

I haven't written anything good on here in a lonnnnng time. I'm three days shy of my undergrad diploma, and am in need of a poignant, looking-back type of post, and like, well, everything else in my life, I have very good intentions without actually delivering.

It kind of reminds me of the one time I kind of sort of maybe dated someone in college. I'm not sure if that is what was going on, but it sort of felt like it was, if you consider living in different states and talking on the phone every once in a while and seeing each other maybe twice over a one month period and maybe making out 'dating'. I had very good intentions of trying to be more, I don't know, giving? open? not so fucking emotionally closed off. But good intentions mean shit if you don't act on them.

It also reminds me of the one time in college when I wanted to, say, succeed. This could have taken on many different forms, including but not limited to: passing my classes, having healthy social relationships, giving back to my community, saying no to drugs, and/or calling my parents to tell them I loved them more often. And while, yet again, I had good intentions of doing said successful things, I just couldn't bother myself to get up off the couch and get 'er done.

Which then leads me to my last point, where upon I graduate college and move out into the real world and start my adult life and become independent once and for all and live the life I've always imagined and stay out on school nights and let go of inhibitions and tell people how I feel and stop being scared and be fabulous and eat and drink and be merry and all. And while I still have three days until I find out if I, like clockwork, am all talk with no walk, I hope that the rule of three won't apply to me here. (Although, this is just my third example in a merely trite blog. My real life experiences of being generally lazy and lackluster far exceed three examples.)

I do promise, though, a college post somewhere sometime will be written. If not for the public's eye, then at least for a few of you. I'm not promising you a rose garden, though.

"Be careful when you make alterations. Pull the wrong thread, the whole thing comes apart."

I guess she was talking about clothes...

http://www.joyunexpected.com/archives/001283.php
Whenever I feel like saying something but not saying it, I instead copy URLs of other bloggers to portray how I feel. It's sometimes easier that way, to just silently agree and do the sympathetic and understanding small nod of the head to myself.

(In true four-year-old fashion... Heeeeeey! When I bought those pants, they told me they were one-of-a-kind! I feel jipped!)

Jackie and Paul's wedding can be summed up by this one picture here:
http://decutman.elicitbehavior.com/aptimages/?page=album_wedding&a1=7
taken by Jack's friend Rob (I think, at least it's from his website that I linked to from Jack's)

That really says it all, doesn't it?

Thanks. No, really.

-for my 1-800-www-dell phone call to last a mere 55 minutes (and only 25 on hold!)
-for no one asking me when I'm due (...yet)
-for being called a bitch
-for using me
-for ignoring me.

Everything's going great, thanks for asking.

Note to self:

If I ever plan on catching the bouquet at a friend's wedding again, I vow to shave my legs that morning and/or wear pantyhose.

That is all.

"They call it the 'Quarter-life Crisis'. It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now. You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones.

What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you. You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you. Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't

One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure. You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward. You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person

One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that everyone reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out. "

--stolen from the internet

I fucking hate cliches. I accidentally-on-purpose said one this week, to someone who had just been broken up with, and wanted to kill myself for saying it. What do you say in that situation anyway? She even called me out on it and I felt like a huge ho.

That said, rest assured I have the proverbial spoon shoved down my throat right now when I say with trepidation... "Everything happens for a reason."

Like. I didn't materialize or seriously entertain any notion of working for GE after I graduated from the co-op program (motors and control, anyway). Now, as of Monday, about 85% of the subset that I worked for has been sold, and 2 of the manufacturing plants are being closed. Had I really started the conversation of "Okay, so I want this job here" - which sort of but not really happened - I would be SOL right now. Granted, I still am SOL with no job per se, but at least it's not a shock. It's just my depressing truth.

That was a weak example. Lame of me to use that as a reference. And not at all indicative of how I am really feeling.

Anyway, moving on. Actually, no. I think I'm done here. The nice thing about all of you stalkers here who track every move I make on my computer and which websites I visit and how often and every keystroke I make... is that you can't hack my brain. That's the only shred of dignity I keep with me, so might as well not completely let you know what's going on. Then I would - heaven forbid - actually open myself up and allow myself to become vulnerable to you. We wouldn't want that, now, would we?!

more proof my family loves me, and when i say "loves me" i really mean "get joy out of laughing at my expense." It's all good though, I'm glad to give y'all a laugh!

e89x: hey forrest... how was your run this morning?

Jellybeem4: ...and the marathon was run in a lovely 50-50 blend of wool in dark brown.

My mom's IM to me... I will never live this down!!

Of Course This Happened To Me - I don't have the energy to re-tell the story... it's something i'd really rather forget. So here it is in its IM entirety. On a side note, I had better fucking get that job!!!

linds1982smith: hey
linds1982smith: u there
sleepingstar08: yeah
linds1982smith: omg! god hates me too!
sleepingstar08: lol
sleepingstar08: how was the interview?
linds1982smith: so.......... it's like 1 1/2 hour to dearborn from EL....right
sleepingstar08: o no!
sleepingstar08: what happened?
linds1982smith: and i was gonna leave at like 9:15 cuz then i'd get there at 10:45 and the interview is at 11
sleepingstar08: okay...
linds1982smith: and i am all ready to go... and i fucking remember i left my fucking car on campus last night and was so wasted last night i completely forgot to pick it up!!!!!!!!!!
sleepingstar08: ahhhhhh
sleepingstar08: holy shit!
sleepingstar08: i totally forgot about that!
linds1982smith: omg... you should have seen me... i throw on tennis shoes and RUN--- no SPRINT a mile and a half to campus
sleepingstar08: omg, omg, omg
linds1982smith: with a backpack on my back with the rest of my suit and my heels and shit
linds1982smith: omg if only you could have seen me
sleepingstar08: shit!
sleepingstar08: tell me you made it though
linds1982smith: i was like "Why isn't anyone stopping to give me a ride!!!!!"
linds1982smith: yeah i did
sleepingstar08: okay...now i am laughing so hard
linds1982smith: how? i don't know
linds1982smith: lol
linds1982smith: lasjd;flaksjd;fljas;ldkfjasdf
sleepingstar08: i didn't want to laugh b/c i didn't know if you missed the interview
linds1982smith: i was going like 85 the whole way
sleepingstar08: lol
linds1982smith: hahahahaha
sleepingstar08: that is so awesome
linds1982smith: no, you should laugh, cuz it was so fucking unreal
sleepingstar08: and then you had topay to get your car out too!!
linds1982smith: yeah
sleepingstar08: omg!
linds1982smith: i was like "i don't have a ticket... just charge me"
sleepingstar08: i can't take this
sleepingstar08: how much did you have to pay?
linds1982smith: and the guy was like "oh, well do you wanna look for it cuz otherwise i'll have to charge you from 7am" and i was like FUCKING TAKE MY MONEY AND OPEN THAT FUCKING GATE
sleepingstar08: i'm about to pee my pants
linds1982smith: lolololol
sleepingstar08: omg!!!
sleepingstar08: o shit
linds1982smith: seriously the whole time i was running to campus --literally like running like someone was chasing me -- i was like "GOD HATES ME TOO!!!!!"
linds1982smith: i only can pray and hope that no one i know saw me.... cuz that was a site, let me tell you...
sleepingstar08: lol
linds1982smith: too much
sleepingstar08: well if anyone says anything you better ask them why they didn't give you a ride
sleepingstar08: i can seriously not take this right now
linds1982smith: hahahaha
linds1982smith: ohhhhhh so funny
sleepingstar08: i love it!
linds1982smith: it's only funny cuz i made it on time... if not i would be like sobbing

..... later on in the conversation... Allison and i talk about something that happened to her last night that made her say GOD HATES ME! (which explains my God hate me too! comment) .....

sleepingstar08: whatev
sleepingstar08: i'm over it
sleepingstar08: i would rather not do that then run a couple miles in half a suit to my car

I am a great person and you're missing out on being a part of my life. </drunk deep thoughts>

I over-indulged in Glamour and Cosmo at Kare and Ame's this weekend. Who knew it was filled with so much smut! One of the Cosmo's was a 2-in-1 edition where there was a CosmoMen! edition in the back half of the magazine. There, they interviewed 50 guys, one from each state, and had a sort of dating section for them. Each had to list a "What you want girls to know about guys" anecdote. No less than 8 said something to the effect of "I just want to tell all of the girls out there that guys have no attention span. Don't read into what we're saying, because we're the simplest of creatures. If we want something, we'll tell you, or let you know. If we don't say anything, it's cuz we have nothing to say." Pair that with the fact that I feel like I'm incapable of reading guys, or very capable of reading into what the guys in (or, as it happens, not in) my life say and/or do towards me, and that makes for one very insecure and awkward girl. Let's not forget that those are two of my biggest turnoffs and you have yourself a red-headed, unemployed, self-conscious walking contradiction!

I've been meaning to write about how my friend Jack is getting married on November 20. I can't believe how awesome that is, that she and Paul are going to declare their love for each other forever in front of everyone who matter to them, and in front of God. I've always said I want to just elope and skip the wedding hoopla, but to tell you the truth, it's so special to share your marriage with those who love you and who you love. I can hardly think of anything cooler than that.

I don't know Paul that well, but every time I've ever seen them together, I just get warm fuzzies seeing them together. You can tell it's the real deal with them just from the way they look at each other.

I just want to say congrats to my girl Jack! And that I can't wait to be a part of your celebration!

As much as I want to, I can't forget the way you made me feel.
I can't forget the way you made me feel.
Not like, happy, or sad,
Just the fact that I did.

"Look at him. He's the size of my right breast. I highly doubt he could kill anyone with a bayonet." -me, re: Harold from Harold and Maude, during "movies-and-a-forty" night.

I had a great weekend celebrating my dad's 50th birthday. He had about 50 of his friends (how appropriate) and family over and there was good food and good wine and laughter and drinking and talking and such. I hope to have such good fortune in my future; in fact, it's something I think about all the time. My parents will celebrate their 25th anniversary in a couple of weeks, and that, too, is something that haunts me in a good way. I should only hope to be so lucky.

Aye caramba. So much quality blog writing going on out there. It's killing me!

AbercrombieBoyXL: what kind of hobby are you looking at?
AbercrombieBoyXL: ?
AbercrombieBoyXL: something you can do at home?
linds1982smith: something to pass the time
linds1982smith: that does not involve drinking/getting fat
AbercrombieBoyXL: hmmm
AbercrombieBoyXL: you could just be a geek
AbercrombieBoyXL: build computers
linds1982smith: all that is computers is waaaay over my head... i had a co-worker try to teach me Access (i know, completely unrelated to building computers, but bear with me) this summer and after he started with "define the variable by doing this..." my eyes just glassed over and all i could think about was how hot computer geeks are
AbercrombieBoyXL: hahahahah
AbercrombieBoyXL: so you jumped access boy
AbercrombieBoyXL: which is what he wanted
AbercrombieBoyXL: because he was making the shit up anyway

Friday night was interesting; we played Truth or Dare, which really should be renamed Tell Everyone Anything They Want to Know About Your Sex Life (Or Lack Thereof). One guy was just lamenting about how great it is to be single, that after the end of a three year relationship last fall, it felt great to not have to answer to anybody.

"The grass is always greener," I started to say. Someone interrupted me, not rudely though. I never really finished my thought, but it didn't really need an ending I guess. The grass is always greener.

I think I flirted today. No, I definately flirted today.

This blog made me burst into silent tears - I'm not a sobber - after a really shitty day of work. I don't know this girl, I don't even know how I came across her blog, but I read it all the time and this one struck a chord. Except where she mentions "why can't I do this in my workplace if I can do it in relationships?" - cuz see, I can't do that in ANY aspect of my life!

Baby steps, Lindsay, Baby Steps...

JACK!! was it Fern Gully!?

you know.

I don't think I should even be blogging right now... so much going through my head. But you wouldn't be reading this if I wasn't writing it. So.

Co-op party. I show up, and see a few unfamiliar faces, which is somewhat usual, as there are sometimes "full time" employees (fresh graduates and such) who come to our co-op parties. It was at least an hour after I showed up that I was across from a guy I didn't know during our game of Flip Cups, and I leaned over and said "Hey I'm Lindsay."

He leaned back and said "Hey, I'm Kyle... from the Marines." Right away, I thought that was weird. From the Marines?... I thought. Huh. Okay. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, and didn't say anything in that 3/4 second lull. "I was shot so I am back for a month or so," he said, lifting up his Abercrombie or Old Navy cargos.

Sure enough, there was a quarter-sized hole, I truly can't describe what it looked like, and a 6" scar on either side of it. This was the first time he had mentioned being in the service in front of any of us, and a co-op on my left side thrust his hand out and said "Man, I respect you, thank you."

Kyle, from the Marines, said "Yeah, Fuck Them."

That's about the time I had to leave. Really, it's something that's hard to explain, walking that line of not offending those why feel strongly enough to risk their lives for "our country" (which wouldn't give a shit about them if they weren't serving -- and of course I say this without really knowing what I'm talking about) and yet still feeling strongly that these guys who say "Fuck Them" are probably in the same mentality as the other guys who sign up for service saying "Fuck Them" about us. It's just not about that, I think.

And yet I really know nothing, except to go outside and vent to my friends. "The Marines are brainwashed," one said, "taught to fight and kill no matter what." This was not helping. I looked through the porch door at this kid, thinking, "SHIT. He's been fighting in Iraq, and we've been IMing back and forth at work saying that GE is a bullshit company and that we don't do anything. How can we be drinking with this kid, talking about stuff, thinking that we are even ON THE SAME PAGE WITH HIM."

I felt bad, having to leave the conversation, but I really couldn't stand it. I went and waxed philosophical with some other kids, who didn't necessarily agree, but were kind enough to let me talk anyway. I just didn't understand the whole "let me shake your hand" mentality. On one point, I understand that you are risking your life for what you believe in. I just wonder if what you believe in really exists in reality.

On the other hand, isn't saying "let me shake your hand" condoning that mentality? Wouldn't I be saying "Yes, continue to kill those 'motherfuckers'" if I got all hyped up about it? I don't know. Regardless of whether or not I met "Kyle the Marine with a quarter-sized bullet in his leg and about to go back and kill some more motherfuckers," it's still going to go on. Meeting me (and me not even saying any of this to your face) is not going to change one damn thing, THAT I KNOW.

But it still made me sad, and realize the un-importance of every minute thing I think is bad in my life, and really concerned about people that I care about who are considering something like this. It's really all beyond me, and I think beyond most people. It's not something that can be decided by the masses, as evident today. It's really all beyond our scope, and we really just look like a bunch of fools talking about it.

Whatever. I know really know what else I can say about it. I don't think I want to right now.

I just worked the longest hours EVER. 6:30 am - 7:15 pm -- and I only took 1/2 hour for lunch! It was around 6pm when the 2nd shift union guys gave me a puzzled look and asked, "Overtime?" to which I shook my head, explained that I am salaried. "Then why the hell are you still here?!" I circled my forefinger around my temple, letting them know I was crazy. Crazy indeed.

I always felt like some kind of freak because I had never seen The Princess Bride, which seems to be a staple on everyone born between 1979 and 1984's list of Best Movies Ever. Upon telling people I had never seen it, I received the sympathetic look, the look of complete shock, and the demand to "go and see it right this second!!!" I don't know which rock I was living under when the movie came out, or when it was at its peak -- I never even heard of it until high school.

I've made note to rent it on more than one occasion, but somehow was more enticed by the New Releases than the musty Blockbuster Favorites. It was actually by complete accident that I saw the 2 minutes of it that I could stomach. I had just finished watching Serendipity (swoon... John Cusack), and turned of the DVD player, and my cable was on AMC.

There was a large rat-type creature rolling around on the ground with an ugly blonde guy. The rat was gnawing on the guy, and he had huge bloddy fang-type teeth. Soon the picture moved to a long-haired blonde chick (who looked vaguely familiar) who was screaming like a stupid chick. Back to the dude and the rat fighting, and I got a nice view of the gigantic tail bestowed on the rat's ass. Then, all of a sudden, the rat caught on fire, the dude stands up and finds a sword on the ground and stabs the rat creature.

Horrified at the ridiculousness of the film, I reached for the remote and hit Info, where I was equally horrified to learn it was The Princess Bride (and realized it was Jennay! from Forrest Gump). THIS is what everyone was talking about? Are you kidding me? I thought I was the freak?

i just set my alarm clock for 4:45 a.m. FOUR. FORTY-FIVE. IN. THE. MORNING.

What to do in event of a sudden flash flood, #31a)

Saran wrap your Precious Moments collection and make like a tree... up into a tree... don't forget your floatation device.

What to do in event of a sudden flash flood, #31b)

Smear your body in crisco or a tub of whale blubber* in hopes of staying above the surface.

*whale blubber applicable when available.

There's only so many times you can hit Send/Receive, no one updates their blogs as frequently as I am looking for something to read, the last phone call I received to the tune of "how are you" was longer ago than I can remember, everyone is dating someone that isn't me, and it's during the week that the temperature is in the 80s and not until the weekend does it decide to rain and be gray. I truly realize that I am lucky to be safe and alive and healthy and breathing, but I am still allowed a disconnect between what I know I have and what I feel I have... which is nothing. It's shitty, feeling this way. Here's to hoping this turn around soon.

Do I ever cross your mind, anytime? Do you ever wake up reaching out for me? Do I ever cross your mind, anytime? I miss you.

posting from email

i'm aware of how painful it is to read these... and it's friday, so therefore i hate you (i know that didn't make any sense, SUE ME!) and will give you this:

Nickname: Linds
Age: 22
Dependents: the cans of diet coke in my fridge... they depend on me to consume them
Method of wasting time: internet, sleep
Personality: INTJ
Priority One: mascara
Personal hell: dentist, interviews, having a really bad sunburn, reliving embarassing moments in my head
Livelihood: red hair, big breasts, charming personality
Blood type: O+
Candy: reeses peanut butter cups
That guy: sweating in the middle of a blizzard
Food nemesis: chinese buffet
Broken bone count: 0
Never been to: nyc, west coast, alaska
Soap: bath and body works, bergamot corriandor
Self-amusement: blogging, black and white developing
Astrological sign: aries
Worst class ever: physics 183, for scientists and engineers
Wornout childhood toy: barbies, strawberry shortcake kitchen, the book that starts out every page with "one pitch-black, very dark night" which my mom used to read "one-pitch-black (pause) VEEEERY-dark-night (pause) right-after-mother (pause) turned-off-the-light" etc.
Place of origin: michigan
Suspensions from school: 0... i was/am one of those people secretly terrified of breaking the rules, who hated the kids who would lecture the "bad" kids because it made them look like really annoying do-gooders, and really wished i was genetically coded to be bad and break a rule or two myself
Compulsive: budgeter, looking up words i'm unsure of on dictionary.com
Foible: i'm negative and cynical when nervous
Humor: sarcastic to the max when around the right people
Color: purple
Pizza: uno's chicken fajita, cpk's chicken thai
Lucky number: no way

I'll post soon. Muah.

I want some spooning action... it's been too long!

I'm at my parents house trying to study for finals. I don't know if it's the fact that they're getting a new roof, and there are men pounding on the ceilings as we speak, or if it's my mom's constant nagging and complaining, or my upcoming move back to Fort Wayne... or a mixture of all three PLUS everything else that's bothering me that I HAVEN'T shared, but I am not being very productive studying.

And what's remarkable is that while browsing through my Material Science Engineering book, I noticed how the chapters have paralleled My Life as I Know It for the Past Two Years. Take a look:

Ch. 2: Atomic Structure and Interatomic Bonding
Boys, girls, protons, electrons... you get the picture.

Ch. 4: Imperfections in Solids
I thought this was quite humorous, considering I've used the word "solid" to describe my physical state as of late... only one of my many imperfections. (I'd call myself an "over-eater" but squirm away from that after seeing a particular S.A.T.C. episode a few weeks ago. I can't escape the Miranda connections!)

Ch. 7: Dislocations and Strengthening Mechanisms
The last 2 years have involved me moving around quite a bit and therefore building new relationships, however half-heartedly, and dissolving others, quite double-heartedly, if I may. I could go on and on about this one, but will spare you the minutes.

Ch. 8: Failure
I think the bold italics pretty much sums up that one. I know, a touch dramatic.

Ch. 16: Composites
This is my favorite chapter title, and a good way to end the comparison. While the previous chapters carried a slightly pessimistic tone (at least that's my attitude in writing it), the composite chapter discussed the influences of a plethora of different factors that affect composite materials, and how important each factor is on the material. (Material=me) The hybrid feeling to it is somewhat hopeful that one day I will not compare my life to the chapter on Failure or the monophase substance of ceramics.

I guess I am grateful that these didn't make it on my list of life-paralleling chapters:
Ch. 10: Phase Transformations in Metals: Development of Microstructure and Alteration of Mechanical Properties
Ch. 15: Characteristics, Applications, and Processes of Polymers
Ch. 18: Electrical Properties

Also, I am currently regretting not going to class for the last 6 weeks. This regret, however, will fortunately only last about 2 hours. And I would like to add that I am not as learned in these areas as me spouting off the chapter titles implies. I will likely 2.5 the class, 3.0 it at best.

****On another note, I finally have bragging rights to having a beta version of Gmail. </brag>

no apologies for anything said or done tonight. you hear that? i don't apologize! who-hoo!

ok i know i am drunk right now, despite the 10pm hour but i can attest to the fact that
a) i have 5 IM windows open
b) 1 Microsoft outlook window open
c) 1 internet explorer window open
d) 1 AOL window open

and there is rap music playing on my computer mysteriously i think it's the AOL but i'm too lazy to quit it despite the 3 blogs in 6 minutes. so yeah. i'm talking to my sister, who just finished her first year of college, and it's crzay to think that because i'm like at the end of my tenure here and I DONT WANT IT TO |BE THE CASE I SWEAR IT. byeeeee i have to go.

lalallalalalalallaal i'm dying here in my room (by myself cuz my roomies is drunk and i don't want to let her in) b/c my computer is singing some sort of rapp music since i loged onto AOL and i don't know how to quit ti omg i'm laugingo sooooo hard) ahahahahahahhhlallalalalalkalalolololololalalalalallala

Oh my god the clock says 9:59 pm and I have had 6 martinis... i'm kinda nervous about this fact, oh and i've also made 43 typos but it's taken my 12 minutes to write this 1 1/2 sentence post so that makes up for it... viva The Post and their $4 martini nights... BLAH!!!!!!!!!! and goodbye EL this is my last drunk night there and I DONT WANT TO GO BACK TI THE REAL WORLD IT IS NOT FUN AND I DONT WAAAAAAAAAANA GO and that's enough for tonight.

There are a lot of issues that I am sensitive about because I hold strong feelings about: abortion, suicide, mental illness, sexuality. Sometimes when those topics come up in conversation like they inevitably do, I get quiet for fear of yelling at someone, and the other times, I yell at the person I'm talking to. The latter just happened, and while I do feel horrible for going off -- something I RARELY do -- I do feel good that I stuck up for what I was thinking. I would definately do it more often but when in such a situation, I cannot cohesively make a sentence, much less an argumentative one. I don't know... the story still sucks, but that's life I guess.

Seeing as how I'm moving to Fort Wayne, IN for the third time in 18 months, I've gotten used to packing my shit up and leaving town. It's been a harrowing experience, to say the least, ruining some friendships and straining others, making it harder to become close friends with people when you know you have to move away in 4 months. At any rate, I'm already getting off track here in my blog... the real reason why I mention the moving situation is that it gets rather tiresome and expensive to move all of your earthly belongings (and for a 22-year-old, I do have quite a lot).

THAT SAID, I've decided to make this last stint in FW like a long weekend... packing only what will fit in my car and not a mattress set more. That's right: I'm abandoning my bed at leaving in here in East Lansing for the sub-leaser to use. (Con waterproof mattress pad, thankyouverymuch. I don't want a SINGLE piece of DNA on my bed when I get back.)

That decision out of the way, I set out on a mission: inflatable bed! Did you know they make state-of-the-art inflatable beds? Like with MRP's of $250? I did not know these things. And now I do. So after a little poking around on the ole www, I hit up e-bay. I found many of said mattresses, all from warehouses or the likes. Bids were around the 30s-40s with S&H of (deep breath) $25. Compared to the hassle of moving a bed to another state, this was okay, I decided. I put in a bid on a blow-up bed at $40. Current price was $21 with 4 hours left, so I figured $40 was a safe bet.

I return to my computer a while later, and see the red X of death, the "you've been outbid!" sign and realize I lost the auction. "That's cool," I say, and bet on another mattress. This time I up it to $45 and try and check back every hour or so to check up on it. Suffice it to say, but NYPD Blue re-runs were on (the ones with Zack Morris... duh!) and I missed the end of my auction. Some bitch called "cbtnuggets" upped my bid at the last second and stole my inflatable air mattress! Cuz why would you choose your Ebay name to have the word NUGGET in it anyway!

Pissed, I went on a bidding fury. I found every similar product and placed high bids on each and every one of them. A minute later, I starting sweating with Ebay bidding anxiety. What had I gotten myself into? It was like an addiction. A "step AWAY from the ebay" moment, if you will. Luckily, I was outbid on every single one of them within 2 hours. After checking my "My Ebay" and seeing all of them listed in the "Items you have not won" category, I chose one fateful air mattress and said "You are MIIIIIIINE." And thus started my all-out bidding W.A.R.

There were only a handful of minutes left, twenty or so. I upped the ante. She upped it right back, within seconds. (She, not the automatic bidder built into ebay...) We went back and forth over the next twenty minutes... for a few minutes I would see the hopeful green check mark, proclaiming me the highest bidder. A couple of minutes later, refresh after refresh, I would see the ugly red X.

We were down to a mere sixty seconds... she upped it A WHOLE FIVE DOLLARS. I wasn't going to take no for an answer, so I counted down and had my Maximum-of-all-Maximum bets ready to submit, and then BAM! I submitted it with 5 seconds to go. Yeah, I'm a m-f'ing badass, I know. Victorious. All of that for an $85 INFLATABLE AIR MATTRESS. Oh boy, I think I need to find myself a hobby.

I have not stepped in my Material Science and Engineering class in 5 weeks... before that I attended sporadically, at best. Now, I have a final exam in said class, an exam that comprises 70% of my final grade. Am I fucked, or am I fucked? (I'm taking a poll. Vote by sending me a telepathic message, such as "You are fucked, and not in a finally-you're-getting-laid way.")

Hope.

I've always feared being That Girl, the one who wants to have conversations with her ex's about Why Things Ended, or What Went Wrong, or Was it My Fault? I've always kind of prided myself on being the girl who isn't like that, who is a little more emotionally distant, who'd rather make jokes than talk about my feelings. I know if I were a guy, I'd rather talk to that girl than the one who seems so desperate to find out why and so emotional and needy.

But the thing is, I DO want to know why. By not being That Girl, instead of asking him what happened, I've been asking myself. I've been internalizing everything and at a point, unfortunately long after things have ended and he probably forgot what he liked about me in the first place, it is too much to bear.

I think even worse than being That Girl is being That Girl who resurfaces all that time later to ask why things went sour. The proverbial female version of Rob Gordon, who called every one of his Top Five Breakup girls and reconnected with them only to ask "What happened? Was it me?" If I do remember correctly, Rob Gordon found out that one of the girls went crazy, one blamed him for her fear of sex throughout college, and the other married the guy she dated immediately after him. ARE YOU SERIOUS??? This is what's in store for me?

At any rate, while my fear of being T.G. is coupled with the fact that I DO have an intense fear of never actually finding out and thus never letting go, I'm afraid the former will always trump the latter. That's not the way things are supposed to happen. I think that's what scares me the most.

I do believe last night marked a first. Not only did I throw up in a bar (in a controlled environment, ie. the bathroom stall at my own will) BUT I also continued drinking after I threw up! Damn. I always wondered how people did that... and now I know. I have been spending way too much money at the bar recently, and as Allison said "I want to get married" I just said "I want a guy to buy me a drink" and it couldn't be any more true. I'm broke, I don't have a job (right now), I'm a college senior at a Big-Ten University... things couldn't get much better and for that I am very grateful.


*** 2 days later... how did my blog go from a rant about being poor and wanting someone to foot the bill for my excessive drinking habit as of late to how grateful I am to be a college senior? I think i was still drunk at the time... ***

Do this if you don't want me to like you, #32:

Say "Well I'll let you go now..." when on the phone with me, when I have given no indication of other committments or obligations at that moment. If you want to get off the phone, say "I gotta go" or something like that, don't make it sound like you're doing a favor by letting me off the phone! If I have to go do something, I will let you know. If you want to hang up, that's your issue. It's all about taking responsibility, regardless of the severity of the issue at hand.

On a lighter note, I have an appointment at the Aveda Institute for a hair-cut! Hallelujah!

Things that really made me smile today:

1.) Finding $11 and a Subway stamp in my old purse.
2.) Finally spring cleaning.
3.) Going commando. (I know... TMI, but I didn't force your fingers to type in my website...)
4.) Listening to "The Heat is On" while in my muggy room.
5.) Actually needing to wear sunglasses instead of using them as a fashion accessory.

Sarah Hatter.com told me to:
1. Find the nearest book.
2. Open to page 23.
3. Find the 5th sentence.
4. Post it.

The other kid is mousy; his diminutive name suits him.

While ever-so-grateful to have my co-op experience at GE, I am less than a month from returning to work for the summer, yet dreading it for my least-favorite three-worded fashion un-statement: steel-toed-shoes. Yup, I got a position in the manufacturing plant. Safety aside, I wouldn't be caught dead in Doc Martens or Sketcher Steel-toes to save my life... instead I have pined over new Nine Wests and Enzo's... have hit up The Limited and Banana to buy some merchandise deemed fashionable in the otherwise "un" Fort Wayne. When picturing my summer job at a Fortune-5 company, I imagined cropped pants, pointed heels, ballerina flats, printed button downs... now I'm left to try and find a pair of shoes comparable to these. So much for going out and buying new work clothes! Not to sound trite, but seriously: what is a girl to do?

I instruct the person who created "the goatee" 5 hail marys, 10 stations of the cross, and 450 hours of volunteer work, preferably in a prison. I mean, what were you thinking???

JESUS LOVES TORTILLAS

My birthday card from Roxanne was labeled:

To the girl who believes her ass crack is lower than normal/average.

lol

www.sarahhatter.com March 30 entry

oh my, oh my... read this girl's post and it's me IN A NUTSHELL!!! HELP, I'M IN A NUTSHELL!
(minus the whole stranger-asking-me-out-on-a-street-corner part)

8-ball... in a non-hard-core-drug way

Roxanne saw an old friend at the bar this weekend... he told her they should get together and hang out if she came home the next weekend. Tonight, after a few margaritas instigated her mad over-analytical skills that all females share, we got to talking about whether or not she should go home this weekend vs. going to western to hang out with the girls.

I looked over and saw her magic eight ball sitting under her desk. Feeling a bit juvenile, I told her to consult her omniscient sphere. She picked it up, and said "Well I don't know how well this'll work, it's a beauty eight ball..." but gave it a try anyway.

The first question: "Should I go home this weekend and go out with Dave?" :::shake shake::: MAYBE YES, MAYBE NO. This wasn't a good enough answer for Roxanne, no it wasn't.

Next: "Should I go to Kalamazoo?" :::shake shake::: CANNOT ANSWER TONIGHT

"Alright, third time's the charm... Should I call Dave with the intent of going out with him this weekend?" :::shake shake::: YES YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL

Gotta love the eight ball, for the eight ball doesn't lie!

you know you're a good-for-nothing student when.....

you have a physics problem due, 4 parts T/F, and 20 tries.
Doing a little mental math, you figure out there are 16 different variations of T/F (TTTT, TTTF, TTFF etc)
So you start plugging in the 16 different possibilities
NEVER ONCE READING THE PROBLEM.

sorry Rob, i had to...

"Alright Lindsay, well I'm gonna go now... Terry and I are going to look for lonely freshmen..."

:::pause::: followed by frantic talking in the background

"Freshman boys! Freshman boys! To pick us up! Not the other way around"

more frantic talking

"I mean... wait, that sounds even worse!!"

hahahahahahahahahahahahahah you crack me up :D
(disclaimer: they were looking for their sober, freshman friends to come pick up their drunk asses)

St. Paddy's day was done in style... drinking more than my body could contain, dancing my heart out, spilling words, drinks, food, and numbers, forgetting parts of the night, and feeling it (extensively) the next morning (and into the night). :D

There was a bar fight (I was almost busting out with the Arsenio Hall move, but figured there was enough snapping-in-a-Z and that my move wasn't really necessary). There was the scant clothing. There was the green beer. All in all, I had an awesome night.

That said, I spent ALL of Thursday hungover, and part of Friday too. Having 4 major academic obligations (tests etc) upcoming, three of which are due on Monday, I'm paying for my mid-week revelry this weekend. I spent Friday studying and have been in the library for 4 hours or so now. I never knew people came to the library on a Saturday, it's actually not empty like I imagined!

There are only 6 more weeks left in the semester, which means summer will be here in a flash, which means fall will be here in a flash, which means I'M TWO FLASHES AWAY FROM THE HOME STRETCH, aka my last semester of college. This is Fucking Scary. This is Bad News. This is Time to Grow Up.

But I don't WANNA! I want to be able to get wasted on a Wednesday and be able to lay around the next day! I want to plan my Monday night bar-crawl based on where I think my favorite band will be pre-drinking before their concert and not worry about having to get up early the next morning! Who ever said growing up was fun?? I want my money back.

Monday night I got wasted with my friend and roommate Roxanne. Actually we went to the brand-spanking-new The Post bar in East Lansing. Since we were two of the ten people there, the manager gave us free t-shirts, to advertise I assume.

Rox checked out the tag in the shirt, saw that it was a Small, and said "Well that's rather presumptious, don't you think?" It was a classic one-liner. Surely they don't want big-chested patrons in their new bar, but I have a feeling we'll be going back there anyway.

Upon returning back to 118 Beech, we bust out the video camera and proceeded to do a lip-sync of R.Kelly's new dance-party song "Hotel." It's rather funny because the song is playing on my laptop, thus shitty quality, and you can hear our breathy but silent mouths wording the song over the laptop's rendition. Haha, the next day, Kay told us she thought someone was hooking up last night. HAHAHAHA. Good one! (As it is MY room above hers...)

from cnn.com:

Laid-off worker claims $89 million
Monday, March 15, 2004 Posted: 8:30 PM EST (0130 GMT)

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana (AP) -- A man who was laid off last week from his job at a tractor factory claimed a $89 million Powerball prize Monday with the sole winning ticket.

Tim Rivers said he and his wife, Pam, plan to buy a new house and move out of their mobile home in the town of Salem in southern Indiana.

The couple, who are both 24 and have two young children, opted for the cash option and will receive $49.9 million before taxes, a Hoosier Lottery spokeswoman said.

"Winning that much money terrified me," Tim Rivers said, adding that when he realized Saturday he had a winning ticket he immediately called a financial planner.

Pam Rivers, who works at a daycare center, said both she and her husband plan to return to school and she hopes to become a nurse.

They have a 6-month-old son, and a daughter, 4.

The winning numbers for Saturday night's drawing were: 11, 44, 45, 48, 50 and Powerball 2.

I LOVE that story. They win close to $50 million dollars, and decide to go back to school to earn a degree! I love Indiana!!!!

It was a hung-over Saturday morning when I was sitting around with some friends discussing which Hollywood star I'd like to, um... fuck. The usual names were being tossed around, the Heath Ledgers, the Orlando Blooms, the Paul Walkers, the Johnny Depps. There was a lull in beautiful Hollywood hunk name calling-out, and everyone looked at me, who had been mute the whole time. The second I opened my mouth and blurted out the first name I could think of, I felt a bit silly.

Needless to say, I didn't live it down. He's not what you would call the hottest of hotties. Therefore, I would like to re-submit my answers (although one of these isn't so excusable either.)

In no particular order, I present you the "I'd like a night in the sack with" List:

John Cusack
Pharrell Williams
Ray Romano
Mark Ruffalo
Casey Affleck

I think it's safe to stop at 5... I don't want to get carried away here.

Anyone notice how I've capitalized all of the capital-letter-worthy words?? This is a first.

i don't really know why I've been thinking about friendship so much recently... i guess because it's one of the most revealing things about someone. Why do some last for decades, and why some are just contained to a specific period in your life, such as college. Why, if you have a really good friend at work, do you never hang out outside of that setting, and are you less of friends because of that? Who knows. All i know is that I've been thinking about it a lot recently. And more specifically, whether or not a failed friendship ever really was.

it wasn't until a couple of weeks ago when i saw an old friend on the street that i realized i hadn't seen him in a long time. i knew we weren't friends anymore, duh, but i hadn't realized it had been that long since we had last seen each other. Anyway, that encounter naturally got me to thinking about our supposed friendship. i questioned its validity because, despite my hatred towards the cliche, aren't true friends supposed to stay friends forever? Or something like that?

it made me wonder if maybe we hadn't really been friends? Maybe the whole thing was fake, the whole time we were both just flirting and hoping that one day one of us would make a move and something would come out of it? i mean, i knew him for three years as a friend and then one day, all of a sudden, we weren't anymore. No falling out. No hard feelings, really. Just like that. (well, almost just like that. But for blog's sake, just like that.) then, a whole year passes without any communication, and we're on a streetcorner making 30-second chit-chat.

after we parted, i had a 20 minute walk ahead of me, and i wondered if he had realized how long it had been, doing the math in his head like i had. Did he look at me and think "failed friendship" or just see the face of someone he once knew. I'm not quite sure. i questioned myself, were we ever friends? Did i have a skewed sense of reality back then? Because people don't just stop talking overnight, especially when nothing friend-breaking happened. i guess what troubled me most on that walk was the thought that maybe it wasn't real. i wasn't sure I'd ever know. At the end of my introspective journey (ha!) and as i was nearing my meeting and closing the chapter of my run-on inner dialog, i decided that maybe some things were better left un-examined.

now, however, i can think of other old friends who just weren't after a point. There was the good friend from high school who, after one summer, just didn't resume the same position in our circle of friends. That doesn't mean she wasn't our friend those couple of years, her image didn't just dissolve from all of my pictures. Then, there was my friends in middle school, my first true girlfriends. We were so close, accepting each other in our awkward adolescence, yet still went our separate ways in high school. It would be ludicrous to say that wasn't real just because i no longer identify with them. In thinking back over these old friends, i guess people do just stop being friends. It happens. So it goes.

like i said, i think a person's friendships can be really revealing, if not only for ones own self-involved theories. But, failed friendships and successful ones, i am grateful for it all. While my current friendships are perhaps my oldest friendships, i still think about these other people all the time. Even a few weeks ago, i may have thought these "failed friendships" never really existed, and that it was perhaps a lack of 'trueness' in it that caused them to fail.

now in my late-night revelation (yes, 2 am is "late night", and yes, this is really a revelation) i see that (gasp!) just because what was, isn't anymore, doesn't mean it never existed. And this is a good thing.

i slept for almost 18 hours last night. that's just not right!

they don't tell you this... but it's really Fat saturdaysundaymondayTUESDAY!!

books to read this semester:

Being Good
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Middlesex
Naked (and/or Me Talk Pretty)
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Love and a Bad Hair Day
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Catch 22
Slaughterhouse-Five

i have this sick picture of myself, which serves as motivation to work out. if i wasn't scared of someone walking into my room and seeing the picture with their own two eyes (or one eye, tragic accident with sharp pencil or factory-type workplace accident permitting) i'd blow it up into poster-sized proportions but for now, i'll just keep it hidden for my own viewing dis-pleasure.

back in the day, the day when i was young and still had baby-teeth, i played t-ball. we had a dark purple shirt with sponsors on the back and our team name on the front. i wore a pink visor to practices but had to take it off when i played. i had a nice summer glow and tanned arms. i have a button of me in my t-ball prime, posing with the bat over my left shoulder. i look so precious, and innocent, and non-athletic. i want to pick me up, and to hug the little girl that was me seventeen years ago.

i need money, and i need it now. how else am i supposed to support my pancheros addiction? at this point, i'm willing to fund this obsession using my credit card, but that puppy is getting mighty full (as well as my belly) and this probably won't be a viable option for much longer. my next thought is to go around campus collecting cans, seeing as how there must be a surplus of empty mountain dews in the business college now that Ernie has died. Let's see, to fund a quesidilla-a-day diet, that would require about 300 cans a week... hmm, quite possible...

we are having a t-shirt party Saturday night. all who read are invited. do not mistake for a grafitti party (in which you wear a white t-shirt and people draw either boobs or a penis on your shirt with markers) this is a TSHIRT party. meaning you buy a tshirt made by us and get a cup for free. 5 bucks. the tshirts come out great, i went to one of their parties (when i didn't live here) and got one that said:

             IT DOESN'T COUNT... HE WAS A FRESHMAN

made with iron-ons, not hand drawn or anything. quality work. should be a good time. come over! 118 Beech.
that's all i have for now... talk to you beautiful people later. (after i gag myself with a spoon.)

i have been sick for like 9 days now... come on!! give me a break already.

after pulling an all-nighter studying for my physics exam (and a little help from rob for late night/early morning conversation) i have gotten the fateful email. checked the capa site. victorious. 97.5!!! i am hereby declaring myself THE SMARTEST MAN ALIIIIIIIIIIIVE! i have even gone so far as to create a spreadsheet
PH YS IC S
hw 30% 100 30
exam 1 20% 97.5 19.5
exam 2 20% 90 18
final 30% 75 22.5
TOTAL 90
showing my plan to achieve the unthinkable - a 4.0 in physics. i mean, i could get a 75 on the final and still 4-point that mofo!! ahh... to find meaning in life once again.
onward! my new years resolution(s) are still in the back of my mind as I try to attain them. Hope has turned up in an away message and I have a new-found inspiration. who-hoo! even though that kind of sounded like a fortune cookie.
i went to try on bridesmaid dresses for jack's wedding... SO FUN! i know they're going for the swing music type theme with the reception, but towards the end of the night, when everyone's plastered and not paying attention to the dancefloor, i'm going to request the song "lady in red" for all of us hot bridesmaids. but jack's wedding is an entire blog in itself, but one i will draft and re-write and proof-read and such. stay tuned!
my dad called me from mexico tonight, said the weathers' not that great but that he was standing outside without a shirt on so he couldn't complain that much. jerk! it was then that i realized i haven't been on a warm-weather vacation since senior year spring break!! craziness. my skin hasn't seen the light of day in forever either, and i'm not in any rush to get myself into a bathing suit right now, so i guess all is well.
it turns out i'm moving back to good old burcham woods in the fall... this little plan we've devised works out quite nicely for all parties involved, plus we'll have a pool! i'm excited and glad i didn't have to go back to the dorm or get into a long lease when i know i'll be leaving in december.
um what else. i've been having this craving to go to alaska. who's coming with me??
i plan on writing a more interesting blog sometime soon, perhaps titled "contemplations over tuscan chicken" or "please untuck your pant legs from your boots NOW" or something of the sorts.
p.s. just got my first lesson in Arabic from roxanne "offended by the drink 'camel-toes' " najor

the fact that there is a pancheros in fort wayne (an indulgance only recently discovered) is probably the only thing that'll seal the deal for me to return there this summer. yo quiero burritos. con quacamole.

ich moechte deutsch lernen, dann werde ich klueger sein! jawhohl! ich moechte auch zu bretibruenn gehen und moechte mein haus sehen. und der See. ich habe seinen namen vergessen. natuerlich. und, ich wuerde ein grosses glas bier moegen. ich habe bier nicht gewollt, als ich elf war. eines tages.

amazon wish-list!!

(lips smacking) HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY LOVERS!!

i just ate an entire box of candy hearts... WITHOUT EVEN READING WHAT THEY SAID.

books to read this semester:

Being Good
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Middlesex
Naked (and/or Me Talk Pretty)
Memoirs of a Geisha
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Love and a Bad Hair Day
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Catch 22
Slaughterhouse-Five

In true McSweeney's fashion, my first open letters...

OPEN LETTERS February 12, 2004.

Open Letter to the Guy Who Rides the Bus with Me Every Morning, But Pretends Like He Doesn’t Recognize Me:

We often stand at the bus stop for more than 10 minutes, both looking in the same direction for the bus, employing elevator-etiquette. We both pretend we’re standing there alone and avoid eye contact. When I look in the other direction to see if the other bus is coming, I make sure to lean over emphatically so you know I’m not looking at you. ‘Cause that would cross the boundary of bus-stop etiquette. Usually you let me get on the bus first, and I assume it’s because you’re being a gentleman. That’s a good trait that you should try to keep. I bet you have a really nice mom or a lot of older sisters. I imagine them to be all close in age, with you being the outlier and the only boy in the household. I assure you this is the first and last time I have thought about your family. Sometimes when we catch the same bus back home, I want to wave and say “Hey! How were your classes?” but I never do (as you obviously know). Maybe I will next time though.

Sincerely,
Lindsay (that’s my name)

Open Letter to People Who Don’t Like Me:

If you see me, then don’t stop to talk to me. It makes you look stupid. I’ll step onto the soap-box I’m borrowing from my brother and tell you that if you don’t like someone, you probably don’t want to talk to them, so just don’t do it. Common sense is not always that common among stupid people, so I’ll forgive you. Don’t worry, you don’t even have to ask me to forgive you, I will do it automatically. I know, I’m very gracious, and yes, the rumors you heard about me being nominated for a Nobel Prize for Humanitarianism (word?) are true. But you don’t have to come to the ceremony, because you don’t like me, although I’m sure you’re beginning to ask yourself why. Embrace that uncertainty, I’m sure one day you will come to your senses.

Until then,
Shut up and keep walking,
Lindsay

Open Letter to My Physics Professor:

I imagine physics professors to be dry and have an old-fashioned English accent. Or maybe Welsh or something. Something British, that’s for sure. And like to talk about Newton and other science-type people that I know nothing about. But you are chubby, and have a red face, and I think you mentioned growing up in Detroit of something. I think you actually said "The D" and tried to be cool. I like you. Sure, your jokes are trite and the class if full of freshman and sophomores who are still too scared to embrace their higher educators in all of their quirkiness, but I chuckle at your jokes when I make it to class. Also, sorry for skipping all the time. Anyway, I think a good idea would be to spice up the physics lecture. Why don’t you take that kid who always sits in the front row (the only one who asks questions out of the two hundred some kids in the class… I know you know who I’m talking about!), take him and let’s calculate the velocity of his body being thrown out of class at the speed of light, when his body is at a 15 degree angle from the horizon, and his bicycle helmet creates friction with the air, which has a permitivity constant of, say, 2 times that of air in a vacuum. I bet you would get a rise out of the class then! You would be the talk of campus! I can see it now. Really, you should think about it. Get back to me about it, m’kay?

Gravitationally yours,
Lindsay (you may also know me as A293237xx)

Open Letter to My Sinuses:

You know, there is a point in every persons (or… organs? What are you anyway?) life when they have a breakdown and just let go. They stop going to work, stop returning calls, stop responding to the requests from their roommates to take out the smelly trash… you catch my drift? Therefore, based on the guidelines I have just outlined for you, I would have to conclude that you are going through a breakdown… a crisis of sorts. We have all been through one before, so don’t feel alone. But for God’s sake, pack up your shit and get the fuck out of my nasal cavity.

Here’s to hoping you a swift and painless death,
Lindsay Smith

and in conclusion, i'm a very boring person.

create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

20020116 - 2 years later, same post, different person.

what does it say about who i am when the first time i cry in like ages, i want to see someone who doesn't even talk to me anymore? i think it's time for some re-evaluation... or therapy. either or.

i have been up since 4:30 am (don't ask...) and it's 7:45 pm and i'm still at work. ahhhhhhhhhh! i can't wait until tomorrow is over and i don't have to worry about work until may. "welcome to the real world" she said to me, condescendingly. "take a seat, take your life... plot it out in black and white." my sentiments exactly, john.